Hearing a response from the dueling silhouettes, Jun Li breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that sticking her neck out here was meaningful. “Let’s… talk after dealing with these Beasts, alright?”

  As Jun Li spoke, she kept her eyes focused on the mole-like Magical Beast in front of her. The darkness blanketed the forest so heavily that Jun Li could barely see it, even as close as she was.

  From high above, the Beast was too vague to be particularly imposing, but up close, Jun Li couldn’t help but question her ability to take it down.

  As the Beast fixed its gaze on her, it became obvious to Jun Li that it exceeded her height twice over, even hunched over on all fours as it was.

  Jun Li hadn’t yet faced a Beast of this scale, and she began to doubt the efficacy of her small and mundane awl. ‘Perhaps I should have brought something of more substance… the ‘blade’ is just too short and thin…’

  Though her awl had been serviceable enough against smaller Beasts, her performance up until now had been reliant on finding and piercing a Beast’s vitals as quickly as possible.

  But the Beast ahead of her was no small thing; its head alone near equaled the size of Jun Li’s torso, and she couldn’t trust the awl in her hands to pierce deep enough to reach the vitals.

  Seeing Jun Li passively leer its way, half-obscured behind a fallen tree, the Magical Beast shot forward, its long claws sending a sharp whistling through the air as they drew an arc towards Jun Li.

  Throwing herself out of the way, Jun Li just barely saw the tree she had hidden behind being diced into rings before she turned to continue her retreat.

  Reaching the edge of the clearing, Jun Li turned to face the beast again, a cold shiver running across her body that felt too steady to be fear, but too cold to be excitement. ‘If I can’t stab it to death…’

  Jun Li stashed her awl away and raised a hand to where her new companion rested in the hem of her collar. “Alright, little buddy, if you want to leave, now’s the time.”

  As Jun Li set her companion down into the grass, it slithered away a short distance, stopping near the treeline, seemingly intent on waiting.

  Seeing this, Jun Li felt a sense of obligation. “If you’re going to wait for me like that… then I suppose I can't exactly lose or run away, can I?” Turning again to the Beast, Jun Li focused her breathing.

  ‘I can’t see it very well, but I can hear it well enough…’ The sound of the Beast’s breath rattling in its throat, the sound of the dry grass crumbling beneath its legs, and the sound of its long claws grating against the bark of fallen trees…

  Jun Li had everything she needed to ‘see’ in this pitch black forest, as long as she could separate the sounds of the Beast from the sounds of the forest, and the sounds of the fight on the other end of the clearing.

  As she heard the Beast approach, Jun Li leaned forward and shot towards it, thinking of the Martial Art she had worked so diligently to understand these past weeks, the ‘Sparking Thorn.'

  It had two primary styles, the first of which was the use of small piercing weapons such as knives and awls, the style Jun Li had focused much of her training on.

  However, now in a situation where her awl was lacking, she felt forced to rely on her comparatively shallow training in the second style.

  Seeing Jun Li’s sudden onrush, the Beast swung its long, unwieldy claws out to carve her apart mid-charge.

  Expecting this, Jun Li planted her left foot and leaned forward, her right leg straightening like a spear as it shot towards the base of the Beast’s claws. As the tip of Jun Li’s foot struck the base of the Beast's claws, where they connected to its thickly padded paw, a crisp ‘crunch’ rang out.

  The Beast’s claws stopped in place, bent at an unnatural angle before they could complete their crescent.

  Whereas the first style of the ‘Sparking Thorn’ Art was the use of small weaponry, the second style was the use of the body itself.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  As many of the Techniques involved required tempering the digits to be effective, Jun Li intended to wait on it until she had found more effective ways to strengthen her body.

  Hearing the ‘crunch,’ Jun Li’s face paled, fairly certain the Beast’s digit was not all that had broken.

  Although its initial strike was halted, the mole-like Beast did not pause for even a moment.

  The unrelenting ignorance of pain that defined Magical Beasts in full display; it simply swiped down once more with its right side, aiming to crush, sever, and mince Jun Li into pieces.

  Unable and unwilling to hesitate, Jun Li had already prepared to move forward again, using her Cloudburst Technique to jolt forward, below the Beast’s throat, rather than face another attack head-on.

  With the crisp sound of Jun Li's technique bursting, the Beast lost track of her for a single moment, not realizing that Jun Li stood below it until she had already acted.

  Taking a sharp breath, Jun Li focused every drop of Qi she could muster into her lower body, planting one leg into the dirt for leverage.

  Her dominant leg turned into a blur as it left the ground, her two legs forming a solid, vertical stake, supported by the earth, firing directly upwards into the Beast’s throat.

  Feeling sharp pain in both her feet, Jun Li winced. 'I was concerned this wouldn't be good enough, yet…' Jun Li pulled her legs free from the ground and the Beast.

  As she pulled her foot from the neck of the Beast, what was a trickle of blood now became a flowing stream as the mole-like Beast’s perforated throat sank to the forest floor. 'I think I fractured my foot… but I suppose I can't be upset with this.'

  “Ah, you finished up too?” Hearing the voice of the other disciple, Jun Li found her drifting mind return to reality.

  “Yeah! Sorry, I just saw this Beast walk into the clearing while you were fighting and… uh…” As Jun Li stumbled over the need to explain her presence, she was finally able to get a good look at the disciple she had intervened to help.

  The disciple’s appearance was almost uncanny given the conditions; her hair was smooth and even, she bore no injuries, and not a drop of blood had fallen on her body. Even her robe seemed untouched, without a single tear, cut, or fray on its surface.

  “Oh, I see! Thank you very much in that case.” The disciple, seeing what Jun Li was trying to say, pushed the conversation forward on their own. “My name is Zhao Xiaoli, Youngest Daughter of the Zhao Royal Family, and you are…?”

  Hearing Zhao Xiaoli speak, but not quite understanding her words, Jun Li returned the greeting. “Ah, I’m Jun Li, a… disciple of the Glass Cloud Sect…?”

  Slowly realizing what Zhao Xiaoli said, Jun Li’s face went stiff, and she twisted her body, unsure whether she should bow or kneel. “Y-your Highness…?”

  Seeing Jun Li’s clumsy attempt at propriety, Zhao Xiaoli couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Don’t worry about all that, please, I get more than enough of that back at the Sect, really.”

  “Then… should I help extract the Core from the Magical Beast you were fighting?” Jun Li offered another nicety, feeling anxious at the thought of simply walking away from someone of such high standing.

  In her eyes, she would surely leave a poor impression if she wasn’t able to make herself useful. An instinct she felt a bit of shame towards.

  “You’ve already done more than enough. You did move to help me when you thought I was in danger, right?” The Princess spoke to ease Jun Li’s tension, but after a moment, her expression shifted.

  “Well… to be honest, I wouldn’t mind help with carving the Beast’s core out, it’s not exactly something I’m… talented at, let’s say.”

  Relieved to find something to alleviate the awkwardness with, Jun Li made her way over the fallen trees towards the Beast the Princess had slain. “Alright then! This shouldn’t take long.”

  As Jun Li found her way to the Beast, her heart sank at the sight of it. It was easily as large as what she had fought, with scales that glinted like tempered steel and a tail that shone like a honed blade.

  ‘Is this the reason why this clearing of cut trees exists…?’ Jun Li looked back to the center of the clearing, reflecting on the power of the Beast the Princess had slain.

  As she did so, however, she noticed the Princess herself lingered on the other end of the clearing, gazing at something where Jun Li had stood. “Your Majesty…? Is everything alright?”

  Hearing Jun Li speak, the Princess turned from the sight of the Beast Jun Li had killed and began to walk away. “It’s nothing. And… just call me Senior Sister, don’t worry about fancy titles if you’re not comfortable with them.”

  Although the idea of calling royalty by name caused Jun Li’s mind to churn uncomfortably, she nodded her acceptance and turned to the Beast’s corpse.

  As Jun Li worked to find a place to start carving from, she remembered something she had forgotten in the moment.

  With a few quick incisions, Jun Li extracted a small lump of flesh about the size of the last phalanx of her thumb.

  As Jun Li expected, her companion had circled around the edge of the clearing, keeping her in sight.

  Seeing the white snake again, Jun Li felt glad to have won her fight. Glad in a way that felt more meaningful than personal survival.

  “Here.” Jun Li sat in front of her companion and offered the chunk of meat, which the snake eagerly accepted. “I probably can’t just feed you bits of meat forever, snakes usually eat creatures whole, right? You’re probably missing some nutrition like this…”

  Ignorant of the Princess’s curious gaze, Jun Li gave herself a moment to watch her companion eat. “Ah. You also need a proper name, don’t you?”