Black Onyx - Phoenix Resurrection

I didn’t like mosquitoes.

I mean, who does? They suck your blood, leave your skin itchy for days to come, and their buzzing is the most annoying sound in the world, especially when you are trying to sleep.

Oh, and they are fucking impossible to kill. I mean, one of them took my Greater Fireball straight to the face, and you know what happened? It shook its body and released an angry buzz!

We just cleared out our campsite and stored away the camping gear when the mosquitoes attacked. Well, they called them Bloodflies around these parts, but they looked just like their tiny cousins. Just, you know, a thousand times bigger. Well, maybe not that much, but their wingspan was over a meter for sure, and their proboscis was half that.

“Unbelievable…” Weh Chu murmured as his hand glowed golden and he swatted one of the buzzing beasts out of the sky, nearly breaking it in half. “To think we would stumble upon a swarm of Bloodflies first thing in the morning.” They didn’t seem too difficult to deal with, only problem was there were about another hundred of them or so.

“AAAaaah!”

The light was still dim in the forest, and with the morning mist, it was difficult to see the rapidly-moving shadows with needles for weapons. I kept running and swatting around with a stick, keeping the insects at bay. I couldn’t exert too much force or I would be exposed, but I wasn’t in any danger yet, so that was fine.

One of my fellow cart-pullers wasn’t so lucky. A Bloodfly found its target and pierced his back upper thigh. The man fell to the ground and was almost immediately swarmed by the buzzing beasts. His cries lasted for a few more seconds, but then another dozen sharp needles pierced his body and he went limp as his fluids were quickly drained and he became like an old mummy.

“Damn it! Use the Talismans if you can’t keep them off!”

Almost immediately three golden glows burst to life as the three remaining cart-pullers finally remembered they even had them. I rolled my eyes at the display of weakness, but if I was the leader, I would let it slide. We just woke up not even 30 minutes ago and just cleaned up the campsite, the barrier included. They probably never experienced a life-or-death scenario and were as such taken over by panic.

It was easy to forget small details when your brain was flooded with hormones and in full survival mode for the first time.

“Hey, you! Aren’t you going to open your barrier?” One of the core members of the Predator’s Bane shouted at me.

[Maybe later! I’m fine for now.] I replied and continued running in a circle around them, swatting at the mosquitoes with my stick whenever they came too close. The thunk sound that came every time I struck one of them was kind of annoying. I would have much preferred to hear the crunching sound that came from the Senior Disciples.

The tall man just shook his head and tore one of the beasts in half as it came too close. “Suit yourself...”

I just sighed at how effortlessly he did things. I could probably do something similar, but I would need to give it my all to do so. And as far as I could tell, he was quite relaxed.

Fine by me, since I was happily devouring their Souls. And so I confirmed my suspicion. The Bloodflies were in the early stages of the Nascent Soul Realm. They were delicious, and I was ready to consume them all as they came at me, one at a time.

“Stop playing around and kill them quickly! They won’t last long without the barriers!” Tan Gong, the leader, shouted. “Po Pi, do your thing!”

“I’m on it!” The man named Po Pi shouted. His body began to glow in a weird way, and instead of the flat barrier I expected to see, he crouched down and his back became covered with long and thin golden spikes. They were somewhat similar to the proboscis of those annoying mosquitoes, and he overall reminded me of a porcupine.

“Everyone!” He suddenly shouted. “Get down!”

I suddenly felt extreme danger coming from his words, and I dropped to the floor without thinking. Not even a second later came a mental impact that completely immobilized me, as well as the beasts in the sky, and immediately after came an explosion of golden light.

Po Pi’s spiky golden barrier exploded into a thousand arrows that flew in all directions like a frag grenade. The spikes pierced absolutely everything they touched, including the mighty Ironbarks and ancient rock formations, leaving a hole two fingers wide despite the spike being only a few millimeters across.

Anything more than a meter off the ground was pierced through and full of holes like a chunk of Swiss cheese, with the sole exceptions of the people inside golden barriers.

I felt the pressure on my mind disappear and released a nervous sigh when the Bloodflies began raining down. And they truly rained. Greenish-yellow blood and body parts coated the ground in a layer of a stinky, slippery substance.

And I was covered in it as well. Disgusting.

“Alright! Good job everyone!” Tan Gong shouted and released his barrier. The patch of ground around him was clear of blood and gore, as was he. The rest killed the few remaining Bloodflies before they escaped and set up a defensive perimeter.

“Oh, man! I thought I was dead!” One of the cart pullers cried in happiness. His barrier ran out just after the explosion of guts and gore so he was just mentally shaken, but otherwise fine.

The other two were similarly still in shock but were clearly coping better than him. At least they weren’t covered in snot and tears.

I slowly stood up and moved a few meters away to the dry ground and took off my clothes. I then summoned some water and began washing the guts and blood off my face, hair, and hands, after which I did the same with my clothes too. It was honestly amazing how everything was covered in the same, disgusting yellowish-green blood.

I grit my teeth as I manipulated minuscule amounts of Qi to clean as my head was being pounded by an ever-increasing headache. I wished it was just from the cold, but no. Countless Souls were stuffing themselves inside my… Sea of Consciousness, waiting to be devoured. But obviously, they wouldn’t just wait to be eaten one at a time, and instead attacked my Soul. All of them. At once.

[Faaaaaa-!]

I couldn’t hold it anymore and collapsed to the ground. This was a fucking nightmare! It was too much!

“Junior, are you alright?” I didn’t know who asked as I had my eyes tightly closed as I writhed in agony on the floor.

[I-] I gasped, trying my best to keep my Aura stable while battling against countless Bloodflies attacking my Soul. [My head is killing me! And my Soul- Aaaaah!]

“Oh, shit! I forgot he was just at the Spirit Accumulation Realm! Did my attack hurt him?”

“It shouldn’t, but you never know. Outer Disciples are really weak after all.”

“To survive the Bloodflies on his own, without the barrier, just to get so badly hurt by a Soul attack… Poor guy.” That sounded like a woman’s voice, but I honestly didn’t have time to figure it out. My Soul began cracking apart, revealing a fiery inside beneath the black surface.

“I think I just felt his Soul crack. It’s getting worse…”

“Shit, are we really going to lose two cart-pullers on the first day?!”

“Not if we can help it. Anyone got something to stabilize him? Soul-Strengthening Pill, perhaps?”

“I got a Minor Soul-Reuniting Pill, he can have that.”

“Here, he can have my Minor Soul-Compressing Pill. I have no need for it anymore anyway.”

“Oh, maybe this will help…”

I soon felt someone stuff a whole bunch of stuff into my mouth. My jaw hurt like hell since I was clenching my teeth like mad, and yet they managed to open it without issue.

I forced myself to swallow and then turned my attention back to the battle inside my Sea of Consciousness. I couldn’t let my concentration slip for even a split-second, or all would be ruined.

“Now what?” I heard one of them say.

“We wait. It should take a few minutes for them to take hold.” Came the answer. Very comforting, when every second was a world of pain.

“Are you sure it was fine giving him all of them at once? What if they interact destructively with each other and do even more damage?” Are you kidding me? Can that happen?!

“Relax, they are all from the same branch of Alchemy. If anything they are going to empower each other.” Or so he said. I seriously hoped he was right because I was slowly reaching my limit. My Soul was already bloated, with thousands of bright, glowing cracks. I couldn’t hold it for much longer. Soon I would have to either release the energy or die.

And both choices were bad! I refused to accept them! I needed a third option!

Ask and you shall receive.

The medicinal properties from the pills began spreading throughout my veins, rushing toward my chest and head. I felt a cold, soothing blue energy enter my Sea of Consciousness and start filling it up. The aggressive foreign souls began to release steam as they were getting covered in it and cried as they desperately tried to escape. The coldness then washed over me as well, cooling my Soul like a cold compress.

At the same time, I felt an outside force push inward, counteracting the bloat of my Soul. It was like I jumped from a fire into a cool lake, all my wounds and burns disappearing, like a glowing piece of steel dunked into a bucket of ice water.

“Think he’ll make it?

“Looks like it. At least he isn’t shaking anymore.”

The violent energy was being dissipated slowly, and the Bloodfly Souls, instead of trying to attack me, were flying around in a panic, avoiding the cooling energy.

Of course, there were nowhere enough medicinal concoctions to help me contain all of them, but as the blue stuff evaporated and was used up, I could more calmly catch and devour the remaining Bloodfly Souls one by one.

The spike of energy was that way stretched over a much longer time period, allowing me to cope with the stress. I gradually gained enough strength to slowly open my eyes and look into the world.

My sight was blurry, I was at the same time feeling both heat and cold, and my body was covered in sweat, but I was alive.

I felt as if I had just woken up after terrible flu, only all the symptoms were compressed into a few hours instead of days.

My head was still killing me, but it wasn’t so much that it would impair my body functions anymore.

“Hey, Junior.” A person called to me as I slowly stood up. “How are you feeling?”

I considered this question for a bit. My head hurt, the world was spinning, I felt weakness in my legs and arms, and I was drenched in a cold sweat and shivering.

[I’ll be fine.] I said. [I owe you guys… You saved me.]

He laughed. “Nah, don’t worry about it! It’s actually somewhat our fault we were attacked in the first place. And all those pills we gave you cost us less than just one of those protection talismans. And you didn’t even need yours. Seeing you beating those beasts away with a stick, was mighty impressive!”

He gave me a friendly clap on the back and I nearly lost my footing and fell on my face.

“Here, drink this, it should help you clear your head.” He handed me a small vial with some sort of bright green liquid. I took it without asking and drank it all at once. It burned my throat, but I was almost immediately feeling fully awake and ready for anything. My eyes nearly popped out as I felt a weird energy fill my body. Those were some crazy stimulants!

“Alright, people!” Tan Gong suddenly shouted. “If everybody’s ready, we’ll be going. We have plenty of distance to cover today! Stay close to each other and keep the talking to a minimum! We are in enemy territory now!”

Everybody fell in line and I quickly ran to get my cart which already had a sack full of stuff. Probably Bloodfly Cores if I had to guess, and maybe some expensive body parts as well. The others were also carrying some stuff. Already we collected many times more loot than my entire net worth. What insanity.

I grabbed my cart by the handle and pulled it in line with the rest. Only then I noticed some sort of white mist swirling around us all. I looked around and saw Fyuka holding a fan with something that looked like incense sticks on it, producing wisps of smoke. She then waved the fan around, and the smoke followed her movements, swirling around our group.

“It’s beast-repelling incense.” Said one of the guys after noticing my confused gaze. “It’s for keeping the weaker creatures at bay. We just didn’t think we would be attacked immediately after taking down the barrier, or we would have used it sooner.”

I just nodded absentmindedly. I was learning so many interesting things on this expedition. A few hours of pain were totally worth it! I secretly checked my Soul and noticed it was ready to advance. As soon as I got some space, I could step into Nascent Soul II, heck yeah! And that was just the beginning! What kind of goodies would we find in a real battle? My expression turned into a terribly-hidden grin. I couldn’t wait!