One of them, a handsome man, probably not older than twenty, had one of his arms flailing uselessly to his side, and a gruff-looking expression on his face. Vexed. His robes were sky blue colored and were ripped in several places. He seemed to be indigent to what just occurred to him.
The other was a girl, also probably of the same age, a young woman that even when dirt and scum had covered most of her robes and face, she exuded a beauty that no woman I have ever seen had.
I was only able to see her for a few seconds, but it almost lasted a lifetime, her eyes were bright, even in such a desperate situation she seemed to be defiant, her face had porcelain white skin, and the rest of her hourglass body only made one wish to greedily have this woman for themselves.
I shook my head, perhaps this was a cultivator's charm, or perhaps this is the difference between a mortal and an immortal. Cultivators had more means to gain beauty than normal mortals and this one was, even if an unparalleled beauty, compared to many others she would look plain. Still, I had no business with these two.
"Miss Yan! Look!" spoke the man his eyes immediately changed to hostility.
"Let's use him as a distraction," he said then threw something small and round at my feet.
A pill?
It immediately blew up and smoke came out of it. It stank.
"What are you doing!" the girl shouted and stopped. The boy also stopped and shouted back "Move miss Yan! We'll die at this rate, it's our best chance, let the Boar King waste time on this abomination, we're better off escaping!"
"You're endangering the lives of others for your escape, that's not the way of our sect!"
"Miss Yan, a genius such as yourself cannot die in this place. We have to leave now, we can amend our mistakes later, but surviving now is our top priority!"
"I will not let an innocent man die for my sake!" The woman shouted.
"What innocence! Don't you see what he is?! Such abomination is the punishment of heaven, he must have been turned to such creature due to his evil deeds, this is heaven's way of using us to slay the wicked!"
"Hey, you've been rambling your mouth for a while now, what's going on? And why'd you throw a stink bomb at me?"
"Stinkbomb? This commoner knows not even of the monster luring pill! Miss Yan, let's go! There is no time to waste!"
Before the girl could even speak, the trees behind me parted revealing a gigantic boar. The size of him was large enough that an elephant would barely make it to its knees.
It had tusks as big as a boat's mast and its fur looked like it was made of rapiers instead of hair.
The boar sniffed at the air and took note of me.
"Ah, shit…" I cursed.
"I can't allow a man to die due to our carelessness!" the girl said and put her weight on her sword. The sword flew toward me but the boar was about to attack, there was no way for me to survive this hit.
I immediately placed two fingers under my lips and spat out "Poison Breath!"
Green smoke shot out from my mouth shaped like an arrow then entered right throw the boar's open mouth.
The boar's attack halted mid-strike and the creature squealed like a pig in a slaughterhouse.
The creature began jerking as I moved back and away from the enraged creature. It began bleeding from all of its orifices then fell. Spasming, shaking, and shuddering.
The boar died in less than a heartbeat, and with it came a sobering reality.
I was powerful enough to survive a creature that caused such damage to these cultivators, but I knew that I was not strong enough to survive an attack from them. A single sword slash or even a projectile attack from any of them would mean my death. I needed not show my weakness here.
"Oh, it's dead already? Damn, and I even held back a little." I muttered under my breath; this was of course on purpose.
Acting up all mysterious is the best way to make people wary of you.
The kid seeing this immediately came to me. Stood in front of me and held both of his hands in greeting, even if one of them was broken, which was painful. He shook and shuddered as he bowed his head saying "S-Senior! Junior apologizes for his misbehavior!"
"Aigoo, no worries," I said as I shook my hand at his face.
"But really what are two young kids like you doing here?" I asked. I needed knowledge, and the best source of knowledge was a person in your debt.
"If Senior wishes to know, we are disciples of the Sword Spirit Sect." the woman named Yan spoke. "I'm Yan Song, daughter of Zhang Song, a great elder of the Spirit Sword Sect."
"What about you?" I asked the kid.
"I-I'm Lu Zaifeng, I'm an inner disciple of the Spirit Sword Sect, and have come with miss Yu for a mission of our sect."
"I suppose the mission was interrupted by this little pig?" I spoke back.
I didn't need to be a mind reader to know what the two were thinking right now as they looked at each other.
'Little pig? That dangerous monster is just a little pig for this man? Who is he? He must be some powerful figure! But his cultivation looks so weak. Still, we can't afford to mess with him. Also, he is a poison cultivator. We need to be wary 'or something of the sorts.
"Oh, good to know."
"Could I be so rude to ask who senior is?" Zaifeng asked.
"Me? I'm just a small-time rogue cultivator, no need to worry about me. So what do you want with this little piggy?" I further cemented my superiority with my words.
"Yes, we were tasked to retrieve a third-order demon core. Until this wild boar king showed up. The Boar King as you must know is the fourth Order, and we can't beat this with our weak Core Formation cultivation level."
"Huh, is that so," I replied and pulled out the core I obtained from the leopard.
"That's a third-order core!" replied the kid.
"You want it?"
"No! we can't take it, we have burdened senior enough!" replied the girl.
"Y-yes, Miss Yan is correct, we would be rude. We'll try and find one ourselves."
"You're in no shape or form to beat a Third Order. Just take it," I said as I threw the core toward the kid.
"Now, if you could… leave, that would be…"
"Yes senior, junior will not forget your kindness!" the kid then drew something out of a pouch he had on the side. It looked quite similar to the pouches those other cultivators had.
It was a token.
I frowned as I looked at the token, this was a countermeasure for something I hoped wouldn't be true.
The kid immediately hesitated and said, "I'm sorry, I pulled out the wrong token! He then handed me another one, quite similar to the first," bowed and said, "Please, whenever you visit Our sect, just show this to anyone and I'll be informed of your presence."
"A guest,"
"Yes, an honored guest at our sect." the kid said and stood up.
"Thank you senior for your benevolence!" the girl said and the two of them took to the skies.
"Well, that went well. I said as I hid the token under my clothes. I needed a way to open those pouches I got from those cultivators at the Poison God's cave.
I sighed and headed to the boar's carcass. There was green energy slowly eating away at the remains of the boar, and if it is the same as what happened to the leopard, I'm sure I'll be able to consume it and heal a little bit.
***
"What happened there?" Yan asked.
"I have no idea, I'm still trying to figure it out," replied Zaifeng.
"That man, clearly looked far weaker than us, and he said we were disturbing his cultivation? What a lame excuse."
"You're right, this place is barren of spiritual Qi, what could he be doing there?" she asked again.
"I don't know, he looked like he was in Qi condensation level. But to survive in this forest and especially at the rims of the demon mountain. One would need to be at least at the upper levels of Core Formation or lesser Nascent Soul level. How is he managing if he had such a low cultivation level?"
"I don't know, but didn't our master say that there are always higher mountain and steeper seas? He could be an Old Monster you know."
"True, the way he spoke, how eccentric he was, and how carefree he looked in such a dire and dangerous situation suggests that he is an Old Monster. But we have no proof of it."
"Why did you change the token?" she asked.
"At first, I was cautious, I thought he could be just a sheep wearing a tiger's skin. But it appears that it was the opposite."
"You mean the way he gazed at you?"
"Yes, at first, I wanted to give him a token with a tracker, so I could monitor his whereabouts, but the way he looked at me gave me the creeps, I felt like if I were to hand it to him, I would insult him and nothing good comes out of that when dealing with mysterious people, there was a good chance that he was faking it too but…"
"Yeah, on the off chance he is not, and especially of how he handled that boar, thankfully we didn't cross him."
"Yes, this is a sobering experience, Miss Yan."
"I'll take note of it, Brother Zaifeng." The girl replied and the two disappeared in the distance.
***
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