An icy presence approached from behind. Zeng Mu could feel the cold, dangerous aura closing in rapidly, like a sharp whip lashing through the air with a whistling hiss.
Perhaps this body's muscle memory saved him. Before his brain could react, his foot stamped down instinctively, his hips twisted, and his body shifted sideways in an instant. The venomous stinger that should have pierced his back struck empty air.
Looking at the scorpion tail beside him, thick as a hemp rope, and its coldly gleaming stinger, Zeng Mu snapped back to his senses and dodged at once. In the blink of an eye, he retreated to Kanni's side. Only then did he get a clear look at his attacker.
It was a giant scorpion, as large as a two-year-old dog. Its entire body shimmered blue, with a crystalline texture and translucent sheen. Only its sharp, scissorlike pincers and deadly stinger were black, allowing it to attack silently under cover of darkness.
"Are you all right?" Kanni asked, tightening his grip on his silver sword without daring to look away.
"I'm fine. Is this the Water Demon Scorpion you mentioned?" Zeng Mu drew his own sword, which looked painfully ordinary and inadequate by comparison.
Kanni nodded. "Yes. This is an adult Water Demon Scorpion, one of the most common Common Grade Elemental Beasts. Other species would be fairly easy to handle, but the venom in that stinger is lethal. If it gets us, even a single drop would be enough to kill the two of us five or six times over."
"How fast is it?" Zeng Mu asked, his mind racing.
"Very fast. We definitely can't outrun it. Its weakness is that it's rather timid, so it usually ambushes its prey. As long as we're staring it down, it won't dare make any rash moves."
Though only twenty-two, Kanni was a veteran with nearly ten years of service. He could identify almost any Elemental Beast at a glance and immediately list its traits and weaknesses. That knowledge came from years of fighting them.
This time, however, Kanni had miscalculated. It could smell what was in their mouths: its eggs.
The moment he finished speaking, the Water Demon Scorpion charged like a gust of wind, closing on them like a shadow beneath the cover of darkness.
Kanni muttered a curse and lunged forward. His silver sword whistled through the air as he placed himself in front of Zeng Mu and met the enormous, scissorlike pincers head-on.
Sparks flashed, and a metallic clang rang out. Then the sparks and ringing came faster and faster, with mounting urgency.
Kanni's swordsmanship was exceptional. Silver light flashed as his blade swept back and forth, its cold gleam reflecting off the rock walls on either side. Watching from nearby, Zeng Mu was dazzled. He could not make out how Kanni was swinging his sword, and even his footwork had become too blurred to follow precisely.
The silver sword was not merely fast; each strike carried terrifying force. Under the repeated clashes, even the Water Demon Scorpion's enormous pincers began to falter, forcing it steadily backward.
"Nameless One, quick! Get behind it and cut off its tail!" Kanni shouted rapidly.
Zeng Mu raced behind the Water Demon Scorpion and raised his sword to slash at its tail. But the creature was no pushover. It immediately abandoned any attempt to dodge and whipped its tail backward, its venomous stinger flashing toward him on a foul-smelling gust.
Zeng Mu turned his wrist and brought his iron sword across. The stinger struck the blade with a sharp clang. At the same moment, Kanni seized the opening and brought his sword down with all his strength, finally breaking past the pincers and shearing off half the Water Demon Scorpion's face.
A cry of agony rose, but before it could grow louder, Zeng Mu's iron sword silenced it, severing its tail and cleaving into its eyes.
The Water Demon Scorpion collapsed. Its limbs twitched slightly, drawing blue-tinged liquid from its wounds. A pungent, sour smell rose from it, rather like algae.
Kanni prodded the Water Demon Scorpion's eyes with his silver sword. Only after confirming that it was completely unresponsive did he turn his wrist and withdraw the blade.
"Whew... that was close," he said, still shaken.
Zeng Mu nodded. "I didn't expect us to run into an Elemental Beast so soon. By the way, what did you mean by Common Grade?"
Kanni crouched down and began cutting through the Water Demon Scorpion's leathery abdominal armor with his silver sword. "Elemental Beasts contain different amounts of elemental power depending on their species and age. That's why they're ranked, to distinguish the weak ones from the strong. From lowest to highest, the grades are Common Grade, fine, Superior Grade, and supreme."
"Also, with every grade an Elemental Beast rises, it gains another type of elemental power. That means the strongest supreme-grade Elemental Beasts contain four different elemental powers." Perhaps the thought of such powerful creatures was what filled Kanni's eyes with both eagerness and fear.
Zeng Mu nodded repeatedly. "So that's how it works. It looks like running into this Water Demon Scorpion was a blessing in disguise."
"It certainly was, because water elemental power is the most unusual of all elemental powers."
Zeng Mu's eyes lit up. "Oh? Is it the strongest?"
Kanni glanced up at him and answered disdainfully, "No, it's the weakest. So weak that even supreme-grade Elemental Beasts can't wield the slightest bit of water elemental power."
"How is that possible? The other elemental powers aren't like that too, are they?" Zeng Mu asked, unease stirring inside him.
"The other elemental powers are very strong. Only water Elemental Beasts are unusually weak, so weak they're comparable to ordinary birds and animals. And no one knows why. Otherwise, do you think the two of us could so easily kill an Elemental Beast that even an Elementalist would struggle with?"
Putting those thoughts aside, Zeng Mu watched Kanni cut the Water Demon Scorpion into chunks and asked, "Can we eat this thing?" He was worried that the venom in its stinger might have contaminated the meat.
"Elemental Beast meat can be eaten raw or cooked. It hardly rots, either, so it keeps for a long time. It's the best marching ration you could ask for. Besides, this is a water Elemental Beast. Its meat contains far more moisture than those lousy eggs we ate earlier. They're like the finest water containers. That's the only good thing about water Elemental Beasts."
After packing the meat into the warhorse's empty saddlebags, Kanni led the horse onward.
"Weren't we going to rest before moving on?" Zeng Mu asked as he followed, puzzled by Kanni's actions.
Kanni stared ahead, his eyes shining. "After laying their eggs in winter, Water Demon Scorpions sleep until they emerge from the earth in midsummer the following year. Under normal circumstances, anyway."
"You mean that Water Demon Scorpion only came out because something disturbed it?" Zeng Mu asked, understanding dawning.
"Exactly. And it was probably a disturbance caused by people. That would send it into a frenzy and make it less afraid of humans." Kanni said no more, but quickened his pace.
Before they had traveled a hundred meters, a faint smell of blood reached their noses. In the falling moonlight, they saw the carnage on the ground.
More than a dozen burly corpses lay still on the ground. Their features were rugged, and most had full beards stained red with blood. They were clearly a squad of Vikings.
Kanni glanced at the fatal wounds on the bodies and a flag at his feet, then concluded, "The Qi Kingdom Person did this."
Of the three major powers, the Seven Kingdoms had the largest combined population. Fortunately, there was also considerable friction between them. Thus, the so-called Seven Kingdoms Coalition assembled for this opening battle had been strong in appearance but hollow within, falling apart at a touch like a block of pale tofu.
The Qi Kingdom had contributed the most soldiers to this Seven Kingdoms Coalition, and had also suffered the heaviest losses. Kanni immediately understood that these Vikings had been doomed.
"Looks like they're tracking the Vikings."
Zeng Mu examined the puncture wounds that had killed the men and nodded. "There must be a lot of them. Otherwise, they couldn't have taken out this Viking squad without suffering any losses."
More cold wind brushed his cheek. Zeng Mu turned his head and spotted another three-meter-wide fissure, one of the passable routes among the valley's countless cracks.
Following the fissure with his gaze, Zeng Mu looked down and was surprised to find the ground covered in hoofprints, overlapping too densely to count.
He glanced back at the warhorse's horseshoes. After confirming that they matched the prints on the ground, he said in surprise, "The Vikings seem to be tracking the main force?"
"Looks that way," agreed Kanni, who was attempting to loot the corpses.
A dozen seconds later, Kanni stopped searching. His expression soured, and he muttered, "Damned Qi Kingdom Person. Didn't leave me so much as a scrap."
Zeng Mu scratched his head awkwardly. "Well? Are we leaving now?"
"We'll rest first. Let's eat our fill before we decide." Kanni began stripping clothes from the bodies and piling them together. Then he yanked a handful of beard hair from a dead man's face for tinder, took the flint from inside his clothes, and easily started a fire.
The two men and their horse gathered around the fire. They placed chunks of Water Demon Scorpion meat along its edge, where the heat soon made them sizzle and release white steam with an unusual aroma.
"The enemy is coming after us in force. I'm worried the main force might be in danger," Zeng Mu said, offering a reminder as he looked at Kanni's utterly unconcerned face.
"What's the panic? Have you forgotten what I told you about Elementalists?"
Zeng Mu exclaimed in surprise, "There's an Elementalist with the army?"
"Of course. The knight commander leading the Vanguard Corps is an Elementalist."
Although the Qi Kingdom had supplied the most soldiers to the Seven Kingdoms Coalition, the Qin Kingdom's soldiers remained the strongest. The vanguard general commanding the coalition was also from the Qin Kingdom, and he was an Elementalist. Kanni knew the Qin Kingdom's ways well, so he was certain that man would not be mingling with the Qi Kingdom Person to track down Vikings.
The main force had ample numbers, and with the knight commander there, Kanni firmly believed that even if the Vikings and Qi Kingdom Person joined forces, they could not truly wipe it out.
After hearing these explanations, Zeng Mu finally relaxed. After all, if anything happened to the main force, it would mean they could no longer escape the Three Great Territories.
"Here, try this. I guarantee it'll taste good." Kanni offered him a cooked chunk of meat on the tip of his sword.
Zeng Mu took the meat and eagerly tasted it. It tasted like slightly sweet seawater, yet the more he chewed, the more it quenched his thirst.
Within ten seconds, he felt the elemental energy in the meat rapidly dissolve inside him. Warm currents surged through his blood vessels and penetrated his muscles, meridians, and bones, instantly leaving his body feeling much lighter.
"Elemental meat really lives up to its reputation," he praised.
"Ha, this is nothing. I once ate a piece of Superior Grade Elemental Beast meat. Just one bite filled my whole body with strength. That feeling... tsk, tsk. More unforgettable than a girl in a soft bed late at night." Kanni reminisced as he wolfed down his food.
"By the way, you said you've hunted a lot of Elemental Beasts and eaten plenty of elemental meat. Why haven't you become an Elementalist yet? Haven't you accumulated enough elemental power?" Zeng Mu asked.
Kanni rolled his eyes at him and grumbled, "You think eating enough elemental meat automatically makes you an Elementalist? It depends on talent. Everyone's different. Some people are born Elementalists, while others can eat elemental meat their whole lives and never take that step."
"But even so, people don't stop trying. The more elemental power you have in your body, the stronger your physical abilities become. Otherwise, do you think fighting a Water Demon Scorpion alone is easy?"
"No wonder you have that kind of strength and speed..." Zeng Mu marveled.
Ten minutes later, both men and the horse had eaten and drunk their fill. They looked several times healthier than before, and their wounds no longer troubled them, as though they had merely been painted on.
"Elemental meat even relieves pain and itching. You could really call it golden meat," Zeng Mu said with relief.
Kanni smiled calmly, looked at the hoofprints on the ground, and said in a low voice, "Ready? Now it's time to start tracking."
Before you continue