Trope World

The gate to the farm cracked open releasing over a hundred red eyed hunting hounds. Each hound was black as night and their eyes were red as blood. They howled and raced towards the train. Narrowing my eyes, I saw that each hound was well over 3 meters long from tail to snout and stood 2 meters off the ground. I looked over at Lazarus who squinted his eyes and turned his head to see the hounds.

"It seems the mountain farm is under new management. "I don"t suppose they will give it back Lazarus." I said. Lazarus snorted. He reached into his bag of holding and pulled out a well-worn bow. He chucked it to me and pointed at the hounds.

"Shoot them down while I prepare my ware gear." A smile graced my lips. I turned to see Hertha spear in hand and wearing a heavier set of leather armor. She was covered from head to toe in spirit water boiled leather. Even her neck was well protected. Already Lazarus had taken out a set of cannabis and began layering up. I was the only one without proper armor. I needed to fix that.

What I had in my hands was a bow without a quiver or a bow with endless arrows. It was a spirit bow. "That is my old spirit bow. So long as you have spiritual energy it can fire black arrows." I grabbed the string and my qi went into the bow and produced a black arrow covered in white veins.

Spirit Bow D rank +10%BP +1%/50DEX Damage = 300,933.6 – 314,612

MP cost 10,000

REQUIREMENTS

STR 150 DEX 200 PER 200

I knew that if not for my cultivation base, I couldn"t pull back the string on this bow. I pulled back feeling the heavy weight of the arrow. With my current MP I had just 68 arrows before I needed to recover MP. I aimed at one of the lead dogs and let the arrow fly.

The air screamed as the arrow flew with deadly precision and speed. The lead dog turned its head and began to leap out of the way when it was struck in the side. The canine"s body was lifted, and the arrow continued until it pierced the dog behind it. Five more dogs were tripped up by the single blow.

Power Skill Discovered Archery lv10; pa.s.sive; +50DEX/PER

Power Skill Discovered a.s.sa.s.sinate lv5; pa.s.sive; +50DEX

Power Skill Discovered MultiKill lv1; pa.s.sive +10DEX

Was this what the goblins used against me? The thought was ridiculous. There was no way those goblins had the strength to use this bow. They must have had lesser varieties. That was why I was still alive.

Spirit Bow Damage = 313,139 – 341,606

My hands bled from the first arrow and I fought through the pain to knock another. Bow string at my chin I picked out my next target. One of the dogs moved beside four behind it. This was more fun than I had imagined. Adrenaline flowed through me as my target continued to move back and forth between the sweet quintuple kill spot. My heart pounded faster and faster as I timed it just right.

I released the string and watched the arrow fly. It shot even faster than before. The hound moved back to the sweet spot just as my arrow tore through just behind its shoulder skewering its heart and the heart of 5 other dogs.

Archery lv20; pa.s.sive; +100DEX/PER

a.s.sa.s.sinate lv10; pa.s.sive; +100DEX

Multi Kill lv3; pa.s.sive +30DEX

Spirit bow damage = 326,453.6 – 368,002.24

This was just a D rank spirit bow. What would a C or B rank be like? What would a A or S rank be like for that matter? I felt a p.r.i.c.kling sensation around my scalp and looked up from my reverie.

The hounds turned and charged directly for our cart. They still numbered well over a hundred and despite my kills they didn"t retreat. This was different. I didn"t have to take my time aiming. My hand had long since healed thanks to my health pool. It was immediately cut open as I pulled back arrow after black arrow and fired. It was mechanical work. I picked my targets by which group had the most dogs lined up. Every hit was on target. It reminded me of days long ago when I shot simple wooden arrows at a foam deer. This was far more exciting.

I whittled away at their numbers until only a scant few remained. They had finally reached the open door of the box car and were about to jump, when Lazarus rushed forward and raised his hand. A black vortex opened around the hounds and ripped them apart. "Black Moon Rippling Pond," Lazarus mumbled as the last of the dogs were swallowed up.

"d.a.m.n it, I wanted to kill them with my spear." Hertha grumbled.

"There will be plenty of time for spear play inside the farm." I said. She stuck her tongue out and leapt from the box car. She shot off flying towards the station where giant cows prepared to stampede the train.

"What"s going on, why are the animals huge?" I shouted.

"We lost contact with this outpost months ago. It was out of the way and communications are known to go out from time to time. The normal supplies kept coming so no one questioned it. If I were to guess, I would say the farm animals spontaneously gained sentience, rebelled against the farmers, and drew lots to decide who was butchered and sent our way." Lazarus said.

"That was a great guess. Way too accurate to be a mere guess. Has this happened before?" I asked. The minotaur snorted and looked ahead not bothering to answer. I let out a sigh and waited for the train to stop.

As we waited my insight carried my senses outward. Hertha was making quick work of the cattle. Instead of killing them she slapped her palm against their flanks covering them with white talismans. It took only a few seconds for the large cattle to tip over and fall. She was sweaty and covered in mud. Her long braid was looped over her shoulder to keep it out of the mud and her skin practically glowed. As she breathed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaved and my mind"s eyes drifted towards them and what laid between.

Around her neck was a necklace. This necklace extended to a simple wooden amulet stuck between her green t.i.ts. Inspecting further, I began to get a reading on the BP rolling off the amulet. I couldn"t divine what it did at this range, but I could estimate the amulet"s power. 1trillion BP. I didn"t know if that power was used over time or all at once. Whatever roll the amulet played, it had a lot of power to go about it. As she fought, I gained more information about her.

From what I could tell, her armor was custom made. It was too form fitting there were no gaps in it. There was nowhere to exploit. I couldn"t tell how much BP it had because it blanked out my In Sight.

Hertha had three treasures. Each could form a barrier around her at a moment"s notice. The more I looked at her the less she seemed to be an orc I met in the grotto. She became an orc that met me in the grotto.

The train stopped. I took a step out of the train and dodged out of the way of a falling brown ma.s.s. The ma.s.s landed with a wet splat before filling the air with noxious fumes. They just flung a pile of pig s.h.i.t at me. I dashed away as wet droplets of pig s.h.i.t rained down covering the box cart we just retreated.

I didn"t take the goblin"s filling my back full of arrows personally, I didn"t take the zombie invasion personally, I didn"t even take Od enslaving me personally, but throwing literal tons of pig s.h.i.t at me was where I drew the line. I didn"t say a word, I walked towards the gait. A spell formation got in the way blocking my entry. My hands tightened as my breath grew loud in my ears.

"Let me handle the spell formation. Its too powerful for even a foundation establishment stage." Lazarus said. I placed my pipe in my mouth and lit it. With my pipe lit fresh spirit energy flowed into me and refilled my health, stamina, and mana pool. In a few puffs 681k MP was back to full. Before cultivating the wyrmling in my body was powerful. It was a force to be reckoned with. It had unleashed over a million BP in a single attack. Best of all to my current mana pool it was cheap. But it would have to take a back seat. I would save the best for last.

Raising my hands, I smashed them against the spell formation. It was like hitting a marshmallow against a brick wall. It wasn"t doing much. That was ok. I raised my hands again and slammed them even harder. Bones cracked, veins burst, and blood flowed freely as my hands regenerated. I took another deep breath smelling the pig s.h.i.t and my anger stepped up a notch. This was a matter of pride.

Pride lv2; +20INT/CHA

I raised my hands again feeling the heat and the itchy sensation freshly grown skin came with. This time, I would do it. I slammed my hands against the spell formation and roared out with all my might. The pigs on the wall had started to watch. They laughed with an oinking lisp. A cruel smile played off my face when my hands glowed white. Reinforced with qi, I had the final ingredient to quake. Ripples went out across the shield as my attack was thwarted.

Quake lv2

I bashed my hands against the wall again.

Quake lv3

I bashed my hands against the wall five times in a row. It only cost 15,000SP

Quake lv6

My hands glowed brighter as qi vibrated out of my hands shaking anything it touched. With each level it grew stronger. It was the full power of a cultivator with nearly 300k BP unleashed into the barrier as waves. I unleashed another 10 blows.

Quake lv10

Quake lv15

Quake lv24

I stopped looking at the mutilated remnants of my hands as my health bar drained down to zero to fix them. The spell formation glowed bright white. The qi from quake continued to bounce around inside of it. All the glyphs that went into making the spell formation were glowing a dangerous orange. The ground around the barrier shook from the movement within the spell formation.

With a turned of my now repaired hand, I dumped my pipe and refilled it with spirit herbs. The pain had kept my hate growing strong. The pigs weren"t oinking in laughter. They were shrieking in fear. They were rushing to get to their positions up on the battlements. A makeshift wall had been built complete with a gate house in front of the gate. Say what you will about the pigs, they were industrious. I lit my pipe again and sucked in spirit energy fueling my recovering health bar. The dragon that rested in my mana pool was anxious for battle. I took a step back and unleashed quake with my finger. I tapped the spell formation and watched the glyphs, the programming behind the spell formation glow white before winking out. As the first glyph winked out the next one did faster. As more energy built up more glyphs were wiped out until none remained and the energy exploded. Random motes of white qi filled the air as the spell formation fell.

Quake lv25; +250STR

"I"m coming for all of you." I yelled out and charged for the gait house.

"Black Moon"s Eye," Lazarus muttered behind me and tossed a black orb that zoomed into the left gate tower. The tower exploded showering below with bricks of limestone. I made a beeline for the other tower dodging the falling arrows. Their short bows had s.h.i.t range but near the tower they were deadly accurate. Three arrows managed to hit me. One ripped through my shoulder, another my thigh, and the last my b.u.t.tocks. I yelled ripping them out before reaching the gate house.

I raised a glowing finger and tapped the poorly build tower. Mortar and bricks began to rain as the tower shook itself apart. With but a finger, I had toppled their world. I heard them squeal as they fell. Then I saw the pigs each wore cloths finer than what I expected any mortal soldier could afford in this world.

The pigs weren"t hit by the quake, they only fell at most 50meters. These pigs were cultivators of the 5th level of qi condensation. The fall was perfectly survivable. Hertha moved in behind me and placed talismans on the pigs. Their demonic red eyes faded, and the pigs collapsed unconscious. I didn"t know why she spared them, but I wouldn"t leave the ring leader unroasted.