Cultivation is Creation

The queen's angry buzz vibrated through the clearing as she gathered power for another attack. This time, instead of a focused blast, she released a widespread wave of void energy that began breaking down everything it touched. Trees withered, leaves crumbled, and the air itself seemed to grow thin.

I activated Aegis Mark, trusting the barrier to buy me time as I Blink Stepped through the devastation. The remaining stage fives pressed their advantage, attacking from different angles while I was focused on avoiding the queen's power.

A stinger scraped across my barrier, draining energy faster than I'd expected. These things were basically flying qi vampires, and they were very good at their job.

"Master," Azure's voice held a note of concern, "this prolonged battle is inadvisable. The continuous qi drain from their attacks, combined with the energy cost of maintaining multiple runes..."

"I know," I cut him off, ducking under another strike. "But I need to thin their numbers before I can deal with the queen, their teamwork is making it difficult to target her.”

Speaking of these stage fives. They were wearing me down through attrition, and while I could probably outlast them normally, the queen's presence made that impossible.

Time to lure them in.

I dropped my leaf barrier entirely, leaving myself seemingly exposed. As expected, both stage fives immediately moved to attack. At the last possible moment, I activated Hawk Eye and Titan's Crest simultaneously.

The world slowed to a crawl as I pushed off the branch and flew through the air, slipping between their attacks with millimeters to spare. Before they could recover, I created a dense cloud of leaves around us, too thick to see through.

The wasps hesitated for a crucial moment, their connection to the queen slightly disrupted. That moment was all I needed.

I burst up through the leaf cloud, leaves condensing around my arms like bladed gauntlets.

The first stage five managed to partially deflect my strike, its antennae sensing the attack just in time to twist away.

My leaf gauntlet still connected, the razor-sharp edges shearing through one wing and part of its shoulder carapace. Black ichor sprayed from the wound as the wasp tumbled through the air, its flight pattern now severely compromised.

The second wasp wasn't so fortunate.

It flew straight into my follow-up attack, probably expecting me to still be recovering from my first strike. The leaf blades around my left arm condensed into a single keen edge that caught it perfectly at the junction between head and thorax.

There was a moment of resistance as the edge met its armored carapace, then my enhanced strength pushed through.

The wasp's head separated cleanly from its body, both parts trailing streams of dark fluid as they fell to the forest floor. Its eyes dimmed instantly as its connection to the hive mind was severed, its limbs twitching once before going still.

The queen's furious buzz reached new heights as another of her elite guards fell. She launched a barrage of void energy blasts, forcing me to focus entirely on defense and evasion.

I created the densest leaf barrier I could manage, layering it with naturally reinforced leaves from the largest trees I could reach. Even so, each blast that connected disintegrated dozens of leaves, forcing me to constantly replenish the barrier.

The remaining stage five, despite its injured wing, continued to pester me with quick attacks. It was barely a threat on its own now, but its presence forced me to split my attention, making it harder to track the queen's movements.

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"The queen is preparing something large," Azure warned. "The void energy she's gathering... it's beyond anything we've seen so far."

I could feel it too – a heavy pressure building in the air as void energy condensed around the queen's form. Whatever she was planning, I did not want to be anywhere near it when it happened.

Unfortunately, the injured stage five chose that moment to make its final attack. It dove straight at me, void energy coursing through its entire body instead of just its stinger. A suicide run.

I had a split second to decide. If I dodged, I'd be wide open to whatever the queen was charging up. If I blocked, the void energy explosion would probably drain a fatal amount of qi.

So, I chose option three.

As the stage five wasp reached me, I activated Blink Step and Titan's Crest simultaneously. Instead of dodging, I met its charge head-on, leaves condensing into a makeshift spear around my arm. We struck each other at the same moment – its stinger struck my shoulder as my leaf-spear punched through its thorax.

The void energy explosion caught me point-blank, draining qi at an alarming rate. But I'd expected that. What I hadn't expected was how much it would hurt.

It felt like someone had replaced my blood with liquid nitrogen. My muscles seized up, and for a terrifying moment, I couldn't feel my cultivation base at all. Then sensation rushed back in a wave of pins and needles, along with Azure's urgent voice.

"Thirty percent qi loss from that exchange. The queen is about to release her attack!"

I forced my numb body to move, scanning for options. The queen hovered above, void energy swirling around her in a dense sphere. The air seemed to be breaking down around her, creating a zone of pure emptiness that grew larger by the second.

Looking at the devastation she'd already caused with smaller attacks, I really didn't want to see what this charged-up version would do. But in my current condition, I wasn't sure I could dodge far enough to escape its range.

"Any bright ideas?" I asked Azure. My shoulder still throbbed from the stage five's final attack, and I could feel my red sun energy reserve dropping steadily.

Before Azure could respond, the queen released her attack.

The void sphere collapsed in on itself for a brief moment, compressing into a point of absolute darkness no larger than my fist. Then it exploded outward in a wave of pure annihilation.

The forest... just ceased to exist wherever the wave touched. Trees, rocks, even the very ground itself was reduced to fine grey dust that seemed to age centuries in seconds. The devastation spread in a perfect circle, creating a steadily expanding zone of death that would definitely kill me if it made contact.

I activated Blink Step, launching myself straight up. It wasn't enough – the wave's radius was expanding faster than I could escape horizontally, and I didn't have enough energy left for multiple blinks. But up... up gave me options.

As the void wave approached, I tapped into the orbital resonance of my inner world's twin suns.

My momentum carried me higher as the wave of destruction passed harmlessly beneath me. I hung suspended in the air, carefully keeping my posture natural – as if I'd simply jumped really high rather than actually flying.

No need to advertise abilities that would raise awkward questions if anyone was watching this battle.

When the wave finally dissipated, it left behind a perfect circle of devastation nearly hundred meters in diameter. Every trace of life had been scoured away, leaving only grey dust and withered remnants. The queen hovered in the center of the destruction, her eyes scanning for any sign of my survival.

I allowed myself a small smile. She'd expended an enormous amount of energy on that attack, and she still had no idea where I was. Time to make that mistake cost her.

Three vines shot out from my sleeve, they wrapped around the queen's thorax and wings before she could react, the unexpected angle of attack catching her off guard.

I dropped from the sky like a meteor, channeling Titan's Crest into my right hand as I fell. The queen's eyes widened as she finally spotted me, but it was too late. My enhanced strike caught her directly between her wing joints, right where her armor was thinnest.

The impact sent shockwaves through her massive body. Chitin cracked and splintered beneath my fist as void energy exploded outward from the point of contact. The queen's horrific screech of pain was nearly drowned out by the sound of her carapace breaking.

She wrenched free of my vines with desperate strength, dark ichor spraying from multiple wounds as she retreated. Her flight was erratic now, her damaged wing joints forcing her to compensate with bursts of void energy just to stay airborne.

I landed on a tree that looked like it would give out any second, my eyes focused on the damage my attack had caused.

The queen's once-pristine carapace was now a mess of cracks and leaking wounds. Her right wings hung at an awkward angle, and void energy leaked from her injuries in wisps of darkness that dissipated in the air.

The battle was nearing its end, but I couldn’t lower my guard just yet, if there was one thing I'd learned about spirit beasts, it was that they were most dangerous when cornered. And I'd just backed this one into a corner while also destroying her elite guards.

“Master, you're…you’re almost out of red sun energy."

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