Cultivation is Creation

I frowned. That... was a problem. A big one.

Without red sun energy, I couldn't use any of my runes. No more enhanced strength, no more instant movement, no more leaf storms. Just good old-fashioned qi enhancements and whatever I could manage with the Primordial Wood Arts.

I glanced behind me at the grey wasteland her void attack had created, then at the ring of withering trees around us, and finally at the healthy forest beyond.

The living trees were barely visible from here, even an injured Peak Qi Condensation Stage 6 beast that could fly would catch up to me before I could get there. The trees might as well have been on the other side of the sect for all the good it did me.

The queen hovered between me and the nearest living tree. Despite her injuries, her eyes gleamed as she maintained her position. The void energy leaking from her wounds began to coalesce around her stinger, gathering power for another attack.

This was no accident, I realized. She'd deliberately positioned herself between me and the living forest. Each of her attacks seemed precise in retrospect, calculated not just to hit me but to destroy any remaining patches of vegetation I might try to use.

She had been systematically cutting off my options, creating a dead zone where my most reliable technique was nearly useless. A good tactic.

"Your options are limited," Azure observed. "Without healthy vegetation to work with, the Primordial Wood Arts—"

"I know," I cut him off, ducking as she shot forward with a void-infused strike. "I need to get her away from here. Back towards the living forest."

I needed to change the dynamic of this fight, but how? My remaining red sun energy was barely enough for a few more rune activations, and my qi reserves were...

"Fifty percent," Azure supplied helpfully as I narrowly avoided another stinger strike.

Right. Not great. Fighting the queen head-on would be suicide. I needed a new plan.

An idea began to form. Not a particularly heroic one, but I preferred survival to style points.

"Azure," I said, rolling under a horizontal slash of her stinger, "how much red sun energy do I have left exactly?"

"Enough for 2 activations of the Blink Step rune," he replied. "Why?"

"You’ll see," I answered, then immediately sprinted straight toward the queen.

Her eyes widened at my apparent suicidal charge. She gathered void energy around her stinger, preparing to strike—exactly as I'd hoped.

The moment she committed to her attack, I activated Blink Step. But instead of trying to get behind her or move to her blind spot like she expected, I simply blinked straight past her, adding the momentum to my run.

The queen's strike hit empty air as I emerged from the blink already at full sprint, heading straight for the living forest. I heard her furious buzz as she realized my true intention, followed by the sound of wings beating in pursuit.

But I had the advantage now. The queen was injured from our earlier exchange, her wing joints damaged enough to slow her flight. By the time she turned to chase me, I'd already reached the first healthy trees, but she was quickly gaining on me, though it no longer mattered.

I grabbed a low-hanging branch, using my momentum to swing up into the canopy. Now this... this I could work with.

The queen burst through the canopy after me, void energy gathering around her stinger. But she'd followed me right into my element. Literally.

I reached out with the Primordial Wood Arts, connecting to the dense network of branches around us. The queen's stinger descended—and a thick branch suddenly swung up to meet it, catching her strike. Void energy ate through the wood almost instantly, but that was fine. I hadn't expected it to last.

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More branches moved at my command, forcing the queen to constantly adjust her position. Each time she tried to line up a killing strike, the forest itself seemed to interfere. I didn’t have enough control over the branches to manipulate them to hurt her, but it was enough to disrupt her rhythm.

"Your qi reserves are at thirty five percent," Azure warned.

I nodded, maintaining my focus on the living wood around us. This wasn't a sustainable strategy—moving branches this size took considerable qi, and the queen's void energy was steadily eating through my impromptu defenses. But I didn't need to win. I just needed to survive long enough to...

A familiar buzz reached my ears—weaker and more chaotic than before. More wasps were approaching, she must have called for backup. Not good, I had to end this battle, and I had to do it fast.

I immediately dropped my control over the branches and let myself fall.

The queen immediately pressed her advantage, diving after me with her stinger extended. Above her, the lesser wasps emerged from the canopy, their wings beating in increasingly erratic patterns as they tried to coordinate without their queen's full attention.

I landed in a roll, coming up already running. The queen's stinger struck the ground behind me, void energy carving a trench in the earth. But I wasn't trying to escape anymore.

Instead, I ran straight toward the largest tree in the area. The queen followed, exactly as planned.

Just before I reached the tree, I activated my final Blink Step. The queen's strike passed through the space where I'd been, her momentum carrying her forward—directly under the massive branches where her lesser wasps were still struggling to coordinate.

I reappeared on a sturdy branch near the top of the oak, already reaching out with the Primordial Wood Arts. Every branch above the queen moved at once, not to attack her, but to separate her from her swarm.

The lesser wasps scattered in confusion as their flight paths were suddenly blocked. Without their queen's direct guidance, their perfect formation dissolved into chaos. Several crashed into branches or each other, their hive-mind coordination completely disrupted.

The queen realized her mistake too late. She tried to pull up, to reconnect with her swarm, to use them as shields, but her damaged wing joints betrayed her. As she struggled to gain altitude, I made my final move.

The largest branch of the ancient oak, nearly as thick as the queen herself, creaked as I forced it to move. Not quickly—something this size couldn't move quickly. But it didn't need to.

The queen was so focused on regaining altitude that she didn't notice the massive branch descending from above until it was too late. The impact caught her squarely between her wings, driving her down with the full weight of centuries-old wood.

Her exoskeleton, already damaged from our earlier exchange, couldn't withstand the crushing force. There was a sound like breaking glass as her carapace finally gave way, dark fluid spraying from multiple fractures.

The queen slammed into the ground with enough force to shake the entire tree. Before she could recover, I commanded every branch within reach to pin her down. With my dwindling qi reserve, they wouldn't hold her for long—her void energy was already eating through the wood—but they didn't need to.

The ancient oak's largest branch, still falling with unstoppable momentum, struck her thorax with a sickening crunch, causing her to let out a loud screech, which was cut short as the massive branch completed its descent.

Her many eyes dulled, the glow of void energy fading as her life ebbed away. Above us, the lesser wasps flew in confused circles, their connection to the hive-mind severed.

Without their queen's guidance, they'd reverted to basic instincts - and those instincts were currently trying to decide if I was prey or predator.

I straightened up and made a show of letting qi flow through my meridians. To their eyes, I probably looked fresh and ready for another fight, though in reality my muscles were screaming and my qi reserves were nearly depleted.

One of the larger wasps - probably a stage four - dove slightly lower, testing my response. I merely turned my head to track its movement, my posture relaxed but ready.

The message was clear: I'd just killed their queen, did they really want to test their luck?

The wasp pulled back quickly, rejoining its brethren. After a few more moments of uncertain circling, the swarm seemed to reach a collective decision. They turned as one and retreated into the distance, likely heading back to whatever nest they'd emerged from.

Only when they'd completely disappeared from view did I finally allow my shoulders to slump. I practically collapsed against the trunk of the tree, every ache and strain from the battle making itself known at once.

"Well," I said quietly, "that was unpleasant."

"But good for experience," Azure added. "You've learned quite a bit about fighting without relying on the red sun energy."

"And about the importance of battlefield selection. If she'd kept me in that dead zone..." I shook my head. "I need to work on having backup strategies when I can't access plant life. There’s only so many plants I can keep on my person.

"We should check on Wei Lin and Lin Mei," I continued. My legs felt like jelly, and my qi reserves were dangerously low, but at least I was alive.

"Perhaps," Azure suggested, "you should rest for a moment first."

"Yeah, that's... that's probably a good idea. The formation will keep them safe for a few more minutes."

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