A Tale Of Demons And War Gods - Chapter 3.1

"Perhaps the simplest option is the most optimal." Shin Long mused, stroking his chin in thought. Fanged Panda's were large, strong and with powerful varied abilities. But the reason why they were at best on par with the Horned Sheep as a species despite being much stronger and with more powerful abilities was because of their sheer lack of speed.

Their thick, powerful muscles didn't lend well to agility and speed. They were slower by a decent margin than even an average one star bronze rank fighter. And right now, Shin Long was nearly five times as fast as one of them. And he could double his speed and every other physical parameter with his War Cry ability inherited from the Horned Sheep demon spirit he subjugated earlier.

"Blitzing it is probably the best course of action." he nodded to himself. Honestly he could wind around the long way and climb the rocky outcrops and ambush it from above, but that area usually had Spotted Tigers themselves from what Shin Long knew, always on the prowl looking for any weakness amongst the Fanged Pandas that they could strike at.

Holding his hand up, Shin Long called his blade out of his from his spatial ring, the dark metal glinting in the sunlight and the curved edge glowing with a soft purple light as the sun shone off of it.

"Looks to be about six hundred or so feet." he mused, eyeing the distance between himself and the Spirit Grade Fanged Panda.

Now with it out, Shin Long took a deep breath and called upon his qi, connecting himself to the Horned Sheep within his soul realm and used the power he'd gained from it.

"War Cry!" he declared loudly, and a raging crimson red aura burst out from his pores and surrounded his body. And Shin Long felt it. He felt as his heart doubled its pace, as his mind sped up and his very blood itself rushed through his veins at twice the speed.

He crouched down slowly, and then in a blink he pushed off shoot up through the air. A loud crack rang out behind him as the branch he was turning on splintered into chunks and fell to the ground.

By the time it hit the ground not two seconds later, he had already cleared three hundred feet of distance. Nimbly slashing each Fanged Panda he passed by too fast for them to react.

Five fell to his blade, then ten, and four seconds in he leapt up towards the Spirit Grade demon beast that shot up with a roar far faster than any of its brethren could have hoped to match.

Thirty three Fanged Panda corpses fell to the ground behind him, and in the fifth second, his blade found the neck of the strongest of them all that towering over fifteen feet tall.

"Shit, that was close." Shin Long huffed, allowing his crimson red aura to disperse as he hung from the sword jammed in the beasts throat, blood beginning to stain the white of its fur.

He eyed the paw hung over his shoulder, small sparks of lightning dying down around it as he beast died. He wasn't expecting it to counter attack with a Thunder Strike as he attacked. This thing had a reaction time easily three or four times that of the ones he passed by on its way to it.

It was only Shin Long's enhanced reflexes from his War Cry ability that let him dodge the counter attack at the last second.

With a last deep breath, Shin Long pulled his blade form the massive demon beasts throat and allowed its massive corpse to drop to the ground with a loud, ground shaking thud.

Behind him, he heard the others of its species begin to roar in anger as they realised what had happened. Quickly, Shin Long held up his spatial ring and absorbed the demon beasts corpse inside it.

"War Cry!" he shouted, calling up his crimson red aura again and speeding away before the rest of them could mobilise to attack him. He couldn't risk getting caught up in a mass gravity field attack and being caught off guard. Who knew if any of them knew the rare ability some of them had? The Ying-Yang Blast.

If he got hit with a couple of those he would definitely die. It was a shame he had to leave the ones he killed behind. That was nearly a good two thousand demon spirit coins worth of them considering they were worth about sixty demon spirit coins when their demon crystals were included.

....Well he could always go back later he supposed. Once the group retreated into their cave for the night.

But for now, the main prize was the demon beast he'd just killed. With it, his power would once again grow by leaps and bounds.

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It was surprisingly easy to escape the hoard of Fanged Panda's. He was just too fast for them to keep up, and they wouldn't rush into the tree line. They were much more exposed within their, at least out in the open plains they could usually see what was attacking them and could swarm up in groups to fight them off.

So with his speed, Shin Long managed to shake them off in mere moments once he disappeared beyond the trees and they realised they couldn't follow him.

He let them return to out into the plans before making his way up into the trees and hiding in the foliage, keeping an eye on them. They gathered around their dead, but did little more than roar almost mournfully and nudge their dead companions.

Eventually they were forced to accept they were dead, and just continued on with their lives. Grouping together once more, though this time in much larger groups and grazing away. Many of them lumbered back to the cave system they lived within and retreated inside.

"I suppose I'll wait around till nightfall then." Shin Long mused, pulling the corpse of his defeated foe from his spatial ring and getting around to dismantling the corpse. Thinking on it, this was the thirty fourth Fanged Panda he killed. If he got them all, that would be worth a total of two thousand and forty demon spirit coins.

Bringing his total to about six thousand four hundred. With that, he could afford the supplies to create a demon spirit from a demon crystal. With some luck, he could get a Spotted Tiger demon spirit tonight if he really tried.

"For now, I'll just subjugate this guy." Shin Long grinned as he chopped open the head of the Fanged Panda and pulled the demon crystal and the small spherical orb containing the demon spirit.

He couldn't wait to actually have access to attacking abilities. He almost shook with excitement at the thought of punching someone with a fist covered in lightning.

He dismantled the corpse, storing the fur, demon crystal, claws and fangs inside his spatial ring before sitting down cross legged, the demon spirit cupped between his hands and sinking into his soul realm.

As he sunk into the crimson red real of his soul, flashes of green lightning striking all around him, Shin Long called upon his qi and connected to the demon spirit held within his physical hands, dragging it inside himself.

Shin Long was very surprised though. Unlike the Horned Sheep that roared and thrashed angrily, the Fanged Panda banged on the sphere imprisoning it a few times, testing the durability of it, before letting loose an almost mournful cry and bowing its head in surrender.

It seemed to realise the difference in mental power between itself and Shin Long from that little test.

Almost immediately, Shin Long felt its power seep out from it into his soul realm and knowledge filled his head just like before. Shin Long returned to the physical world and jumped to his feet with a gasp of shock, his red soul force bursting to life around him with sparking green lightning bolts.

"No way!" he gaped in shock, though there was a shit eating grin on his face. "My luck is something else today!" he cheered. Because not only did he get the two abilities he was expecting, Thunder Strike and Gravity Field, he also felt the knowledge of the most powerful ability a Fanged Panda could have shooting through his mind.

The Ying Yang Blast. The ability to fire two spheres of energy which would explode with incredible power. It wasn't ability that actually transcended the bronze rank, because it was based on the soul force of the user and scaled to however strong the user was.

"At this rate, I'm going to be unstoppable!" Shin Long laughed gleefully, holding his hands out and calling upon his power. Two spheres of power vibrated into existence within his palms, one a blinding white and the other a deep, dark black that seemed to suck the light all around within it.

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While waiting for night to fall and for the Fanged Pandas to return to their caves for the night, Shin Long had quite a bit of time on his hands. And a new feature to his cultivation technique he'd unlocked today that he wanted to check out.

So he sank into a cross legged position atop the tree he had retreated to while he went about subjugating his new demon spirit and began to cultivate. Sinking into his soul realm and building up his power. If it weren't for the massive foliage of leaves within the tree hiding him from view, the bright red aura with green crackling lightning bolts running through it that encased his form would have drawn everything within a miles radius towards him.

The strength of an army, was its soldiers. Each soldier within an army added extra strength to it. the War God cultivation technique didn't just stop at adding the power of demon spirits to the users. No, that would be far too simple. Because, while difficult, it was possible to do something similar without it, granted that only applied to the soul force and gaining the full power of subjugated demon spirits was incredibly difficult.

No, the new ability he'd unlocked today upon subjugating a demon spirit, was a technique known as 'Growth Of The Army'. Simply put, it was linking with the tamed demon spirits within the soul realm and increasing the speed of cultivating as if there were multiple cultivators nurturing one single soul realm.

Of course there was a bit of a draw back. The user didn't gain the full cultivation to themselves, and half of what they'd cultivated would be added to the power of the demon spirits within. But in the end, that was a minor gripe all things considered when taken into account how beneficial that was when it came to summoning his demon spirits to fight for him. The stronger they got, the better.

And while he cultivated, Shin Longs mind wandered. With the Fanged Panda corpses, he could make a Spotted Tiger demon spirit tonight. That line of thought actually reminded him that he still had the materials of the few Spotted Tigers he'd run into over the past few days while hunting Horned Sheep.

He had four of them. Depending on how strong the soul force of their demon crystals were, he could just use one of them to make into a demon spirit.

And he was so very close to breaking through to the silver star rank. He might even break through from the Spotted Tiger demon spirit alone, and if not, he would definitely do so in the next few days.

Which brought the demon spirit he most wanted to the forefront of his mind. The Charring Lizard, the lowest ranked dragon demon beast. As a dragon, of the lowest tier or not, it would have the massive potential all dragon demon beasts had. Dragon demon beasts had naturally higher growth potential than all other demon beast races.

There was one position free in his cultivation technique. While he could be considered the 'god' or 'king', there was another special position available. The 'general'. It was the only demon spirit who's form a war god cultivator could take on, and they couldn't switch out of it like a normal cultivator and replace it with another demon spirit.

He had access to all his demon spirits abilities whenever he desired, but only one could become his right hand and strongest spirit. It might have been impatient of him, but Shin Long thought that using the Charring Lizard demon beast as his main spirit would be his best bet in the long run.

Both because it was a dragon spirit, and because the growth rate of all his demon spirits fed into his main spirit, increasing its growth rate further. He didn't want to go for a stronger dragon spirit, simply because any other dragon spirits were gold rank and above. And he'd need to reach that level to subjugate them in the first place.

But going for his general spirit early, as soon as he reached the silver rank, meant he could cultivate its power for longer and by time he was a gold rank, it would most likely surpass any of the gold rank dragon spirit by leagues and bounds.

The only problem was that, they were in general worth around two hundred thousand demon spirit coins at the cheapest. But, he had a plan for that.

Shin Longs thoughts whirled for three hours while he cultivated. And when the Fanged Pandas finally all retreated into their abode for the night, he let the aura of qi around his body dissipate and he stood up, red and green eyes glowing with power, piercing through the darkness of the night.

"Now then, let's get a move on." he hummed, cracking his neck and then jumping down and heading out into the open plains filled with Fanged Panda corpses. Better be quick before whatever Spotted Tigers prowling about came down to munch on the bodies themselves.