The Six Immortals

 Common Enemy

Impacts from the attacks of the bears was very heavy but, fortunately for the group, Gu Yu was standing between them and the chief bear, and it was evident that he could stand a while longer without much trouble.

“We need to stand tough; help from our school will be arriving soon.” Gu Yu encouraged loudly, raising everyone’s morale.

Gu Yu stood facing the ‘brave’ layer bear directly, and was facing the impact of his attacks, his teeth were clenched, but he couldn’t afford to reflect his adversity in his actions much, as it would sink the morale of his team to the bottom, in which case, casualties would be inevitable.

Bi Fan, who was sitting and watching from a tree at a distance, could understand this very clearly. Meanwhile, his face wore a cold smile.

Since ‘the rising sun’ school had made his life so difficult, he wasn’t afraid to strike back.

He was a lot stronger now and had almost reached the ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer. Using that strength, he leveraged himself down to the ground and gently ducked behind a boulder.

The bear and Gu Yu’s group were both engaged in a fierce battle so no one paid any attention to the quietly approaching Bi Fan.

As he reached closer to the battle field, Bi Fan snuck behind a boulder. He was almost ready to execute his plan. He picked up a handful of pebbles, as the smile on his face became even wider.

Bi Fan chose the man standing next to Gu Yu as the first target, and raised his finger as he threw a pebble into the air.

He used ‘the immortal finger’ to direct the stone at his intended target, with an astonishing force, the diseased stone hit its target and a piercing scream resonated in the battle field.

“Quickly, get down!” Gu Yu was really strong and was fighting with everything he had, but even then he was able to spot that shooting stone.

He wanted to pull his companion aside, and out of that shooting stone’s path, but he reacted a little too late.

“AAHHHH!” Gu Yu’s companion screeched a blood-curling scream.

The boy’s arms were still hanging by his side when he hit the ground. A hole had been poked into his arm, right at the spot where the stone had pierced his body, and blood gushed out.

“What humans? Even a human is helping these bears against us?!” Gu Yu was furious.

He tried to estimate the origin of the stone based on the orientation of his comrade’s body. His eyes searched around in vain as he failed to find this new opponent.

Bi Fan, who was hiding behind a rock, laughed as he ignored Gu Yu’s predicament.

This wasn’t a time for morality or righteousness, if Bi Fan hadn’t found a way to deal with these ‘rising sun’ disciples, then they would have come looking for him sooner or later. So this was more like a pre-emptive measure to sort his troubles a little early.

Gu Yu and his delegation seemed to have almost lost this fight now, as the odds were far too unfavorable for them.

Moreover, Bi Fan had also succeeded in distracting their attention from the bears that were in front of them, as they were trying to keep an eye out for any more surprise attacks.

The bears read this situation and reacted very intelligently, and they suddenly launched a wave or ferocious attacks, taking advantage of the situation.

Gu Yu’s companions were sustaining injuries in quick succession, but were somehow still standing tough. Gu Yu, in comparison, was slightly better off.

“We must stand tough; reinforcements will be here any time now.” Gu Yu hadn’t given up yet and tried to raise the morale verbally.

“Don’t mess with me, otherwise, I swear you devil, I will make sure that you pay for these sins later. Believe me; you will curse your fate.”

Bi Fan ducked out of his hiding spot again, popped a few stone into the air, this time four of them and shot them at the people who were engaged in combat.

“Smack!” Gu Yu’s reacted sharply as the tip of his sword stabbed the stone, breaking it into pieces.

The other reacted much slower, and the stones hit their targets.

Bi Fan didn’t manage to kill anyone this time around, but did enough to slow them down further, leveraging the fight against their favors even further.

The bears seemed convinced that they would be able to shred the humans in front of them to pieces with ease, as they roared for victory and charged for their preys.

The look on Gu Yu’s face changed drastically, almost as if he was ready to abandon his companion, like he was ready to make a run for it.

“You want to leave? Well, not so easily.” Bi Fan grinned slyly.

With his finger ready to cause chaos, he started lashing out bullets of stones at Gu Yu, making it even more difficult for him to escape, as he stood there, surrounded by bears.

His companions, were even worse off, they quickly got divided and disbanded and were basically standing corpses now.

The bears would show them no compassion, for humans were just another source of food to them.

They quickly killed the others, leaving Gu Yu alone, standing in the middle of the entire bear squad.

“You evil, attacking me sneakily! Show yourself to me and I swear that I’ll cut you to pieces!” Gu Yu roared, his eyes red with rage.

Bi Fan curled his lips, but didn’t speak up. Anyway, Gu Yu was already as good as dead, so why should he bother wasting the skillfulness of his tongue.

His hands were itching to see if the bears were treating Gu Yu properly or not.

“Boom! Ah!…” there was a sound of a violent collision, which was followed by muffled screams from time to time for a little while.

It took a while before the sounds from major movements stopped, leaving only the sounds of bones being crushed by the bears.

Bi Fan snuck out to take a look; Gu Yu’s dismembered corpse was being devoured by the bears as they tore his body to pieces.

Gu Yu was already dead, so Bi Fan took some steps back and went towards the forest, but he didn’t go too far, he found a tree close by and climbed up, as he waited for the bears to leave.

Gu Yu and his companions were fairly strong, which means that they might be carrying some very valuable items with them. And once the bears were gone, Bi Fan could go back and collect the spills of the war.

A while later, once the bears were done eating all they wanted to, and had grabbed the left overs between their teeth, they left the scene.

As soon as the bear were out of sight, Bi Fan leapt off the tree and onto the ground underneath it.

The ground of the battlefield was stained with blood and human flesh, a terribly frightful sight.

Bi Fan held back his vomit as he bent over and seized the weapons from the ground, he collected all the spar that he could find and even picked up a Yin Yang pouch that was still intact and not bloodied.

He was putting his loot away when he heard the sounds of chatter coming from nearby and realized that the source was coming closer.

“Is that the reinforcements from ‘the rising sun’ school?” Bi Fan quickly made a move and hid himself in the bushes nearby.

Soon, three young men appeared along the borders of the clearing.

“Gu Yu and the others should have been here? What happened, why aren’t they here?”

“Let’s look down by the river, Gu Yu and his company was very strong, very highly unlikely that something went wrong with them.”

 

Common Enemy

As he overheard their conversation, Bi Fan was sure that these people were ‘rising sun’ students.

“Come on, there are signs of a fight over there, and also there seems to be a lot of blood.”

The three youngsters quickly made their way to the boulder where the final fight had taken place. As they looked at the bloodstained scene, the look on their faces changed very drastically.

“It seems that Gu Yu and his company ran into some serious trouble here. It appears that they were all killed by bears and then, were eaten.”

“Look, based on this path of blood trail, it seems that the bears dragged the remains of their bodies in that direction. The blood hasn’t dried out yet, which means that the bears would not have gone too far, should we follow them?”

“No let’s not, even a party as strong as Gu Yu’s couldn’t stand up to these bears, then we too might suffer the same fate.”

“No, ah what? Their weapons are gone as well, and even their money, all of it! How could that be?”

The three teenagers looked around for a bit but didn’t find anything valuable, and their faces were now frowning.

The bears would not have any use for weapons, so they obviously wouldn’t take them. It was apparent to them that a human had arrived at the scene before them and had taken away all of their possessions, including their weapons and money.

“Let’s look around, whoever picked up their possessions, could not have gone too far. Gu Yu’s sword was a top grade weapon, we cannot let that fall into the hands of any other school.”

These three youngsters were extremely smart, even with all the blood around, they could still spot the footprints of the thief and realized that he had gotten away.

As soon as he realized that they would try to pursue him, Bi Fan quickly left the scene.

These three would have to soon go back, and it was important that they reported back to their superior in time, for they would tell the ‘rising sun’ school that Gu Yu and his friends were killed by bears.

Bi Fan at this point didn’t want to take the initiative to complicate matters even further. However, if someone tried to attack him, he would fight back, and his counter attack would be fatal.

But these three teenagers had a very important role, so he didn’t want to provoke any trouble with them, because he needed them to go back and explain that Gu Yu and his friends, fell prey to a group of wild animals.

The three teenagers looked around for a long time, but they couldn’t find anything substantial, so they had no choice but to leave.

They had no interest in avenging Gu Yu and his friends, all they wanted was their weapons and their money.

Bi Fan found a quiet place to sit, so he could take a look at the loot. Actually, he didn’t really care about the weapons or the money, his main interest was in the Yin Yang pouch.

This Yin Yang pouch should have belonged to Gu Yu as only good students had enough resources to buy them. Bi Fan opened the pouch, and he found a lump containing almost three hundred spars in it, along with some other items. Apart from that, there were three low grade weapons and two books.

Bi Fan was only interested in the books, so he took them out to take a look at them. One of the books was about the secret techniques of cultivation of inner energy at the ‘rising sun’ school and the other one spoke of the ‘rising sun’ double-edged sword fighting methods.

Both of these books spoke of techniques that were usually imparted to medium level students, which meant that they would impossible to procure using any other methods. The ‘rising sun’ double-edged sword fighting technique was almost at par with ‘Fufeng double-edged sword’ technique.

Bi Fan didn’t want to practice the methods taught in these two books, but wanted learn them anyway, as they would increase his knowledge and improve his skills.

The problem with using these two techniques was obvious. If the ‘rising sun’ school ever found out that he knows their secret methods, then he would be in a lot of trouble.

However, if he managed to mix their style up a bit and merge it into ‘Fufeng double-edged sword’ technique, then nobody would be able to make out the connection. Bi Fan put everything away, and got up, feeling pleased with himself.

Bi Fan knew that ‘rising sun’ students were looking for him, searching his trail, lured by the reward that was offered for his death, but he wasn’t worried about it.

With the increase in his strength, his confidence in his ability had also seen a massive rise.

Moreover, most of the people who had entered the devil’s territory in his search were obviously not very strong. This was rather obvious to him, as no serious martial artist would come looking for him in the devil’s territory for only a thousand spar, which was the bounty on his head.

Feeling no pressure from the ‘rising sun’ students on his trail, he continued to venture deeper into the devil’s territory in the hope of finding a suitable demon to train on.

Now-a-days, even ‘brave’ layer demons weren’t capable of putting much pressure on him, so he needed to find a ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer demon for his training and to refine his strength and skills.

In this part of the devil’s territory, only a very few demon were as strong as the ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer, and in most encounters, the people who met with them, ran away for the fear of death.

Bi Fan had been looking for one of those for a while now, but he still hadn’t found a demon as strong as the ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer yet. He was confident that he could even try and take on five or six of them at once, without much effort. So obviously, the ‘brave’ layer demons posed no threat to him whatsoever.

Bi Fan was getting stronger with every passing day, making rapid progress in his strength and skill alike, which meant, that his martial art was improving greatly.

At this moment, Bi Fan had been inside the devil’s territory for almost two weeks now, and his strength had almost doubled up since his entry.

His physical strength had gone up to four Yun Shi, owing to the first method that he had learnt from that battered jade book.

His body’s inner energy was soaring even higher, and had reached almost six Yun Shi, which meant that, a total of ten Yun Shi, put him at the peak of ‘Spiritual intelligence’ layer.

A while ago, when Bi Fan was at the peak of the ‘inner breath’ layer, he was already good enough to go shoulder to shoulder with his peers, and was commended for his excellence; imagine what it would be like now.

He had been feeling the effects of his practice from the methods mentioned in the jade book, but unfortunately for him, the book was incomplete.

“’Spiritual intelligence’ demon, please show yourself quickly, I can’t wait anymore!” Bi Fan’s heart yearned in prayer.

His strength was on the verge of breaking through to the next layer, so he needed to practice harder. He needed to make this breakthrough, so he could practice the ‘immortal finger’ to its maximum potential.

Bi Fan preferred fighting his way through to the next layer in comparison to using Dan pellets to make the breakthrough, as it helped build a stronger foundation for the next layer.

As he was thinking of all these things, he heard the humbling roar of a beast at a distance.

He didn’t know what kind of a beast had made that sound, but he knew that this kind of a roar would have scared him a while ago, which meant that the beast was obviously a very strong one.

Bi Fan, extremely excited, rushed towards the direction of the sound.

“Finally, I have found a beast strong enough!”