I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 239: Moonveil Thistle

"Is that it?" Brin asked in a hush.

Tarkos nodded. "That’s it. The Moonveil Thistle. Extremely rare. Fragile. And reactive."

Dozens... no, hundreds of spirit beasts that looked exactly like the one they had been following prowled around the grove.

All of them glowed faintly with the aura of the ancient Blight.

Victor’s eyes narrowed at the thistles in the distance. "And that’s what we’ve been looking for this whole time?"

"Yes," Tarkos replied. "One of the core ingredient for reinforcing the seal."

Aeri Fan turned to Tarkos. "How do we get to it? There’s no clear path. Too many beasts."

Tarkos cracked his knuckles. "I’ll go. I can handle it. It’ll be delicate but—"

"No," Victor interrupted while stepping forward. "Let me."

Tarkos raised an eyebrow.

"I’ll shadow blink in and out. These beasts won’t even notice me."

He wasn’t boasting or anything... Victor just knew he had an advantage due to his Void Emperor Bloodline.

He had a much better chance of not alerting any of the beasts in the surroundings.

Tarkos opened his mouth to explain something critical but Victor had already activated his Void Emperor Bloodline.

[ Void Emperor Bloodline - Shadow Blink Activated ]

He vanished in a blur of darkness.

"Wait—Fang Chen!" Tarkos shouted after him. "Don’t *uproot* them! The Moonveil Thistle reacts violently to removal!"

But it was too late. He was already gone.

Victor reappeared behind a craggy ridge in the next instant.

[ Shadow Blink Activated ]

He blinked again and appeared ontop a boulder covered in moss.

He blinked a third time and appeared directly in front of the glowing stalks.

The aura here was stronger.

His skin prickled as he found himself in the midst of these collosal beasts that numbered in the hundreds.

He couldn’t afford to linger.

In the next instant, he unsheathed his blade and sliced through the roots of five stalks.

The second the thistles came free from the soil, he reached for his storage ring to keep them—

And that was when the ground beneath his feet rippled.

Like a stone tossed into a still pond.

The space *bent*.

Then— BOOM!

A massive wave of qi explosions went off simultaneously at the base of the tree.

Blue, purple, and black light erupted from where the thistles had been plucked, catapulting Victor backwards like a ragdoll.

He crashed through three glowing vines, flipped in the air, and slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree with a grunt.

"Damn it!" he growled while rolling to his feet as his vision spun.

-200HP

-250HP

-120HP

Injuries appeared all over his body but he didn’t even have time to check them out.

Because...

Around him, hundreds of glowing eyes turned in his direction.

The spirit beasts were no longer grazing.

They were staring at him.

"Oh no..." Victor muttered.

From behind, Tarkos yelled at the top of his lungs. "Run!"

Victor didn’t need to be told twice.

He bolted forward with speed.

Shadow Blink was still cooling down so he ran with raw speed, pushing his qi into his legs.

[ Wind Dash Activated ]

The ground beneath him cracked as he sprinted across the glowing earth with beasts snarling and roaring behind.

They came in waves first the ones that were nearly thirty feet tall, hunched on all fours with a spiky mane of crystalline vines along their backs like the one they followed here.

Despite their side, they moved with incredible speed, rivaling the speed of Wind Dash.

Then the heavier creatures whose steps shook the ground followed right after. These ones were up to fifty feet in height.

Victor guessed they were probably older and more powerful.

Aeri Fan and Brin took off as well while Victor tried to catch up with them but one particularly fast spirit beast closed in on Victor from the side.

Spinning around, it swung it’s tail at Victor.

*WHAM!*

Tarkos appeared in a flash with his tattoos spreading like ink as he intercepted the strike with a shoulder block.

He grunted as his body absorbed the brunt of the hit.

"Thanks..."

Victor didn’t even slow down for even a second.

He swerved towards the back and drew his blade as he appeared behind the creature that had just attacked.

With a single swing, he sliced the beast’s tendons, causing blood to spill out of its legs and toppling it.

But there was no time to finish it off. The beasts were coming like a living wave.

Tarkos caught up with them and shouted, "Don’t fight unless absolutely necessary! We’ll get surrounded and overwhelmed!"

Aeri Fan turned mid-run and threw out a wall of flame but Tarkos growled and immediately cancelled it with a wave of qi.

"No cultivation flames! If the ecosystem collapses again, who knows what will happen."

As they fled through narrow canyons of bark and stone, Victor’s system pinged.

[ Party Chat: "Fang Chen, Aeri, can you hear us??" ]

The names: ZackVortex and Juno, flashed into view.

Victor tapped a quick reply mid-run. "We here. What happened?!"

Aeri Fan quickly added, "We thought you both were done for!"

Vortex replied: "We almost were. Got ambushed and dragged to some cavern. Primitive humanoids. Tough bastards. We were tied up and caged so we couldn’t communication on chats. Even logging off and logging back on wasn’t helping... Then Xuan Qing showed up."

Victor’s face showed a hint of surprise. He typed fast: "She rescued you guys? Where is she now?"

There was a pause.

Then Juno responded: "We don’t know. We split up. She and Mirael were together. We escaped but they still haven’t come out. Don’t know if they’re okay or not."

Victor eyes narrowed as he ducked under a low-hanging tree limb and used it to vault forward.

"Looks like we’re coming to you guys..."

Brin who was panting heavily beside him, glanced sideways. "We’re not going to leave without her, right?"

"Of course not," Victor replied.

The trees thinned. They emerged into a clearing of glowing grass with the beasts still at their heels.

Tattoos converged towards Tarkos arm like a gauntlet as he raised it and slammed it down into the ground.

—*BOOM*—

A wide burst of force sent a dozen pursuers flying.

However, the group didn’t stop moving.

Victor’s system pinged again.

Shadow Blink was off cooldown.

"Finally..."

He turned to Tarkos. "We need to split again."

"What?"

"I’ll draw the rest off. You and the others circle back and hide somewhere. I’ll meet you once I lose them."

Tarkos looked ready to protest, but one look into Victor’s glowing eyes, silenced him.

"Oh well... You can’t die anyways..."

Immediately after saying that, the group split off, leaving Victor running off alone.

Victor slowed his speed and threw a bunch of attacks at the pursuing horde of spirit beasts to gain their attention.

Now their focus was on him alone as he diverted them eastward.

...

...

Over twenty minutes later, Victor reappeared in a gust of displaced shadow with his robes fluttering as he dropped into a crouch near a ridge they had previously used as a route.

His breath was heavy and his heart thundered in his chest but the beasts were finally gone.

After leading them away from the others, he’d used Shadow Blink thrice to evade them, leaping between patches of darkness and hiding behind the rough cliffs and boulders that littered the warped terrain of this strange world.

It had worked. He had survived.

Now it was time to regroup.

"Fang Chen?" Aeri Fan’s left a message on the party chat.

"I’m on my way back now," he replied as he scaled a nearby outcropping. "I lost the beasts."

Moments later, he found them.

Tarkos stood with his arms crossed and his back leaning against the spiraling trunk of a strange tree that glittered like glass.

Aeri Fan eyes constantly scanned their surroundings as she paced while Brin sat on a slab of violet stone, tending to a gash on his shoulder.

"Welcome back, shadow-man," Brin greeted weakly.

Victor nodded. "Everyone alright?"

"We’re in one piece," Aeri Fan confirmed.

Tarkos spoke up. "We got out with the Moonveil Thistle. That alone is a miracle."

Victor held up the intact stalks he’d salvaged. "Mission success... barely."

But even as he said it, his expression darkened.

A ping rang out in their system interface.

A message from ZackVortex.

"Still no sign of them. It’s been over an hour now. We think they got recaptured."

Victor’s brows drew together.

Juno chimed in next. "We waited nearby to see if they’d come out. Nothing."

He activated the party interface. "Zack. Kori. Send us your coordinates. We’re coming to storm that damn cavern."

Brin narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure that’s wise? We barely escaped a horde of spirit beasts, and now you want to dive headfirst into a nest of humanoid freaks in a maze-like cavern?"

Victor didn’t even hesitate. "If something happens to her, I’ll be in serious trouble."

Aeri Fan raised an eyebrow. "Because she’s a valuable NPC?"

Victor shook his head. "Because I don’t wanna get banned from Blueflame City. What do you think the city lord will do if I don’t bring his daughter back in one piece?"

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