>>6046965

The territory of your subordinate sect the Summer Sea Dawn (夏季海黎明, Xiàjìhǎilímíng), who you had just recently visited to return to them the kidnap souls of their fallen brothers in arms and sect mates. Which makes your sudden return to their lands, quite the shock and surprise to the sect, the majority of which, including their senior members, elders and heads have left to join the tournament you're hosting. Jinse-Shayu (Golden shark, 金色 -鲨鱼) and his kind of scary and taciturn wife, the whale tossing Yanyu (盐玉 , Salt Jade), have already left to travel to your garden to witness and partake in the event. And you caught their members who chose to stay behind in the middle of putting their dead to rest along with the main port city under their sway, whose blubbery mayor hides behind the head of the local shrine of your cult as you waltz down the street, like you own the place

Because you do, even if you don't know the name of the city itself. You notice the adherents you met the last two times you cam here, Haimao, Chuanmao, Maozhuaban, and Huannupu are nowhere to be seen. But you aren't worried for their well being, they've probably traveled to the tournament as well. As has the next lord Xia, Red Shark. But not his bastard little brother...or siblings, considering the notable flock of Jinse-Shayu looking youths flocking around the wild man with salt clinging to his wild braids and eye obscuring hair.

"Xia Xiaosi?" You say, smiling the way a cat would when they greet a mouse as you flick your tail and hop down to the beach, lifting your ears and one paw, treating it like a coyly positioned fan partially obscuring your smile as you walk up to your fellow writer, who you note is also tending to a few magical beasts who gawk at you like you were the sun descended from the sky, blinding them with your majesty

"Lady Huanliuxue?!" He gasps, looking around for a more senior and respected sect member to defer to, but falling on one knee when he realizes he is the most senior of the sect left behind "What...What is the meaning for you to visit our humble holdings again so soon?"

"So it is you! Even though you grew a little wild and strange while acting as ambassador, you look like a mountain hermit that's gone savage as a" You exclaim, acting like you hadn't recognized him by his peculiar, beastly and unwashed scent he acquired when you made him babysit all the magical beasts in Suiqi, but stop your tongue before it can spit out the word wolf "Well, a monkey, Heh-Heh"

Xia Xiaosi frowns, like he heard wolf instead of monkey, and you wonder if you'd just imagined saying monkey. Your head is feeling fuzzy enough from hunger that you might have. You wait to see if anyone will reprimand your rudeness, and decide when no one speaks up, that you did in fact say monkey even if their ears heard something different.
Cont

>>6046966

"Seaside air and salty water isn't kind to tangled hair" He answers simply "And this vagrant look makes the critters I watch over feel at ease in my company"

"Its your scent" You explain with a nod "Younger beasts tend to find the changing smells around humans unnerving, with all the soaps and perfumes they use to mask their natural scent which for some creatures is like constantly exchanging their faces for someone elses, so, while looking more like a wild animal yourself probably helped, its your constant and unique aroma that makes your presence so comforting to them, primarily, probably"

"I figured as much, but I don't even notice the smell myself anymore" He laughs nervously, glancing waywardly up to the sky, begging for someone else to fall from it to take his place as the representative of his sect "So...what brings you back here so soon, Grand-Master? Princess of all that is wild in pure? Did you change your mind about wanting to see off our fallen comrades? My father said you seemed oddly distracted and ill mannered when you returned them? Has whatever that was troubling been, uh, dealt with?"

'No, that's why I'm here' You think to yourself, dropping your paw to the ground as you plod up to him, his younger siblings pointing and the braver amongst them reaching out their hands to pet you before pulling them back when you look down at them.

"Oh, I was just caught by a certain flight of whimsy when I thought about the view of the sea from this very beach" You lie, looking past him over the horizon "And with all the stress of preparing for my grand, regal tournament, I though to take a little stroll across it, towards the horizon"

Xia Xiaosi scratches his neck, eyes narrowed in a wince he managed to catch and stop

"Our most experience sailors would be at your disposal, my master, but, unfortunately" He says ashamedly, bowing his head as a normal seagull lands on top of his head and pecks at his sand peppered hair "They're already busy traveling to collect our more distant members, who were cultivating upon remote islands or searching for any sign of the beast wave out at the sea, and while any member of the summer sea dawn could take their place, Of our membership and the Xia clan both, I am the best that was left behind...Once word spread the dusk marsh wolves were heading to your tournament in force, we had to respond in equal measure, it is the way things are"

"Of course" You sigh, pouting in the way only cat face can as you lay down onto the sand and gaze morosely out at the sea, and as you'd hoped, just a sad look is enough to make Xiaosi scramble to mitigate your disappointment and indulge your whim

"Of course we can send word for one of my betters to return to guide you across the sea or summon back the best captains under our employ" He hastily explains, kneeling next to you and all but kowtowing and pressing his face into the sea wetted sands

You smirk. Too Easy.
Cont

>>6046967

What do you decide to do, Huanliuxue?

>Take Xia Xiaosi to captain the ship and show you to the most dangerous waters in his family's sea-bound territory

>Just laugh and fly across the sea, having just wanted to mess with the poor boy, and find a sea monster on your own. How hard could finding one in the uncharted sea be?

>Explain that you're alright with charting a ship of lower quality than you deserve, and while you're shown around the summer sea, have Aodasheng, Renshu of the river, and Chuandapo plunge the depths covertly in search of your Levithan

>Admit that you've come wanting to hunt a sea monster, so you'll be willing to wait a day or two for him to call his father or mother back to help you find one.

>Tease Xiaosi, and threaten to reveal his double life as a writer to his family and sect and get him to admit he reads Hare and Hunting hound

>Write in

>>6046969
>Take Xia Xiaosi to captain the ship and show you to the most dangerous waters in his family's sea-bound territory

>>6046969
>>Explain that you're alright with charting a ship of lower quality than you deserve, and while you're shown around the summer sea, have Aodasheng, Renshu of the river, and Chuandapo plunge the depths covertly in search of your Levithan
If we do the best of both worlds, we are more then likely to finish our goal and get the monster, and they can help us too.
We explore and have help exploring so we can find something as fast as possible.

>>6046975
>Support.

>Tease him about seeing if he has any more novels. Maybe we should trade notes!

>>6046969
>Explain that you're alright with charting a ship of lower quality than you deserve, and while you're shown around the summer sea, have Aodasheng, Renshu of the river, and Chuandapo plunge the depths covertly in search of your Levithan

>>6046975
I'll support this, Aodasheng doesn't need to breathe so he can help us fix the mess he left us, and I'm sure he can think of some trick to taunt a leviathan into taking the bait.

>>6047011
>Support

>>6046969
>Explain that you're alright with charting a ship of lower quality than you deserve, and while you're shown around the summer sea, have Aodasheng, Renshu of the river, and Chuandapo plunge the depths covertly in search of your Levithan

Ending the vote, tallying its result now.

Take Xia Xiaosi to captain the ship and show you to the most dangerous waters in his family's sea-bound territory:1

Explain that you're alright with charting a ship of lower quality than you deserve, and while you're shown around the summer sea, have Aodasheng, Renshu of the river, and Chuandapo plunge the depths covertly in search of your Levithan:6

Tease him about seeing if he has any more novels. Maybe we should trade notes!:1


Landslide victory for simply taking the ship that's available and having your aquatic disciples and Aodasheng combs the depths while you enjoy the sights of the summer sea.

Update will arrive shortly

"Oh there is no need to go to such lengths, I'm perfectly fine with hiring a ship and captain of lower quality, your sect may be subordinate to mine, but I won't interrupt your activities to favor my whims, at least I won't today" You snicker as you stand up and flick your tail, lifting a paw to pat it on his back before turning your back to him and walking back up the beach "Even if it means I'll be passenger to a ship beneath my station and undeserving of my presence upon it. But I'm sure whoever you find to show me the sea will be honored to have me as their passenger, please take your time, no reason to act and run around like you've been injected with chicken blood. Especially when the mood is as somber as it is today, give my regards to the dead before they're carried off out to sea"

You sit down and giggle, glancing back as you see Xiaosi looking greatly relieved that you aren't being demanding and spoiled as you could be, almost looking like he'll fall to grains and be pulled out to the sea like the sand of the shore.

"Though I suppose that might mean I may run into them while I'm sailing, won't it?" You titter as you lay down and lounge on the beach, basking in the setting sun as the mortal inhabitants of the city watch you from a distance, few of them daring to step down onto the shore while "immortal" sages send off their fallen and their dead, and while a "Goddess" over sees their final seaside rights.

It doesn't take the youngsters and novices of the Xia clan the night to find you the best ship still in harbor or near enough to shore to be fetched, which is just long enough for you to set into motion your plans for flushing out a monster while acting like you were simply enjoying the beauty of the summer sea and exploring its vastness and appreciating the waves and waters tended to by your subordinate temple.

Aodasheng moves as quickly as death, a ghost of his calamitous power can swiftly move from the seaside back to your subterranean temple with a message informing the only two disciples you can think of who could plunge deep into the abyssal waters of the sea without problem, Renshu of the river the founder of the rediscovered Aquamarine path of carmine mysticism, and Chuandapo the terror of Chuan's countless waterways and wrecker of nearly as many boats. While you don't expect either of them to fight a sea monster and win, at least not without great effort and difficulty on their part, they can at least track one for you to pull to shore or tear apart under the water in its own lair if it proves too stubborn or cunning to be lured or hooked and brought to surface.

Aodasheng however, you're going to send where you're confident sea monsters can be found, where even the alchemist and turtle can't swim due to the pressure or cold.
Cont

>>6047772

It feels a little unfair for them to have to stay in the cold and lightless water while you bask in the sun, but if they do a good job, they can take a break on whatever island they choose to!
_
[Meanwhile, deep in the desert in northern Chuan, in a badland between two wind torn canyons]

"Rogue cultivators!?" The sand sage who wouldn't give his name to Youzaiwang out of misplaced pride howled, more outraged by this revelation than any of the tiger's best attempts to draw his ire and rouse his fury through insults and demeaning words

"Are you truly so surprised sage? Has the glare of the sun blinded your eyes? This is a time where laws are broken and peace is squandered, a time to grab for power and seek ambitions none would dare to dream until now" Youzaiwang laughed, leaping behind a pillar of stone as a whip of wind cut through the bodies of the rogue's toadies, the slavers he'd been chasing since he'd left on his journey to hammer out the flaws of his character and beliefs

"The audacity! To use our own sands against us, to hide in plain view!" The sage rages, standing like a simpleton as more whips of wind ripped his robes and scoured his flesh. Youzaiwang decided if he wanted to die like a fool, he'd let him, and instead crouched and stalked around the side as the sage trembled with rage, his blood spraying on the hot desert sands.

"Silver fur?" A wavering, weak voice asked, and Youzaiwang turned, and saw a girl dressed in rags. His heart, calm before then, began to race as it felt like plummeted down in his chest. Scars. Visible Ribs. Eyes reddened with tears. A look of disapointment, waning hope.

"You were hoping for my master" He released and spoke outload as he, against his better judgement and warrior's instinct, approached the cage the girl and the other children were kept in, drawn to them by a strange power emerged from their pitiable expressions and pitiful state.

The winds wailed, and Youzaiwang acted before they could cut through the cage and the captives.

"Huh?" He grunted, unsure as to why his body moved the way it did, intercepting the cutting blade of air, pain shooting through his chest as blood seeped through and stained his silver fur

"Tiger!" The sage cried out, as if they were comrades or even, perhaps friends

"TO DARE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AGAINST THOSE WITHOUT FANGS OR CLAWS TO FIGHT BACK!" Youzaiwang's confusion turned to rage, as lightning crackled through his fur and raised it, melting the sand particles flying around him and sparking through the air as his eyes glowed a searing blue white!

"YOU WILL FACE US TOGETHER, VILLAIN!" The sage roared as well, and Youzaiwang wondered why he reacted after he was injured, when they had done nothing but pester and degrade eachother as they traveled together...

Cont

>>6047773
_
[Meanwhile, beyond Chuan's border]

"I've never heard of your sect, and you seem to be of an eclectic and peculiar band of cultivators, though I mean no offense" The armored warrior said to Siwang as he greeted him, having been chosen to speak to the brother of the sole survivor they had found in the village they had passed through days before, who was being tended to by Monu and Jionghuagege "But I am grateful you've saved my cousin and brought word of their failure to protect the poor people of that village from those rampaging demons"

Because he could keep a cooler head than the likes of tiexingege and Monu, was more personable and charismatic than Baifenchi or Qiang, and didn't look like a thug like Huili.

"We arrived to late to prevent the tragedy we found upon our arrival" Siwang answered with the composure and carefully balanced and measured tone of a judge standing trial and listening to the defense of the accused and the crimes leveled against them "That we preserved a single life is a blessing"

"Our friend here is right, it is a shame we were not able to arrive sooner, but our journey was long and fraught with peril" Fa Jin said, glancing over Siwang and the wounded warrior in front of him, looking at the ragged and despairing defenders of the fort they had found, hastily erected in the ruins of another town

"It is not a shame on your part, but a shame of us all" The cultivator answered as the other Fa twin marched forward brazenly "The world is in shambles, and ill rumors are spoken of every province, that Bao refuses any request for aid. That Chuan alone is unharmed by this stampede of devils... but we cannot know the truth. You speak with accents like you're from Chuan, if it is not impertinent to ask, I would like to know what is going on. Last we heard, the winter blossoming wisdom sect was crushed, fighting something after they stopped their squabble with the Ling Sects"

"Squabble? Is that what you call bloodshed over years?" Siwang asked coldly, and Qiang moved to save him from himself

"I misspoke" The man said sadly, bowing his head and looking ashamed of his words "it must've been a difficult time, and I insult the comrades and friends you lost to the pointless conflict caused by pride and arrogance. But there have been worrying signs, strange waves of Qi and pillars of light. The border temples claim all of Chuan is haunted, overwhelmed with freely roaming beasts and strange and twisted plant life, that the winds coming from it reek of blood and decay. And some sort of demonic beast royalty succeeded in a great breakthrough and survived a heavenly tribulation sent to put an end its wretched life. And travelers from the west say that is why the beast wave doesn't reach Chuan, and why their sects have not sent aid to us"
Cont

>>6047774

"Rumors and hearsay, no demon reigns in Chuan" Siwang said plainly as he followed the cultivator towards the defensive line Fa Tang was already whipping into shape, moving him expertly away from the seething Monu before she could open her mouth or snap at the libel and slander spoken about her daughter and her accomplishments, though Siwang found himself offended by the ignorance of his fellow daost "And I have heard other sects have sent groups over to investigate the goings on across the border, but considering an external and internal war have just been waged and ended, these efforts are delayed and meager, unfortunately. We are, we believe, the largest of such efforts such far, sent by our master to investigate the source of this stampede"

"And who is this master you speak of, I've never heard of any sect calling itself a palace, least in Chuan" The cultivator asks and Siwang wracks his brains to try and think up a believable alias

"Only the most lovely and kindly hearted of cultivators, a local star of Chuan, but one who isn't well known outside of it" Fa Jin provides "She came to prominence during the war of Ling aggression, though she is not my master, my own teacher is also unknown to you, only gaining renown during the humbling of the winter storm. Neither of their name matters in this moment, wouldn't you agree"

"My companion is right, our duty is to find the source of the rampaging beasts" Siwang answered before the other, foreign cultivator could object or demand a name "Please, show us the state of this fort and its defenders, and tell us all you know. Your cousin will be brough to your healers, as I know you have no reason to trust strangers with his well being"

"It is a sorry state of affairs, we barely held out against the last wave. That damn building trampling bull appeared again and broke the back of one of my fellows and gored another on their horns, I'm the last cultivator above Qi condensation stage present in this watch tower" The cultivator explained and complained, as Siwang and Qiang kept a close eye on Monu and Tiexingege, as they both were gnashing their teeth while Huili waltz passed them and snarled at one of the traumatized soldiers, laughing as he winced and tumbled onto the ground out of fright

This was going to be difficult, thought Siwang
_

"I doubt a cat has ever been this far out at sea" The one legged captain, who you get along surprisingly well with, exclaims as the rough and thuggish crew he keeps attend your every need, which presently means brushing your hair to keep it from frizzying up or getting tangled and knotted with salt water as he guides his humble fishing trawler around the calm currents and gentle waves, showing you some reef or another, and telling you folklore. The voices he uses as he tells them, makes the stories much more entertaining, especially when he gets the one eyed whaler and the hook handed net thrower to join in and act out other roles.
Cont

>>6047775

Apparently they were all part of a failed traveling troupe of actors who were washed up in port and mistaken for actual sailors one day

"I can't think why I would be, any house cat would enjoy a trip like this" You exclaim happily as he guides his ship through a row of pink and orange coral, grinning as he goes back to rambling about it being the meeting place of two lovers from differing island tribes and also a place of a naval battle waged against pirates and oddly intelligent octopuses

"Though, Madame, I can't understand why you'd choose this boring stretch of sea over the tropical islands, they're perfectly safe to traverse" The one eyed whaler pouts as he works the tangles out of your hair "And this is their blooming season, you've never seen flowers of so many colors, even up into the grotos of your mountains!"

"Oh I'm sure she has, and you have to remember, the beast queen is a cat first and a lady second, of course she'd better like being shown where all the exotic and colorful fish are a-swimming" The hooked hand net thrower laughs, as he leans over the railing "Look, just there, a jade browed pike! A delicacy if you can catch it! and there, a steel spined eastern sea tuna! It must've migrated here or be pulled in by the storm, oh what a sight! You can turn its spine into a spear, if you can catch and hoist it onto deck, though the fact it is as large as a rowboat..."

You smile pleasantly but fakely, since you don't want to admit the reason you avoided the islands they were so excited to show you, were because they were out of the way from the places Aodasheng, Renshu and Chuandapo told you they saw signs of sea monster activity. Or at least Renshu and Chuandapo did...well only Chuandapo really. Renshu mentioned spotting what looked like a temple deep in a crevice so far under the sea even he couldn't dive to it with his transformation technique. And Chuandapo pulled herself onto the ship , shivering all over and in her human form, nude except for her violet hair, having been scared out of the sea when she saw a "Graveyard of ships" and "Giant bones" and ran away before she could see what made them.

And Aodasheng? Well that ghost has been chasing something under the sea, but hasn't surfaced to say what it is he's pursuing.

Your ears twitch, and you sit up from the hammock you were laying in, glancing to the horizon.

The air had just go cold as you felt a twinge of something that felt oddly like killing intent, thrown in your direction, from a jungle covered island off in the distance. Watching it, a pair of burning eyes brands themselves in your minds eyes.

"Is something wrong, most beneficent one?" The captain asks as you glare at the island, arms crossed over your chest as the feeling of aggression and hostility fades away with the whistling winds over the winds. How strange~
Cont

>>6047776

Which lead do you investigate, Huanliuxue?

>The creepy underwater temple

>The graveyard of ships and whales

>Aodasheng and whatever he's been hunting

>That mysterious island just up ahead

>Write in

>>6047777
>>Aodasheng and whatever he's been hunting
The graveyard of ships and whales is so damn tempting.
But I have a feeling if he's chasing something and hasn't stopped to tell us, its because its something he CAN'T surface to tell us without losing. So TO HIM WE GO!
Aodasheng hasn't failed us yet.

>>6047777
>To adosheng

>>6047777
>That mysterious island just up ahead
No one intends to kill us and gets away with it.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6047777
First I want to acknowledge the lucky quads of this post.
>The graveyard of ships and whales
>That mysterious island just up ahead
Split too much between these two, leaving this to chance.

>>6047777
>The creepy underwater temple

>>6047777
>That mysterious island just up ahead
A fallen god perhaps? I for one would like to reduce our tally of rivals, whoever this latest asshole is.

>>6048016
>yfw it really is a fallen god and the reason he is there is because he cannot swim and as he is rejected from the heavens he is not allowed to fly
Bad luck

>>6047777
Checked.

>That mysterious island just up ahead
Picking this because >>6048323 and spending part of this thread teaching someone how to swim would be funny.

>>6047777
>Aodasheng and whatever he's been hunting

>>6047777
>That mysterious island just up ahead

>>6047788
>Support

Also fun fact sailors of old would take cats with them to sea. Simply to sense the danger of the weather because of there whiskers. Also that killing intent I bet is a fallen god.

>>6048396
And here I thought it was to catch rats, seems cats have more than one use!

>>6047777
Nice quads grampa!
Anyway to Aodasheng we go!

(He's harrassing a sea dragon isn't he?)

>>6047777
>The creepy underwater temple

I want that forbidden lovecraftian lore

>>6048443
>words a lovecraft fan has never said
kek

Ending the vote, tallying its result.

Aodasheng and whatever he's been hunting:5

That mysterious island just up ahead:4

The graveyard of ships and whales:1

The creepy underwater temple:2

So you'll head to Aodasheng's and whatever he's hunting's location

update will arrive shortly

The tattooed captain worriedly wrings his hand as you gaze out past the island where something with a bone to pick with you lurks, and out towards the dark vortex of malevolence and deathly yin qi shooting through the sea like a patch of spilled oil, blackening anything that approaches it. You can't see where the former ghost king is, exactly, just that its beyond the horizon and you can sense his unmistakable presence as he very clearly chases after something like a scent hound gone rabid with the smell of warm blood.

"Oh nothing, just out of curiosity, how far out to sea did you say this ship could sail?" You ask with a pleasant smile, and if you had a tail in that very moment you're certain it'd be flicking back and forth playfully. The captain glances out, at the space he thinks your gazing out at and are interested in visiting and goes a shade of pale usually only found amongst the dead, particularly the drowned and bloated.

"Not much father out, unfortunately. The tides become tempestuous beyond these reefs, and I would not anchor my ship near any of the islands beyond these teal and clear waters" He answers meekly but with a certain iron in his soft, doe eyes as he takes his formless hat and crumples its edges in his hands, looking very worriedly at the island that caught your interest from the bloodlust and sword intent bleeding off of it "But, I could make an exception for the merciful goddess, surely they pose no danger to a divinity such as yourself, but I will not set foot on any of them. Hear ill tales of every island surrounded by darker waters"

"Perhaps Lady Huanliuxue could shed some blood on them and make them more pleasant and safe for us mortal men to tread upon?" The net thrower suggests, a bead of sweat trailing down his sun scorched brow as you rub your chin, pretending to be in thought just to watch these sailors who have proven to be good or at least amusing company to squirm a little before tittering like a little girl and shaking your head, red hair dancing behind you, sparkling like the ocean spray as the star light caught in your hair is lit aflame in the bright and sunny day

"Oh I wasn't planning on exploring any islands, I was just asking how far out you could take me. I just had a flight of fancy to swim in deeper waters and enjoy the cold of the depths, if this is as far as you can safely go, then drop anchor and wait for me to get back, and make sure to wake my disciple up and remind her to exercise, and keep away from my other student as they study their deeper alchemical mysteries" You giggle as you lean back and dive off of the ship, the captain yelping and leaning over, and sighing in relief as he sees you swimming with as much ease as the fish you scattered with your splash into the sea.
Cont

>>6048837
And you soon find out, that Aodasheng has swam far out to see, farther than any of the maps of spiritual energy Xiaosi drew for you or the shimmering map of water created by one of their sect's unique magical tools. The ghost has gone out too truly uncharted territories, that even the haughty summer sea dawn sect hasn't claimed as their domain, waters they don't swim and islands they haven't set foot on

An ocean no one on Chuan, to your knowledge, has ever seen until you paddle out into it, chasing after the shadow cast by your advisor. The waters become choppy and wild, and it takes effort for you to swim through them as the ink black sea turns white as waves rise and vortex forms and the vast emptiness becomes like a boiling cauldron, no calm patch of sea to be found as it becomes a chaotic mess of clashing rapids and smashing squalls.

And judging from the pillars and spirals of water shooting out across the swelling sea and ripping waters, whatever Aodasheng is chasing is massive. If you hadn't ran through the heavens and looked down at them from above, you'd have trouble believe something so massive to create towers and tunnels of white rapids waters that dominate the horizon and shoot through the sky beyond the limits of your boundless and peerless vision could exist.

You get thrown and tossed around by the water, struggling to catch a glimpse of whatever it is your ghostly bodyguard is hunting, but luckily find a chain of rusted iron to grab onto and pull yourself along as the waters become even more difficult to traverse through, fighting against an increasingly violent current that nearly tears off your robe as it laps and pulls against you.

With your wet hair covering your face, you at last catch site of Aodasheng's quarry.

A massive tentacle, covered in hooks and barbs with suckers large enough to pull up buildings, that looks like it could swing and crush a city beneath it.

A giant squid or octopus. And as you watch in wonder as the rubbery indigo limb lashes up, you spot a familiar glint and a gout of teal and turquoise fire as Aodasheng dives through thunder, lightning and a storm cloud and sprints down a geyser of boiling hot sea water as in the dark of the sea, a massive head that clearly does not belong to any kind of octopus and squid rises up. It looks like a mixture of a boar and a turtle.

You have no idea what it is he's fighting, but it is huge and powerful enough to churn the sea itself. And it is clearly ancient and powerful, and as you hang onto the piece of rippling, whipping chain, you realize the storm and sea surrounding it, that you've swam into, is composed almost entirely of its aura.

An Aura that contains both heavenly and primordial Qi.

This thing has a few drops of divinity. It is a spirit or perhaps heavenly monster! Or at least, thats your best guess for what it could be. It might also be an avatar of the seas wrath, that Aodasheng awoke by killing its descendants for a light work out!
Cont

>>6048839

A shriek that sounds like a hurricane mixed with the sound of metal grinding together reaches your ears, and a pearlescent beam of blinding light erupts out of the sea from the tusked maw of the sea monster, and you spot Aodasheng and the spear of mortal death cutting through the sky, narrowly avoid the radiant ray of death shot out at him from the depths of the sea, that slices cleanly through the black storm clouds as the beast turns its head and tries to shoot him out of the air. Much like some fish spit water to knock flies into their mouths.

What do you do now that you've reached the hunting ground, Huanliuxue?

>Watch from a safe distance and wait until Ao or the boar turtle land a blow and then fly into the fight once that opening has been made.

>Try to meditate in the choppy waters, and summoning upon your cosmic nature, attempt to turn as much of the sea around you as you can into blood (Concentration+ Magic Trial. DC 135. -10 to roll)

>Set up the phantom cat waltz along key spots of the array of chains that the one you're hanging onto is part of, and catch lightning to redirect it directly into the behemoth beast (Timing Martial trial. DC 120. - 5 to roll)

>Absorb as much Qi from the waters surrounding you and convert them into cosmic Qi to create a lance of starlight and ice you can throw at and ride to the beast (Magic+Strength trial. DC 145. -5 to roll)

>Write in

>>6048840
>Try to meditate in the choppy waters, and summoning upon your cosmic nature, attempt to turn as much of the sea around you as you can into blood (Concentration+ Magic Trial. DC 135. -10 to roll)
An abyssal god lies before us.
Turn the sea into blood and let us become a greater lovecraftian horror that shall end it.
Happy "Godslaying" Bloodshed.

>>6048840
>Set up the phantom cat waltz along key spots of the array of chains that the one you're hanging onto is part of, and catch lightning to redirect it directly into the behemoth beast (Timing Martial trial. DC 120. - 5 to roll)

>>6048840
>Absorb as much Qi from the waters surrounding you and convert them into cosmic Qi to create a lance of starlight and ice you can throw at and ride to the beast (Magic+Strength trial. DC 145. -5 to roll)

>>6048840
>Meditate to turn the sea to blood

This one goes out to my cultivator brothers. May Heaven smile on you
https://nhentai.net/g/510519/

>>6048840
>Try to meditate in the choppy waters, and summoning upon your cosmic nature, attempt to turn as much of the sea around you as you can into blood (Concentration+ Magic Trial. DC 135. -10 to roll)

>>6048840
>Try to meditate in the choppy waters, and summoning upon your cosmic nature, attempt to turn as much of the sea around you as you can into blood (Concentration+ Magic Trial. DC 135. -10 to roll)
We are very much in this thing's turf. Let's make that not the case.

>>6048840
>Set up the phantom cat waltz along key spots of the array of chains that the one you're hanging onto is part of, and catch lightning to redirect it directly into the behemoth beast (Timing Martial trial. DC 120. - 5 to roll)

>>6048840
>Try to meditate in the choppy waters, and summoning upon your cosmic nature, attempt to turn as much of the sea around you as you can into blood (Concentration+ Magic Trial. DC 135. -10 to roll)

No sea creature is safe from a cat!

>>6048840
>>Set up the phantom cat waltz along key spots of the array of chains that the one you're hanging onto is part of, and catch lightning to redirect it directly into the behemoth beast (Timing Martial trial. DC 120. - 5 to roll)
We effectively need to hit 145 for the blood ocean to go through. Our last fight has me spooked still.

>>6049438
You aren't wrong, but the consequences for failure aren't major.
We arent in direct combat yet, nor are we facing a killing/fatal blow. We are choosing how we do our entrance. And while it is 145 to setup, we have a debuff applied to us already. If we nail this buff now we can have a significantly easier time with all other rolls hereafter. You arent wrongn in that it may be a higher roll, I just find the risk low enough and the benefits great enough to warrant going for it.

>>6049545
>>6049438
Yeah we might be against a scary monster but for once we have a powerful ally in our corner which has never been the case before.

Ending and tallying the vote now

Try to meditate in the choppy waters, and summoning upon your cosmic nature, attempt to turn as much of the sea around you as you can into blood:5

Set up the phantom cat waltz along key spots of the array of chains that the one you're hanging onto is part of, and catch lightning to redirect it directly into the behemoth beast :3

Absorb as much Qi from the waters surrounding you and convert them into cosmic Qi to create a lance of starlight and ice you can throw at and ride to the beast:1

So you will attempt to meditate in the raging sea and turn as much of as you can into blood under your control

Update will arrive shortly


>>6048942
Junior your heart demons have gone out of control

You watch, amazed by the light show and display of overwhelming power and the aerial acrobatics and agility of movement used by Aodasheng to avoid being glanced by the beam of roaring, storm cutting light as he flies above the still submerged head of the titan of the sea, fighting just to approach near enough to it to let his spear fly or land even a minor blow against the behemoth. Shaking yourself out of your reverie of the waltz of destruction and the expertise of the one dodging it, you puff out your cheeks and struggling against the waters and their currents trying to suck you down into the briny abyss of the sea, pull yourself atop the chain and balance on it, one foot in front of the other as you hold out your arms to keep balanced, and sprout a cat tail deciding adopting a mixture of feline and human traits would be the best and most efficient way of staying standing on the chain and out of the roiling sea. Even if the movement of the ocean and the waves whipped up by the monstrosity Aodasheng has engaged makes the rope move about as much as the water beneath it.

Wincing, closing your eyes as stingy sea water pelts your face like a storm of needles and razors and the winds threaten to rip you bodily off the chain, you focus inwards and try to meditate as you stick your toes between the chains and transform your nails into claws to have a better grip on the slick surface as you try to center and clear your mind. Which is incredibly difficult, not just because the chain your balanced on is bucking and you're only barely holding onto it enough to stop yourself from being tossed off or slipping and sinking into the depths of the ferocious sea, but because the hunger for the life of another or the sweet dew of their immortal soul has only been growing stronger and more demanding and gnawing harder and faster against you on every front it is assaulting you from.

And being so close to a meal that could fill this seemingly bottomless and unrelenting need to snuff out other lives or sup on their spirits, makes the hunger even more unforgiving and painful.

But, if such an obstacle could stop you, you wouldn't have gotten as far or flown as high as you have! So stubbornly, you persist in trying to meditate, circulating your meridians and emptying your mind of all thoughts and desires. The most stubborn and difficult to remove being hunger, as you pace your breathing and slow your racing heart, pouring out the predator excitement of closing in on your prey as you use the relative serene state you've achieved in the eye of the storm to anchor your mind and dao heart and focus your Qi and the spell you're casting as you summon up the moonlight glittering in your veins and drawing it to the surface to perform a transmutation without a furnace or sorcerous away

A spell to transform the sea into a massive pool of blood, under your control and command rather than shackled to the sea monster's will!

roll 2d100 - 10. Best out of 5. DC 135

Rolled 86, 19 = 105 (2d100)

>>6049673

Rolled 23, 57 - 10 = 70 (2d100 - 10)

>>6049673

Rolled 82, 25 = 107 (2d100)

>>6049673
We claim this ocean in the name of CAT

>>6049695
Just realized I forgot the modifier. Whoops. Not that it makes a difference kek

Remember kids, it's +- not -

Rolled 96, 26 - 10 = 112 (2d100 - 10)

>>6049673
Welp, we're done for

Rolled 50, 47 + 10 = 107 (2d100 + 10)

>>6049673

Rolled 47, 30 + 10 = 87 (2d100 + 10)

>>6049673

Well at least I can rest easy knowing that we would not have passed the lower DC either.
kill me

>>6049733
Failure, 20 under DC, update will arrive shortly

>>6049748
To be fair, this is a HUGE fish. It was never gonna be easy. Even though I doubt it presents a gigantic threat to us. We are in its turf, too. So it's not surprising, really. Don't sweat it methinks.

But the moment the scent of blood hits your nostrils and rushes down to fill your lung, it spreads and blossoms, filling every available nook, cranny and wrinkle of your brain and wrapping around your heart like barbed chains, digging deeply as the aroma of the freshly transmuted blood awakens the animal instincts already stoked and fanned by the hunger you've been afflicted with. It happens in a flash, like a bolt of lightning crashing to earth and illuminating the night. Your empty mind, serene and ready for meditation is swallowed and submerged beneath the screaming, wailing hunger that has been haunting you. The fear of starvation, the desperation of hunger, the ghoulish yearning that you dare not face, the call of the scavenger, pawing at the soil piled atop freshly dug graves.

It happens before you can realize it. The civilized, intelligent mind is subverted and switched out with the purely feral and instinctual one that you've stomped down and quieted since it would quiet and shut up about being hungry and the terror any wild animal knows , that every being with a stomach to feel has lurking in the darkest, most primal corners of their minds. Instead of achieving peace of mind, you descend into maddened hunger. The ringing resonance of a struck bell, the screaming void of space, replaces the pure white of concentration and emptiness in a single second. As you jaws crack, teeth turning to fangs as the hunger for life is joined by the curse of carmine mystics, and opening your mouth, you nearly choke yourself on the blood you've created, the spell fizzling out and failing as, acting on instinct and out of desperate and terrified hunger, you nearly break off your jaw, burst open your throat and explode your stomach trying to glut yourself on the closest source of living energy and vitality within reach, The blood you just created. But it isn't enough, it can't be enough. Its barely a drop. Not even a morsel!

"More. More! MORE! I DEMAND MORE!" You voice wails and screams, breaking the din of the storm as the lunatic ravings of a starving beast roars over the screeches of the sea beast, the shockwave of its sky scorching breath, and the whistling of a spear and ghost in flight.

Claws digging through the skin and flesh of your face, your eyes shoot open, blood red and weeping as crimson streams, scarlet rivulets and pink froth ooze out of your mouth with fangs too large to fit in a human skull tearing through your gums as you tear through your cheek, tongue flicking out to catch the small drops of sea spray and blood. And through the water, small motes of white light rise up to fulfill your need, beckoned by your call for sustenance and any relief that can be found for your aching tummy as the blood swirled waters around you become empty of life as every living being beneath you is drawn up to you, torn out of their original vessels and lifted up through the sea.

Cont

>>6049764

And one by one, the pearls of life energy, stolen from whatever may swim through this sea, disappear behing your lips and vanish down your gullet as you stuff yourself with as many of them as you can grab in your hands and keep caged between your fingers as you bite, tear and swallow desperately, frantic to fill your greedy belly, so hungry and messy that you don't concern yourself with missing your fingers or the meat of the palms of your hands when you bring your gnashing teeth down to grind up the meager offerings of the fish and sea plants.

Lapping and sticking your tongue over your hands, sticky with blood and dripping with sea water, sense, reason and something besides crazed hunger slowly fill your head as you realize you've standing in a bleak stretch of water, the only living thing above or under the sea.

And the great sea beast who reigns over this patch of the world has turned to face you, not heeding the ghost burying the tip of his spear through the length of one of its tentacles, skewering it from tip and pinning it in a taught curl. However intelligent the sea monster is, it has taken offense at you stretching open your mouth and drawing in and devouring the still living essence and lively lifebloods of its subjects.

Snarling, flicking the blood and stray ribbons of torn flesh and skin off of your hands you take in a deep breath and answer its attention with a rattling scream of indignation and rage, mostly focused towards yourself, for lapsing and acting so brutish and deplorably. And because there weren't enough fish in this stretch of sea to even quite the gnawing in the depths of your stomach and barely enough to clear the haze of hunger and blind animal panic that took control of you for a...for however longer you were blindly and mindlessly bingeing on and chomping down on and swallowing up any stray lifeforce, no matter how meager or tiny that drew close enough to be torn out of their bodies by just the lashing tendrils of you manic spiritual energy and hunger deranged soul.

'At least it didn't happen anywhere populated, and the only victims of my bender were fish and the only witnesses a ghost and a monster' you try to encourage yourself as you take up a fighting stance as the sea is split into two giant, cresting waves as the sea monster shoots through the expanse of rapid waters, deciding you are more of a threat than the ghost stabbing its tentacle with the rhythm and enthusiasm of a insane butcher. But your heart feels as empty as your stomach, even after it was filled with enough fish to feed a city for a day.
Cont

>>6049765

What do you do, to face the sea monster charging to confront you, Huanliuxue?

>Try to create a pool of blood again, maybe the snack has cleared enough of the fog in your head to make it easier? (Concentration trial. DC 135. - 8 to roll)

>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)

>Thinking about your indulgence like a session of binge drinking, become the incarnation of Monu's frigid enmity and freeze the still bloody water around you (Magic trial. DC 120. -5 to roll)

>Unsheathe moon collapse and use it and the movement of the chains to fling yourself onto the monster's back (Agility+timing trial. DC 115 - 5 to roll)

>Write in

>>6049766
>weaponise the hunger.

REDUCE THE DEBUFFS.

>>6049766
>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)

>>6049766
>>Unsheathe moon collapse and use it and the movement of the chains to fling yourself onto the monster's back (Agility+timing trial. DC 115 - 5 to roll)
Ah yes, that old feeling, shame. Disappointment. Don't worry Huan it's only your pride being wounded. I do feel bad for those poor fishies though. They didn't even know what was going on and they got got. We made it really far without falling to temptation, it was good while it lasted. I do however want nothing to do with this accursed hunger.

>>6049766
>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)
TURN OUR CURSE
INTO STRENGTH

>>6049766
>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)

If working against the hunger didn't work then maybe leaning into it will.

Also a cat never apologizes and neither does an empress.

>>6049766
>>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)

>>6049766
>Unsheathe moon collapse and use it and the movement of the chains to fling yourself onto the monster's back (Agility+timing trial. DC 115 - 5 to roll)

Man let's never get cursed again

>>6050040
Mah it was worth
We just need to reap the benefits of it being gone.

>>6049766
>>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)
Let's turn this ghastly tribulation into our benefit!

>>6049766
>Unsheathe moon collapse and use it and the movement of the chains to fling yourself onto the monster's back (Agility+timing trial. DC 115 - 5 to roll)

I feel like old-fashioned combat is the way to go here

>>6049766
>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)

>>6049766
>Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings (Magic+Instinct trial. DC 111. No negative modifier)
Hopefully this is where we learn something about curses.

Ending the vote, tallying its result now.

Attempt to weaponize the...ability, specter starvation has given you, to rip out the still living essence and lifeforce of other beings:8

Unsheathe moon collapse and use it and the movement of the chains to fling yourself onto the monster's back: 3

So you will attempt to weaponize specter starvation against the sea monster

Update will arrive shortly

But in that bleak pit formed in your heart for losing control even for a handful of moments, that somehow seems deeper and harder to fill than the cursed hole bored into your stomach, you find inspiration. Or a revelation born and given a voice because of you constant brushes with curses, malevolent spirits and demonic qi. The cleverness of a heretic always on the run, the creativity and imagination that allowed you to survive and thrive until you could force at least one place in the world to accept your existence and treat you as a fellow daoist instead of a dangerous demon or man-eating monster.

A flash of insight that asks why not just submerge yourself into the curse and the unnatural hungers it creates? Why not try to control the curse that has been branded onto your soul, cultivation base and flesh and blood? You know a few curses, and have had success subverting and usurping spells cast and formed out of the Qi of other cultivators in the heat of battle before, so why wouldn't you be able to take control of Specter Starvation and thus remain in command of yourself when the hunger seeps into every thought and action you take? A sort of controlled madness, retaining your sanity even as it is eroded by hunger beyond ordinary starvation?

You're a heretic, even if you're not a demonic cultivator outright, you still deal with forbidden and dangerous techniques and practice sealed sorceries and macabre and eerie secret arts. You've strayed far into the wilderness of cultivation, to the point you don't think you could find the "Proper" road even if you were purposefully searching for it. You've been hesitant, afraid even, to confront the curse that's been sapping your strength and sickening your mind, afraid to be twisted and corrupted by it and fearful of what you may become if you couldn't overcome it. But why should a heretic be afraid of taking just one more risk in their aberrant path down the divergent dao they follow and contemplate. Yours is the Dao of ghost and grudges. Curses ARE nothing but another tool at your disposal, another trick hidden up your sleeve. Even for a curse as dangerous as specter starvation, what reason is there for you to fear it! The only reason is has no known cure is because no one has had the guts to face it head on and grapple from it rather than despair and allow the fear of what it can do to gingerly guide them to the unpleasant fate of being wholly consumed by their spectral hunger!

But you? You're Huanliuxue! And while you did lose control and go momentarily insane when the hunger took hold for the first time a few moments ago, that brush with it was enough for you to experience and understand its exact effects and how the ghostly, degrading curse actually works!

Its all about resistance. Like a string pulled taught it two directions, trying to fight back against it instead of riding the wave of voraciousness, will only cause you to snap in the attempt.
Cont

>>6050968

But allowing the end of the string you hold to go slack will, in theory at least, allow you to stay in control even if the curse reaches your brain again and starts dominating every thought and idea it can make. In theory.

But every practice and method of your law and every technique you've invented started out as a theory that everyone else in the world of the cultivation, from spotless orthodox do gooders, to rogue and heretical practitioners, to out right demonic cultivators, would've balked at! Because most others fear being the one to take the first, clumsy step that begins the process of innovation!

So, facing down the sea split by the sea monster's brow and the waves rising up to greet you as it barrels through the water to get close enough to you to pull you under the sea from the water its movement alone displaces, you prepare yourself to plunge into the depths of the curse you've been running away from and trying to avoid so much as glancing at with four, evenly paced breathes as you pause the beating of your heart until it would be difficult to tell it apart from a corpse's own heart, steeling your mind and your will and shoring up your mental defenses while opening up the walls of your spiritual ones, allowing your meridians to flow unimpeded as you "reach out" to "grasp" the curse of specter starvation to weaponize it and use it like any other curse you know

roll 2d100. DC 111. Best out of five

Rolled 2, 3 = 5 (2d100)

>>6050970

Rolled 4, 44 = 48 (2d100)

>>6050970

Rolled 31, 85 = 116 (2d111)

>>6050970

>>6050973
christ
That's gotta be on a leader board somewhere for most garbage roll

Rolled 10, 94 = 104 (2d100)

>>6050975
I am sorry, I typed the wrong number!

>>6050970

>>6050974
Well that's foreboding.

>>6050977
Was about to point that out, thank you junior for your perceptiveness. Still two more rolls to be made

Rolled 19, 74 = 93 (2d100)

FEEED

Rolled 32, 24 = 56 (2d100)

>>6050970
Oh shit we're cooked

>>6050977
failure, but by less than 10, so it could've been a much, much worse. Update will arrive shortly

The moment you allow the curse to freely move through your body and soul, the whole of your body feels like it has been suddenly and painfully immersed in boiling oil. The sensation of being cooked alive, a heat that is entirely different from the sickening, sticking cold that drained and sapped everything from your besides hunger. Why is it different now than when it was before. Your eyes shoot open, even though you want nothing more than to wince and howl in pain. It feels like your skin is being pricked and sliced with knives, like all the blood in your veins has been replaced with frying and bubbling oil. The world is dyed red and the greasy colors of fat, yellowed white. The sweet coppery scent of blood smothers your senses as the strain of the curse bursting free as you allow it to be unchecked and release it onto yourself completely and allow it to seep into and stain every aspect of you, and the moment you smell blood again, the curse once again interacts with the thirst of carmine mysticism that you excised from the perfected form of it you created.

But rather than crying out and lamenting the aching of your stomach, you bite down onto your tongue and suck down the blood you draw out of it, wincing as you buckle inwards and curl up into yourself, clutching your stomach as you embrace the hunger rather than flee from it and allow it to overwhelm your senses. The hues of blood and fat dyeing the world grow more vivid, lurid and tempting as it feels like your stomach is twisting and collapsing in on itself, forming a black hole as drool and blood dribble and drip down your trembling chin as you force the curse to flow into every inch of your body and rush further into your mind, feeling your soul thrash and seize as it to is touched by specter starvation. It is an embrace like a snake wrapping around and crushing the mouse it caught, squeezing out its life with every twitch of its muscles.

But you are both the serpent and the rat. Faintly, you're aware that you've started chewing on your tongue, as more blood pours out to fill your mouth, and that you've dug your clawed hands into your sides, tearing your robes and plunging them into your own guts to try and quite the agony of starvation with the white hot pain of being clawed and stabbed. But even through the thick fog of hunger and the haze of agony, you can't help but wonder about the texture and taste of your organs, having to remind yourself to not think of your own guts as offal as the hunger and agony almost becomes sweet.

Shuddering, you realize, that you aren't out of control yet, with your hands half buried inside of your stomach and your tongue nearly severed as blood flows from your nose as the strain of holding onto to your sense of self while the sense of hunger becomes overwhelming pops several blood vessels and causes a few of your meridians to flow divergently and in rotations and cycles you've never put them through before.

Cont

>>6051029

But is a thin line, a whisker's breadth, a razor's edge, that you're balancing on. Maintain any reason or conscious thought while in the throws of specter starvation is like wrestling a mountain. And besides having to constantly push yourself up and out of the sea of viscera and rendered fat to maintain control over yourself, you also need to force yourself to not sample your own flesh or try to take a bite out of anything within arms reach. But it wouldn't be too harmful, considering how many methods and spells you know to heal from even the most grievous of wounds and injuries, and what else would be fit for a regal palate like your own than your own sweet meats. Shaking your head, you direct the hunger away from yourself, hands trembling as you pull them from your stomach and lick the honey and syrup that coats them as you rub your face and stick out your half gnawed on tongue, breathing in deep and relishing the aroma of your own steaming blood. A much more complex and alluring perfume than you ever realized before. And a new curiosity peaks your interest as you find sturdy enough ground to stand on and settle into this wolfish, altered state of mind.

What would other people's meat and blood smell like? The spilling of their lifeblood, the expelling of their lifeforce, the draining of their vitality?

You grip your face to force the thought away, reminding yourself you know very well what other people, men and beasts, taste like and that now is not the time to be drooling over the thought of disemboweling people. And reminding yourself that, you gasp and remember what you were doing before your world become centered around raw meat, gristle and fat, and the sampling the life and spirit of others.

You raise up your hands as the seas buckle and bulge up, and open your bleeding mouth and freeze as you can't recall how you were, when the hunger was all that there was and conscious thought didn't get in the way, how to draw out the lifeforce from still living creatures and pull out their breaths. And twinned thoughts of despairing at not being able to take a bite out of the sea monster's life-energy and wondering how to draw it out and trying to remember the then instinctive process of performing it as the gluttonous instinct to devour without a care clashes with your sense of reason and threads of civility and sanity as the chain you were standing on snaps and whips you up into the air.

And the hungry and the controlled sides of you both realize, mid journey to the clouds 'Ah, wouldn't it be just like stealing away breath?'
Cont

>>6051030

Something you've done before to fuel your perfected carmine mysticism. Something you would've realized if you weren't busy sorting through which instincts to listen to and which hungers to indulge to remain in the equilibrium of ghoulish hunger and lucidity, and didn't get distracted wondering about your own taste. The ability granted by specter starvation to tear or suck out the life or soul from a still living victim, is very similar to the breath stealing power you've already trained when you refined and purified carmine mysticism...Wait, does that mean that the origin of the original form of carmine mysticism has roots in specter starvation?

Flipping through the air, you center yourself and regain control of your rambling thoughts by both thinking about how great a delicacy a sea monster's breath would be and reminding yourself that you are currently shooting through the air, out of control. Surrounded by splashes of salt water and electrified air, you spin yourself around and look down to see the rising head of the boar turtle monster and can't help but to drool as you sense the blood pulsing and pumping through its vein and the powerful, enduring lifeforce that animates it's huge, sea spilling body.

The prospect of tearing into it with your hands and teeth, nearly quiets the rising sense of panic as it opens its own mouth, as a bright blue and golden light is lit somewhere in the depths of its throat

"Hah! That's new!" Aodasheng whose probably too rotten to taste good, but then again, decay is just fermentation and aging when you think about it "You've managed to find the threshold between succumbing to the curse and resisting it, creating a balance between temperance and gluttony. Detachment and earthly desires! Restraint and abandon! The sins of "demonic" cultivation and the virtues of what is "acceptable". Intriguing, I suppose your mentality is better equipped to retain its cohesion when oversaturated with bestial desires and the basic yearning of hunger!"

And like that your concentration is gone

"Shut up Ao!" You yell as your flight ends and your fall begins "Otherwise I'll bite off your tongue to chew on while I think!"

He laughs, unafraid to fly up to your side as you descend and try to think of how to prepare the flesh and breath of a sea monster and how to avoid being blasted by its sky tearing breath!
Cont

>>6051031

And how do you try to do that, Huanliuxue?

>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

>Gather the blood spilling out of your mouth and stomach and turn it into armor and weapons, and use a partial transformation to turn your body into that of a more dangerous, half feline predator and maul the sea monster by pouncing on its face [Restraint+ Martial Trial. DC 118. - 7 to roll]

>Change the Blood Qi surrounding you into fire, both to remove a temptation and to challenge the sea the monster controls [Magic Trial. DC 135. - 9 to roll]

>try to dodge the blast while throwing out as many vein draining fangs as you can create [Magic+ Dodge trial. DC 112. -5 to roll)

>Write in

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

>>6051032
>try to dodge the blast while throwing out as many vein draining fangs as you can create [Magic+ Dodge trial. DC 112. -5 to roll)
The lowest DC, our rotten luck mandates it.

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

Either we tame this curse, or we will ravage this monster trying. Either way we can afford to.
>>6051043
Thank god this isn't exactly a life or death battle, or an important situation like the tournament.

Rolled 14, 37 = 51 (2d100)

>>6051032
>>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)
I normally would say that this is too difficult, but missing this chance would be waay too cool.

>>6051044
>Fighting a giant primordial monster in the middle of a boiling sea
>"Thank god this isn't exactly a life or death battle"
Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

>>6051044
This thing could totally kill us.

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

>>6051032
>Use curse and miasma to rip out breath.

Third time!

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

Oh god, it's the statues all over again

>>6051032

>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)

Question about this -
Secret Art Unlocked: Cat's Court: Dancing across the border between life and death

Since starving is close to death does this proc?

>>6051179
After we get hit by godzilla's cousin's atomic breath it just might.

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)
Hoping to build a strong foundation out of failures.

>>6051032
>Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create an island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right? [Restraint+ Carmine Mysticism Trial. DC 124. - 5 to roll)
I’m once again considering Ao a bad luck charm.

Ending the vote, tallying its result now. Miraculously avoided getting hungover after celebrating the birth of the eagle and stars nation last night.

Using the Curse, grudge miasma and carmine mysticism in concert, rip away the breath the sea monster is using to create a island destroying beam! Third time is the charm, right?:10

try to dodge the blast while throwing out as many vein draining fangs as you can create:1

Landslide victory for attempting to drain the sea monster of some of its lifeforce, specifically the breath it is using to fuel its island evaporating beam!

Update will arrive shortly

But in the world died vermillion with the sweet panging pain of hunger, the question turns instantly from how to avoid being torn and blasted apart and burned until not even ashes remained of your corpse, to how you could bite into the breath used to fuel the cataclysmic pillar of light that could probably rend asunder whole islands, how it could be possible to snatch away and greedily devour the lifeforce expended by the sea monster, the portion of its own existence it burned, captured and then harnessed to create the radiant breath that severs skies and boils the sea.

And, with the composure of deciding which organs to eat first, which glass of tea to sample first, and the quiet anticipation of waiting for water to boil and meat to roast, your thoughts turn to how to be able to steal away the energy powering the blast as it is charged, through what method it could be stolen away from and refined into the life energy you so desperately hunger for, no longer slavering like a rabid beast at the thought of fresh blood still warm on the tongue and the life and essence it contains, but rather inspecting the platter before you with the sharp eyes of a monarch searching for the subtle traces and signs of poison. Heh-Heh, like an elegant gourmand rather than a starved, gluttonous beast.

And the solution you decide upon, the sequence of spells and magical powers and unknown techniques and rites, is to combine the peculiar ability of Specter starvation, alongside the grudge miasma you've swallowed down and kept stored in your gullet and your lungs and your own flesh and blood and some of the spell and magics of carmine mysticism you've deemed deserving of being repurposed, refined and redeemed in your new, perfected form of carmine mysticism. Syncing up the cursed hunger a certain talkative corpse gifted you with the need and thirst for blood and life that afflicted all of the old, degenerate breed of carmine mystics. The yearnings and curses being similar enough to be fused within your own body, alchemically bonded inside of your blood and breath and very trembling spirit. And the grudge miasma to serve as foundation and canvas for the life draining technique, which, when performed instinctually by breathing in and pulling in with the air every stray mote of living breath and the lives it fuels without direction or discretion. However, the improved variation of it you've created just now, through the drone of hunger and the haze of grisly day dreams, won't have such a weakness. It will be directed. Rather than gnashing glaws and grabbing hands shoveling all they can grab into your mouth, it will be a pair of chopsticks, stabbing into the morsel of turtle meat sitting before you all but plated and ready to be served.

All that needs to be done, is maintaining the equilibrium and careful balance between the sense of yourself and that of your hunger.
Cont

>>6052405

To restrain the former just enough so it doesn't make you act like a stupid, starving animal, but not enough to make it rebel and take control of all of you again. Which, would be the worst possible thing that could happen, considering you are staring down the open maw of the sea monster, the sparks of its sea splitting breath flashing in your eyes.

Flicking your wrist, wiping the drool embarrassingly dribbling down your chin, you begin casting a spell, breathing out a black mist of enmity while using your own blood as the ink to write the spell, focusing on the pit bored into your stomach and using the greedy and starved organ itself as conduit for both the Qi and the Spite fueling the sorcery that has never before been wielded or even imagined before today. Before you decided to see how a lance of light that could vaporize a navy would taste when reduced to the blazing and lively breath of a behemoth monster!

roll 2d100 - 5. Best out of five. DC 124.

Rolled 89, 71 - 5 = 155 (2d100 - 5)

>>6052406
Please don't be a take two of the statue situation. Also hope you enjoyed your holiday Gramps.

Rolled 80, 27 - 5 = 102 (2d100 - 5)

>>6052406

Rolled 91, 3 - 5 = 89 (2d100 - 5)

>>6052406

Rolled 92, 97 - 5 = 184 (2d100 - 5)

>>6052406
I think I did the minus right this time?

>>6052427
>fail to pass mild DC's twice in a row
>followed by ridiculously over the top success
Classic Huanliuxue.
I hope Ao's got his popcorn ready, because I know I do.

Rolled 85, 55 - 5 = 135 (2d100 - 5)

>>6052406
>>6052410
>>6052427
Dayum

>>6052427
Incredible success! Exactly 60 over DC. Update will arrive shortly

https://youtu.be/vjBFftpQxxM
_

The whipping and beating of its tentacles against the top of the sea sound like a cleaver's blade meeting the wood of a cutting board, the snapping of bones and cutting of meets and sudden breathes cut short with the flick of the blade. In the darkness of your mind, the shadowy recesses of thought, the characters and hand signs of the spell emerge from fantasies of corpses of men and beasts, cut, dressed and hung for butchery and visions of the slaughter fields of war and images of predator and prey, fangs crushing throats and antler's piercing skulls and hearts. Gruesome sights, yet while they wet your appetite, the bloody scenes of slaughter, butchery and the consumption of the raw meat the victims in these daydreams are turned and reduced to provide you with enlightenment.

For what the characters forming the spell and the arrays they are placed into and turned into the foundation and pillars of, are made of entrails and splintered bones. And the hand signs you see are revealed to you in the crimson reflection cast in the pools of blood formed beneath corpses hung to be exsanguinated, with hands that look just like yours down to the shape of the nails and the color they're painted. And in the ink black swirls of the resentment you vomited out, ghostly figures move in half a dance. The other half of their movements are those of predators and butchers separating corpses with fangs or knives.

Taking the three portions onto one plate, you perform all of them, moving your hands into the position of the handsigns you've never seen before, painfully contorting and bending your fingers until the joints creak and the bones ache, while chanting the words spelled out in spilled viscera, every enchanted syllable make your mouth water as they're pieced together in a spell woven together from cuts of meat and methods of execution and ways to prepare corpses for burial and meat for meals. The hunger and your ghostly fascinations combined into a mantra woven together from the lunacy afflicting your mind and the macabre things it delights in seeing and surrounding yourself with. And last, as you move your hands into increasingly painful and difficult hand signs and the spell becomes more coherent than a jumbled mess of different types of food and executions, refining with each repeat until it begins to sound like an actual curse rather than the menu of a demon's restaurant, you begin to gambol and dance in the center of the array you've created, that is centered and stuck around your middle, the core of it placed directly over your stomach rather than either your beast or golden cores.

It swings and twirls with you like the rings of star dust and debris around a planet, painted crimson, carmine, scarlet and vermillion and every other shade of blood and raw meat that exists in the world as you dance, chant and cast the spell as the characters you speak appear one by one around the array.
Cont

>>6052461

Black, like they'd branded onto them, formed out of grudge miasma and negative and deathly yin Qi as you twist and twirl around, balancing on your heels and moving to the rhythm of your blood pumping through your veins, the drumbeat of your heart and the rumbling of your belly.

Aodasheng watches, near enough to tackle you out of the way of the blast or throw himself in front of it, but far enough to not risk being caught by the unknown spell you're simultaneously creating and casting, as the world is consumed and hidden by the sun gold and sea blue glare of the sea monster's lethal breath as you spin around and bend backwards to face the beam of light directly and open up your mouth.

And around you, a massive cat's skull, formed of spiritual energy and dripping with carmine light like it were freshly flayed and still dripping with blood, suddenly appears around you and matches the movement of your jaw, which stretches open wider and farther that it could naturally, but without the pain of snapping bones or tearing sinew.

And the pillar of light shrinks as it gets close enough to begin melting the fibers of your robes or burning your hair that is hanging down in the air, dripping with sweat and sea water mixed together. And it grows smaller and smaller, glowing brighter as it is pinched and brought through the skeletal, spectral cat's skull and up to your awaiting lips as it is reduced to the size of quail's egg.

But even crushed and condensed to so small a size, it has enough of an impact to snap you back up and make you stand as it fire straight down your throat, making it glow with a cerulean light inside as it enters your stomach, before it fills your cheeks and makes them light up the same way as more and more of the vaporizing breath pours into your mouth and tingles your tongue.

Its citrusy and cloudy and as the screeching sound of light searing the air quiets down and vanishes into your mouth, you swallow it down in three gulps.

The sea monster seems as surprised as you are and lifts itself from the sea with a roar that certainly sounds offended as pale grey blue smoke rises out of your nose and mouth like you were drinking boiling water straight from the kettle.

But the blue glow of its mystical attack hasn't vanished, and neither has the energy, even if the curse lurking in your stomach is working hard to break it down and digest it. And while the feeling of actually filling and stuffing your need belly after it had spent so long complaining and clenching with a hunger you couldn't satiate without degrading yourself or losing all the face you worked so hard to earn, is so pleasurable it is almost intoxicating, the beam of light you just gobbled up and swallowed can be used to do more than just ease your unnatural hunger and clear your head of all its fog and aching.

It can be weaponized and turned back against the monster that spat it at you!
Cont

>>6052463

Which you should do, and quick, since the behemoth looks like it wants to bite you in half for the insult of eating its favorite attack

And how do you do that, Huanliuxue?

>The same way it did, but dye the energy in Destructive Yin, Blood, and Cosmic Qi [Magic trial. DC 130. -2 to roll]

>By biting down onto Moon Collapse and infusing the blade with the energy and the specter starvation curse (Crafting: Occult. Trial. DC 135. - 2 to roll)

>By harnessing it and a touch of carmine mysticism to perform a Chimeric transformation and then charge the monster head on (Martial Trial. DC 140. - 4 to roll)

>Taunt the hunger, and attempt to manifest an avatar of it, that you can puppet through Qi control and a sequence of curses (Restraint/ Puppetry trial. DC 145. - 7 to roll)

>Write in

>>6052465
>The same way it did, but dye the energy in Destructive Yin, Blood, and Cosmic Qi [Magic trial. DC 130. -2 to roll]

>>6052465
>Infuse moon collapse

On the fly refinement.

>>6052465
>By biting down onto Moon Collapse and infusing the blade with the energy and the specter starvation curse (Crafting: Occult. Trial. DC 135. - 2 to roll)

>>6052465
>By biting down onto Moon Collapse and infusing the blade with the energy and the specter starvation curse (Crafting: Occult. Trial. DC 135. - 2 to roll)

>Eating enemy attacks
This technique is going to be VERY useful.
Hopefully we can figure out how to use it even without the hunger of the curse guiding our hand.

>>6052465
>>The same way it did, but dye the energy in Destructive Yin, Blood, and Cosmic Qi [Magic trial. DC 130. -2 to roll]
EAT ATTACK AND SPIT IT BACK
This reminds me of our sphere ability which kinda does something similar.

>>6052465
>By biting down onto Moon Collapse and infusing the blade with the energy and the specter starvation curse (Crafting: Occult. Trial. DC 135. - 2 to roll)

>>6052465
>By harnessing it and a touch of carmine mysticism to perform a Chimeric transformation and then charge the monster head on (Martial Trial. DC 140. - 4 to roll)

>>6052465
>Taunt the hunger, and attempt to manifest an avatar of it, that you can puppet through Qi control and a sequence of curses (Restraint/ Puppetry trial. DC 145. - 7 to roll)

>>6052465
>By biting down onto Moon Collapse and infusing the blade with the energy and the specter starvation curse (Crafting: Occult. Trial. DC 135. - 2 to roll)
even if it fails, this is something I'd want to try again later with the weeping scar curse or whatever other curses we learn down the line.

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I Might not be able to write an update today, having some pretty severe toothpain and its giving me a migraine. And I have no idea what is causing it

Figured I should warn you juniors, but I'll endeavor to end the vote and get writing if it subsides

>>6053909
You shouldn't rip it out.

>>6053909
I had some toothache about a year ago from grinding my teeth which was caused by caries which made my jaws lock and muscles strain giving me headaches. It was also compounded by obsessively cleaning my ears thinking the problem was there and eating stuff that activated my slight food allergies which made my gums itch thus worsening the grinding.
Now I have to focus on manually relaxing my shoulders and straightening my neck or my jaw muscle keeps tensing.

The inner workings of the human body get very sensitive around 30.

>>6053948
Have you tried using a bite guard?

>>6053954
I did actually have to use one (3d printed) at night to reset the jaw resting position but the muscle's bad habits slightly persited even afterwards.

Adaptation doesn't always work in our favor.

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62 KB JPG

I've survived my tribulation, and found the source of my toothpain. Got a cut on my gums and the swelling was pressing on the nerves in my jaw! Luckily, sleeping through it worked, just had to sweat it all out. Really glad it didn't last any longer, because it was sheer agony

So I'll end the vote and tallying it now before more mysterious injuries can appear to stop me!

The same way it did, but dye the energy in Destructive Yin, Blood, and Cosmic Q: 2

By biting down onto Moon Collapse and infusing the blade with the energy and the specter starvation curse:5

By harnessing it and a touch of carmine mysticism to perform a Chimeric transformation and then charge the monster head on:1

Taunt the hunger, and attempt to manifest an avatar of it, that you can puppet through Qi control and a sequence of curses:1


So you'll bite down on Moon collapse and try to infuse it with the sea monster's breath and the specter starvation curse

update will arrive shortly

And as adrenaline pours into your veins, combating the unearthly and depthless hunger you invited in for dominance, and the world begins to slow down to a nearly painful crawl as your mind races, filling with ideas of how to turn the sea turtle's breath against it and how best to chop and cook it up, a single stray thought far more casual and idle than the excited and manic storm of schemes of how to turn the natural weapon of your opponent back against it. A pointless observation about the feeling in your gut and how it feels like your stomach and its acids have been replaced with a furnace and its fires. A musing that draws your attention and through the heady, mind and fear numbing haze of the thrill of the fight and hunt and the burning heat of hunger, you recall the few lessons Monu tried to teach you about making more with your hands than medicines, poisons or paper talismans, and the few times you were bored enough to sit by and watch Feiqing at his forge, hammering steel flat and dousing it in oil as he worked in an artistic and graceful silence.

You are by no means a craftsman, such work is far beneath your station and birth, why would royalty, a destined empress no less, lower herself to toil in the fields or workshops? However, faintly, you recall a few vital lessons and key concepts that serve as the foundations of imbuing tools with magic spells. And you know there are far more brutish and heavy handed means of enchanting a weapon besides just gentle easing and convincing the sorcery and Qi powering it to settle in its chosen vessel. It isn't too different from a curse, and most cultivators know a imbuing technique or two or at least know how to sheathe their limbs or weapon with their own Qi.

The dagger of Moon Collapse, made out of your blood crystalized by mystical moonlight, should be able to have a cutting of the specter starvation transferred into it and the island destroying beam's energy poured into it. It came from your body, so it should be able to endure the transfer! And take on the power of the sea churning turtle. And what will become of it when the boar's breath has been imbued into it? Well you have absolutely no clue, but you have a few guesses. Perhaps it will gain a new form? or evolve like a beast would. Or maybe it will just get temporarily powered up? Either way, the worst outcome is that it can't contain the power currently roiling and trying to fight its way out of your belly, in which case it will shatter and just come back together again so there really is no risk to say...biting down on the knife and breathing your cursed breath and the monster's own attack into it is there?

'Except, if I swallow it in a momentary lapse of self control' you think and warn your self as you unsheathe the dagger and bring it up to your mouth, flicking and wrapping your tongue around its blade, not caring if you cuts yourself, mimicking your mother in how she's curls her tongue around her silver pipe
Cont

>>6054679

And what a mysterious and unique flavor it has, it is sweet, but with a strange taste inside the sweetness, that is unlike any meat or spice you've ever had before in your life. The taste of moonlight! That's the only thing it can be!

Taking a deep breath, holding the dagger between your teeth at the bottom of its blade, you call forth the curse and the energy it is consuming to pour them into the artifact clenched in your jaws. And the sea rises up to meet you, water spraying all around as the sea monster tears itself free from the water and launches itself into the sky. Aodasheng pulls his spear arm back as his other hand, partially draconic, begins casting a spell as he focuses in on the monster and doesn't pay your strange behavior even a moment of attention.

roll 2d100-2. DC 135. Best out of five

Rolled 7, 58 - 2 = 63 (2d100 - 2)

>>6054680
Domain Expansion:

Rolled 24, 71 + 2 = 97 (2d100 + 2)

>>6054680

Rolled 82, 27 + 2 = 111 (2d100 + 2)

>>6054680

>>6054680
Let's see if I remember how to roll right

Rolled 42, 70 - 2 = 110 (2d100 - 2)

>>6054680
The zip, the zop, and the zupitybop

Rolled 80, 49 - 2 = 127 (2d100 - 2)

>>6054680
Don't worry, my last four rolls were hilariously bad, therefore this one is bound to be better!

>>6054727
Failure, but by less than 10 under the dc. Update will arrive shortly

But the moment you begin attempting to infuse and alter the spiritual essence intrinsic to moon collapse and imbue it's bleeding edge of moonlight with a hunger for life itself and the bizarre, half righteous fury of the boar turtle, you run into an obstacle. And it isn't the one you feared, that its peculiar taste would make you gulp it down without a second thought as the grip of the hunger on your mind waxed. No, its that the process is much more complicated than merely sheathing it with Qi. The Output of the essence of the cursed and the breath of the sea monster needs to be paced carefully and done in equal measure. It is a complex equation, necessitating complex and excellent Qi control. An on the fly enchantment. As simple as it seems to simply fill it like an empty cup seems, it isn't as quickly done as filling a cup would be. You have to pause, to pull back excess spiritual energy and to adjust the ratio between the curse and the searing breath barely contained in your body. You shut your eyes to focus and concentrate, and certainly not to keep from looking at the quickly approaching tusked maw of the behemoth whose territory you've flew into, intent on making its lifeforce into a meal. But its roaring and the constant spray of water moving so fast that it feels like it is just about to begin cutting into and scoring your skin makes it difficult to concentrate on the exact combination of cursed ghostly hunger and sea monster breath. And even if adrenaline and the rush of battle makes time seem to move slower, the oceanic beast is shooting out of the sea about as fast as an avalanche down a hillside!

Aodasheng clicks his tongue, and for a moment, the raging of the sea and the monster that rules it goes silent. You pause your infusion, opening your eyes to see what he's done and why you aren't feeling the warmth of the inside of the monster's throat as you expected you would and were prepared to claw your way out. It is right beneath you, the closeness of it and the sight of its teeth with pieces of the hulls of ships stuck in between them makes your heart flutters, while the sight of the ghost still chained to their posts on the vessels it devoured makes your hunger swell.

Aodasheng is standing, atop its lower jaw, the spear of mortal death stabbed through its whipping, barbed tonge as he holds out his other arm into the steam rising from the gullet of the beast. Ethereal chains of teal fire, have burst from his wrist, opening up the wounds where he had been bound and shackled to his mortal remains
Cont

>>6054744

"WHATEVER THE HELL YOU'RE DOING BITING ONTO THAT KNIFE! HURRY UP AND FINISH!" Aodasheng roars, clad in armor of mist, styled in the scales of a dragon, fangs intermixed with his teeth "I can only hold this beast back for so long! It's taking all I have to keep it at bay! Use the opening! Finish the technique or spell or whatever it is your attempting or give me the command to tear out a few of its fangs! Fly higher if you must! A ghost can't die a second death so easily!"

"Ao" You say over the blade, but with your tongue wrapped around Moon Collapse and the dagger filling your mouth, it comes out muffled and slurred. He really is proving his worth as a bodyguard in this fight. If he hadn't stepped in front of you when he did, you'd be clawing your way out of that giant turtle's mouth.

"No time for idle praises or niceties, steady your aim and take your shot! I know the power you wield and how dangerous you can be when cornered, don't hold back! There's nothing worth you restraining your power out here in the open sea! Whatever you're planning, do it before I loose my footing or it breaks the seal of these cursed chains!" He bellows back, eyes fierce and smile looking almost as deranged as you must seem, chewing on a shard of glass.

What do you do, Huanliuxue?

>Stop trying to do delicate work in the middle of battle, and pull moon collapse out of your mouth and blast the ugly monster with its own breath, directly down its throat! (Magic Trial. DC reduced due to assistance. DC 95 - 2)

>Take advantage of the time Aodasheng bought you, and carefully finish the infusing process and the moment you finish, rip Moon Collapse out of your mouth and chop the sea monster's mouth (Crafting: Occult + Martial Trial. DC 125 - 5)

>Bite down on and split moon collapse in two, swallowing back the sea monster's breath and instead drop on the monsters face and go for its eyes (Martial Trial. DC 85 - 5)

>Dive down into the sea, putting as much distance between yourself and the sea monster as you can to finish the process of infusing moon collapse and to reposition yourself, trusting Aodasheng to hold it off as you do

>Write in

>>6054747
>Dive down into the sea, putting as much distance between yourself and the sea monster as you can to finish the process of infusing moon collapse and to reposition yourself, trusting Aodasheng to hold it off as you do

>>6054747
>Take the time to finish off the infusion, then slash the mouth. Dc 125

>>6054747
>Take advantage of the time Aodasheng bought you, and carefully finish the infusing process and the moment you finish, rip Moon Collapse out of your mouth and chop the sea monster's mouth (Crafting: Occult + Martial Trial. DC 125 - 5)

>>6054747
>>Stop trying to do delicate work in the middle of battle, and pull moon collapse out of your mouth and blast the ugly monster with its own breath, directly down its throat! (Magic Trial. DC reduced due to assistance. DC 95 - 2)

>>6054747
>Dive down into the sea, putting as much distance between yourself and the sea monster as you can to finish the process of infusing moon collapse and to reposition yourself, trusting Aodasheng to hold it off as you do
We evolve in battle.
This is our cultivation.

>>6054747
>Stop trying to do delicate work in the middle of battle, and pull moon collapse out of your mouth and blast the ugly monster with its own breath, directly down its throat! (Magic Trial. DC reduced due to assistance. DC 95 - 2)

>>6054747
>Stop trying to do delicate work in the middle of battle, and pull moon collapse out of your mouth and blast the ugly monster with its own breath, directly down its throat! (Magic Trial. DC reduced due to assistance. DC 95 - 2)

>>6054747
>Dive down into the sea, putting as much distance between yourself and the sea monster as you can to finish the process of infusing moon collapse and to reposition yourself, trusting Aodasheng to hold it off as you do
Spirit bomb moment, just without Ao needing to hold the jobber stick while we charge

>>6054747
>Stop trying to do delicate work in the middle of battle, and pull moon collapse out of your mouth and blast the ugly monster with its own breath, directly down its throat! (Magic Trial. DC reduced due to assistance. DC 95 - 2)

Ending the vote and tallying its result now.

Dive down into the sea, putting as much distance between yourself and the sea monster as you can to finish the process of infusing moon collapse and to reposition yourself, trusting Aodasheng to hold it off as you do:3

Take advantage of the time Aodasheng bought you, and carefully finish the infusing process and the moment you finish, rip Moon Collapse out of your mouth and chop the sea monster's mouth:2

Stop trying to do delicate work in the middle of battle, and pull moon collapse out of your mouth and blast the ugly monster with its own breath, directly down its throat!:4

Very close vote, but you'll stop trying to buff moon collapse and instead just blast the monster with its own breath attack!

Update will arrive shortly

And twisting around the enchanted piece of moonglass and crystalized blood stuck between your teeth as you think, the light of the sea monster's breath and the blood moonlight trapped within moon collapse pouring out of and shining between your lips as you think about if you should keep up the effort to infuse the curse and monstrous attack into the dagger at all. It isn't like you'll lose your chance to do it if you go for a more brute force approach and stop trying to perform a flashy, fancy move while fighting against a dull witted beast with ships' stuck between its teeth. The sensible and restrained part of you and the deranged, staving voice it is holding back both agree and speak together as you realize that the best move to make would be to just stun the behemoth and then try to drip its power into your knife. Though after agreeing on stunning it, the gluttonous urge and your fighting instincts and martial ituition immediately start disagreeing on what is to be done after you stun the boar turtle with a blast of raw destructive energy to its mouth and down its throat?

Take a bite out of its lifeforce? Taste its bloods? or breath your curse and its breath into your knife, line up a few cuts and cripple? But those two choices are so basic and boring to be barely worth considering at all. And what you do next, doesn't matter until the behemoth in front of you is stunned and reeling. And it'll take more than a clubbing to accomplish that. So, pulling mooncollapse out of your mouth, knicking your tongue and lips with its ragged edge, savoring the flavor of the blood dripping from it as it becomes super saturated with moonlight and cosmic rays, you pull your head back, lift up your shoulders and breath deeply in. Lifting up your hands from the bottom of you stomach to the top of your throat as you fill your lungs and draw the spiritual energy and ghostly curse you'd allowed to spill out into your mouth back into your stomach, which you turn into a crucible, refining and strengthen the admixture of the beastly, ghostly and the divine and focus and center your eyes on the exact center of the sea boar's mouth as your cheeks puff up and glow a bright, as the energies you're condensing and forcing together begin to overflow and escape the confines of your stomach.

Pressure builds behind your eyeballs, and your eyes start to water as a sensation like needing to vomit but worsened by a hundredfold that was also made agonizing as what was being held back felt like it was ripping you apart at the seams washes over you and blanks out every thought in your head

Roll 2d100-2. DC 95. best out of five

Rolled 54, 57 + 2 = 113 (2d100 + 2)

>>6056159
Big numbers boisssss. But not vaporize.

Rolled 31, 74 - 2 = 103 (2d100 - 2)

>>6056159

>>6056173
Too bad, check this 60 over DC roll, SKREEEOOOOONK

Rolled 68, 19 + 2 = 89 (2d100 + 2)

>>6056159

Rolled 44, 6 - 2 = 48 (2d100 - 2)

>>6056159

Rolled 5, 36 - 2 = 39 (2d100 - 2)

>>6056159

>>6056173
Fair success. 10 over DC. Update will arrive shortly

Except for a single word, that claws its way through the conflagration super heated air and blazing Qi struggling to escape your jaws to become realized as an inferno outside of your body. A low, threatening growl and an imperial command barked at a general standing in the way of your counterattack

"Move!

Aodasheng does not need to be told twice and with practiced skill and swiftness, pulls the spear of mortal death free from the jaw of the sea monster, ripping its squirming tongue in half and sending each torn piece thrashing as he leaps backwards and out of the way of the blast of your attack before the energies pushing up your throat can be expelled. And with a flick of his wrist, he pulls the spectral chains pierced through the lips and jawbones of the behemoth, forcing its mouth open wider as you part your lips and all you see, everything in your vision is blotted out with burning white light as the defiant below of the sea monster is silence by your own shriek and the screeching of the spiritual energy scorching the air, evaporating the sea water tossed into it as it rushes out of your mouth, forming first a miniscule dot, no larger than a grain of sand that grows to the size of a pearl before expanding and growing until it hides everything except the shadow of your prey from sight with its radiant light. You're thrown back, having leaned forward as you copied the sea boar's movement and used its stolen power, regurgitating its breath with whorls and smears of ghostly yin and deathly yin qi and malevolent and cursed spiritual energy marring the sky blue pillar of lethal light.

Rolling and tumbling backwards, you're launched at a ridiculous and blinding speed from the whiplash of the force of the blast you spat out of your mouth. It is perhaps one of the simplest and most organic attacks one can form from Qi, just a burst of spiritual energy, but with the amount, refinement, purity and density of the Qi you captured and swallowed, it has an explosive result. The air itself wavers and the seas still before rippling and crackling as the pillar screams through the air and shoots down into the sea monster's gullet, glowing brightly as it tears through its throat, ripping off a few of its fangs and pushing it back down towards the sea as the blood spilled is immediately evaporated and turned into a vermillion mist.

Aodasheng catches you by the back of your robe, like it were the scruff of your neck, stopping your from careening into the sky and back towards the distant shore, his red black eyes wide with amazement as he watches the behemoth get tossed back to the sea, its shell cracking before a hole is bored through it as the breath you exhaled tears through its neck and out of its body with a geyser of blood and super heated, scarlet colored steam.

"Impressive" he says simply, letting go of you as you try to catch your breath, smirking smugly as you pant and whip your hair around
Cont

>>6056232

"Everything I do is!" You brag, grinning as the lightheadedness quiets the demands of your ghastly hunger for a few moments, and almost makes your forget that the sea monster isn't down for the count and dead yet, as chunks of its shell and scaley flesh rain down around you, already decaying as they plummet to the same waters it was thrown down to.

But no sooner than those boastful words leave your mouth, does one of its tentacles swing and nearly slap both you and Aodasheng, with the both of you narrowly avoiding it by leaping to the side, and your specter lightness skill sending you higher up in the air as the wind whipped by the strike carries your partially ethereal body further aloft/

"Determined cretin, isn't it? I think you've roused its rage" Aodasheng helpfully remarks as he leans against his spear, his eyes sharp despite his relaxed demeanor, seeking a target for his deadly spear, like a hawk pursuing a hare "Though, is it the wound or the sight of you outperforming it with its own signature move that has enraged it, I wonder?"

"No time to ask such pointless questions" You scold, baring your teeth like fangs as you look down at the behemoth bleeding into the sea, and narrowly avoid a second swing of the tentacle you'd just dodge "But I think you're right, since it does seem to be focusing on trying to swat me down!"

"Beasts know when they're in the presence of a rival, or predator" Aodasheng muses before snapping his fingers, and fully transforming into a spectral dragon and roaring as he flies through the pouring blood, rotten meat and burning steam. And you can't tell if he's doing it to try and draw the sea monster's attention, or because he's excited to tussle and play around with it some more.

Either way, what is your next move, Huanliuxue?

>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)

>Charge up a super massive destructive Yin Sphere to obliterate the area of the sea the sea monster is inside of (Magic trial. DC 150 - 5 to roll)

>Launch yourself down at it, and perform the shooting star stampede, aiming for its head and skull! (martial trial. DC 110. -2 to roll)

>Employ the whispering death claw to tear out portions of its lifeforce, clawing its tentacles as it tries to bash you to the ground...er sea (Martial trial. DC 85 - 5 to roll)

>Write in

>>6056233
>>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)

We must feast.

>>6056233
>Finish embueing

>>6056233
>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)

>>6056233
>>Employ the whispering death claw to tear out portions of its lifeforce, clawing its tentacles as it tries to bash you to the ground...er sea (Martial trial. DC 85 - 5 to roll)

>>6056233
>Employ the whispering death claw to tear out portions of its lifeforce, clawing its tentacles as it tries to bash you to the ground...er sea (Martial trial. DC 85 - 5 to roll)

>>6056233
>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)

>>6056233
>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)

Unfortunately, dear juniors, another mysterious injury has afflicted me, your grandfather. I think I sprained or strained my dominant hand cause it hurts to move it. Intensely, in the case of some movements, like turning it over or clenching it into a fist. Haven't done anything besides read books, make tea and play video game since I wrote the last update, so I have no idea what I did to cause this.

But update is probably going to be delayed unless it miraculously stops hurting.

It was a tribulation writing this, btw

>>6056852
Hopefully it isn't some kind of tendonitis. Maybe try icing your wrist/hand a bit?

>>6056852
Ice your hand, my bet you unconsciously pulled a muscle and it's tightened up. If you got a muscle relaxer could help, if not massaging it could help. Prob be a day before it loosens up and goes to manageable levels.

>>6056233
>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)
Might as well.

>>6056852
Take care of yourself, Grandfather.

>>6056852
The curse has been particularly active the past few days

>>6056233
>Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun (Agility trial DC 75. -5 to roll)
>>6056852
Besides what everyone else has mentioned, I find wrapping my wrist helps sometimes.

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209 KB PNG

Pain in my wrist is mostly gone now, so I'll end the vote and tally its result before anything else can go wrong with this ruined temple of a body

Finish imbuing moon collapse with the breath of the sea monster you held onto, while dodging the strikes, and let Aodasheng have his fun:7

Employ the whispering death claw to tear out portions of its lifeforce, clawing its tentacles as it tries to bash you to the ground...er sea:2

So you will finish imbuing Moon Collapse with the sea monster's breath/ cure, while dodging its attacks

Update will arrive shortly


>>6056875
>>6056886
>>6057033
>>6057178
Thanks for the advice and well-wishes, it really helped

Well his intent doesn't matter, he'll be a distraction either away. Averting your eyes so you won't be transfixed by the oddly graceful dance between the dragon transformed Aodasheng, rippling through the air like a banner, every scale sparkling like polished jade and cut gems as he moves through the rays of light piercing through the storm clouds, his tail snapping like a whip as he extends his claws and weaves through the sea boar's lashing tentacles. The guttural roars and bellows of a beast in pain ripple through the sea and are so loud you can actually see them move through the air, displacing clouds and mist as an half visible wave, echo across the sea as Aodasheng begins to battle the sea monster with tooth, claw, and forbidden magics that you can only catch glimpses of through the storm clouds and falling pieces of shell and rain of blood and viscera. Which only emboldens the curse and the hunger shadowing every thought you have.

Clicking your tongue, you flick moon collapse and catch it in a reverse grip, before bringing it to your mouth, holding it flat in front of your lips, and slowly breath out a tamed mixture of the beast's breath and the specter starvation' curses miasma over its edge, more delicately and carefully seeping the two spiritual essences into its glass like blade as you relax your body, allowing every part of it to go slack as you strain your ears and turn them feline to better hear the wind. And also sprout whiskers so you can sense the faint vibrations caused by the slightest movement of the sea boar's tentacles. You need hands to hold the enchanted dagger, but Chimeric transformation allows you to enjoy the sharper senses and the ones that humans lack entirely while still making use of your own two hands.

And the decision to quickly transform and take on a partially feline body, immediately proves its wisdom as you lean back instinctlively and narrowly avoid a hooked barb shooting out from the tip of one of the sea boar's many tentacles, and hop backwards to avoid the face tearing suction of the cups lining the same gargantuan limb.

"You're going to make this as difficult as you can, aren't you, you stupid brute" You snarl and spit, as you breath out more ghostly mist and raw spiritual energy, washing it over your enchanted knife and bare hands, the curses tendrils digging into the beast's breath still trying to tear it apart and consume it even outside of your body. The sight of which is uncomfortably close to watching a parasite crawl out of its host and nearly is enough to make you lose the appetite you've embraced and fanned the flames of just to keep a clear head! Which is impressive in its own way.

Shaking your head, you allow yourself to fall to void another wild swing of the sea monster's tentacle, and corral your wandering thoughts, if only so the idea of parasites can't distract you with how disgusting it is.

Roll 2d100-5. Best out of five. DC 75

Rolled 83, 26 - 5 = 104 (2d100 - 5)

>>6058126

Rolled 93, 67 - 5 = 155 (2d100 - 5)

>>6058126

Rolled 76, 37 - 5 = 108 (2d100 - 5)

>>6058126

>>6058136
Damn. Doubled the DC. Cool. But this one will be a natty followed by a 76!

Rolled 1, 79 - 5 = 75 (2d100 - 5)

>>6058126

>>6058148
Well, you kind of predicted one half of your roll there. Still need two more, but I'm content to wait for them

>>6057070
Oh I am well aware, its hounding me hard

>>6058211
Oof an one and exactly on dc

Rolled 28, 14 - 5 = 37 (2d100 - 5)

>>6058126

>>6058136
AMAZING SUCCESS. 80 OVER DC. Update will arrive shortly!

>>6058211
Another peculiar roll.

File: 1718509426291583.gif (624 KB, 211x119)

624 KB GIF

These dice sure have been pretty funny this roll.

Purging your mind of all unnecessary thoughts, leaving only clarity and that stubborn hunger you're fighting to quash and cut away, and forcing yourself to ignore how much the pieces of the curse struggling to draw the vital breath of the sea boar back into your stomach looks like awful parasitic worms, you trust yourself and the work of imbuing moon collapse into your highly refined and trained instincts, battle acumen and sorcerous training thrust to the forefront of your mind to keep a tight collar on the hunger that wants nothing more than to drink deeply of the mystical life force you freely give up to strength and change the artifact in your hand.

And then you close your eyes, to improve your hearing, letting your whiskers and ears warn you of the sea monster's next sequence of whip like strikes and ship crushing blows as you glide through the air like a ghostly mist, shaping the Qi as you expel it with your breath over moon collapse, meditating in motion as your washed with sea spray and can only picture how Aodasheng's fight with the ship eating turtle is going from the two, distinctive set of roars cracking the sky and splitting the sea. With hand signs and a carefully constructed array of Qi and blood drawn and levitated around and over the knife in your hands, you imbue the last of the energy it needs to be imbued with both specter starvation and the mighty breath of the fleet crashing boar, all the while you drift and float elegantly away from the monster's furious attacks, always remaining just out of reach as the moon glass turns molten in your hands. But strangely remains cool to the touch, feeling more like clay than anything else as the dagger reacts to the forces and essence poured into and starts to transform.

Without fear, without urgency and without concern or panic, you allow the winds to carry you like a flower petal as the sea monster exhausts itself chasing after and trying to vent its frustration and fury on you with one half of its hull breaking arms, while the other are kept occupied by Aodasheng's flying over, under and between them, drawing blood and the ocean ruling beast's ire while you perform what must look like the most regal and beautiful dance in the sky. If any ship at the misfortune of passing through this battleground, then surely its crew would become your worshipers just from the sight of your fairy like movements through the storm clouds and the chaos beneath them.

And you feel Moon collapse split into two halves, on its own accord, its ringing changing tune and sounding almost like the kind of bell some farmer's ring to call their flocks of chicken to be fed. And with a growl, the hunger afflicting you reminds you of its existence and you open your eyes, as you finish filling the treasure born and spilled out of your veins with both the curse and the sea monster's own lively essence.

Cont

>>6058262

And see that you weren't just wasting your time and breath doing all of this, as you see that the artifact in your hand has taken on a new form. And like you assumed, was capable of transforming and alternating its forms in more ways than it had already displayed by fragmenting and splintering and coming back together.

One of the halves has, somehow, stretched and grown to the length of a bo staff or spear, tipped with a three pronged head, the moon rabbit fur also stretching the length of its haft, while the other half has been shaped into a crude and oversized cleaver that is surprisingly light in the hand, and the two halves are connected by a chain that is only partially tangible and solid. And you can tell from a glance and whiff that its links were made from the "arms" of the specter starvation curse that tried to drag the sea monster's life force back down your throat.

And the inner moonlight trapped within the glass has dimmed, and taken on a yellow ting, like a moon split between being a blood moon and a harvest moon. A fitting change, and one you can notice even though all the world is dyed the yellow of rendered fat and the crimson of red blood to your eyes right now, from the grip you've allowed the unnatural hunger to have on you.

Its new abilities, if its has any while in this peculiar form, are unknown to you, but from spiritual sense alone you can tell that a cut from either the trident or axe like cleaver will not transmit the normal lunacy coating moon collapse's edge, but instead spread the curse of specter starvation. And if you had to guess, it wouldn't be any ordinary form of that already dangerous curse, but the mean and stubborn form of it that you've accidentally cultivated by resisting it so long. The hunger of a golden core.

This altered from of Moon Collapse very, very dangerous tool. And you're in no state of mind to test out the extent and limits of any other powers it might be hiding away, because just holding the trident and cleaver makes the hunger gnawing at your mind grow larger and heavier than it already was.

And with drool dripping down your chin, you don't run from the next tentacle that falls down toward you, intent on splattering you across the sea. Instead of dodging or leaping back, you rush towards it, throwing the trident to one side of it, and using the chain of hunger connecting it to the cleaver in your hand to wrap around and bind the massive, sea beating arm, holding it in place as with a flick of your wrist and surprising ease you cut through and sever the tentacle from the sea monster's body.

Relishing in the spray of blood and opening your mouth to catch as much of it as you can as you hop onto the stump of tentacle, swaying back and forth to keep balance and in line with its wild and chaotic motions, you nearly give into the urge to stuff your face and fill your belly before snapping back to reality and reminding yourself you're in a life or death struggle.
Cont

>>6058263

Lifting up your empty hand, you grab the chain and pull the trident back to you as fist size drops of blood hammer down onto your back as you crouch down and watch as Aodasheng, in his human form again, whips tendrils of dead grey water at the sea monster, patches of rot appearing over its slimy scaled hide as it tries to fend him off with one of its smaller tentacles. But its barely paying attention to him or his dance like movements and cursed chanting spreading decay through the water and under its skin, its eyes are focused on you, and look murderously enraged as it spots you standing atop the stump of its tentacle, drenched in its blood, grinning ear to ear down at it.

It opens its mouth, and reveals that it has more than one as long, lamprey toothed heads rise up in front of it, the sky burning blue light glowing in all of them

The trident now in your hand again, rumbles with a ring like a whale's song, and the yellow moonlight peeling away from it turns shockingly and almost electric blue.

And you grin as you realize it to can fire a beam of vaporizing light, of the same kind you spat down the sea boar's throat!

But there's no time to gawk or celebrate. There's a fish to gut and a fight to win! And besides that, said fish is trying to drag you and maimed tentacle you're standing on down into the briny depths below! So attacking or retreating, you have to act quickly! How exciting!

What is your next move, Huanliuxue?

>Run down the tentacle, and use the trident to snipe and blast any of the monstrous heads trying to hit you with the sea monster's deadly breath (Accuracy/ Magic trial. DC 135. - 4 to roll)

>Steal Aodasheng's trick and toss the trident and lighten your body with the specter lightness skill to swiftly fly over to where he's fighting and help him over there, forcing the sea monster to waste time turning its heads (Martial trial. DC 116 -2 to rollres)

>Use the chain of moon collapse's transformed state and treat the cleaver like a rope dart or meteor hammer, and cut apart any part of the sea boar that rises up to attack you (Martial trial. DC 148 - 2 to roll)

>Use your blood control and the weapon in your hands to dive and tear through the sea monster's arm, and burst out of it when you're close enough to its body to reach its vitals (Restraint + haste trial. DC 150. - 6 to roll)

>Just fly and run across the water between its multiple, smaller heads, and trick them into hitting themselves with that ship annihilating attack they so love (Trickery + dexterity trial. DC 95. - 3 to roll)

>Write in

>>6058264
>>Steal Aodasheng's trick and toss the trident and lighten your body with the specter lightness skill to swiftly fly over to where he's fighting and help him over there, forcing the sea monster to waste time turning its heads (Martial trial. DC 116 -2 to rollres)
Tag team TAG TEAM

>>6058264
>Just fly and run across the water between its multiple, smaller heads, and trick them into hitting themselves with that ship annihilating attack they so love (Trickery + dexterity trial. DC 95. - 3 to roll)

>>6058264
I feel this would be a good time for

>Cat's court

>>6058264
>Transmute our body into blood and travel through the monster's own blood vessels from the tentacle stump to the heart, then transform back and attack it from within
Also this last update made me want to shout "THE FAULT LIES WITH YOU"

>>6058302
Oh, and use Cat's Court to retreat afterwards

>>6058264
>>Just fly and run across the water between its multiple, smaller heads, and trick them into hitting themselves with that ship annihilating attack they so love (Trickery + dexterity trial. DC 95. - 3 to roll)

>>6058264
>Just fly and run across the water between its multiple, smaller heads, and trick them into hitting themselves with that ship annihilating attack they so love (Trickery + dexterity trial. DC 95. - 3 to roll)
No reason to overcomplicate this. The enemy is pissed and unlikely to think things through, leaving them vulnerable to a simple trick. Let us exploit this weakness while we can.

>>6058264
>Steal Aodasheng's trick and toss the trident and lighten your body with the specter lightness skill to swiftly fly over to where he's fighting and help him over there, forcing the sea monster to waste time turning its heads (Martial trial. DC 116 -2 to rollres)
yeah tag team is a vibe.

>>6058264
>Steal Aodasheng's trick and toss the trident and lighten your body with the specter lightness skill to swiftly fly over to where he's fighting and help him over there, forcing the sea monster to waste time turning its heads (Martial trial. DC 116 -2 to rollres)

Rolled 2 (1d2)

Ending and tallying the vote now, took a bit longer than I intended to but I was once again honor bound to tend a garden that isn't mine under the full heat of the summer day.

Steal Aodasheng's trick and toss the trident and lighten your body with the specter lightness skill to swiftly fly over to where he's fighting and help him over there, forcing the sea monster to waste time turning its head:3

Just fly and run across the water between its multiple, smaller heads, and trick them into hitting themselves with that ship annihilating attack they so love:3

Cat's court: 2

Transmute our body into blood and travel through the monster's own blood vessels from the tentacle stump to the heart, then transform back and attack it from within:1

So I'll tie break, since its been like a day since a vote has come in, so clearly it won't resolve itself naturally

1: Tag team

2:Just fly

>>6059715
Alright! So will just fly around the sea monster's multiple heads, and try to dodge its attacks and trick it into hitting itself with its destructive breath

Update will arrive shortly

Swiftly, in the rush of excitement and through the pangs of hunger, you decide that Aodasheng is a big boy and can handle himself. He is far, far older than you are and besides that, while tag teaming the sea monster with him would be effective, you aren't quite hungry enough to lust for spoiled meat and he's using that nasty curse he spat at you that had turned your brain rotten! And fighting beside him won't deal with the biggest obstacle in your way. All the sea monster will need to do is turn its head, er, heads and the two of you will be shot down like mallards! Sure you managed to steal and swallow the gathered energy of its breath that could blow a island to pieces, but the sea boar has shown it has more than one mouth and you don't think you can catch all of its sea evaporating blasts of Qi all at once when there's more of them filling the sky than there are fish in the sea.

So, deciding that it'd be best to let Aodasheng fight on his own, you dive forward, spinning the cleaver half of Moon collapse around while holding the trident at your side, noting how the winds and sea water seem to be drawn to it and just flying over the surface of the sea causes a vortex of both to gather around its three tips, shielding your arm with wind and water you dip down and glide over the sea's top.

Touching your heels down, you start running across the surface of the ocean, having made your body intangible and light enough to stay atop the water even if you stop running. A handful of the heads and smaller tentacles slither after you, gnashing their jaws and whipping in the air as they race after you like dogs on the hunt. Grinning, you flick your tongue over your lips and enjoy the sweet taste of the sea monster's lifeforce and the blood containing it as your mind races, instincts firing as you drift and slide across the water, flashes of intuition and martial foresight warning you when to dodge and leap as they flare into your mind's eye like so many fireworks.

Flying over a row of gnashing teeth that ripped through the sea in front of you, you end up right where you want to be, even if the wildest of your fellow daosists would think you had gone mad sprinting up to it. It is a killing zone, a firing line, somewhere no one else in the world except perhaps Aodasheng would be cocky enough to throw themselves into and stand proudly. And they would be kind of right, considering that you've allowed yourself to be addled with hunger to tame it and bring it under control. But they'd also be wrong, since you didn't rush down here wanting to take a bite out of the sea monster, though now that you think about it, fresh turtle does sound tasty.

But no, that isn't what made you decide to launch yourself between its deadly attacks, and thinking on it for a second, the actual reason would probably make any doubters think you were even crazier.
Cont

>>6059723

But they wouldn't understand, since it'd take a visionary prodigy to realize and accomplish what you're endeavoring to do. Tricking and fooling the sea boar into hitting itself with its own mystical breath and destroying its smaller heads in the blast, thus removing its most dangerous attack like its fangs had been pulled. And honestly, few beneath the heavens besides yourself have the talent or daring to pull it off.

roll 2d100-3. DC 95. Best out of five

Rolled 83, 61 - 3 = 141 (2d100 - 3)

>>6059726

Rolled 73, 81 - 3 = 151 (2d100 - 3)

>>6059726
You should shoot yourself NOW

Rolled 85, 67 - 3 = 149 (2d100 - 3)

>>6059726
Unlimited Huan Works

Rolled 71, 38 = 109 (2d100)

>>6059726
Wap

Rolled 89, 89 - 5 = 173 (2d100 - 5)

>>6059726

>>6059790
Oops, I subtracted 5 instead of 3. Does that still count? Are we getting 80 over DC?

>>6059790
>80 over DC
Something about low DC's just seems to make Huan want to go above and beyond

>>6059790
Incredible success! 80 Over DC. Update will arrive shortly

The world around you, though still dyed that same oddly unpleasant let tantalizing shade of red, becomes a sea of shooting stars and flashing lights that would burn your eyes if you stood still long enough for the glare to fully envelope them. Every sound is drowned out by the ear piercing shriek of the sea monster's life force burning lances of pure spiritual energy, rippling through the air and twisting around like thrashing snakes as they try to just wing you. However there is one truth in the world that could never be denied or refuted. And that is that a tortoise could never keep up with a cat in flight! Ducking, diving and all but dancing through the air, you avoid each attack that would be enough to put a whole in a fleet and reduce any ship it touched into a cloud of wooden splinters and smoke with as much ease as avoiding a bucket of water, thrust spear or grasping hands. Sheathing every muscle fiber and bone in your body with blood Qi and turning your body malleable, freely shifting between different proportions of feline and human and staying in a constant chimeric state, switching out body parts and characteristics as you might jewelry and as quickly done as pulling off and discarding gloves, you become a blur of crimson, moving faster than the sea boar could possibly keep up with

Though the brutish beast does make a monumental effort to strike you down and envelope you with its natural and very deadly sorcery, its attempts are all for naught, even when it begins aiming in front of you. As if you were not aware and quick enough to simply adjust your trajectory and move midflight or sprint over the sea. Most of the world becomes a blur, even the blood seeping into your vision due to how deeply you've bid specter starvation's curse to sink its teeth into you body and soul begins to wane and recede as you shoot through the air and across the water like a bolt of scarlet lightning.

Blood and chunks of smoking flesh and severed, eyeless heads rain down around you, sending waves across the raging sea as the sea monster wounds and cripples itself in its vain attempts to just make your nose bleed, its frustration severing its heads and literally disarming it as it launches attack after attack and puts everything it has in the effort to make you pay for stealing its lethal spell and spitting it back into its hideous face. Its fun, on a primal level, running around and pouncing here and there. Like chasing minnows in a river. But you can't dwell on the entertainment value of this evasive dance, otherwise you'll start to think and lose the advantage of instinctually dodging and avoiding the magic that is moving so fast it might as well be like trying to race the sound of thunder.
Cont

>>6059836

A race you're easily winning. Eventually, the two smaller heads that remain after the self inflicted injuries from the sea monster's volleys of island erasing beams, retreat under the surface of the water, which becomes much more choppy as the sea begins to twist and spiral into itself

A vortex large enough to swallow a ship as easily as a fly would be eaten by a dragon. You stick out your legs, which at the moment were mostly feline but rapidly shift back to fully human, and stab the trident half of moon collapse into the sea and use it as an anchor to grab hold of and spin around to quickly lose all of the speed and momentum you had picked up racing across the sea as fast as your well cultivated physique and perfectly honed body could move with the additional boost of your blood Qi empowering and reinforcing your limbs.

And, spinning in the opposite direction of the vortex, holding onto the trident like it were a solid pillar, you realize as you twist and throw your legs around and over it, that through the altered form of moon collapse containing the sea monster's stolen breath, you're reversing the movement of the whirlpool the sea boar conjured and calming the waters. And the monstrous turtle seems as surprised as you are that you can do this. Not that you'd need the spear, with how many of its own body it tore open or blasted cleanly off, the patch of sea you're fighting it in is more blood than water.

And in the moment of peace that is created by it be stunned still, you see that Aodasheng has inflicted his fair share of wounds upon it, having caused the side of it he's fighting to look like it had been inflicted with leprosy or was a walk, eh, swimming corpse. The sea monster has nothing resembling a defense or protection from the ghost king's terrible curses, it seems. Though, admittedly, you weren't able to do much against that particular hex besides recover from it and beneath the heavens you are without equal in terms of you resilience to ghostly energies and deathly yin qi!

But you can only admire his grisly handiwork for a moment, until your instincts warn you of an impending attack, but when you turn and flick the cleaver in your hand in a hasty attempt to block, you instead come face to face with the tusked sea beast, whose bristly hide is starting to lift up as the air over the sea is electrified.

Leaping back, you end up splitting a bolt of lightning in two as you arm finishes its swing and the cleaver half of moon collapse meats the first of a shower of lightning bolts raining through the rent sky.

The sea monster swims backwards, keeping its eyes on you as it attempt to escape the battlefield and live another day, rather than seek revenge against you or Aodasheng for wounding it. Proving that despite its touch of divinity, its mind is bestial after all.
Cont

>>6059839

Which lifts a weight from your shoulder you hadn't noticed beneath the desperate hunger or rush of battle, that it might be a magical beast of some sort. Even though you've eaten other ascended beasts before. How strange~.

But after shaking off that realization, you're stopped from moving in to cut its throat, by a hail of directed bolts of lightning, that you block with a barrier of dying grudge shields. It is a little too clever for a mindless animal, but then again, plenty of ordinary beasts are!

Aodasheng isn't barred in such an infuriating manner like you are, and merrily continues his assault against it, changing his tactics, and instead sending a wave of waterlogged bones barely formed into coherent and complete skeletons, after the retreating sea monster to peel away the rotten flesh and tear into the still healthy meat underneath it. Though you have absolutely no idea where he got all of them from, and as you're trying to avoid being struck by lightning, can't exactly pause for a moment to ponder where he sourced a small's army worth of bones in the middle of the open sea!

What is your next move, Huanliuxue?

>See if the curse will allow you to eat lightning, figuring it to, is an expression of life in someways, and trying to take a bite out of and chew your way through the storm (Fortitude Trial. DC 165)

>Wrap yourself in an armor made out of every type of protection and barrier spell you can conjure, and just march after the fleeing sea monster (Magic trial. DC 130 - 4 to roll)

>Give the sea boar a taste of its own medicine, and cloud the sea with as many grudges and as much resentment as you can pour out of your reserves of both, to slow it down and weaken it further (Magic trial. DC 112 - 2 to roll)

>Cut the sea and lightning between you and the sea monster with the cleaver side of moon collapse, and then try to pin it with the trident half of it (Martial trial. DC 155 - 2 to roll)

>Write in

>>6059840
>Turn the bloody sea below into a source of blood qi and use it to empower our and Grudge cloud.

>cloud the sky with grudges to slow and weaken it.

>>6059863
Supporting

>>6059840
>See if the curse will allow you to eat lightning, figuring it to, is an expression of life in someways, and trying to take a bite out of and chew your way through the storm (Fortitude Trial. DC 165)

>>6059790
ayo dub roll, nice

>>6059840
>See if the curse will allow you to eat lightning, figuring it to, is an expression of life in someways, and trying to take a bite out of and chew your way through the storm (Fortitude Trial. DC 165)

Eating energy should greatly help our cultivation going forward.
With that in mind, I think the DC for this is acceptable.

>>6059840
>>Give the sea boar a taste of its own medicine, and cloud the sea with as many grudges and as much resentment as you can pour out of your reserves of both, to slow it down and weaken it further (Magic trial. DC 112 - 2 to roll)
get it ready for the killing blow

>>6059863
I would like to fix an element of my write in.
The beasts blood can be used as a sympathetic target, like the Ling Bitch.
We dont need to aim, just curse using its blood below as the tether.

>>6059840
>>Give the sea boar a taste of its own medicine, and cloud the sea with as many grudges and as much resentment as you can pour out of your reserves of both, to slow it down and weaken it further (Magic trial. DC 112 - 2 to roll)

>>6060431
>>6059863
supporting the write-in

>>6059840
so with 5 for the curse it with grudges and 3 write ins, I'd like to remove my vote for Grudge poisoning here >>6059863
So by my maths, should be 4 curse and 3 write in to support the grudge, so by being over half the number of supports and complimentary, it should go through.

If I remember how votes work, and haven't gotten confused with a second quest.

File: 1662716794913100.jpg (329 KB, 1164x1174)

329 KB JPG

Ending and tallying the vote now, meant to do it yesterday, but I couldn't find the time to, sorry.

See if the curse will allow you to eat lightning, figuring it to, is an expression of life in someways, and trying to take a bite out of and chew your way through the storm:2

Give the sea boar a taste of its own medicine, and cloud the sea with as many grudges and as much resentment as you can pour out of your reserves of both, to slow it down and weaken it further:5
-Use the sea below as a source of blood to empower yourself and the grudge cloud: 3

So you will give the sea boar a taste of its own medicine Via your grudge cloud breath, and use the blood around you, that is suffused with divine energy and primordial beast essence to strengthen yourself and dye the resentment

VERY clever write in, as expected of my juniors.

Adjusted DC will be revealed at the end of the update, which will arrive shortly

>>6059932
I didn't even notice, sharp eyes junior

>>6061178
Half or more if I think the choice can mesh with the clear winner or if enough of the winning vote include it. Or if I'm feeling generous or think its cool, I can bend this rule a little.

Annoyed that you have to dance around lightning, something which is so tiring it begins to strain even your heart that's been infused with the vitality of blood qi. And enraged that you're being kept from pursuing your prey by a storm it conjured, you immediately, in between steps and lunging dodges, decide that you're going to give it a taste of its own medicine by unleashing your own enmity rich breath upon it, to shackle it with spite, weaken it with resentment and slow it with grudges, but as lightning dances around the air, forking and arcing as it races towards you and the sea your floating above, something else besides the bleating behemoth or the searing scent of burning ozone catches your attention.

At first you'd mistaken it for one of the meandering thoughts the curse is making you think, about how lovely the smell of blood mixed with brine is when its boiled and how energizing the aroma is, before you recognize that it isn't just the starvation and unnatural hunger that made you feel so alive just from the smell of the freshly spilt and cooking blood. The Blood Qi generated by the partially divine sea monster's blood is remarkably pure. Unusually so even, and once you focus on it with your spiritual senses more than your ghostly and manic hunger, you can tell just how unpolluted it is. It isn't stained or dirtied like most blood Qi gathered from livings veins tends to be, until it is collected, refined and condensed. It must be the divine essence, the faith or whatever it is that has made this mere beast somewhat heavenly in nature, that has naturally purified the Qi produced by its blood.

Not only is the blood Qi spilling out of it into the sea already perfect for gathering and cultivating, but it could also be used to strike against the fleeing monster through a method similar to the one you used to turn that Ling bitch into a depraved carmine mystic jiangshi! Though such a trick might not be necessary, with the divine energy and the potency of its blood, just absorbing and harnessing the swell of blood Qi should be more than enough to invigorate the grudge miasma you're going to drown it in.

And as blood carries emotion, what better way to walk the sea boar to its grave, then driving it so berserk with rage that it stops caring if it lives or die? Infecting it with a rabid rage that'll blot out its troublesome survival instincts! Hah! How clever you are! Even when half deranged from hunger, with a head full of fantasies about how best to butcher and devour the enemy in front of you or the tantalizing thought of slurping up its life force and spirit, you're still more than capable of coming up with genius plans! Truly, your intellect and shrewd mind are peerless in every way!

Breathing out, you duck under a fork tongue of lightning and dive down to the water, spreading your arms as you draw in the divine hued blood Qi and welcome it into your meridians

Roll 2d100 - 2. DC 90. Best out of five

Rolled 32, 92 = 124 (2d100)

>>6061208
Should have cottoned onto the sympathetic link sooner.

Ah well. Lets go.

Rolled 77, 65 - 2 = 140 (2d100 - 2)

>>6061208

Rolled 16, 5 = 21 (2d100)

>>6061208

Rolled 55, 68 = 123 (2d100)

>>6061208
In the interest of speed and the fact we have already surpassed the dc, I' gonna roll again.

Rolled 49, 94 - 2 = 141 (2d100 - 2)

>>6061208
Lets see if we can go even further

>>6061274
The dice gods have a sense of humor I see

>>6061274
Great success. 50 0ver DC. update will arrive shortly

>>6061274
And the moment the first drop of it enters and is absorbed into your body, your heart begins to race from the surge of life-energy and heavens' touched Qi that accompanies the blood Qi along its journey. Then it is as simple as redirecting and channeling this newly acquired blood Qi into the curse cloud oozing out of your mouth and expanding to fill the air. The out as many of the multitude of grudges you've acquired and stored within yourself into the air, the clouds going from black to a deep, foreboding crimson, the black bolts of electricity turning a brilliant shade of cinnabar red as they craze through the cloud of the enmity and resentment of who knows how many people, dead and alive. The grudge miasma washes over the sky, like a giant wave, that soon crashes over and swallows the sea monster as it pollutes the sea and sinks into its waters as it seeps into the sea boars flesh and simple mind. Marinating it with all the delectable flavors grudges can have.

For a brief moment, there is silence, as the storm subsides with a final crack of thunder, and the clumsy splashing and rattling of the bones Aodasheng commands to charge the sea monster fall still as the shadow of the beast writhes within the abyss of spite you drowned it in. And then, with a roar that only a rabid and sick animal can make, it rises to its full height out of the sea, standing and lifting up massive arms that could surround islands and crush even iron ships with a flex or twitch of their massive, bear like claws. Blood and sea water pour off of it as it lifts up its head and bellows another cry, spittle and froth to rival clouds in size flying from its tusked maw as its flesh is seared by the intensity of the rancor you submerged it in. Grinning cheekily, you spread your arms out as the storm grows in intensity, fanned by its unnatural rage as the winds and waters whip around you, splashing your legs as Aodasheng lifts up his head, glowing cerulean as he defends himself with ghostly flames and with a motion of his hand and arching of his fingers, gathers the army of bones he summoned from somewhere and presses them together, forcing them into a giant made from an amalgam of hundreds of corpses that silently snarls at the sea beast as it lashes out without direction or intent.

Thrashing and snapping at the air around it, looking for anything to vent its berserk fury upon.

And it finds a target in the colossal skeleton that Aodasheng is powering with his deathly yin Qi. Who rushes and throws itself against the sea boar, grappling with it, as its mortal terror and grudge against you are forgotten when something its size present itself as a vessel with which to express its mind breaking anger upon.

Leaving it open for you to attack with impunity. Just as you knew it would. Sluggishly it moves, weighed down and weakened by the very same fog that drives it to new heights of rage, as helpless as a fish on land. With a cat standing above it, ready to pounce
Cont

>>6061304

And how do you pounce upon it, Huanliuxue?

>Hope its weak enough to be unable to resist you draining its life force, and directly attempt to devour its essence and rip away its breath (Magic trial. DC 135)

>See just how far the hungry cleaver half of Moon collapse can cut, and aim for its neck (Martial Trial. DC 120. - 2 to roll)

>Stay back and wait until it's tired itself out fighting Aodasheng's titan of bones and is truly helpless (Restraint trial. DC 160 - 5 to roll)

>Take control of the blood you've drained of Qi, and attempt to drag it back down and hold it in place (Magic trial. DC 120. -2 to roll)

>Write in

>>6061305
>Turn into blood and attack its heart from within
I still think it would be cool.

>>6061305
>>See just how far the hungry cleaver half of Moon collapse can cut, and aim for its neck (Martial Trial. DC 120. - 2 to roll)

>>6061305
>Use the Vein Draining Fang so you can collects its blood for alchemy

>>6061305
Dare I propose...

>Empower Aodasheng's titan of bone with your sorcery!
No idea what qi would be best to use tho.
We can command it to subdue the beast so Huan can leech off it as she pleases.

>>6061305
>Pepper it with blood draining fangs.
>Hope it is weak enough and just devour its breath

>>6061305
>Hope its weak enough to be unable to resist you draining its life force, and directly attempt to devour its essence and rip away its breath (Magic trial. DC 135)

Rolled 78, 69 - 2 = 145 (2d100 - 2)

>>6061208
Just in time.

>>6061305
Can we do the thing we did with Baoli and make it's heart explode from butthurt?

>>6061305
>Hope its weak enough to be unable to resist you draining its life force, and directly attempt to devour its essence and rip away its breath (Magic trial. DC 135)
I think it's about time now.

>>6061305
>>Take control of the blood you've drained of Qi, and attempt to drag it back down and hold it in place (Magic trial. DC 120. -2 to roll)
Let's not get cocky.
One more step to make sure we finish this nice and proper.

Ending the vote, tallying its result now.

Turn into blood and attack its heart from within:1

See just how far the hungry cleaver half of Moon collapse can cut, and aim for its neck:1

Use the Vein Draining Fang:2

Empower Aodasheng's titan of bone with your sorcery!:1

Hope its weak enough to be unable to resist you draining its life force, and directly attempt to devour its essence and rip away its breath:3

Take control of the blood you've drained of Qi, and attempt to drag it back down and hold it in place:1

Explode its heart with rage: 1

So you will hope its weak enough to be unable to resist, and attempt to tear away its breath and devour its life force

Update will arrive shortly

And oh are you ready to pounce, the hunger is beating against your head like a hammer against an anvil. Seeing your prey weakening and its life spill out of it in great scarlet rivers is making it harder to keep control over yourself and maintain the delicate balance between the desperation of specter starvation and the clarity of sanity. The portion of you still rational battles against the slice that has been soaked and marinated in the curse, the intensity of it which had reached a new peak in the past few moments. The scalding haze polluting your thoughts and tarnishing your perception has been brought to an intense roiling boil seeing the sea boar become weary from the grudges you drenched it in and further emboldened by the injuries it sustains fighting against Aodasheng's colossus. Whose master you've lost sight of, but where he is, doesn't matter.

The curse and your predator instincts both urge you to pounce, recognizing the opening and bared throat of your quarry, seeing its strength falter and its breaths grow more labored and ragged. Fleeting memories of mice and panicked soldiers and tax collectors fill your minds eye, a sympothy of crunching bones and slashed open veins ringing in your ears as drool dribbles down your chin as you nearly lose control and totally become the victim of the curse you've collared again. But you pull it back and make it kneel with your regal and imperious will, steeling it by reminding yourself who and what you are and how degrading it is to act like a starving dog or beggar. Quelling the symptoms with pride and acknowledgement of what could happen and what you could become if you gave in and indulged carelessly, even with the last step in your quest to cure yourself in view.

Losing restraint and binging on life force was enough to turn a patch of the sea barren, and you only gave into the curses temptation and the pain of your starvation for a few moments. You will not become a disaster or calamity, like the sea monster before you easily could choose to become.

However, you'll be taking away and denying it that choice. All roads in its destiny, every fate it could have, all lead to it becoming a meal.

Taking in a breath to compose yourself and steady your hands, you transform fully into a magical beast and pounce, mentally running through and repeating the steps necessary to rip away its breath and devour its life essence and potent vitality. And once you've leapt, all you can do is hope it is weak and haggard enough to not be able to resist the voracious cursed power you wield.

Roll 2d100. DC 135. Best out of five

Rolled 19, 13 = 32 (2d100)

>>6062770
Yummy

Rolled 46, 24 = 70 (2d100)

>>6062770

Rolled 39, 31 = 70 (2d100)

>>6062770

Rolled 97, 77 = 174 (2d100)

>>6062770

Rolled 46, 56 = 102 (2d100)

>>6062770
May have eyes bigger than the belly.

>>6062794
Thank fuck
I was getting tired of failing every roll that is even lightly difficult

>>6062797
So the thing is it's harder to roll a 140 on a 2d100 than it is to roll a 70 on a d100. Weird math shit is that the more dice you roll the more it tends toward an average result.

I say as we have two seventies and a fucking 32 as results lmao

>>6062794
Good Success. 30 over DC and a whisker's breadth away from 40.

Update will arrive shortly

The sea rises and falls from the movement of the two giants, moving nearly too quick for even your eyes that have beheld what lies beyond the nine heavens to believe. Blood red fog, grudge miasma polluted with rage, surrounds their lower halves and hides the surface of the waters their battle tosses and throws skywards, as their next movements reveal wrecks of ships so long sank they've been absorbed by coral reefs, a veritable graveyard of mariners and pirates from all eras. You dive through the clouds of heady rage and seething grudges, as Aodasheng's giant pulls back one of its four fists and rockets it into the tusked jaw of the sea boar, cracking one of its tusks as it slams one of its bear like claws across its grinning skull and carves away half of it, reducing the bones of a thousand long dead sailors into powder that couldn't be picked out from the sand on a beach.

You land on the outstretched arm of the skeleton, and sense Aodasheng's presence, and understand immediately where he's gone, even as you view of the world narrows to just the monstrous head of the in front of you as the hunger driving you drowns out all other things and thoughts. He's possessed the whole of the skeleton he made by smashing together thousands of long drowned sailor's corpses together. The last coherent thought you have before you sprint down his arm, is "Interesting", before the goal in front of you and the pangs of hunger and desperation to not wither away and starve to death or appease the curse in anyway except to cure it completely, less you lose to it and become something you are not, blinds you to everything except your target and the life you'll snuff out and use as medicine to erase the stain of specter starvation from your body and soul.

The giant you're riding upon and the monster it is grappling with, exchanging several more, lightning quick blows and strikes, gouging with claws and pounding with fists that could sink ships as you race down the arm that is gripping into the turtle boar's thick throat, acting as a bridge for you to run across the reach your prey. And with all the balance that comes natural to a cat, you easily race down the titanic limb without tripping or even stumbling, even though the bridge you're straddling is constantly tossing and shifting position as the skeletal titan and the sea monster thrash and tear at each other with reckless abandon.

Shards of bone and massive scales the size of sails, fly around you as you jump off the arm as the sea monster twists and breaks its wrist.

Soaring through the air, you extend your claws and crash atop its head, only stopping yourself by dragging them through its tough hide and only coming to a stop when your claws that can cut steel as easily as cotton are stopped by an old scar upon its neck.
Cont

>>6062836

Pulling yourself up, you claw and crawl your way back up to the top of its head as it rears back and fires a blast of its blinding breath directly into the skeleton's grinning face, far quicker than it had done before. And weaker as a result, because the skull remains intact and the blast only served to blacken it and piss Aodasheng off.

Fastening yourself to the back of the sea boar's head with blood and ice, you hold on as he slams it with a headbutt and nearly throws you off as the sea monster reels and falls backwards. Clambering around its throat, you bury your claws into the bottom of its jaw and hold on stubbornly as it crashes back to the sea.

Everything goes blank for a moment, the world blotted out by a wave of satisfaction and the pleasure of eating a good meal and squashing back a hunger deeper than any you've ever felt before. The haze and waves of fear accompanying it quiet and are replaced with a nice, fuzzy and warm feeling as you feel your body fill with an abundance of life, a rush of energy that is only comparable to taking several spirit drugs at once and nearly exploding your heart, the razor's edge of a sinful rush of vigor combined with the tension of life or death danger and the bleak, mind clearing stream of lucidity of facing death head on and narrowly escaping. The relief of a rational mind realizing it has escaped danger and the gnashing jaws of death and the triumphant roar of survival instincts at conquering a rival and emerging from a fight to the death as the victor. Sweeter than any treat, richer than any meat, the only thing that exists for a moment is the transcendent flavor and exquisite potency of the sea monster's breath and the life you rob it of as you steal it.

Its shuddering breath and groan that sounds like it is about to die, bring you back to your senses and the rest of the world, shaking you from the reverie of the meal of its lifeforce to see that the red and yellow fog of the ghostly hunger has been lifted, and the world around you looks like it should. And your head is oddly silent, without the ceaseless hunger and the worry of succumbing to it or its unnatural starvation it almost feels alien and strangely empty. But you quickly shake and toss away that notion, since you're self aware enough to recognize that it has been returned to its natural state and that the curse has been purged from every aspect of you it had attacked and attempted to corrupt.

And you're also aware that the sea monster is...still alive!? Somehow! Despite having what seemed like a villages' worth of life ripped out of it and shoved down your throat to cure you of specter starvation, it is still hanging onto life. And though its eyes are dulled over from all the blood it has lost and the lifeforce that had been ripped away from it, you can recognize the rage and defiance of a cornered animal in its eyes as well as the rabid fury you infected it with. The eyes that are staring right at you.
Cont

>>6062838

And with a clear head and the obsession with devouring anything that looked like it might be tasty or at least alleviate the pangs of hunger you were suffering gone, you realize just how dangerous of a place you are in. And really, how reckless it was to consider something so monstrously powerful as a meal, to the point you were fantisizing about how best to butcher and serve it.

Hackles and guard raised, you step back onto its barely surfaced stomach as it lifts its head, a twinkle of light sparking in its bleeding mouth before.

Two great skeletal hands reach down, grab it by the side of its head and intact tusk, and with a crack and the sound of tearing leather, lever and twist its head around before ripping it from its shoulders in a shower of blood. That makes you thankful you didn't wear any of your more luxurious clothes when you went out to sea, as you are drenched in its blood as Aodasheng showboats and gloats about his execution of the odd creature by hoisting its head up and dancing around, sending giant waves off to shores unseen.

You sigh, and lay down, wondering if you couldn't have spared the sea boar if Aodasheng wasn't...well, Aodasheng and dealt the finishing blow the moment he had an opening to. And quickly decide that you probably wouldn't have if he hadn't killed it since it would have been a terrible and idiotic idea to do so, considering both the value of its body parts and organs and the fact it would've probably have chased you back to solid ground once it had licked its wounds and recovered. Though, thinking about it, how had it come to possess even a touch of divinity? Was it worshipped by some tribe on one of these islands, did some god mistake a turtle for their wife, or was it something born from an age when the heavens and earth weren't as far apart as they are now.

"I wonder if Chuandapo, Renshu and the nice ship of sailors saw anything of our battle" You wonder outload, as you consider what to do now that you aren't cursed and at risk of starving to death or going insane,

"They might've seen the storm over the horizon" Aodasheng answers, appearing next to you as the bones he was piloting a moment ago goes still and then begins to fall apart, holding the head of the dead sea monster up towards the sky, as the sea around you calms even as its massive limbs fall into it, and the chains that were lining the waters rust away and vanish into the water as orange stains "Though, I have to wonder who or what chained this creature to this stretch of sea, if it was a guardian or prisoner. It couldn't escape the limits of the chains, yet it ruled over all within the boundaries, even if it seemed to lack a higher intellect. A mystery of the world, reduced to medicine. Its kind of funny"

"I thought you'd be offended, that whatever scholarly or historical mysteries it was a part of, vanished when it died" You huff as he just keeps smiling, hands at his hips
Cont

>>6062839

"It cured you of the curse I placed on you, it served a purpose to both of us, so whatever mysteries it kept are meaningless. It was a stone paving your path forward, and in that, it has more value of being some forgotten god's attack dog or some monster the local sect couldn't bring themselves to slay, or were incapable of it" He explains happily as he glances down at you, inspecting you for any lingering signs of the curse probably

"Those are my underlings you're talking about" You laugh as he shrugs

"They probably weren't aware of it, there are no signs of them this far out at sea, maybe it was why, or maybe something else trapped in these binding chains is. Maybe it was a menagerie of sorts, a Gu pot made out of the sea" He ponders, as the sea around you turns redder and redder "And this monster was the end result, or maybe we've killed a beloved pet of an old demonic master"

"Now you're making me curious" You complain as you stretch out and enjoy the sun on your back "Cause the more you talk about it and the more I think about it, the stranger this sea monster and its stretch of sea becomes. Its starting to feel a little creepy even"

"Well, if it did have a master, they would appear to confront us right about...now!" Your bodyguard tempts fate, and for a tense moment, seems like he would be slapped down for it, but nothing and none one shows up.

"Tch, don't test our luck" You scold as he chuckles and still stands, as inviting the unseen owner of the sea boar to try and smite him "Once I've recovered, we'll head back to that ship, and tell Chuandapo and Renshu we've accomplished what we came out here to do"

"We could explore these islands, see if that will solve the mystery" Aodasheng suggests

double vote!

What, if anything, do you decide to do before heading back to start your tournament

>Indulge Aodasheng and explore a few of the nearby islands

>Pull the sea monster back to shore and harvest it for parts, trusting the summer sea dawn sect to butcher it

>Experiment and learn the new abilities of Moon Collapses alternative forms

>Out of curiosity, see what sea boar tastes like

>Just head back and put all this curse nonsense behind you

>Write in

And what do you do when you arrive back at your second temple, Huanliuxue?

>Mingle with the other sect heads and elders and encourage them to bet on the matches, while observing the final preparations

>Show the guests you invited personally around the unique features of your garden (The spring, orchard and grove), and meet the contestants they're entering into the contests

>Check on your baby rabbits, Ju and the other hopefuls who have yet to enter the world of cultivation, since apparently Ju was able to convince Fu to let her join the tournament

>Enter with style and catch everyone off guard by immediately declaring the games to have started

>Write in