Outmatched

The journey back did not go as smoothly as Kalum planned. As he was passing through an unknown sect's territory he saw a huge Demon Beast on the horizon, feasting on the corpse of a smaller Demon Beast that was still huge in size.

"Where on earth did such large Demon Beasts come from all of a sudden? Did one of the sects release them?" Kalum asked himself.

Kalum knew that he should just leave and pretend this never happened. But a large part of him wanted to risk this fight and slay such a beast. It was already decently wounded judging from the blood leaking out from its fur. The Demon Beast was from an unknown species that resembled a giant black bear. If Kalum had to guess it was in the later stages of the Qi Soaring realm.

However, Kalum knew that even with his new sword he could not truly beat this creature even if it was wounded. Perhaps if he had The Unbridled Wrath of the Blight Wood it would be a completely different story.

As Kalum was debating with himself, the creature turned towards him, its powerful nose noting his presence after it was finished with its meal.

"Crap." Kalum muttered as he immediately resumed his journey, regretful that he lingered so long.

Due to Kalum using his stealth technique he was not as fast as he normally was, the massive Demon Beast was slowly but surely catching up. He looked for a place to hide however there was nothing but snow and ice as far as the eye could see.

He had to take a stand. Preparing himself for combat, Kalum abruptly ceased his movement and ran straight at the beast, hoping to take it by surprise. By some pure luck the beast was stunned by his sheer audacity. Kalum managed to score another wound on the beast in its leg. The bear, in immense anger, slashed its paws at Kalum, knocking him a few hundred feet away and winding him.

After being thrown around like a ragdoll, Kalum was unable to get up in time for the beast's charge. It threw itself at him, mouth opened. He couldn't dodge in time, the creature tore one of his arms off completely before swallowing it in one bite.

Kalum executed an emergency movement technique to create some distance. The great pain of his missing arm was only kept at bay by his immense willpower and detachment. His only chance was to flee, but the beast was faster than him.

He had to distract it somehow. Thinking fast, Kalum opened his backpack and threw ten Qi Soaring Realm Demon Beast Cores at the creature with his one remaining hand before instantly sprinting away at his top speed, uncaring for stealth anymore.

Fortunately, the beast did not follow him. He managed to escape far out of its range and let out a sigh of relief and a quiet sob of pain. Letting his body fall to the floor, Kalum took out his best healing potions and downed all of them. He also took a Five Veins Poison Banisher Pill in case the beast's jaws had been poisoned.

The healing potions did not fix his missing arm but at least stopped further blood loss and pain, allowing him to get properly treated in the future. He was extremely lucky that it was just his arm. If he was at a higher cultivation realm even losing an arm would be terrible for further cultivating. Luckily, he did not affect him too badly as he was merely in the Qi Gathering Realm for now.

After resting, Kalum resumed his journey back to Musalyum while being stealthy once again. Judging by how far he travelled it was unlikely that he was that far away from the fortress city. Adapting to having one arm, even if he knew it was temporary, was a gruelling experience.

He reached the fortress City just before nightfall unmolested. At the main gate a few people gave him curious or pitying glances at his injury and nothing more. He once again went through the checkpoint and received permission to get into the city proper.

Rather than head right to the second layer this time, Kalum looked for anything interesting on the first layer. There were a much greater variety of merchants trying to offload a large variety of goods. Kalum spent hours looking through all the different stalls before shaking his head. The first layer was truly too weak and poor to interest him, he had grander ambitions.

Kalum went up to the second layer, paying the fee once again as he had no pass to get through. Once he reached the second layer he decided to contact elder Pultho. He got out his communication scroll and contacted him. It took longer than expected for the Elder to answer.

"Ah young Kalum, I am rather busy at the moment as there have been some developments, what did you need?" Elder Pultho's voice sounded.

"I would like to sell a large amount of Demon Beast Cores." Kalum stated.

Although he could not see the Elder's face, he could still feel the eyebrow being raised.

"I will meet you at the same place in two weeks time, I cannot be any earlier than that." The Elder finally decided.

"That is fine thank you Elder Pultho, sorry to bother you." Kalum replied.

"Not at all young Kalum, now about the other matter…" The Elder dismissed and asked.

"I gave my ally the letter that you provided me, they did not open it in my presence after I explained everything to them." Kalum said.

"Yes, I was able to see that it had opened. Thank you for that Young Kalum, may winter's breath guide your footsteps." The Elder thanked him before giving a traditional northern farewell.

"And may the frost spirits of old protect you." Kalum replied before the communication ended.

Two weeks? What was he going to do for two entire weeks? Well first things first, he had to get his arm healed.

Revenge could wait for when he was stronger.