chapter 38

Hou and the sect started to move in formation. In the center were 3 carriages and around them were Hou, Da, and Hamar spread around.

This meant no matter where and enemy was found, it could be dealt with by fighters. If any parasites or symbiotes were found, Hou would personally move to neutralise them. He would need many similar parasites for his experiments in combining them for stronger effects.

Hou took the false spirit will he took from Penn and was ready to use it himself, since it was his own he did not need to use it with a shell, he simply kept it in his inner world. This meant that Hou could receive visions from his future self if something unexpected happened.

As the Hou sect moved along, there were a few parasites which were promptly taken by Hou and a few groups of animals, wolves and bears mostly. With their power level, animals were easy to subdued in numbers and taken for leather and meat. Hou especially could sit back and shoot paralytic needles from afar.

A few hours into travel, the sect saw a group of monsters nearby. The monsters had not yet seen them, so Hou ordered to halt as he brought Hamar and Da with him to fight them.

The group consists of a large bear, 3 wolves and a massive praying mantis. Hou looked at the qi levels in each and decided that the praying mantis would be strongest. Hou ordered Hamar to fight with Da holding back the bear and wolves. Hou would take the praying mantis himself.

Hamar rode atop Da towards the monsters, luring them to the side. At the same time, Hou flew close to the ground and shot some petals at the mantis. The mantis had low intelligence since it was ultimately an insect, it took the bait.

It did not move but merely stood still looking at Hou. Hou approached, all the while absorbing qi and shouting needles and petals. The paralytic poison had little effect on the mantis but Hou did not mind.

Hou was within range, and the praying mantis activated it's parasite and it snapped it's claws at Hou, at the same time Hou felt the effect.

Hou could no longer move his wings, the connection had been cut metaphysically!

Hou did not understand but didn't dwell on it, he fell on the ground and rolled into a fighting stance. The mantis had also cut Hou but not deep. Hou once again went in for a punch and dodged a snap of the claws with a future vision. He then closed the distance and wrapped his legs around the insect.

The insect thrashed and activated it's ability again, Hou's wings responded again but now he could not use his left leg.

Using this gap, the insect ducked and escaped from Hou's grapple. Hou fell on the ground and staggered into one leg, in which time, the insect had activated it's ability again, the leg which couldn't moved swapped?

Hou once again fell as the mantis went in and cut Hou's back with it's claws, Hou took the chance if the mantis being close and used his arms and punched at it's exoskeleton. He cracked the hard shell and with one last attack shot petals into its injury, ultimately killing it.

Before Hou could relax, he took the chance and before the spirit will returned to the original, he created a shell and absorbed it into his body.

He now had the ability that almost killed him, it could cut a connection with a body part on the target.

Hou looked at the other side and saw Da had easily killed the three wolves, using his connection with Da he found out they could only bite slightly stronger, no match for Da. The bear though was fighting Hamar alone, Hou looked on not interfering though.

Hamar had it under control, he tested his sword techniques. Ever since Yue had given him a bunch of memories, his swordsmanship has been developing at a terrifying speed, just with movement spirits didn't do anything actively but passively made him faster. He had found inadequacies with his movements and refined then to be more powerful.

Hamar was merely playing with the bear, but also he was observing it's movements and deducing how it could be used in his swordsmanship. He was trading blows with it's claws carefully, using footwork to always be a safe distance away.

After half an hour Hamar decided enough was enough, aware of Hou watching on, and used a footwork to move inwards and use one clean movement to create a downwards slash at the beasts neck.

Hou went over and simply nodded at Hamar to acknowledge his fighting. Hou then used his strength to move all the corpses into Da's back for easy transfer.

'That mantis' exoskeleton was very hard, it might be useful for armour or weaponry, it also seemed to let qi flow easily throughout'

Hou returned to the camp and gave the animals to Armen to keep preserved, later on tonight, they could be butchered and processed.

Hou told everyone to keep moving. After that they slowed down and saw more and more parasites and normal animals.

'With this many parasites I should extract their wills and try combining some into stronger ones. Also I will do that with all my parasites on me, especially the augment strength ones, I figured something out in that fight. If I have the false spirit wills in my body rather than parasites, I should be able to move them around. I can have a lot of strength in one area or distribute it carefully throughout, much more flexible'

By sunset, Hou cleared the area around camp and told everyone to halt, they would set up camp here for a day. Tomorrow he would be busy experimenting so he should let everyone rest.

The sect stopped and carried out their tents, setting it all up. They would still have a busy day tomorrow, they had hoards of animal and monster parts to process, but they would also get a lot of meat that would need to be eaten quickly, their rations would increase.