His crimson blades surged ahead like flaming spears, tearing through the doppelgängers. The fire spread ravenously, igniting anything that dared to get too close—trees, macaques, wooden clones, even the alpha's tangled roots.
Oliver's smile sharpened. Qi coursed down his legs into his meridians, making them feel light as mist. Flowing River Steps, he named it in his mind, crouching low.
His toes pressed gently against the earth—then he shot forward like a spring loosed. The alpha's clones rushed to intercept him, roots and vines snapping out to ensnare his blade array. Oliver's eyes flickered between them, his footwork weaving seamlessly through the storm. His steps carried him as if across water, his blades cutting in smooth arcs that split wood, vine, and flesh alike.
Oliver's steps blurred as he pressed deeper into the horde, flames hissing and roaring with every slash of his crimson blades. The wooden clones fell like wheat before the sickle, their bodies bursting into ash under his fire. Roots lashed at his ankles, vines coiled for his arms, yet his Flowing River Steps carried him ever onward, slipping through their grasp as though he were dancing across ripples.
The alpha's furious screech split the grove, its voice rumbling with a weight that shook the lesser macaques. Its lower half writhed—roots sprouting, burrowing into the earth, drawing vitality from the soil. The ground trembled, pulsing as though alive.
Oliver's gaze locked onto it. There. His blades wheeled around him like burning stars, carving a tunnel of destruction through the final wave of clones. His foot pressed down once, and in the next instant, he was before the alpha.
The beast slammed its fists into the earth, and from its body, roots erupted upward—twisting and binding into a jagged carapace of living wood. In breaths, the alpha stood clad in root armor, its frame doubled in size, its form towering like a small fortress. Bark hardened into plates, vines coiled like cords, and sap oozed and hardened into a resinous shell that glistened with unnatural resilience.
Oliver narrowed his eyes, blades circling him like crimson serpents. The heat rolling from them singed the air, but the alpha bared its fangs and slammed forward, its wooden armor creaking like a mountain being dragged into battle.
The collision came like thunder—flames and roots clashed, sparks and embers scattering into the canopy above.
White Crane's Counter!
A pale aura washed over Oliver and his weapons. In that instant, the alpha seemed to freeze before him, reduced to a figure drawn from glowing white lines. His conscious and unconscious reflexes merged, guiding his blades into the narrowest flaws.
Two swords cleaved at its armor, only carving shallow marks. In the half-breath after failing, he shifted back, his third blade whipping toward the alpha's head—the only place left bare by its plated roots.
The beast's instincts flared. Root-limbs snapped out, shoving its body sideways just enough to avoid death.
Or so it thought.
The flying sword spun back like a saw, angling once more toward its exposed neck, while Oliver lunged in with his talisman blade, jade light gleaming at its edge.
!!
At the last moment, the ground split. A wood clone burst upward, tackling toward him.
Clink.
The spinning blade met a massive root midair, scattering sparks across the battlefield. The earth rumbled—the alpha had summoned more. Dozens of doppelgängers surged forth, their eyes glowing with stolen Qi.
"More clones?" Oliver regrouped his blades, studying them with narrowed eyes. Their Qi flows were uneven—most were barely scraps, not even at the early refinement stage. But a few… yes, a few pulsed stronger, bordering the first stage.
Then he noticed the drained husks littered behind him, withered shells of former clones. His grin widened. "…So that's how it works."
The alpha hadn't exhausted its Qi like before. Instead, it redistributed what it had already spread—feeding its essence back and forth between copies. With enough Qi, it could summon endlessly.
Oliver's heart pounded. This treasure… with it, I could build an army. As long as I had Qi to spare, I could command legions of puppets—even arm them with modern weapons. Their individual strength wouldn't matter; sheer numbers and firepower would make them lethal.
The alpha roared, the gale shaking the treetops. Oliver's stance wavered, but he snarled and willed all his blades into formation, raising a wall of jade and fire against the oncoming storm.
The gale ripped through the battlefield like a storm tearing through an old forest. Branches snapped, burning leaves scattered like fiery snow, and the ground itself groaned as roots burst up in writhing waves.
Oliver braced, crimson blades revolving into a barrier before him, their flames struggling against the suffocating Wind Qi that surged from the alpha. The shockwave slammed into his defenses, sparks scattering where flame and wood collided.
His teeth clenched, feet dragging across the soil as his Flowing River Steps shifted to soften the blow. The moment the gale faltered, he struck—blades whistling forward like a rain of meteors.
But the alpha wasn't like the others he's faced—
With a guttural roar, its body cracked and expanded, roots hardening into jagged plates that wrapped around its exposed limbs. The Root Armor sealed its body like bark wrought from steel, pulsing with verdant Qi. Each step it took shook the ground, its presence more akin to a moving fortress than a wild beast.
Oliver's jade talisman blade slammed against the root plating with a loud clang, sparks bursting as the strike barely left a mark. The alpha raised an arm, and its root limb lashed forward like a whip—Oliver twisted aside, but the sheer force still clipped him, sending him tumbling back into a charred tree.
"Haah…" He coughed, tasting iron on his lips. "So you've been holding back, huh?"
The alpha didn't answer—its glowing green eyes simply burned with primal rage.
Oliver narrowed his gaze, gathering his Qi as the three swords spun tighter around him. Flowing River Steps carried him forward in bursts, weaving through the incoming root whips. He ducked low, pivoted, then struck—two blades hammered at the same spot in the armor while his talisman blade spun in from the side.
Clang! Clang! Sparks flew. Only shallow cuts.
But Oliver's grin widened. "Good. A shield worth breaking."
The alpha stomped, roots erupting from the ground like a forest of spears. Oliver leapt skyward, fire trailing from his soles, and with a snap of his wrist the flaming blades spun outward into a storm, cutting down the rising roots. He twisted midair, drawing on every ounce of refined Qi he had left—his aura roared, crimson flames and the faint shimmer of white light dancing together.
The alpha raised both arms, its Root Armor glowing brighter, preparing to clash again.
This time, Oliver didn't retreat. He dove straight in, like a meteor plummeting toward the earth.
His muscles bulged, red veins writhing as reversing Qi surged through him. His skin gleamed with a crimson shine—the mark of the Yin-Devouring Yang Beast Technique at full combat prowess. His dantian thundered, Yang energy devouring his reserves like oil feeding a raging furnace.
"First Yang Beast Technique!" His voice thundered, shaking the battlefield. "Roaring Elephant Veins!!!"
Gripping his sword with both hands, veins burning like molten iron, Oliver cleaved downward with all his might.
The alpha's root-armored forearms caught the blade, halting its descent for the briefest moment—yet the furnace of Yang within Oliver only flared hotter. His roar split the night.
"Die!!!"
With a burst of power, his blade tore through the root armor, splitting bark-like plates and digging deep into flesh.
Slash!
Oliver's blade carved clean through the alpha's chest. Roots cracked like bones, sap and blood spraying as the beast's roar broke into a strangled scream. The crimson shine in his veins flared one last time as he wrenched the sword free, cleaving the alpha in two.
The massive body collapsed. For a single breath, silence ruled.
Then the ground buckled.
The roots beneath them spasmed violently, no longer bound to the alpha's will. They thrashed like serpents in madness, ripping apart soil, tearing through trees, and lashing at clones and Oliver alike. Instead of withering with their master's death, the wood doppelgängers twisted, their forms blackening as they drank greedily from the corpse's leaking Qi. Their eyes burned with a savage light—stronger, sharper, and more frenzied.
"...So death wasn't the end," Oliver muttered, lips curling into a crooked grin. His chest heaved, bloodied and burning, but his eyes gleamed like a man gambling everything at the table.
The air itself grew heavy. From the mangled alpha's chest cavity, a mass of writhing roots began to pulse—growing tighter, denser, until it formed a grotesque fetus-like knot of wood. Its shape was undefined, half-limbs and half-vines twitching as if trying to crawl out of its mother's corpse. The aura it released was monstrous and raw, the unmistakable pressure of an earthly treasure.
It screeched without sound, and the roots across the battlefield went berserk. Trees tore themselves apart, clones shrieked in wooden voices, and the very earth split open as if the forest itself sought to erase everything.
But Oliver's smile only deepened. His sword trembled in his grip, blood dripping from his torn arms. "You think I'll let you run wild? I've killed your master. You're mine now."
Without hesitation, he shot forward, Flowing River Steps carrying him through the chaos. Roots lashed at his face, and vines whipped his legs, but his flaming blades cleaved a path. His hand reached out—not for his sword this time, but bare and open, crimson veins still alight with Yang.
"Submit!" he roared, plunging his hand into the writhing knot.
The root-fetus convulsed violently, screaming through the forest with an inhuman wail as his Qi forced its way inside, branding it with his will. The berserk energy resisted, surging back, trying to consume him—but Oliver's grin only widened, red flames burning in his eyes.