Depthless Hunger

Chapter 107: Impossible Limits

Zae Zin Nim sat alone in an abandoned house, trying to ignore the sawdust falling from the ceiling with each earth-shaking step. Her only hope of finding a solution through cultivation was beginning to seem dimmer and dimmer. If she followed every guideline she had been given, it would take her over half a day to break through. This city didn't have half a day.

Taking her last condensed qi pill would shave off a few hours and she would do it in an instant if that time made any difference. Her Physique had advanced enough, so her last medicine pill was unnecessary, but she had set that out as well. Aside from the mana plums she had nearly forgotten about, the only asset she had left was the potion Juray had given her.

It sat before her, bubbling with unknown potential.

Her analysis of the liquid had proved that it didn't contain any qi. That meant that it couldn't reduce the amount of time she required to break through. What it might do was push her dantian into a higher energy state, where she could try to complete the Body Refinement stage at a dead sprint.

The problem with the safe path was that it would take too long. The problem with the quick path was that it could lead her to deviate from her path of cultivation and potentially cripple herself.

On top of that, there was no guarantee that even the quicker path would be sufficient. It would require a barbarian apothecary to have done an excellent job and also for Zae Zin Nim to have adapted perfectly to her new power. It was all a gamble... and yet the shaking around her proved that waiting also meant death. Her only truly safe option, the one her father would have urged her to take, would be to just leave and let everyone else die.

Zae Zin Nim carefully picked up the potion and took a sip.

The liquid was more potent than she expected, flowing into her throat with a chill that exactly matched her corona of mana. It certainly couldn't refill her qi, as the herbalist had said. But it was surprisingly aligned with her own body, presumably from the sample of blood that she had given. If she let the potion fill her body to the limit, then focused her qi solely on her breakthrough, would that be enough?

It was her only hope. She drank the entire potion and then let the bottle shatter.

Immediately the qi in her dantian began sloshing wildly, disturbed by the new energy. Zae Zin Nim quickly swallowed her final pill of condensed qi, aiming to fill her dantian to the absolute maximum. Yet the mana was rushing so hotly, it was still throwing her off. The corona was rotating wildly, threatening to destabilize everything and let her qi bleed out.

The obvious solution would have been to eject her Coldfire Corona and abandon that aspect of herself completely, to use it as nothing but fuel for her advancement. She rejected that almost before she knew that she had done so. No, she needed to preserve everything.

At last she stabilized the corona so that it formed a ring around her dantian. In its pale light, her dantian seemed full as well, but the corona was spluttering. She realized that she was bleeding all over her body, enormous amounts of bile pouring from her scars as she skated next to a horrible deviation.

Before her mana could gutter out, Zae Zin Nim swallowed her remaining pills of medicine, then ate the mana plums for good measure. That restored the corona, which she was pleased to note automatically soothed the remaining disturbances in her core. Both her dantian and her body felt cool and calm despite the wild energies she had just barely contained.

Yet, when she finally focused on her dantian to push it over the edge, she realized that she had lost precious drops. She was on the verge of breaking through, so she couldn't abandon her effort - her qi was already swelling beyond her ability to contain. If she stopped now, she would deviate and ruin her cultivation foundation forever.

How long would it take to restore those drops and push herself over the edge to Nascent Foundation, drawing from the feeble qi around her? It might have been an hour, maybe a half of one, but it was definitely too long with the monster horde rampaging through the city.

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"I'm sorry, Kai. There just isn't enough time."

She whispered the words into the empty room, then focused on the inferno within her.

.

..

.

At first Kai felt better, charging down the street of monsters. His body had been recovering from his earlier battles and most of the stronger monsters had been cleared, so his stamina was restored. His human and monster sides coexisted uneasily, but he was managing to combine his tactical calm from his duel with Inafay with the ferocious power within him.

Not far ahead, he saw several hunters desperately fighting a defensive action. He lunged on them in an instant, a spiritual claw tearing into the pack of monsters from behind. They rallied and cut down the rest, so he started to move past them. None of them even looked familiar... wait, one was the scarred warrior he had met during the Hunter Trials. Having 67 Power had seemed so impossibly high back then.

That was laughable now that he'd glimpsed the scale of the world. All the way up to the unstoppable warriors he'd seen at the Frontier, but Kai couldn't afford to think about them now. Not when he was running toward a monster that appeared all but invincible.

The armored beast continued to stomp forward at a slow rate. It might take it an hour to travel all the way to the highest point of the city, but considering that no one seemed to have harmed its body, it might be able to do just that. So long as it was alive, the defense of Monskon City was hopeless.

If he'd been in a child's story about monster hunters, the beast would have a single weakness, like a differently colored piece of armor that made the entire monster die when touched. Most likely, it was just massive and stupidly tough.

As he got close enough that he stood in the monster's shadow, Kai realized that it didn't even seem to be paying attention to him. It simply dragged one foot forward after another, crushing buildings or other monsters indifferently. So long as it wasn't aware of him, he had a chance for an ambush. Then again, it was getting closer to the inner wall... Kai decided to use leverage instead of aiming for a surprise attack that would likely glance off.

Just as the monster started to put its weight down on its left foot, Kai swung a claw as hard as he could. The claws skated off the leg's armor, but the force was enough to push it forward. Instead of another shuffling step, the monster lost its balance and crashed to the side, demolishing one half of the street.

Soon after, a house-sized arm swung down toward him. If the monster had been any faster, Kai would have been crushed, but it attacked about as slowly as it walked. Even so, he had to throw himself away from the point of impact and he could feel the jarring crunch through his teeth. The monster was slow, but not stupid. It had guessed his location instantly from that attack.

While it was lying on its side, Kai ran closer as quietly as he could. The plates of armor by the neck were smaller, since they needed to bend more. After the first strike, he doubted that his claw could hack through, but he might be able to penetrate.

Kai focused on extending the spiritual claw from his hand, then drove it in between the plates. He felt something give way and his claws bit into flesh. Three lines of blood poured from between the plates, so he only needed to stab another claw in and he could tear it open, just like the previous monster...

When the entire head began to move, Kai couldn't let go fast enough. One side of the monster's head slammed into his body and Kai hurtled through the air helplessly. He smashed through both sides of a wooden house before tumbling across the ground and coming to rest against a stone wall.

It wasn't possible. Maybe if he had Zae Zin Nim, Rallia, or anyone else to form a better strategy. But with almost no resources left, the gap was too large. Only the Frontier elites could have beaten this monster.

Unwilling to give up, Kai drank one of his healing potions, but he still couldn't see a path forward. The giant was getting up, apparently ready to ignore him and move on toward the largest group of humans. He could barely even see the blood stains on its throat armor.

As his fingers brushed over the larger flask in his belt, Kai realized that he hadn't properly examined Juray's potion. It looked like it was designed to assist his Physique, like the previous enhancement potion but more powerful.

His flicker of hope died almost immediately. He'd been pushing up against the barrier to E-rank for a long time and taken in more than enough power. The problem wasn't energy, it had always been in his head. Drinking the potion now would just waste her work.

Both his monster and human sides were trying to use his body in different ways, struggling to make it develop in opposite directions. He understood that now, when it was too late to do anything about it. Kai started to turn away, to consider another strategy, only for the world to grow dim. Surely he couldn't be so weakened from one blow...

Suddenly he felt himself falling into his own mind, losing himself in the vision. He desperately scrabbled to remain focused on the real world, but the dark island was already rushing toward him.