(Author: Hello all. The time has come for Liao to soul bind a mythical monster. However, Liao and the rest of The Knight Destroyers are not the only ones on a sealing hunt. They only have four choices: give up and go home, seal monsters as fast as possible, attack other parties to lessen the competition, or die by human hands or monster teeth. Hope you enjoy the chapter.)

Chapter 6: Besieged on all sides

"RUN!" Richard shouted as the party entered the mountain range. As expected, the parties with Spirit Sages had begun their attack on the weaker parties. Richard focused his earth qi into his left foot and slammed in on the ground, forming a huge wall of earth three feet thick along both sides of the party.

"I wonder if I can do that when I reach the fourth stage of qi cultivation. I could make my ice extend from my feet, but I wouldn't be able to control the cold air it would emanate. Making walls of ice might accidentally hurt the others," Liao wondered as he and the others kept running. "I could use lightning instead. If I could cover Tiger Fang in lightning qi and slash it on the ground, I could make a wave of lightning and not suffer an unintended side effect.

Liao's eyes widened as if he reached a stage of enlightenment but couldn't meditate as the situation was too dire. Some of the more powerful parties wanted to give chase, but they didn't know if the others of Liao's party were as strong as Richard and decided to suppress the other groups. Richard was greatly weakened as he kept extending the walls of earth and made a gorge as they kept running.

Sakura focused the qi into here feet and scouted ahead while Cao focused his fire qi into his shoulder and rammed through any trees on their path. Both Ling and Liao grabbed Richard's arms and supported him as they ran as fast as the could through the first mountain.

After a half hour, they had made it through the second mountain. Such speed was only possible as they were Spirit Knights and could augment their bodies with their qi past their physical limits. Liao and Ling collapsed as they had run out of qi. Only Sakura and Cao appeared to be fine. Cao was at the third stage and only had to use his qi against trees. While only at the second stage, Sakura had moved fast with her wind qi and had already begun resting as the others arrived.

"Good call on the plan to avoid the others Cao," Richard said as he regained some strength. "Ling and Liao, you two better meditate and recover your qi. We should be far enough from the fighting for now."

"You had all the fun, making a freaking gorge, while I was stuck a flaming battering ram," Cao pouted. "I'm going on ahead to look for the ravine. There's bound to be a ravine here in this huge mountain range."

Sakura and Richard waited for a few minutes as Ling and Liao meditated. Ling was the first to recover and they all thought Liao would recover at the same time but he kept meditating.

"Was Liao at the bottleneck of the first stage during the escape?" Cao asked surprised, returning with some fruit. "Maybe he got inspired by my awesomeness as I covered my shoulder with fire qi."

"Who knows," Richard shrugged. "Did you find a ravine?"

"Yeah," Cao nodded, his face turning grave. "There's a deep ravine covered in fog just after this mountain. I didn't get close as I sensed monsters at Spirit Sage strength and above with my wind qi. I like fighting but no way will I fight a losing battle. I do have a surprise though. I sealed a Spirit Sage level mythic beast on the way here. It's resting near the ravine."

"How did you seal it?" Sakura gasped. "Did you use some special technique?"

"Nah. I didn't do anything special. Kind of ashamed to admit it but the monster was already injured from a fight," Cao chuckled. "All I needed to do was focus fire qi into both my fists while propelling myself as fast as possible with wind qi concentrated on my legs. I literally knocked the wind out of the monster and threw the talisman."

"What's it like being connected to a mythical monster?" Ling asked.

Cao was surprised as Ling was usually so quiet and said a little loudly, "The monster didn't move as the talisman absorbed some qi. After I picked up the talisman and infused my qi into it, it shattered and both qi entered my body. It felt weird at first as the qi was not mine. When it reached my dantian and entered my realm of qi, I felt a huge rush rise from my chest. It was like the monster's qi and my own fused together. I could actually communicate with mythic monster with my mind. It was crazy freaky, but we can talk to each other from any distance and know the location of each other as well."

"They can talk?" Sakura exclaimed. "I want one now. It has to look majestic and powerful."

"I just want to live through this," Richard sighed, thoughts of the escape still fresh in his mind. "So what did you soul bind Cao?"

"A true fighter like me needs a beast that looks awesome and is just as awesome in fighting as me," Cao said, proudly puffing his chest. "I sealed a mystic white tiger with fire affinity."

"WHAT!" Richard shouted. "You actually sealed a mystic tiger? That's one of the higher mid-ranking monsters in the world!"

The air grew cold and the others turned their heads as they heard crackling sounds and smelled something burnt. hey saw Liao's body emit lightning for a few seconds as Liao's body was covered in ice. The ice shattered as Liao opened his eyes and he stretched his arms up in the sky. They saw a big smile on Liao's face as he stood up, his knees making a popping sound as he didn't move them for so long.

Liao's realm of qi had changed as the two-headed lightning dragon had grown a few inches and began flying in a circular motion in the sky as the pond of ice thawed and became a small lake. Even though it was in liquid form, it still emitted cold air and felt as cold as the water in the arctic. The dragon would fly above the lake and swim beneath the surface in a pattern of a constant triple loop.

"Congratulations Liao," everyone cheered. Naturally they were happy for him, but having Liao reach the second stage made him more dependable for the party.

"Let's go get those monsters," Richard said and let Cao lead the way, running beside Liao and telling him about Cao's new partner.

On the way, they came across a beautiful light brown deer with ash colored antlers. It was easy to subdue the beast as it was at Spirit Knight level and allowed Sakura to seal it. The mythic deer was a good choice for Sakura as it had affinity for water and wind. Sakura had a big smile on her face as she rode her new partner. She named it Mizu as it had water affinity. When they reached the ravine, they saw a bloodied white tiger with numerous scratches on its body with a half foot sized patch of fur that looked like ash.

"This awesome beast is Huilong," Cao grinned. "He may look bloody now but all his wounds have healed. Just what you would expect from such a high tiered mythic beast."

"CAO MOVE!" Liao shouted as he saw movement next to the ravine. Cao screamed in alarm and he called Huilong to his side. A lion jumped out from the ravine. It had sand colored fur and a darker brown colored mane. Cao didn't think Liao's warning was warranted until he saw the mystical monsters back, or the thing on top of it. An emerald green turtle shell was on the lion's back with tiny trees growing on the top of the shell.

"Spirit Sage stage mythic beast!" Sakura gasped as Mizu shifted backwards in fear.

"Wood and earth affinity," Richard said in glee. "Cao, help me take it down!"

"Don't got to tell me twice," Cao snarled and jumped atop of his tiger. A flash of light shined from his right hand and a huge halberd appeared in Cao's hand. Liao was not surprised as he knew his group was powerful and suspected they all had a inter-spacial ring. He just didn't expect Cao to wield a halberd. He thought for sure that Cao would wield a blunted weapon as he saw Cao ram through trees during the escape.

"Charge!" Cao yelled and Huilong leapt toward the lion turtle. Sakura stayed back as she didn't want her mythic beast injured while her wind qi was the polar opposite of earth qi. Sakura fighting the lion turtle was like trying to put out a fire with a bucket of ice. Ling also stayed back as her light qi took required too much power and had the least amount of qi of the party.

Liao ran toward the lion turtle, focusing ice qi in his hands. He yelled loudly as he punched within three feet of the lion turtle and froze the ground. However, the lion turtle was too heavy and the ice broke beneath it. Angered by the sneak attack, the lion turtle roared and swiped its right paw at Liao. Liao screamed in pain as the left side of his forehead bruised while one of the claws made a scar down his left eye. Liao was lucky that the claw did not pierce his eyelid as he got hit.

"Liao!" Cao cried as he watched his new friend get thrown in the air by the force of the paw and knew his friend was knocked out. Liao's body smashed the ground four times before falling into the ravine.

"You bastard! You're mine!" Cao shouted and smacked the lion turtle with the side of the halberd's blade like a baseball bat. The lion turtle was dazed at the side of the blade hit its head. Taking advantage of the confusion, Richard took out his talisman and threw it at the lion turtle, causing it to shiver and still as emerald colored qi entered the talisman. Richard got the talisman and sent his own qi into it, shattering the talisman.

"It's over," Richard sighed and fell to his knees. Cao jumped off Huilong and ran to the edge of the ravine.

'He'll be okay," Sakura said as she ordered Mizu to approach the ravine. "Ravines usually have a river on the bottom. That's why there is fog. The river must be really big for such a dense fog to form to the top of the ravine. We just have to hope he didn't float to far down the river."

"We need to find him," Ling said.

"I thought you didn't like him," Richard said as he sat on his new mythic lion turtle and approached them.

Cao frowned slightly as the lion turtle was responsible for the chaos and said, "Richard's right. We all noticed the way you acted indifferently to Liao. You knew his background. How are you two connected?"

"My mother's brothers were part of the rebellion," Ling said. "I don't hate him for it though. I just can't stand his personality. He was on the battlefield for two years. People change during a war but he still seems all friendly like a child our age would be. It's as if he didn't feel guilty for killing people."

The others didn't say anything as they followed Ling as she started looking for a path down. Cao hoped his friend was alright. Honestly, he missed his homeland and Liao was closest to him in the group.

"I will name you Bartholomew," Richard said to the lion turtle mentally.

"I don't like that name master," Bartholomew replied. "It doesn't match my appearance or power. Give me a different name."

Chapter 5: Forming a PartyMAIN PAGE Chapter 7: The Mysterious Saviour