Cultivation Nerd: Chapter 102 (Patreon)

Chapter 102 - The Last of Us

Among the Weapons of Mass Destruction, chemical warfare was probably one of the most brutal created by mankind. Chemical warfare agents were extremely toxic synthetic chemicals that could be dispersed as a gas, liquid or aerosol or as agents adsorbed to particles to become a powder.

That was most of what I knew about chemical warfare from my previous world. I wasn't a scientist in my previous life. Still, I liked dabbling in obscure knowledge, and Wikipedia often had all the answers. I was just a nerd who looked up weird things while pretending to work at my office job.

Either way, I had little idea how to create actual chemical weapons. However, by using Qi in the process, I made something similar.

The purple mist around my barrier shifted, and I sensed that the whole town was now covered in this thick mist that blocked everyone's vision and dulled their Qi senses. It seemed almost beautiful; the light purple mist was hypnotically inviting its next victim. But the four-armed gorilla hadn't given me enough brain damage to tempt me to try something stupid like that.

I stayed in one place, making sure my barrier was steady and would follow me when I began moving. I had trained with this, but now was no time to be a risk-taker. Array conjuring was a delicate process; even the most skilled practitioners had a small chance of failure when erecting their barriers.

As the creator of the poison, I knew exactly how it smelled and even tasted in small doses. It smelled kind of sweet.

Were monstrous beasts going to die while tasting something sweet? Or perhaps many did not have bodies that could taste such things. Ah, what a shame. I wanted to ask them exactly that, but the opportunity for such things was long gone.

If there was ever a time when I wished I was more powerful, it would be during moments like these. If I could easily stop both sides from fighting, I could talk to the monstrous beasts and... I had so many questions in mind that I didn't know what to ask first.

Well, enough dwelling on what could have been. I had more important things to handle.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes since they were useless for seeing anything around me. Instead, I concentrated on my sensory abilities. Since the poison mist was imbued with thick Qi, it felt like I was surrounded by Qi, making it hard to sense any Qi signatures.

Not impossible, but still very difficult.

It was like trying to see while underwater in a muddy lake. The monstrous beasts would be having the same difficulty.

After I got a rough idea of where everything was, I began moving among the alleys of broken homes. Staying still in this place was only a matter of time before the oxygen inside my barrier ran out or some rampaging monstrous beast accidentally stumbled upon me and broke this fragile barrier.

Strangely, the only thing I heard as I walked was the sound of my own steps. It was a bit eerie, and every now and then, I stumbled upon the corpses of some fallen monstrous beasts. Usually, it was the smaller ones; the bigger beasts at least got to struggle a bit, feeling the pain as the poison seeped into their eyes and pores.

I was extremely careful not to rush because I was doomed if I accidentally crashed into someone or something and this barrier broke.

While I technically had an antidote for the poison, if my lungs, mouth, nostrils, eyes, and every pore in my body were exposed, the antidote would be useless. That would be like jumping into a volcano and putting on some sunscreen.

Then again, there might be something like gaining a poison-resistant body or some xianxia bullshit like that. There were things in this world like the Hundred Poison Body.

The more I walked, the more corpses of monstrous beasts I saw. It seemed like some had noticed they were poisoned and had the bright idea to try and escape, only to end up dying on the way.

I was never specifically interested in poisons, but I had read many books on various topics. It was fun to see how many weird things this world had.

There was even an Extreme Physique like Ye An, related to poison, which made the cultivator stronger the more powerful poison they consumed.

Anyway, even though I wasn't particularly interested in poison, I had worked with the governor to make this one as lethal as possible. We had worked hard and used an enormous amount of his spirit stone reserves to imbue all the poison with Qi. From our calculations, the poison would stay in mist form for about a week before it ran out of Qi and fell to the ground, making the city livable again.

Of course, there was a chance of some unforeseen event, and somehow the mist might become permanent. Or perhaps it could turn sticky, and rain wouldn't be able to wash it away, making the town unlivable. But this had been our last resort.

With many thoughts running through my mind, I finally reached the outer edge of the walls and, with one leap, jumped over to the other side.

The first thing I noticed on the opposite side of the wall was that my calculations had been correct, and the poison hadn't spilled outside the walls. Still, I wasn't going to take the barrier down yet. Even though I had ensured the purple poison was always visible for this exact reason, it would be a shame to die on the last step of this battle due to carelessness.

The second thing that caught my eye was how the snowstorm was less intense, and I could finally see something other than that eerie purple color.

I walked toward where the crack in the wall was and found the injured governor and clan leaders with a handful of able-bodied Body Tempering Cultivators. A couple dozen more were resting on the ground, some with large gashes and others missing a limb. Their lifeblood spilled onto the ground.

At least the governor and clan leaders were still fighting and easily killing any monstrous beast that tried escaping through the crack in the wall. Judging by the pile of monstrous beast corpses that had formed there, they were having some success.

When they saw me approaching, the governor smiled—something he rarely did. "I knew you would come out of this alive. You can put the barrier down now."

"Are you sure there is no invisible poison here?" I asked.

"Even if there is, we have a couple of stashes of antidote stored outside the walls in case something like this happened," he said, pointing to a crate covered in a dusting of snow.

I shrugged and disabled my barrier. As the cold touched me again, I felt the true extent of my wounds.

My blood had dried, and there was no bleeding from the injuries the lizard-like monstrous beast had inflicted. But the frozen bits of blood on those wounds felt as if the cold had seeped into my flesh. I also had barely any Qi after all the stunts I had pulled.

There was a galloping sound from the town, and a deer-like monstrous beast with the upper body of a human and antlers on its head emerged from the poison mist. It walked past the debris of the broken wall and jumped over the corpses of many of its kind.

It was drooling and looked worse for wear. We got in position to kill.

I was tired, but we were in the final stage of this battle, and now was not the time to fall.

It was time for the monstrous beasts to learn that humans also had their own kind of brutality!

"You think you can barge into my city and get away so easily?" the governor asked with a ruthless glint in his eyes.

When the monstrous beast saw this, whether or not it understood what the governor said, it lost the light in its eyes and gave up. Its body fell as soon as its will to survive vanished.

"Most of them have been like this, and the poison seems effective enough to have already killed a majority of the monstrous beasts!" the Hong Clan Leader said gleefully.

The governor, clan leaders, and the remaining fighters, including myself smiled at this. There was something about fighting a battle where all the odds were against us and somehow coming out on top that made everyone happy.

Our fighting force was crippled, and we were down to our last foot. People had lost friends and family during this battle, but our morale was higher than ever.

A snow mound next to the injured Body Tempering fighters shook, startling some of them. But those of us who could sense Qi were not worried.

Speedy popped his head out of the bundle of snow and shook his body to get rid of it. When he saw me, he rushed over—at about the speed of someone walking. Then he gently rubbed his head against my chest.

The little guy was no longer so little; even his head alone was bigger than half my body. He was the size of a car.

His head retreated into his shell, and then he came out with a barrel in his mouth and placed it next to me.

I rubbed his head. "You did a good job. I thought the barrel might shatter when the four-armed gorilla threw you over the wall, but it seems like you're stronger than I thought."

Speedy raised his head and looked around proudly. But that pride barely lasted a handful of seconds before he got sleepy again and yawned.

I smiled and gave him one last pat on his head before his body retreated back into his shell.

This barrel was my own cache of antidote for the poison, and there was no safer place than inside Speedy's shell. Sadly, it was a bit of a tight fit for me, but if he grew bigger...

The dream was for Speedy to be my turtle friend and bunker. For that, he would need to grow many times his current size.

Speedy stayed by my side as we waited for some monstrous beasts to emerge from the poison mist. I used that time to sit down, leaning against Speedy's shell, and rest. My body was riddled with injuries, my arms still tingled from the attacks of the four-armed gorilla, and my stamina was pretty much on its last legs.

Man, I wanted to sleep so badly.

But such thoughts immediately vanished as I sensed something approaching from the sky. It was coming from the town still covered in the poisoned mist, and some flying monstrous beasts were still alive.

I stood up and clenched my fists, causing piercing pain to run up my forearms. But this was not the time to sit down and relax.

"Monstrous beasts approaching from the sky. They don't seem to have been hit by the poison," I said, narrowing my eyes to see what they were. "They look like some kind of woman with wings for arms and bird-like legs. Harpy-like monsters. Their weaknesses are obvious—cut their wings and they're finished."

Even some of the injured Body Tempering Cultivators forced themselves to stand up, clutching spears in their hands. Their eyes were filled with spirit, and with us being so close to victory, none of them were willing to give up at the last step.

Despite the situation, I couldn't help but smile at the irony. Even when we were all healthy and had walls protecting us, at the cusp of victory we wanted to win harder than ever!

As the monstrous beasts approached, they first flew high and then shot down toward our position like bullets.

"Everyone, get behind me," I said, and with great effort, I pulled up the sleeping Speedy and used him as a shield. "They use their flying speed as a weapon to slam into people."

The sound of the monstrous beasts cutting through the wind as they dropped was my only warning before they smashed into Speedy. It had little effect, resulting in a screech of pain from the other side.

After the first beast smashed into Speedy, the others were not dumb enough to continue the same tactic. They maneuvered around the turtle, but without their charging speed, they were slower than before.

I took out my dagger and threw it at one of the harpy's faces. Now that I got a closer look, it resembled a human, but her face was disproportional. She had a big mouth with many rows of shark-like teeth, and her eyes were thin and dilated.

She tried to kick at my left side, and I brought up my arm to defend myself.

Everything about what would happen next played in my head. She would attack, I would block her kick, and then I'd turn around to kill the other monstrous beast sneaking up behind me.

But there was one miscalculation in that plan, and I realized it as soon as the harpy's feet made contact with my arm. After taking so much abuse from the four-armed gorilla, my forearms were on the verge of breaking.

I think I got a bit too excited at the thought of finally ending this and forgot that just because something didn't hurt, it didn't mean it wasn't damaged.

My left forearm snapped like a twig this time, bending unnaturally with a nasty bone-breaking sound.

CRACK!