Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 171: Lin Xiwen Attacks!

Boom!

A massive pillar of lightning cascaded from the heavens, striking the Mountain Moving Ape without mercy. The world fell into a hushed, suffocating silence as the silver glare dyed the ape’s fur in a mysterious, metallic sheen.

Crackle! Pop!

The sound of rupturing flesh echoed through the clearing. Under the relentless bombardment, the ape’s muscles charred and crumbled into ash. Yet, the Earth Ape King—now a true Wu Ape King in the making—remained unshakable. It sat cross-legged amidst the storm, allowing the celestial wrath to wash over its frame like a purifying tide.

“The fourth bolt…”

Watching from a distance, Wang Ba silently tracked the tally. The first three bolts were manageable; even Wu Yi and the lesser apes could have endured them. For the Ape King, they were merely a catalyst, stimulating its latent vitality to knit its wounds back together as fast as they were torn open.

However, the fourth bolt marked a terrifying shift. Zhao Feng, who had been watching with a casual air, now wore a mask of grim focus.

“The power of that strike… it’s nearly on par with the first bolt of a Golden Core Tribulation,” Zhao Feng remarked.

Wang Ba’s heart sank. Cultivators had the luxury of defensive arrays, talismans, and Magical Artifacts to weather their storms. A spirit beast had nothing but its own flesh and blood. The Ape King was only at the second-rank Middle Grade; asking its body to endure the wrath meant for a Golden Core transition was a monumental, perhaps impossible, demand.

But the Dao of Heaven offered no retreat. There was only success or the silence of the grave.

The heavens seemed to sense the Ape King’s defiance. Instead of dissipating, the ink-black clouds churned, brewing a power far more oppressive than before. This time, the Ape King did not remain seated. It rose to its full height, its massive palms turned upward as if to hold back the sky itself.

The calm in its eyes had vanished, replaced by a primordial violence and the stubborn, unyielding pride of the Mountain Moving Ape lineage.

“Xi!”

The fifth bolt descended—a jagged ribbon of silver that tore the air asunder.

The Ape King did not flinch. It slammed its feet into the earth and lunged upward, meeting the lightning halfway. The impact was gruesome. Flesh disintegrated into a mist of blood and charred remains, leaving behind scorched white bone that hummed with residual electricity.

Its life force flickered like a candle in a gale, yet its eyes remained brilliant—sharp, divine, and fiercely alive.

“Catch!” Zhao Feng shouted, flicking a dark golden sphere toward the ape.

The Ape King reached out with a hand that was little more than skeletal fingers and snatched the object, swallowing it without a second thought. Wang Ba caught only a glimpse of the pill’s dark luster.

“Was that…?”

“The inner core of a Thunderlight Python,” Zhao Feng said, his gaze fixed on the sky.

“A Thunderlight Python? That’s a third-rank beast!” Wang Ba’s eyes widened. A third-rank core was the equivalent of a Golden Core from a True Person. Such a treasure was worth a fortune, yet Zhao Feng had tossed it away like a common pebble. “Senior Brother, that is far too valuable—”

“Save your breath,” Zhao Feng interrupted. “Most of my spoils were traded for materials to upgrade my Soul Nurturing Pearl, but I can spare a core for a beast with this much spirit.”

The sky offered no time for gratitude. The clouds roared again, swirling into a concentrated vortex of destruction.

“The sixth bolt!” Zhao Feng’s voice was taut with tension. The Pressure emanating from the clouds made even a Foundation Establishment expert like him feel a phantom chill.

Fortunately, the third-rank core began to work its wonders. The Ape King’s recovery accelerated to a frightening degree; new muscle fibers sprouted over the bone in the blink of an eye. The ape let out no cry of pain. Instead, the light in its eyes grew until it rivaled the stars above.

“Xi!”

The Ape King slammed its palms into the dirt. The earth groaned and shattered, erupting upward into a jagged spire that launched the ape toward the heavens. It roared, beating its chest in a rhythmic thunder that matched the sky’s own fury. It was no longer defending; it was hunting the storm.

A final, titanic bolt of lightning plunged downward, swallowing the small figure in a blinding pool of silver.

Wang Ba held his breath, his eyes fixed on the epicenter of the electrical sea. Beside him, Zhao Feng watched with a look of profound realization, as if the ape’s struggle had touched something deep within his own cultivation.

Gradually, the lightning receded. A charred, smoking body tumbled from the sky.

Zhao Feng moved like a blur of light, catching the creature mid-air. Even then, the residual static clinging to the ape’s skin caused Zhao Feng’s arm to go numb for a split second. He looked down at the monkey with genuine surprise.

“Senior Brother! Is it…?” Wang Ba rushed over.

“It’s alive,” Zhao Feng breathed, circulating his Qi to shake off the numbness. He laid the ape down. It was a blackened husk, unrecognizable from its former self. “Junior Brother, your talent for nurturing beasts… I fear even Elder Huang of the Myriad Beast Department couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

“You flatter me, Senior,” Wang Ba replied, though his hands were busy. He immediately began feeding the ape Spirit Poultry essence, using his own energy to guide the nutrients through its battered meridians.

Zhao Feng assisted by providing high-grade healing salves from his Storage Bag. As the medicine took hold—bolstered by the lingering power of the python core—the charred outer skin began to crack and slough off. New skin emerged, followed by a rapid growth of fur.

It was no longer the dull grey of before. The new coat was a brilliant, shimmering silver that seemed to hold the moonlight.

Half a day later, the silver-furred Wu Ape King opened its eyes. Two arcs of electricity flickered within its pupils.

“Second-rank High Grade,” Zhao Feng noted.

Wang Ba confirmed it with a Spirit Light Talisman, his heart leaping with joy. The ape kowtowed deeply to Zhao Feng in a show of newfound intelligence, then retracted its electrical aura and hopped dutifully to Wang Ba’s side.

“Its intelligence has fully awakened,” Zhao Feng said with a nod of approval. “An awakened beast has the potential to truly walk the path of cultivation.”

“Finding a proper beast cultivation method won’t be easy,” Wang Ba mused, though he was more than satisfied. With a second-rank High Grade protector, his safety in the outside world was vastly improved.

He looked at Zhao Feng, knowing the sword cultivator wouldn’t stay much longer. Before his friend departed, Wang Ba needed to resolve the threat of the Yin Food Worms. “Senior Brother, could you accompany me to—”

Zhao Feng suddenly snapped his head toward the horizon. Wang Ba sensed it a moment later—a whistling roar as a streak of light tore through the sky, heading directly for them.

Boom!

The figure slammed into the ground before them, kicking up a gale of dust. The man was ancient, his face like weathered stone, his demeanor icy. Strangely, he possessed no soul aura whatsoever; he felt like a walking corpse.

The newcomer glanced at Zhao Feng. “Foundation Establishment late stage…” he muttered, before dismissing him entirely to glare at Wang Ba. “Was it you who murdered my disciple?”

True Cultivator Lin.

Wang Ba’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t expected the man to be at the peak of Foundation Establishment, nor for his aura to be this suffocating. His Dantian pulsed with a warning of impending death. The Ape King snarled, stepping in front of its master.

“A second-rank High Grade ape?” Lin Xiwen’s cold face twisted into a sneer. “A fine prize. It’s a waste for it to serve a corpse like you!”

Lin Xiwen raised a hand, and the world seemed to warp. Illusory scriptures manifested behind him, radiating a crushing, supreme Pressure that froze the Ape King in its tracks.

But in that heartbeat, Lin Xiwen’s instincts screamed. His hair stood on end. He felt as though he had been marked for execution by a primordial deity. He spun around, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

The weak-looking cultivator. The one he had ignored.

A sword cultivator!

A sword light, so blindingly pure it transcended thought, ignited in the air. It crossed the distance instantly. Lin Xiwen had no time to dodge, no time to call forth his artifacts. He threw up a desperate wall of Qi, but the sword light passed through it like a white-hot poker through fresh snow.

The light in Lin Xiwen’s eyes dimmed. He couldn’t understand. How could a sword cultivator of this caliber be hiding in the Yan Kingdom? As his consciousness faded, a memory surfaced… a man from the Song Kingdom… the surname Zhao…

It’s him…

Thud.

The body hit the grass, severed cleanly in two. A dim book-shaped artifact and a Top Grade flying shuttle tumbled into the dirt beside the remains.

Wang Ba stared at the gore, then at the man who had been a terrifying threat only seconds ago. The shock was visceral. A cultivator at the brink of Perfection—someone who could have wiped Wang Ba out with a flick of his wrist—had fallen to a single strike.

He finally understood Zhao Feng’s words: In the late stage of Foundation Establishment, the weak are very weak, and the strong are terrifying.

“The road ahead is still very long,” Wang Ba whispered, a cold splash of humility washing over him.

He suppressed his nausea to search the corpse. Near the Dantian, he found it: a grotesque, human-faced insect. The mother Yin Food Worm. It was withered and weak, suffering from the death of its host.

“Is this it? It looks nothing like the children,” Wang Ba muttered, holding the prize he had hunted for so long. It felt surreal.

Zhao Feng walked over, cleaning his blade with a casual flick. “What were you going to ask me earlier?”

Wang Ba blinked, looking at the dead body, then back to his friend. He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s… nothing now.” He held up the mother worm. “Senior Brother, I’ll take the liberty of keeping this.”

“Keep it. You have more use for it than I do,” Zhao Feng said, not even glancing at the spoils. “I gained some insights watching your ape’s tribulation. I’m going to head back and enter seclusion to process them. When you’re ready, come to Golden River City. We’ll head to the Exquisite Ghost Market together.”

With a sharp whistle, Zhao Feng transformed into a streak of light and vanished.

Wang Ba gathered the storage bags and the two fallen artifacts. To his frustration, he couldn’t crack the seals on any of them; Lin Xiwen’s mental strength had been far superior to his own.

“A pity…” He sighed, stashing them in his own bag.

He didn’t notice a formless, intangible shadow—something even his Divine Sense couldn’t detect—detach itself from the book-shaped artifact. It drifted silently through the air, hovering like a vengeful specter behind his shoulder.

“Damnable sword cultivator…”