Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 195: Five Elements Spells

On the jagged slopes of Wangfeng Mountain.

Deep within the frantic ranks of the Rogue Cultivators, Shen Fu was drowning. He pushed his Qi to its absolute limit, desperately parrying the relentless, suffocating bombardment from the Incense Burner Path zealots.

His heart, however, was plummeting into an icy abyss.

He was one of only two Foundation Establishment experts among the hundred-odd Rogue Cultivators pinned on this ridge. But they were both barely at the early Foundation Establishment stage. Against the four mid Foundation Establishment zealots tearing into their lines, the disparity in raw power was agonizingly clear.

Worse, having only recently broken through, Shen Fu lacked the deep foundation, potent techniques, and lethal artifacts of a veteran.

Even by pooling the Qi of a hundred Rogue Cultivators into a massive defensive Formation, they were being brutally, methodically crushed.

“Kid Shen, run! If you don’t break away right now, you’re going to die here!”

A bizarre, ancient voice echoed directly within Shen Fu’s Spiritual Terrace. Usually dripping with arrogance, the voice of Old Demon Jiang now carried a rare, heavy urgency.

In the cultivation world, the gap between minor realms was a steep cliff. The gap between major realms was an unbridgeable chasm. Early and mid Foundation Establishment seemed close on paper, but the actual discrepancy in Qi density was staggering. Cultivators who could punch above their weight class were one in a million.

Of course, if Old Demon Jiang had a few more years to tutor him, overcoming this gap wouldn’t be impossible. But Shen Fu simply hadn’t possessed the realm long enough to master the necessary lethal arts.

Under the current circumstances, he was essentially a lamb fighting wolves.

Shen Fu felt the crushing disparity. His face was ashen, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached.

He threw a desperate glance toward the western horizon—toward the Eastern Sage garrison.

“Senior Brother…”

A bitter flash of profound unwillingness burned in Shen Fu’s eyes.

For months, the Incense Burner Path had completely blockaded the Eastern Sage garrison, rendering communication Talismans utterly useless. He had been completely cut off from Bu Chan and his Senior Brother.

The silence terrified him.

Fortunately, he had finally achieved his Foundation Establishment breakthrough. After spending a few months consolidating his volatile core, he had leveraged his newfound prestige to rally the displaced Rogue Cultivators. Partnering with another stranded Heavenly Gate Sect operative, he had forged this makeshift army to violently punch through the blockade and return home.

Rogue Cultivators weren’t easily swayed by noble causes. To buy their loyalty, Shen Fu had emptied his pockets, giving away almost every Spirit Stone and resource he had hoarded over years of wandering.

They had attempted to break the siege twice before. Both assaults had failed, but they had managed to retreat before suffering catastrophic casualties.

If this third attempt failed, Shen Fu was bankrupt. He would never be able to afford a vanguard of this scale again.

“Run! I’m warning you, any later and they’ll lock down the airspace!” Old Demon Jiang roared in his mind.

“I know!” Shen Fu hissed back through his teeth.

Despite his Foundation Establishment physique, cold sweat stung his eyes. He frantically scanned the chaotic battlefield, desperately hunting for a microsecond of opportunity.

He still possessed the second-grade Top Grade short sword his Senior Brother had gifted him. Its power was devastating, but with his current essence blood reserves, he could only swing it exactly once. He had to make it count…

But before he could draw the blade, the psychological breaking point arrived.

“Retreat! Retreat! Fall back!” a terrified Rogue Cultivator shrieked.

The panic was infectious. The meticulously woven defensive Formation instantly shuddered, its interlocking nodes of Qi unraveling as cultivators broke rank.

“No!” Shen Fu roared, his eyes going bloodshot.

If they had held the line and bled the zealots dry of their Qi, they could have won! But the moment a Formation fractures, it becomes a slaughterhouse.

The Incense Burner Path veterans instantly recognized the collapsing shield. They had been aggressively hammering the Formation specifically to force this exact panic. They weren’t about to let the opportunity slip.

Laughing maniacally, the zealots dumped their arsenals. Shrieking Yin Ghosts, soul-shattering hexes, explosive Talismans, and kinetic Magical Artifacts rained from the sky!

The payload slammed directly into the fractured nodes of the Formation!

While Rogue Cultivators were notoriously greedy for Spirit Stones, none who lived this long were fools. Sensing the imminent collapse, dozens of them violently severed their connections to the array and scattered into the depths of Qianyu Lake like startled birds.

With its anchors gone, the Formation violently imploded!

“Damn you all!” Shen Fu bellowed.

With a vicious swipe of his hand, he decapitated the Rogue Cultivator who had initiated the rout. But the execution was meaningless. The dam had burst. He could only watch helplessly as nearly a hundred men broke and fled in all directions.

“Move!” Old Demon Jiang screamed.

But the window had already slammed shut.

As one of only two Foundation Establishment targets on the field, the zealots had locked onto Shen Fu from the start.

“Giggle! Your soul is so dense… it will forge an exquisite Yin Ghost!” A female zealot shot toward him, her eyes burning with sadistic hunger.

Simultaneously, as the routing Rogue Cultivators were slaughtered or escaped, a second zealot freed up his hands and moved to flank Shen Fu. The other two zealots immediately converged on Shen Fu’s Heavenly Gate Sect partner.

Seeing the pincer attack form, a feral, cornered ferocity ignited in Shen Fu’s eyes.

Years of brutal wandering had ground away the naive, green boy he once was.

With a flick of his wrist, a second-grade High Grade magical sword shot from his sleeve, unleashing a wave of kinetic force that violently pushed the female zealot back.

He still held his Top Grade short sword in reserve, but drawing it now was suicide. If he blew his only charge executing one zealot, the other would effortlessly butcher his exhausted body. The High Grade sword offered sustained, flexible defense.

Seeing the High Grade sword humming in Shen Fu’s grip, the second zealot’s eyes lit up with blistering greed. Abandoning the routing fodder entirely, he rocketed toward Shen Fu.

“A weapon of that caliber is wasted in your pathetic hands!”

“I claimed him first! Back off!” the female zealot shrieked, driving her Yin Ghosts forward in a frenzied swarm.

Under the coordinated, suffocating siege of two mid Foundation Establishment elites, Shen Fu was instantly pushed to the absolute brink. Every parry sent shockwaves of agony up his arms. Death was inches away.

“Kid Shen, stop hesitating! Use the ‘Five Demons Transportation Art’ I taught you!” Old Demon Jiang urged.

Shen Fu deflected a lethal curse, his teeth grinding together so hard he tasted blood.

The Five Demons Transportation Art was a terrifying, absolute teleportation technique. But the backlash was catastrophic—it would permanently burn his foundation, reducing his combat power to the Qi Refining stage for years.

He didn’t care about the lost power. He cared that once he cast it, he would lack the strength to ever cross the occupied zone and find Bu Chan and Wang Ba.

“Aargh—!”

A horrific, blood-curdling scream tore across the ridge.

THUD.

Shen Fu whipped his Divine Sense outward. A hundred yards away, his Heavenly Gate Sect partner had been violently blown apart by the other two zealots, his torso reduced to a shower of red mist.

The hesitation vanished from Shen Fu’s heart.

If he died here, he would never see his Senior Brother again anyway.

Biting down on his tongue, Shen Fu violently injected his absolute maximum Qi into the High Grade sword. The blade began to scream, emitting a blinding, unstable radiance!

“Detonate!” Shen Fu roared.

He hurled the overloaded sword directly at the female zealot! The blade hummed with apocalyptic, critical mass, looking as though it would shatter reality itself!

The female zealot’s face contorted in absolute terror. “An Artifact Detonation Technique?!”

She instantly summoned a flying artifact and threw herself backward at maximum velocity! The second zealot, sensing the imminent shockwave, also frantically scrambled for cover.

Compared to the hyper-agile zealots, the overloaded sword was sluggish. As it reached the apex of its arc, it violently detonated!

A priceless second-grade High Grade weapon was instantly vaporized into a massive, expanding cloud of raw, blinding energy!

Tragically, the zealots had retreated fast enough to escape the lethal blast radius, suffering zero damage.

But Shen Fu hadn’t expected to kill them. He only needed them to flinch.

In that microscopic window of distraction, the five demonic energies dormant within his internal organs—Heart, Liver, Spleen, Kidney, and Lung—violently ignited! The spatial coordinates locked in his mind. In mere seconds, the spell would rip him through the void, depositing him hundreds of miles away…

Suddenly, Shen Fu’s vision swam with pure dread.

Four streaks of crimson light violently arced across the sky, landing in a perfect square directly around him.

The light faded, revealing the four Incense Burner Path zealots.

“Hehehe. Did you really think you could run?” the female zealot sneered.

With a flick of her wrist, she hurled a dark golden Talisman into the sky.

The Talisman hovered, radiating a terrifying, oppressive hum that seemed to violently bolt the fabric of reality in place!

Shen Fu gasped. To his absolute, paralyzing horror, the roaring cyclone of the five demonic energies within his organs instantly flatlined!

Within his Spiritual Terrace, Old Demon Jiang’s voice cracked with genuine panic.

“A Space-Sealing Talisman! The void is locked!”

“We’re trapped!”

Shen Fu’s face drained of all color. The four zealots had perfectly boxed him in, sealing off every conceivable physical and spatial exit.

“A mere early Foundation Establishment rat possessing a High Grade weapon and the lost knowledge of the Artifact Detonation Technique… your secrets are incredibly enticing,” the female zealot purred, a sadistic smile stretching across her face.

“Surrender your memories, and I promise you a swift, painless death… Resist, and we will refine your soul into a Yin Ghost. You will scream in the darkness for all eternity!”

“I…”

For the first time in years, absolute, suffocating despair extinguished the fire in Shen Fu’s eyes.

In the silent darkness of his Spiritual Terrace, Old Demon Jiang’s voice echoed one last time, uncharacteristically solemn.

“Kid Shen… remember everything I taught you. If, by some impossible miracle, you survive this and achieve greatness… don’t forget to cast a soul-summoning ritual and drag this old man’s spirit back from the void.”

“Old Demon Jiang, what are you—” Shen Fu stammered mentally, a violent surge of unease washing over him.

“Heh. Don’t go soft on me now, boy. I should have dissipated centuries ago. Hitching a ride in your skull for a few years was a fun distraction. But from here on out… you walk alone.”

“Remember this truth: in this rotten world, you can never rely on anyone else!”

“A man can only rely on himself!”

With those final words, the ancient, demonic presence vanished completely.

Instantly, the suppression of the Space-Sealing Talisman shattered! The five demonic energies within Shen Fu’s organs roared back to life, cycling with violent intensity!

Yet, Shen Fu felt no joy.

He only felt an agonizing, hollow emptiness in his chest.

He remembered the day he had accidentally stumbled into that ancient teleportation array and met the fading, arrogant wisp of Old Demon Jiang’s remnant soul. The demon had mocked his average aptitude and garbage comprehension, claiming that only Shen Fu’s ‘dumb luck’ had allowed him to find the tomb.

The demon had forcibly merged with him, lecturing him, teaching him bizarre, forgotten spells, and guiding him to hidden treasures.

Shen Fu had always suspected the demon’s ultimate goal was Body Seizing. But as a despised Left Path cultivator destined to die as cannon fodder for the Heavenly Gate Sect, he had accepted the parasite. It was a gamble for power—a chance to survive long enough to rescue his Senior Brother and Bu Chan.

He hadn’t realized that, over the years of mutual survival, the bond between host and parasite had forged into something unbreakable.

Old Demon Jiang had become his master, his confidant, his only friend.

And now, the demon had burned the absolute last dregs of his soul to shatter the spatial lock.

As the Five Demons Transportation Art reached critical mass, Shen Fu’s heart shattered.

But a microsecond before the spell teleported him away, a frantic, bewildered voice echoed faintly in the void of his mind.

“Wait, Kid Shen! Pop your shield! NOW!”

Shen Fu blinked, stunned. But the ingrained, absolute trust between them bypassed his conscious thought.

He violently triggered his second-grade Top Grade shield artifact, summoning a blinding wall of light!

And in that exact, chaotic microsecond…

BOOM!!!

The heavens tore open!

A massive figure plummeted from the clouds like a silver meteor, violently slamming directly onto the skull of one of the mid Foundation Establishment zealots!

It was a colossal, silver-haired ape! Arcs of raw, crackling electricity danced across its fur. It bared its terrifying fangs, unleashing a deafening, primal roar as it crushed the zealot into the dirt!

Its aura was a suffocating, unquestionable second-grade High Grade!

Before the remaining zealots could even process the Kaiju-like entrance, two phantom-like blurs shot past Shen Fu at hypersonic speed.

CRACK! CRACK!

The phantoms slammed into two of the zealots with the force of a battering ram, throwing them wildly off balance!

Simultaneously, the sky ignited.

Over a dozen highly condensed, second-grade spells materialized out of thin air, roaring downward like a ruptured dam, funneling entirely toward the female zealot!

In the span of a single breath, the battlefield had violently flipped!

As the spells cascaded downward, Shen Fu finally understood why Old Demon Jiang had screamed at him to raise his shield.

The individual spells didn’t possess earth-shattering auras. But the way they were woven together was an act of terrifying, mathematical perfection. They were all Five Elements spells, flawlessly chained to trigger a cycle of mutual generation.

Water fed the sharpness of Metal; Metal grounded the solidity of Earth; Earth fed the roaring Fire; Fire nourished the explosive growth of Wood; and Wood looped back to breathe life into Water.

The elemental cascade fed upon itself, multiplying its kinetic force exponentially! The momentum layered, compounded, and violently peaked, expanding into an apocalyptic dome of destruction that blanketed the entire ridge!

Sensing the impending detonation, the silver ape violently kicked off the crushed zealot, leaping clear of the blast zone.

The two hypersonic phantoms finally slowed enough to reveal their true forms—two massive, incredibly lethal Spirit Poultry! Having shattered the zealots’ stances, they flapped their powerful wings and launched themselves out of the kill-zone.

The four zealots, having their counter-attacks brutally interrupted by the beasts, were completely stripped of their initiative. They were trapped at the epicenter of the elemental hurricane.

Within seconds, the defensive treasure lights and Talismans shielding their bodies violently shattered under the pressure…

Looking at the retreating Spirit Poultry, a bizarre sense of familiarity tickled the back of Shen Fu’s mind.

But he had no time to think. The shockwave of the elemental apocalypse slammed into him!

He screamed, dumping every drop of his Qi into the Top Grade shield to brace for impact.

However, to his absolute bewilderment, the kinetic force that washed over his shield was… gentle. The spells had been so flawlessly, surgically targeted that the residual blowback was minimal.

He actually had the luxury to lower his shield slightly and watch the epicenter.

What he saw defied reality.

Stripped of their Magical Artifacts, the four mid Foundation Establishment zealots were forced to tank the compounded elemental storm with their bare flesh.

It lasted exactly one breath.

THUD!

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Four consecutive, sickeningly wet thuds echoed across the ridge.

Under Shen Fu’s bulging, horrified eyes, the four elite Incense Burner Path commanders were instantly, violently pulverized into a fine, bloody mist that scattered into the wind!

The absolute annihilation had been so rapid that their souls hadn’t even managed to escape the physical destruction!

For a long, terrifying moment, the air on the mountain completely froze.

“Cough… what a breathtaking application of Five Elements synergy. Though the integration of the Metal and Fire aspects lacked a bit of finesse,” Old Demon Jiang’s exhausted, incredibly weak voice murmured in Shen Fu’s mind.

Hearing his master was still alive, Shen Fu nearly wept with joy. But his brain was completely short-circuiting.

The four apex predators who had pushed him to the absolute brink of death… were just deleted from existence?

Who the hell possessed that kind of firepower? Was it a Golden Core Elder?!

And why were the zealots vaporized while he stood in the dead center of the blast radius without a scratch?

Before his mind could process the impossible variables, a figure gently descended from the sky, landing lightly on the scorched earth.

Shen Fu stared at the man’s perfectly plain, utterly tranquil face.

His jaw went slack. His eyes widened to the point of tearing.

“S-Senior Brother?!”