## AST: Chapter 12 – Demonic Beast, Emerges

Going up the mountain is easy but going down is difficult, uncertain if it was man made or formed naturally, the pathway down the mountain was very narrow, especially on the western side of the mountain.

Luckily the summit of this particular mountain was not very high, in addition, Qing Shui had tremendous confidence in the current strength of his body, thus, he forged ahead fearlessly. “Even if there’s danger, i can just call for backup.There shouldn’t be any wild beasts that dare to come here, after all it was relatively near the Qing Clan’s Mansion.” Qing Shui reasoned.

After being convinced by his own logical deductions, the caution in his heart slowly subsided as he skipped towards the entrance of the Greenwood forest.

No wonder people say that going up the mountain is easy but coming back down is difficult, Qing Shui could verify the truth of this words. He had already spent 30mins traveling but there was still 200m before he could reach the bottom of the mountain. Compared to when he climbed up the mountain, all the way to the peak, he had only spent 15mins.

With only 100m away prior to reaching the bottom of the mountain, Qing Shui could already see the corpse of the black eagle. It had landed near the boundaries of the Greenwood forest. Qing Shui cautiously paused and once again took measure of his surroundings, only after he was certain that nothing was out of the norm, did he begin to advance towards the corpse of the big eagle.

The wind from the mountains was comfortable without the overbearing heat of the summer breeze, nor the bone-chilling cold winds of winter. If this place existed in his previous world, it would surely be used for either a vacation resort or an elderly home.

Although Qing Shui had never been here before, he had heard of the many dire warnings the adults had cautioned and was very clear of the dangers existing in the Greenwood forest. Qing Shui composed himself, did a check of his surroundings and proceeded onwards guardedly. Despite so, he was half hoping that there would be a savage beast ambushing him so that he could test his current strength against it.

—–

The eagle was dead beyond the shadow of a doubt, the pebble had actually penetrated cleanly through the brain of the bird.

Looking at his “masterpiece”, looking at the corpse of the big eagle, Qing Shui did not know what species did this bird belonged to. He just felt that it had many similarities with the eagles from his previous world, the only difference was that this “eagle” was much larger in size than any eagles that existed in his previous world. If he was still the trash from before, he would surely have been the one eaten by this eagle today. Envisioning that outcome, where he had prevailed, he tightly clutched the remaining pebble in his hand and felt a tiny bit of elation in his heart.

Confidence originated from strength. This described Qing Shui perfectly. Looking towards the future with a heart full of hope, it was as if he could peer through the misty swirls of time and look into the future. He wanted a life blessed with happiness, and this became his objective.

All of a sudden, Qing Shui felt a threatening glare targeted at his back. The feeling of being observed was so sharp, one must know that after he broke through the 2nd layered heavens of the Ancient Strengthening Technique, Qing Shui gained a terrifying surge in the level of his perceptiveness. Although Qing Shui could not be 100% sure of where the glare originated from, he could roughly sense the location and the distance between them.

“Towards the south, 30 degrees to the left, behind the greenwood tree whose width is roughly about the thickness of the size of 2 humans.” This was what Qing Shui could sense.. However, regarding that glare, he was unable to determine whether it was a beast or a human…

Qing Shui did not even move a muscle, his hands were clenched into fists, pointedly guarding against the area where he had sensed the gaze was. He did not dare to move about carelessly, or underestimate his enemy. He knew that if it was a wild beast, the distance of 30m was negligible, it could be crossed in an instant! Based on his current strength and the pebbles in clutched in his fists, Qing Shui hoped that he would be able to deal with the problem.. He did not know why but his intuition was warning him that the thing hidden in the trees was extremely powerful.

Time flowed on, the pebbles in Qing Shui’s fist were already drenched with sweat, he knew that he could not allow this to carry on, with distractions in his heart, it would be disastrous if the enemy suddenly launched an attack.

Under the setting sun, within the shadows casted by the trees in the forest, Qing Shui concentrated. He could see that the shadow of a beast shape head materializing. The shape vaguely resembled a wolf.. an extremely massive wolf.

Qing Shui was fairly certain of his guess, only wolves would be so cunning and patient to wait for the right time to ambush him

Energy infusing his body, Qing Shui wanted to bait the wolf out.

“Xiu!” Qing Shui called out, with hopes of distracting the wolf.

Not caring if his distraction succeeded, Qing Shui transferred the energy that he had gathered to the pebble in his left hand, flicking the stone out with a speed akin to a burst of lightning, targeting the shadow of the wolf head.

“Pa!” a wave of soil dislodged, forming a cloud of dust at the area of impact.

At the exact same moment, that huge shadow burst out, savagely surging forward.

Even though Qing Shui was prepared in his heart, he was still stunned by the gigantic creature in front of him. This was not merely a big wolf… This was a golden direwolf! With a body of 3m long, and a height of 2m, its huge body appeared not to be affected by the laws of gravity as it was agile beyond belief. Its whole body was releasing a killing intent, and brimming with tyrannical might!

That pair of eyes was filled with madness, unexpectedly also carried a hint of caution. It waited no longer and pounced towards Qing Shui with the speed of the wind.

“This is a wolf? Isn’t it too big, with a body bigger than a buffalo, it would be pretty terrifying to be fight against it head on.” Qing Shui exclaimed. Thinking of the animal zoos in his past life, the tigers and lions who were the king of the animals back there would have been absolutely no match for this golden wolf.

Qing Shui was scared, after all this was the first time he was in a life or death situation, although he knew that his current body had substantial strength, his opponent weighs about 500 jin, and possessed terrifying speed and strength.

He retreated backwards, and subtly picked up a pebble from the ground, hiding it in his right hand, Qing Shui hoped that maybe by using the hidden weapon techniques, he could be able to surprise the wolf and kill it without fighting it head on.

In the face of intense danger, many thoughts flashed past QIng Shui’s mind. He could see his grandpa, his mother. He could also see his uncle training the 3rd generation disciples in the pratice yard, yelling at them not to be frightened when they were sparring with each other.” This was it.. although he had never fought in a life and death situation before, Qing Shui knew that he must be calm, he could not let the fear control him but must make use of the fear to increase the power of his strikes instead! Thinking of that, he hesitated no longer and executed the Solitary Rapid Fist while retreating backwards.

That bout of enlightenment previously had allowed Qing Shui to gain tremendous insights into the Solitary Rapid Fist, reaching the state of one with the fist. Contradictions arose in his heart, on one hand, he was afraid of the direwolf’s might, but yet he wanted to test the insights gained by directly clashing with the golden direwolf head on!

“Bang, Bang, Bang!”

Qing Shui’s nearly flawless execution of the Solitary Rapid Fist speedily contacted 3 times with the direwolf’s 2 muscular front legs, he even took the chance while the direwolf was distracted to deliver a strike onto its head. Qing Shui broke apart the exchange frowning, his arms were actually numbed by the impact!

As the saying goes, [wolf = iron head, bronze tail, tofu back]. This moment, Qing Shui knew that the part about the iron head was true. However, the saying mentioned that wolves weaknesses was their weak back, this was not true in the case of this golden direwolf. Its back was as strong as thick as a water buffalo!

The gigantic golden direwolf also paused its attack momentarily to re-assess Qing Shui. It initially only appeared near this area because it wanted to eat the black eagle, never did the direwolf expect a human kid to appear in front of it, and even more incredulous, that human kid actually gave it a foreboding sense of danger. Therefore it decided to ambush Qing Shui.

After the initial blows of exchange, Qing Shui no longer felt trepidation in his heart, alternatively, he actually felt like going all out to spar with the golden direwolf.

Clenching both his fist, the Ancient Strengthening Technique slowly started to activate, Qing Shui could feel that his energy was unrelentingly rising, that 3 strikes earlier executed by him in fear did not showcase his true strength! Now, after Qing Shui had calmed down, he decided to unleash his full strength and test out where in the blue blazes of satan’s hairy toes did his true limits lie. After all, he could lose his life easily due to a moment of carelessness if he still held back.

Maybe, it was the battle intent in Qing Shui’s eyes that infuriated the golden direwolf, it raised it’s head high and howled, that howl encompasses the defiance of the heavens, emanating an tyrannical aura. It could be that the golden direwolf had acknowledged Qing Shui as a worthy opponent, following which, the direwolf assumed it’s battle form and expanded 1 size bigger.

“RAWRRR!”

After unleashing a deafening roar, the golden direwolf lunged towards Qing Shui, it’s huge body was akin to Mount. Tai, exerting tremendous pressure as it pounced over. The direwolf wrenched open its jaw that was filled with serrated canines, targeting to bite out Qing Shui’s throat!