Chapter 15: Inner Battle

I crouched down, though I had no idea why I did that, it's not like if I crouched the monster will sense me less. Still, it felt like the right thing to do in such a situation. I continued crouch walking forward until I was next to the monster. Right as when he decided to breathe out.

The extremely cold temperature dropped like an anvil being thrown in a deep ocean. Thankfully the foci of the breath were not directly on me, I was a few steps away from it and this with the fanatic circulation of the poison Qi within me helped me tide through the icy cold breath of this Yeti.

I took a big sigh of relief when the temperature rose back to tolerable levels, then moved around the Yeti's arm, there, the rose sparkled in a glistening light as if it was its lightbulb. I wrapped my hand around its stem, and immediately I felt as if my hand had turned to a block of ice.

I rapidly pulled the rose and felt a sudden chill running down my spine. The cave's temperature began increasing, it seems that the rose was the reason why this cave was this cold in the first place, and it appeared that this sleeping giant Yeti was cultivating by absorbing the coldness of the rose, of course, is a theory of mine, as I still have no real grasp of how the cultivation world works, but it seemed the be the most plausible cause.

I walked back and away from the monster. There was no need for me to wait around here. And soon, the Yeti began twitching, it was about to wake up.

I increased my paces and managed to reach the Cave's entrance, only then did the Yeti's eyes fully opened up.

My eighty years old brain cells began pumping some juice, deducing the situation. Shit was about to go down, I'm old, not fast, and hella slow. If the Yeti realizes that I took his rose he will come after me and I will not survive.

The second thing, the cave exit is smaller than the Yeti, so it will be physically impossible for him to catch me. Yet, this is a cultivation world and the Yeti could have the strength of a superman for all I know. Meaning that this obstacle might be useless in stopping him if he could tear it apart.

Lastly, the ice Yeti breath was almost enough to turn me into an ice sculpture, so there could be a pretty good chance he has an assault-type ability that could turn me to ice if he used it on me. And in that long straight-lined cave, a single breath will turn me into a popsicle before I could reach the exit.

Several cumbersome variables are working against me, so I needed a way to save my skin.

I immediately spat out my Poison Breath into the Yeti's room, and as he was waking up, he breathed in a huge gulp of it.

This was good.

I then immediately began running away, or what any other healthier person would call, walking rapidly. C'mon, I'm old.

A loud growl echoed from behind me, the Yeti had fully woken up, but it would take a few seconds to realize what should have happened so I'm good so far.

Another roar came in and the ear ringing sound of stone being turned to dust echoed from behind me. The Yeti had realized that I took the Rose and knows where I am.

I spat another Poison Breath behind me and continued walking forward. The exit to the cave was still far away and the Yeti will have a couple of surprises waiting for him soon.

As I remembered from before, it took me several hours to get into the Yeti's room, and I had to slow down and cultivate. Otherwise, it would have taken me less than an hour to make the trip. That is if I was slowly walking, and at my current speed, at least a quarter of an hour is all I needed to leave the area. And thanks to the reduced coldness from the rose in my hand it would be easier than before.

Yet the looming danger of the Yeti behind me still weighed heavily on my shoulders. It seemed that the rocks were not strong enough to fully stop this creature from coming after me, and they proved to be a minor annoyance to this beast.

Suddenly I turned and saw the ape faced Yet looking at me with murder in his eyes. It opened its mouth wide, revealing a sharp row of fangs.

I ran forward as fast as my body could, but a gust coming from outside was preventing me to increase my distance, a second later I realized that this was no gust, but the ape was trying to breathe in the air either to suck me in or to prepare for an attack.

The poison breath I left in the path had already been fully sucked in, but since I had nothing to lose, I spat another poison breath in front of me that was instantly sucked in by the Yeti.

The pulling force stopped and I was jerked forward. I didn't dare turn around; I had no time to waste doing so.

I struggled to move forward and then it came to a cold Icey gust of wind that was going to spill my doom.

The Yeti seemed unaffected by my poison and is retaliating. And I had no way to survive this beast's assault.

My body slowly began to freeze over, yet somehow I didn't feel pain. Then soon the breath stopped, while a loud wrenching sound echoed from behind me. More disgusted vomiting came following, then a moaning mixed in with the pained squeal of a pig being slaughtered.

My body was encased in ice, green-colored ice, that soon began to melt. Mixing ice and my Poison Breath seemed to be nullifying the ice's properties. And at the same time, the rose in my hand began to absorb the liquidized green poison.

The white petals of the rose began changing in color and turned to a poisonous pale green color.

The ice soon melted off of me and was fully consumed by the rose. I regained the ability to move my body and turned to witness the corpse of the Yeti. His face had fully melted off leaving bare bone upon half-melted skin on its face. The fur on its body had fallen to the ground, leaving a disgusting shape of skin with rare patches of fur on top. The body looked like those cats, the Sphinx cat, that had no fur, and even that bare skin had already melted in several places.

"Damn, that was close," I thought to myself.

This time, I got lucky, and luck is not a good thing. Even if it had saved my life, it showed me that I was not capable of saving my own life by my means. Even if it was by my own hands that I have killed the Yeti If it was not for the Rose, the ice would have covered me and turned me into an ice statue.

I sat down in the lotus position and circulated the scarce Poison Qi I had in me. The continues use of Poison Breath and the continued rotation of the Poison Qi to prevent the cold had dried my reserves.

Yet, I had no way to increase my poison Qi except for the Rose. The book had mentioned that it is best consumed by a female, yet dark path cultivators, such as demonic cultivators or Devil Cultivators also use Yin. It would supplement me greatly if I were to consume it.

I pulled out one of the rose petals and placed it in my mouth.

On the first chew, cold comforting energy rushed down my stomach and began rotating along with the poison QI I had in me. It felt soothing and bearable. Yet I noticed that the Rose began to wither from the stem. The moment I removed that petal.

If this continues the Rose will wither and I will lose a great treasure. So, against my better judgment, I shoved the rest of the petals into my mouth, stem, and roots and began chewing. A juicy liquid filled my mouth, honestly, this felt like ice-cream. That of course lasted for only a few seconds as my mouth began to dry and the liquid began to force its way into my stomach then into my meridians.

The Yin Qi in the flower began fighting against the Poison Qi in my body, which was weaker than the Origin Yin Flower. My Meridians began to freeze over, and since I had too few of them unlocked by now, the Origin Yin Flower was going to destroy them at this rate.

I got back to the yeti, I may have been hasty in shoving the Origin Yin Flower in my mouth, but I didn't do it without a prior assessment of the dangers. The Yeti's body was covered with that green energy, the same that every monster I kill using poison breath has. And from the thickness of it, it was by far, the thickest I have ever seen. Not even the boar kings I killed combined could match even a fraction of this energy.

I placed my hand on the Yeti's rotten face, and the green energy coursed through it and began to fight off the Yin Origin Flower's energy.

The two energies began a battle and the battleground was my old battered body. Not the most pleasant experience I tell you. I jerked and spasmed, writhing on the ground like a snake that has been impaled with a sharp spear.

My lungs were emptied as if I was struck with a sledgehammer in the ground, I didn't even have the energy or breath to scream the pain I was feeling.

Some of the pustules on me burst out from the exertion, causing even more pain, which I could express due to the lack of breath. The veins on my body popped out, changing from frozen to hot searing and green infested with poison.

The two energies fought off for what seemed to be an eternity. And in rare chances did I have the energy to take a breath that was emptied immediately by a follow-up wave of pain. The soul of me felt like it was about to leave my body, but the stubbornness of it was fighting against the invading force, pinning me and anchoring me back to this world in tormenting agony.

Finally, the pain faded off and I was able to breathe anew. Still, I was in no way or shape capable of moving a single finger, so I just laid on the ground, exhausted, until I closed my eyes.