Rise of The Demon General

Since there was no particular objective to head to, Amon simply roamed around randomly in search of more spiritual plants to harvest. When his journey brought him to nearby woods, he saw several tall trees that bore big bright red fruits. The fruits were unlike anything he had seen nor read in books. Curious, he carefully approached one of these trees.

When he found nothing suspicious, he climbed onto where the fruits were. He carefully touched one of the fruits before plucking it. When the fruit was in his hand, he sensed an unusual amount of aether within the fruits.

"This…" He gave the fruit a smell, before tasting it with the tip of his tongue.

Amon was hesitant for a bit, but he finally took a bite. When the pieces entered his belly, he felt as if his inside was burnt. He quickly sat on one of the large branches of the tree and concentrated on the rampaging energy inside his stomach.

He activated his Drown Heart Pulsating Art and methodically guided the energy into his energy core.

The energy was so dense that he couldn't absorb it all, the excess energy was expelled from the pores of his body. This excess energy burned the water vapor in the air around him, creating white smoke.

When he managed to get everything under control, he looked at the fruit in his hand.

He had read about this type of fruit, or at least one similar to this. This fruit was called spirit fruit. Similar to the spirit herbs he had been harvesting, they could be consumed directly to improve one's cultivation. But while spirit herbs were more potent if being made into a cultivation pill, a spirit fruit was best if consumed directly.

He had read that some noble families in the imperial clan grew such trees, but they were very rare. The fruits borne from these trees were fully reserved for their most talented youngsters. These fruits greatly increased the cultivation speed of those lucky youngsters. Commoners or lower nobles could forget about laying their hands on such things. While here, it grew in the wild, there were even so many that he doubted he could consume them all.

He estimated that the energy he had just absorbed was even better than when he cultivated using the black aetherium stone.

Without hesitation, he took another bite.

Every time he took a bite, he needed a while to absorb the energy, thus it took a long time for him to finish one fruit. After he was done, he picked a second one.

He spent the whole day just consuming the fruits and absorbing their energy. However, he discovered one unfortunate thing. As he consumed more and more fruits, he sensed the energy he could absorb become less and less. Most of it ended up getting expelled from his body and was wasted.

He did read that continuous consumption would reduce the effect of a spirit fruit. Because of that, he stopped and instead went on to pick as many of these fruits as possible and stored them inside his space ring.

When the night arrived, he rested. In the morning, he tried eating another fruit again. The efficiency increased from the last time he ate the fruit, although not as potent as the first time. He was relieved. So, as long as he didn't consume them too frequently, these fruits could continue to increase his cultivation.

With that thought, he diligently picked as many of the spirit fruits as possible.

Too bad he couldn't just store the entire tree inside his space ring. It was not possible to store living things inside a space ring.

Since these fruits were very useful to him, he stored them inside his black space ring with other stuff which he intended to hide from the White Cloud people.

After he had plucked all the fruits in the outer rim, Amon proceeded deeper into the woods. Not every tree bore those red fruits. So he continued further to collect as many as possible. He found that the deeper he went in, the more the trees that bore the spirit fruits were.

*

On the fourth day when he was harvesting the fruits inside the woods, he smelled a weird scent before suddenly sensing danger. At that moment, he was crouching on top of a thick tree branch. He turned in direction of the danger but saw nothing.

He frowned, was it just his imagination? But then he saw a slight distortion and heard a hissing sound.

He immediately jumped away just as a large python materialized out of thin air. The tree was very high, but Amon's current constitution allowed him to land safely from such height.

The phyton turned invisible again as it also jumped down from the branch. Amon immediately moved away from the area where it was falling to. He heard the sound of heavy things dropping to the ground and saw the grasses getting squished. Without wasting time, he immediately threw two throwing knives.

The knives hit something in the air and bounced. The sound of their impacts was as if they had hit metallic things.

Amon saw the grasses on the ground part ways, in his direction. He immediately backstepped. He gave his surrounding a fast glance before running to a nearby large tree. He continued watching the ground as he saw the grasses and the dirt move from the friction.

Amon stood with his back to the tree. When the indication on the ground showed that the python was at an attack range, Amon readied himself. He felt the sudden danger and jumped to the side, just as the python materialized again as it sprang forward. It slipped beside the tree and rolled around it.

It turned invisible again as it rolled around the tree. Amon then saw the tree trunk crack, before it exploded inward. The invisible snake gripped the trunk so tight that it was broken completely. The broken tree then fell to the ground. If it was a human body getting caught by the grip, it would have been ground to a paste in an instant.

Amon ran to another tree again. After the two attacks, Amon could determine two things. First, the python turned visible for a short moment when it was making its attack. Second, it didn't have fangs. Amon had paid attention to it in the short seconds it was visible. This python seemed to kill by constricting. So, it was not a poisonous beast.

Amon again paid attention to the ground beneath, his poison knife was in his right hand while the swan dagger was in his left. The invisible python was slithering over in his direction again. As it reached the position to attack, Amon moved, but did not make a large jump to dodge like previous. Instead, he slipped to the back of the tree from its right side.

The python again came into view, directly in front of him this time. Its mouth wide open, Amon saw the void behind the python's throat, ready to devour him.

After the first sudden attack, Amon had let it attack the second time to make sure its attack pattern. It struck without directly striking using its mouth, but instead at an angle where its head would pass through the right side of its prey. It would then coiled itself around the prey and constricted it. Shattering all the bones in its prey's body before devouring it.

Amon had instead moved his position right in the python's trajectory. This position change prompted the python to open its maw, intending to just swallow Amon directly. Amon's hand that was holding the poison knife shot up into the python's mouth as it came. The poisonous blade thrust into the inside of its mouth, cutting the inside and delivering the toxin.

The invisible python's skin had proven too hard to be penetrated. The only way to wound the beast was to wound its inside which was not protected by its scale.

The pain caused the python to clamp its mouth on Amon's hand. The action had been too fast, Amon didn't have enough time to pull his hand out. Amon felt himself getting pulled by the phyton and slammed into the tree. The sound of bone breaking was heard as Amon's right arm bent unnaturally. Amon gritted his teeth as extreme pain assailed his brain.

The python didn't turn invisible anymore. It seemed that its invisibility had been deactivated by its pain, which showed that its invisibility was something that it did deliberately. When it attacked, it might have been due to the brief excitement when it was about to catch its prey, it lost control for a second and caused itself to turn visible.

The Black Slaughter Poison didn't work fast enough, Amon saw the python's tail swoop in from the other side of the tree. It was going to coil itself on Amon and the tree. Without hesitation, Amon used the swan dagger in his left hand and made a fast slash, cutting his broken right arm cleanly into two.

Amon jumped away just as the tail came and coiled around the tree trunk, hugging it tightly until it cracked. Half of Amon's right arm was still inside the python's mouth.