Even if I was a badass martial artist, I wouldn't be able to kick, punch, or poke these things. But if they ate souls and were trying to get at my qi, that meant they could probably be hurt by spirit attacks. Unfortunately, I didn'tknowany qi attacks. Shilei and Ichika had both tried to teach me - they were also in the third realm and capable of such feats. Theoretically, so was I. But I would only be capable of the most basic techniques until I learned how to separate the individual types of qi within my dantian and shape them.
Maybe I should have put more practice into doing that instead of making pretty qi patterns as dense as possible. Oh well- there was no use in bemoaning the point now. I dropped flat onto my stomach and let the spirits swoop by again. They seemed to be learning, taking less time to stop and double back after me, though I suspect they weren't that bright and there wasn't much they could do about ghost momentum in flight, because after four dodges, the trick was still working.
But I hadn't lost any of them, either. There were at least eight of them, now that I'd got a few good looks. I summoned the free qi I had - the qi not bound up in dense braids - and imagined expelling it in a great blast. Just when I thought the spirits would be getting close again, I pivoted and threw out a rapid punch with a shout.
"Hah!" I screamed - only the qi didn't blast out of my fist. It shot straight out of my dantian, basically from inside my lower abdomen, right between my belly button and my uterus.
Still… I couldn't complain about the results. The eager chittering of the spirits devolved into a high-pitchedshriekand at least three of them exploded into luminous blue powder. The others devolved into a feeding frenzy of spirit feeding, gobbling up every remaining scrap of qi before turning back to me.
By which point, I was off and away again, tearing through the forest. If I could just cultivate for a few minutes, I could stuff enough energy into my dantian for two or three more blasts. As it was, I'd tapped myself completely dry. Everything else was bound up in qi braids, and I had no idea if I could harness the energy if I deliberately destroyed my cultivation. Ichika had emphasized that destroying my cultivation was only to be done in the most desperate circumstances…
Though, to be fair, she didn't quite grasp the difference between reorganizing my cultivation and destroying it. I probably didn't explain it to her well enough.
I dropped to the ground yet again to avoid the remaining spirits… about five of them now… when I heard a scream in the distance.
I didn't think Ichika would scream like a little girl, which left only one likely candidate…
"Hana!"