I decided I wasn’t going to be able to defeat him unless I went all out. I flooded my body with qi and felt as my power and physical abilities surged. I got up from the ground, gripped my swords of fire and water and earth and air in my hands. The speed and power increase from holding the swords and from flooding my body with the qi stored within it gave me a significant boost in power.
I used soft steps on the halcyonic sea and appeared next to Duan Bu in an instant, swords flashing out. He blocked with a shield of molten rock and unsheathed his own sword. He struck out at me and for a short time we engaged each other solely with our swordplay. He was more experienced than I was so I decided I needed to do something. I let go of the swords and continued harrying him with them while I appeared on his other side and punched out with a strong punch to the gut. My fist hit solid rock and I could feel the heat emanating from the rock. I pulled my fist back and focused my three swords in different directions.
I attacked him from all directions, but he jumped out of the way and appeared behind me, launching a volley of molten rock in my direction. At the same time, he made grand motions with his hands and pillars of rock cropped up all over the arena, hampering my movements and sight.
I hid behind one of the pillars of rock and formulated a plan. Nothing I did seemed to work against him.
“Text, any ideas?” I asked.
“ANSWER: The user’s cultivation is insufficient. There are not enough treasures to create a new technique.
SUGGESTION: The user should surrender as to prevent injury.” Text said.
“Thanks for nothing, Text.” I said.
“ANSWER: You’re welcome user.” Text said.
I rolled my eyes. A stream of ash and rock was flowing around the pillars of rock looking for me, I didn't have time to spend just waiting here for my loss. I used soft steps on the halcyonic sea a few times in quick succession and appeared behind Duan Bu again. He didn’t expect me this time and I got in a flurry of punches before he was able to turn around and begin blocking in earnest. Each time he turned, I stepped behind him again and punched him more. I felt like I had the upper hand but Duan bu’s frustration at my increased fighting ability reached a breaking point.
He yelled out and an explosion of ash left his body in all directions spreading into a cloud that obscured my vision. I backed off and waited for his next move, but when the cloud of ash disappeared Duan Bu was gone too. I looked around but didn’t see any sign of him.
“It’s over now girl. You’ve made me use my trump card. Pyroclastic Phalanx!” he yelled out from behind me. I whirled around in time to see myriad spears hurtling towards me from Duan Bu’s location. I didn’t have time to bring my swords up to parry them from their location. I was about to call out my surrender when a blur of white appeared in front of me. Multiple shields of wind, water, and earth appeared in front of me, and the spears dissipated against the shields impotently.
I looked down in confusion and saw Shimmer on the ground in front of me, licking her paw in what seemed like disdain. Three of her tails were topped with their flames, the symbol within the flame as clear as day.
“Shimmer? What are you doing here?” I asked.
Before the fight could be stopped, Shimmer’s remaining tail lit up and she opened her mouth wide. A beam of radiant elemental energy, a mixture of blue, green, brown, and pale yellow flew faster than I could follow and knocked Duan Bu out of the sky. He landed roughly on the ground, and I approached him, ready to deal another blow to end the fight, but before I could make it to him, he held up his hand from the crater in the ground and surrendered the fight.
Sound rushed back to my senses then and the crowd was a mixture of confused and excited at the result of the fight. I faintly recognized Cassandra, Ji, and Jia’s voices cheering Shimmer and I on.
“Well, that was certainly unexpected folks! First, disciple Astra seemed to use both spirit cultivation techniques and body cultivation. Then, just when disciple Astra was going to be hit with Duan Bu’s ultimate attack, a mysterious fox appeared and blocked all of the spears, then launched an impressive attack that felled Duan Bu! We’ll have to defer to the elder’s decision on the outcome of this match, as the fox’s interference could be considered grounds for disqualification.”
One of the elders stood and addressed me.
“Disciple Astra, Explain.” He commanded. I didn’t remember the elder’s name.
So I explained to them that my previous master had taught me in both body cultivation and spirit cultivation and that one couldn’t truly reach the highest peak of cultivation without cultivating both their body and their spirit. I then explained that Shimmer was my qi spirit and technically part of my cultivation so her interference shouldn’t disqualify me, I just didn’t fight with her because I was afraid for her safety.
The murmurs of the crowd only increased at my words, the unbelievable truth of cultivation being revealed to them all. Most didn’t believe my words and jeered at me for lying or being a rogue cultivator. Others tried to ask me more questions about cultivation and whether I could teach them body or spirit cultivation. The patriarch’s voice cut through all of their voices.
“Silence! Disciple Astra has revealed information that will be looked into by the sect. Should it turn out to be true, we will spread the information to you all. For now, nothing Astra has done is in violation of the rules of the outer sect competition. The existence of a qi spirit is rare, but not unheard of. Her victory in this round is uncontested. Let the competition continue!” he said.
With his declaration, he sat back down and the murmurs of the crowd resumed. I walked back up to my seats next to my friends with Shimmer in tow. I had no idea the impact my words would have on Dou Can at large.
The remaining fights were uninteresting compared to my fight and then the top thirty-two fights started.
The fights were getting more intense as the title of winner of the outer sect competition felt closer than ever to the disciples. My friend group was tense as each fight was called, the worry that we’d have to fight each other ever present in our minds.
Finally, Ji was called up to fight. The problem was his opponent was Heng Jian.
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The two cultivators faced off and the announcer started their fight.
Just like in his previous fights, Heng Jian started off by launching himself at Ji at high speed, his lightning sword already in hand. He attacked Ji with a ferocity that belied his size. Ji parried and blocked as best he could using his body training realm of cultivation, but he was being pushed back. I wasn’t sure when he started using his cultivation technique, but his whole body took on a silvery sheen and was more effective at blocking Heng Jian’s blows.
Heng Jian was getting frustrated so he backed off and changed his attack patterns to use long range bolts of lightning to harry Ji. Ji did his best to block, but each bolt sent shockwaves through his body, and he was getting worn down.
He flooded his body with qi and launched himself at Heng Jian, but Heng Jian’s speed was too much to overcome. Ji was too worn out to fight any longer and was forced to surrender. We congratulated him on his good fight, but we could tell he was in a dour mood. The announcer called Jia down to the arena next, her fight was against a metal body cultivator in the body training realm. She had no trouble defeating him handily and made her way back up into the stands to join us. My match was up next, and it was nothing compared to my fight against Duan Bu. The remaining fights proceeded without anything special happening.
The top sixteen fights also saw us fighting against random opponents and both Jia and I moved on to the next round.
The top eight fights were where our luck ran out, at least Jia’s luck did. She was matched up against Heng Jian. My fight came first, and it was tough, but nothing like fighting Duan Bu. I think Duan Bu might have been one of the strongest fighters in the competition.
Jia and Heng Jian walked down to the arena, and we watched with bated breath from the stands as the announcer slowly hyped up the crowd over the two combatants.
“Next up in the top eight fights are two combatants you know well. It’s disciple Lian Jia, the ice princess versus Heng Jian the lightning king!” The announcer stated.
He started the fight and Jia and Jian launched into action. The former with her snow-white icy blade drawn and the latter with his lightning blade formed in his hand. They clashed in the middle of the arena and traded a flurry of sword strikes.
They seemed to take turns attempting to take their opponent off guard by using their movement techniques to appear in their opponent's blind spots, but neither would give any ground. Jia must have decided this was the time to reveal her body cultivation because her speed increased to an impossible level for someone below the core formation stage.
Heng Jian was instantly put onto the back foot and the crowd gasped and some of them took surreptitious glances over to me when they noticed the change in Jia. Heng Jian was pushed back so much that he was forced to use one of his trump cards. He called down a large bolt of lightning from the sky that landed between him and Jia and stopped her unrelenting assault for long enough that he could start launching lightning bolts from afar like in his fight with Ji. His speed wasn’t enough to keep Jia from attacking him though, so unlike with his fight with Ji he was forced back until he could no longer hold off Jia’s assault and he was forced to surrender.
The remaining fights passed quickly, and it was time for the final four of the competition. By sheer luck, or more likely some meddling by whoever was in charge of the competition, Jia and I didn’t have to fight in the semi-finals. We each beat our opponents, though the fights weren’t trivial. If I didn't have Shimmer to help me, I would have certainly lost to the experienced metal cultivator.
“Ladies and gentlemen! It’s time for the fight you’ve all been waiting for! The finals of the outer sect competition is here! Disciple Lian Jia, the ice princess versus disciple Astra the fox tamer!” He announced.
“Hey! Don’t go giving me a weird nickname!” I yelled out from the stands which elicited a laugh from the majority of the crowd.
“Looks like disciple Astra doesn’t like her new moniker, but her qi spirit fox Shimmer has stolen the hearts of the people. I don’t think that nickname will be changing anytime soon! I’ve gotten news that before the final fight of the competition, elder Chin Lao would like to display a bit of his power in celebration of the great fights we’ve seen today! Elder Chin, take it away!” He said.
Elder Chin stood from his seat and Cassandra, Ji, Jia, and I all tensed, knowing what was going to happen.
Elder Chin threw his hand up and a tiny gout of flame launched into the air. It was a little underwhelming honestly, but before I could look at my friends in confusion the flame exploded into a corona of flame larger than most of the buildings I had seen in the sect. I could feel the flames from where I stood and had to close my eyes from the brightness. The crowd cheered at the sight and elder Chin sat back down.
We waited for the distractions to begin but nothing happened. We looked at each other in confusion but Jia and I just shrugged our shoulders and walked down onto the arena. We faced off against each other, still confused but ready to fight regardless. The announcer started the fight, but before we could engage each other we heard the sound of distant explosions ringing throughout the sect. The audience began panicking as the explosions drew nearer and Both Jia and I looked up to elder Niang who nodded at us and went with the other elders to investigate the explosions. All except elder Chin who attacked the patriarch with his sword and his fire techniques.
Their fight was something I couldn’t even follow with my eyes and before I could say anything a hooded figure from the stands launched himself into the fray against the patriarch. At once, screams and fights broke out from within the audience as members of the church of the one true Dao hidden within their ranks turned on their fellow cultivators. We ran back into the stands to meet back up with our friends but were waylaid on our way by a group of cultivators in red robes.
We immediately engaged them, Jia, Shimmer, and I fighting in tandem and defeating the group of cultivators. We made it up to the stands where Cassandra and Ji stood around a group of cultivators on the ground. The rest of the stands was a scene of bedlam. We moved as a group going through the stands defeating any members of the church we came across and growing our ranks of fellow disciples as we moved around the arena’s edge. I looked up to the fight between the patriarch, elder Chin, and the hooded man but when I looked, I saw more than just three figures fighting. Instead, two of the other elders had joined the patriarch and were holding off the attacks from the rogue elder and the hooded man.
Elder Chin looked around the arena and broke off from the fight when he caught sight of me.
“Traitor!!” He yelled as he launched himself at our group, launching a gout of flame at us. I used Shimmer’s power to put up a shield of water but the resulting explosion from the elder’s attack hitting the shield launched our whole group to the ground in an explosion of heat and steam.
The elder stood above me in the stands, ready to strike out but before he could attack us, elder Niang appeared and launched elder Chin backwards with a blast of water.
“Keep fighting disciples of the Blooming violet sect!” elder Niang yelled.
“You are all proud disciples of our sect; you will not be defeated by these traitors and interlopers!” She continued. Her words rallied the disciples all around us and we moved as a swarm, moving around the arena and taking out any enemies we found. Our group continued growing until we made our way all around the edge of the arena and defeated all of the church members hidden within the arena.
Elder Niang was holding elder Chin up by the collar, one of the other elders of the sect floating next to her in the air as she spoke to us.
“Good job disciples, now flood out into the sect! Suppress the intruders and defend our home!” She yelled and we all cheered and launched ourselves out of the arena. We spread out in all directions, taking all of the church’s members in the sect by storm, we rooted them all out, though our casualties were not insignificant. The rallying of the disciples and the fact that we outnumbered the members of the church were in our favor and it didn’t take long before we were cleaning up the sect in the aftermath of the battle.
The patriarch, along with the help of the elders of the sect, was able to defeat the mysterious elder from the church of the one true Dao. It took a few days to clean up the entire sect but with everyone working together the sect was rebuilt and back to its former glory, though the realization that around a quarter of the current disciples of the sect were traitors weighed on everyone’s minds.