Chao shook his head to get rid of the distracting thoughts.
He popped another pill, crunching it violently with his incisors, while Ziyou Yung fought a dusk valley lion under Free Sparrow’s boisterous guidance.
These were 2-Star fiends. And on average, at a higher stage than the previous Wretched bloodhounds. Yet still, the cowardly boy was able to play them like a pipa, nonchalantly frolicking between the confused beasts whilst chirping along with the Lord Yaoguai.
Chao would slay ten times Ziyou Yung's number. Surely that would be a feat many times more impressive?
He knew it wasn’t natural fondness that attracted him to Su Nanya. There were powers at play and perhaps even fate. But he also knew this. He needed to show the fox yao loitering near Ziyou Yung’s feet that he was a far better man than the short madlander boy. Only he deserved to be Su Nanya’s hero, and Ziyou Yung would stay a servant.
Chao gathered the Origin qi from the pill in his vambrace. The artefact responded without delay. Part of the aura slithered into the epic class Imperfect Heaven 1st grade rusty sword. The rest permeated his muscles and limbs, his eyes and ears.
He held in a cough, then swallowed back the blood threatening to rush out of his mouth. The rush of unrefined Origin qi was excruciating, but he would prevail!
These fiends were near the 4th or 5th stage of the Imperfect Heaven 1st order. But with fiends, the substages were never clearly divided like that.
Chao could only guess with his experience and unique vision.
Three-fold Bloodfire Strike!
He channelled the qi according to a technique from his mother's clan. The sword edge gleamed red. Like so many others, this was a compound technique, but the bloodfire qi would leave his foes in a blazing inferno of boiling blood. Internally. Outwards, they would merely be in simple, agonising pain.
“Grrraaao!”
It slashed the side of the first dusk valley lion. One strike, but it left three gashes. The fiend went down, but its glare remained.
Strange, the bloodfire qi should have left it immobilised—
“Nice one, Chao!”
Chao acknowledged the compliment by dodging down as Ziyou Ling’s spear nailed the fiend to the ground after piercing through the mad beast’s spine.
"This is my fight. Stay out of it!" Chao shouted; he had something to prove.
“Bastard!” Ziyou Ling cursed. She left her spear nailed to the lion and dashed away, spitting at his feet.
Sorry, Chao could only apologise in his mind. He glanced at Su Xiya. The fox spectated a fumbling Ziyou Yung with unwavering attention, the shorter boy struggling to pull out his sword after he had missed a slash, the edge digging deep inside a tree trunk.
Chao clicked his tongue.
He blocked an incoming claw with his sword, then rebounded the attack with his vambrace.
The chaosfiend cried out, retreating.
Another was gathering a ray of dark light in its maw.
Dusk Valley Roar!
The chaosfiend attacked with their signature qi technique. This one was in the late stages!
The ray ripped apart the ground and headed straight for Chao.
The boy roared, rolling at the last second.
“That hurt!” Part of the ray seared his back. He bit back the pain and dashed for the smirking lion.
But halfway through, Chao jumped at a weird angle.
Towards the weaker dusk valley lion nailed to the ground.
“Grrrow!”
Three others of their pride recoiled immediately. These were social creatures. They took care of their injured with just as much coordination as they hunted their prey.
But at the end of the day, they were dumb animals.
Mid-air, just as Chao was about to hit the injured fiend, he jumped again, using the qi exiting his feet as a springboard.
The three fiends crashed into each other.
Chao stepped on Ling’s spear, then vaulted back.
By now, he was dancing with six of these fiends simultaneously.
He was training!
And even in this life-and-death situation, being literally five or six stages weaker than these creatures that could rend trees apart with a swipe of their claws, he had the composure to glance at his fluffy quarry.
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Dammit!
The fox woofed musically with every successful feint Ziyou Yung did, the shorter boy grinning after tripping a dusk valley lion from behind. Compared to Chao’s feat, it was child’s play. But the fox yao, seemingly a child herself, had her priorities in strange order.
Chao roared, popping five more pills.
He moved his battle towards Youjin Chun’s area.
Elder Gangkai saw the scene and shook his head. He grabbed his mistress and jumped back.
“What are you doing?” Youjin Chun asked in a fluster.
“Leave him. Fool.” Youjin Gangkai grunted.
As Chao passed by, he nicked one lion in the eye and another at the side.
Soon, he had more than ten of them in a tango.
He was nicked and bruised. But there was a savage grin on his face.
He had never felt more alive! It was in moments like these, with foreign qi splintering through his veins, that he felt the thrill of his blood pumping in his heart. That he was strong, he was a fighter, and he was not a mere cripple.
Chao dodged another dusk valley roar, hitting four lions with a broad swipe of his rusty blade, the souls trapped in the epic class artefact screaming with just as much pleasure to his unseen senses.
“Grrrraow!”
The fiends whimpered in equal measures of anguish.
Yet they still got up. Bleeding, limping, but shaking off the effects of the bloodfire qi as though it was child’s play.
Strange! What are these chaosfiends? Are they immune to it? Chao thought.
"Not enough!" He shouted. He would ponder the issue after killing the last of lions like the prey they were. He danced his dance of life and death, and jumped towards Ziyou Yung's battle with a confident grace. He was careful to avoid sic'ing the other fiends on the younger boy. And that fantastic control proved nothing but his extreme competence.
He wanted to show beyond doubt that he was better, not to burn bridges because he was jealous.
Not yet, at least.
“As expected of Young Chao.” Ziyou Maque, standing at the back with his arms crossed and eyes sharp, nodded with approval. “Know your limits, then test them. Now if you could only cultivate rather than depend on pills.”
"That's the plan!" Chao yelled with a wide smile and slashed his sword at the current dusk valley lion Ziyou Yung had been 'playing' tag with.
“Huh?”
The fiend sidestepped like it was nothing.
“Hey now, what was that?” Ziyou Maque bantered. “Is that all ye can do, Young Chao?”
Something’s definitely wrong! Chao grew alert, his battle senses screaming at him with painful shivers. “Get away from it!” He warned the shorter boy.
“Are you jealous?” Yung said with a smug smile. “This one’s my practice partner. You have yours.”
It grated on Chao’s nerves, but he couldn’t respond since Ziyou Yung’s words were partially spot on.
“Let’s end this.” Ziyou Yung did something with his finger as Lord Yaoguai chirped, the critter sitting on the madlander boy’s shoulder with a super fierce expression, and that confused look appeared on the dusk valley lion’s feline face.
Chao saw Ziyou Yung gather Heart qi on his Imperfect Heaven 1st grade rare class sword artefact, the light of the blade gleaming threads of fractured gold in his innate vision. It was beautiful, but it was without any killing intent whatsoever.
“I never tested this attack on an actual subject. Let’s see how powerful this sword really is,” Ziyou Yung said.
“That’s the way to go.” Ziyou Maque nodded, “Check precisely how much qi it eats up, so you won’t be facing nasty surprises later when you use it impulsively in a pinch.”
The intense aura radiated from the sword like a miniature sun, and a rotating saw-blade materialised on the blade’s edge. Ziyou Yung kept pumping more and more Heart qi into it with a manic look on his face, the foxmoth yaoguai and fox yao girl egging the boy along with chirps and barks.
“Rare class artefacts are out there, huh?” Ziyou Ling muttered.
"Indeed." Youjin Gangkai grunted his single-word reply. The other two Imperfect Heaven 2nd realm Free sparrow gang cultivators also looked moderately impressed, while Youjin Chun simply snorted.
The illumination was intense, as was the pressure for the Heart qi. Perhaps as strong as a serious strike from a peak tier Imperfect Heaven 2nd realmer.
At this point, Chao still had to pay more attention to the other fourteen chaosfiends he was juggling. He sighed as Ziyou Yung got into stance, then warned one last time, “Be careful. That one beast is strange.”
It was then that Chao suddenly noticed another anomaly.
While the renyao showed varied reactions to the aura coming from Ziyou Yung's sword, the other chaosfiend couldn't feel the radiated Heart qi. Not the dusk valley lion that Yung faced, which was to be expected. But not even the ones Chao was fighting. Which were still shrugging off his bloodfire qi intoxication like they were mosquito bites.
What the hell is going on? Chao couldn’t arrive at an answer. “Did you go full stealth on all the fiends, Brother Yung? I thought you were practising targeted stealth.” He asked, trying to keep down his rising uncertainty.
"No. I'm low on qi!" Ziyou Yung held his sword like it was a spear. What an ugly sword form, but his foe was none the wiser. He tiptoed, aimed at the dusk valley lion's behind, and thrust.
“Stop!” Ziyou Maque bellowed, the horror palpable in his voice. He noticed the problem the moment Ziyou Yung finished answering Chao. The Free Sparrow Leader threw his spear at the fiend with all the power he could muster. “Back away!”
The dusk valley lion’s eyes dilated.
And time seemed to grind to a halt.
Elder Gangkai's qi rose too. He grabbed his young mistress and threw tens of defensive talismans between them and the gradually en-shocked chaosfiend, which had its rear end mutilated.
“Woof!” Su Xiya cried out, dashing towards Yung with incredible speed. “Woof! Woof!”
But it was too late.
Yung had already castrated the creature with all the nonchalance of a farm boy.
His head tilted in bewilderment at the sudden change in mood.
His arm grasped the sword stuck deep inside the dusk valley lion’s behind.
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWW!”
An explosive aura burst out with a mournful screech.
Chao saw the shockwave of chaotic qi hit the madlander boy.
Simultaneously, all other dusk valley lions vanished as though they were illusions. Even the bloodstains on Chao’s sword and the splatters on the ground puffed into smoke. No proof of their existence remained other than the wounds Chao himself had sustained.
And within that moment, the mirror fortress materialised without Chao's commands, shielding him from the worst of the impact brought about by the chaotic and malicious dusk-coloured wave. But he still coughed up blood, as though the pain the lion felt had seeped into his own blood and bones.
Brother Yung’s done for! Chao thought with anguish. He felt powerless, unable to do anything for the boy who saved his life. He'd wanted a true rivalry, not such a ridiculous ending.
Time moved once more.
One-third of a second, “Woof!” Su Xiya jumped. The defensive artefact on Ziyou Yung’s wrist glowed with painful firelight. As did Su Xiya, the fluffy fox about to reach the madlander boy in her leap.
The next third of a second, a grey barrier appeared, covering Ziyou Yung with an echoing clash. It stopped most of the shockwave's impact. But the madlander boy's eyes still rolled over despite his body not bursting like a watermelon. While he didn't take the qi shockwave with his body head-on, the sheer oppressive assault from a being far his superior took its mighty toll.
The last third of the second, Ziyou Yung disappeared from everyone’s view. Su Xiya landed with a mournful howl, with the madlander boy nowhere to be seen.
The last scene Chao saw as the mirror fortress trapped him in, was the dusk valley lion’s tail flying away from its body, followed by a grey streak blasting westwards from where Ziyou Yung had stood.