Given the opportunity, Chikere swiftly left her Everheart-deflecting-buddy behind. She wasn’t abandoning her. Ultimately, Vari should be safer without her around. And it was a good opportunity for her. Perhaps even better than Chikere’s upcoming battle with Rahayu, given her style.

But there was no more time for Chikere to think about that. She sensed Rahayu approaching. And if he didn’t try to kill her, she was going to be very upset. Chidi was a decent sparring partner, but his lack of experience and timidity meant he couldn’t yet push her as far as she needed. Chikere understood she had been on the wrong path when she went to fight the Limitless Edge, but she was confident in her current route.

She found him in a field of giant metal spikes. No, that wasn’t quite right. The spikes had thin offshoots along their length. Leaves? She’d heard about something like this at some point.

“Steelsoul Bamboo,” Rahayu offered.

“Ah, thank you,” Chikere nodded. “I didn’t know what it was called.”

Rahayu slowly drew his blade from his sheath, an even scraping noise reaching her ears. And then… his blade stabbed into her back. Just like when they had first met, except instead of piercing all the way through her it only pierced through her skin as she blocked it.

“Good. I had heard you were not doing well, and I didn’t wish to be disappointed.”

“I’m great, thanks,” Chikere said. Blood bloomed out of her, releasing its density. Her right arm swiped in an impossible configuration, aiming for Rahayu’s neck. Obviously, she didn’t get him.

His style was much the same as before, but that didn’t mean he would be easily defeated. His path to perfection was through a single blade. Each move of Rahayu’s countered dozens of Chikere’s blades of blood, his steps perfection to slip past countless cuts and thrusts and force her to defend herself.

The Steelsoul Bamboo hindered attacks, even for cultivators of their level. It was not that they could not cut through it, but each slice was incrementally delayed, losing some of its power… and the falling plants themselves could be lethal weapons. Chikere didn’t want to test her energy defenses against the impossibly thin leaves.

Fighting against Rayahu, a little slip up on her part and she could meet her death. Rahayu might be dancing on an even sharper edge than herself, as failing to deal with any of her hundred or so weapons could easily be fatal. That said, quantity wasn’t everything.

Each sweep of his blade tore apart many of her blades. That said, she only lost a portion of upper energy. The blood itself was not annihilated- only a small portion directly along the cutting path. The main structure continued on… and she learned how to resist more attacks, working towards impossible angles. Of course, only relying on the angle being impossible was insufficient to stop Rahayu. She also had to be unpredictable. And she had just the way to do that.

Chikere drew first blood. If her attack hadn’t been so pathetic, it would have done more than nick Rahayu’s shoulder. On the other hand, anything that seemed like it would be effective would have been countered. It was precisely that it was such a foolish move that it worked. Her blades could act synchronously to be one perfect weapon, or independently like a wild mob rioting. Her attacks were filled with killing intent yet full of hesitation. Unflinching, yet merciful. Or they could be alternately ruthless and pathetic.

As each patch of Steelsoul Bamboo was cut asunder, the two warriors moved deeper, seeking to use its cover against their opponents.

-----

The weight of the morningstar crashing down towards Vari’s head was much greater than a mountain as she caught it, the spikes poking between her splayed fingers. She could feel the changes in Luksa’s cultivation, the complete lack of fake benevolence replaced with the honesty of uncaring power. Vari already felt accomplished for having stood up to a single move from an Augmentation cultivator. She’d done it before, but only when wielding the true Luminous Heartpiercer versus the spear saint’s replacement.

In that case, she’d had the home terrain advantage and a plan. Furthermore, she was prepared to fight against Damjan, drawing upon his power through the promise of the Glorious Harmony Technique.

Here, she had neither of those advantages. This was Luksa’s turf now, being a member of Everheart’s little cult. She tossed Vari away towards a wall covered in spikes- no doubt one of the tamer and more obvious dangers on the planet.

Vari’s path had been filled with twists and turns. Her practice of the Holy Harmony Technique and devotion to the Harmonious Citadel when they showed nothing but contempt in turn had stifled her. Her freedom and growth came when she seized those promises for herself. And then the Harmonious Citadel fell. Even until now, she wasn’t quite sure what that meant for her. She was aware of some small surges of power upon the deaths of the saints, but with their numbers having run out that well had run dry.

She caught herself before she hit the wall. No time to think about how things should be right now. Her energy reached out, forming a barrier half the height of a person between herself and Luksa, a simple cone to deflect her as she charged forward. That slowed her enough for Vari to take a proper stance, then her leg came up to catch Luksa’s wrist. Against a less durable foe, she might have shattered the limb, but if Luksa were so fragile she couldn’t withstand the recoil of her own blows.

Vari used the momentum of the clash to push herself away from the falling morningstar, her left hand still numb from blocking a single attack. She felt it still. A slight connection was there. After all, despite forsaking that promise… Luska had still made it. But Vari knew that wouldn’t be enough. Not now, and not later.

Stolen story; please report.

The ground trembled as the structure around them cracked. Did Luksa lack the control, or did she not care? Neither were particularly better for Vari at the moment. She had to continue to focus on defense. Fighting unarmed, without overwhelming power, relied on redirecting the energy of your opponent’s attacks. If that was not properly accomplished, it was simply a downgrade from using a proper weapon.

Though Vari wasn’t dedicated to a lack of weapons as a concept. Her boots and gauntlets were weapons of a kind, it just felt good to fight within the constraints of her own body’s reach.

Defending wasn’t just about backing away from your opponent, blocking, and deflecting. Sometimes you also had to advance towards your opponent to get inside their reach. As Luksa whirled her heavy weapon in two hands, Vari slipped past striking the inside of Luska’s shoulder as she went. With that came a bit of energy.

It wasn’t enough, though. She needed something more. Somehow, withdrawing from the battle had completely slipped her mind. Even her survival was secondary to her moment of comprehension. The building trembled. Pillars cracked and shattered. Walls were destroyed as the two combatants danced about. Vari tumbled through gouts of flame and bursts of poison as traps were triggered.

They seemed to be slowly moving towards more fortified positions, their collateral damaging shrinking as the structures gained durability. This limited Vari’s mobility, since her opponent wasn’t making openings for her anymore.

Then, finally, she was driven into a corner. Simply relying on her speed and agility to get out wasn’t as simple as it might seem. Luksa was by no means slow despite the heavy force of her weapon. Two hands raised, vast quantities of upper energy gathered.

So this was it, then. The final moment. Vari took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she took in her opponent’s power.

“Don’t kill her!” a voice shouted from nearby.

“I was planning to let her live regardless,” the powerful woman declared.

Everheart’s chuckle filled the room. “I was talking to my niece.”

Vari didn’t quite hear the exchange. She was thinking about her opponent, and her own ability. Her mind was going through the maze of spatial distortions from earlier. That wasn’t in her area of expertise, but she could still make use of some of that. The morningstar came down, power surging through Luksa and nearly crushing Vari’s own from where she stood. But inside of her, her own compressed power sprang forth.

Hearing Everheart’s warning wouldn’t have changed much. She didn’t have sufficient control over her retributive attack to actually make that choice. A combination of physical deflection, bending space, and unevenly shaped barriers resulted in both combatants being blasted apart, a large part of the offensive energy resulting in that movement instead of crushing their bodies.

-----

The best part about infinity was that if Chikere thought she was going to run out of useful moves, she only had to come up with more. Some of them were truly awful, but even attacking completely opposite of your opponent’s direction could be a feint if you believed hard enough. And while her initial instincts screamed at her to avoid such nonsensical options, she resisted the urge and simply fought. Those moves might not bring her any closer to a victory in this battle, but every swing of a sword brought her closer to perfection. And the closer she was to perfection, the closer her swords made of herself would be.

Rahayu wanted a good fight, but he also wanted to win. At some point in the battle, he began to wear down Chikere by specifically targeting her free floating blood, making it impossible for her to reform them into blades after he shattered them. That meant drawing more from her reserves, which was unfortunate along with the actual bleeding she was doing from the few small wounds she had taken. But she condensed extra blood for entirely this reason. She still had enough to function. She just needed to end the battle soon, because she didn’t want to have to explain to Engineer Uzun and the rest of the team why she let her replacement bits and pieces get damaged. And if she died, that was kind of like letting them all get destroyed.

The previously perceived perfection of a sword that could cut open a path to the upper realms for ascension was nothing to either of the two in their current states. Severing space was quite trivial for either of them at the current moment, and attacks seemed to come from every direction as Rahayu spun around Chikere, forcing her to defend more than she was comfortable with.

She thought of her apprentice, and how he took control over battles. She wasn’t a formation expert, her mind not tuned to the deep complexities of everything energy flows could produce. However, she did understand patterns, especially the patterns of sword combat. As things were going, she was going to be defeated. Killed, even. Not out of malice, but out of necessity for growth. Chikere could tell that Rahayu was also pushing towards Augmentation, and she felt his bitterness at the lack of proper challenge in this system.

One move, and Chikere responded with ten. Two moves, and Chikere responded with a hundred. A third move sliced open a rift that held its form for an excruciatingly long moment, cluttering the battlefield as Steelsoul Bamboo was alternately pulled towards and propelled away from the area.

Chikere saw it. The path to her victory. The goal of training to Rahayu was to properly surpass him, and even though she once reached a state that might have been greater than him it was a path she no longer followed. She had to push her current self. She dodge and weaved, forcing him to take certain actions. Her weapons came from just the right angle to force a particular counterattack, though it cost her a dozen swords worth of blood for no visible results. And technically, that particular attack really didn’t advantage her. But it put Rahayu in just the right position.

His blade came down at her right shoulder. Chikere dodged left. Her arm fell to the right. Space split apart with a booming noise as air flowed into the gaps. A single blade stabbed backwards, away from the rift. But as it split a small opening in space, the collapsing rift merged two points.

Her blade pierced through Rahayu’s back. The battle was over.

Chikere picked up her arm. Having a detachable arm was great, actually.

“Kill me,” Rahayu said, looking down at the sword of blood coming out of his chest. “This attack should have done so. I can’t bear to proceed like this.”

“You need to look at that sword closer,” Chikere said. “Aside from the color, it should be rather familiar.” Then she shrugged, “This doesn’t mean I’m willing to take you as an apprentice or anything. But I can’t just end your path here. I need to see what happens next.”

Rahayu carefully pulled his own sword out of his back. Not his current one, of course, but one that he had used in the lower realms. The location of the wound was the same as well, though it wasn’t sufficient to incapacitate him as he was. He smiled slightly.

A loud rumbling noise rang out as Chikere looked back through the carnage they had left. “Oh, Vari’s done! We’ll probably be heading out now. See you later, okay?”

Rayahu nodded. “You will.”