“No! Twenty-two!” Pengzi, horrified, jumped forward and swatted the chicken out of the poison cloud before it breathed in too much. In the process though, he himself became covered by the white dust. As he coughed desperately, his opponent pounced forward with a sword.

Unlike Zeran’s earlier Twin Beast opponent, it seemed that the Purple Flower Sect disciple wasn’t much of a talker. Earlier, when the elder had rung the bell, she had pounced forward and attacked. Now, with Pengzi on the ropes, she didn’t waste any time in sending lethal attacks his way even though she still had massive wounds of her own.

Pengzi held his breath and got into a martial stance. He could feel poison rushing into his bloodstream. From his throat onward, he felt an itch that threatened to consume him. And it was spreading. The only thing keeping him up right now was his cultivation, and that wouldn’t last long.

The only silver lining in all of this was that his opponent wasn’t great at close combat. Pengzi could easily defend against her attacks and for some that were aimed at non-lethal parts of his body, he didn’t even bother to dodge or defend. The good thing about body cultivation was that he could withstand attacks that would have crippled other cultivators. And the Treasure Vitality Path emphasized an internal strength, one where he could shut off the parts of his brain that screamed pain.

It must be some kind of potent paralytic.

As the fight wore on, Pengzi found the second effect of the poison. His zhen felt clunky and awkward. And the Purple Flower Sect cultivator noticed. She attacked faster and faster, looking to overwhelm Pengzi and force him to start scrambling to defend.

As his muscles numbed and his heart rate slowed down, Pengzi had to take manual control of everything. He minimized his movements. If he could block an attack with one arm, he wouldn’t use two. And where he could, he used zhen to form a small layer on his body to slip through her attacks.

The situation rapidly went worse when the Purple Flower disciple threw away her sword and instead brought out a series of needles. She didn’t just use them as melee weapons but would sneak in a couple of needle throws with her normal attacks. And, as Pengzi learned after taking a few needles in the chest, they were tipped with the same paralytic poison. His body began shutting down just that much faster. The only reason he could even still stand at all was due to Xun’s insane way of teaching.

Soon, Pengzi could barely even spare the energy to think. Punch, dodge, roll, counterattack, repeat. Again, and again, and again. He kept taking attack after attack.

As she realized that victory was finally within reach, the Purple Flower disciple finally showed a smile. In his overheated mind, Pengzi thought that his opponent wasn’t bad looking. It was a weird thought, especially when she was trying her best to kill him, but he didn’t have the energy to punish himself for such a thing.

Instead, he made a turtle stance, taking the attacks on his limbs while protecting his vitals. The attacks weren’t life-threatening just yet and every move his opponent made led to her wounds worsening. All he had to do was wait for an opportunity. Time was on Pengzi’s side.

Especially because everyone, including the spectators, had forgotten about the chicken.

—

Rice Twenty-two felt weird. The closest he could describe it would be the time when he had eaten too much spirit rice and fallen into a food coma for a few hours. But this wasn’t as pleasant as that had been. Instead, he felt a creeping numbness invading his body, but his zhen activated by itself to fight against that feeling.

Slowly, he regained his senses and finally realized where he was. The fight! In a panic, he began to circulate his zhen faster as he heard his master putting up a desperate resistance.

Cracking open an eye, he saw his master getting attacked by the unknown female. She was nothing like master’s companion. She wasn’t kind and she smelled awful.

When he felt ready, Rice Twenty-two kicked his foot. It swished through the air a bit slower than he would have liked. He tried again and this time, it was more responsive. He was almost back to normal. If he had another minute or two, he’d be back in peak fighting condition despite whatever black magic the female had used on him.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Unfortunately, it didn’t look like luck was on his side. His master’s situation went from normal to dire as he assumed a turtle stance and stopped defending against all but the most lethal strike. It looked like he had given up while the female opponent struck at him. She kept pulling out needles from her robe and sticking them into his master. Left without much choice, Rice Twenty-two attacked.

The poison was still in him. His wings felt weird and his speed felt incredibly slow compared to what he knew was possible. But his claws were just as sharp and powerful as before. And the woman was so focused on his master that she never saw him coming.

His first attack added a new gash across her back. And his second attack made another gash that intersected with the first one.

She screamed in shock, whirling around to face him, a needle already in the air and heading straight for his neck. This time, he was prepared. He met her attack with his beak, timing it just right to clamp down on her weapon without it piercing him. Then he twisted his neck and wrangled the needle away from her. As the female cultivator reached insider her robe, he danced downward and slipped through her legs, slicing into her shins as he did so.

The one thing that Rice Twenty-two had learned about humans was that they were surprisingly bad at fighting things that were shorter than them. Even Pengzi had trouble whenever Rice Twenty-two was darting next to his feet. The woman was no exception. She tried to attack him with both needles and clouds of dust. Neither landed.

After a few seconds of the dance and a couple more gashes on the woman’s legs, Rice Twenty-two voluntarily retreated. He had done enough damage and bought enough time for his master to regain his bearings. Now, it was a two on one fight.

But for some reason, his master wasn’t attacking. Rice Twenty-two clucked at him and realized that he was still under the influence of the poison. Pushing himself forward, Rice Twenty-two flew at the woman cultivator’s face.

He shouldn’t have given her the chance to recuperate. She was ready for him now and almost every one of her attacks were aimed directly at him. The situation had suddenly become far more dire.

That’s when Rice Twenty-two noticed a pile of white dust that she had dropped on the floor of the stage. Maneuvering her around, he baited her by faking a hurt wing. When she lunged and was in range, he quickly flapped his wings, bringing up the powder right into her face.

Twirling, he narrowly avoided another two needles that were sent his way, and mocked her, squawking loudly to hide the approach of his recovered master.

He watched as his master threw himself on her back and got her in a chokehold. Before she could react, Rice Twenty-two slashed at her face with his talons, missing her eye by the barest of margins.

When he went in for the killing blow, his master stopped him. Apparently, his master thought that the fight was over. Rice Twenty-two tried to show that the female cultivator was still alive with a peck but his master blocked that too.

And then he was wrapped in his master’s warm and strong arms.

“The winner of this round is Pengzi from the Sacred Gate Sect!” a voice shouted in the background, but Rice Twenty-two only cared for his master.

—

Pengzi forfeited the stage as soon as the fight was finished. He watched as the Purple Flower disciple drag herself off stage and into a clump of female disciples who tried to heal her most serious injuries.

To think that a chicken did more damage than I did. What has this world come to?

Pengzi always knew that his chickens were dangerous. But he thought of them as still a kind of pet-like danger, where they might bite someone’s hand in their excitement before getting swatted down. Rice Twenty-two had put an end to that myth. It had struck true during the fight and even tried to end his opponent’s life when he intended for mercy.

Still, he couldn’t blame it. Rice Twenty-two was obviously more suited for real fights, where even the slightest hesitation was the difference between life or death. He watched the chicken in his arms with a complicated look on his face. He was holding a killer in his arms and yet, when it purred, his heart melted.

As he came off the stage, healers from the Sacred Gate Sect rushed forward to treat him. Rice Twenty-two struggled out of his grip and spread its wings, warning the healers back.

“Twenty-two. You stupid bird. They’re not here to hurt me,” Pengzi chided.

The chicken flapped its wings and after a second, it flew to its nest on the top of Pengzi’s head.

“What a chicken you have,” Xun’s voice sounded to Pengzi’s side. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Pengzi replied. “I know it might look scary but this is nothing — oof”

The air rushed out of Pengzi’s lungs as he was tackled by Zhanghao. She wrapped her arms around him and even found the time to knock Rice Twenty-two away. The chicken gave her a death stare before flying down to the ground.

“Ow, ow, ow! You’re pushing the needles further in me!” Pengzi yelled as his partner tightened her grip on him. “I’m going to die. Really die this time.”

“Then you should have known better than to fight like that. Do you know how worried I was?” Zhanghao let go and began taking out various herbs from her robe. “What are you feeling? I think she used some kind of scorpion powder as her main poison but she could have mixed something else with it. If you tell me what you’re feeling, I can treat you.”

Pengzi responded with a bear hug. “All I feel is love.”