With Daniel's control of gravity, the fight should have concluded easily, except he wasn't as skilled with the [Dao] as he would become. He, like me, had only taken the first step along the path of his [Dao]. He had a preliminary and basic understanding, enough to allow him to control gravity, but the true importance and impact of that fundamental Law was beyond his scope and comprehension.

His execution of [Thirteen Hand] taxed my ability to respond. Even with my [Lightning's Rush] active increasing my agility and dexterity, I was almost overwhelmed. It was the randomness of each attack, as his fists blurred, increasing in speed and force the longer the technique was channeled that was the true test.

If I hadn't been able to use Qi to direct the cloth I had released to confound and misdirect some of the blows he threw, the fight would have ended here. But my control over both Tessen as well as those reams of material I had released was absolute. At least in this venue. I'm sure some cultivators could wrest control from me, but Daniel's elemental affinities didn't make him one of them.

There were always people that as skilled as you, better than you, or lucky enough to defeat you no matter how skilled or talented you were.

There were similarities between our fighting styles. Where my moves relied on fluidity bordering on dance, he relied on the flexibility found in Olympic caliber gymnasts. His movements were as much art as mine were. As we continued to exchange blows, he often responded by dodging my attacks completely, not even bothering to defend. The one time he bent backward, his body perpendicular to the ground, before springing upright and releasing a Qi infused [Arrow Fist] was impressive, the crowd seemed to agree if the cheers were anything to go by.

Whenever I retreated, moving to gain a height advantage, he advanced, barreling towards me his entire body spinning like a top. Fists and legs a frenzied display of wanton abandon of punches and kicks. If he had managed to land those blows, I would have lost the bout then and there.

Again.

It wasn't the physical attack that was problematic, instead; he had extended his Qi, forming a poniard of energy that would have skewered me, destroying my meridians in the process. His attack would have been fatal.

That was the second time he had almost ended the bout in his favor, leaving me no recourse but to retreat as he pressed his advantage. My impression of his fighting style and of him as an opponent coalesced after that attack. He was not trying to win a friendly bout between Sects, his attacks were meant to kill. He wasn't holding anything back, and it finally impressed upon me how serious some of the contestants were taking this tournament, and how far they were willing to go.

I had treated our bout as a series of feints and tests, a competition to challenge him and myself in an attempt to gain practical experience from the fight. I had thought nothing more of this event than to believe it was predicated on healthy competition. I had anticipated wounds, even broken bones or damaged organs, but I had not believed the cultivators I met in the ring would be so determined to win that they would attack with the intent to kill.

It made no sense, at least for the part of myself that was still treating this tournament as a World Wrestling competition that would be found on Earth. But for a world based on martial arts. A world where the strong ruled. A world where might made right. In this kind of world, the deadly nature this bout had become made perfect sense.

I had been an idiot. Using half measures to test and advance my skills, instead of fighting full out. It was only because of my [Dao of Movement] and [Lightning's Rush] that I hadn't fallen to the pinwheel attack he had launched. If I hadn't been able to dodge that attack, he would have drilled right through me, my body shredded as a result of my stupidity.

That attack also revealed more of his potential. Up to this point, he had been using hand strikes powered with Qi to deflect and advance. This was the first time he had extended his Qi past his body and used his legs to power his movement as well as attack. It was another wake-up call, proof that he could launch ranged attacks using Qi projectiles. He simply hadn't bothered to this point, probably because he hadn't felt he needed to.

I wasn't sure why or what his motivation was. Why he decided now was the time to reveal more of his abilities. Perhaps, like me, he was hoping not to telegraph to other opponents exactly what he was capable of, and I had turned out to be a harder opponent to eliminate than he'd anticipated. But I would follow his example, no more feints, no more testing his defenses.

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I sent a quick message to Storm, directing the Roc to increase the intensity of wind and lightning. I allowed her to access the lightning and air I controlled with my Qi, siphoning power from my Dantian to her so that she could escalate the power allowing her to join the attack.

I still refused to get anywhere near Daniel to fight, but now that I knew he could launch range attacks, I merged my Qi perception with Storm, explaining my fear and gaining a concession from her to take more care. The shared senses, her perception added to mine, made for a qualitative difference in how I was able to monitor the fight.

It was as if I now had two sets of eyes to see out of, as well as two Qi perception fields to filter stimuli. Fields that coalesced and focused on even the smallest detail, changes in ambient Qi as well as the speed Daniel was able to cycle that available Qi. Once I was satisfied that Storm's perception was able to monitor the macro-environment, there was no need for me to expand my perception to include the entire arena, what I needed was advance warning when Daniel was expanding his ability to create Qi constructs. I accomplished this by narrowing my perception, focusing entirely on Daniel and the energies that surrounded him.

This wouldn't allow me to see how he cycled Qi, but it did allow me to notice when he began telegraphing his big moves. He would pause for a second to gather Qi, before releasing the energy gathered in one of his martial techniques. I could use those pauses, stagger my attacks so they landed while he was engaged in Qi absorption.

I began by directing the water element I controlled, filling the tines, fabric, and garrote of my Tessen to work to both shield myself from his attacks and deluge him in a high-powered water stream. My Tessen began to oscillate, to vibrate in harmony with my continuous movements, the fan snapping open and closed directing gales of air laced with pressurized water to shoot forth and erode his bulwark of earth protection.

The effect of my pressurized water attacks was immediate. His arms and hands still moved so quickly that most people would never see what he was doing, but my continuous use of [Lighting's Rush] in concert with the [Dao of Movement] on my neurons allowed me to focus on what I observed. Everything within the arena moved at a rate that I controlled, at least as far as my perception was concerned. And I finally used that ability to control the movement of time and weaponized it.

If you could move faster or your reaction speed slowed your opponent, then what they did barely mattered. Daniel would deflect or attack, and I would adjust my movements to take advantage of the holes he left in his defense with that deflection. His attempts to counter my movements becoming futile as I timed my attacks for when he paused to gather Qi.

I began to weave the elements of the [Tessenjutsu] together.

[White Crane Opens Wing] targeted at his chest, the move effective enough to force him to give up on [Thirteen Hands]

[Dragon Sweeps the Tail] a revolving movement that used my leg to force him off balance, taking advantage of the fact that he had spent time and effort learning abilities or techniques that utilized his legs. This training gave him enough knowledge to deflect, but it also gave me more openings in his defense to exploit.

[Dancing Wind and Rain] to take the occasional advantage when his parries or dodges resulted in him sprawled across the ground. Those few occurrences leaving him stunned as I directed the bolts of lightning that Storm was creating to inundate him with one strike after another.

[Catch the Moon] to redirect the ranged Qi constructs he was able to create and toss my way, deflecting them back at him and forcing him to dodge his own Qi projection.

And finally, [Spin and Dive Into the Ocean] as I rocketed into the air, releasing billowing reams of cloth to blind and confuse him, hiding my movements and intention from him as I dashed as high as the boundaries of the arena would allow. Once I reached that apex, I recreated the spinning vortex movement that he had tried to use against me, closing my Tessen and using the pointed spines as both throwing needles and dagger.

As I pushed off from the platform of air spinning and twirling in streams of lightning and cloth, I triggered the mechanism on each Tessen that would allow me to launch the spines. I infused each of them with elemental Qi, blasting forward daggers powered with ice, water, air, and lighting elements. Each tine becoming missiles of destruction that my spinning body followed, a contrail of shaped clouds that the air displacement and change in pressure left, my passage marked by rain and ice.

He had no choice in the face of this bombardment but to summon his Viper. Not just one but four. Including one that was winged. There had been no mention that he had so many companions. That he did could only mean that the martial techniques he had demonstrated had little to do with his cultivation path.

He was a Beast Tamer. And with four bonded companions already tamed, a talented one.

I had thought he had shown all of his hidden cards, but he had saved the greatest for last. His decision to sacrifice some of his stable of animals infuriated me. There was no way for me to turn my attack by this point. And daggers filled with elemental fury pierced and killed those animals that he had tamed and decided to sacrifice to save his life.

I wasn't able to kill all of them, but his decision to use them as a shield had worked. He survived, but two of his snakes died, and I found myself fighting the advances of a seriously pissed off flying snake. One that was spitting venom with the same ferocity that Storm was cycling lightning.

And I was forced to face it with the tines of my Tessen scattered across the ground, those that were not still impaled in the two snakes I had slain.