The man appeared to be in his late thirties. His gaze, sharp and penetrating as a falcon's, was devoid of youthful impulsiveness. Those eyes, calm and still as a frozen lake's surface.
His rugged, angular face was a tapestry woven from countless battles survived. Silvery scars, relics of past conflicts, etched intricate patterns across his sun-weathered skin. Raven locks, streaked defiantly with steely gray, were bound loosely at his nape.
His flowing black martial robe rippled like liquid shadow with each measured step, its open folds deliberately revealing glimpses of a muscular torso marked by the same indelible chapters as his visage.
A blood-red sash, cinched tightly around his narrow waist, stood out like a fresh wound against the severe darkness of his attire. An empty jian sheath swayed at his hip, its hollow resonance whispering of the deadly blade's absence.
His hawkish eyes swept over Ji Wuye before settling on the grotesque courtyard scene - three lifeless forms strewn amidst the swirling dust.
Two bodies lay severed at the neck, detached heads rolling aside like discarded fruits, while the third had been neatly bisected from crown to pelvis in a display of terrifying precision.
"Your methods," he began, his resonant voice carrying the soft menace of tempered steel clearing its sheath, "are unorthodox." Liquid grace flowed through each motion as he descended from the rooftop gate, alighting with the silent lethality of a hunting cat.
Not a whisper of sound betrayed his featherlight steps upon the stone path. "Disorderly...reckless." The weighty cadence of his words sliced through the air like stones disrupting still waters as he advanced with deliberate strides toward Ji Wuye.
One hand extended in a slow, controlled arc, and a jian seemed to materialize from the ether, its mirrored steel surface catching the dying rays like a lightning strike.
'Inventory, huh' Ji Wuye mused, his crimson eyes flickering briefly to the scattered remnants of parchment - once crucial documents rendered to worthless confetti by the preceding violence.
'A pity.' His piercing gaze rose again to meet his opponent's unflinching stare. A razor-edged smile, devoid of warmth, curved Ji Wuye's lips as he responded: "Greetings to the WindBlade Emperor."
Conspicuously absent were the customary gestures of respect - the deferential bow, the cupped hands raised. Instead, that smile merely deepened, failing to soften the crimson intensity of his eyes.
In the fleeting stillness between one heartbeat and the next, both men blurred into lethal motion.
CLANG!
The percussive ring of their inaugural clash reverberated like a temple bell through the thickening dusk, echoes bouncing from courtyard walls as martial artists collided.
A violent vortex erupted from the point of impact, the clashing forces unleashing a miniature sandstorm that spiraled outward in all directions.
Dust devils danced madly across the courtyard as shafts of morning sunlight pierced through the chaos, catching on the metallic gleam of their whirling jians.
The jians met with a deafening clang that seemed to split the very air, a cascading shower of golden sparks raining down where the blades kissed - molten stars birthed from the furious collision.
Ji Wuye's crimson eyes, burning with an intensity to match freshly spilled blood under the sun's harsh glare, locked with the obsidian depths of the WindBlade Emperor's gaze.
Those black pools seemed to contain the mysteries of a moonless night sky, betraying nothing yet hungrily observing everything.
The two martial artists stood frozen in a deadly tableau, every muscle coiled like a taut spring beneath their flowing garments as tremors traveled up their straining arms from the trembling junction of blade against blade.
In that crystallized moment of combat intersection, a translucent screen flickered into existence across Ji Wuye's field of vision.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/fCRhB15/Notif-1.webp]
"Ah, so you rely on those 'skills' from the Tower, do you?" The WindBlade Emperor's words carried a hint of disdainful amusement that drifted through the tension-saturated atmosphere like autumn leaves skittering across scorched earth.
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Without warning, his poised stance shifted with the fluidity of quicksilver. Taking a near-silent step back, his entire frame flowed with the liquid grace of a meandering stream as his narrow waist twisted with mechanical precision - an articulated movement so controlled it seemed choreographed.
The very air around them compressed with an audible hiss, rippling outward in invisible waves of pressure that caused the scattered parchment scraps to Flutter across the courtyard like startled birds.
The WindBlade Emperor's extended arm and jian became a blur, the sinewy muscles beneath his robe rippling with corded definition as the blade cut a horizontal arc aimed squarely at Ji Wuye's exposed flank. Steel sang through the wind with a lethal whisper.
Yet Ji Wuye's supernatural crimson perception caught the faintest phantom of deception in the feinted slash - it was never intended to connect.
With one seamless transition as fluid as silk spilling over polished stone, the WindBlade Emperor dropped into a predator's hunched crouch. His thighs bunched with explosive potential as tendons stood out like drawn bowstrings.
The same hand that had just carved empty air now reversed its arc with blinding quickness, the mirrored jian transforming into a silver crescent moon as it arced upward, aiming the devastating diagonal slash at Ji Wuye's unprotected jaw.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/VpmJTgP/Notif-1.webp]
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/VpmJTgP/Notif-1.webp]
Translucent screens flickered across Ji Wuye's vision in rapid ripples. Then reality itself seemed to fold inward - the WindBlade Emperor's lightning-swift movements reversed as if spooling back a length of silk.
Time bent until both martial artists found themselves remanded to their initial deadly impasse, jians locked and ringing out from the furious impact.
The moment reset, and the WindBlade Emperor struck anew. His frame, tightly coiled like a steel spring, suddenly unleashed its stored potential energy.
Leaning forward with precise calculation, he committed his mass as an irresistible force akin to a mountain's gravitational supremacy.
The explosive burst of power sent Ji Wuye skidding backward, his white shoes scoring twin furrows through the tightly-packed earth as he yielded that crucial hair's breadth of separation between them.
In that infinitesimal window, the WindBlade Emperor's blade became a quicksilver flash descending in a vertical arc aimed at Ji Wuye's legs - a falcon stooping toward its prey. But this feinted strike merely preluded his true intent.
Within the same fluttering heartbeat, his wrists performed an elaborate choreography as fingers shifted along the jian's hilt with serpentine grace. The sword's trajectory altered in mid-plummet, sweeping upward in a devastating silver arc directed at Ji Wuye's exposed left chest as the steel sang its lethal aria through the wind.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/VpmJTgP/Notif-1.webp]
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/VpmJTgP/Notif-1.webp]
Once more, the ethereal screen materialized like a ghostly heads-up display before Ji Wuye's bloody irises as the WindBlade Emperor's initial feint dissolved into spectral afterimages - ink droplets dispersing through clear water.
The flow of time reversed again, pulling the martial artists back to that pivotal blade-lock where pressures collided and tempered steel kissed steel.
'It's really the first move of Pulse Blade art, Gentle Breeze,' Ji Wuye's thought inwardly, dissecting each phantom motion as the ghostly afterimage danced before his eyes.
However, it turned out to be futile as, in the next moment, another transparent screen appeared before his eyes.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/B2rqSjR/Notif-3.webp]
BANG!
The thunderous concussion shook the very courtyard walls. The WindBlade Emperor's body, caught by an irresistible tide of overwhelming force, launched backward as if struck by a giant's hammer-blow.
He crashed through the gate with the unstoppable inertia of a hawk, obliterating not just the wooden structure but the adjacent stone wall as well in a devastating explosion of matter.
Debris sprayed outward in a lethal radius as shattered fragments of timber and masonry alike accompanied a billowing cloud of smoke-like dust.
Ji Wuye stood unmoved amidst the chaos, a statue of implacable calm though the ground benath him told a different story.
The once finely paved stonework beneath his white shoes had cratered inward like the impact site of a fallen meteor - a spider's web of radiating cracks emanating outward from where his feet were partially submerged in pulverized rock fragments. Pebbles and grit continued to trickle down the sloped depression.
The devastating backlash of Deflecting Blows had reshaped the environment, but Ji Wuye's enhanced physique absorbed the force like an ancient mountain weathering a summer storm. Not a single tremor betrayed any strain in his poised stance.
"An impressive trick," the WindBlade Emperor's voice carried through the settling maelstrom as he emerged from the obliterated structure, rising like a phoenix reborn from ashes. His hands brushed away clinging debris with casual elegance as practiced sweeps dispersed the lingering dust clouds.
Keen eyes, sharp as winter's first frost, studied Ji Wuye's jian with scrutinizing intensity - reading the blade itself like a scholar might interpret an ancient text.
"I'm honored," Ji Wuye responded, his smile bearing the same lethal grace as the sword in his hands. In one explosive beat, he wrenched his feet free from their stone imprisonment, launching skyward as coiled power detonated through his frame.
The remaining intact stone paving path simply surrendered to the force, shattering into a glittering diamond spray of fractured rock that caught the morning sunlight in refracting shards.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/mbGZMKt/Skill.webp]
Ethereal tendrils of translucent qi manifested around Ji Wuye's feet, swirling in wisps of energy that transcended mortal constraints. He glided through the ground with preternatural grace, each step finding ephemeral purchase on invisible currents of pure power.
The jian transformed as well, coming alive as azure Qi sheathed the blade in a radiant aura of liquid sapphire intensity that rendered the steel into a ribbon of pure elemental Qi.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/BcxY44n/Notif-1.webp]
On the other hand...
Through Ji Wuye's crimson gaze, the WindBlade Emperor's singular form fragmented into a kaleidoscope of overlapping afterimages, each as physically present as the next.
His body wove an intricate dance of subtle feints and shifts, slipping right then left with mesmerizing fluidity as every measured step generated gusts of wind that carried the charged scent of ozone and primal power - forceful enough to set Ji Wuye's white locks undulating like blizzard.
Yet those supernatural crimson eyes, burning with an intensity to match molten pools, never faltered or lost track of their target.
Every illusory image, every feinted motion, each minute shift in the WindBlade Emperor's stance was tracked with unbroken focus and clarity - like a master painter following the path of every individual brushstroke across his canvas.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/VpmJTgP/Notif-1.webp]
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/VpmJTgP/Notif-1.webp]
Once again, ethereal screens cascaded across Ji Wuye's field of vision like a flurry of windblown autumn leaves.
A sublime dance of feints and phantom shifts that Ji Wuye's Quick Adaptation skill had yet to fully unravel. But rather than frustration, the inability to immediately grasp this mystery kindled a thrilling sense of exhilaration that pulsed through his veins.
His chest began to rise and fall with heightened rapidity, each breath fueled not by weariness but by anticipation bordering on feral eagerness. The smile curving his lips widened as white teeth glinted like fangs catching the morning light.
But then, a solitary luminescent arrow suddenly materialized within his vision, pulsing with gentle urgency as it directed Ji Wuye's attention downward.
The ethereal marker rolled through his projected glide path like a ghostly guiding force, clearly suggesting he execute a forward aerial roll beneath his current trajectory to safely continue his advance.
'A useful precaution, but...' Ji Wuye's inner voice carried a hint of willful defiance as he deliberately ignored the guidance arrow. But then, his crimson irises contracted into predatory slits as a new translucent screen flashed across his vision.
image [https://i.ibb.co.com/R991vKM/Notif-2.webp]