He Yu blasted forward on the wings of the Sky Dragon’s Flight. Heaven qi surged around him as he poured his cultivation base into the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. He drew back his guandao, and the Five Crescent Winds warped the world. Forming the Sweeping Wind along with Heaven’s Descending Blade, he swept the polearm before him. Wind and heaven howled and crashed. A crackling golden blade extended from his guandao, doubling his reach.
Wang Xiaobo met He Yu’s attack with techniques of his own. The late Golden Core’s skin took on a sheen similar to He Yu’s. A rain of metal poured forth; a thousand blades pointed at He Yu’s heart. Wang Xiaobo’s technique twisted around He Yu’s formation of the Sweeping Wind. Heaven and metal screamed. Water churned, and wind howled. Their clash was brief; a storm broke over the plaza. The fresh scent of rain and the pungent scent of lightning gave way to something more acrid—that of twisted and burned metal.
“Should have killed you when I had the chance,” Wang Xiaobo said through gritted teeth, his features a snarl of rage and his eyes gleaming with hatred.
He Yu said nothing. He only renewed his assault.
Off to the side, Li Heng battled Xin Lu. The older cultivator’s double halberd crackled with heaven as he launched into a powerful flurry of strikes. Li Heng met all of them, turning them aside as though they were nothing. The silver light of the Winter Moon Reflection blazed like the midday sun.
Li Heng flashed back with the White Hare Dance, appearing just outside Xin Lu’s reach. He pointed his jian at Xin Lu and released the gathered power. A brilliant stream of silver light gushed off his blade. The gathered onlookers had to shield their eyes.
The world turned white as an unnatural winter fell over the plaza. When Li Heng’s release of the Winter Moon Reflection finished, everything went dark. A dusting of snow was the only indication of what Li Heng had done. He Yu had fought with him enough times to know what came next. Under the pale light of a full moon, five black scars opened on the world. Opened frostbitten wounds on Xin Lu’s back.
Xin Lu spun his double halberd and called forth a twisting cyclone that blazed with heaven and flame. With a one-handed backstroke, he brought his weapon down, only to meet Li Heng’s jian. Their clash renewed, ice and flame ebbed and flowed, as the two exchanged blows, techniques, and wounds.
The Peerless Judgment screamed a warning in He Yu’s mind. Through the raw speed granted by the three pillars of his body enforcement, He Yu twisted. Wang Xiaobo’s jian slid forward, a thrust that would have pierced his throat, barely missing his mark. Wang Xiaobo’s killing intent pressed down upon him with that attack.
“I should have known you’d dishonor yourself like this,” He Yu said. “Imbuing your strikes with that much killing intent in a duel for honor? No wonder Master Zhang had to whip you like a dog.”
The taunt had its intended effect. Wang Xiaobo roared, launching into another flurry of attacks. He Yu beat them back. The Spring Rain Mirror flashed into being and turned away a thrust. He called the Bracing Wind and blasted away a hundred metal barbs. Wang Xiaobo activated some movement technique, his form blurring as each motion flowed into the next in the way of a water cultivator.
He Yu had spent hundreds of hours training against a water cultivator—Wang Xiaobo was no Zhang Lifen.
Curling his left hand into a fist, He Yu cycled the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. Along with whatever other heaven qi he could muster, he poured it all into a single blow. It was something he’d seen Zhang Lifen do enough times. Something he’d trained in for a month before advancing. Another layer of the intended lesson settled into place. There was no reason a cultivator should rely solely on their techniques. When an opportunity presented itself, take it.
He Yu ducked beneath Wang Xiaobo’s incoming strike. The thrust passed just over his shoulder. His fist slammed into Wang Xiaobo’s gut. He Yu released the gathered heaven qi as a spike, punched right above Wang Xiaobo’s navel. The other cultivator’s spirit went wild.
Water hissed away to steam, and metal twisted and blackened. Wang Xiaobo stumbled backward and screamed—half in pain, half in fury. He was far from out of the fight, but He Yu could tell he’d dealt a serious blow. Although his presence already reasserted itself, it still flickered as though He Yu’s heaven qi still cycled through Wang Xiaobo’s meridians. Still disrupted the flow of Wang Xiaobo’s own qi.
A blazing mass of heat and lighting fell like a dying star. He Yu didn’t need to turn. Didn’t need to see. He pulled himself to the side with the Sky Dragon’s Flight, twisting to face the now-smoking crater where he’d just been standing. Xin Lu stood in the center of a ruined mass of flagstones, the ones closest to him partially melted and glowing a furious dull red. Never taking his eyes off He Yu, he reached down and pulled Wang Xiaobo to his feet.
“You dare,” Xin Lu said. His voice was quiet, angry, and deadly. “You strike at my brother’s cultivation base? I, Xin Lu, swear that I will not rest until I claim your head.”
Wang Xiaobo’s spirit had now fully recovered. The feeling of metal and water returned to its smooth, glistening sheen. Wang Xiaobo’s movements once again became fluid and controlled. “And you have the audacity to call me a coward?” He practically spat as he asked the question.
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The sharpness in both their spirits spiked as their combined killing intent turned on He Yu. Li Heng appeared next to him, and He Yu was glad for it. Together, the combined attention of two late Fourth Realms was almost too much to bear on his own.
“My grandfather would attack,” Li Heng murmured next to him.
Li Heng had told He Yu of his time training with Old Guo. “Yes, he would,” He Yu said.
They moved as one. Since coming to the sect almost four years ago, He Yu and Li Heng had trained together constantly. Thousands of hours’ worth of familiarity gave them the ability to act in concert. Training against someone allowed you to fight alongside them. It wasn’t until they clashed with Wang Xiaobo and Xin Lu that He Yu remembered the two of them would have spent even longer training together.
The two late Fourth Realms fought like they were of a single mind. Li Heng would flash behind Xin Lu, only for Wang Xiaobo to appear and turn his blade away. He Yu would rush towards Wang Xiaobo, only for Xin Lu to place himself and his halberd in his path. When the two of them attacked, they would cover for their weaknesses—Xin Lu adding his reach to Wang Xiaobo, and Wang Xiaobo covering inside Xin Lu’s guard. Their teamwork was impeccable.
Xin Lu loomed over He Yu, a raging tempest of heavenly fury and blazing heat. His double halberd slammed down. He Yu caught the blade on his own weapon’s haft. Heaven exploded from the impact, and the flagstones beneath He Yu cracked. By now, many of the onlookers had retreated to the furthest edge of the plaza. Even then, they cycled their own cultivation bases as a precaution. Unlike the training fields or the tournament, there were no formations here. Nothing to protect from the raw power of four Golden Cores clashing.
Pivoting on one foot, He Yu pushed aside his opponent’s weapon. He had but a moment’s opening—one chance for a decisive blow. He took it. His guandao swept forward and up. A rising strike carrying wind and heaven. He aimed his blade at Xin Lu’s neck. The older cultivator was too fast. He ducked to one side and grabbed the metal collar of He Yu’s weapon just where the blade met the shaft. With a swift jerk, he pulled He Yu off-balance, and sent him stumbling. Xin Lu took a step back and slammed the butt of his halberd into the ruined flagstones at his feet.
“I am Xin Lu,” the older cultivator said. “Son of Baron Xin Yaozu. Inheritor of the Blazing Star Cultivation Law. Witness my power. Witness the Seven Sundered Skies.”
Xin Lu reached forward with an outstretched hand. His presence expanded, dominating all other aspects in the plaza. Above, the sky turned to night. The stars fell. They descended upon the lands below, slamming into the earth in a rain of fire. He Yu fought against Xin Lu’s presence, cycling his whole cultivation base. He focused his intent on his purpose—his resolve to stand against two cultivators stronger than himself who had tried to wrong him. His spirit moved as it resonated with his Wayborn Seed, cycling more easily as it tapped more fully into his connection to his way.
He Yu pushed his perception through the sudden spike in Xin Lu’s presence. Xin Lu floated dozens of feet above him, one hand outstretched to the sky. A blazing sphere of heaven and flame gathered power above him, already more than a dozen feet across. As more qi gathered in Xin Lu’s technique, the older cultivator’s presence flared once more.
The stars continued to fall. The world below burned, and heaven poured its wrath onto the already devastated land. It became difficult to even stand in the face of such might. But at the edges of He Yu’s perception, he caught the whisper of a truth—a hint that he’d never before noticed.
He turned the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment upon Xin Lu. He peered deep into his opponent’s spirit. Xin Lu had no Wayborn Seed. He had no ease—no assistance—from the Eternal Dao. He yet struggled to understand his own nature. If Wang Xiaobo was in a similar position, that would be the clearest path to victory.
He Yu and Li Heng both had formed their own Wayborn Seeds, after all.
Xin Lu released his technique. The blazing sun crashed down, and He Yu poured everything he had into every one of his techniques. The Spring Rain Mirror appeared before him, small and pathetic looking before the descending red and gold cataclysm. He formed the Bracing Wind, pushing qi into the technique in a desperate attempt to somehow cushion against the attack. He cycled the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, taking what bolstering he could from a body enforcement made mostly for speed. Activating the Sky Dragon’s Flight, he dashed back and away, threading the needle the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment showed him.
When Xin Lu’s technique—the Seven Sundered Skies—finally slammed into the ground, it released an explosion of heaven and fire. Heat washed over He Yu, and he could feel the telltale spikes of pain from the technique’s heaven aspect. Grabbing hold of the rioting qi best he could, he sought to overwhelm Xin Lu’s fire with his own water. He sought to wrest control of Xin Lu’s heaven, and claim it for his own.
The storm battled the falling star. Qi raged at the edge of control. The flagstones beneath He Yu cracked and then shattered—at least what was left of them by this point. The earth turned molten and red. The sky, blackened with a shifting collision of storm clouds and midnight, flashed with the brilliance of heaven.
In the end, it was too much. The star crashed down upon He Yu. His skin burned, and heaven spiked through his meridians. It was like his tribulation compacted into a single moment, but worse. Distantly, he heard himself scream. He stumbled, one knee cracking against the ruined, naked earth.
A strong grip caught him. Hauled him to his feet. He cracked open one eye. Li Heng was there, looking about as rough as He Yu felt. But his ancestral jian shone like a thousand winter moons.
“Get up,” he said. “I can’t handle them both on my own.”
He Yu stood, and looked to where a similar scene played out on the far side of the plaza. Wang Xiaobo helped Xin Lu to his feet. Xin Lu’s spirit was noticeably weaker than it had been a moment ago—it seemed that attack had taken quite a bit out of him. As Xin Lu used the momentary lull in the fight to take a medicinal pill, He Yu did the same.
“Xin Lu doesn’t have a Wayborn Seed,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s going to be enough on its own, but it’s something.”
“Well, if you can figure out a way to use that, I’ll hear it,” Li Heng said. There was a strain to his words that told He Yu all he needed.
Any path to victory would push the both of them to their limits.