Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 8. The Combined Soul Realm.

“Give it a break, we don’t want to fight you,” Laien said with a mixture of resignation and anger. Jin’s unreasonable attitude was really beginning to frustrate him; he didn’t feel like it, but if Jin forced him he would beat him up into a pulp. He alone was more than enough to handle a martial master of the first rank, not to mention if he were to join forces with Yin like Jin was suggesting.

“No need to be scared, just try attacking me,” Jin encouraged, complexly oblivious to the kind of response he was getting from Laien and Yin.

Laien frowned, the expression on his face darkening. He snorted quietly and swirled the white spear in his hands, then assumed an offensive position. “Since he’s asking for it, he will get it as bad as he wants to,” the thought crossed Laien’s mind as the spiritual energy engulfing his spear began filling with the power of Aspects. Tranquility, Wrath, Awareness… the three mixed, pushing Laien’s battle prowess beyond the threshold of the Realm of Heroes.

Yin glanced at Laien, himself taking half a step back. He wasn’t one to rashly attack people just because someone was provoking him, but in this situation, he wouldn’t do something like stopping Laien; truth to be told, he disliked the way Jin was looking at and speaking to them very much.

“Finally, give me your best shot!” Jin called out contentedly and prepared to take Laien’s attack head-on with his greatsword, but just then a furious shout rang out from behind him.

“Won’t you stop it already, you fool?!” Ruan yelled, running through the forest with his broadsword in hand. He had heard of Jin’s intentions from those three guards from the Valius family, so when he noticed none of the guys in question were near the inn he hurried out to look for them.

“Stop what? We are only about to have a little spar,” Jin said in an offended tone. He frowned when Ruan got between him and the two boys as if he was trying to protect them; he wasn’t attacking them or anything, why was Ruan being so uptight about some harmless fun?

“Except you are the only one who wants to do it,” Laien said angrily and lowered his spear. Were it not for the fact that he really wanted to be doing something else right now, he would have insisted on teaching Jin a lesson… but beating that man up would have left a sour aftertaste in his mouth. The hassle wasn’t worth making his mood worse for the next few hours.

“You heard him,” Ruan said strongly. He had had trouble believing Jin would dare to force himself on Laien and Yin, but now he was beginning to trust what those three told him.

“You really are going to disturb us?” Jin asked, displeased that Ruan was robbing him of this perfect opportunity to get closer to the boys.

“Yes, and you’d better not try anything similar ever again,” Ruan said grimly, wondering if Jin really was so crazy. What was he planning to do after forcing himself on those two? Ask if it felt good and try to convince them it wasn’t a rape? Was he out of his mind?

“Try what again?’ Jin grumbled quietly but did put his greatsword back into the interspatial ring. He knew Ruan was stronger than him, so if Ruan wouldn’t listen to reason and would insist on keeping him away from those two then he really couldn’t do anything else but… look for an opportunity when Ruan wouldn’t be paying attention. He couldn’t possibly give up so easily, after all!

“Told you it wasn’t going to end well,” Liza said with a smirk. “Come on, let’s go back,” she said casually and began heading back towards the inn, intent on resting for a few more hours before they would need to set out again. She might not have gotten to see anything incredibly interesting this time, but she didn’t doubt she would get more chances to see Jin’s stupidity in action in the future.

“Eh,” Jin sighed and gave Laien and Yin one last regretful look. He really wished he could have had some fun with those boys today, but it seemed like luck wasn’t on his side. He smiled helplessly, then followed after Liza.

“For some reason,” Yin spoke up quietly. “I have a bad feeling about that man. I really don’t want to get involved with him,” he stated fairly bluntly, surprising Laien and causing Ruan to raise an eyebrow.

“Shouldn’t we give him a chance first?” Laien asked a bit sarcastically but adopted an apologetic look right afterward.

“Some people aren’t worth giving a chance,” Yin said sourly while looking Laien in the eye. A second or two later, however, he smirked and the two of them chuckled at each other.

“Let’s finish our sparring,” Laien suggested after taking a deep breath.

“I will go keep an eye on this troublemaker, so feel free to enjoy your time,” Ruan said a bit helplessly. He had thought he would need to be looking out for those two, but in the end, it was one of the adults who ended up requiring his attention. “Don’t forget we are leaving in about three hours though,” he reminded and after getting a nod from the boys headed back to the inn.

“I wonder if they talked about it?” Ruan wondered quietly, a slight smile present on his face. He didn’t fail to notice that this time Laien didn’t try talking back to him and didn’t even frown; all he did was smile wryly and exchange an amused look with Yin. “Oh, they are going at it already,” he murmured with a smile, hearing the sounds of two weapons clashing at a very quick pace.

“I already knew it…” Laien mused with a smile as he was giving his best to block and deflect the barrage of attacks Yin was showering him with. “But he really is a genius. He is restraining himself to the same level of strength as I have, but his sword arts are so fast and unpredictable that I am barely keeping up,” he recognized quietly, his admiration for Yin’s abilities rising even higher.

When the two of them had been dueling at the Royal Arena, he had been desperate to defend and kept using magic to do it. Naturally, it had been and still would be his only choice if Yin were to go all out. However, since Yin was going easy on him he could fully appreciate the kind of endless barrage of swift and agile attacks a wielder of twin swords could put on display.

Unlike the domineering sword arts of his elder brother, or the mixed and explosive spear arts of Master Shire… Yin’s swords were more like the current of a river. Each and every movement was perfectly connected to the previous one, yet it would still be unpredictable due to the sheer amount of combinations twin swords offered. Even though it was lightning flashing at Yin’s blades, to Laien it nearly seemed as if Yin’s movements were creating a flow of water around him. Nearly as if…

“Eh?” Yin couldn’t help but be startled. He had settled for a certain level of strength and had been attacking Laien for the last minute or so, but now something changed. The tempo had been a fairly leisure one for him, but he could tell how much Laien had been straining himself to keep up; how much he had been sweating and how hard he had been breathing. Yet, suddenly he found himself… sucked in by Laien’s defense.

Seemingly nothing much changed, but somehow his attacks weren’t as effective as they had been. It wasn’t that Laien was now having an easy time, but one way or another… Yin had this feeling his attacks weren’t leading to anything anymore. What’s more, with each passing moment this sensation was getting stronger and the amount of pressure he could put Laien under was getting smaller and smaller. It was as if… he was only following the pre-planned scheme of attacks to which Laien was steadily replying without any hurry, without any wasted movement.

This sensation was totally new to Yin, but it was understandable he ended up feeling this way. After all, what actually was happening was his rhythm being first read, then re-applied by Laien. From the two of them acting at different tempos, they suddenly began using the exact same one. Additionally, the water-flow-like defense of Laien’s was beginning to slightly alter Yin’s own tempo, thus came the feeling of being ‘sucked in’ by Laien’s spear arts.

Actually, since Yin had mostly developed his sword arts on his own, they ended up having an incredibly smooth flow. This kind of tempo was extremely compatible with Laien’s water-related insights and additionally, it proved to be very similar to the kind of spear art Laien was pursuing. What Laien had copied from Master Shire was a mixture of smooth flow and explosive attacks, but what he had been most enamored with were the smooth, water-like aspects of his master’s spear arts. Regrettably, there was still too much of a difference in their levels and their technique was too incompatible for Laien to be able to comprehend anything as quickly as he would have liked to.

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Now, however, Laien was facing a sword art extremely similar to what he had been pursuing with regards to his spear art. He practically stopped thinking and absorbed himself in the exchange of blows, letting his body act completely on instinct. Before he could notice, the ice engulfing his white spear changed to water, leaving slight traces of flow-like movement each time he defended.

Laien had always seen ice as more suited to defense than water and in fact, he wasn’t completely wrong about it. While defending in a straightforward, head-on manner it indeed was better to use ice. However, when one gained a higher level of comprehension he would find pure water to be much more suited to defending, to deflecting and changing the directions of the incoming attacks.

“The Water Flow…” Yin uttered wordlessly. He remembered his father displaying high-level sword arts and had seen his grandfather doing so once or twice, but he had never succeeded in deriving a Profound Mystery of the Elemental Law of Lightning into his sword art. He had no true insights into the Profound Mysteries, after all… so he was all the more amazed by Laien’s rate of improvement. Even in the Forbidden Lands, it was extremely rare for anyone below the Realm of Heroes to successfully apply Profound Mysteries into his weapon art!

“I’m quickly losing my ground…” Yin found out to his shock. He was still using the exact same strength as twenty, thirty seconds before but now he was beginning to feel as if each of his attacks was about to leave him with a deadly opening in his own defense. “So even the basic levels of the Elemental Sword… or rather of the Elemental Spear make this much of a difference?” he thought in amazement, at the same time recalling his own words about Laien’s potential; to which memory he smiled happily. He was right that Laien was extremely talented, but just like he had said, he wouldn’t allow himself to fall behind either!

“I could overpower him, but what would be the point in that?” he mused with a smile and instead of releasing more of his strength, focused on looking for a way to break and interrupt the dangerous flow he had been sucked into.

At first, it wasn’t going too well; he even needed to show more of his strength than he wanted at the occasions Laien was about to wound him with a counterattack. He had always been trying to make his sword art steady and balanced, and it wasn’t a wrong choice. Yet, it was exactly because he never had a chance to spar with a similarly skilled opponent that he never recognized the flaws of his sword art. It was well-balanced and had no apparent weaknesses, but it had no extremely strong points either.

After exchanging a few dozen more blows with Laien, he finally got the hang of it. The offensive wasn’t just about the perfect balance between offense and defense; if one wanted to beat a similarly skilled enemy, he needed to walk the thin line between life and death! He couldn’t just keep attacking without risking any danger to his own body, the most effective way to attack was to push the limits of danger so close any, even the smallest mistake would kill you! Only this way would one be able to release an explosive, tempo-breaking attack!

The realization excited Yin so much he acted without a second thought; he was skilled enough to apply his new idea directly into practice, thus his very next attack, something between a slash and a thrust, came out of nowhere. The lightning flashed past Laien’s waist, the sword cutting through his body and leaving a gaping, twenty centimeters long slash in his flesh and bones.

The Elemental Sword of Lightning… Thunder! A high-level sword art Yin had just developed purely through his effort to counter Laien’s Water Flow defense!

“Laien!” Yin cried out when he realized what he had done. He immediately stopped attacking, then sighed with relief when he saw the heavy wound healing at a very quick rate. About three seconds later, the only sign that Laien had been wounded was his cut shirt; his stomach was without a scratch. “Sorry, I went overboard,” he said apologetically, quite ashamed of himself. He had gotten too caught up in the moment and used his full strength to deliver the blow. The attack paired up with the Sword of Thunder, Laien had no way to defend himself.

“More importantly,” Laien laughed in amazement and looked at Yin with a smile. “What in the world did we just do? This way of using the spear and this sword strike of yours! Just wow!” he said excitedly, more concerned with their improvements than the pain he had suffered for a few seconds. Yes, it had hurt terribly, but getting wounded was a part of training. It wasn’t the first nor the last time for him; he was only thankful for his water-element affinity thanks to which he could always quickly heal himself or his opponent if necessary.

“Uh, how about we sit down so I can explain it properly?” Yin suggested with a helpless laugh. “I think it would be hard for us to get into that state again right afterward, so there is little point to continuing that sparring anyway,” he added, seeing and sensing that Laien hadn’t had enough yet.

“Fine,” Laien said with a little sigh and stored his spear away into his interspatial ring. “I think I already get the gist of it, so you don’t need to go into the details,” he added with a smile, aware of how much Yin liked to make everything crystal clear.

“Sure,” Yin agreed with a laugh. He really had been planning to give Laien a long and detailed explanation, but since Laien was saying he didn’t need it, he would limit himself to the most important parts. “I already told you about the Profound Mysteries of the Elemental Laws, so you probably guessed that what we did was applying them to our weapon arts, right?” he asked and after getting a nod of confirmation from Laien, continued.

“Once again the naming varies from family to family… but from what I learned it’s called ‘Elemental Weapon’. In your case, it would be the Elemental Spear of Water Flow, in my case… Elemental Sword of Thunder,” he explained briefly, fairly certain Laien was interested mainly in the naming sense of those things. “It’s actually pretty similar to the claw-like technique your elder brother used, although that one is derived from the natural ‘ability’ of a magical beast rather than a Profound Mystery,” he added with a smile, in retrospect feeling very happy with his new technique now that he stopped worrying so much about having hurt Laien.

“So is it possible to apply Aspect and Principles to weapon arts too?” Laien inquired, trying to imagine how it could work in practice.

“I… I don’t know,” Yin admitted with a sigh, not wanting to speculate randomly when he wasn’t sure of something. “The knowledge regarding Principles and Aspects, even the more ‘profound’ aspects of the Elemental Laws are all treasured very highly. I haven’t had a chance to learn much about them,” he explained, regretful that his grandfather wasn’t of much use as far as explaining anything went.

“Hm,” Laien nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think the Principle of Energy could work with weapon arts, but the Aspects… they seem pretty similar to Profound Mysteries, but it would be hard to directly apply ‘Tranquility’, ‘Wrath’ or ‘Pride’ to your weapon arts. It seems to be easier with Profound Mysteries,” he mused aloud, used to making his own assumptions.

“Makes sense,” Yin agreed, being pretty much of the same mind as Laien about those things.

“You said you don’t know much about the Aspects,” Laien brought up with a slightly cheeky smile. “So you probably don’t know they take the form of strange, multicolored orbs of essence? And that they get more complete the better your foundations of the Aspect is?” he inquired merrily and chuckled, very satisfied to see the surprised look on Yin’s face.

“You saw them in your soul realm, huh?” Yin asked with a laugh. “I wish I could go there. I can sense my soul, but I can’t quite enter it even with the aid of the Aspect of Awareness,” he said with a little sigh. Apparently, there were many benefits of training within one’s soul realm, but he wasn’t too clear about them either.

“The soul realm…” Laien murmured, focusing purely on his soul for the first time since establishing a Blood Pact with Yin. “You know, I can feel your soul too. Maybe if we tried I could show you the way inside it? Somehow… maybe? I think it should work out,” he proposed, going fully by his gut feeling.

“We could try, why not,” Yin said calmly, but inside was quite hopeful of this idea of Laien’s. “So, how do we do it?” he inquired a bit impatiently.

“We use the spiritual bond, obviously,” Laien said with a laugh and crossed his legs. “Just calm down and focus on your soul. I will try to lead the way,” he said vaguely, but Yin didn’t ask for any further explanation and did as he was told.

Laien smiled and also closed his eyes, concentrating on the existence of the spiritual bond between him and Yin. It was now much stronger than right after they made the Blood Pact, so after exerting a bit of effort the two of them managed to pretty much synchronize their minds. It was only the first, easiest step though as after that, Laien attempted to actually send his own awareness into Yin’s body, closer to his soul.

This was where the really hard part began. Laien could swear he was just ‘ a few centimeters’ away from his consciousness reaching the surface of Yin’s soul, but every millimeter of the distance he crossed was like struggling through a pool of mud. “Is our spiritual bond not strong enough yet?” he wondered. Yin wasn’t resisting him at all, he could tell this much. The two of them were very compatible and they trusted each other, so there were no problems in this area.

“Maybe…” Laien loosened his focus for a second. He reached out and grabbed Yin’s hand, then returned his full attention to the spiritual bond. He rejoiced when he found out that the pressure stopping him from approaching Yin’s soul was almost completely gone. His consciousness sank deeper, showing Yin the exact path and the footsteps he needed to follow to enter his soul.

Yin followed after the sensation of Laien’s consciousness and touched upon his own soul, but just as he did something neither of them expected began happening.

The two of them were startled, but did nothing to break the process; they subconsciously felt it wasn’t dangerous, so they didn’t fight it when their souls were drawn to each other and established a direct connection through the spiritual bond. The next instant their consciousness was drawn into the newly established soul realm, the two of them finding themselves looking at each other in spiritual forms.

“That’s my soul…” Yin began saying in shock. “And your soul, right?” he asked if only to confirm his disbelief. Just by glancing behind Laien he could see three mysterious omnicolored orbs Laien had told him about, and by looking over his shoulder he could see the four orbs of his own!