Jade opened her eyes. She was sitting underneath a waterfall, the water crashing down onto her back. The top of the waterfall couldn’t be seen from the bottom, a layer of clouds blocking the peak from view. Jade’s lips curved downwards, and she stood up. With a simple exertion of her spiritual energy, the torrent of water flowing from above parted. Her naked body dried instantly, and with a swish of her fingers, a flowing robe made of silken water appeared around her. Not long after, a massive robot broke through the clouds followed by a beautiful woman with icy wings. Judging by the woman’s cultivation base, she had just ascended to become a false immortal. As for the giant robot, Jade already knew who the pilot was. There was only one person who operated such an ostentatious robot. Were they here to eliminate her? It was true the scales would be tipped towards Bullet King with the help of a newborn false immortal, but if he thought that was enough, he was sorely mistaken.
“What are you doing in my territory?” Jade asked, tilting her head back to stare up at the two intruders. With a twist of her torso, water surged from underneath her, shooting upwards like a geyser. The pillar of water rotated, maintaining its form, carrying Jade upwards until she was slightly above the giant robot’s head. As the stronger false immortal, there was no way she could stare up at someone to speak to them.
“This here is someone who just ascended,” Bullet King said, gesturing towards Rachel with his robotic head. “She came to fight me, and she’s very hardheaded. No matter what she does, there’s no way she can win against me, but she refuses to give up, and I don’t really want to kill her. So, a brilliant idea came to mind. You love training. She loves fighting. Why don’t the two of you bond over some training and fighting?”
“You brought me here to fight someone else?” Rachel asked, her expression darkening. She glanced at Jade. The woman seemed powerful. Her control was even more impressive than Bullet King’s. He could hold up hundreds of guns and command them, but the woman was commanding each individual droplet of the river to hold herself up and form her clothes. Had she passed the tribulation of the mind as well? The three intergalactic powers were supposed to be in a balance. However, it seemed like the balance didn’t hinge on the federation. The empire and the coalition were stronger, and the only thing preventing them from eliminating the federation was the threat of the other attacking while that happened.
“She’s too weak,” Jade said, shaking her head after inspecting Rachel. She glanced at Bullet King. “You, however, you’ve gotten a little stronger over the years, haven’t you?”
Nervous laughter rang out of the BAR. “Lady,” Bullet King said to Rachel, “you wanted to fight a strong opponent, right? She’s stronger than me, so you should work on defeating her instead. I’ll be going now; I appreciate the hospitality, Jade.” Jets of flame shot out of the BARs soles, launching it back through the layer of clouds.
Jade waved her hand, and the clouds condensed into an arm. It grasped at the BAR, but there was an explosion, causing the BAR to surge even higher into the air. The cloud arm was still fast enough to grab the robot by its legs, but those detached at the robot’s hips. Like a lizard, Bullet King abandoned a part of his BAR to save the more important pieces. Jade snorted, and with a crunching sound, the BAR’s legs were squeezed into a twisted hunk of metal, sparks coming off of it. The cloud arm dissolved, and the metal pillar fell to the ground, creating a crater where it landed. Jade lowered her hand, not intending on pursuing Bullet King any further. “What about you?” she asked Rachel. “Are you leaving?”
Rachel snorted. As someone who wielded the power of frost and lightning, why would she be afraid of someone who controlled water? In fact, as someone who severed her sense of fear, she wasn’t afraid of anything. Even if she were going to lose against this false immortal, she had to try at least. Unfortunately, her weapon had been destroyed by Bullet King’s giant laser. She could only conjure a sword made of ice and black lightning.
“Tribulation lightning?” Jade asked with a slightly raised eyebrow. “That’s unusual. I theorized it was possible to use the heavenly lightning to temper one’s body, but I never expected to see someone crazy enough to test it out.” The pillar of water holding Jade up fell back to the river, but she remained standing in the air. “I’ll take the place of your master and teach you the meaning of respecting your elders, you upstart brat.”
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Rachel snorted and charged forward. Her abilities were a direct counter to her opponent’s. Even if her opponent had passed the tribulation of the mind, it didn’t matter. While traveling with Bullet King, Rachel had done a lot of thinking. How was she supposed to defeat an opponent who could read her every move? After exhausting thousands of ideas, there was only one that seemed viable. Attacking without knowing what she was going to do herself. If she didn’t know what she was going to do next, her opponent wouldn’t be able to read her. Although it’d still be easy to read her body movements, she wasn’t depending on her body to move randomly. Black lightning burst out of Rachel’s sword, flickering everywhere. Some of the lightning bolts struck herself, blackening her face with soot. Other lightning bolts flew through the air, striking the surroundings. Two lightning bolts headed towards Jade, but the false immortal wave her hand, and the bolts of lightning arced around her, striking the mountain behind.
“Ignorant,” Jade said. “I’ve gotten a clear look at your body. You’re skilled in frost-based arts, but you’re a complete novice when it comes to lightning. You don’t even know how lightning travels, so how can you hope to injure me with your sloppy technique?”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. If her opponent was able to control tribulation lightning better than she could, her random-burst technique wouldn’t work. Perhaps Bullet King would’ve found a way to easily counter her attack as well. However, there was more than one way to hit someone who could read her every move. Hundreds of icy pillars descended from the sky. Each one grew hundreds of spikes. All at once, the icy pillars exploded, shooting the icicles in all directions. Similar to how Bullet King controlled his opponent’s movements by shooting at every place they could be, Rachel’s technique did the same. It was impossible to dodge.
“Is this your first time engaging in a fight?” Jade asked. All of the icicles had stopped in front of her body in a spherical pattern. “It’s common knowledge a wide-area attack is less effective on single opponents. I see you’re troubled by a false immortal’s ability to read their opponent, but this isn’t the answer. It doesn’t matter if you can hit me if your attacks are too weak to penetrate my defenses.”
Rachel’s face remained impassive. She raised her hand, and thousands of icy pillars descended from the sky. Once again, they all grew spikes.
“This again?” Jade asked. “The amount doesn’t matter. The individual icicles aren’t reinforced enough.”
As if Rachel hadn’t heard a word Jade said, the sect ancestor gripped her hand shut. The icicles rained down once more, exploding in all directions. Once again, every icicle close to Jade had frozen in place, forming a sphere. Without saying a word, Rachel raised her hand again. This time, tens of thousands of icy pillars were created.
“See?” Jade shook her head, not bothering to say anymore upon seeing the pillars explode. She once again maneuvered her spiritual energy into a spherical barrier. The icicles were stopped upon coming in contact with her shield. However, a second later, Jade’s eyes narrowed, and she jerked her body to the side. A small white object flashed past, destroying her barrier a second time as it exited. A hidden weapon? How many more of those did Rachel have? It couldn’t have been many. However, Jade wasn’t going to take that chance. There was no way she’d give this newborn false immortal the satisfaction of injuring her.
Jade thrust her hand forward, and water vapor surged ahead, surrounding Rachel, forming a bubble around the sect ancestor’s body. “Stay in this water prison until something interesting happens,” Jade said, completely confident in the barrier she had erected.
Rachel struggled to break free, but the barrier made of water didn’t budge. Even when it was frozen and shocked by tribulation lightning, more water simply rose up from the river below, supplementing what was lost.
Jade descended, the water prison descending as well. The false immortal took her seat underneath the waterfall and closed her eyes. As long as nothing broke her concentration, the water prison would remain intact. She had captured Maximillius once with this method, but she had to let him go because Bullet King dropped by. It would be an extremely difficult fight for her if she had to maintain the water prison at the same time. Unfortunately for Rachel, it seemed like it was Bullet King’s intention to have her imprisoned and out of his hair. Jade didn’t think there was anyone else who’d dare disturb her to set Rachel free, so her fate was currently sealed.