George’s deranged, smiling face gradually faded from view. He canceled his qi technique and his entire body lost its silvery glow before becoming faint and translucent. His figure warped and stretched, as if he were submerging beneath waves of water, then disappeared entirely.

“Be ready, he’s coming,” Clara said. She struggled up onto one knee, then took Hudson’s hand to stand up on her one good leg.

“Use your punching bag sigil,” she said through clenched teeth. “Try to immobilize him again, and I will strike.”

Strike with what? Hudson thought to himself, but didn’t reply. And punching bag sigil?? He didn’t need to lash out at his friend – he needed her help to fight George – but she wasn’t making it easy.

Hudson settled down into a low horse stance, thighs parallel to the ground. He quickly lifted one foot and slammed into the rock, wedging it in place, before activating his sigil and rooting himself in place. He wanted to avoid being picked up or knocked off his feet as he had been before, and lose the connection with the ground that the concept of Rooted Strength required.

Clara was back to back with Hudson, but turned slightly so that the middle of her back was closer to his right shoulder. She pulled her broken leg up by the pant leg and hooked it over Hudson’s right knee. By half-sitting on Hudson’s leg, she could be much more firm in her own stance.

When George had struck him before, he had briefly seen the fist appear first and start glowing. He must not be able to activate the qi technique that strengthened his skin while he was also using whatever technique or sigil he used to become invisible.

The fruit he had eaten in the trial was supposed to give him better perception, right? Hudson focused intently all around him, trying to hear or see any hint of George. Where would he attack? Straight on, as before? His blind spot? Or their weakest link – at Clara first?

Hudson never saw the blow that hit him in the solar plexus, but he was prepared for it. The attack barely slowed his breathing technique at all, and he punched out blindly in an attempt to strike back. He hit nothing but air, then brought his hands back into a guard position in front of his chest.

Another unseen attack struck his knee, and then face immediately afterwards, but they lacked the power that George had attacked with previously. If George wasn’t using his qi technique, Hudson was using his sigil, he could survive these blows.

He couldn’t necessarily say the same for Clara however… she didn’t have the same sigil that he did.

After his warm-ups on Hudson, George’s next attack was a cruel blow aimed at Clara’s already broken leg. She gasped in pain, but pushed through the agony immediately to counter. She grabbed Hudson’s leg with her left arm and swung her good leg up and over in a kick where she expected George’s body o be.

Her foot connected with something, but it must have been blocked or not do much damage, as they heard a short chuckle from George.

Hudson also punched out where he expected George to be, but failed to connect as George had already moved on.

Why was George continuing to play with them? Why wouldn’t he just fight – he had a superior cultivation level, didn’t he? The portal, a flat ink-black rift in the continuity of space, and the safety it represented beckoned towards him.

“Shouldn’t we just make a break for it?” Hudson asked Clara, knowing full well that George could hear him too, but asking the question anyways.

“No, that plays into his hand,” Clara replied quickly, in between the controlled breaths of her breathing technique. “He wants to strike at you while fleeing – you will be weakened without your sigil and burdened with my weight.

“He is Formation Building stage and has only just ascended and will have but a limited amount of liquid qi in his dantian. Using his sigil at this point tells us he is quite low on qi already, with only enough saved up for a finishing blow or two. We will wait him out.”

“We don’t have the time to wait him out!” Hudson said, exasperated. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes in annoyance. Was Clara more focused on defeating George, or on surviving to fight another day? And who was she to advise patience? She was the opposite of patience in almost every single way.

It seemed out of character, but her words rang true. If he picked up Clara and they ran for the portal and he didn’t know where George was, he could be attacked en route, and easily end up like Clara herself, with a broken leg or worse.

“Patience brings us victory,” Clara said, then closed her eyes in concentration.

Another path wormed its way into his brain. He could always ditch Clara and make a break for it. He shook his head at that thought – that’s what a member of S.E.C.T. would do, and he wasn’t that kind of cultivator. He didn’t want to be that kind of cultivator.

There was a large rumble through the cavern, and a few large boulders tumbled loose at the far end. The smaller tremors were growing less frequent, but were being replaced by much larger quakes. Hudson stayed firmly rooted through the shaking, but George took the opportunity to launch another attack, aiming for the blind spot between him and Clara.

The blow took Hudson by surprise, hitting the back of his left shoulder, knocking him off balance. A flurry of blows followed the first, pushing Hudson down onto one knee as his entire left side took a beating. Clara tried to protect him, and managed to block and deflect a few blows, but was unable to fully cover his back.

The consecutive punches and kicks began to breach Hudson’s defenses, but he drew deep and pushed through the pain. Every breath brought sharp stabs into his lower left side, but he ignored them and put all of his strength into an explosive side kick.

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His heel connected with George’s side, now visible with a silvery glow. George had activated his body strengthening technique at the last moment, unwilling to trade blows with Hudson without the benefit of his technique’s protection.

Before Hudson or Clara could follow up, however, the glow faded and George disappeared again, leaving them in the same position as before – except with Hudson’s mounting injuries.

Hudson could feel the rage and frustration rising in his chest, threatening to take over. He wanted to just start swinging randomly at the air in front of him on the off chance he could hit the coward of a young master he was fighting, but he pushed all of that rage down deep inside. Not never… he promised his rage. Not yet.

He needed to pinpoint George, and then either make a break for it, or attack and gain an advantage. Somehow.

He closed his eyes and sought out his qi sense with fierce desperation. He couldn’t see George with his eyes, or hear him with his ears – that left his extraordinary senses. He ruthlessly put aside his frustration, the pain of his bruises and broken bones, the knowledge that the portal would disappear shortly and that they would be overrun by silicates – he threw it all aside and commanded his mind to quiet.

He could hear his harsh breaths, Clara’s smooth breathing, and the faint distance rumbling of something – or many somethings – digging through the stone towards the cavern. He pushed all of those sounds away, searching for the faintest threads of qi.

In the distracted corner of his mind where he was pushing all of his senses, he distantly felt a harsh kick land on right knee. He almost lost his concentration on his sigil, but it held on barely, saving his joint and keeping both him and Clara standing upright.

There. He had it. He could see the qi in the atmosphere, pulled into his technique and into Clara’s as well. There was no hint of any other presence, nothing at all to indicate another cultivator, much less one of a higher cultivation level.

George wasn’t using a breathing technique to gather qi; he was using the qi he had condensed in his dantian.

Another kick against his knee, and this time he let his sigil go, keeping his concentration on his qi sense. His right knee buckled and wobbled, then fell to the ground. A ligament or two ripped loose.

He couldn’t see George – couldn’t see him at all. George’s sigil masked his presence entirely, erasing all indications of qi from his qi sense, the power of the dao overcoming – or supplanting – the physical laws… but it wasn’t perfect.

He could see an absence of qi – an imperfection in the flows of qi around him. It was small, and subtle, but it was there. He had him.

Hudson opened his eyes and thrust his hands up in a block, just in time to catch the leg-shaped absence of qi he had seen hurtling down towards his neck. The powerful ax kick blew through his block – no longer supported by his sigil – slammed into his neck and pushed Hudson into the ground. Dust and pebbles flew up from the force of Hudson’s face colliding with the ground.

Clara was catapulted onto the ground to Hudson’s side, out of reach.

“Little ants,” George said derisively while dropping his invisibility. His leg began to shine with a silvery light, and he lifted it up to strike again – or he tried to.

Hudson’s arms were wrapped tightly around George’s leg and not letting go. He rose slowly from the ground, raising his bloody face to glare up at George.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Hudson spat out. Incredibly detailed tattoos of roots had appeared on his arms and hands. There was the sharp sound of metal breaking. Where Hudson’s fingers gripped Gerorge’s leg, hair-line cracks spread across the silvery qi.

George’s fist lit up with silver light and he began to punch Hudson in the face. Once, twice, and a third time.

Hudson’s nose was broken and blood flowed freely. Two of his teeth were gone, but he refused to let go.

Any time now! Hudson screamed inside his head, as he saw Clara finally crawl into range of George’s other leg. She reached out with her hand and grabbed his ankle.

“Ants? More like fire ants,” Clara said, while igniting her own sigil.

Flames burst out of her hand. Unnaturally dark flames, the color of dried blood, covered George’s from ankle up to mid-thigh.

George screamed in pain, moving through multiple octaves and pitches in an eerie howl. He bent down and punched Clara viciously in the arm until Hudson heard the snap of bone. A follow-up backhand knocked her back towards the portal. She rolled to a stop several paces from the rift, in a heap – unconscious or dead.

The flames had stopped being emitted from Clara’s hand when George had broken her arm, but his leg had not stopped burning. Hudson’s unprotected skin on his arms and face were blistering from the heat roiling off of George’s leg.

Hudson decided he had lost enough teeth pinning George down. George reared back to throw another punch, but before it could connect, Hudson let go and pushed up on George’s leg.

George flipped backwards, landing gracefully, and immediately began to try and smother the flames still scorching his burning leg. He covered his hands in the silvery qi of his technique and gripped his leg, pushing down on the flames burning his flesh away. As his hands came in contact with the flames, they slowly sputtered and went out.

Clara had struck George when his defenses were down, late in the fight and when George had begun conserving qi. If she had struck him with the flames right away, when he had been using his technique on his full body, then he would have taken much less damage and he would have known about her sigil. Clara’s patience and George’s arrogance had let her land a crucial blow.

He just hoped that it hadn’t cost Clara her life. Hudson stood on shaky legs and stumbled towards her. Now was their chance to flee through the portal, and hope that George wouldn’t be able to continue the fight on the other side. He pushed his breathing technique back into place with an enormous focus of will, ignoring the pain of cracked bones, ribs and teeth.

He hurriedly grabbed Clara’s prone form in his arms and sprinted for the rift. He was only a few paces away when the largest earthquake yet shook the cavern.

The portal flickered wildly at the edges, and shrank to a smaller size, while the formation around them dimmed slightly before returning to full strength.

Perhaps more concerning, a massive hole had appeared in the far end of the cavern’s ceiling. No rocks had fallen through the hole – instead, there was a faint but noticeable breeze in the air, flowing towards the hole. Dust and small particles were gradually being pulled in that direction, and if Hudson had to bet, qi was also flowing in that direction.

Hudson pushed to his feet once more, Clara slung over his shoulder, and sprinted for the portal.