Wu Jian had decided to do battle against the terracotta guardian with the scimitars. He believed that his control over space would grant him an edge in combat against something like that.
[Body of the Celestial White Tiger]
Because he knew better than to hold back against a foe so much more powerful than him, Wu Jian decided to go all out right from the onset of combat.
“Grrrrrr!!!!”
Wu Jian unleashed the dormant power within him, the blood of the mythical Byakko that often sat dormant within his dantian. Thirteen drops of blood resided within him. Only six of them were active right now, a result of his training and reaching the Deva Realm. He wondered how long it would take to activate them all, even as his body surged with power.
“Graaaaaaahh!!!!”
He felt, more than saw, his body transforming--his muscles expanded, ripping through his garments as they thickened and hardened like iron, his stature grew more commanding, more intimidating. His eyes, still hidden behind his mask, became a brilliant golden color with predatory, slit-like pupils. Wu Jian extended his fingers as the nails on them grew and sharpened. His toenails, too, became longer and more clawlike.
It wasn’t just his body that morphed. His hair had too. The once dark hair that sat upon his head like a messy main became even longer, trailing all the way down to his lower back, and gained a spiky quality. Its coloration shifted from black to silver, a slow change that started from the base of his scalp and continued to the tips.
With his transformation complete, Wu Jian was ready to do battle against the terracotta guardian.
Not that it had stopped moving since his transformation began. In fact, it tried to interrupt him several times. Wu Jian had been forced to dodge its attacks while he transformed, shuffling along the ground with fleet-footed movements. He was fortunate that activating his technique didn’t require standing still. This battle would have been over before it even began.
The terracotta guardian stomped forward far more quickly than someone might expect from something of its size and swung the scimitar in its left hand. Wu Jian avoided the downward slash by leaping aside. It struck the ground seconds later, digging through it as though it was butter. The furrow it left was enough to let anyone know that a single swing would cleave the average cultivator in two.
Wu Jian grinned behind his mask.
The terracotta warrior spun around like a graceful dancer and thrust the sword in its right hand. Wu Jian did not bother dodging this time. His transformation was already complete.
[Spatial Folding]
Holding his hands together above his head, he separated them as he brought them down, creating a circle. Within that circle appeared a black hole. Another black hole appeared behind the terracotta guardian. The scimitar’s tip disappeared into the hole, emerged from the other one, and slammed into--no, wait. Wu Jian clicked his tongue when what he thought would happen didn’t happen. The terracotta guardian dodged to the side, which allowed it to avoid being struck by its own attacks.
[Teleportation]
Wu Jian didn’t let this stop him and quickly teleported above its head. He was quite certain the terracotta guardian could not see the way normal people did, but it still looked up as he descended. Unbothered as it took a defensive stance, Wu Jian reared back his hand, built up momentum with his fall, and lashed out with a claw strike that contained all the power within his body.
His foe took the attack on its scimitars. Claw and weapon clashed in a mass of sparks. Wu Jian expected his attack to at least make his foe stumble, but it held strong, bending its knees as though to absorb the impact and throwing him off. He landed on the ground some distance away, then was forced to perform a series of back handflips as the terracotta guardian swung its sword several times, unleashing intense bursts of air that sliced into the ground.
Those things aren’t just stone weapons. There’s chi running through them.
Well, that made sense. These guardians came to life through chi. However, he had expected the chi to be solely for their activation. It didn’t occur to him that they would be able to use it for themselves.
Does that mean it will run out of chi eventually?
The terracotta guardian rushed forward and swung its weapon. Those scimitars were so huge it would probably crush him instead of slice him.
[Nihility]
Wu Jian let the attack come, using Nihility to make it pass through his body, then landed adroitly atop the weapon and began racing up. He sought to deliver a crushing blow to its head. Perhaps removing the head would cause it to fall, but before he could get far, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye--the second scimitar coming it hot for his head.
[Teleport]
He appeared directly beneath the terracotta guardian and lashed out with a kick to its shin. He not only put all of his considerable strength into this attack, but warped the Dao of Space to cut into it even deeper. Yet while his attack did some damage, it was merely cosmetic. A single crack ran down its left leg.
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This thing is… sturdy. Is it resistant to the Dao of Space? No. That’s not it. It’s just got so much chi reinforcing its body that my attacks don’t do much damage.
Wu Jian hopped back several times as the terracotta guardian performed a beautiful spinning assault. It twirled the blades in its hands like an expert sword dancer. Every attack was powerful enough that a gust of wind slammed into Wu Jian, who used the Dao of Space to lock his coordinates in place. He would have used [Nihility], but those attacks were infused with enough chi that they disrupted his own techniques.
This thing really is troublesome. Even when I’m using my strongest form, I lack the strength to deal any significant damage. I think I can defeat it if I use Cleaving the Heavens in a Single Stroke… but I’ll need to give it--
“Whoa!!!”
Wu Jian gritted his teeth as he barely avoided another attack from his opponent. Its swords were beginning to move so fast he was having trouble keeping up with it.
[Space Folding]
He once more bent space around him to make the attacks vanish through one portal and come out the other. He would have personally liked to just teleport this blasted warrior away, but that was impossible since it had too much chi. He could only forcibly teleport someone weaker than himself.
“What the--?!”
Wu Jian was forced to dodge when the terracotta guardian rushed forward. It had stepped into his space and disrupted his technique, shattering it like glass with a single kick. Had it figured out the weakness of his techniques? Was that even possible?! There was little time for him to consider what was happening, for his opponent was closing in.
[Teleport]
He teleported once more, appearing behind the massive moving statue. His hope that it wouldn’t notice him were dashed when he threw its scimitar at him! He leapt to the side, avoiding the worst of the damage, but the impact alone created gale winds that made him stumble. He hadn’t had time to lock his coordinates into place.
And the terracotta warrior capitalized on that.
“Ack?!”
Wu Jian felt like his ribcage had been crushed as the terracotta warrior finally landed a blow. Its kick was unlike anything he’d ever felt. He was lifted off his feet and blasted backward so quickly that everything felt like it was passing in a blur, and yet, it was over all too soon when he slammed into one of the columns. A massive crashing sound echoed around him as fractures appeared along the column’s surface. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t been destroyed, but it was apparently made of stern stuff--not that Wu Jian cared.
Coughing up blood, Wu Jian forced his injured body to move as his enemy rushed forward. He leapt to the ground and made a mad dash away as the terracotta guardian sliced right through the column with its sword, and this time, the structure could not withstand the blow. The column was cut. Stone fragments exploded everywhere as the massive scimitar cleaved through it. The rest soon began descending, each piece striking the floor and filling the hall with more smoke.
This would have made the perfect camouflage in a normal fight, but Wu Jian knew. He knew this thing could see him. It turned around. Its eyes were dull. Every surface on its body was the exact same color. Wu Jian didn’t know how it “saw” him, though he suspected it was less a matter of seeing and more of perceiving. If it could sense his presence, then using Teleportation to attack from its “blindspot” wouldn’t work.
After all, your enemy needed to have a blindspot for that to work.
It raised an arm and swung it down. The movement felt incredibly slow, and yet it happened in nearly an instant. Wu Jian only avoided the attack by teleporting away at the very last second, but the wind pressure alone had threatened to throw him off his feet.
This isn’t working…
His blood pounded in his ears as the terracotta guardian unleashed more powerful bursts of severing winds, which Wu Jian nullified by with [Space Folding]. He created one black hole in front of him, and another above him. Each attack flew into the first black hole and emerged from the second, striking the terracotta guardian with enough power that it was finally forced to stumble back.
It looks like that works a little, but… like I thought. It’s not being damaged very much.
Whatever these things were made of, it was exceedingly sturdy. Nothing he had done so far had worked on it.
I don’t have much time left. I need to use Cleaving the Heavens in a Single Strike… but it will never give me the time to do that!
Despite the battle being heavily stacked against him, Wu Jian found himself grinning as he avoided death by the skin of his teeth. He was thinking. There must surely be a way to kill this thing.
He went back to how it must sense him. It didn’t have eyes, ears, or a mouth. It wasn’t alive, so it didn’t have nerve endings to feel things like people and animals did. That meant it must be able to sense his chi.
Sense his chi…
Wu Jian stopped moving. Suddenly. Abruptly. The terracotta guardian raised its scimitars once more to attack him. Wu Jian shut his eyes, focusing only on the sound of his own breathing as he sent his mind deep within his subconscious. Nothing else existed to him. Once he reached his chi sea, where his dantian resided, Wu Jian took all of his chi back into himself, even the chi he gained from Byakko’s transformation.
He opened his eyes.
The terracotta guardian had stopped moving.
I knew it!
“You guys! These things can’t see! They sense you through fluctuations in your chi! If you hide your chi, they won’t be able to find you!” he shouted.
Tang Tiantian and her comrades had been doing their best against the other guardian. It looked like one of them was already dead. He saw the splattered remains of a human torso and a pair of legs. It looked like his entire upper body had been squashed flat. The others, including Tang Tiantian, had varying degrees of injury.
His words caused the four remaining members to jolt. Tang Tiantian glanced over and, when she saw him standing beside his enemy, which hadn’t moved at all except to turn in their directions, she quickly stopped too. She closed her eyes and began withdrawing all of her chi, making herself invisible to the terracotta guardian’s senses.
The others began doing the same thing, but unfortunately, one of them could not fully suppress his chi. He died when the terracotta guardian stomped on him. Wu Jian flinched as the two remaining men on Tang Tiantian’s team paled. Seeing death come so suddenly like that made it hard to concentrate, but they somehow managed.
Both guardians stopped.
Wu Jian walked over to them.
Fighting as they had been doing wasn’t working, and they had all suffered varying degrees of injury. If they wanted to come out of this victorious, they needed a plan.