Chapter 18 - Inspiration During Fights

When Lu Na saw Hen Li’s dog spirit change, she wanted to use her own spirit’s technique to see what was going on. Such a powerful spirit would probably have many secrets to reveal.

“I wouldn’t suggest looking at that with our technique. It will burn your eyes,” her spirit said. “Get your spirit wall ward ready. Use it the moment that piece of null metal feels too hot to hold.”

The piece of metal in her hand turned uncomfortable when Hen Li’s spirit transformed, but it was still fine. It wasn’t until Wong Yoong unleashed her spirit again by clenching her left fist that the metal became burning. The air crackled. A rooster twice the size of Wong Yoong appeared. It was covered in burning metal from head to claw. The ground started sizzling from its power.

Lu Na combined her spirit wall ward with the piece of null metal. For the first time, she noticed that her spirit was the one that shaped the ward. Instead of letting the spirit ward take on a simple round shape around her, it formed into a giant bubble that sank into the earth. When it finished, Lu Na was completely encased in an invisible spirit bubble.

“There, that should protect you.”

“I saw how you did that. Can I do something like that in the future if I train to be a summoner?” Lu Na said.

“Maybe. You’d be starting late so it might take more time. But we can talk about it if you survive this.”

Hen Li stared at Lu Na’s bubble.

“How did you do that? In all my travels, I have never seen a spirit able to construct such a barrier that is so strong and perfect. I don’t think even at the height of my power I could strike this down.”

“It’s one of my inventions. I made this with the help of my spirit.”

“When we are done here, we have a lot to talk about. Maybe you and I can help each other.”

“Are we done talking?” Wong Yoong asked.

“Amituofo. What’s your rush? Patience is a precious skill to have in life,” Hen Li said.

“Not when you have such power coursing through you. You shouldn’t have left the sect. You will never feel how good this feels ever again.”

“That power is corrupting your very soul. Nothing good will come from that.”

“When you feel this good, it doesn’t matter.” Wong Yoong raised her right hand into the air. With a casual wave, her metal rooster charged Hen Li’s dog spirit. “Kill them both. We don’t need to capture either. Anyone who succeeds will be made into a senior disciple and senior disciples will be given a month’s personal tutelage from all the elders.”

The entire street roared, not only from the spirits attacks but the disciples’ shouts. A sea of blue tunics came surging toward them.

Lu Na was deafened from it again, but kept wondering: was this tutelage really worth that much? Was it worth the life of others to achieve? She would never hurt another to achieve power, let alone kill. Was being a summoner worth it?

Hen Li became a blur in front of Lu Na as he swung his staff fluidly against the attacks. The other summoners struggled to hit him. Panhu, his dog spirit, followed up with bursts of its own energy that prevented anything physical from reaching Lu Na.

Lu Na wanted to help more, but all she could do was hold on to her ward against the null metal to keep it powered. It cooled off, but it was still uncomfortably hot as it absorbed all the spirit energy being swung around her.

There were a few times when a sword or dagger came close to her, but Hen Li easily deflected it.

“If your brother is a peerless warrior, this monk is a god,” Lu Na’s spirit said.

Lu Na had time to appreciate the world around her for the first time in a long time. She watched as the large metal rooster clash with Hen Li’s dog spirit. Her spirit didn’t allow her to use the technique to see the spirit energy, but she felt it more than anything. The air felt hot and stuffy, like the height of a summer’s day.

The large rooster towered over the dog and every swipe of its claws rented the ground and the nearby buildings, but it could never hurt Hen Li’s dog spirit. All the other summoners gave the two fighters a wide berth and focused on Hen Li. Even then, a few of them were caught in the aftermath of one of the rooster’s techniques and had their spirits knocked out before they could get away.

Hen Li’s staff blurred in front of him with smooth swings and parries. He was outnumbered but only a few of the summoners that attacked seemed to have any weapon skills. One or two scored a hit on Hen Li, but all they damaged was his gray tunic. After an intense fight that lasted a few minutes at most, the summoners backed off.

Hen Li stood with his staff planted into the ground, wheezing. Yet he still stood tall, staring down any challengers that dared to come. None came for fear of the harsh beating he gave. While he didn’t kill, his strikes were not light taps. Not only was Hen Li’s dog spirit strong enough to take on the rooster that had powered up and could easily eclipse her brother’s cow, he could use his staff skills to fend off so many attackers at once.

“You’re amazing,” Lu Na said.

“Amituofo,” Hen Li said between large breaths. “Had I known I was going to be fighting so hard, I would have kept up with my training.” He stretched his arms and neck as he stared down the summoners.

That’s when the summoners attacked again. The lull in the fight was just a break for both sides. Neither seemed done yet.

Lu Na was stunned at how Hen Li could fend off the people who came from behind with no warning from her. He instinctively swung his staff around Lu Na and smashed those harder than the ones in front. The summoners were extra careful when trying to harass him from behind.

“See, god. I doubt your brother could fight on par with him,” Lu Na’s spirit said.

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“No, he wouldn’t be able to fight with him yet,” Lu Na said. “In a few years and a little more training, I doubt my brother wouldn’t be his match.”

“Hmmm, that is true. Your brother has the tenacity and drive.”

Lu Na flinched when a large fireball struck her spirit wall bubble. It came flaming hot with the color of a candle and the size of a melon. Yet the yellow ball splashed off the invisible wall and dissipated. Not even the heat came through, but at this rate Lu Na wasn’t sure if it would be hotter than the heat coming from Hen Li’s fight.

The next attack was a hail of water lances. They turned semi solid so they looked like long ice picks that crashed against the spirit wall. They too dissipated, causing her wall to shimmer black.

“Well, they started attacking your little wall. Let’s hope that the monk can protect you when they throw physical things at you,” her spirit said.

That’s when the largest sword Lu Na had ever seen came flying at her spirit wall. This sword was as wide as a horse. She couldn’t see the length as it came flying directly at her, making it look like a thick, shining metal line in the sky.

“Ah, Hen Li,” Lu Na said.

Hen Li said nothing and did nothing as the sword came flying at her.

The sword crashed into her spirit wall, but it turned into mist as soon as it touched it. All Lu Na could do was grasp her ward really hard against the null metal. She closed her eyes and recited the heart sutra.

“Open your eyes. You can’t lose focus,” her spirit said.

Lu Na forced her eyes open, but didn’t stop her recitation. She watched as the sword kept coming until it suddenly stopped, disappearing into the air.

One of the Wintersweet disciples dressed in dark blue collapsed onto the ground. He must have been the one to summon that large sword and overused his spirit energy.

It was strange as Lu Na looked at the ward in her hand. She was surprised it was still working, yet when that sword crashed into her wall, the null metal heated. It felt like it was burning as the sword kept going, but luckily it stopped. Now the heat became bearable again.

Lu Na wondered if it was because it absorbed the spirit energy from the spirit sword and then transferred it to the ward itself. If that was the case, then this metal was the most efficient thing she ever worked with. If she got home after this, she was going to experiment on it to hone it and be more efficient. Maybe give it some hand holds or something so it didn’t burn her own hands as she held it against her ward.

That was the only moment of peace she got before all the Wintersweet disciples banded together to create the chaos that Lu Na could only imagine. Every single one of them directed their spirits to create a spirit energy technique and threw whatever they could at her spirit wall. They knew they couldn’t get close to Hen Li as his staff skills were dangerous, but Lu Na’s spirit wall was fair game.

“They must think that you’re casting the spirit wall somehow so that you’ll run out of energy, eventually. Those silly sects. What are they teaching their disciples nowadays?” her spirit said.

“So this shield will hold?” Lu Na asked.

“Of course.”

Lu Na wasn’t sure about that. The disciples were gathering so many techniques from all the elements and some combined their techniques and elements as well into a monstrous amalgamation of color and power that would have overwhelmed her own brother. Meanwhile, she held onto a ward that she made not too many days ago and hadn’t really perfected nor tested. Was it really going to hold?

With one loud roar, the disciples threw their techniques at Lu Na’s shield. She wanted to close here eyes again, but kept them open this time.

“Let me change it slightly so that the godly monk isn’t hit.”

The shield dropped in front of Lu Na at that moment.

“Spirit!”

The techniques came flying at her had sped up now that they saw the spirit wall down. The summoners pushed their techniques harder at Lu Na.

After a brief second, her spirit wall bubble reappeared, this time taller and wider so that it also blocked Hen Li. The difference though was that this time the wall was closer to Lu Na’s face. Before Lu Na could reach out with her arms and not touch the edge. This time, if she bent forward just a little, her nose would touch it.

“Try not to move. That took more effort than I thought and I couldn’t make it wider for you.”

The mass of spirit techniques collided with her spirit wall bubble. Lu Na gritted her teeth and kept her eyes wide open. She didn’t even blink as the mass of techniques splashed harmlessly against her spirit wall.

It wasn’t until the last little fireball licked against her spirit wall did she take a breath. Some summoners collapsed onto the ground, but most of them were still standing. This was not good.

Lu Na didn’t know how long she could keep standing straight like this without shifting. A quick glance down and she noticed parts of her own coarse tunic singed where it was just outside the spirit wall bubble. What would happen if her nose was just outside?

“Is there anyway you can make it wider so that I didn’t have to stand so stiff?”

“Child, you should be happy I could make it wide enough to protect the monk behind you. Don’t turn around, but that man is fighting another god himself. That Wintersweet woman has been ingesting pill after pill, extending the time she can keep her spirit summoned and increasing its strength with every pill.”

“Isn’t that going to kill her?”

“Eventually. But if she were fighting any other summoner even a stage and level or two above her, she would have defeated them by now. Yet this godly monk has held on despite all that.”

Lu Na was tempted to turn and look, but she didn’t dare, as the Wintersweet disciples in front of her had prepared a second attack.

“Now don’t bother me as I focus this spirit wall of yours for this next attack. I’m not sure if I can hold on after this.”

“Then what?”

“Then you’re on your own to shape this spirit wall.”

“What?”

Lu Na watched as a second barrage of spirit techniques slammed into her spirit wall. This time, she didn’t flinch, but she kept as still as she could. She felt the spirit techniques washing over her in waves. The spirit techniques singed her clothes unfortunate enough to be on the other side of the spirit wall. In that moment, she felt her spirit shaping the very wall in front of her.

That’s when Lu Na focused on the spirit wall itself. She might not have her spirit’s technique at that moment, but she noticed a few things about the spirit wall. First, it’s made of spirit energy powered by the null metal, but that’s also channeled through her ward. If she thought about it for a moment, the reason it takes the shape it did was because she modeled the wall after her brother’s earth wall technique. She’s seen her brother create different shapes and sizes of those walls through sheer will whenever he didn’t have his cow spirit out. Could Lu Na do the same thing?

But that would mean she’d have to add that to the ward where it could read her mind and her desire for what she wanted. That was going to be something she’d have to ask her spirit later on how she did it.

The second thing she noticed was that while the spirit wall worked against many elements and techniques, it didn’t work against physical objects that were not created by spirits. That was a major flaw in this defense that she was surprised that the Wintersweet disciples didn’t realize yet. Well, that or they’re too arrogant to realize, as most of the summoners Lu Na ever saw usually depended on their spirits to do most of the work.

But what if she combined her spirit wall with her brother’s earth wall technique, where one overlapped the other? As long as she gave them adequate space, they wouldn’t touch and interact with each other. Sure, that would be easy if she had years to think about how to do that and to experiment with it.

Lu Na wasn’t sure if she was going to survive the next few minutes.