“Opportunity knocks but once.”
- Ancient Proverb
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Year 258, Reign of Empress Cao Ming Yung
Even with the ability to see his opponents, the battle still wasn’t easy for Jianyu. Their dark robes obscured their faces, giving off a terrifying aura that caused him to sweat. His hands grew clammy and he forced himself to keep a grip. He had to face 4 opponents who were only a substage below his level in cultivation. To make matters worse, his Weak Vortex technique was almost halfway through its duration. As soon as it ran its course, Jianyu would be in dire straits.
Now that he had assessed the skill of his opponents, however, Jianyu had other techniques in his bag of tricks. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold back for this battle, and so he activated the 3rd and 4th of the Cloud Runner Sect’s signature techniques; Cloud Puppeteer and Winds of Fortune.
Cloud Puppeteer involved cultivators allowing most of their qi to disperse into the environment, slowing opponents with increased air pressure, or augmenting the user’s speed. Strings of wind qi attached themselves to the cultivator’s body, allowing complete body control, hence the name. When used with Vortex, qi was spent at a much lower rate. Winds of Fortune was another technique with a barely perceptible impact on the battle. In this technique, the qi of the practitioner manipulated the wind itself to boost or weaken the strength of incoming or outgoing attacks.
Engaging his Energy Vision, Jianyu observed the 4 Silver Masked assassins slow due to his Cloud Puppeteer technique. Winds of Fortune wasn’t likely to be effective against the Void based attacks of the assassins, but he knew he had to try everything he knew to win this battle.
After activating his techniques, Jianyu once more engaged his opponents, this time on the offensive. He knew his only chance was to quickly dispatch one of the attackers, which would decrease the cohesion of the group greatly. He picked out one assassin who seemed to be larger and slower than the rest and targeted them.
Using the speed boost provided by Cloud Puppeteer, Jianyu defended against countless attacks. At a flash of silver speeding towards his face, he ducked, only realizing afterwards that the blade would have taken his eye. He quickly counterattacked, his weapon sweeping in a crescent to defend his front.
He felt an incredible pain in his right leg as the second attacker’s boot slammed into the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel. Cold blasted through his legs as an energizing glacial wind burst from the pores of his calf, halting his descent. With an effort of will, he repeated the action, sending another gust of energy through his body, this time to his back. He held his jian firmly above his head, meeting slight resistance as he finished his slash. Even without his eyes, Jianyu knew that his blade had struck true, and he braced himself for a spray of blood and viscera. Two heartbeats passed, then three.
“What are they, that they do not even bleed,” he thought to himself as he involuntarily shuddered with disgust.
But Jianyu’s blade had struck its target, and the assassin fell to its knees, collapsed and died.
The remaining assailants withdrew to plan their next move. If they lamented their comrade’s death, it was not visible behind their ornate silver masks.
For a dozen heartbeats they stood with statue-esque stillness. Jianyu frantically cultivated to recover the qi he’d spent. The sides stared at one another, neither moving a muscle. Jianyu stood tall despite overwhelming odds. Veins bulged throughout his body as his heart raced to bring respite to his overtaxed body. Though he wasn’t breathing heavily, he had no doubt that his opponents could detect his unease.
The assassins’ silver masks betrayed nothing. They didn’t even breathe as they stood motionlessly. Their posture vaguely reminded Jianyu of something… ersatz.
The disciple shivered involuntarily, wiping the sweat from his eyes. Although he didn’t need them to see his opponents, they didn’t know that. Elder Yu’s guidance resounded in his head, ‘A battle between cultivators is just as much a contest of intelligence as of skill.’ He could picture the old man’s visage as he spoke, his blind eyes nonetheless revealing his thoughts.
Jianyu subsumed himself within the rhythm of battle. He’d deflect an attack from his first opponent, dodge an attack from the second, but he’d be forced to use his qi and weapon to parry the next two attacks. By the time he had fended off these attacks, his first two opponents would be ready to attack once again. On and on it went, the vitality of both attackers and defender fading.
Jianyu saw an opening to attack. He knew better than to fully commit to a strike, but he couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass! The other two assailants were too far away to help, and the closest assassin had their guard down. Right before his blade met his opponent's robes, Jianyu felt chills down his spine. Trusting his intuition, he used the Cloud Step, appearing to step off of the air itself to propel himself backwards.
As he floated in the air, his qi slipping away from him, he sensed something that made his entire body shiver. It was as if the jaws of death were closing in on him. Thank the ancestors that I dodged that technique, he thought. The lifeblood of the world froze around him. Even Jianyu, who lacked a proper education, knew that qi was the source of all life. Without access to qi, any living being would die as soon as their reserves ran out, and he was no exception.
It would appear that the assassins had finally gauged his abilities.
But the lethality of a technique rose in tandem with backlash of a failed activation. As Jianyu observed blue-white transcendent qi fall like rain from the heavens, he struck. His blade found purchase in the cold bodies of the assassins, stabbing and slashing until one had been decapitated and another bisected.
Unfortunately for him, just as he dispatched his opponents, reinforcements came to engage him once more. Though these new opponents were weaker, Jianyu was now facing nearly a dozen opponents.
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In a desperate play to even the field, Jianyu performed a desperate lunge towards his opponent’s chest, the tip of his jian directing his body. The assassin turned, attempting to block the attack with his daggers, but to no avail. Jianyu’s full length of steel pierced the mask before entering the brain, delivering instantaneous retribution. As the mask split, the ghastly visage of a damned soul emerged from the head of the assassin, as he collapsed to the ground.
Jianyu knew that he would not be able to dodge the continuing attacks of his other opponents. Though he would die with even a miniscule exposure to Void Qi, he had one final trump card. As attacks descended upon him from three directions simultaneously, Jianyu activated the 5th and final technique of the Cloud Runner Sect; Cloud Body. Cool gaseous qi enveloped his body, turning him intangible. As his body turned ethereal, he slaughtered his opponents, his body offering no purchase for the assailants’ weapons.
His blade sought eyes, mouths, scalps, and ears, the blood that would have covered his body instead painting the ground crimson. It felt like a dream to the young cultivator, his senses muted by his technique, and his movements inhumanly fluid.
When only six opponents remained, Jianyu deactivated his technique. Though it had been active for less than ten heartbeats, it still drained half of his energy stores, leaving him only a fifth of his maximum.
Jianyu knew he had to end the battle quickly. He effortlessly pulled his weapon from the corpse it was buried in, but no entrails tumbled to the ground. Instead, a purple substance coated his weapon.
He breathed deeply, letting the rank odor of death fill his lungs. Even though the atmosphere disgusted him, Jianyu knew just how important it was to keep the body revitalized. Cultivators needed rest, just as mortals did. And just like mortals, once they had perished, their soul escaping the confines of their mortal shell, that was it. There were no second chances. The finality of death came for all.
“Perhaps practitioners aren’t so different from mortals after all…”
With these words spoken aloud, something in the world shifted.
The laws of Heaven and Earth descended upon the battlefield to acknowledge Jianyu’s revelation, causing his allies to fight with renewed vigor. Although little was known about the Void Sect, every child was told from a young age how Heaven and Earth would never recognize a member of the nightmarish cult. Thus, even though they knew not who amongst their ranks had experienced such good fortune, it set the minds of the exhausted sectarians at ease.
Jianyu casually disposed of the enemy that had caused him trouble just moments ago, kneecapping the assassin with a reverse slash such that his hands rested atop right shoulder, the tip of his blade a hand’s width from the ground..
He descended upon the final five assassins in a flurry of jabs and slices. Slash right, cut left, parry, dodge; his movements had reached a level of fluidity his opponents could not have expected. His first target barely managed a simple redirection such that his blade would go wide, but Jianyu turned his body, putting the second assassin in danger of bisection. He put all the strength in his body into this attack, so when the assassin attempted to block, he was thrown back, crashing into the west wall of the outer courtyard with an audible crack before laying still.
Though only three remained, Jianyu didn’t let his guard down. He knew that even a single mistake could result in his end, so he carefully sized up his opposition. He watched on in disbelief as two of the remaining assailants ran themselves through with their own blades. Their bodies disappeared, sucked through a portal into the Void before Jianyu could blink.
This strange turn of events did not bode well, and he still had one opponent. Though he could not determine the gender of his opponent, they were slender in figure and almost as tall as he was, clothed in black robes as dark as starless night. The dark viscosity unique to Void Qi clothed their daggers, and even through his Energy Vision, Jianyu could see it in stark detail. The otherwordly qi dripped from the points of the daggers before fading into the ethereal plane, gone from the world entirely.
If the Sect’s research on the Void Sect was correct, he thought to himself, that was likely a sacrificial technique.
As if confirming his fears, a crunching sound emanated from his final opponent, and their body contorted into shapes that defied logic. Elder Yu had taught Jianyu better than to let an opponent charge up, and he burst into action. Leading with the tip of his jian, the young cultivator committed to the charge, building up speed as he approached his target. The assassin was eerily silent throughout the transformation, but Jianyu did not fret. His mind was clear but for himself and his opponent.
But alas, it was not to be. Jianyu was stopped dead in his tracks as his opponent, while still undergoing its transformation, caught his jian between two slender gloved fingers the color of moonless night. The force of the collision blew up dust around the pair.
What Jianyu saw when the dust settled sickened him. His opponent had increased in size by nearly half, and their mask began to change color from silver to gold. Jianyu eyed this development with a modicum of fear and caution, as he knew he could not defeat a gold masked assassin alone.
As if the heavens heard his thoughts, the mask stopped before turning completely gold.
Either this is a unique limit-breaking technique, thought Jianyu, or this opponent just broke through in cultivation during this battle. Geniuses like this put him to shame, and he envied how they just received what he had to work for years to achieve.
Although the opponent had broken through to the peak of the Foundation stage, the fight dragged on as they attacked with no regard for their own safety. They left with a predictable frontal attack. He waited until the last moment, allowing his opponent to get within his guard, before dodging to the side and slicing towards their right Achilles. TWhat he wasn’t prepared for was his blade bouncing off of the assassin, throwing him off his balance and barely leaving a scratch upon his opponent’s skin.
Stunned by the resonance of his own attack, Jianyu made a tactical retreat.
He assumed the bow stance, his feet parallel and his weight on the balls of his feet. Again, his opponent struck without tact. Their daggers were a flurry of motion as they sought purchase on Jianyu’s body. His opponent moved within his guard, forcing him to dodge every attack. He could barely keep up, relying on his reflexes as his vision utterly failed. A streak of black and purple led him to block a strike that never came. Realizing his mistake, he tried to retreat, but his opponent was relentless. He frantically backpedaled, feeling as his opponent’s blade cut through the hairs on his chin. His body was already near its limit, but he couldn’t afford to stop.
His opponent was ferocious, never stopping or slowing his tempo. The two warriors, disciple and assassin, settled into a rhythm, the former predicting the latter even as the latter cemented their victory.
Jianyu knew he couldn’t continue this forever. Even if his opponent was predictable, they were too agile and too powerful for him to contest. If they won’t give me any chances, I’ll have to create one, he concluded. His mind settled, Jianyu prepared for the end. A poor block sent him reeling, his wrist badly sprained.
He let out an involuntary yelp as the pain interrupted his thoughts, and he tried to escape. Predictably, his grotesque assailant followed. In the moment before his opponent closed, Jianyu sent a crisp burst of qi through the soles of his feet, somersaulting over his opponent. He held his blade firmly above his head as he spun. The assassin blocked this first strike with crossed daggers, staggering back from the sheer power Jianyu was drawing upon.
But to his dismay, the assassin held fast.
His time had come.