The weasel-like eyes of Susu adversary, were a stark contrast she expected when she was fighting the black cloak assailant.
The sound of creak blossomed from the straining wood as flames crackled below. It only served to heighten the tension as Susu and the black cloaked man, were sizing they sizing each other up, waiting to see who would strike first.
With a thunderous crack, Susu lashed out her whip. The cloaked man twisted away, the tip grazing his cheek. He retaliated with a volley of razor-sharp metal spikes.
Susu danced back, and swatted down the spikes like flies. She channeled into her whip, then unleashed a Venom Strike directly into the man’s chest.
A loud metallic thong rang as Venom Strike its mark. It sent the assailant flying backwards down to the upper deck. He skidded backwards a few feat and before he could recover, Susu coiled her whip around his body, restraining him.
But the weasel-eyed man only smiled devilishly. He spun gracefully, unravelling himself from Susu’s whip then pointed the tip of his blade at her. “You’ll need to do better than that. Cheap tricks don’t work on me. You need vigour if you wantto defeat me!”
Susu gnashed her teeth in annoyance, renewing her onslaught. Scourge became a blur of motion. Yet the weasel-eyed assassin parried and deflected every strike with infuriating ease.
He’s read my patterns, She noticed, as a stab of frustration swelled within her. Is he in the Qi Perception Stage? No…he isn’t, he would’ve defeated me by now.
Susu stopped her assault and danced back. “Hooo….scared, don’t worry. Once we’ve finished dealing with these demons…you can become my pet!”
Susu opened the meridians of her Mind Dantian and let what little she cultivated within flow towards her meridians.
The tingling sensation she usually felt whenever she opened it, were jolts of electricity pulsing throughout her entire body.
She hated this aspect of releasing Qi from her Mind Dantian. Unlike the Core or Soul Dantian, it needed three times the amount of Qi to enact it naturally.
However, that is not truly frustrated her, it was the fact that she knew her opponent was of the Mind Awakening Realm. But for reason unknown to her, he fought as though he was in the Accentuation Realm, a Realm higher than hers.
He must be using a pill to enhance his Qi perception. Humph I don’t have a choice, if I continue to channel Qi into my whip, he’ll sense it. I have to strike him where he doesn’t expect it…and that’s why my fists.
Susu dropped her whip and blinked slowly. Then dashed forward, feinting left, then right and closed the distance between them. She unleashed a vicious combination, striking the acupoint in his arm and shoulder. She then spun around, kicking him in the chest and sent hurtling off the sail toward the river below.
He crashed into the water, but quickly recovered using his qinggong. Susu snatched up her whip and followed see, she rolled her shoulders and cracked her whip.
The whip cleaved the broken sail in two. As they floated in the air. The weasel-eyed man from the water, riding a bird of qinggong force. “Die, Scorpion Bitch!”
Susu smiled thinly, then placed her left hand on one of the split sails. She sent a surge of Qi into one, and did the same with other.
She then spun violently, releasing a two powerful kicks, launching the sails at the black cloaked man. He twisted away dodging the first sail, but raised his sword to block the second one.
Susu appeared to his right, shoulders rolled. She cracked Scourge, sizzling it with coalesced Qi.
Twenty Venom Strike
Scourge became a blur, with Qi thrumming throughout. The first strike caught the weasel-eyed man in the chest. The concussive force drove air from within his lungs, not leaving him with the opportunity to grunt.
The next strike smashed across his jaw, whipping his head in the opposite direction, Susu noticed that he tried to re-orient himself, but after the fifth strike, his body began to waver.
Saliva and flecks of blood sprayed from his mouth, agony contorting his face. He dropped his sword after the seventeenth strike.
At twentieth strike, the black-cloaked assailant dropped to his knees, but defiance was still painted across his face despite how bloodied his body was.
Susu released one more strike, a full-bodied horizontal strike that slammed into the man’s sternum like a battering ram. The explosive impact lifted him back up into the air, but compressed his ribcage with a thunderous crack.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
He shot towards the river below like a crumpled heap, a broken marionette amidst the wreckage of his arrogance.
After spending a few seconds catching her breath, Susu turned around, back towards the burning wreckage. “Now to meet up with Brother Xing,” She huffed.
The water beneath her feet began to rise, forcing her to turn around. Her eyes widened from surprise as a giant wave of water began to brew. No…its forming into a tsunami, Susu thought bitterly.
She squinted her eyes, trying to understand what was happening and finally saw the Axsumite standing on top of the wave, hands spread across and chanting some strange sutra that made her feel inept.
As eight assailants draped in black soared through the air like feathers. Xing cursed himself for being fool. Of course, they have men on the beach, stragglers must be dealt with…damn it, I messed up! Xing thought sourly.
The sound of water violently swirling began to clash behind him. It wasn’t the sound of water rushing against the coast, but something more ominous
Xing turned his head to the right slightly and in the corner of his eyes, he saw something he’d never seen before in all the years he’d travelled through the Jianghu.
Water spooling violently like a tsunami brewing its final attack.
As the water continued to swell, in the distance, on top of the spooling tsunami.
The Axsumite Warrior in white and red stood up top the epicenter of disaster, holding a half crescent moon blade, the sheen from the blade highlighted from the moon’s light. “Water Demon…” Xing whispered.
The Axsumite Warrior waved his hand as if he was Shaolin monk and shot himself forward like an arrow, covering the river in a single bound. He landed right between Xing, the Axsumite woman and the eight assailants. Spraying sand violently across the shoreline. Shit…
Xing eyes drifted toward him and the eight assailants who were still soaring in the air, trying to attack the Axsumite woman.
The Axsumite Warrior began humming a melancholic sutra and cold red aura began pouring from his mouth like a mist. The Warrior’s skin turned from puce to blue in an instant. Then, white veins pulsed and glowed enigmatically. Is this what enlightenment looks like? Xing thought, shocked by the display of power.
“KALE KALE!” The woman screamed out, dropping to her knees.
The crescent moon sword, smeared crimson begin to hum as he waved his hand severing arms, legs and heads of the assailants as if the were nothing but flies to him.
The severed hands, heads and legs dropped to the sand like fallen fruit. Xing, was stupefied by the display of power. What did I just witness?
The Axsumite Warrior dropped to his knees, then reached out his hands to the Axsumite woman and began crawling towards her, his once black hair turning white instantly.
The woman pushed herself up and ran towards him, her eyes filled with tears. Xing tried to move but for some reason, his feet wouldn’t allow him.
Was he scared? Was he in awe of such display of power? Did he want to anger the Axsumite further?
No. But what could he do?
He stood there watching as the Axsumite woman and man spoke in their foreign languages, tears forming in the eyes as if they knew their end was at hand.
However, the only thing that raced through Xing’s mind, was what did he just do? Is this the power you attain once you’ve reached Enlightenment? Is that the power gained once you’ve reached the Immortal Realm? No…that power was too volatile He thought, its killing him…he used something to increase his power That’s...desolation, not cultivation.
The blue hue of the Axsumite skin finally began to wither returning to its original shade of puce. The man’s muscles throbbed intently as the white veins dissipated, then turned purple as if he’d been poisoned.
He released a harrowing scream that lasted fifteen seconds. The woman began to sob as she knelt right next to him.
Xing finally had his whits about him and stepped towards her. He felt his left foot sink into the sand, sending a short jolt of pain up his left leg.
He knelt right next to the woman and rested the child in her arms. She looked up at him, brown eyes full of tears and took the child and began to sob immensely.
The Axsumite Warrior look at the child with his golden, the same colour as the child’s own. He smiled and reached out with his white veined hands, but the moment his hands touched the blanket, his hand dropped to the ground.
He was dead. returned the child to her. a child in her arm.
The Axsumite woman’s sobs turned cries once more and soon after the baby followed, wailing as if she’d just been born.
As the woman sat there Xing stepped back, giving her room to grieve. It wasn’t his place to be close or try to console. He didn’t know her, nor she knew him.
Two assailants kicked themselves off the ground, knives in their mouths. No Xing thought I got too relaxed! “RUN!” He screamed, jumping toward her using what little Qi he had left.
The assailants drove their knives, into the woman’s back, rocking their heads back and forth, making her into a sieve. She pushed the child in front of her, ensuring none of the knives could hurt her.
Xing opened his Soul, Core and Mind Dantian, feeling his body erupt with Qi, but mostly rage. “What have you DONE!” Xing whispered.
Sorrow, pain and tears in his eyes began to flow from his eyes as his meridians surged with Qi. Not again…I’ve failed another…
As his Qi roiled, he winced, feeling as though his meridians were about to explode like a rumbling volcano.
Xing swirled the Qi around his arms to form his Iron Shredded Claws, then performed an Instantaneous Step which drained the Qi within his legs.
He grabbed each assailant by the head, and raised them off the ground, leaving their maimed legs to flounder and spill blood on the sand.
“DIE!”
Xing twisted their heads in one fluid motion, he sent the remainder of his Qi into spinal chord, shattering. He then yanked their spines from their body in a gory display of power. The bodies dropped to the ground with a hollow thud.
Still…he felt nothing, because he knew he had failed…again.
The mother of the child, still kneeling from the attack had her arms outstretched, tears flowing from her eyes like a river.
As Xing turned to her, he could see the agony and sorrow in her face. No. He felt it.
The sorrow and anguish he saw within her eyes would be a name this child would go on to live by…The Silence of Tears.