Li Hui Ming

The vines delivered the sect head to the feet of masked man. The mask was wooden and undecorated. It had to be Jin.

My heart froze. “Sir Jin! Please don’t-”

He threw a seed to the ground and many more into the air. An abnormally large version of the twenty vined plants rose up from beneath him. The twenty vines were all attached to central blub platform, where Jin and the sect head stood.

The twenty vines whipped up and intercepted the other seeds he had thrown up in midair. Huge blades grew at their tips.

The other vines that had sprouted from Senior Wang’s robes charged at Elder Zhu. The elder picked his spear out of the wooden shell. The ambient Qi in the earth and air fluctuated with his every motion. The Qi swelled to a maximum and he thrust his spear into the vines. A blinding flash of light. A beam of flame blasted through the vines.

The thrust created gusts that consumed the area. The structures around us were completely decimated. The rubble constructed a rocky arena for the four of us. However, the sect head and I could hardly be considered participants in the battle once the real titans appeared.

The combination of scorching fire and might of the elder’s spear decimated the vines. The vines were scorched black and blasted away.

Elder Zhu stared at the masked Jin. He scrutinized him, but just like me, he couldn’t see through him. He jumped to grab his other spear from out of the ground. He assumed a stance that I had never seen before, presumably one unique to his Dao.

“Who are you?” Elder Zhu asked Jin. This time, his voice contained a wariness one would never expect from a Crimson Fire elder.

Groups of people stood on the roofs of the unbroken buildings. A couple brave cultivators had shown up to watch from afar.

“Elder Zhu!” I called out, “I beseech you, please don’t fight this man!”

He ignored me. He might have paid me more attention if he knew I was from his sect. While I had met most of the sixth stage cultivators in the Crimson Fire Sect, I hadn’t met any of the exalted sect elders.

“Who are you?” the elder asked again.

“It’s none of your business,” said Jin. “Leave. Or I’ll kill you.” The twenty tentacles twisted. Twenty blades pointed at the elder.

Elder Zhu executed an unfathomably complicated movement technique. In an instant, he dashed forward. His spear pointed at the sect head’s heart, only a couple meters from reaching her.

A vine interceded to block his advance. The elder flicked it aside with the spear in his right hand and continued forward with the other spear.

The other vines were unable to reach in time. Jin held up another seed. It turned into a wooden wall, two meters thick, shielding them from the elder’s strike. He tossed out two more seeds. One shielded the Blue Fire sect head under a shell. The other transformed into even more vines.

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“What’s this? Go ahead. Keep resisting,” spoke Elder Zhu. He stabbed his spear into the wooden wall. The wall splintered and blasted apart, chunks of wood flew in every direction. Jin’s vines blocked the pieces that flew at him.

The elder turned his attention to Jin. His two spears swept towards him. But the elder was in Jin’s territory. He was standing on Jin’s bulb, surrounded by twenty vines. One its vines slapped the ground, overturning the disc connecting the twenty vines.

Naturally, Elder Zhu flipped along with the rest of the plant. Jin jumped off and started controlling the plant from afar. Each of its vines had a blade at its tip. Some of the tentacles acted as feet, controlling the direction of the plant to stay next to the elder. The rest assaulted him from all sides.

The disk itself was three stories tall, the rest of the plant was even bigger. Even if it sat still, it would take the elder some time to destroy it. The plant was essentially invincible. Its hulking body made sure nothing could stop its advance. The weight behind a single vine could be blocked, but the combined assault of the entire plant was unstoppable.

To the elder’s credit, he was doing fine against the vines. He dodged and blocked every attack, he wasn’t anywhere near losing.

But his target wasn’t the plant. After he saw that couldn’t easily beat it, he maneuvered around it and dashed towards Jin.

I forced my body to move. I could hardly stand after getting hit by the palm strike from Elder Zhu. Two of my ribs were broken and I could taste blood in my mouth. In this state, it was impossible for me to use any movement techniques. I could only rely on my last vestiges of raw strength. I struggled up and began walking towards the two.

The calamity I had predicted had come to pass.

From Jin’s perspective, this would permanently antagonize the Crimson Fire Sect. From this battle, I confirmed that my sect couldn’t afford to antagonize this man. Jin had come out completely unprepared, but he was still holding his own against a sect elder.

But Jin’s ability shone when he was prepared. This fight would have been over if they had fought in Jin’s garden.

A small twenty vined plant rose out the ground. Its tentacles wrapped around the elder’s legs and squeezed. Elder Zhu narrowed his eyes and tried to shake it off. His face turned ashen when he discovered that he couldn’t. Fire started shooting out of his legs. The trap began to loosen, but it was too late.

Jin flicked a seed at the elder. It expanded into a tidal wave of vines that crashed over the elder, tying him down and rooting him to the ground.

“Arrgh!” he grunted, trying to free himself with brute force. The few vines he broke were quickly replaced by a new set.

In the end, the sect elder ended up with the same fate as I did when I first met Jin: tied to the ground and helpless.

I shivered, but I knew what I had to do. I’d been feeling a certain pressure on my soul for the past month. It seemed The Will Of The World was willing to assist me.

Jin walked up to the elder, holding particularly large seed. The elder’s spears were tugged out of his grasp. A shot of Qi rammed into Jin, but he withstood it with no problems. Flames spurted out from the elder. Jin stood amidst the flames and stayed uninjured.

He forced the elder’s mouth open and put the seed inside.

I let the weight on my soul consume me. Then the weight vanished, and a ripple surged from my soul.

The ripple brushed past everybody’s souls. They froze and turned to me. Even if they hadn’t seen this happen before, they would subconsciously know what was happening.

As the world’s will dictated, nobody was allowed to move. Even somebody at dao traversal wouldn’t be able to resist The Will Of The World, much less an eighth stage cultivator like Elder Zhu.

Two hundred years ago, the Will Of the World had descended in the middle of a battlefield. An entire sector of the battlefield containing an estimated seven hundred people, all stopped fighting. The people who weren’t frozen didn’t dare to make a move on the ones who were.

My soul resonated with Jin, Elder Zhu, Chen Wei, the seniors, and all of the spectators.

“Master Jin, please spare Elder Zhu.”

I am a proud member of the Crimson Fire Sect. An ant in the colony, a bee in the hive, a member of the sect. If one life had to be sacrificed for the sect, so be it.

I threw everything into one final gamble. With my meager power, only this could move the titans before me. I put everything I had on the table.

Jin, although powerful, was also kind. He stuck by ridiculously strict morals.

“I swear on my truesoul.” I stared at Jin and said with all the conviction I could muster. “I’ll serve you for the rest of my life.”

Now, he owed me.

Or owned me. Take your pick.