The fight between Kang Lin and the turtle continued. Most of her thrusts landed, but the damage they caused was trivial for a rank five beast with such high defense and vitality.
Its head blurred toward her, and she dodged. It was slow to move and couldn’t evade worth anything, but it obviously had some kind of skill that allowed it to snap its powerful jaws forward.
If those caught her, she’d definitely lose a limb if not her life.
“Killing the beast doesn’t matter!” Yang Xiu yelled. “Focus on making your attacks stronger.”
Kang Lin pondered the admonition but didn’t have much time to give it much contemplation as she had to remain alert for the beast’s bite. Soon, though, an arrow coated in ice qi slammed into the turtle’s neck.
The impact did much more damage than Kang Lin expected, considering her experience seeing previous arrows hit. For a moment, the difference confused her.
Then she realized that Yang Xiu had received some form of enlightenment.
Though Kang Lin was happy for her friend making such an achievement and ecstatic for the added assistance in taking down their common foes, it was sometimes more than a little frustrating to fight so closely with such talented allies. They advanced at a simply breakneck pace that left other cultivators feeling inadequate.
“What did you do?” Kang Lin yelled, retreating from the beast as another arrow slammed into it.
“Re-examined what I thought I knew about my qi aspect.”
Of course. Simple as that. Kang Lin rolled her eyes. Why didn’t she think of it herself?
Unfathomable A ranks.
What had Master said her qi aspect was? Something like, “Forked lightning ripping the sky asunder.”
Yeah. That was it.
Kang Lin didn’t see what benefit that description provided her. She already held an image of a powerful lightning strike in her mind based on the one Master used to destroy the hippo. Her bolts paled in comparison to that one, of course, with her being so much lower than him in cultivation, but it was a fine basis for her mental image.
Of course, Master used Chain Lightning, a single bolt that split off after the initial hit to strike additional targets. Kang Lin’s technique only generated a bolt that hit a single target.
Nothing about her qi aspect even hinted at a chain effect, so she didn’t see how that helped her.
Wait. Forked lightning? Could a boost really be that simple?
If so, she was going to curse herself as six kinds of a fool for not realizing it sooner.
Kang Lin heard heavy footsteps and sensed Yang Ru approaching fast. She moved further from the beast.
Stopping suddenly in a way that was difficult to see or describe, he crashed into the turtle, and for a moment, she thought the fight was over. There was no way the creature’s head could survive such a blow.
At the last instant, however, the turtle shifted so that, instead of the vulnerable head, Yang Ru’s strike landed on the shell. Even considering the incredible magnitude of the force involved, the shell won.
He was blasted back several feet and stumbled, falling on his backside.
On the plus side, there was a definite crack in the shell, so that was something.
Of course, Yang Ru wasn’t to blame for the failure. Given the plodding, ponderous movements of the turtle to that point in the fight, it was against expectations that it would be able to move so fast. Just like with its bite, though, it must have an ability that allowed it to intercept big attacks with its shell.
Another arrow smashed into the beast’s neck, reminding Kang Lin of her own responsibilities. And her idea.
Replacing the image of the thick, powerful flash of lightning that Master had summoned with one just as thick, just as powerful, but forked so that two prongs struck her target, she charged the turtle. The change felt right, and as she struck, a split bolt hit the beast, one part on the neck and the other on the cracked shell.
Yes!
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The two bolts hadn’t been twice as powerful, of course. That result would have required her to use more qi. But the combined strike felt more powerful. Or more like the qi felt less restrained, like letting it fork instead of constraining it allowed more of it to be converted to force.
Kang Lin doubted she’d reached Large Success with the technique yet, but her discovery had boosted her power. Keeping up with the twins for the long term obviously wasn’t possible, but for the moment, she was proud of herself. Her advancement would bring honor to the Poison Claw Sect and to her family, especially her grandfather.
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Yang Ru exhaled sharply.
Again. He’d ended up on his butt again.
All that work. Having two techniques specifically created for him. Only to end up on the ground on his butt again.
Yang Ru scrambled to his feet. The turtle had used a skill to thwart his attack. Some such abilities could be used over and over again. Others cost a great deal or had to be re-charged over time.
If the latter were true, his best chance at killing the beast was to strike again as soon as possible. He ran from the fight, trusting Kang Lin and his sister to keep it occupied while he prepared.
No sense going quite as far, however. Speed trumped power at the moment. Either the blow would be blocked, proving that Yang Ru was unlikely to kill the beast in a single shot, or it would succeed. The turtle surviving in that case would matter little. It would surely be damaged greatly, and he would know that only persistence was needed.
He sprinted toward the turtle, building Momentum with each step.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
His feet pounded the dry, cracked dirt as he sped toward his target. He was inexorable. Inevitable. He would not be stopped.
At the last moment, he triggered his technique, converting all the gathered Momentum onto the point of his spear. He stabbed at the beast’s neck.
And hit the shell.
Again.
And ended up on his butt.
Again.
“Yang Ru!” his sister yelled. “Focus on improving. The beast doesn’t matter.”
“I heard you the first time!” he yelled back.
“Did you? Did you really?”
Yes. Of course he had. He hadn’t done anything about what she’d said, but he’d heard her.
He sighed. They did, however, need to kill the turtle and repeating the same charge, slam, and bounce maneuver wasn’t likely to achieve the end goal. Something had to change.
Yang Ru liked his two primary techniques. The first allowed him to build Momentum qi from his physical actions. The second transferred all that Momentum through the tip of his spear into a target. The combination allowed him to punch above his weight as Master would say.
The third technique was a shield, which he’d barely gotten to Small Success. So far, he hadn’t even used it in combat. He didn’t feel there was anything to do with it that would improve his ability to kill the beast.
No, the answer had to lie with his combination, but how to find it?
Master would probably say something like, “To find the answer, one must first find the problem.”
Yes. Yang Ru was almost positive he’d heard that exact phrase. So, what was the problem?
Simply put, the stupid turtle used a skill that allowed it to move out of the way faster than he could hit it.
Hmm.
When he thought about it like that, the answer did seem clear. He either had to slow the turtle down or speed himself up. The former idea was not feasible with the current techniques that he, his sister, and Kang Lin had. Barring the girls physically grabbing the beast’s legs and holding it, which might not even work, there was no way to prevent it from moving.
Maybe once Yang Xiu learned a new technique with her ice, something might be possible, but that advance wasn’t happening in time to help with the turtle.
Making himself faster, however, might be possible. His techniques allowed him to build Momentum and transfer it to a single point, but could he also somehow use that accumulated qi to make himself faster? Doing so would bleed off some of his power, but if it guaranteed him a good hit, he’d take the tradeoff.
Eager to make the attempt to put his idea into practice, he sprinted away from the village, even farther away than the first time. He planned to put his all into the next attack.
By the time he stopped, he could barely even hear the girls fight against the beast. That was okay, though. He trusted them.
Yang Ru hesitated a moment before heading back. He needed to get his thoughts straight. Trying to force a technique to do something new in the middle of combat was neither easy nor advisable.
He closed his eyes, visualizing each part of the plan, going over it in his mind as he briefly sunk into meditation. When he opened them again, he was ready.
Each footstep was important. As Master had taught him so long ago and as Yang Ru had practiced thousands and thousands of times, he used microbursts of internal qi to push off with first his right foot and then his left, building speed and Momentum as he ran. Each step. Every step. Maximum force. Slowly at first before building to a crescendo, he sprinted.
His mind and body and qi became one. He let his instincts guide him, barely paying any attention to the turtle as he drew near it.
The spirit beast didn’t matter. Nothing it did could counter inevitability. As long as he did his part correctly, all the turtle could do was die.
Five feet away, he leaped. He didn’t even know why he did it. Something just made the action seem right, so he did it without thought.
His Momentum hurled him forward.
He concentrated, transferring that force not to the tip of his spear but to his arms.
It worked. He felt the increase in energy, in speed.
Even to his advanced senses, his arms seemed to blur as they thrust the spear toward the beast’s head.
The strike happened too fast for him to track. Maybe the beast could only use its dodge skill twice in quick succession. Maybe Yang Ru, with the enhancement from his technique, was simply too fast for the creature.
Either way, his spear did not hit the toughened shell, instead impacting the relatively unprotected head of the turtle right between the eyes.
The qi shield had no chance against the supreme force Yang Ru used against it. His spear thrust through it and skin and bone like all those elements were so many layers of paper.
The beast died.
“Quick!” Yang Xiu yelled. “Meditate. Consolidate your advancements.”
Yang Ru didn’t have to be told twice. Heck, he didn’t even have to be told once. He was already sinking into a lotus position before the first word left her mouth.