Wang Li stood alone in a field of broken blades. Shards of metal littered the scorched remnants of what had once been a field of tall grass. His muscular chest was bare and bloody, mundane silk and once reformed skin both unequal to the challenge of Heaven’s lightning. He lifted a hand to his face, taking advantage of a rare moment of respite to wipe the blood from his eyes. He smelled the acrid stench of burnt skin. His storage rings had survived the force of the lightning, but they’d grown cherry-hot in the process.
He wasn’t sure he could have laid down Inauspicious Fate if he’d wanted to, his right hand was all but fused shut.
One hundred and one men, and one woman, watched as he struggled against Heaven.
He’d never felt more alive.
More bolts rained down, a trio this time. Two smaller bolts to pin him down, one great blow to knock him out. He didn’t bother dodging, his formation had been shattered, he had no more anchors to draw the blows away with. Raising a hand, he let the first two bolts fall upon him, before catching the greater blow with the head of his spear. Lightning warred with the all-consuming light of his intent, before faltering, then shattering. Thin threads of electricity scattered through the ruined valley. Soldiers flinched back on reflex, terrified of being drawn into his tribulation.
“More!” He roared, laughing wildly.
The hand of Heaven pressed closer still to the earth, its sole outstretched finger descending so low that its tip stood scant dozens of feet above the tops of the trees. The suppression on him redoubled, bringing him down to one knee. Wang Li caught himself on the shaft of his spear, refusing to kneel before the tribulation.
The tip of one pine crackled into a blaze, ignited by an errant tongue of lightning.
Bolts of lightning fell like rain, sparking threads scarcely the width of a thumb. A thousand thundering threads connected Heaven and Earth, setting the world ablaze. His spear danced faster than it ever had, but he could no more parry the resulting storm than he could Fang Tao’s final blow.
Wang Li struggled to his feet, but he felt weaker than he had since he was a mortal. He drew more pills from his ring, tossing them back heedlessly. Qi surged through him, leaking out almost as fast as it was released from the pills. His cultivation was scattered about the valley, his shattered dantian a sucking wound in his soul. The formation that he’d subsumed felt so far away beneath the weight of Heaven’s suppression.
The eyes of his spirit cast about desperately, seeking the glint of steel through the haze of fire and thunder.
“No!” He shouted through bloody lips. “I have not come this far, for you to tell me that my spear is not enough!”
The finger descended lower, engulfing the tops of the trees. Were it not for the impossible weight pressing down upon him, he could have reached it with a single leap. He could have made Heaven bleed. He leapt anyway, thrusting Inauspicious Fate heavensward, shrouded in the light of oblivion.
The weight of the sky smashed him back into the earth before he made it halfway there. He struggled upwards through black mud born from ash and blood. Lightning lashed down upon him all the while, the thundering scourge opening new wounds across his back.
“We were not born to kneel! Not before petty tyrants! Not before you!”
He saw it now. It was not enough to survive. To merely endure would bring dishonor on all the corpses he’d left behind him, their dreams too heavy a curse for him to carry onwards.
He was the tip of the spear. The vengeance of all those ground into the earth by the relentless cruelty of the world. So what, if he rose for himself alone? His calling had not been to protect. It had been to rise. He was not a good man. He had not been a filial son. But a bastard could take revenge as well as any.
“This ends now.” He said quietly, the words stolen by the crash of thunder.
His cultivation had been scattered, the formation he’d usurped broken. Heaven’s suppression prevented him drawing it back in and from forming a core. But, it wasn’t talent at cultivation that had taken him this far. Wang Li raised his spear once more, following motions that had been beaten into his bones, then engraved into his very soul.
He moved without the hesitation of pain, unheeding of the weight of Heaven. His spear spun in a gentle loop, its shaft unerringly finding his left hand. Knees flexed, his burnt right hand sliding higher on the shaft.
If his cultivation was not strong enough, his spear would be. A blindingly white mist arose around him, the certainty of steel refined into deeper truth, the rejection of all that was.
“Tell me, oh rage of Heaven. Can you feel fear?”
He knew the answer, somehow. Instinct long buried screamed at him that this was an enemy.
The enemy.
And that it could bleed.
He thrust, all that he was the tip of the spear.
A ray of argent light pierced the raging heavens. A hand of clouds got a steel splinter. A tribulation was unmade.
The stitching of lightning that had bound the clouds together flickered, then fell silent. The shape of it remained for a moment, the ghost of a colossus laid low. Slowly, the sky began to return to its natural state, the clouds moving with all their customary haste.
Wang Li stood alone, surrounded by fire and ruin. He felt something break, a skin as thin as a dragonfly's wings, a barrier to his cultivation that he’d never even noticed. Everything he’d expended, all the weight of his cultivation, all the qi drawn by his formation, all of it rushed towards him, drawn by an inexorable gravity.
It was a completely different experience from all his prior breakthroughs, Wang Li wasn't straining against a barrier, forcing his qi to condense. Instead, he floated weightless in an ocean of power, of potential.
Even without his direction, qi flowed into him, transforming his body in ways he could barely sense, let alone understand. He felt heavier, more real, as if all his life before had been half a dream.
A flash of panic tore through him like lightning.
He took control of the wild power, more his than his limbs. It was his by right of conquest, and he would not squander a drop. He forced it all inwards, towards his shattered dantian. He felt it now, the magnitude of the injury he’d done himself. His qi churned like a storm, unconfined by his dantian’s broken walls. He could tell instinctively that if he had not succeeded, broken that thin wall, his lower dantian would never have held qi again.
Before his breakthrough, no matter how he'd pressed, how much will he brought to bear, how many pills he forced down, his qi had never solidified. Now, it was as easy as breathing to form it into a crystal.
An instant stretched into immortality, as he pondered what sort of core he would form. It would be a spearhead, that was never in question. A sphere would be an insult to the simple tool that had allowed him to rise above his lowly birth. But the shape of it, the material, that was the crux of it all. It could not be his intent, the art that defined him.
Oblivion could not have material form. He would not have a gaping void at the heart of his cultivation.
It was not of metal. Weapon qi had ever been a means to an end for him.
He let the magnetic pull of his breakthrough lead him, constructing something that was neither of this world, nor a rejection of it. A crystalline spearhead within his stomach that shone with an inner light, absolute destruction yoked by a fragile skin of purpose.
He loved it, and hated it. It was him.
His wounds closed, even as a bone deep exhaustion set in. A thousand changes great and small took root in his flesh as he tried his best to shepherd his rioting qi in a useful direction.
Forget a week. He could have slept for a year. And yet, with the new found power flowing through his meridians, he felt like he could stay awake for decades. He’d never known it was possible to be so exhausted and energized at the same time.
Through the haze of his advancement, he heard voices.
“That was a little more impressive than mine.” A deep voice said. “I only dared take my sword to Heaven’s lightning, I hadn’t even imagined one could strike back at its will directly.”
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“Mine wasn’t much to watch.” A female voice replied, breathy, but clear as the edge of steel fresh from the whetstone.
“I’m sure it was impressive, princess.”
“Not from the outside. It gave up quickly, once I started refining the lightning. I tried to prevent it from fleeing, but my grasp wasn’t strong enough to hold it.”
What a pathetic boast. He’d felt that lightning. It rejected all that he endeavored to be. To incorporate it into himself would have been suicide.
“I’m sure nobody could have done better princess.”
“Chen Yu, with an attitude like that, it’s no wonder it took you seventy years to do what I did in twenty. If I failed to do the impossible, that’s still a failure.”
“I’m not sure that’s a reasonable standard to measure yourself against princess.”
“Reasonable is for people who will measure their lifespan in decades or centuries, Captain Chen. I have met three true immortals. None of them were reasonable people.”
Did they have no manners, these imperial dogs? Chattering like monkeys as he struggled to master his new self.
Wang Li opened his eyes, and saw the world in blinding clarity.
“Good, you’re done navel gazing.” The princess remarked. She was a small woman, Wang Li doubted her head would come higher than the middle of his chest. For all that she wore her elaborate robes with the effortless grace of a lifetime of practice, Wang Li still felt like she looked more like a doll than royalty.
The man at her side, this Captain Chen, was far more interesting. He was an ugly fellow, with brutish features and a wide forehead, bearing clear evidence of a badly broken nose despite his advanced cultivation. His hair was shorn as short as a monk’s. Only his body fit the image of a heroic captain of the Qin, tall, with broad shoulders. He wore ornate scale mail far thicker than that of his subordinates, a heavy suit shaped in the image of a dragon’s scales.
“I’ve spent enough of my morning waiting on a thief.” The princess continued.
“I am no thief.”
“If you don't like the label, you shouldn't have committed the crime.”
“If you did not wish your possessions to be liberated, you should not have established an unjust society.” Wang Li shot back, irritated.
“My eyes are opened.” The princess said, scorn dripping from her tongue. “Clearly, it was insufficient for my father to bring peace and order to a wartorn wasteland. If he wanted his government to be respected, obviously he should have made certain to resolve every social ill in the first year of his reign.”
“I have seen the injustice done in your father’s name, I am uninterested in the excuses of a hothouse flower who has never needed to learn just how low she would stoop her next meal.”
“You are a thug with a sad story. If you think that makes you unique, you are as blind as you are pathetic. The peace of the Qin was built upon the graves of a thousand men like you.”
Wang Li took a long breath, exploring the new depths of his lungs. It was suboptimal to fight so soon after a breakthrough. But then, optimal was not a luxury afforded to men like him. He would temper his advancement in battle.
He flexed the fingers of his right hand, feeling them tingle as the residual energies of his breakthrough erased his burns.
“Enough words.” Wang Li spun his spear, feeling how light it was. “Draw steel, or get out of my way.”
The princess waved a hand, and her dog advanced.
“Wang Li, in the name of his majesty, Qin Longwei, you are under arrest.” Chen Yu said, his baritone voice echoing through the valley. “You have forsworn oaths of service, assaulted members of his majesty’s sects, and stolen imperial treasures. Cast down your arms and kneel, and you may yet be shown mercy.”
“I am Wang Li. I do not kneel.”
The princess smirked. Wang Li’s fingers twitched, as he imagined wiping that grin off her face.
A hundred and one men drew steel. Wang Li watched as Chen Yu pulled a great iron buckler from his back, a dragon emblazoned about its rim. A rim that shone brightly, as if it had been sharpened. With his other hand, he drew a saber.
Dao and buckler. Despite the man’s height, Wang Li had reach on him. Chen Yu would try to tie him down, so that his men could get close without immediately dying.
“Ceaseless, I Advance.”
Wang Li charged, his spear tracking Chen Yu’s exposed throat.
The buckler rose to parry, and Wang Li aborted the thrust, pivoting on his lead foot. He launched a thrust even as he slid through the mud, aiming for the back of the captain’s leg. Chen Yu’s saber slashed down, pushing the thrust wide, but Wang Li spun with the deflection, letting the shaft of his spear slip through his fingers.
Catching Inauspicious Fate at the butt, Wang Li watched as Chen Yu stumbled back from the maximum range slash aimed at his eyes.
Wang Li dove and spun as lances of fire shot out from the ring of soldiers. He dashed forward, turning his dodge into an ineffective attack.
Moving ever forward, that was all that mattered.
Wisps of intent gathered around his spear’s head, its kiss becoming ever more lethal with each exchange of blows.
Chen Yu took advantage of the distraction to wade in with an overhand chop, but another thrust at his throat forced him to abort the attack.
Good. Wang Li pressed the attack, forcing the old soldier to give more and more ground. The man wasn’t his equal with a blade, not even close. He would end this quickly, remove the primary threat before they tried to grind him down with attrition. He cycled his qi, felt power surge through his limbs.
“Kingfisher’s Hunt.”
Three simultaneous thrusts shot out, limned with pale light, each aimed at one of Chen Yu’s dantians. A perfect kill.
Then a single finger pressed against the side of his spear, sending it off course. The air screamed as his intent annihilated it, denied its true target.
“That’s enough, Captain Chen. I’ll take it from here.”
Wang Li felt her now, a second core formation cultivator. Shit. One and a century of men was doable. Two, even for him, those were not promising odds. He needed a fast kill to turn it all around.
How had she turned his blow?
He cycled desperately, his limbs burning as his abused channels struggled to supply still more qi. Even his new core’s boundless vitality could only do so much, without time to recover, he was beginning to flag.
It would be unfortunate to kill a princess. But he was too tired to show mercy.
Even as Chen Yu retreated with his shield raised, she stalked toward him, relaxed as only a noble brat could be.
“You think you’re good enough to defy the heavens?” She said with a laugh. “Allow your grandfather to show you what a real contender looks like.”
“Bold words for a woman who brought an army to-”
She slapped him. One moment, she stood a dozen steps away, the next she was at arms length. There was no art to it, no martial technique. Just an openhanded slap across the face delivered with the full might of a core formation cultivator. A sound like a tree splintering resounded across the clearing as Wang Li’s vision swam.
“It’s precious that you think they’re here for my protection. They’re not capable of that yet.”
“I will-”
He watched her arm raise. She was still ten feet away from him. He tucked his cheek behind his shoulder, even as ran towards her, spear raised.
He stumbled, as she slapped him again.
“You will do nothing. Nothing I do not allow you to.” The princess hissed.
What madness was this? He refused to believe she was controlling space. No core formation cultivator could do that. Had the emperor given her some treasure that allowed her to invoke a void shattering cultivator’s authority?
He had to run, he couldn’t hope to fight Captain Chen while she was free to harass him. Wang Li turned and sprinted, spear shining, intent on cutting a path through the ring of lesser cultivators.
Then the world twisted, and a small palm drove into his stomach. Blood filled his mouth as he doubled over in pain.
He recovered in an instant, sweeping his spear to drive the princess back. She didn’t even lean backwards, she’d already retreated the moment after she’d struck.
He was no closer to the edge of the ring than when he’d begun. And the princess was smiling at him, as if he were a monkey trained to dance for his betters.
Fuck it all. He would wipe the smile off this bitch’s face if it was the last thing he did. He’d wipe her whole damn face off.
“I’ve fought worse than you.” He spat through bloody teeth, buying time. He pulled deeply from his core, marshaling every scrap of qi he had left. It was too much, too many powerful attacks in rapid succession.
“I’ve sparred with the emperor.” The princess said mildly. “Before his spear, all you have ever achieved is nothing. Unworthy of merit, without need for condemnation. One does not condemn the worms underfoot.”
“You dare-”
She slapped him again, and he smiled through the pain.
“I dare. Ever and always.” Princess Xifeng said softly, her domain carrying her voice to the ears of every man present. “But you, you will kneel before your princess. Or I will break you, that you might be remade more suitable for your purpose.”
“Funny.” Wang Li said, blood and spit dripping down his chin like a waterfall. “The last man I lost a duel to said the opposite. I told him I would not bow, and he agreed. I liked him better. He was no more a warrior than you, but at least he understood that. Allow me to share with you, a portion of what he showed me.”
Wang Li let his will flow into his spear. World-Erasing Spear Intent. It was a proud boast, but his intent did not live up to the name. Not yet. His spear could not erase a world. It could not erase a man, only perhaps a jin of his flesh.
It had always been sufficient before. A jin of flesh was far more than separated death from life, if one took it from the right place.
If her thrice damned technique would allow it to connect.
But then, fate had already shown him the solution to that dilemma hadn’t it? It was foolish. Hopeless. But then, those were words cowards hid behind, when they were too scared to follow through.
Inauspicious Fate burned once more, brighter than ever before. It shone with a white that was more than white, the color of absence. He watched as realization sparked behind the princess’s eyes. Too slow. Too arrogant. Too close.
Wang Li thrust at everything.
An unyielding will clamped down upon the world as it burned, rejecting the miracle at the heart of his cultivation.
Wang Li felt fingers close around his throat. Then he felt no more.