Chapter 25: Encounters

Forest, Jade Empire

Acting upon instinct, Kai expertly pivoted to the right and the figure narrowly missed its attack. He reactively positioned to counter the dodge and kicked its back, sending it sprawling to the ground. As it struggled to stand, he took the short window of time to identify it.

The figure wore a clean, currently ruffled, tank top and heavy cargo pants. Its hair was mildly lengthy and was a mellow shade of ashy blonde. In its right hand was a knife. The blade of the knife extended beyond its average height. With an equal amount of warning as before, it twisted its body and blindly swung backwards.

Kai gazed at the poorly aimed knife and casually stepped towards the target. Twisting to the right, he grabbed its right wrist with his left hand. He maintained the spinning momentum and as he turned, his back perfectly aligned with its back. He strongly pulled down on its right arm while lowering his back and the resulting force lifted it off its feet. It rolled over his back, arched through the air and harshly slammed down.

Its grip on the knife loosened upon impact and he swiftly seized it with his right hand, holding it in a reverse grip. Releasing its wrist, he grabbed its shoulder and spun it around. The moment he flipped it to its front, he hovered the blade of the knife above its throat.

 It’s a boy!

Much to Kai’s astonishment, the mysterious assailant happened to be a boy. The soft features of his face gave Kai the impression that he was no older than Robert or Ben.

“Why did you attack me?”, Kai curiously asked.

As soon as the question escaped his lips, he realized an answer was impossible. The boy’s pupils were glazed over, revealing only the white of his eyes. His face was reddened from the impact and his body remained lifelessly motionless. He was undoubtedly unconscious.

 Ah… I must’ve applied too much force. I suppose I’ll have to wait for him to regain consciousness before knowing his intentions.

Before he could rise to his feet, another rustle sounded from the same direction in which the boy came from. He raised his head in time to see a long leg emerging from behind the bush.

“Jaden are you her-”

A female voice called out as she continued to tread past the bush. As she completely emerged, Kai recognized her to be a grown woman. Standing a bit below two meters, the woman was equipped with a breastplate, pauldrons, and gauntlets, which contrasted her casual soft long pants. Along each sides of her waist were two sheathed long swords.

 Judging by her facial features, she seems to be in her mid-thirties. She has red hair like Jennifer but unlike Jennifer, her eyes are red as well.

As Kai instinctively analyzed her features, she laid eyes on him and halted her call in mid-sentence. Her red eyes instantly blazed with fury, painting the illusion that her eyes emitted flames. She clenched her hands into fists and brown Qi quickly encased her body. Taking off in a sprint, she launched two punches towards Kai in rapid succession.

Flickers of brown Qi separated from her fists with each punch and materialized into stone shards that speeded at Kai.

 So fast!

Abandoning the notion of returning to his feet, he hastily lunged and tumbled to the side. The stone shards missed his body but the force behind it was so powerful, it carried on flying and disappeared into the depths of the forest. Beads of cold sweat perspired from his forehead at the sheer speed of the shards.

 They’re as fast and as bullets. This is troublesome, why is she attacking me?

“Why-”

Before he could attempt to voice his inquiry, she jumped into the air and performed a front flip. She extended her leg as she tilted her body forward, resulting in a drop kick supported by gravity. Still on his knees from the recent tumble, he once again lunged and tumbled to the side.

 -Crack-

The woman’s drop kick connected with the ground, cracked it, then broke through it. She freed her slightly imbedded foot and glared at Kai as she protectively stood in front of the boy. Keeping a careful eye on him, she cautiously retreated to check on the boys condition.

“Jaden, are you okay?”, she murmured to the fallen boy.

 So that’s it! She attacked me because she believed I was harming the boy.

“This is a misunderstanding”, he tried to reason as he returned to his feet.

The woman, however, ignored Kai as her eyes flashed with a glint of worry. Hearing no response from Jaden, she turned to glance at him and realized that he was motionless. Hurriedly rushing to his side, she placed her index and middle finger on the upper area of his neck to check for a pulse. After confirming that he was only unconscious, she released a long sigh of relief.

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Turning back to Kai, her expression of worry immediately returned to one of fury.

“Wait, he attack me fir-”, he tried to reason again but she refused to listen.

“[Art of Earth: Earth Wave]”, she shouted as she stomped her brown Qi feet forward.

The ground rumbled in an unpleasantly familiar manner. In an instant, a wave of earth surged from the rumbling area and headed straight towards Kai.

 It’s just like the bear’s attack!

The similarities momentarily startled him but he quickly regained his composure. With a burst of Essence, he leaped out of its way. The wave of earth relentlessly continued to surge forward and collided against a tree behind him.

 -Crash-

With a monstrous extent of strength, the wave bore down on the trunk and forcefully uprooted the tree. The uprooted tree was pushed back into, and cracked, another tree before the wave subsided and collapsed like a snipped puppet.

 -Boom-

The initial tree free-fell without the backing of the wave and loudly thumped onto the ground. The impact reverberated a soft, yet scarily noticeable, shockwave throughout its vicinity. Kai briefly glanced at the intimidating result of the wave, then turned back to the woman with a focused gaze.

 This is getting dangerous… she is too blinded by her rage to hear anything that I say.

“[Art of Earth: Earth Wave]”

She stomped forward with a different foot and the ground rumbled once more. As soon as the earth raised, however, she leapt forward. Once the wave of earth fully emerged from the ground, she readily stepped onto the forefront of the wave.

 She’s riding the wave!

His gaped in astonishment at the ingenuity of the attack but snapped out of it in urgency as he channeled Essence to his feet and leaped to the side. The wave harmlessly missed him again but the woman's goal was accomplished. She jumped off the wave and alarmingly closed the previous distance between them.

With another burst of Essence to his feet, he leaped up just as the woman used her brown Qi fists to smash the ground he was just standing on. Taking advantage of his immobility in the air, she rapidly followed up her actions and pursued his leap. As she neared him, she thrusted out with another brown Qi fist.

Kai’s eyes flashed with concentration as he hastily met her fist with his feet. Precisely placing his feet onto her fist, he bent his knees and channeled Essence to his feet upon the point of impact. In the same moment, he used the surface of the fist as a platform and firmly jumped off it.

His well time actions perfectly transformed the brutal force into a beneficial force that further launched him into the air. Flipped backwards while in the air, he positioned himself so that his feet would step onto the side of a tree. Propelling himself off the tree, he executed a front flip and safely landed onto the ground.

As Kai landed, the woman landed as well. Her furious eyes flashed with a hint of shock as she witnessed his amazing responses to each of her attacks. When the shock diminished, her expression grew serious and her brown Qi flickered.

 What is she doing?

His question was immediately answered as red Qi seeped out of her body and melded into the brown Qi like two colors of paint that were unable to properly mix.

 Red and brown… fire and earth… does it mean she’s a dual Daoist!?

Kai’s astonishment further increased as the her armor began to glow with a red light. In the center of her breastplate, pauldrons, and gauntlets, a circle was outlined by the light along with several symbols. The images sent a rush of shock in Kai’s mind like a bolt of lightning. His hands unconsciously moved to his chest, to the mysterious marking.

 It’s similar to my marking! However it’s lacking several circles and numerous symbols.

The circles on her armors, unlike his marking, only consisted of two overlapping circles. Once the red light fully drew the circle and symbols, the armors combusted with flames that wildly flickered about. The wild flames quickly died down and formed a thin protective layer of fire.

 I was right! She can control fire as well!

Bringing her fists of flames up, she took a stance that closely resembled that of a boxers. She lowered the weight of her body, then immediately dashed forward. Kai attempted to retreat but pillars of rock suddenly erected from the ground behind him and speared towards his back. Having no desire to dodge forward, he twisted his body and managed to slip to the side.

 How did she do that?

As he avoided the rock pillars, he narrowed his gaze at the woman. He scrutinized her movements and noticed a spontaneous surge of brown Qi on her feet.

 That’s it! She’s using her feet to launch small scaled earth attacks to block my retreat.

The moment the method occurred in his mind, the ground trembled behind him and more rock pillars threatened to skewer his back. He gracefully avoided them once more but as he did so, he saw the woman closing in from the corner of his eyes.  

 Not good, there’s no way to avoid her.

Just as he predicted, after several more cases of avoiding the pillars, the woman completely erased the distance between them. The heat of the flames were dangerously close as he began to sweat from the radiation. Without wasting a second of her efforts, the woman quickly threw a flaming right hook at Kai.

Carefully measuring the additional distance that came along with the flames on her fist, he leapt back an ample distance to avoid her hook. The hook missed and the edge of the flames narrowly tickled him.

Unfazed by the failure, she swiftly followed the momentum of the hook and spun around while hopping forward with her pivoting foot. The tornado punch caught him off-guard and he failed to dodge in time. Rapidly retrieving another knife from his waist, he crossed it in front of him along with the knife he took from Jaden, and prepared to defend himself.

 -Bang-

A second before the fist collided with the knives, he channeled a surge of Essence to them and his arms for further protection. As the woman followed through with her punch, he was sent flying back. The force from the punch prevented him from maneuvering in the air so he channeled Essence to his back and braced himself for impact.

 -Thud-

He violently slammed against a tree and had the wind knocked out of him. The resulting force slightly imbedded him into the trunk. As he leaned forward and detached himself from the cavity, he fell down a meter before shakingly landing on his feet. He steadied his stance and took deep breathes of air.

 Luckily I had Essence to protect myself otherwise I’m not sure my body could’ve handed the punch or the impact.

At that moment, Jaden started to stir. He slowly sat up and rubbed his now pinkened face.

“Ow ow ow, what happened?”

He stared at his surroundings with squinting eyes. His eyes instantly widened as he laid eyes on the woman.

“What are you doing here mom?”

“I was looking for you. It was good that I did because you were just about to be killed by that boy.”

“Boy? I remember attacking a beast not a boy…” Jaden confusingly muttered, turning his head towards Kai. As he focused on him, his eyes nearly popped out of its sockets. “Wait! You’re a boy!”

“That’s right, and he held your knife over your throat. Now he has to pay with his life.”

The mother narrowed her eyes at Kai and lowered her body, preparing to dash at him again.

“Wait a second, mom”, Jaden hastily appeased. “It’s not his fault. I was the one who attacked him first. I thought he was a beast and I was going to kill it for lunch but I didn’t know that he was actually a boy.”

Her eyes snapped back on Jaden.

“What? You attacked him first?”

Jaden hesitantly smiled and raised his hands in peace.

“Honest mistake?”

She glared at him and a flash of realization crossed her eyes as she recalled the words from Kai that she ignored. ‘This is a misunderstanding.’

The brown and red Qi around her faded immediately and the flames around her dispersed into the air. She turned back to Kai and apologetically bowed.

“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions.”