No sooner had the cloud of spores enveloped the towering figure of Fenglun than Su Xiang unleashed a pair of Flying Crescents. Both were weak compared to what she was capable of but the important thing right now was to learn just how wide the gap in strength between her and the giant of a man truly was. Much as she expected, it took very little movement from Fenglun to block both arcs of sword energy with his thick iron staff but the movement it did require gave her a glimpse at how quickly the man could move his heavy weapon.
Too quickly. The burly man handled the thick iron staff like it was made of bamboo despite the weapon’s tremendous size and weight. In a contest of speed, Su Xiang still had an edge but her margin of superiority was very, very thin.
“You whores!” Fenglun bellowed, rapidly circulating his earthen energy in an attempt to expel the spores and drive the toxin from his body. The response, however, was among the worst mistakes he could make. The spores of the Giant Purple Spore Shroom were looking for something to take root in and while the most favorable thing for their growth and spread was an environment rich in wood energy, rich earth energy was almost as good. Feeding on Fenglun’s attempt to crush the spores, they moved quickly to his acupoints and flooded his meridians, clogging the flow of energy and visibly shrinking his muscles as the spores of the Giant Purple Spore Shroom fed directly on his vitality. “Conniving sluts! I will split you and your sister in two!” Fenglun raged.
With a blast of earthen energy, the mountain of a man slammed his iron staff into the dirt road, creating an explosion of dust and flying rocks that impacted off the wagons like bullets hurled by a sling. Yue flashed in front of Su Xiang, creating an icy barrier that deflected half a dozen flying rocks before the barrier shattered under the rain of stones.
Dancing backward, Su Xiang had only a moment of respite before Fenglun’s charging body erupted from the cloud of dust, his iron staff already swinging in an overhand arc that would pulverize anything it struck. “Yue, ground!” Su Xiang called, hoping the little rabbit would understand. With a twitch of her whiskers, Yue conjured another sheet of ice, this one flat on the ground and directly in the path of the charging Fenglun! Immediately, the mountain of a man lost his footing, his feet flying out behind him and the staff swinging down to slam into the ground a full meter short of Su Xiang. Taking advantage of the momentary advantage, she unleashed two of her strongest Flying Crescents, each one cutting deeply into one of Fenglun’s arms.
Bellowing in rage, the towering man pushed himself to his knees and struck out with one end of his staff as though the three-meter long iron bar were a spear. Again, Yue flashed in front of Su Xiang to create a shield but this time the shield shattered with barely any effect on the thrusting iron pole. An instant later, a sickening crunch echoed as the butt of the staff slammed into the small rabbit hurling her at Su Xiang with enough force to stagger the swordswoman who desperately caught the flying rabbit. Silver and white paint splattered across Su Xiang’s face and the fine fur of the Guardian Beast’s right side looked like it had been smeared into an indistinct and misshapen blob by the impact of the staff.
“Yue!” Su Xiang cried in alarm, never having imagined that the little rabbit might be destroyed defending her. Fenglun’s crude taunts had boiled her blood but seeing adorable little Yue wounded froze it. “Unforgivable,” she muttered, cradling Yue in her left arm as she leveled her sword at Fenglun. “You’ll die for that!”
Glimpsing Wu Ling’s steady butchering of his gang, Fenglun’s eyes turned from dull brown to bright red. Striding forward with earth-shaking footsteps, a thin earthen aura began to cover his chest, shoulders, and head, giving him the appearance of a man turning into a raging bull. Horns of earthen energy formed at his temples and hot breath created a cloud of steam around his face. “Die whore!” Fenglun shouted, striking out rapidly with both ends of his staff in an unending rain of punishing strikes.
Su Xiang danced backward, relying on Yue’s rapid conjuring of ice shields to provide just enough deflection for her to move out of the way of the crushing blows from the terrifying iron staff. Suddenly an ice shield failed to deflect the staff enough and the tip of the staff crashed into Su Xiang’s side, cracking ribs and sending her sailing through the air to crash into a wagon almost a dozen meters away.
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Visions blossomed before her eyes as her head bounced off the wooden frame of the wagon. For an instant, she saw her own crippled body lying on the ground, arms and legs broken at strange angles as she was forced to watch Fenglun tearing clothing from Wu Ling’s delicate body. Silent screams ripped from her throat as fury wreathed Fenglun’s face upon discovering the truth hidden beneath her sworn brother’s ice-blue dress. Shaking her head to dismiss the vision, Su Xiang pushed off the wagon and clutched her sword, staring at Fenglun’s slow, inexorable approach like death itself had come for her.
Except it wasn’t her that the worst fate was coming for. It was Wu Ling and everyone behind her. Everyone who would suffer if she failed here, now, at this moment. Relaxing the grip on her sword, Su Xiang shifted her mindset, letting herself become as light as the morning dew and the fog of her hot breath in the chill mountain air. “Yue,” she said, setting the rabbit down gently. “Go back to Wu Ling. Get Hou. I’ll give you time,” she said, striding away from the wagon to meet the mountain of rage and muscle bearing down on her.
There was no way she could kill such a monster so she gave up the idea of doing so. Su Xiang let go of the fear flooding through her mind. It only dulled her thoughts and slowed her down. She let go of hope that she’d survive this fight, it only held her back and made her hesitant to take risks. She let go of anything and everything until she was one with the morning light and her sword. Sapphire eyes glowing with her inner light she pushed off the dirt road as rapidly as she could to circle around Fenglun and charge him from his left flank!
Fenglun laughed at the feeble struggle of the doomed young swordswoman who would never be fast enough to slip past his defenses. Striking out powerfully he swung his staff through a half-turn to knock aside her sword strike before it could come close to his previously unprotected flank. The sword strike, however, had never been intended to reach Fenglun’s torso. Flash Cut! Floating like a beam of light, Su Xiang’s sword flickered, instantly changing its trajectory and cutting deeply into the sausage-like fingers gripping the heavy iron staff. Flash Cut sacrificed power for speed but how much power did it take to sever a pair of fingers? Before Fenglun could even bellow his anger, her sword flashed again, this time striking his other hand and severing another two fingers.
Roaring in anger, Fenglun slid his bloody hands along his staff until he gripped it with both hands at the lower end of the weapon, turning it into a giant club rather than a staff. Swinging powerfully with two hands, he destroyed a nearby boulder creating another explosive shower of sharp rock projectiles. This time, without Yue to protect her, several of the rocks caught the fleeing Su Xiang, tearing through her white and yellow sect robes to leave shallow cuts all over her back and shoulder blades. “Get back here bitch!” Fenglun roared, chasing after the young woman.
Su Xiang, however, couldn’t hear any of it. Her world had faded away to a realm of pure white light. Nothing existed in her world except the places her eyes told her that her feet must land, the sword in her hand, and the hulking figure of Fenglun behind her. Each movement became faster than the one before it, each dodge more ideal and every single movement led her pursuer on a wide arcing chase that led back to Wu Ling. She didn’t know if Yue would make it back fast enough, if Hou had enough energy to help, didn’t know if Wu Ling even had the strength to call him out. None of those worries mattered though. Su Xiang had become one with the light and within the light, she only had perfect trust in her sworn brother.
“Watch out,” Wu Ling called moments before Hou completed his dive, hurling three of the largest balls of flame he could carry after gorging himself on three spirit crystals. Much like Su Xiang’s world had shrunk as her mind sank into the light of her cultivation method, Fenglun’s world had been consumed by the red haze of rage and pain. The bull of a man never truly saw the three balls of flame that fell from the sky until they exploded against his face and shoulders, instantly blackening and blistering flesh as the moisture within his flesh boiled and his eyes ruptured. A moment later, momentum carried what was left of the charred husk of Fenglun forward, laying the giant of a man sprawled across the dirt road, his staff clattering to the ground not far away.
Next to Wu Ling, Su Xiang crawled out from underneath the wagon she’d rolled under when she heard his warning. Slowly, light faded away and the rest of the world swam into view. From the smoldering mountain of flesh that had been Fenglun to the scattered bodies of cut, burned, and drowned bandits, it looked like a great battle had taken place on this quiet mountain road. Perhaps one had. There were Scholars in the wagons, maybe one of them would write about this day, or maybe they wouldn’t. All Su Xiang knew was that her heart still beat in her chest and Wu Ling hadn’t been harmed. Her vision, whatever it had been, hadn’t come true and that was more than enough for her.