Chapter 15 #11
Just like the coldly smiling Xien Su who was even now shredding Alex’s defenses with an unorthodox combination of fire and steel and something else Alex couldn’t quite parse.
A technique that cut right through the waves of wind and water Alex was focusing on mastering, before piercing his flesh with the ease of the deadliest jian.
Alex leaped back with a ragged breath after their last exchange, more grateful than he cared to admit that Potency Mastery was giving him a steady supply of spiritual energy to rapidly accelerate his base regeneration level without having to dip into his extremely precious beast cores.
Xien Su gave a low baritone chuckle, nodding in approval.
“Wonderful. Wonderful! To feel the ocean’s waves battering against my form, to cut through it so cleanly, so precisely!
To show the flaw in Water and Wind as Fire turns your techniques to impotent steam, and Steel tears through sweet, fragile flesh!
” He flashed a wild grin. “How invigorating it is to find a worthy opponent at last.”
Alex grimaced, his mind a whirlwind of surprise and alarm.
Never before had anyone pierced his defenses so well.
Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who had found a way to use supposedly incompatible techniques, and this man was a master of his art.
Yet before Alex could even think at what would possess him to reveal aloud so many secrets best kept close to his vest, he realized that the man had been speaking in the highblood imperial dialect of YanTu nation. Not the local desert tongue at all.
Yet before he could even worry about the implications, Xien Su had sprung forward once more, and it was all Alex could do to juke and weave past the whirlwind of killing blows.
Steel Flame has struck you to the quick! Prismatic Ribs AVERT Lethal Strike!
You have taken one additional Medium Wound.
You attempt to save versus Existential Dread!
Time seemed to stretch and warp as the excited murmurs of the courtiers grew tinny and faint. In that moment, there was only Alex and the coldly smiling killer whose spear-hand strike had come so close to piercing his heart.
“So close, no? No worries. We still have time. Don’t we, pawn?”
Alex pretended he couldn’t understand every word the man was saying, realizing that THIS was the fight that could finally do him in, as he faced a man both as strong as him and quicker, with mastery over arts designed to pierce the elements he was working so hard to master.
Arts that had pierced his own flesh multiple times, his enhanced Water mastery over his own blood the only thing preventing him from spurting his crimson lifeblood upon the tiles as he desperately strove to repair old damage as new wounds piled up.
Then he laughed, realizing that his dread was actually exhilaration.
It was the very pressure of existence demanding that he commit himself utterly and completely to this moment and the opponent before him.
To grow attuned to the shifts in balance and stance that presaged Xien Su’s moves.
And to slowly, bit by bit, better understand the flow of Qi as well.
But more than anything else, Alex strove to understand the martial art behind his opponent’s cultivation techniques, studying the man far more intently than he had Mongoose, such that when Xien Su next lashed out with Steel Flame, Alex was already weaving aside, giving him the split second he needed to shift the flow of Water Qi before his foe could tear through his flesh.
And that tiny moment’s head start made all the difference in the world when Xien Su’s spear-hand strike was shifted a few crucial inches off course, inflicting a bloody furrow against Alex’s desperately dodging flank… and failing to slip under the ribs entirely.
Storm Wing SUCCESSFULLY mitigates Killing Blow!
Storm Wing is now Rank 3!
You begin to sense the flow of ancient currents once more.
No one else understood the significance of what had happened, perhaps, yet Xien Lu’s suddenly stormy expression spoke volumes.
Alex took a deep Qi-filled breath, shivering with exhilaration he could scarcely put into words. He knew he faced mortal peril, yet he couldn’t help but see Elder Panheu in the man’s stance and movements.
“You would dare smile at me after bleeding repeatedly for my pleasure?” Xien Su’s glower turned into a cold chuckle. “Good. Good! Continue to entertain me! Continue to serve as the whetstone to my final ascension!”
The chamber shook as the man roared and charged forward, and Alex was already flowing back, winding parries now just a split second faster, a tad bit more fluid than they had been before.
And Xien Su was still drawing blood, as the crimson splashes washing over them both did attest. Yet this was already acknowledged and compensated for.
It was already a part of the dance they both chose to embrace.
Xien Su ever advancing forward, Alex ever step-sliding away.
And each exchange had the former looking ever more frustrated, as killing thrusts skewed ever more from their ultimate target, Xien Su’s faster hands making no difference, it seemed, when a warding arm was already pulling the currents away from his foe.
Alex’s counters no longer struck head-on, allowing Xien Su to pierce right through.
Instead, they pulled away, forcing the man’s deadliest attacks off-kilter as the current pulled them off course.
Ever more off course... to the point it seemed that space itself was bending with the flow of Alex’s parries.
Xien Su paled, earlier sneer turning into an outraged snarl. “No. There’s only one abomination that ever dared this art, and that fool is dead! Dead by my master’s hand!”
Yet Alex paid no heed to those words, understanding them for the distraction they were as violent steel tore from low to high, a snapping kick that would have ruptured organs, before being checked by Alex’s shin.
Alex grimaced. The snap kick had been fueled by strength and technique alone. A feint before the Steel Fan ridge hand strike designed to tear right through Alex’s throat.
Yet it was his opponent who paled when he attempted to crack prismatic bone only to find his own fibula paying the price as bone was strained to the breaking point when the man lurched forward with a snarl, only to find his arm slicing through a misty spray of wild currents and wind.
And, as so often happened when a foolhardy captain overcommitted, the sea dipped to reveal devastating shoals… eager to shred unprepared keels before fierce waves smashed all that remained to shattered timbers.
Your opponent fails to save contest of durability!
Storm Wing successfully pulls your foe’s strikes off target.
Avalanche!
Your foe has been sent flying!
Xien Su’s look of surprise was almost comical as Alex’s fist crashed against his temple with enough force to send the man cartwheeling through the air.
But Alex was no fool. No, at that point he was riding currents just as fierce as the one sending his opponent cartwheeling, Alex now racing upward to meet his surprised foe who somehow had kept his wits about him and his skull intact, sufficient that even while spinning through the air, his hand was jutting out with a fiery killing intent once more, ready to pierce the cultivator who dared to race through the air itself to meet him.
Only for his off-balance thrust to be countered with a sweeping parry, skin barely singed before Alex’s own ridge-hand strike hammered right into his opponent’s throat.
Find Weakness skill check: critical success!
Piercing Strike successfully ruptures all Qi wards and physical barriers.
You have critically struck your opponent!
You have become one with the storm!
Storm Swan Kung Fu is now Rank 5!
Avalanche is now Rank 3!
Xien Su’s arrogant mien had been replaced with horror, Alex’s blow slicing through multiple defenses as if they were no more than gossamer strings before hammering into the man’s vulnerable throat with such fearsome focus that Alex could feel bone cracking and major arteries deforming as multiple pressure points were struck and crushed.
Yet before the man had even finished crashing to the ground, Lord Guo was screaming, eyes wide with naked fear.
“Quarter! Xien Su yields! Xien Su yields! The fight is over!”
And before Alex could do more than settle his feet back down to the ground and pretend he hadn’t been cloud-stepping in plain view of the entire awed court, the bronze gong was rung and Lord Guo himself was racing toward Xien Su, who was gulping in wide-eyed desperation for air that just wouldn’t come before the ambassador pulled out a glowing crimson vial and placed three drops onto the dying man’s tongue, then rubbed additional drops upon Xien Su’s throat.
The critically injured warrior began spasming so hard that Lord Guo was knocked back. Even with multiple protective wards flashing to Alex’s Qi Perception, the man still crumpled in a groan as Xien Su took a wheezing breath before curdling in a ball, gasping for air.
Alex felt a curious mix of dispassion and a queasy sense of discomfort as he mentally replayed the fight, wondering just how hard he had struck his opponent with Avalanche, how many defenses were already ruptured, how badly the neck was already strained from the blow a split second before Alex had raced upward to deliver the coup de grace.
One thing was for sure. As much as Lord Guo was looking at Alex like he was an abomination, the three other Silver-tier warriors playing at being diplomats were peering at him with newfound respect.
And Xien Su, wheezing for breath, stumbling to his feet despite a Water-aligned healer begging for him to sit down so that he might be attended to, was gazing at Alex with what could only be wonder.
Then he actually gave a wheezing laugh.
“Well done, wanderer. Well done!” the man declared, before tossing a purse Alex’s way.