Chapter 31 #2
Only to find, to their horrified dismay, that the cresting waves were hiding jagged shoals fit to tear out the hulls of any ships.
AVALANCHE!
You have begun walking the path of martial harmony once more!
Wind Crane Kung Fu is now Rank 9.
Storm Swan Kung Fu is now Rank 9.
Enhanced Wind Qi Deflection has achieved Rank 7!
Avalanche is now Rank 6!
The hooting and jeering crowd instantly went silent when their titan of a champion was sent crashing to the ground, even if only for a moment, just long enough for Xien Su to glare Alex’s way with stunned disbelief.
“You dared to strike my brother with an Earth technique. A Gold master with his own art! And no buildup at all.” Xien Su’s eyes widened with sudden clarity. “It was you. You were that mute warrior who killed Xun Lan and tested me so utterly!”
The words were barely spoken before Xien Tang sprang back to his feet, his earlier cocky smirk wiped off his face as he glared at Alex with the fury of a madman.
A titanic Gold who had finally torn away the veneer of polite society so often used by monsters and tyrants to cloak themselves amongst the sheep, revealing the savage, bloodthirsty monster who thrived in the crucible of conflict more than anywhere else.
Just like Alex.
“I will kill you, Disciple of the Fox!” Xien Tang roared, eyes wild with hate. “I will pound your bones to powder and tear out your heart!”
Even as the words left the giant’s mouth, his fist slammed the ground, a giant crack snaking through the shattering courtyard tiles before countless basalt spikes shot out from the crevices, deadly enough to impale an unfortunate pair of onlookers who had, in their excitement, moved just a bit too close to the dueling grounds.
They now gazed at the world in wide-eyed horror as they blinked blood from their eyes as basalt spikes burst through the crowns of their skulls.
Their bodies collapsed, their souls crashing right into the River of Souls that Alex refused even to acknowledge he could see at all.
Instead, Alex’s eyes were locked on to his wildly grinning opponent.
“Gold Striker techniques alone did I swear off using, Fox get. Be honored! For I now judge you worthy of Silver!”
Storm Wing successfully counters Shrapnel Blast!
Yet Alex’s own growing mastery of his arts didn’t go as unnoticed as he might have hoped.
“Did you see what he did? His image seemed to flicker, and now he’s untouched.”
“He warped space. Impossible! He should be as perforated as Captain Yong!”
Alex smirked, ignoring the stares of all those looking his way in horrified disbelief.
“This ends now, Fox!”
Whatever dark glee Alex had felt at earning the fear and respect of an entire army, and the caution of a Gold, turned hollow and bitter when he caught Nili’s horrified gaze.
Seeing the way her eyes widened, her pupils turning into pinpricks. How she shivered with the cold fear sweat covering every inch of her exposed flesh.
Knowing in that moment that there were certain truths he could never keep from her. No matter how terrible a burden they might be to bear.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no. Not my Lini! Alex, you did not get my Lini killed!”
Nili’s piteous wail earned only mocking laughter from the wujen holding her, even as Xien Tang’s eyes lit up with murderous delight.
“Ah. Another foolish wench who died for the folly of following you? Pity. But no less than they deserve for daring to resist their betters. For daring to align with the Fox!”
Alex locked gazes with the sneering tyrant.
Any minuscule trace of camaraderie he might have felt for the man he was forging himself against died in that moment, transformed to a hate so white hot and furious it could set this entire arena ablaze.
Xien Tang chortled. “Have I finally gotten under your skin, maggot? Good! The world should know the cost of aligning with filth like yourself!”
Alex roared, his heart now blazing with fires so brilliant they would set the entire caldera ablaze.
No.
A fire so hot it would set the entire world ablaze.
Guo’s eyes widened with alarm. “Dread Lord, the monster would ascend. Kill him NOW!”
Alex could feel it then, the hideous thrum of a super cable screaming with transversal velocity so great that space was beginning to warp beyond the metaphorical.
And fool he might be, he was still wise enough to do what was necessary to stabilize himself…
or risk being consumed by the fractious storms of his soul.
You have removed your final seal!
8 banked ascension points are now open for personal evolution!
“You die now, fallen filth!” Xien Tang roared and charged, looking comically chagrined when he missed his target so utterly, Alex now finding it effortless to weave under the massive titan’s paws before lashing out with the might of the storm itself.
Find Weakness: critical success! 100% mitigation modifiers are now in full effect!
When Alex struck, it wasn’t just with the upper reaches of Silver Strength and Quickness, it was with the power of the most furious of storms. Heavy with wind and lightning, bitter salts, and the promise of destruction in water so dark it was like looking into the eyes of the abyss.
Yet it wasn’t enough.
Not nearly enough to pound through Gold-tier Vitality and multiple body hardening arts, which meant that his baseline kung fu would cause this elite titan to bruise and bleed… but no more.
Not unless Alex harnessed his striker techniques directly.
Or enhanced his kung fu to the point that it could pierce even a Gold’s monstrous defenses.
And there was only one way he could do that.
Xien Tang looked at Alex with bemused disbelief.
He burst out in laughter.
“You think you can possibly harm me with basic arts alone? FOOL! Do you not understand? Even your striker techniques can do NOTHING to me! Your piercing Water Strike is worthless against Earth! And Avalanche is an art I mastered a century before. Far better than you ever will!”
Even as Tang roared, he unleashed the power of the crumbling mountain with only a fraction of a second’s buildup time.
Yet its momentum was quickly lost when countless boulders drowned in endless stormy seas.
Xien Tang snarled when his fist failed to hit anything at all.
“You will lose, Fox! I will claim your heart, just as I will the heart of every Ruidian whore and kitsune bitch that ever warmed your bed, that ever dared to call you friend!”
In that instant, Alex was struck with the memory of the desperate dying screams of the first family he had ever cherished, burned alive by a corrupt, spite-filled Yidushian council, countless millennia ago.
And no matter how utter and absolute he and his master’s revenge had been against those vile murderers whose souls screamed in abyssal torment even now, nothing would ever quench the howling inferno in Alex’s heart.
A fire so hot it had once burned YanTu’s central forest to ash before he and WiFu embraced a vengeance so dark that he knew there could be no forgiveness for either of them.
A fire so hot, consuming the spirits of all those who had dared to cross the avatars of chaos and change, that it had once melted the face of an Earth-sized chunk of the Golden Realms.
Alex’s eyes widened, shivering with wonder near equal to his horror, so shaken that he hardly registered the fist that abruptly cracked against his solar plexus, seeking to shatter his ribs and pierce his heart.
Divine-tier Prismatic Bones save versus Titanic Blow!
You have been sent flying back!
Draconic Resilience mitigates Serious Wound to Medium Wound.
Your chest has suffered significant bruising!
Power Healing engaged.
Alex ignored the roars and cheers of Dongfang Hong’s tainted troops.
Just as he did the desperate cries of his friends and Tang’s look of wide-eyed disbelief that Alex’s body hadn’t exploded under the force of that monstrous blow.
Instead his mind raced with a flood of insights as two paths abruptly opened before him.
One was the golden path he had forged by the side of the most ruthless and determined mentor he would ever called friend. An art that would be so easy to unlock with a single pair of points invested, reclaiming what he had already lost.
An art that, given time he did not have, he might naturally unlock over years, decades, or just months from now.
The other was an art quite unlike any he had dared before.
A positive cascade like no other.
Wood and Fire. Spirit and Earth.
In that moment, hurtling through the air, knowing damned well that he could choose this moment and race for the gate and he would be utterly free of the homicidal Gold below, he finally understood how it all might tie together.
Forging a storm like no other as he roared and hurtled back down to the ground and a disbelieving Xien Tang.
“No. Impossible! I have shattered the bones of a flawed Gold with those blows. And you are Silver. At best! You should be dead, you damned disciple. You should already be dead!”
But the dismayed titan’s roars were futile as he railed against the might and fury of a primal storm.
One perhaps not seen for centuries. Or millennia.
Seas boiling with monstrous heat generated from the raging inferno of ancient forests long ago crushed to coal, or the spiritual fires that had forged the original master and disciple of chaos and change.
Heat enough to unleash abyssal fissures that boiled the seas with their potent fury.
Chaotic howling storms of screaming Winds, Lightning, and Water so filled with Darkness and Metallic fury that such would effortlessly strip the fragile flesh from any mortal’s bones.
It was a storm so fearsome that even Gold-tier monsters would stumble back, lose their footing, and gaze in stupefied confusion as the prow of their ship, tearing through the crimson waters of all their foes, capsized under the caustic fury of a spiritual storm like no other.
Xien Tang blinked in shocked disbelief when an uppercut to his oversized chin rocked him, an eyeblink before a kidney punch had the titan spitting blood that smoked and steamed with the ocean’s fury.