Chương 492: Chapter 491: Dao Of Endurance

The dozen earthen figures stood roughly my height now, each one built with the precision of a master craftsman. Where Liu's original massive construct had been designed for overwhelming power, these smaller versions moved like experienced martial artists. I could see the joints articulate perfectly as they spread out in a wide circle around me, their glowing eyes tracking my every movement.

"Well, this explains a lot," I muttered, rolling my shoulders to work out the stiffness from the previous fight.

"Liu didn't just build one powerful construct. He built an entire martial arts school." The first one moved before I'd finished speaking. No telegraphed wind-up, no obvious preparation. One moment it was standing fifteen meters away, the next its fist was inches from my face. I threw myself backward using Swift Wind Stepping, but two more were already there, cutting off my retreat with perfectly coordinated strikes. I barely got my arms up in time.

The impact sent shockwaves through Jinghui's reinforced bones, and I felt the ground crack beneath my feet from the force transfer. These things hit like pile drivers, but with the precision of surgical instruments. The problem became immediately obvious. In the Cultivation World, most fights involved spiritual techniques launched from distance. Elemental manipulation, energy attacks, formation work. Even when things got close, it was usually enhanced speed and strength, not actual martial arts mastery. But this?

This was pure combat technique refined over years of practice. Liu had taken everything he'd learned about hand-to-hand fighting and encoded it into these constructs. They moved like they'd spent lifetimes perfecting every stance, every transition, every counter. I managed to create some space with a burst of Martial Aura, then immediately had to duck as another construct's palm strike whistled over my head. The displaced air was hot enough to singe my hair.

One of them got through my guard, driving an elbow into my ribs. I felt something crack, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. Before I could recover, another was spinning behind me, its leg sweeping toward my knees. I jumped, using the momentum to launch a counter-kick, but the construct caught my ankle. Its grip was like iron, and it began to twist. I had to channel red sun energy into my leg just to break free before it snapped my bones.

"Master," Azure warned, "these constructs are learning from your movements. Each exchange is being recorded and analyzed." That explained why they kept getting better. Every technique I used, every defensive pattern, every counter-attack. They were building a comprehensive database of my capabilities and developing specific counters. I managed to grab one of them in a grappling hold, channeling white energy into my grip. The construct's earthen arm began dissolving where I touched it, stone crumbling like sand.

But even as I destroyed its limb, two others were already moving, their strikes aimed at pressure points that would cripple my vessel. The damaged construct didn't even slow down. It simply adapted its fighting style to accommodate the missing arm, switching to kicks and headbutts without missing a beat. I released a burst of blue sun energy, trying to program confusion into the nearest constructs.

But unlike living beings with consciousness to manipulate, these were just animated earth following Liu's encoded instructions. The energy passed through them harmlessly. For the blue sun energy to succeed, I would need to overpower Earth Fist Liu's consciousness and change the coding - a skill I currently didn't have.

"Different approach," I gasped, deflecting another series of strikes that would have shattered a normal person's bones.

"Can't reprogram rocks." The circle was tightening. Every time I tried to break out, they moved to intercept with perfect coordination. Their attacks weren't random or emotional. They were calculated, efficient, designed to gradually wear me down through accumulated damage. I managed to destroy another one by channeling white energy through a palm strike that connected with its core. The construct exploded in a shower of stone fragments, but the debris immediately began flowing toward the other constructs.

They were absorbing the destroyed material, making themselves larger and more durable.

"Oh, come on," I muttered, wiping blood from my mouth.

"That's just cheating." My energy reserves were dropping faster than I'd expected. The white energy was incredibly powerful, but it drained my red sun reserves at an alarming rate. Blue sun energy couldn't affect the constructs directly. And my Martial Qi didn't have any advantage against Liu's Martial Qi. I tried creating distance with another Swift Wind Step. But the constructs had mapped my movement patterns.

Three of them were already waiting at the point that I appeared, their strikes perfectly timed to catch me. The impacts drove me to my knees. Pain flared through my chest where ribs had definitely cracked. My left shoulder felt dislocated, and warm blood was running down my face from a cut on my forehead.

"The Dao of Endurance," I realized as I retreated.

"Liu doesn't need to beat me quickly. He just needs to outlast me." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. And he was winning. Each exchange cost me more energy than it cost him. The constructs didn't tire, didn't feel pain, didn't need to recover. They could maintain peak performance indefinitely while I gradually wore down. I had maybe sixty percent of my energy reserves left. At this rate, I'd be completely drained within minutes.

"Master," Azure said urgently, "you need to change the fundamental nature of this fight. As long as it remains a war of attrition, you'll lose." Right. Time to stop playing by Liu's rules. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, reaching deep into my energy reserves. Both red and blue sun energy flowed through my meridians, and started weaving them together once again. Power flooded through Jinghui's body. Every muscle fiber suddenly felt like it could punch through mountains.

My perception accelerated until the constructs' movements seemed sluggish.

"Swift Wind Stepping," I whispered, but this wasn't the technique as it was meant to be used. This was reality-breaking movement powered by two different forms of energy. I vanished. The construct that had been moving to strike me hit empty air. Before it could process what had happened, I was behind it, my palm already connecting with its back. White energy poured through the strike, and the construct exploded from within. Gone again before the debris hit the ground.

Another construct spun to track my movement, but I was already elsewhere. This time I appeared above it, gravity irrelevant, my foot driving down through its head and into its chest cavity. Stone cracked and crumbled. The remaining constructs tried to form a defensive circle, but what was the point of formations when your opponent could ignore space itself? I flickered between them like a ghost, each appearance marking another destruction. Strike. Vanish. Appear. Destroy. Disappear.

My fist drove through one's chest. Gone before its counterattack could connect. Materialized beside another, white energy dissolving its legs before it could react. Vanished as two others tried to sandwich me between their strikes. The fusion of red and blue sun energy was intoxicating. Red sun gave me the raw power to shatter stone with casual blows. Blue sun provided the programming necessary to break the laws of consecutive motion. Together, they made me unstoppable. For about thirty seconds.

I appeared behind the last construct, my palm strike ending its existence in a spray of dissolving earth. Then I staggered, the energy fusion cutting off like a severed rope. The world spun around me as I fought to stay upright. My energy reserves had dropped to barely thirty percent. The technique had been devastatingly effective, but the cost was enormous.

"Twelve constructs down," I panted, looking around the cratered battlefield.

"Please tell me that was all of them." The silence stretched for several heartbeats as dust settled slowly around the scattered remains of Liu's army. I allowed myself a small smile.

"Looks like Liu's endurance finally ran out."

"Master," Azure said sharply, "something's wrong. I'm detecting massive spiritual activity beneath us." The ground began to rumble, but this time it felt different like there was something emerging from within it. A translucent figure materialized above the scattered debris of the destroyed constructs. Earth Fist Liu's spiritual manifestation stood there, his form wavering between solid and transparent, but his expression was grimly determined.

"Impressive work," Liu admitted.

"I underestimated your ability to adapt. But this battle isn't over yet." The debris from all twelve constructs began flowing toward him, stone and earth spiraling upward in defiance of gravity. Liu raised his arms, and I watched in fascination as his spiritual form began to merge with the raw material.

"The Dao of Endurance isn't just about outlasting opponents," he continued, his body becoming more translucent as earthen matter flowed through him.

"It's about becoming the immovable force that shapes the world around it." I threw myself sideways just as an enormous earthen hand erupted from where I'd been standing. But this wasn't just another construct. Liu's spiritual essence was woven throughout its structure, his consciousness directly controlling every movement. The thing was easily fifty meters across, each finger thick as a tree trunk. The hand paused, turned, and began reaching for me.

I could see Liu's face flickering in and out of visibility within the palm, his expression focused with absolute determination.

"You've got to be kidding me," I gasped, scrambling across the broken terrain.

"You're literally putting yourself into this attack?"

"Sometimes," Liu's voice echoed from the massive construct, "endurance means sacrificing everything for victory. This hand contains my entire spiritual manifestation. Destroy it, and you eliminate me. But if I crush you first..." The hand moved with surprising speed for something so massive. I barely avoided its grasping fingers, rolling behind a boulder that immediately got crushed to powder. This wasn't just Liu's technique anymore. This was Liu himself, transformed into a weapon.

I had maybe one good attack left in me. If this failed, Jinghui would be dead, and I would be eliminated.

"All or nothing," I muttered, reaching for every scrap of energy I had left. Red and blue sun power flowed together again, but this time I pushed further. Instead of just combining them, I forced them to resonate, to amplify each other beyond their normal limits. Pain shot through my vessel's meridians as they strained to contain the resulting energy. I raised my right hand and began gathering the power into a single technique. Not Swift Wind Stepping this time.

Something with the raw destructive potential to match Liu's ultimate sacrifice. The energy took shape above my palm. First just white light, then something more complex. Scales materialized, followed by claws, wings, a serpentine neck that stretched toward the sky. The dragon that formed was pure energy given temporary substance. The massive hand reached for me, fingers closing like the bars of a prison. But the dragon was already in motion.

It struck the hand's center, claws raking across stone and formation arrays. Where it touched, the earthen construct began to dissolve. Not crumbling or breaking, but actually ceasing to exist. The dragon's jaws clamped down on what might have been the hand's wrist, and energy exploded outward in concentric waves.

"I-Impossible," Liu's voice wavered. The hand tried to grab the dragon, to crush it before it could do more damage. But dragons, even energy constructs, weren't meant to be caged. It twisted through the grasping fingers, its tail lashing out to shatter the parts that held the entire technique together.

"No!" Liu's voice rose to a shout.

"I will never give up!" A scream of agony tore through the air, Liu's voice raw with pain and disbelief as his spiritual manifestation was torn apart along with his final technique. The sound cut through me, making me wince. It only lasted only a moment before cutting off abruptly, leaving behind absolute silence. My dragon dissolved, its purpose complete. I stood alone in the devastated valley, surrounded by the remains of Liu's elaborate constructs and techniques.

Steam rose from small craters where energy had scarred the earth. The fight was over, and I was exhausted.