Chương 38: Chapter 37: BURNING BLOOD

Just after he'd joined the sect, there were rumors about how he wasn't really blind. Not too long later, Qingshi took part in an inner-court tournament. After defeating the last contestant, he'd turned to the audience and, without a word, removed his blindfold. And proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was. Now Jieyuan got to see that proof for himself.

Where Qingshi's eyes should've been—and all the skin around them—was nothing but a strip of white, warped tissue. Savage, sunken burn scars. The worst Jieyuan had ever seen. And he would know; he'd inflicted more than one on himself. But then Jieyuan noticed the rest of Qingshi's face. The damage ended at the eye region. The rest was untouched. It was a handsome face. A fine, angular cast. High cheekbones. Prominent brow. Sculpted temples. Every line razor-sharp. It sure has been a while, Father.

If not for those words, Jieyuan might not have made the connection. But now that he knew what to look for, there was no mistaking it. Those were a Liangshibai's lines. That was a Liangshibai's face. Some of the men and women standing behind Qingshi exchanged glances. Gleaming Stone Sect traitors. Xiyunfeng clansmen. A woman wearing the robes of a Xiyunfeng protector stepped forward.

"Boy," she said, voice sharp like a whip crack.

"What's this—""Please, protector," Qingshi said softly, never looking away from the palace head.

"I'm speaking with my father."

"You're a Liangshibai?" the woman demanded.

"Sovereign Zhihao is aware," Qingshi said.

"And as you'll recall, I have command of this operation. That was the agreement. So kindly—step down."

"We don't have time—""Operational command." Qingshi's voice was flat. Cold.

"Down."

"Qingshi," Elder Yiming said. Jieyuan couldn't see the man's face, but he could hear the abject confusion in his voice. He sounded raw, unguarded.

"What are you— I'm your what? What's— What's all of this?" That was the sound of a man grasping at straws, stunned into utter, helpless disbelief. That wasn't the palace head Jieyuan knew. Then Jieyuan noticed the shift in the posture of the Liangshibai elders. Some edged closer to the disciples. Others drifted forward. And near the back, sleeves twitched—and Jieyuan caught flashes of a silky, red material pooling on the ground. Cloudcrafts. The palace head was stalling.

All around him, the disciples who didn't already have their weapons out were drawing them now. Quietly. Meiyao and Yongyi inched closer to him. Jieyuan reached toward his waist, pried open his holder pouch without loosening his grip on his weapon, and used his soulsenses to extract his cloudcraft bracelet. He'd taken it off the Fusongshi core disciple he'd killed in the Fatebloom Woods. So far, he'd kept its existence a secret from everyone besides Meiyao.

A cloudcraft was something he had no business having, and if others found out, there'd be questions. But that didn't matter now. He had more pressing matters to worry about. Guiding the bracelet with his soulsenses, he slipped it down to the floor beneath his robes, nestled it between his feet. And he began unraveling it. Their side had near ninety people, three times Qingshi's. But sixty-four of them were disciples. The highest step among them was Yongyi's sixth. He'd bet everyone on Qingshi's side was tenth-step.

None of the disciples could match an elder. Not in a straight fight. This would come down to the tenth-steps. And in that, they were well outnumbered.

"Oh, Father," Qingshi drawled.

"There's so much we've got to catch up on. Why, I don't even know where to begin." That same Xiyunfeng protector stepped forward again.

"Boy, cease this—""Heavens damn you, woman," Qingshi groaned, tilting his head to the sky. He sighed, loud and theatrical, and spat, "Fine, you insufferable cow." Then, in a tone so dry it might spark, he gave his orders.

"Capture Linzushen Meiyao and Liangshibai Yunzhu unharmed. Kill the rest; don't let anyone escape. Daojue over there has Gleaming End—yes, the Gleaming End—and somehow it's now at Orangerealm. Yes, Orangerealm. You've been warned. So if you're stupid enough to get killed by it, I'm not attending your funeral. Finally, the palace head's mine. Anyone who interrupts dies and gets their corpse desecrated. Now go!" They moved all at once. Qingshi. The traitors. The Xiyunfeng.

About half the Liangshibai elders surged forward to meet them. The other half yanked disciples to their sides as their cloudcrafts ballooned up around them. The front line met the charge, holding many of the enemy back, but more than a few of the enemy slipped through and shot straight toward the elders with the cloudcrafts. They moved in blurs, almost too fast for the eye to track. Gleamstone flared to life all around.

Gleamstone barriers around some of the disciples and elders, gleamstone weapons falling upon Qingshi's group like crystal rain. Gleaming Stone Arsenal and Gleaming Stone Containment. But those same barriers also appeared around the traitors. And those same weapons also shot toward the Liangshibai. One of the elders managed to get her cloudcraft in the air, a couple of disciples with her, only for a gleamstone dagger to pierce into her neck from behind.

The cloudcraft vanished, and the elder's corpse dropped together with the disciples with her. Haster ring activated, Jieyuan willed the cloudcraft under his feet to take form as fast as it could. It'd have gone quicker if he could fully focus on it. But he couldn't, not with everything happening around it. He couldn't risk not paying attention, not when— He jerked his head away, a crystalline blur slicing through the air where his face had just been.

He caught a brief glimpse of a Gleaming Stone Sect traitor looking at him from up ahead, before a Liangshibai elder barreled into him, and both vanished into the fray. Beside him, Meiyao flicked a glance his way. Then she looked down. Back up. And stepped onto the growing cloudcraft. Yongyi followed. They both looked grave, but held steady as chaos took over their surroundings. Jieyuan thought hard, searching for some way to turn things around, but nothing seemed promising.

Before they left the sect, when she handed him his Outer Hunt rewards, Protector Yuyan had slipped in two talismans. A Radiant Light Haven and a Radiant Light Blast. He had them both in his pouch, but neither could be used in this kind of skirmish. The Haven talisman would get him locked in with at least one of the enemy, whereas the Blast was too likely to hit an ally.

Between the ringing clash of metal on metal came the hissing whisper of Sibilant Wind Blessing, amplified and magnified, as all the Xiyunfeng elders activated it at once. But aside from that, there was almost no sound. The chaos was almost entirely visual. There was no screaming, no shouting. Even when someone fell—stabbed, hacked, cut down—they did it in silence, barely letting loose a whimper. Cultivators as a whole were the sort to let their weapons do the speaking for them.

The only voices were the faint, distant cries drifting in from somewhere far beyond. Beyond the streets, the flames spread. The blue fire climbed higher and higher, encircling them, consuming the city, lighting up the night sky. Jieyuan could already feel the heat on his skin. Then Qingshi's voice cutting through all the noise. Clipped, sharp.

"None of that. Your fight's with me, Father." Through the blur of combat, just up ahead, Jieyuan spotted Qingshi driving a blade through a Xiyunfeng elder's neck from behind. Qingshi then kicked the crumpling body aside and stepped forward—taking the dead man's place in front of Elder Yiming. Then the people around them shifted, and Jieyuan lost sight of them both. But for one brief instant, Qingshi had stepped within range of Jieyuan's soulsenses. And what he'd felt wasn't a sixth-step Redrealm.

It was a tenth-step. There was no way Qingshi had climbed four steps in a month. Which meant Qingshi had been holding back, back at the Gleamstone Valley. Jieyuan didn't get to think about what else that could mean.

"FEIYUAN!" Yongyi's voice tore through the clamor. Jieyuan tried to reach for him, but Yongyi was too fast, bolting to the left. Where Jieyuan could see a Xiyunfeng elder break through the line and come down on a woman in core disciple robes.

"Yongyi!" Meiyao cried out, stepping forward. Jieyuan snapped a Shifting Sister out, blocking her path. He wasn't really thinking, running entirely on instinct, trying to pay attention to everything else.

"Don't— The cloud's almost—" A black blur fell down upon them. Jieyuan had barely enough time to move. He shoved himself in front of Meiyao, the Shifting Sisters up in a cross. A sword came crashing down on the splitfangs. For a brief instant a face fully filled up his sight: a woman, wrapped in a hissing, shimmering veil of wind, entirely without expression. Eyes dead, cold—unfeeling. Then the impact hurled him backward. Off the cloudcraft.

Jieyuan felt like his arms were almost torn off, but he was too busy rolling backwards, trying to keep his grip on the Shifting Sisters as he came crashing onto the nearby disciples. He pushed off them, shooting back up to his feet. The Xiyunfeng woman didn't come for him. She was too busy fending off Meiyao, who was swinging her saber in a flurry of strikes, faster than Jieyuan had ever seen her move. The woman was faster still, weaving through Meiyao's strikes, untouchable. But she made no move to strike back.

Because she couldn't—Meiyao was to be captured unharmed. Meiyao clearly knew that, because she made no move to defend herself, throwing herself entirely into the offense. Enough to keep the woman occupied. Jieyuan lunged to join them—but he'd barely taken a step forward when a gleamstone barrier appeared in front of him, blocking the way. He caught another tenth-step Redsoul on his soulsenses and turned in the direction. It was a man, one of the traitors, wearing a protector's robes.

Moving through the confusion, headed for him. A disciple barreled into the man, and the man barely batted an eye as he swung his sword out. There was a surge of blood as the disciple's head went flying. And then the man was standing there, in front of him. A moment later, more tenth-step Redsouls registered on Jieyuan's soulsenses, drawing closer. Jieyuan wasn't in any position to check if they were friend or foe, though. He forced himself to ignore everything else. The calculation was simple enough.

He risked being struck down by all the attacks flying around, but if he didn't concentrate all his attention on the man, death would be certain. Jieyuan recognized the man. He was a Gleaming Noble. A Fusongshi, if he remembered correctly. He wore the same cold, hard look as the Xiyunfeng woman from before. Jieyuan's thoughts raced. The man gave him a hard stare, and when Jieyuan got the sense he was about to strike—"Two Fusongshi died in the Fatebloom Woods," Jieyuan said.

He didn't shout, speaking only just loud enough to be heard through the noise.

"A core disciple and a protector." The man froze. His expressionless mask slipped.

"What are you—""The core disciple got stabbed, through the front. The elder was blasted by a Radiant Light Blast talisman. They were a granddaughter and a grandfather. Did you know them? I got to meet them. Only briefly, though. You look a bit like the girl. Was she a cousin? A sister, maybe?" The man stared at him. Jieyuan smiled brightly.

"Would you care to guess where I was, when they died?"

"You—" Jieyuan pulled with his soulforce—and his cloudcraft, which he'd been guiding around the gleamstone barrier, came barreling straight at the man's feet. The traitor's eyes widened. He whirled around. But too late. A cloudcraft might have been one of the softest things in the world. But with enough speed behind it, anything could pack a punch. His cloudcraft slammed into the man's legs, sending them flying out from under him. Jieyuan surged forward, sweeping the Shifting Sisters in a wide arc.

For an instant, Jieyuan hesitated. The man was a tenth-step Redsoul; he should be capable of lashing himself to the ground through his mantle. Jieyuan only meant the cloudcraft as a distraction. But there was no time to think. He surged forward, sweeping the Shifting Sisters in a wide arc. The man's form blurred. Mid-air, he twisted—bunched up, rotating—then unfolded, snapping back into a full stance, feet landing firm. Jieyuan's instincts took over. He tried to abort the charge, veer off.

But the man blurred again. And then he was there. Standing not even a foot away. A hand closed around Jieyuan's throat, lifting him clean off the ground. A band-shaped gleamstone barrier snapped into place around Jieyuan's arms like a vice, locking them tight to his sides. The man's face was inches from his; and there was none of that dispassionate, cold detachment left in it. Now he stared at Jieyuan with dark, stormy eyes, his mouth twisted in a cruel smile.

"I was planning on killing you quickly," the man said, "but I think I'll take my time after all." Jieyuan didn't hesitate. He'd exhausted every option. All but one. He sent his soulsenses inward, toward the Fatebloom Heart. The connection was dead, Huaxin entirely unresponsive. But he could feel something inside it. Three golden drops of blood, stored away in a fifth, central chamber. He focused on them. Fatebloom Incarnation. The golden drops vanished. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere.

Support the author by seeking out the original. The world ignited. Power erupted out of the Fatebloom Heart. An overflowing, white-hot wave of it, engulfing him. Liquid light flooding his veins, molten gold surging through his limbs. The world dropped away. His soulsenses overloaded as his body erupted in blinding brilliance, claiming every inch of him, drowning all other sensations. It was like he'd swallowed a star. Like he'd become a star. No sound, no feeling, no thought. Just golden, glorious radiance.

Then it ebbed, settling, stabilizing. And razor-sharp clarity seized him as all of his senses snapped back into focus, each and every input—physical, mental, spiritual—slamming back into him, all at once. His body still glowed to his soulsenses, but that all-consuming radiance from before was gone. In its place, glowing, pulsing streaks of gold superimposed his mantle: crown to toe, thousands upon thousands of golden veins.

All of them stemming from his heart—the Fatebloom Heart—which blazed like a miniature sun in his chest, thrumming with power. He'd experienced this once before. When he'd bonded the Fatebloom Heart. And if this was anything like last time, then those were his actual veins he was sensing; and they were physically alight with that golden glow. There was something else, too. Another layer of perception, something beyond his soulsenses.

Moments ago the gleamstone band wrapped around his chest had been like any other bondskill manifestation, just a red-colored, three-dimensional spiritual outline. But now— crystalserpentcorruption. It hit him like the sensory rush he got when reading a spiritual song: image, sound, meaning, all meshed together. But even clearer, crisper. Although he knew that the gleamstone barrier was just a band of crystal, he couldn't shake off the impression of a crystalline, serpentine body coiled around him.

This wasn't his soulsenses; they were working just fine, and he could still sense the gemstone's band spirit and its song just fine, parallel to this newer, weirder influx of impressions. Another sense, and not one he knew he had. It was like he was sensing the gleamstone band's Law… Some sort of Lawsense? Lawsenses? Jieyuan couldn't dwell on it too long as his other senses clamored for attention, bubbling over each other into the forefront of awareness.

Physically, it wasn't the excess, but the absence that pulled at his attention. The hand around his throat was still there. still pinning him up in the air. But where before it had choked him, digging into flesh and tendon, now it was almost gentle. Barely any pressure to it. Mildly uncomfortable at best. It wasn't doing much more than keeping him off the ground. Then came the understanding, a surge of internalized knowledge. He was still a fourth-step Redsoul. Neither his soul nor his chroma had changed.

His body was a different story. Strength, vitality: both were ten times higher. To the level of a fourth-step Orangesoul. Except this wasn't like the augmented strength that came from the mantle; it wasn't that tangible pressure he could draw on like from a well and push into his limbs. This was true, physical strength. It was his body that had been magnified, not his mantle. Together with that knowledge came one other tidbit of information: the time limit he was on. How long this state would last. Seven minutes.

On the dot. Jieyuan opened his eyes. The Fusongshi elder's face still filled his vision. But it didn't look the same. That dark intent and cruel smile were both gone. In their place was disbelief. Incomprehension. Their eyes met. The man didn't let go of him, but he pulled his head back while stretching the arm keeping Jieyuan up further out.

"What in the He—" A presence bloomed in Jieyuan's mind; a connection sparked back to life. His heart had already been racing—from the situation, from using Fatebloom Incarnation—but now it seemed to be trying to burst out of its chest. Every beat like a thunderclap. Blood thumping between his ears like war drums. Despite all the changes he'd just undergone, despite the absurd strength that filled him, it was this last bit that really got through Jieyuan. That got him grinning like a maniac. The future flashed past.

Full seconds squeezed into an instant. Less than an instant. KICK-LUNGE-TWIST-SWING-PARRY-CRUSH. The vision promised, and Jieyuan delivered. His leg snapped out. KICK. There was impact. A bone-deep crunch. It all happened at once: The grip on his neck went slack. The gleamstone barrier disappeared. The traitor folded over—his body arching, bending with the impact—and then his feet left the ground.

The little delay before the Fusongshi went airborne told Jieyuan that he'd been mantle-lashing, but stopped—on instinct, probably—to dissipate the force. If Jieyuan hadn't been sure of his strength before, he was now. You didn't stop mantle-lashing unless the impact was too much to bear. Jieyuan's feet hadn't even made proper contact with the ground when he pushed against it; there was a snap, a rush of air, and he shot forward. LUNGE.

From drop to jump, not even a second passed; the traitor was still in the air, still rising, when Jieyuan reached him. But the Fusongshi wasn't a tenth-step for nothing. Surprise and shock aside, Jieyuan's must've ruptured just about every organ in his stomach. But the traitor never lost his grip on his sword, and the moment Jieyuan appeared over him, in the air, the man whipped it across his body. If Jieyuan hadn't known it was coming, it would've gotten him. Cut him clean hip to shoulder like a fillet.

As it was, he tucked his body, rotating to the side, and the blade swept past him, slicing only air. TWIST. Still mid-air, over the man's body, but dropping now, falling, Jieyuan threw both his arms up. Then he plunged both Shifting Sisters across the man's shoulders. Resistance—give— crunch —blood. SWING. They hit the ground, the traitor on the bottom, Jieyuan on top, knees on the man's crushed stomach.

Momentum dragged the Fusongshi's back almost a foot against the cobbled ground, skidding, before he— they— jerked to a stop. Jieyuan kept his position throughout. Knees pressed into the man's abdomen, hands gripping the handles of the Shifting Sisters. Blades half-buried in the man's shoulder, sunk to the clavicle, shearing flesh and bone. The man's body convulsed, arms spasming. A choking sound gurgled out. Blood frothed over his lips, thick and warm. The scent of it flooded Jieyuan's nose. Rich, hot, coppery.

Jieyuan tore Ruby free from the man's body. Blood gushed. Sprayed. Splattered onto his face. Warm. Beneath him, the traitor's convulsions got stronger. Face entirely red, eyes bloodshot, mouth bubbling blood. And even in that state, the man brought his arm up in arc, sword swinging at Jieyuan. Jieyuan batted it aside with Ruby. And this time, the sword was sent flying off the man's grip. PARRY. Without pause, all in one movement, Jieyuan reoriented the splitfang and slammed it down into the man's head.

From the top, across the middle. Crown to mouth. Through flesh, then skull, then brain. CRUSH. The man went limp. Jieyuan didn't stop and stare. He ripped both Shifting Sisters free, then rocked back onto his feet and stepped around the corpse. He cast a quick look around, taking stock of the situation. It occurred to him that it was odd he hadn't barreled into anyone (or so much as stumbled) while fighting even though everyone had been so tightly packed together. The sound of it all struck him then.

He'd been so concentrated he hadn't noticed, but now… Before, the air had already been filled with the sounds of battle. Metal ringing, crystal clinking, stone shattering, wind hissing. All of that was still true. But there was much more of it. And it was coming from everywhere around him, not just the front. Qingshi's group had broken the Liangshibai's line.

Chaos was in full swing as everyone—elder, disciple, ally, enemy—fought in groups, clusters, growing further apart, spreading out as the fighting grew fiercer and bodies hit the floor. Though they hadn't managed to hold their ground, the Liangshibai elders weren't faring too badly; a couple were even taking more than one traitor or Xiyunfeng at once. But there was no winning this.

Even if they managed to get through the battle, there was still everything else, whatever other plans the Xiyunfeng Clan and the Gleaming Nobles had put into motion. He didn't even have to look far to see that. The whole streets were cast in an eerie, blueish glow, framed by the walls of blue fire now spilling into the surrounding streets, over and across the buildings. The vague, distant screams from before weren't nearly so distant or vague anymore; now they were coming from the nearby streets.

He sighted a few bodies here and there that weren't in cultivator's robes, but in the clothes of mundanes. If most of Radiant Gold City hadn't been metal and stone, there wouldn't even be a city anymore. He was searching for Meiyao—or Yongyi, or Daojue, or just about anyone he was familiar with—and thinking on his next move when his soulsenses caught the approach of two tenth-step Redsouls from the back. He turned immediately. A man and a woman, halting the instant his eyes locked onto them.

The man was a Xiyunfeng. He wore a protector's robes, or at least that was Jieyuan's best guess. It was riddled with tears, with a particularly large—and red-stained one—across the chest. Both of his hands were on his spear, holding it out in front of him. The woman was one of the sect's traitors. She had on the topaz robes of an inner elder. Her left arm ended in a stump just past the biceps, the cloth around it shredded. Her other arm was full—and seemingly intact—and with her remaining held she held a sword.

Both of them were bathed in blood. Skin, clothes, and blade. Not that Jieyuan could judge; his robe clung to his chest, soaked through, weighing wet and heavy. His face itched where drying blood clung, sticky under the warm wind. They stared. He stared back. Cultivators didn't rattle easily. Soul-shattering, self-inflicted torture on the regular did wonders to mental fortitude. But there was no mistaking the look on their faces for anything other than sheer shock.

Jieyuan wondered how much of the fight just now they'd seen. Wondered what he looked like right now, coated in blood, the corpse of a sect elder by his feet. And if he was right—though he had no mirror to confirm—with the blood vessels on his face glowing, golden, pulsing. Tenth-step Redsouls. Two of them. He set his jaw, worked the numbers. Even in their current state, if it'd been against him from before the fighting broke out, either of them would've been more than enough to take him.

He probably wouldn't have even been able to put up a resistance. But now? In speed, they retained the absolute advantage; their hastespace outpaced his twice over. But now that Huaxin was back, precognition evened it out. And in strength, he far surpassed them. LIMIT. From Huaxin came a vague feeling of urgency and strain, and the vague impression of what seemed to be a wick alight: burning brightly but also consuming itself, running out of fuel. Jieyuan blinked, then understood. Huaxin wasn't back for good.

Fatebloom Incarnation had roused it, but it was a temporary thing. As soon as its effects ended, Huaxin would also fall back to dead slumber, And unless Jieyuan had missed the mark, it'd be staying that way a good while. At least a few days. Maybe weeks. And now that he knew to look for it, he noticed that Huaxin's presence was off in his mind. Tenuous, erratic. Unstable. Seven minutes. That was how long Fatebloom Incarnation lasted. How long Huaxin would remain awake.

How long Jieyuan would be able to use Fatebloom Instinct. That complicated things. But not too much. Since he'd used Fatebloom Incarnation, only forty seconds or so had passed. Less than a tenth of the total time—not even a full minute—and already a tenth-step Redsoul was dead. Not taking his eyes off the pair, he scanned the corner of his vision, but still no signs of Meiyao or the others. Only Liangshibai elders, enemies, and dying disciples. He'd have to search for them. But first.

"See Maeva," he whispered. She appeared off to the side, facing him. Her expression was grave." Jieyuan—" she began. Talk later, he cut in, then handed control of his soulforce over to her. He didn't hand her a Shifting Sister this time, though. He'd be best served keeping both with him, this time around. Instead… You got it? he asked her." Yes." Across from him, the man and woman shifted. Hesitation flickered across their faces—sudden, stark—before resolve took hold, hard and stony.

The sequence came a breath later. Then the tenth-steps charged. And Jieyuan lunged to meet them. Strength could carry you through a fight. But speed could end it before it even began. Jieyuan had barely gotten a foot forward when the two tenth-steps came down on him. The Xiyunfeng spear artist charged head-on: spear first, more blur than man. The Gleaming Stone Sect traitor—the sword artist—veered off left and came at him from the side in a whirl, her good arm leading, sword swinging.

Fighting someone faster than you came down to two problems. The same two problems all fights boiled down to, really: not getting hit, and getting hits in. Jieyuan slid one foot forward, jerking his head back. Wind sliced past as the spearhead cracked by his jaw like a whip. A flash of heat grazed his jaw. His skin stung. His pulse kicked. But his attention wasn't on his face. It was on his right arm, as he parried the traitor's sword, though not without faltering slightly.

Jieyuan clenched his teeth, focusing like he'd never had before. The very instant the spear cut past him and the sword was thrown off, he was already moving again. The Xiyunfeng man pulled his spear back and struck again, this time with a broad sweep. The sword artist went for a stab. They were fast, recovering and striking again in the blink of an eye. Before Jieyuan knew it, the attacks were coming again, from two different directions. That wasn't a level of speed he could react to.

Which was why he'd started reacting to this second round of attacks before he was even done reacting to the first. That was the thing about precognition; it let you react before the act. With his left hand, he swung Sapphire forward, meeting the spear strike—even as he twisted his body out of the sword stab's way. Again he let his arm sag a bit under the blocked strike, then broke off into an abrupt deflection. Not even a beat later, he was already moving again, bracing for the next clash.

The spear artist went for another head strike. The sword artist dropped low, sweeping her sword at his legs. But Jieyuan wasn't looking at them; all his attention was on the sequence. The script he had to act out. And he did it, without hesitation, without questioning whether Huaxin might fail him again, like it had with Daojue. Doubt would be death right now. Huaxin's normal sequences were already tough to follow. These ones were magnitudes harder.

He knew he could do it—knew he would do it, as it was the future—but that didn't mean he had an easy time. A thousand motions crammed into seconds, with no room for error. Fatebloom Incarnation was the only reason he could pull it off. The radiant, golden power didn't just amplify his strength; it also gave him absolute control over his body. He told it what to do, and it obeyed. Without it, maybe he could've managed the sequence, if he'd had the chance to simulate it a few hundred times first.

Even as it was, if his enemies had been any faster, Jieyuan wouldn't have been able to come up with anything at all. Victory would've been impossible, and Huaxin could only work within the bounds of possibility. Jieyuan leaned back, knees bending. One Shifting Sister went up; the other went down. Strength came from the whole body. Spread apart as they were, his arms could only draw on a fraction of his strength. But he had the strength of a fourth-step Orangerealm right now.

Which was four times that of his opponent's. Both strikes landed and stopped dead. Jieyuan's arms held. Didn't so much as budge. Even sped-up as they were, Jieyuan caught it. The twitch of an eyelid. The gleam of disbelief flickering in their eyes. Of shock. Just like the traitorous tenth-step from earlier, just before Jieyuan had sent him airborne with a kick. They must've seen him taking down the Fusongshi earlier.

They'd have known he was stronger than he had any right to be, but they wouldn't have gotten the right measure of it. And he'd been playing down his strength so far, making it out to be just around theirs. Their shock was fleeting, even more so in Jieyuan's perspective. But just as the two pulled back, a yellow, white, and red blur crashed onto the sword artist. Straight into her good, sword-bearing arm.

White from Maeva's lab coat, yellow from her sundress. And red from the cloudcraft she was flying on as she crashed onto the sword artist. The sword artist stumbled sideways—right into the other Shifting Sister, freed up when the Xiyunfeng disengaged. She tried to twist away, but the cloudcraft had half-wrapped itself around her, pushing her toward the attack.

The splitfang went right under the stump of her right arm and into the side of her chest, cutting in deep, tearing flesh and fat, then deeper still, cleanly burrowing itself in the gap between two ribs. And then deeper still, until the blade had almost entirely disappeared into her side. He caught a glimpse of her face: eyes blown wide, lips slack, skin drained of all color. Already halfway to dead. But it was gone as he whirled around, wrenching the blade out of her, turning forward again.

The Xiyunfeng spear artist had put some distance between them after he'd blocked his attack but had lunged right back when Jieyuan had concentrated his attacks on the sword artist. Now the man was barely a foot away, coming back at him. But Jieyuan's arms were swinging out with the force of his turn, and as he faced the spear artist again he dropped both Shifting Edge's weight to a tenth, drew on all of his strength, and let both of them loose. The two splitfangs shot forward, straight as arrows.

Edges turned inward, facing each other, barely an inch between them. The spear artist reacted instantly, digging his heels into the ground and jumping back again. But something as light as the Shifting Sisters were right now, thrown with that much strength? They flew fast. Faster than a tenth-step Redsoul could hope to move. The tenth-step had barely managed to back away an inch before the Shifting Sisters burrowed straight into his chest, side-by-side, right through the lungs.

Splitfangs, cousin to glaives, were cutting weapons. They weren't meant for thrusting, and even less for throwing. But like with most bladed weapons, their blades tapered to a sharp tip at the very end. Thrown hard enough, anything with a point could pierce. And the Shifting Sisters pierced deep, their blades turned inward, so that as they drove in, their broadening edges carved past the lungs and sliced through the man's heart from both sides. Jieyuan stepped aside.

He'd made his throw so fast that the body of the Gleaming Noble sword artist, cut cleanly through the ribs, only now finished falling, landing on the ground. His soulsenses picked up nothing, her soul and mantle both gone. In front of him, the body of the spear artist toppled backward. Jieyuan stretched out both hands; the Xiyunfeng spear artist's body was still falling as the Shifting Sisters tore free from its chest and flew back to Jieyuan.

He closed his hands around their shafts to the thump of the Xiyunfeng hitting the ground. Two more to the tally. Jieyuan took a deep breath. Time elapsed … Fifty seconds, since he'd killed the first tenth-step. About ninety seconds total. Five and a half minutes left. If there was one good thing about fighting opponents that fast, it was that battles ended quickly, one way or another. Even still… He reached a hand up, wiping the sweat soaking his forehead. He was running hot as coal.

The fight had taken less than a minute, but it'd taken more from him than all of his duels so far. The heat from the blue flames didn't help any, either. He felt like he was in a furnace. He glanced about. No more tenth-steps closing in on him, but the chaos was still there. Stronger, even. More corpses littered the ground than before, most of them disciples. The tenth-steps remained little more than blurs as they flashed about, clashing and clashing. Rippling wind, shooting crystals.

Already several of the buildings lining the streets were little more than ruins as the combatants spread further and further apart, claiming more and more of the area. And then there were the walls of flames just at the edges of it all, sky-high, ferocious, an ocean of blue fire, spilling in, closing in on them. Thick, grayish smoke was rolling into the battlefield. This close, Jieyuan could see that the flames fed on metal and stone: bits and pieces of the buildings flaking off, crumbling to dust, vanishing.

There was a bitter, rotten smell to it. Faintly, he could hear the crackling, the creaks, and the crashes as the nearby buildings fell apart. But only faintly; those sounds were swallowed by the unceasing rings of metal and crystal. He forced himself to breathe in again. Anything to fight the roar of the flames inside him, pushing him to throw himself into the fray again. To throw himself back into it. To raise the tally. Higher. Higher. He gripped the Shifting Sisters tighter.

Without needing to be told, Maeva flew his cloudcraft back to his side. If Fatebloom Incarnation lasted longer, if he hadn't been running so low on chroma, maybe he could've turned all of this around on his own. But as things were, he had to prioritize. And the priority was finding Meiyao, Yongyi— A presence flickered at the edge of his soulsenses, behind him. And Jieyuan's newly discovered Lawsenses were struck by a rush of BLOOD. Of MIGHT. Of DOMINATION.

Wide-eyed, staggering, he spun around, readying the Shifting Sisters, unsteady but waiting on Huaxin for the sequence. But what he saw was Daojue coming to a sudden stop a couple of feet away. Daojue looked as worse for wear as Jieyuan had ever seen him. His robes were torn through in a dozen places—jagged, blood-dark slashes carving across silk. Sweat slicked his hair to his brow, strands clinging to his face like ink-brushed strokes. But none of the cuts looked deep. And Daojue stood straight, unbowed.

No hitch in his stance. And Gleaming End—still shrouded, gripped in both hands before Daojue—was slick with blood from tip to halfway down the shaft. Daojue hadn't come out unscathed; but the two tenth-steps from earlier had been in a much sorrier state even before Jieyuan faced them. Not just that. From the looks of it, Daojue must've taken down an enemy or two himself. Fatebloom Instinct and Sacrifice were massive advantages. But Gleaming End was at Orangerealm and could cut through anything.

Daojue was also better at martial arts, not to mention faster and stronger. But then all of that stopped mattering. Jieyuan felt his senses warp again, just like it had with the gleamstone barrier, right before it had shed its shape for a serpent's. Daojue unraveled before Jieyuan's Lawsenses.