Chương 36: "It's just us now"

Ch 36: "It's just us now" Zhen's hands tightened around the handle of the war hammer. The moon cast shadows across the grass, and he circulated the earth-attuned qi through his meridians. He didn't need the Eye to tell him the langren ancestors were hardened warriors. If he tried to just batter through them all he wouldn't get past. To have any chance of success he would need to think as well as fight. The first group moved forward. Two male langren with war hammers flanked a female with a straight jian.

They advanced with their weapons held ready to attack. Zhen activated Stalker's Prowl to dampen his footsteps as he shifted left. He wrapped the qi around him to blur his outline. Even though she must have known the technique, the female's blade still cut through empty air where he had been standing. Zhen reappeared and brought his hammer down toward the shoulder of the nearest male. An Earthen Citadel erupted between them to block his blow. It wasn't one Zhen had created.

As the spikes flew toward him he adjusted mid-air and twisted his body to leap clear. But even as he landed he had a grim look on his face. He had been watching his opponents with the Eye of Xiezhi the whole time, and the flow of qi within his three immediate opponents hadn't fluctuated at all. There was no way any of them had created that defensive wall. Putting distance between himself and the attackers, he scanned the battlefield with the Eye.

A telltale swirl of earth-attuned qi ran through one of the shamans watching from the periphery. He was about to sprint back into the melee when he paused. Those instincts would no longer serve him. Thousands of deaths had made him dangerously accustomed to throwing his life away with the reckless abandon of someone who couldn't truly die. Hagra had been very clear that safety net was gone. Forcing his heart to slow, Zhen pulled back, extending Stalker's Prowl to wrap around him.

He shifted into the shadows, watching his opponents with the Eye. Spotting an opening Zhen darted in and feinted right. He used Growl, but as he felt it being blocked from a distance, he burst left using Stalker's Prowl to obscure his sudden movement. The Eye showed him that the female slightly favored her left knee. He pounced to take advantage and his hammer smashed into her knee. As she stumbled he closed in with a strike to her chest, and she dissolved into motes of light.

Even as she did so, a war hammer whistled toward his skull. Zhen raised an Earthen Citadel, angling it to deflect rather than block. The hammer glanced off the stone and Zhen was already moving, Stalker's Prowl carrying him past the two male langren toward the cluster of shamans. They were the key. If they continued to interfere with his attacks from range they would stymie any chance he had of getting to the altar. The four shamans stood together, their meridians thick wtih qi.

Zhen channeled qi into his throat and released Growl of the Crushing Maw. The spectral wolf's head burst forth and one shaman's hand swept up. The technique shattered against an invisible barrier. But Zhen was already in amongst them, his hammer swinging. A stone wall rose in front of him but compared to those that Hagra created it was weak and he smashed through it. The Eye revealed the clear weaknesses in their defenses. The shamans were masters of qi manipulation, but they were used to fighting at a distance.

Close combat threw them into a panic. His first strike caught one in the ribs. The second crushed a female's shoulder. The remaining two tried to retreat, but Zhen used Stalker's Prowl to close the distance and didn't relent. As the last shaman exploded into light, three more warriors engaged him with axes and qiang spears. Zhen integrated everything, weaving Stalker's Prowl into his fighting style and using the qi-dampened movements to create unpredictable angles.

He raised Earthen Citadels to both block and redirect, creating blind spots that let him slip past. Good though he was, he wasn't perfect and these were no green recruits. He stumbled as a warrior used Stalker's Prowl to make him miss and a dao sliced open his shoulder. Zhen gritted his teeth and kept moving forward toward the altar. Time became meaningless. There was only the next group of opponents and the next few yards to be gained.

A war hammer grazed his temple then swung round to clip his ribs as he dodged out of the way. But Zhen didn't stop. Defeating his opponents was only part of this. As had always been the case during the Ordeal, learning came through the pain. In this crucible he wove everything that he had learned into a single unified fighting style Stalker's Prowl carried him through gaps in their formations.

Earthen Citadel deflected the deadliest of the strikes, while Growl bought him precious seconds when he was surrounded to allow him to take his opponents down with his war hammer. Most importantly, the Eye showed him flaws he could use. Hagra and Gaarch had been so skilled that the Eye had offered almost nothing. These warriors, though formidable, weren't quite as skilled. Zhen ignored everything else and lost himself in the dance of battle.

Tens of the langren ancestors fell before him and with each one he moved just that little closer to the altar. Then suddenly, space opened before him. He spun in a circle but around him the remaining langren stepped back forming a wide semicircle to stop him retreating. Their weapons remained ready, but they didn't advance. Fifty yards of empty grass lay between Zhen and his goal. Hagra walked forward and placed himself between Zhen and the altar itself.

His war hammer rested across his shoulder, and for the first time, he looked old.

"All you have to do," Hagra said, "is get past me." He brought his war hammer down into a guard position. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"It's just us now." Zhen had fought Hagra thousands of times. He knew the rhythm of his teacher's attacks, the precise moment when his war hammer was poised to fall, the subtle shift in his stance before he struck. In many ways he knew Hagra's fighting style better than his own. That knowledge was entirely useless. Hagra moved, and the world bent around him. His hammer blurred through the air twice as fast as Zhen had seen him move before. Zhen raised an Earthen Citadel and the hammer shattered it.

The force drove Zhen back five yards, his boots tearing furrows in the grass. Zhen gathered qi for Growl, but Hagra's technique erupted first. Three wolf heads burst forth, each requiring its own counter. Zhen managed to spin his qi in the counter patterns for two of them, but the third slammed into his chest. It locked his muscles for a precious half-second before he was able to counter that as well. It was a half-second too long as Hagra's hammer caught him in the ribs. Pain exploded through Zhen's side.

If he hadn't broken a rib earlier it had definitely gone now. He rolled, using Stalker's Prowl to blend into shadow and create distance. Then Hagra vanished. The Eye tracked the disturbance in the qi flows, but barely. It was like Hagra had become one with the shadows, his use of Stalker's Prowl far beyond anything Zhen could do. Zhen spun, raising walls to cover his rear. Hagra appeared a fraction of a second before his hammer came down. The weapon smashed through Zhen's Earthen Citadel and clipped his shoulder.

Zhen tried to advance toward the altar. Four stone walls erupted from the ground in a box formation, trapping him. He destroyed one with his hammer and burst through, only to find Hagra waiting. Zhen kept the Eye active at all times, and unlike when Hagra was reining back his techniques, finally, there were flaws. When Hagra created five walls simultaneously, the fourth one had a weakness near its base. When he unleashed three wolves heads with Growl, the leftmost head dispersed a heartbeat faster than the others.

But knowing all of that meant nothing when Zhen couldn't exploit them in time. Hagra's overwhelming speed and power meant the flaws appeared and vanished before Zhen could do anything about them. The fight moved so fast that Zhen could only react. The Eye helped but he had no spare capacity to learn how Hagra was managing to use the techniques in such advanced ways. Blood ran down Zhen's arm and he could feel his ribs stab through his skin as as he moved, but he fought on. As they battled Zhen's mind raced.

Ultimately this would become a battle of attrition, and much as he would wish it to be otherwise Zhen would lose. Hagra wouldn't make the first mistake. One wrong step, or moment of hesitation, and His teacher would end him. Zhen dodged another strike, his ribs protesting as he tried to think of a way through. A memory surfaced through the pain of the massive walls Hagra had created when Zhen first arrived. They had been tens of feet high and bristled with immense spikes.

They hadn't really fought with anything like that since the early deaths. Everything had become mobile and quick, with smaller walls used for quick deflections and temporary cover. But Zhen remembered the qi flows that had shaped those enormous barriers. He had watched it with the Eye too many times and memorized the patterns even as spikes tore through his chest. Hagra lunged forward, his hammer sweeping low. Zhen threw up a small Earthen Citadel and rolled away to buy himself a few moments to form a plan.

The powerful langren smashed through his walls every time. He could easily move around them with Stalker's Prowl, but his warrior's pride drove him to destroy the obstacles, not avoid them. That confidence in his strength might just be something Zhen could use. Zhen pulled earth qi into his meridians, flooding them until, even though they had expanded while he had been in the Ordeal, they ached. Hundreds of deaths ago they would have ruptured. Now they held, but it still wasn't enough.

Langren techniques worked using meridians, not dantians and maybe he could exploit that. Zhen drew on his full dantian and poured its qi into his meridians, saturating them far beyond what they were ready for. Hagra charged and Zhen slammed his fists into the ground. This was no time to leave things to his intent." Earthen Citadel!" The ground erupted and one of those towering monuments Hagra had demonstrated at the beginning tore out of the ground. The stone rose rapidly, climbing fifteen feet, then twenty.

Zhen shaped it as he had seen Hagra do, pulling qi from the surroundings and compressing it into dense layers. He didn't waste qi on spikes but he angled it, just slightly so it leaned toward the altar. The wall solidified between them, cutting off Hagra's advance. As he disappeared from Hagra's sight, Zhen activated Stalker's Prowl. The technique wrapped around him, dampening his presence as he sprinted along the base of the wall.

His boots made no sound on the grass, and as he reached the edge he pressed himself against the stone and carefully peered around. Hagra stood on the other side, evaluating the barrier. His war hammer rose as qi flooded through his meridians, preparing to shatter it. Zhen gathered every scrap of his remaining qi, incluing every last drop in his dantian into his throat. Hagra's hammer drew back and he bent his knees, ready to leap.

He aimed for the wall's center, exactly as Zhen had predicted, preparing to destroy it in a single blow. As Hagra jumped, Zhen unleashed Growl of the Crushing Maw. The spectral wolf's head erupted and crashed into Hagra's side just as the hammer began its descent. Already in the air the ancient langren was out of his usual rock-steady stance, and the moment of disorientation knocked him slightly off target. Hagra's war hammer struck the top third of the wall instead of the center.

The stone fractured and the entire structure shuddered. The angled wall tipped, then gravity took over. Zhen ran onto the collapsing wall as it tilted. His boots found purchase on the rough stone as it fell toward the altar, driving Hagra backward. He sprinted up the surface, using it as a ramp. As the wall toppled Zhen leaped from its highest point, sailing through the air toward the altar. He hit the earth hard enough to jar his spine but he rolled, allowing his momentum to carry him forward.

He came to his feet with his broken ribs punching the breath from his lungs. The war hammer's dragged at his shoulder and he dropped it. It would just slow him down. The grass stretched before him, and for the first time there was nothing between him and the altar. Just twenty yards of empty space. Swallowing down the flare of pain from his injuries, Zhen ran, putting everything he had into each stride. Wind rushed past his ears, but it didn't drown out the footsteps thundering behind him. He didn't look back.

He would either make it or he wouldn't Fifteen yards. The footsteps grew louder. Heavy breathing reached Zhen's ears as Hagra closed the gap. Ten yards. Gaarch stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the altar, his eyes fixed on Zhen. His war hammer was slung across his back. Five more yards. Gaarch's hand reached over his shoulder. The leather straps came free and the war hammer swung into his grip. He stepped forward, his feet spread into a combat stance. So much for a one-on-one duel.

Shuo had warned him to never expect a fair fight, and now that was being proven true at the worst possible time. He ran harder. Three yards. Gaarch's shoulders rolled back. His rear foot pivoted and the war hammer swept across the space in a horizontal arc aimed at Zhen's head. No room to go over it and no time to go around. The Eye just revealed a perfect, flawless swing. But maybe there was another way. Zhen threw himself forward in the gap between the earth and the hammer.

His body left the ground in a desperate dive, his arms straining toward the bottom step. The war hammer whistled through the air just as his fingertips reached for the step.