Chương 42: I Can’t Fall Here!

The collision at the edge of the southern clearing settled into absolute stillness. Su Ming did not drop his guard. The fingers of his right hand were stained black with coagulated blood, clutching the hilt of his massive broadsword with unyielding discipline. Dark red continued to seep through the crude linen under his torn tunic, dripping from the hem of his garment and soaking into the moss. Across from him, the intruder balanced his weight over trembling legs.

The man's shattered left forearm hung limp at his side, yet his fingers remained tightly wrapped around the grip of the second gray longsword, supported by his circulating Qi. The intruder moved first. He kicked off the damp turf with an explosive pivot. Tracing a low, jagged trajectory, the refined steel in his uninjured right hand whistled as it cut upward in an ascending arc, aiming straight for Su Ming's throat. CLANG!

Su Ming took a measured step back with his rear boot, planting his heel into the dirt and raising the spine of the broadsword to deflect the attack. The collision cast a spray of orange sparks into the humid dark. Before the vibration could settle in, the intruder spun, bringing the second blade around in a vicious sweep meant to strike the commander's compromised left flank. Su Ming's jaw tightened. He surged forward, driving the point of his elbow down against the incoming blade. CRACK!

The force deflected the gray blade into the earth. Su Ming followed through with his knee aimed directly into the stranger's abdomen. The intruder caught the blow on his crossed forearms, but was forced skidding backward over the slick grass. His fractured bone flared with agony as he coughed a mouthful of blood. He adjusted his footing, drawing a ragged breath. The intruder lunged again, chaining together a frantic sequence of thrusts and angled cuts.

Steel met steel in rapid, rhythmic concussions that rang through the quiet southern woods. Clang! Clang! Clang! The gray blades moved with desperate agility, hunting the commander's weakened side. A thrust ripped through the cloth of Su Ming's shoulder and another nicked his calf. Yet Su Ming stood like a rooted stone in the center of the clearing.

With minimal movements, he used the breadth and weight of his broadsword to meet each rapid strike with concussive bursts of maroon Qi that jarred the stranger's fractured wrists. The exchange pushed both bodies past their limits. The intruder's recoveries began to lag by fractions of a second, his Qi reserves draining under the unrelenting pressure. Sweat poured down his temples, mixing with the blood on his jaw. Su Ming planted both boots deep into the earth.

He ignored the agony ripping through his broken chest and drew the broadsword back with both hands. His dantian flared violently. Then the dormant, compressed core within Su Ming's abdomen cracked open. The solid knot of a 9th-Stage Qi Da Shi (Qi Grandmaster) unraveled, its dense energy surged outward through his meridians. The volatile maroon glow surrounding his body suddenly condensed, turning darker and deeper. BOOM! The air around Su Ming heated and hardened into a physical, visible sphere.

The blades of grass within five paces flattened instantly against the dirt. A low, resonant hum rose from the ground. Qi Ling (Qi Lord)! He ascended! The stranger's complexion drained to an ashen white. His eyes widened as the weight of the aura bore down on his shoulders, forcing his knees to buckle. Su Ming stepped forward. He crossed the space between them in an instant, raising the broadsword with a smooth, effortless sweep. A curved wave of solid, projected maroon energy erupted from the edge of the blade.

The stranger crossed both gray swords before his chest in a desperate block, channeling every remaining drop of Qi from his core into the steel. BANG! The collision shattered the right blade. The concussion tore through the stranger's guard, blasting into his torso. The man's body flew off the ground, hurled twenty paces across the clearing. He crashed into the thick trunk of a tree, snapping the lower branches before dropping into the dirt. His fingers uncurled, releasing the remaining broken hilt.

He lay completely still, his breathing shallow. Su Ming lowered the heavy steel. The dense maroon radiance around him rippled. He dismissed his sword, settled on the ground, and closed his eyes, drawing in a long, even breath to stabilize his raging core. The southern clearing was engulfed in a chilling silence as Su Ming sank deep into meditation. The only evidence of the previous battle was the sight of the ravaged clearing.

Amidst this silence, a small jade vial rolled across the ground and stopped against the fallen stranger's palm, causing his fingers to twitch in response. Su Ming's brows furrowed, his eyes still shut as his raspy voice broke the stillness.

"If you run now, how will you protect Su Luoyao?" … Miles away at the eastern border ridge, the night wind raged. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. The dead bodies of the lesser bandits lay scattered across the fractured terrain, cast aside like discarded timber. The Qi Ling (Qi Lord) bandit and the remaining Qi Shi (Qi Master) bandits stood further away, their ragged breathing echoing in the silence.

Su Luoyang stood twenty paces away from the towering, silver-masked leader. Her fingers held an unyielding grip on the hilt of her longsword, its polished blade reflecting the distant moonlight like a shard of glacial ice. The silver-masked leader's broad arms hung loosely at his sides, his posture utterly relaxed. The silver mask gleamed beneath the open sky with two dark slits that tracked Su Luoyang with indifferent stillness. A wave of heat rolled off his silhouette.

The ground beneath the soles of his heavy boots began to glow a dull, smoldering orange. The remnants of the blizzarding snow left from the previous battle vanished, replaced by a hot gale that scorched the throat with every breath, turning the surrounding ground charred. Su Luoyang's eyes narrowed. Gritting her teeth, she dropped low. Her pale blue Qi flared outward, wrapping around her frame in a thin layer of frost.

The temperature surrounding her body dropped below freezing, locking the gravel at her boots in thin sheets of crystalline ice. With a light push of her heels, she glided across the ground, tracing an arc around the bandit, her movement deliberate, keeping her distance. The masked leader did not move. He merely raised his right hand, extending two fingers toward her path. FWOOM! A lance of bright crimson fire erupted from his fingertips, slicing through the air like a streak of lightning.

The heat cracked the ground and melted the frost formed under Su Luoyang's steps. Rotating her torso mid-glide, Su Luoyang allowed the searing heat of the lance to pass two inches clear of her shoulder. Without interrupting her stride, she flicked her wrist, channeling her energy into the blade. Swish! Swish! Swish! Three crescent arcs of condensed frost Qi broke from the edge of her sword, whistling through the arid air toward his chest, throat, and lead knee. The masked man did not dodge.

He flicked his open palm outward. A sheet of rolling, solid flame manifested inches from his chest like a curved wall. The three icy crescents slammed into the fire barrier. HISS! Hot steam violently erupted between them, obscuring the space in a blinding fog. The ice vaporized instantly. From the center of the white fog, a pale silhouette materialized. Su Luoyang burst through the vapor, her sword thrusting with lethal precision straight toward the slit of his silver mask.

The masked leader tilted his head back by half an inch. The tip of the glacial longsword grazed the lower edge of the silver mask, carving a scratch into the polished metal. The man's other hand shot up. Coated in a dense sheath of red Qi, his bare palm clamped down directly onto the flat of her blade. SIZZLE! The frost coating the sword boiled away in a cloud of sizzling vapor. The raw heat transferred along the steel, burning through the leather wrap around the hilt and blistering Su Luoyang's fingers.

She did not let go. Instead, she dropped her center of gravity and drove her free left palm forward, aiming straight for his exposed belly. A concentrated sphere of pure, solid ice flared from the center of her palm, expanding outward in jagged, hard spikes. The masked leader did not flinch. BOOM! A wave of fiery red Qi erupted from his body. The expanding ice spikes shattered into burning shards of hail before they could touch his robes.

The concussion struck Su Luoyang in the chest, throwing her back ten paces through the air. She twisted her body mid-air, landing on her heels. Her boots carved two long scars into the ground before she brought herself to a halt. A mouthful of warm blood welled in her throat; she swallowed it down, but a thin ribbon escaped the corner of her lips, stark against her pale skin. Across the clearing, the masked Qi Wang (Qi King) still had not shifted his boots from the moment he arrived. Su Luoyang adjusted her stance.

She regulated her breathing, forcing the chaotic flow of energy in her damaged meridians back into alignment. Her white robes were scorched at the cuffs, her breath turning shallow and rapid as the hot air melted away the ambient moisture she relied on for her techniques. She raised her sword once more, pointing the tip directly at his throat. She channeled her remaining Qi. The pale blue glow around her weapon flared to its absolute limit, shifting into a blinding, crystalline white.

She stepped forward, executing a complex series of lightning-fast footwork drills. Her silhouette split into three distinct afterimages in the mist, each executing a separate angle of attack. The frost on the ground surged behind her, forming rows of serrated ice needles that shot across the dirt alongside the converging illusions. The real Su Luoyang, however, did not charge. The moment the three afterimages surged ahead, her real body broke off sharply to the left.

She routed the remainder of her refined Qi directly into the meridians of her calves, pivoting low against the stone and sprinting with everything she had toward the tree line. The silver-masked man watched the three converging forms with indifferent stillness. Without shifting his footing, he raised his right arm and swept it horizontally. A wide crescent of blazing fire detached from his hand, cutting across the air like a scythe.

The fiery arc sheared through the three afterimages, evaporating the illusions and melting the flying ice needles into boiling steam. His eyes tracked the white silhouette bolting into the tree line. Watching from the rear, the bandit soldiers sneered in amusement. The Qi Wang (Qi King) stepped off the ground. Defying gravity, his body surged into the air, traversing the clearing in the blink of an eye. THUD! He landed directly in Su Luoyang's path, the impact cracking the stone beneath his heels.

Su Luoyang skidded to an abrupt halt, her boots tearing through the dirt. The masked man raised his right palm.

"I cannot let you leave." ROAR! A massive torrent of roaring crimson flame erupted from his palm, surging forward to consume the path ahead. Su Luoyang dismissed her sword and thrust both palms forward, channeling her frost Qi to erect a thick wall of ice before her. The blazing fire slammed into the ice. SIZZLE! The wall groaned under the terrifying heat. Streams of boiling water poured from the face of the barrier as the ice melted away in seconds.

The clearing was engulfed under a massive fog of boiling steam, the two silhouettes vanishing inside it. CRACK! Su Luoyang was hurled out of the boiling mist, crashing hard onto the rocky ground. She lay in the dirt, her scorched white robes stained with dark crimson as blood spilled past her lips. Her vision blurred as the loud footsteps of the approaching Qi Wang (Qi King) echoed through the smoldering embers. She let out a tired breath and clenched her fist.

Her gaze sharpened, and focusing her vision, she pushed against the ground to get back up. This is not over. Luoyao is still in danger. I can't fall here!