Chương 96: Death's Perfect Storm, I

Wu Hao came to and restrained himself from falling or stumbling as much, but there was still a momentary involuntary jerk as his mind reacclimated to the sudden absence of pain and the agony of his organs shutting down and the fact a saber had just torn through his chest. He took a slow breath, closing his eyes. There was always a sort of nausea that he figured he'd overcome by now, but apparently not.

Ignoring it for now, instead he sank into his thoughts, wondering what he'd felt moments earlier, a day in the future, when unleashing the Tempest Slash. It had to mean something. That he was innately gifted with a saber? He doubted it, because wouldn't he have felt something from the moment he'd first held a saber, then?

It wasn't that he'd finally had a similar realization with the Storm-Cutting Saber Art that he'd had with the Rending Dagger Art, because that'd just been the realization that all the techniques in an art had similar goals, worked along the same lines. The Rending Dagger Art had been meant to extend the dagger itself. It formed the Void Rips to slash into the distance. It formed the Long Hook to reach parts that the dagger was too short to reach, varying the distance according to the user's own will.

The Rippling Net - well, that was a technique meant to extend the possible blocks that the user could do with a dagger, so he figured those were later extensions of that same original purpose. The theory wasn't perfect but it was the best that he had. So - what had he realized about the Storm-Cutting Saber Art? What was it? He drew the saber, pushed qi into the loop, activated it, felt it resound with the snap as the current buzzed over the saber's edge.

The rings snapped to the side of the blade momentarily, before unlatching when the current ran through it as well. Wu Hao stared at it.

"My gosh," a girlish sort of voice said.

"I think he really might be..." A few chuckles followed. Concentration broken, Wu Hao looked up. He was met with the eyes of the other students. It was still morning training, then. Wu Hao breathed in, breathed out. Then he raised his saber, marshalling his qi so that it tingled against his skin. He frowned at Li Yanqiang, the weight of his glare so harsh that the other boy felt the need to take a step back, his saber already half-raising in an instinctive block.

Wu Hao snorted dismissively, then switched to looking at Li Yanqiang. Jin Qilong pulled at Wu Hao's sleeve.

"What are you doing?" he asked quietly. Wu Hao was about to jerk his sleeve away when the subtle smug tones radiating through Shi Huyin's qi stopped him cold. She wouldn't agree to a duel herself, and he was growingly increasingly certain that she'd been the one egging the three who ambushed him at night into actually doing it. He didn't have any evidence, but neither did he really need it.

But if last night he'd realized that he didn't actually need to fight those three, that didn't mean that he was going to just let it go. He just had to be smarter about it.

"I'm going to duel Li Yanqing and Zhu Yelin," he said, in a low voice.

"You're going to duel two people at once?" Jin Qilong asked, surprise clear on his face.

"Yeah," Wu Hao said.

"I can. Trust me."

"You don't need to," Jin Qilong said hurriedly.

"I mean, just because she insulted you, you shouldn't leap -""That's not it," Wu Hao said, and decided to actually take a leap for once.

"I'm a sensor. She's using some sort of art to control those two." Jin Qilong's eyes grew large.

"What?" he hissed, pulling Wu Hao closer.

"Are you sure?"

"I am," Wu Hao said.

"I meant that you're a sensor," Jin Qilong said.

"Is that really true?"

"It is," Wu Hao responded, and he felt for the bandit saber's hilt.

"Focus on the art thing. Is that illegal? Demonic, maybe? Can we use that against her?"

"No," Jin Qilong said, thinking it over quickly.

"It sounds like it's charm arts. They're legal, though it's frowned on using them against allies, it's considered rude at best."

"Oh," Wu Hao said.

"Damn." There went that plan. He didn't really care so much about what consequences she faced - it probably wouldn't be too bad, considering she was a prefect's daughter - but he didn't like the thought that she'd face none at all. But Jin Qilong bit his lip, because he hadn't actually finished speaking.

"I can disrupt it," he offered.

"Just for a few moments, though. And I'll need to be close... Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yeah," Wu Hao said, and drew a deep breath. He was on the verge of smiling, oddly enough.

"Thank you. Let's do this." In the next moment he'd leapt on top of the stone stage.

"Li Yanqiang," he shouted, drawing the eyes of everyone around.

"Zhu Yelin. I'm challenging both of you to a duel. Come at me." Mouths hung open. Somewhere behind him Jin Qilong started stepping closer towards Shi Huyin, ready to do whatever it was that he was going to do.

"Shut up!" Li Yanqiang said.

"Stop being a coward," Wu Hao said.

"Or what, is that saber purely for decoration?" Li Yanqiang went red. Excellent. He sank down lower, preparing himself to dash forward. Fine. He'd resisted the urge to add a shouted "Bitch!" to the end of his sentence, so he was showing restraint. After a hushed, furious conversation, Li Yanqiang drew his saber and stormed over. Zhu Yelin joined him too, though he required a few more pushes from Shi Huyin's emotion-manipulating threads.

That same qi spoke of some gleeful anticipation, though - she thought that Wu Hao had overestimated himself. Honestly, even Wu Hao didn't quite understand his own feelings at the moment. He just felt as if he'd been caught by a wind that blew him higher, and he was determined to ride that wind until it brought him back to the enlightenment he'd felt at the precipice of. Yu Xiong appeared near the edge of the ring, looking unsure of himself.

That said he didn't ask questions, didn't confirm that they were all agreed to fight it out, which Wu Hao was grateful for. He just swung his hand down.

"Begin!" Wu Hao exploded into motion. The rings at the end of his saber rung as his qi reached out and took hold of the entire saber, a snap following after as the current made its presence heard across the arena. He was already dashing even before his qi had fully completed the loop, though, and the Tempest Slash clicked into place without even needing to speak its name out loud.

Zhu Yelin yelled something indistinct, surprise and anger burning through his qi as it soared up into his own saber, preparing to block Wu Hao's strike. Wu Hao's saber swam through the air, but it just didn't move right. It didn't move the way it had last time. There'd been a simple, unthinking simplicity to his movements then - they'd felt natural, uncomplicated. Less like moves that he'd memorized but simply something that flowed.

It was as if he'd placed his brush down on a blank canvas and drawn a flawless dragon, detailed to the very tip of every single scale, without really intending to. But now everything just felt wrong, in ways that he couldn't begin to express. It was frustrating like an itch below his skin. All the same he smashed through Zhu Yelin's defense like a river bursting through a child's sandcastle.

He whirled, feeling a too-thin breeze just slightly pull at his clothes, and scowled even as his saber carved at Zhu Yelin's skin. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Then he lanced out with a basic qi-enhanced kick, launching the other boy into a pillar near the edge of the arena. Zhu Yelin skidded and managed to control his flight just before he smashed into it back-first, having planted his saber into the ground.

He was trying to get up, though he was clearly struggling. Wu Hao raised his saber again, turning his attention away from Zhu Yelin and at Li Yanqiang. The other boy had started preparing a move of his own, but seeing Wu Hao break through Zhu Yelin's defenses had caused the qi that he'd taken hold of to start ebbing away again. With a scowl and a shout of anger, the qi climbed up again, struggling forward into a small loop.

Before it could click shut, though, Wu Hao had reached Li Yanqiang's side and his saber had been raisd high in the air. Now it came whistling down. Gritting his teeth, the dregs of Li Yanqiang's technique were abandoned at the last second as the qi was cannibalized to try and throw up some sort of block against Wu Hao's Lightning Bolt. Wu Hao cut through the chunk of qi but the saber was made of steel, and while the current raced down its length, Wu Hao placed another hand on the saber's grip and forced it down.

The edge skimmed across Li Yanqiang's face, leaving thin dipping scars on his forehead as they fought for dominance. Wu Hao was pushing the saber down, Li Yanqiang was trying to push his own saber up, and desperation must have given him strength. But Wu Hao wasn't putting his full strength into it, either. Better to make Li Yanqiang suffer. If he angled the saber just right, he could take out an eye.

Satisfaction and an ugly glee filled him as he focused all his effort into dealing as much permanent damage as he could - Jin Qilong tripped over Shi Huyin and they tumbled to the ground together, and suddenly that edge of cruelty and sadism fled from Wu Hao's mind and his sanity returned. He had a confused moment to wonder what had happened before he suddenly spotted a thin trail of qi that had been attached to him.

Whirling around he pushed qi into his hands and fingers, ripping the parasitic thing out of him entirely. Li Yanqiang's shaking arms pulled his saber forward, into a blind strike at Wu Hao, but he turned, flooded qi to his feet, and jumped over it entirely. Even while turning mid-air, the edge of his saber licked out and tore a swathe through Li Yanqiang's back, the remnants of the current bursting against the other boy's skin.

Li Yanqiang's scream was choked and he spasmed, once, before falling flat on his face, unconscious. Wu Hao rose. He checked just to make sure that Li Yanqiang was down, and then he had to fend off Zhu Yelin's retaliation, a strike that might have cut his throat if it had landed. His saber pushed up, forcing Zhu Yelin's own to deviate from its intended path, and then struck Zhu Yelin in the tender spot in the middle of his ribs with his fist.

Zhu Yelin coughed and collapsed, but his reddened eyes turned up to face Wu Hao's. His eyes were clouded with emotions that seemed exaggerated, a mirror for the same sadism and anger that Wu Hao had felt earlier. He rasped a single breath before lunging for the saber that had fallen at his feet when he'd been hit.

Before he could make it and before Wu Hao's saber could cut into his outstretched arm in response, something pushed Wu Hao's saber off to the side, enough so that his saber didn't so much as mark Zhu Yelin's skin. Yu Xiong had arrived. Outside the arena, Jin Qilong was sheepishly helping Shi Huyin up. Once they were done here, Wu Hao'd have to thank the other boy for his help. But they weren't done yet. Zhu Yelin had taken hold of his saber again and slowly but surely seemed to regain his breathing.

It'd be only moments later that he could regain his footing.

"This duel is over," Yu Xiong said, staring Wu Hao down.

"It isn't," Wu Hao said, staring the instructor in the face. He hadn't lowered his saber an inch. His blood was still boiling, and he still felt like he was barely tethered to that same concept that he'd felt earlier. Every moment he stood still it was slipping away.

"Move." But Yu Xiong didn't move. Instead he froze, his hands flitting to his saber, strapped to his side. Wu Hao had first seen him as a lazy observer, and the fact that he was so obviously biased against Jin Qilong and that he was awful at teaching hadn't endeared the man to him since.

"What did you just say to me?" Yu Xiong asked, his voice quiet.

"Move," Wu Hao said, meeting the man's eyes with his own.

"We're not done."

"I've declared this duel over," Yu Xiong stated.

"But I haven't," Wu Hao said. He drew back his saber, settling into a stance. His qi flared to life again with the now-familiar tiger's roar in his ears, and it sounded approving. Wu Hao almost felt the urge to roar along, before discarding all unnecessary thoughts. Yu Xiong's eyes narrowed and then, with an explosion of qi, he lunged forward, slashed out with his saber.

Wu Hao had been able to see it coming but the sheer speed of it surprised him, and he forced his own qi into another racing current to cut out with a Tempest Slash in response, though he knew it'd be too little, too late. There was a loud report of impact. A squat, strong shape stood there, both hands extended. Having taken hold of Yu Xiong's wrist with one hand and blocked Wu Hao's saber with the other, Wang Hangsheng stood there as if he'd appeared out of nowhere.

"Enough," he said, and tossed both of them back.

"This is disgraceful." Wu Hao had tumbled through the air again - harder than when Yu Xiong had thrown him a while back, he forced qi to his feet to shift his course in mid-air and slid to a stop, saber-tip digging a short furrow through the tiles as he went. Yu Xiong, on the other hand, had stumbled and very nearly fell. His eyes were narrowed into slits, his faux-cheerful face red with anger.

The instructor opened his mouth to speak, but then Wang Hangsheng turned and the words died on his lips the moment Yu Xiong became aware of the steel aimed directly at his jugular vein. He didn't swallow but he did withdraw, the storm of anger in his qi shot through with a thick spike of dread.

"I said enough," Wang Hangsheng growled.

"We have guests." Shi Huyin blinked the moment all eyes turned to her. She composed herself quickly, though, then nodded with an impressively quick display of shyness while twirling her fingers and pulling her hand away from Jin Qilong who'd helped her up. All the same, a stab of annoyance ran through her qi - accompanied, though, by a heavy dose of fear.

"Er," she said.

"Do you want me to leave? I never meant for this to happen..." She bit her lip.

"I'm sorry if I did anything wrong," she said.

"I just..." Wang Hangsheng glanced at her again, then shook his head.

"It's about time for the talks to start," he said.

"Go." No one moved a muscle, and then Wang Hangsheng roared, louder this time: "Go!" The students scattered into the distance. Zhu Yelin and Li Yanqiang staggered off, their movements awkward and stumbling, towards the doctor's office. Maybe he hadn't broken their bodies, but he'd broken their spirits. Yu Xiong, biting back a curse, accompanied them, giving a final heated glare at Wu Hao afterwards. Well. That could've gone worse.