6.44 - Defiance

Storm, mountain, and winter crashed against the pit of swords. Heaven cracked the sky and metal cracked the earth. Over it all, relentless winter marched. And for every step and stone of weight their spirits pressed upon the world, Long Tingguang pushed them to their limits.

In the countless hours he’d spent training against Li Heng, He Yu had never been pressed as hard as he was now. Not even in those early days at the sect, when he’d still been merely at the Qi Gathering stage and could barely use his weapon properly. Even Li Heng, the skilled swordsman that he’d grown into, looked pressed by Long Tingguang’s skill. And worse, it was three on one.

“We have to cripple him, fast,” He Yu said between exchanges. Although he barely felt the strain, the fatigue was beginning to set in, if only slowly.

Although he couldn’t be certain, as he’d not received a return message, he was glad the others hadn’t interfered. Despite Long Tingguang’s confidence against the three of them, he had turned and fled when confronted with Li Renshu and Tan Zihao at the same time. If those two joined the fight, he was likely to do the same again, which would leave him free to harry and harass their march to the capital. And worse, to come to Jin Xifeng’s aid once they arrived. If there was a time to deal with him, it was now. And they needed to do it without giving him the chance to flee.

“You think the strategy the others used on lower-realm failures would work on one of my talent?” Long Tingguang asked as he swatted aside another strike from He Yu, then launched Chen Fei into the crumbling ground with a halfway contemptuous kick.

Li Heng darted in, jian gleaming with silver light and ice coating his robes like armor. In the space of the exchange that followed, He Yu circled them, sending arcs of heaven-imbued crescent blades of wind at their momentary duel. They had long since abandoned their flying treasures, as everyone except He Yu still fought better on the ground when pressed this hard. And pressed hard they all were—even Long Tingguang.

Despite his boasts, despite his arrogance and casual affectations, the concentration was plain on Long Tingguang’s face. So, too, were the signs he was creeping ever closer to his edge. More and more, he called his demon core from within his spirit. The hulking figure, a bulked up and spiked version of Long Tingguang himself, took ever more blows for its master. Once or twice now, it almost fully split off from him to engage in a rapid exchange of blows with one of them while Long Tingguang dealt with the other two.

Still, everyone engaged in the fight had monstrous amounts of qi left. That much was clear just by how freely everyone used their techniques, and how oppressive all their presences were. In the sky above, the storm of He Yu’s spirit raged. Heaven reached down to strike at the forest of blades within the pit below. And while mountains rose along the pit’s edge, cracking and tumbling down and within, the pit never filled. Was never satisfied. Even the inexorable march of relentless winter couldn’t ice over the maw set into the world itself.

And crashing alongside each of their strike, every formation of a technique, was the resonance of the Dao. For He Yu, this was the culmination of all he’d fought for, all he pursued—the greatest foe he’d stood against yet. And Long Tingguang was a foe worthy of his blade, both in his own legendary skill, and in the depravity he’d forged into his spirit.

Chen Fei and Li Heng both embodied their own Dao connections, too. For Chen Fei, hers was to protect. Those who didn’t know their lives could very well hang in the balance of this fight, those she cared so deeply for, and most of all, herself. Her formation barriers sprang into being with a speed and ease He Yu could feel as she called the very truth of what it meant to protect, and stamped that truth upon the world. The armor of the Titan’s Panoply took blows fit to sunder mountains, and held. What cracks did form stitched themselves back together under the endless well of the Eternal Mountain’s Root.

Li Heng flowed from offense to defense and back as though they were one and the same. At his back, the taiji swirled with each rotation of his spirit, each blast of winter and retreating drifts of snow. Balance in form and intent laced every inch of his being, every move down to the smallest twitch of muscle was as deliberate as it was effortless. The silver streams of light pouring off his ancestral jian when he released the Winter Moon Reflection were mirrored by each of black scars from the Darkmoon Strife.

Yet, for all the strength they brought to bear, they fought a monster. Long Tingguang’s Dao suffused each of his techniques. The tide of shadows that crashed over them with each strike of his jian, the constant eruptions of blades from impossible angles, and the endless sense that he would devour the world if they let him—all of it battered against He Yu’s spirit each time he beat back a strike or turned aside a technique.

The Spring Rain Mirror turned aside Long Tingguang’s jian, but shadow wrapped around the blue disk like floodwaters cresting a levy. They reached for He Yu, their corrupting and qi-sapping effects something he’d learned well to respect of the course of this fight. As he darted back with the Sky Dragon’s flight, launching a torrent of lighting at Long Tingguang, the demon core engaged in a frenzied boxing match with Chen Fei.

Turning his Daoist Mind and the Peerless Judgment to their predicament, He Yu grimaced. Among the hundred thousand outcomes for the fight as it stood, he couldn’t see a clear path to victory. Long Tingguang was too skilled, and his ability to summon and control his demon core gave him too much of an edge. He Yu had long since taken his measure. He was better than any one of them as a fighter and possessed of far greater reserves of qi and the experience to use it effectively.

He Yu had, for too long, been used to his strength. At equal advancement, he’d been peerless for so long. Even those above him in the same realm hadn’t crushed him as they would others. He’d even withstood the unleashed might of a primordial Ninth Realm awakened beast when he was but of the Seventh. He had always been strong, but now that wasn’t enough.

He drew upon all that he had. From atop the infinite stair leading to the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace, he beheld the storm. The Dao of Heroism sang in his mind, its notes wrapping around the constant beat of Leigong’s drum. The thunder and fury of heaven was his to command. He caught a glimpse of Shenlong winding through the clouds and around the world. Of gods and divine beasts, He Yu had earned his assent. And from the gift of a single feather, he had earned the boon of the great storm eagle, the Monarch of Sky’s Throne. He was the last, the most recent keeper of an art ancient and primordial. Bequeathed to him in inheritance by its last steward, Cai Weizhe.

Every pulse of qi surging through his meridians did so in accordance with this art. Yes, he cultivated the Five Crescent Winds, a guandao art that had served him so well for so long. But Cai Weizhe had said its true power lay in its ability to support other arts. The way it carried his formation of Heaven’s Descending Blade was evidence enough of that truth. He also cultivated the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. The now eight pillars that rose to the heavens around him he first received from Yongnian, the steward and keeper of a long-forgotten shine to the god of thunder himself. This art, too, supported the Heavenly Palace. Speed to match the Sky Dragon’s Flight, to allow him to react to the glimpses of possibility granted by the Peerless Judgment. Pillars of heaven to cradle the sky.

From his perch at the apex of the infinite stair, He Yu beheld a pit leading to hell. Blood and blades and shadow threatened to consume all that he was, and all that his friends could be. Only here could such a monster be stopped, and regardless of whether they were up to the task, it was He Yu, Li Heng, and Chen Fei who had to do it. From those earliest days he’d known—his was never a legend meant for him to forge alone.

“Chen Fei,” he said. “Bind Long Tingguang as best you can.”

Gleaming formation script called forth from her Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols flared to life around the pit. More script stamped itself upon the forest of blades, its gleaming light holding back the encroaching shadow. Chen Fei’s fingers worked in a blur, incantation gestures calling formation characters from nothing but her qi and intent, and placing them onto the world.

Long Tingguang swept his blade, cutting through her formations like a pair of shears parting silk. “Submit to Empress Jin, and she may yet show the three of you mercy. Your armies will fail. The experts lurking just beyond the horizon won’t be enough to defeat her. Were you not told of how she brought the empire to its knees? How she, alone, culled an entire generation of experts?”

The empress’s true dragon strode forward. Raising one hand, he closed a fist. A thousand thousand blades split the world around Chen Fei. A thousand thousand formations flared to life, turning them aside. Under the weight of that exchange, the ground beneath her buckled and cracked. She held, if only barely.

“Li Heng,” He Yu said. “I need your help.”

Great pillars of ice erupted from the earth, and winter gripped the world. Night fell over them, and the full moon hung in the blackened sky. Li Heng stepped between Long Tingguang and He Yu, his jian glowing brilliant silver in contrast to Long Tingguang’s own shadow-cloaked blade. Li Heng took a single step and crossed a distance of a hundred li. The White Hare Dance left a dusting of snow in his wake, and the Darkmoon Strife left five black scars upon the world.

The blades Long Tingguang called this time all curved toward Li Heng’s ancestral jian. With each thundering impact, the jian grew brighter. The Winter Moon Reflection drew in the power of Long Tingguang’s technique and held it like the breath of waiting winter. Unlike those early days, Li Heng didn’t collapse under its weight. Instead he spun, pointed his jian like an accusing finger, and released a river of sword light greater than He Yu had ever seen.

And in that moment, He Yu struck. The wind curled around him, heaven crackling over his armor and robes as he rushed forward on wings of wind. Leigong beat his drum, and Shenlong roared. Forming Heaven’s Descending Blade, he called down the sky. Lighting reached to the earth, and shattered Long Tingguang’s blades of rusted, bloody iron. Arcs of heaven to cut into his flesh, and the storm drove stinging rain and howling winds.

When He Yu reached Long Tingguang, he made a fist. A shining dragon of roaring heaven reached from knuckle to shoulder. He struck, and he shattered Long Tingguang’s weapon. In the space of a breath, the beat of a heart, he swept his guandao forward and up. Edge met flesh, and blood spilled over the cracked and broken ground. A surge of shadows leaped up as Long Tingguang activated a movement technique.

He Yu readied himself. When Long Tingguang appeared, he still gripped his shattered sword. The pulse of shadow and blood in his spirit ebbed even as the wound across his chest that was fit to kill any mortal slowly pulled itself back together. The black-clad expert looked down at himself, then up at He Yu. His eyes held no contempt. Nor fear. Only resolve. Resolve enough to tell He Yu everything he needed to know. Still, he made his offer.

“Cripple your cultivation, and submit yourself to our mercy,” He Yu said. “We will hold you as hostage, but we will treat you honorably and with respect.”

Long Tingguang looked from He Yu to Chen Fei then to Li Heng. “Perhaps, I might still yet prevail. I still have my core, the greatest of my empress’s gifts. Perhaps I would kill you all. I would earn her praise should I do so.”

“You’ll only weaken yourself,” Li Heng said. “And once we’re dead, my grandfather and King Tan will come. You die here, whether by our hand, or theirs.”

“Don’t throw your life away,” Chen Fei said. “I think you know she doesn’t care whether you live or die. She doesn’t care whether anyone does.”

The broken blade fell from limp fingers. He Yu let out a sigh and released the tension in his shoulders. Then, Long Tingguang’s resolve turned to defiance.

“I serve my empress, even in death.” As he spoke, Long Tingguang produced a knife. With a single, swift motion he opened his own throat. Long Tingguang’s blood spilled over the ruined ground, and his spirit guttered one last time before finally dying out. Dying and returning his cultivation to Jin Xifeng.

The sky turned red, and a wave of power washed over the empire. To the east, near the capital city of Jiankang, a red sun hung low in the sky. The Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment screamed at He Yu in warning. But even a blind fool could have seen this truth. On the back of stolen power, Jin Xifeng had advanced. Ascension. The Ninth Realm—Heavenly True Immortal.