6.43 - Her True Dragon

Long Tingguang met them on their terms. His jian flashed in the afternoon sun before shadows wrapped around the blade to follow each of his fluid, practiced strikes. Jagged metal blades burst from thin air, their gleam dulled by pits and rust, by flakes of cracked and dried blood. His spirit was a maw. A gaping, sword-lined pit that would swallow all. A void of howling hunger and covetous fury.

The touch of Jin Xifeng’s spirit was strong upon Long Tingguang, stronger than it had been upon Sha Xiang, Kong Huizhong, or any of the other core users they’d faced before. Even in their opening exchange, He Yu felt the fury, the danger, and the press of killing intent. This foe, more than any they’d faced before, was not one to be taken lightly.

As the storm rolled out from him, Leigong’s drum beat in time with He Yu’s thundering pulse and rushing qi. This was exactly the sort of person he was meant to face. All the doubts he still held about their task ahead faded before this. Just the sheer weight of Long Tingguang’s killing intent was enough to know. Enough to number the countless dead that had suffered at this man’s hands. And He Yu remembered well their last meeting. Had it not been for his own defiance of this beast, his own willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others, Yunchang would have left him to die outside his tomb.

But now the scales were more balanced, if still weighted against him in sum. He Yu had advanced. With his spirit reforged to match his body, his storm covered the world. A whirling nexus of power rotated around him standing at the center. The furious sky opened, pouring down golden streaks of heaven’s wrath while rain beat against his skin and his clothes. From atop the infinite stair, he beheld the man standing against him and found that man wanting.

Lightning sparked along the length of his now eight pillars—each on a brick in the foundation of his divine body. The Heavenly Palace rose at his back, the home of a spirit that had truly ascended beyond mortal bounds. And while the storm raged, it did so with an ordered pulse, keeping perfect time to the steady beat of Leigong’s drum. Shenlong roared, and He Yu’s guandao split heaven asunder.

To one side of him, Chen Fei reached to the heavens. Clad in the lion-plate of the Titan’s Panoply, her spirit hummed with the quiet and stable power of mountain and metal and earth. Above, a single star shone down, casting its pale and gentle light upon a solitary peak. But in that peace, in that serenity, lay an indomitable will. To accept her nature and her Dao, Chen Fei had come far. She had faced guilt and fear and from it all, she’d drawn strength. She stood tall, her fists warping the air around them as hundreds of formation characters danced around her in a pattern so complex it almost hurt to look at.

Iron muscles and granite bones lent strength enough to break apart even an expert of the Eighth Realm. A single punch from her could sunder mountains and reshape the very earth itself, and that was before she used her family art, the Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols. The sheer weight of her spirit upon the world strained even He Yu. If any doubt had remained about Chen Fei’s raw power, the full release of her Eighth Realm Spirit cast it to the wayside.

Opposite her, Li Heng balanced on his flying sword. His was the coming of winter. Dark, cold, and endless. Moonlight glinted off fresh-fallen snow, and hoarfrost gripped the world. Spires of ice like jagged blue-white spears reached for the black starless heavens and shattered rusted bloody blades with their embrace. His silver flashing jian was a match in every respect for Long Tingguang’s—equal in make and wielder alike. Always he’d been an exceptional swordsman, but now he truly had become peerless.

A silver glow suffused his blade, growing brighter and more deadly with each strike he turned aside. And when released, the full moon of his spirit shone brighter than the midday sun. Ice crept up the hems and sleeves of his robes, the telltale mark of his body enforcement, the Raiment of the Frozen Soul.

Together, they stood against a monster.

He Yu charged forward, carried by the Sky Dragon’s Flight. A forest of pitted blades erupted around him, tearing open the very air as they sprang from nothing. For each blade, a blue disk the size of his palm flashed into place and turned the edge aside. He Yu wove a dragonfly dance through the jagged maze of blood and iron, darting with a speed possible only through his advancement in the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering.

As he flew, the storm came with him. Lightning reached out and shattered countless of Long Tingguang’s blades, only for the Empress’s dragon to call forth countless more. In the sky they clashed, jian against guandao, in a thundering echo of a dance He Yu had stepped through uncountable times. Steel rang on steel, and heaven met shadow and blood.

Chen Fei leaped from her disk. In the blackened sky above the mountain of her spirit, the stars paused in the eternal dance. One of their number fell to the earth as she formed her ultimate technique, the Falling Star Strike. Mountain and metal exploded from the impact, and Long Tingguang slammed into shattered earth below.

Leveling his sword at their fallen foe, Li Heng released all the power he’d gathered from the initial exchange. A river of silver poured into the crater. Spires of jagged ice rose from the furthest edge of Li Heng’s attack, as frost expanded relentlessly across what was left of the plain below. Unnatural winter gripped the world as he poured ever more qi into his technique.

He Yu added his strength to the assault. With a sweep of his guandao, he formed Heaven’s Descending Blade. The skies above opened and shed their wrath upon the world. Countless bolts of lighting split the air and a roar of thunder from a thousand and more strikes shook the very bones of the world.

The assault ended, and Long Tingguang rose to his feet. A bloody black shell encased him, a hungry spirit ravenous for always more, and tinged with the touch of Jin Xifeng’s bloody sunset moved as one with the black-clad expert. He looked up to them, his jian writhing with shadow and his spirit screaming with killing intent.

For dozens of li in every direction, the earth had been stripped bare. Any features the land once held were now nothing but smoothed over soil and the broken remains of once great boulders. Spires of ice stood dozens of feet tall, pillars holding up nothing but the memory of a land once rich with life. Cracked and jagged stones littered the ground, rent through with rusted metal. The center of the crater in which Long Tingguang stood was smooth and glistening—lightning-forged glass born from the heat and fury of heaven unleashed.

“I was a fool to allow Sha Xiang to face you alone, He Yu,” Long Tingguang said as his demon core retreated back inside his spirit. “Had I known what you and your companions were capable of, I would have advised against allowing those failures, Wang Xiaobo and Xin Lu to pursue their pathetic grudge. Even had they been willing to accept and master the greatest of Empress Jin’s gifts, they would have been as children before you. Empress Jin should have dealt with you long ago.”

Despite the clear respect in his words as he spoke, He Yu’s spirit trembled to listen. For all they’d put into their last attack, Long Tingguang stood unharmed. Amidst the ruined land and scars of battle, he remained as he had before the fight. Pristine, powerful, and confident. His spirit was undiminished by his defense, and if the demon core had suffered, it now nestled safely within his spirit, feeding and healing and readying itself to come to his aid once again. He drew back his blade and shadows boiled around him. The voracious pit of his spirit opened, and the howling scream of want it released dug into He Yu’s soul.

He Yu wasn’t about to let Long Tingguang dictate the pace of battle. To hesitate was to die, and if they’d any hope of defeating him, they would have to be relentless in their assault. The winds screamed as he slammed down on Long Tingguang, his guandao brilliant with golden sparking power.

Advancing through a series of sweeping strikes that howled with wind and trailed shining heaven, He Yu somehow forced Long Tingguang back. Step by step he advanced, drawing ever closer to his opponent. His grip on his guandao shortened, and soon he’d gotten inside his opponent’s guard, despite Long Tingguang’s shorter weapon. Just where he’d meant to be.

He released his grip, and closed his fist. Heaven qi coursed through his arm meridian, and the shining head of a dragon formed around his fist, its ridged scales reaching up to his shoulder. He Yu stepped in and struck. The roaring dragon drove toward Long Tingguang’s lower dantian, heaven qi reaching out for a single, decisive strike. His technique met steel. The pitted, bloody jian turned his strike aside, sending the spike of heaven qi meant for Long Tingguang into the ground where it harmlessly shattered the glass crater floor.

“I am not so easy to deal with as those other core users you’ve faced,” Long Tingguang said. He reached out with his free hand, grasping for He Yu’s throat.

Although he darted back with the Sky Dragon’s Flight, whatever technique Long Tingguang had used didn’t need him to make contact. Another thousand blades sprang from all sides, ripping through the crater floor and sending razor-edged shards of glass into the air. The very same air that gave birth to yet more blades. Countless attacks from impossible angles, too much for even the Peerless Judgment to track. Although He Yu called hundreds of Spring Rain Mirrors, hundreds more of the pitted blades dug into his flesh. His serpent scale armor took a good number of those that got through his defensive technique, and the toughness granted by the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering turned aside yet more.

But it wasn’t enough. Never could have been enough. Long Tinggaung at the peak of Divine Soul Apotheosis, judging by the weight and power of his spirit. A foe the likes of which He Yu had no real business fighting.

At least not alone.

Silver formation script flared around Long Tingguang, binding him and trapping his sword and his limbs. Li Heng appeared behind him in a flash of moonlit snow, and five dark scars opened on Long Tingguang’s back and spirit both. An instant later, Chen Fei hit him with the force of a meteor, landing a single punch with the power to shatter mountains.

The formation shattered. Long Tingguang ripped free of his restraints and counterattacked with all the ferocity He Yu had come to expect from a core user. His jian reached out, steel and shadow parting the silk of Li Heng’s robes effortlessly as the edge of his jian met flesh. Hi free hand closed once more, this time the forest of blades closed in on Chen Fei. She at least had the layered defenses of the White Mountain Body Art to fall back on. The Titan’s Panoply took the brunt of the assault, while the Iron Fortress Redoubt took the rest.

“I will not call you cowards for facing me like this,” Long Tingguang said as he grabbed Chen Fei’s wrist mid strike. “Even the three of you are hopeless, despite your obvious talent. You should have brought Li Renshu and Tan Zihao along. Perhaps with their help, you would have survived.” He contemptuously threw her into He Yu, and they tumbled for nearly a full li in tangle of limbs before fully coming to a stop. As He Yu pulled himself free with the Sky Dragon’s Flight and charged back in, Li Heng barely held the older expert at bay.

As He Yu arrived back in the fight, his wounds already closed up, Long Tingguang pivoted mid thrust. It was only the Peerless Judgment that allowed him to get the Spring Rain Mirror up in time, and avoid a jian to the throat. The change in target cost Long Tingguang, however, as it gave Li Heng a massive opening.

The blade of Li Heng’s jian vanished, replaced by curling frozen mist. He swept the invisible blade across Long Tingguang’s exposed flank, and five more black rents opened on his spirit as the Darkmoon Strife bit into him. The counterattack from Long Tingguang never connected—a formation barrier appeared between the shadowy sword and Li Heng’s throat. Chen Fei landed a flying kick on Long Tingguang’s chest, sending the older expert stumbling.

He Yu pushed the tiny advantage, seeking to swing the fight’s momentum as far in their favor as he could manage while they had the chance. As hard as they all fought, Long Tingguang still matched them blow-for-blow. As they ripped apart the very world around them, He Yu pushed himself to his absolute limit.