6.30 - Long Tingguang

“Shit,” Zhang Lifen said softly.

It was a bit of an under reaction, given the circumstances. If there was any upside to Long Tingguang’s arrival, it was that there really wasn’t any point in holding back anymore.

He Yu unleashed his spirit, his presence billowing out from him. The sky turned black as clouds boiled out from nothing. He called down the flashing punishment of heaven and wiped out the half-dozen Nascent Soul and early Soul Refining core users that had been dogging their heels for hours.

Although she grimaced and the amount of power He Yu had just returned to Jin Xifeng, Zhang Lifen said nothing. She knew as well as he did they no longer had the luxury of crippling their foes. Already Long Tingguang’s presence closed in. They had only a handful of minutes, at best, before he arrived.

“Go,” He Yu said. “Find the others and hide yourselves. I’ll hold him off for as long as I can while you escape.”

The look of utter disbelief on Zhang Lifen’s features lasted for a fraction of an instant—less than the time between the beating of a heart. He Yu wasn’t all that surprised at her reaction. What did surprise him was the slap.

Her open palm cracked against his cheek. It stung even through the resilience of his body enforcement. For all her grace and speed, it was sometimes easy to forget she was just as strong as he was, a Divine Body Attainment expert with a body enforcement technique of her own.

“You’re not throwing your life away. Not here, not after all this time. We need to meet up with the others.”

“I can hold for a time. I’ve stood against higher realm experts before. With the Peerless Judgment, I can—”

She slapped him again. “If we’ve any hope of surviving, it’s together. Now stop being an idiot, and let’s move.”

He Yu nearly objected again. But as he met her eyes and saw their usual uncanny, gently shifting blue had darkened to a churning violent black, he realized she was furious. With him. A thousand thoughts surged through his mind, far faster than a mortal would have been able to track. The moments of grief at the loss of Elder Cai. Her insistence they push to find Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong. The moments they’d shared in training all those years ago, discussing the Dao and the subtleties of cultivation like a proper student and master.

Zhang Lifen cared far more than she let on, and she’d lost enough already. Despite putting a brave face on it, she’d thought Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong lost until moments ago. For years, she’d held on to hope that He Yu lived, although she’d known it to be a foolish thing. Then, he’d shown up at the gates of a city under siege. She couldn’t bear the thought of going through all the loss, all the grief, again. Whether for him, for Yi Xiurong, or for Ren Huang. It was too much.

Casting his perception north, He Yu activated the Peerless Judgment. Long Tingguang raced over the tree-covered mountaintops of the southern coast. He was too far away yet to tell if he came for He Yu and Zhang Lifen and the others, but he supposed that didn’t matter. They were close enough that when he arrived, he’d sweep them all into their graves just the same.

“Alright, let’s go,” He Yu said.

Together, He Yu and Zhang Lifen headed toward the unfurling presences of Yi Xiurong and Ren Huang. They poured on as much speed as they could manage. He Yu surged ahead of Zhang Lifen, the combination of the Sky Dragon’s Flight bolstered by the raw speed of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering, proving too much for her flying fan to keep up with. She would only be a few moments behind, and a quick check with the Peerless Judgment confirmed she’d arrive well enough before Long Tingguang did.

Cresting one final ridge of mountains, He Yu caught sight of Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong. They battled a handful of cultivators, no doubt more followers of Jin Xifeng drawn to the region by He Yu and Zhang Lifen. When He Yu slammed down in their midst, he released a formation of Heaven’s Descending Blade. He cleaved through the lower realm core users in a single blow.

“Idiot!” Ren Huang roared, the fury of his cultivation base blazing in the red-embered eyes of the wolf formed by his spirit.

“Surely Zhang Lifen has told you,” Yi Xiurong said in a far more measured, but no less disapproving, manner. “Killing them outright merely strengthens our true foe. We must refrain from giving Jin Xifeng any power without dire need, should we wish to overcome her.”

He Yu jabbed a finger toward the approaching Divine Soul Apotheosis expert. “What do you call that, if not unnecessary?”

“We need to run,” Zhang Lifen said as she alighted next to him in a spray of cool mist. “Surely you haven’t forgotten that one?”

“Time to die on our feet, it seems,” Ren Huang said in that characteristic rumble of his. He turned north to face Long Tingguang’s approach, hefting his spiked wolf-tooth club onto one shoulder.

“I’d hoped we could find it before anyone like him showed up,” Yi Xiurong said. “It seems I hoped in vain.” With that, she took her place next to Ren Huang.

Still cycling the Peerless Judgment to gauge Long Tingguang’s approach, He Yu latched onto Yi Xiurong’s words. “Find what?” he asked.

“Forget it,” Ren Huang said. “Too late. We’re dead. Nothing for it but to go down fighting.”

“He’s right,” Yi Xiurong added, sparing a glance over her shoulder. “But just to sate your curiosity, we came here in search of a mythic tomb. A sealed realm, said to house the remains of a great general from a period of strife and division. He was revered as a god for a time after he left the mortal realm, and we thought that if we made offerings to his spirit, we might at least gain some insights on how to proceed. If we were truly fortunate, we may even find artifacts or receive blessings. It was a slim hope, and it seems too slim in the end.”

“What if we found it?” He Yu asked.

As much as he hated to just stand there and talk as Long Tingguang drew ever closer, the Peerless Judgment showed him the truth. This was their chance, their way out, if such a thing even existed. He didn’t know how or why the Peerless Judgment marked this as the way forward, but he’d long since learned to put his trust in his perception technique. It had always been powerful, and the alterations Elder Cai had made to it when he altered the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace art had only increased its capabilities.

“We’d still likely die trying to get inside,” Ren Huang said. “But if we made it inside, it might keep someone like him out. The legends say only the righteous can enter the realm of Yunchang. If those legends prove true, and we somehow made it in, we just might make it.”

He Yu wasn’t sure if these were the worst odds he’d ever faced, but they were far from the best. Either way, he’d little choice but to take them. Even as Long Tingguang drew closer, now mere moments away judging by the overwhelming power of his presence, He Yu cast his perception over the valley. If the entrance wasn’t right here, or at least very close by, this was the end.

Through the dense vegetation, mostly broadleaf trees that created a thick canopy covering the valley floor choked with undergrowth of vines and ferns, He Yu pushed his perception as far as he could manage. So faint he thought he might be imagining it out of sheer hope and a burning desire not to die at the hands of an Eighth Realm monster, He Yu found a path.

It was old, perhaps centuries so, but it was there. Overgrown, covered in leaves and half buried by time and nature, but here and there he saw a stone. Too flat, with edges too straight and sharp to have come from anything other than human hands. A gap in the otherwise uniform ground cover, winding toward a nearby slope that formed the valley wall. Toward a cave, its entrance obscured by the passage of time and the relentless march of the natural world and the cycle of growth and seasons.

He could be wrong. The entrance could just be a natural cave. Perhaps only a few arm lengths deep—just enough for some of the local wildlife to use as a den or as shelter during a typhoon. Or it could be their salvation.

“This way,” He Yu said as he set off into the forest at a run. As he plunged into the dense foliage, he pulled back his spirit as much as he could. It wouldn’t take Long Tingguang more than a few moments to find them once he arrived, but every second counted.

The others were only a few steps behind him, marked more by their spiritual weight upon the world rather than any sound they made. No matter what Way a cultivator followed, no matter what Dao they exemplified, they all would be far more graceful than even the greatest of mortal dancers or acrobats.

Following He Yu’s lead, they all withdrew their spirits. Perhaps, if they’d been less advanced, they could have hidden themselves completely. The natural qi here was abundant, and overwhelmingly aligned with life and wood. Earth and mountain qi thrummed through the nearby hills and peaks, and water qi drifted on the damp air and through the clouds above. But the four of them were too advanced, and even restrained, their spirits were loud in a way that only immortals could be.

They pushed through the foliage with He Yu in the lead. With each step toward the promised cave, He Yu’s hope and fear grew in equal measure. Just as the cave entrance itself came into view, obscured by a thick curtain of vines, Long Tingguang slammed down into the center of the valley floor behind them.

“Run! It’s just ahead!” He Yu hissed in the loudest whisper he dared. The others would surely hear him, and the Eighth Realm monster only a few hundred yards away likely would, too.

The valley floor exploded in metal and blood. Massive blades erupted from the ground, each one caked in the dark, rust-colored stains of dried and flecking blood. A wave of killing intent washed over them, and a pit opened in the world. All around them, the valley collapsed in on itself as Long Tingguang’s spirit devoured everything it touched.

He Yu cursed to himself—he should have seen something like this coming. Why would someone like that bother searching? Easier to simply destroy everything within reach and sort through the wreckage later. Even if he had a perception technique half as capable as the Peerless Judgment, it would be much faster for Long Tingguang to just unleash all the power he could, rather than spend time looking for them. There wasn’t any way they could have gone far, after all. Not without immediately alerting him to their presence.

As the ground crumbled beneath them, falling into an ever-growing pit of shadow and certain death, they made a mad dash for the cave entrance. As each passing second stretched out to an eternity, He Yu scrambled for some backup plan. Some way that, if he’d been wrong, he could pull them all out of the fire. Some way to give them a fighting chance.

They were less than a dozen feet from the entrance when Long Tingguang found them.

A blurred mass of shadow—like a flock of birds had passed over the sun for just an instant—flitted in front of them. Long Tingguang stood just before the narrow cave entrance, framed by the vines and what could only be a pair of moss-covered statues of guardian beasts. One of them was fashioned into the likeness of a tiger. The other was a tortoise with a snake for a tail—a xuanwu.

Long Tingguang held his jian at the ready, and the blade gleamed with silver death. He lifted his free hand and made a fist. A forest of blades erupted from the earth, shredding the natural forest of trees and ferns. Metal qi cut into He Yu’s flesh, despite his best efforts to dodge the technique and turn away what he could with the Spring Rain Mirror. Zhang Lifen took the attack the best, the combination of her advancement and naturally fluid movements allowing her to avoid the worst of it. Yi Xiurong and Ren Huang both looked awful. They were each covered in blood, having suffered at least a hundred separate injuries apiece.

He Yu didn’t hesitate—didn’t think twice.

A storm exploded out from him, black clouds covering the sky and a torrent of rain washing clean his and his companions’ countless wounds. He’d crossed half the distance to Long Tingguang before his guandao had properly formed from his storage treasure, heaven’s fury crackling along its length as he drew it back for one last thundering strike.

He was dead. He knew it. All of them were. The Dao of Heroism sang in his ears, exalting the glory of his resolve, his last stand against this monster whose very spirit was coated in the blood of all those he’d slain. He Yu charged forward, crossing the remaining distance faster than even he could fully track.

His guandao slammed into Long Tingguang’s jian. It may as well have struck a mountain. The shock of the impact nearly caused him to lose his grip. Another eruption of metal blades surged toward He Yu from every conceivable angle. From the ground, from the very air. From above, below, and behind.

He Yu cycled what he could into the Spring Rain Mirror. For every ten blades he turned aside, ten more made it through. He pushed what was left of his cultivation base into the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. His skin shone like burnished bronze, but the blades dug into him just the same.

“Nobody is here to save you,” Long Tingguang said. “I will rip your heart from your chest. I will shatter your Nascent Soul so that you cannot be reformed. I will deliver your head to my empress, and reclaim her favor with your death, inheritor of the enemy’s arts.”