6.22 - The Legendary Tan Zihao

As He Yu slammed into Sha Xiang once again, Tan Zihao and Long Tingguang clashed in the skies above. All four of their presences pressed down on the world, creating a clash of aspects nearly as intense as the battle over the Shrouded Peaks had been. The difference was that this time, He Yu wasn’t a helpless Golden Core in the face of experts far stronger than himself. He was a part of it.

Above, Tan Zihao laughed as he worked through complex and fluid motions with his spear, the vermilion tassel fluttering with each perfect sweep or thrust. As the great old tiger, he made for a fearsome sight. He leaped willingly into the great, blood-soaked pit. Landing on each of those gleaming blades as though they were the branches of some inside-out tree, he would tear into the walls and shatter them at their roots.

He didn’t do this without harm. Long Tingguang was likewise at the Divine Soul Apotheosis stage. He was not a foe to be taken lightly, even by a legendary expert like Tan Zihao. For each blade the old tiger sundered, he took dozens of wounds. Seeping cuts, oozing blood and boiling with living shadow.

Tan Zihao and Long Tingguang fought, and the broke earth and sky alike. Under the relentless black sun, the desert conquered and the tiger roared. A pit opened in answer, and a thousand bloody blades dug into the tiger’s pelt. Jian clashed against spear. Flame and shadow ripped into one another as metal screamed against metal. He Yu could barely track the exchange of techniques.

Long Tingguang fought with the grace and precision one would expect of a swordsman. He met each of Tan Zihao’s strikes with practiced confidence, then returned them with immaculate form. Shadows trailed behind his weapon and struck out like grasping claws when he found a gap in Tan Zihao’s defenses. When the king would launch a formation of the Mark of the Dark Sun, Long Tingguang’s demon core would manifest and take the brunt of the attack. It turned to gleaming metal in the instant Tan Zihao’s attack struck.

He Yu desperately wished he could properly observe the battle overhead. The clash of these two experts would provide countless insights, and now that he was at Divine Body Attainment, he could observe without their spirits obliterating him. But there was another foe, so he would have to make do with catching glimpses with the aid of the Peerless Judgment. As he turned the bulk of his attention to Sha Xiang, Tan Zihao led Long Tingguang further away from Iron Gate City.

“If only I’d got my hands on you instead of that rich friend of yours,” Sha Xiang growled as she slapped aside a strike from his guandao. “I’d have done so much more than just shatter your spine. I’d have ripped out your fucking heart and fed it to you before you died.”

She threw a punch at him that rippled from the heat of the dripping molten stone that encased her fist. He Yu turned it aside with the Spring Rain Mirror. Another fist, this one shadowy and lined with spines, came at him from an impossible angle as her demon core manifested and struck. It was almost fully detached from her body, acting almost like a second fighter he had to contend with. He formed the Bracing Wind, layering Heaven’s Descending Blade upon it. A shell of wind and lightning burst out from him and expanded in every direction.

The demon core and Sha Xiang both recoiled, and in that fraction of an instant, He Yu struck. A sparking dragon’s head formed around his fist. He threw a cross punch at Sha Xiang, catching her in the temple. She slammed to the dirt a hundred yards away as the explosion of heaven qi ripped apart the ground beneath them. He Yu pointed his guandao and called down the fury of heaven.

A column of lightning, formed of a thousand individual strikes, lit up the heavens. He Yu blasted forward, the sound of his own advance lost in the deafening thunder of his attack. He brought his guandao down in an overhand strike, forming the Crashing Wind and calling down countless more strikes from the heavens.

Sha Xiang crossed her arms before her. She layered the two extra arms afforded her by the Four Demon Fists and her demon core over her own, bolstering her defense. He Yu’s blade bit into shadow, stone, then muscle. The acrid scent of lighting was followed by the sickly scent of charred flesh. She screamed at him in fury and pain before launching into an all-out assault.

“I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill that bitch Zhang Lifen, then I’ll kill all your fucking friends! Why couldn’t you have just stayed in Shulin, like the stupid, weak little piece of shit you’re supposed to be?”

In the serenity he gained from cycling the Peerless Judgment, He Yu considered her words. Over the years since leaving his home as barely more than a child, he’d learned many things. Certain truths had repeated themselves throughout those years, most of them yolked to the cycles of being that defined cultivation, and seeking one’s Way.

The interplay of one’s spirit—their base nature—along with their choices, and how they pursued their Way, were the foundations of an immortal. Much of who one was came from those little choices. But those choices were as much a part of who you were in the beginning as they were the person you sought to become.

Above, Tan Zihao clashed with Long Tingguang. He Yu had grown familiar with the king over the years. He knew Tan Zihao wasn’t quite as simple as he might sometimes seem, but there was a sort of simplicity there. His was to fight. To struggle, to test himself against the strongest foes he could find.

It was, He Yu thought, much of the reason he’d changed his mind about challenging Jin Xifeng. About why he’d intervened on He Yu’s behalf, and thrown himself into battle against Long Tingguang. He was much like his brother and daughter in that way. There was likely more to Long Tingguang, whatever that might be, than the yawning pit of shadow and want that formed his spirit. More than simply acting as the servant to Jin Xifeng. Just as there was more to someone like Li Heng, or Yan Shirong, or Chen Fei.

He Yu wondered how much more there might once have been to Sha Xiang. Once a girl from his village, now a woman consumed by—what, exactly? A hatred that bordered on obsession, and all for someone she considered inferior? As he turned aside yet another flurry of punches and kicks, he found himself curious as to what she might be thinking. To find herself like this, now, flailing pointlessly against someone she thought was a nobody. Someone she thought was a stain on her pride, simple because they both had once been a part of the same sect.

He wondered if she’d ever truly connected to her Way, ever defined her Dao, and what that Dao might have been. Or perhaps she’d simply advanced through the power of the demon core, straying ever further from her own path as she did so. It didn’t matter much, did it? She’d always been this petty, hateful person. She’d allowed it to consume her. And now she would pay her price.

He Yu supposed, in the end, it didn’t really matter what Sha Xiang’s path might once have been. Nor did it really matter what she’d become. She had made her own choices every step of the way, just as He Yu had made his.

His spirit raged against Sha Xiang’s. The storm beat its relentless tempo against earth and flame, smoke and shadow. She met him as best she could, striking with the weight of a mountain and the fury of an inferno. Yes, she’d grown faster. Yes, she was stronger and tougher than ever before. But she threw herself against the legendary He Yu. Against a peerless expert in the eyes of all heaven and earth.

As that thought settled over him, He Yu felt the truth of the world vibrate in harmony. Within in Golden Core, and cultivated by his Nascent Soul, his Wayborn Seed fully unfurled at last. Like great stalks of a new spring’s growth, he reached for his Way. In that moment of sublime connection, the Eternal Dao opened, and he moved with the Dao of Heroism.

In his lower dantian, his Wayborn Seed reached to the heavens.

In his middle dantian, the Dao of Heroism shone with the brilliance of a thousand suns.

In his upper dantian, his Daoist Mind grasped the enormity of heaven and earth.

He Yu looked down upon Sha Xiang from atop the infinite stair leading to the Heavenly Palace. He regarded her with the judgment of an emperor, and in that moment, he pitied her. Although he pitied her, she had long since worn out any mercy he might once have had.

“So many choices,” he said. “We make them every day. Some great, most small, but they all lead us to the present, don’t they?”

“You a fucking sage, now?” she spat.

“Nobody climbs the realms of cultivation without learning truths about themselves. At least, that’s how I did it. I always thought that’s how it went for everyone. Seems like there’s another way. You take one of those cores into yourself, and you let it consume all the rot you hold on to, then it feeds that rot right back, doesn’t it?”

Sha Xiang launched herself at him. Earth and fire infused fists slammed into the Spring Rain Mirror again and again. The land beneath them cracked as great ravines opened up, only to be filled by the endless deluge of the storm. “My Dao is power. Strength. I fight, I win. And when I’m done with you, I’ll fight your teacher and your friends, and I’ll beat all of them, too.”

The demon core swung at him just as he cut a gash across Sha Xiang with his guandao. He slammed the spiked cap of his weapon into its wrist, then followed up with another lightning-imbued strike with the blade. “No, I don’t think you will.”

He could sense her spirit growing weaker with each moment. Flickering like a candle about to go out. The Crescent Wind sheared off one of the demon core’s arms. A twinned howl came from Sha Xiang and the core both at once. He Yu advanced with a sweeping, upward strike that came in underneath her guard and opened her belly.

Sha Xiang’s innards spilled out, and she stopped mid-fight to look down at herself. To desperately try and stuff them back in. She didn’t see the strike that killed her. When her head hit the mud, followed a moment later by her body, her expression was still one of shock as her empty eyes stared into the storm above. Stared into the storm that had become her end.

Turning to the battle between Tan Zihao and Long Tingguang, He Yu pulled back his spirit. The two Eighth Realm experts still exchanged techniques, but now they were far enough away that He Yu needed the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment if he wanted to observe. Both were bloodied, but they also both still had immense amounts of power left, were their presences any indication. He Yu intended to watch, gaining what insights he could from their battle.

Then, an uproar of horns and drums sounded from the west. He Yu turned his perception, and saw the coming of the Jade Kingdom’s army. Tan Xiaoling was at its head, flanked by Li Heng and Yan Shirong. All three rode exquisite flying swords, likely taken from the king’s treasure vaults. The army was close behind, all atop all manner of wagons, carts, and similar. The vehicles had all been scripted to fly as well, and the horizon continued to darken as countless experts swarmed like a cloud of cicadas.

The defensive formations around Iron Gate City dropped, and from the fortress’s center, the patriarch of the Li shot into the sky atop his own flying treasure. His spirit was fully unleashed, and he’d stepped into the Eighth Realm since He Yu had last encountered him. Winter descended over the plain as Li Renshu streaked toward the fight between Tan Zihao and Long Tingguang like a screaming blizzard.

A curl of mist and the touch of a waterfall’s spray announced the arrival of someone He Yu hadn’t seen in far too long. Someone he’d not truly believed still lived until that very moment. He turned, and offered Zhang Lifen a salute, although he didn’t know what exactly their relationship was anymore. Judging by her spirit, she was at the peak of Soul Refining. Half a step into Divine Body Attainment, to be sure. But he was more advanced than she was, which wasn’t something he’d been prepared for, were he honest. For a moment, she simply stood there and regarded him with her uncanny, shifting blue eyes.

“It seems I hadn’t needed to worry about you after all,” she said, her tone just as light and unserious as he remembered it. Her eyes flicked to Sha Xiang’s body. “Shouldn’t have killed that one, though. Demon core and all that.”

As the Jade Kingdom’s army approached and the imperial army broke and abandoned the siege, He Yu blinked back tears of relief. “It’s good to see you, too,” he said.

Zhang Lifen’s smile turned genuine. “Let’s get inside the city. There’s little enough that we could add out here, given all of this,” she waved vaguely toward the battle and the armies. “And there’s plenty of catching up to do, isn’t there?”