Chapter 137
Battle of the Nascents
The atmosphere was sizzling with invisible flames, and Xiaoling felt the mountainous pressure slowly descend upon the hall as Lei Feng's words faintly echoed throughout it and began to fade... all whilst her Master remained rooted in place, a smile hanging on his lips.
A breath later, she felt something burst out and caught from the corner of her eyes Lei Feng flicking a single finger toward Yu Minge—it appeared wholly apathetic, as though he was shooing away a dog, yet packed within the motion was the amount of Qi that Xiaoling would struggle mightily to block.
The array of invisible pressure burst forth and landed toward her Master within a moment. The latter, similarly, unwrapped his finger and flicked it, counteracting the force and dissipating it into the shutter of cooling wind that blew both ways, merely kicking up the cloth covering the tabletops.
"Oh?" Lei Feng exclaimed softly and, without a wasted breath, flicked two fingers at once, doing the exact same thing. Yu Minge replied in kind, as though mimicking the apathy on purpose to irritate and instigate the man still sitting down.
This repeated until five fingers were flicked at once, and the amount of energy dissipated was no longer merely kicking up the cloth but even blowing open the doors and the windows. The other Elders had already retreated out of the room, likely per her Master's orders, and were possibly setting up an array around the building to try and desperately prevent the damage from spilling out and over the rest of the Sect.
Even when two people at Soul Ascendance Realm fought seriously, it often resulted in a completely demolished landscape that would take decades, at least, to recover without external help. Scaling the damage up to the cultivators at Nascent Soul Realm fighting likely meant that, if it wasn't contained even a bit, it could potentially level the entire valley the sect was situated within.
"Interesting," Lei Feng said, his thin lips stretching out into a strange smile as he slowly stood up. "Interesting indeed. It looks like this barren shithole has been hiding something of grander value than even a pretty face. Very well—consider me duly impressed. And even though you affronted me, I am gracious enough to offer you a chance: cut off your arm as a form of repentance, and I shall take you to the Promised Land where you might yet break out of the cocoon and make something of yourself rather than rotting here."
"Just an arm?" Xiaoling sighed inwardly and inched away slowly.
"Just an arm."
"You, indeed, are gracious," her Master said with a rather strange smile. "And here I am, considering whether to leave your body whole for wanting to thieve my Disciple. I certainly need to learn grace from you... eventually."
"... haah, frog at the bottom of a well," Lei Feng said. "Just because you blocked a few of my teasing probes, you fancy yourself strong enough to battle someone at the Nascent Soul Realm. I am afraid your hubris will be your undoing. What separates me and, indeed, all others at my realm and above, and why there has never been a record of someone crossing the realm to fight at this stage, is that you merely command the Qi. I, on the other hand, command the world."
Xiaoling felt her blood suddenly stop circulating and her entire body give out as she planked to the side, losing control of herself. It, indeed, felt as though the world abruptly rejected her, telling her she did not belong. The feeling was absolutely horrifying—though, luckily, it didn't last. It passed almost as quickly as it beset her, and she gratefully looked over at her Master whose smiling expression vanished, having turned hollow and cold.
"I have made my decision," he said, his voice ringing out like a decree from death. "You don't deserve to leave behind a strand of hair, let alone the body."
It all unraveled within a flash—two figures disappeared as the rooftop of the building blew wide open, shards of wood flying off like an upward rain. The descending winds absolutely obliterated the entire hall, tables and chairs and food and drinks flying as though caught up in a tornado, while the flashing light of overwhelming Qi temporarily streaked into the sky in the shape of a pillar.
Xiaoling grappled with the severe pressure that nearly had her kneeling, using every bit of Qi to resist it. The thoughts that she allowed herself to fester—namely that, perhaps, she could contend against some weaker Nascent Soul Realm cultivators—began to evaporate swiftly from her mind. She was struggling to navigate the mere castoffs, the byproducts of the clash, barely managing to free herself of the chains they produced. If she were to directly receive an attack? She would be lucky to last a moment.
Casting her eye up and past the sheen of light, she could just barely make out two flickering figures appearing and disappearing like the beams of light. The clashes were erosive, destabilizing the very fabric of reality around them—Xiaoling saw cracks webbing out each time they clashed, like bricks thrown into thick glass, though the reality seemed to recover just as quickly. Those cracks lasted not even a breath, and though they were terrifying each moment they appeared, even after nearly a minute, none ever materialized into anything more.
The sheer level of clash left her mind reeling; she couldn't keep track of much of anything, in truth. Only occasionally catching a glimpse of the two figures before they disappeared in the blinding storm of Qi, the likes of which were teetering on the edge of soul-crushing.
Even juxtaposed against the ashen clouds above, the two somehow seemed equally terrifying, if at all possible. But Xiaoling knew, of the two, her Master was vastly more terrifying. Though the world was blind to it, she knew well enough that the man's entire cultivation had been wiped clean just recently—and that he'd regained it all in less than a month, apparently regaining enough of it to contend against a Nascent Soul Realm expert.
Even if he confidently spoke to her and told her that she should not let herself be bullied and that if it came down to it, he'd be able to contend... parts of her always doubted him. Long term, she never had any doubts that her Master would be able to contend against anyone, even if doubts for the now existed. She always knew, in her heart of hearts, that there was likely no other individual anywhere within ten thousand miles that could match her Master's innate talents.
Publicly, his Spirit Roots were qualified as Mid-Heaven—extremely impressive for these parts, but not entirely unmatched. She knew, however, that wasn't possible; after all, she herself had Peak Heaven Roots (however, recently, she felt... a certain buzz within them, like the stirring of a cocoon before the emergence of a butterfly), and knew it was impossible that her Master's roots were worse than hers.
And now, after a baptism of sorts in the Forest, it was anyone's guess precisely where he stood. Perhaps he even leapfrogged Immortal Roots in their entirety and reached the vaunted Cosmic Roots. Or, she dared wonder for a fleeting second, maybe even Origin Roots—the ilk only ever mentioned in the distant legends and held only by the cultivators of Myth that have long since perished.
Once again, the two men came into view for a moment, but this time around... it lasted a bit longer. It was, in part, her getting more used to it, but in part because they seemed to have been slowing down—namely the visitor, Lei Feng. She noted that there were streaks of red on his face rather similar to the color of blood, and the momentary glimpse of his expression that she managed to make out resembled a man at his wits' end more so than someone in full control.
Explosions rang out one after another, violent winds whipping out and streaking across the Sect's grounds; she peeked out and saw that quite a few rooftops were blown open, though, luckily, none of the buildings were torn up. The Elders managed to cast arrays just barely strong enough to keep the buildings tethered to the ground, even if the roofs and some furniture were sacrificed in the process.
The fight lasted some twenty minutes before it became evident that it was drawing toward its end—the flashing lights ceased being flickers and turned into a fight that even people at Avatar Realm could reasonably follow. Her Master's robes were tattered, there were clear signs of wounds, and it seemed that he was entirely incapable of using his left arm, but he still looked like a healthy man in his prime compared to Lei Feng.
The silhouette cast a sorry figure—he was hunched over, all color drained from his face. Unlike Yu Minge who simply couldn't use his left arm, Lei Feng's left arm was completely missing. There was a massive gash over his chest that was bleeding profusely, both of his eyes were stormed with the streaks of red, his lips were quivering, and he barely held on to a blade in his right hand.
The result was... shocking. No, beyond that.
Even Xiaoling herself didn't dare believe, and she could seldom venture a guess as to how the rest of the Sect felt. Their Master just openly defeated someone at the Nascent Soul Realm. What mattered more, however, was what would happen now; even among the Soul Ascendance Realm cultivators, deaths were rather rare. Even in duels such as this one, one side would merely request a payment—usually an artifact—and let the other go.
But within the few minutes that she spent with Lei Feng, she knew that would be a terrible choice; the man would undoubtedly return with vengeance, wanting to completely obliterate the entire Sect. Letting him live wasn't an option, but killing him... also wasn't an option. If their Sect killed what was technically an Envoy of the Central Ashlands, there was a good chance that they might send an Inquisitor next time rather than just an Envoy.
"YOU BASTARD, DON'T YOU DARE--" The words were cut off as the golden blade in her Master's hand flickered; it was a smooth cut, lacking an ounce of hesitation, and it temporarily beheaded Lei Feng before suddenly exploding into a burst of energy that completely obliterated the body and the soul, leaving nothing behind.
Well, there was a wisp that she noticed drifting from the smoke, and just as she was about to call out to her Master to warn him, she saw Qi forming a jittering cage around it, locking it in place. Her Master had won—he'd bested someone at the Nascent Soul Realm in what, to her and everyone who bore witness, looked merely like a show of lights.
**
Lu Yang was sweating rather profusely.
Yes, in part it was because he'd just witnessed a battle between two Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, something that he never even dreamed of before today. And though that alone would have been shocking enough, what truly sent him reeling was that he witnessed the entire fight... clearly.
Every movement.
Every stroke of the blade.
Every time the metals clashed, they rang out like two beasts.
The wounds, the cuts, the screams, the evasions.
The movements of the bodies, the fluttering of the robes.
Though it all unraveled rather quickly, he saw it. Every instance of it. And he knew it wasn't because the pair above in the sky were fighting at those speeds—Yue, who was right beside him, likely only witnessed one or two flickers of light when they truly slowed down. In fact, it was unlikely that there was anyone else in the entire Sect who caught more than that—perhaps that woman, Xiaoling, may have seen a bit more, but even she would not have seen it as clearly as Lu Yang.
What did that mean? He hardly knew. Even if he was intimately familiar with the fact that living in the Forest had granted him an entirely new future, it seemed that he was still underestimating the changes his body underwent in the meantime. Though he, naturally, could not fight either of the two men in any capacity, he could see—and that was always the first step to transcending the current limits.
Stumbling blindly, somehow, into the Nameless Forest... it seemed that it was the ilk of the karmic luck that could only be explained by him having an ancestor who saved the world once or twice, and now the world was paying it back. Was it a good explanation? As good as any other Lu Yang could think of.