Ashes Of Heaven Book 1 : Solar Calamity

"Martial sister Zhou, at least make an appearance..." Han Xuhan muttered as he watched her undead army being beaten up and chased away.

Things were not supposed to go like this. Yuen Zhou should have come before the rest of the cultivators taking the third test could. Did she mess up somehow?

The window for movement Xuhan had marked was getting tinier by the second. Qian Yun had somehow managed to make all the cultivators except him, Mu Ran, and Yuen Zhou cater to his commands. Did the enslavement pact they had signed with Qian Yun have such a clause? That couldn't be; he had seen those contract documents.

Why were these proud young cultivators so eager to follow Qian Yun's instructions?

If those enslaved cultivators returned after chasing away Yuen Zhou's zombies, Han Xuhan would be completely surrounded without any hope of escape. He was just a cultivator at the second layer of the physique transformation realm. Even the weakest of his opponents had a cultivation base of the fourth layer.

"No, I can't wait anymore. It's useless to hope for another coincidence at this point," Xuhan muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing, a gleam of excitement appearing in his gaze.

"This is gonna be...hard."

In his mind, he recalled the doom music from his previous life, repeating it in his head continuously like a loop. It fit the current atmosphere...for both parties.

Qian Yun was just over twenty meters away from him, with Mu Ran's body lying a bit further ahead. He had lost sight of Feng Jun's silhouette at some point due to the fog.

If Feng Jun had changed his position by this time, he could either attack from his right or his left side. Xuhan could not predict which direction the attack might come from. So he did not want to take the risk. Only one way ahead was open now.

Three, two, one...

Silently counting down the numbers, Han Xuhan took a deep breath, suppressed the wild beating of his heart, and moved at the fastest speed possible for him in his realm.

First move: Throwing out a knife directly at Qian Yun's feet, at an angle where it'd bounce back upwards if deflected.

His sudden burst of movement didn't surprise Qian Yun in the slightest, as he had already expected Xuhan to make a desperate attempt to escape any second. Qian Yun was ready to greet him with fists, feet, and qi.

A paper full of complicated legal terms was hurled down from his hand, towards the ground at an unnatural speed, completely ignoring the friction with the air. It was one of Qian Yun's most prized contract papers, nearly indestructible below the Physique Transformation Realm.

The paper and the knife made contact a fraction of a second later. But instead of being torn apart by the knife, the paper blocked it as if it was made of metal.

Ding~

The knife rebounded off and struck the soil right below, its blade digging into it by an inch.

Meanwhile, Xuhan had rushed out of the area covered by the protective law fragments on the ground straight toward Qian Yun like a madman, attracting his attention. This was his second move.

Qian Yun's heartbeat quickened from excitement.

Finally, that damned turtle was out of his protective shell. But surprisingly enough, he hadn't tried to escape in the directions where Qian Yun had placed the other three cultivators. Instead, he had attacked. Does he want to go down in style?

Heh, a cultivator at the second stage wanting to defeat a cultivator so multiple layers above him?

In his dreams!

Qian Yun instantly ordered the cultivators surrounding Xuhan to charge forward. Three figures from three directions rushed toward them displaying inhuman speed, leaving a trail of fog behind them.

By now, Han Xuhan had executed his third move already. Stimulating his qi on the fallen knife!

BOOM!

This was not the knife embedded into the ground in front of Qian Yun! This was the knife Han Xuhan had thrown at Feng Jun earlier!

The heavy fog behind them was torn apart by an invisible explosion of air. Feng Jun, who had just rushed past the area, staggered from the shockwave and fell down.

But this was a mere setup to make Xuhan's fourth move more impactful.

BOOM!

The knife embedded in front of a distracted Qian Yun's feet exploded with a chaotic, air-rending force that caught him completely off-guard.

Qian Yun was just about to shoot out another piece of paper at Xuhan's fast-approaching figure when he felt the ground beneath his feet suddenly disappear. Before he could react, his body was thrown backwards like a dummy kicked by a horse.

Splashes of blood seeped out of his torn skin and muscles by the time his visuals stabilized.

Han Xuhan, knowing full well the effect of his exploding knives, had already carefully timed his sprint. Right when Qian Yun's body flew backwards, the erupting force from the knife ended, and that's when Xuhan entered the radius of the explosion, harmless and uninterrupted by the blast. His movements were seamless, practiced, without any intervals.

Qian Yun had fallen on his back right in front of Mu Ran. Even though he had suffered some heavy injuries from the explosion, it was nowhere near enough to disable a cultivator at the fifth layer of the physique transformation realm. He immediately recovered his bearing and tried to get up.

Han Xuhan had already taken out his glaive in mid-sprint. Gripping the shaft, he leaped upward with all of his strength. His continuously stacking momentum showed its might in that leap.

Qian Yun, who had barely raised his neck, saw a magnificent scene above him.

A slender figure was highlighted by the vague glow that suffused the fog overhead. The airborne silhouette held both of his hands upward, palms gripping a glaive, its blade cutting through fog in a downward arc, set on its course to rip, tear, and kill!

And as it swung down right on top of his head emitting a whistling sound, Qian Yun raised his hand to block it.

"Fifth move!"

THUMP!

And then he felt the world in his eyes turn black.

Several heartbeats later, Qian Yun sensed his eyes working once more as the world above him became clear.

He wasn't dead! Not yet!

Ceaselessly, blood was streaming out from his left temple. A numbness had spread all over his body. Han Xuhan had hit him with the blunt side of the blade, he realized upon touching the wound. The skin in that area had been crushed open, bone fractured, but not much damage had been done to anything beyond that.

By the time he managed to shake off the shock and dizziness off, Han Xuhan had disappeared from his sight.

His head spinning, Qian Yun staggered up and looked around. Even the strongest strike from a cultivator at Han Xuhan's level was barely enough to injure him fatally. What's more, he had managed to deflect part of the attack using one of the contract papers at the last second. Only a few seconds had passed since he had been hit, yet the bloody injury created by that staff's blow was already showing signs of clotting.

Mu Ran's body was missing from his side, having been carried off by Han Xuhan who had never stopped in his sprint. Both had nearly disappeared into the fog.

Meanwhile, the cultivators who were rushing toward Qian Yun and Xuhan's position had already become visible within the fog, just yards away. All three of them passed by Qian Yun's sorry figure like lightning bolts and chased after Xuhan and Mu Ran at their top speed.

Shaking off another wave of dizziness, Qian Yun followed them as well. He wanted to see how long Xuhan could keep running while carrying Mu Ran. His original speed was much slower than his pursuers due to the difference in cultivation base.

What was he trying to achieve by running?

Han Xuhan carried Mu Ran on his shoulder and rushed toward the platforms. Mu Ran was pretty heavy, and he slowed Xuhan's speed down by quite a degree. But Han Xuhan had wagered everything on this one sprint. He soldiered on without being demoralized.

Soon, his pursuers were only a few meters behind him. The platforms were close, but his opponents were closer. Right then, one of the cultivators chasing him pounced on them, catching Mu Ran's dangling legs behind Xuhan.

Instead of playing tug of war with Mu Ran's body, Han Xuhan let go of it, surprising the attacker.

What was the point of carrying him for so long if he was going to leave him at the first chance?

The pursuer who had grabbed onto Mu Ran's figure stumbled due to the sudden weight being shifted on his chest.

Freed from the burden, Xuhan rushed toward the platform with the other two cultivators still chasing after him.

A few seconds later, Qian Yun jogged over to the cultivator who had snatched Mu Ran away.

"After risking so much to save his martial brother, he used him as a disposable shield? Truly sinister...For a second, I was convinced that he actually cared about his friend. Hah~"

Qian Yun's remarks were quite loud, at least loud enough for Xuhan to overhear. Even while running for his life, Xuhan couldn't help turning backwards to flip him off.

"Well, if you're feeling so heartbroken by the cruelty of this world, how about you throw him back to me?"

Qian Yun's expression darkened. Ordering the other cultivator to stand guard over Mu Ran, he shot toward Xuhan and his pursuers again.

The platform was only a few yards away from Xuhan's position. Feng Jun, who had become Xuhan's closest pursuer suddenly squatted down on the ground and smashed his fists on the soil.

Han Xuhan felt the ground beneath his feet turning into unnaturally smooth sand. His feet unable to exert force, he stumbled and landed on all fours, his speed instantly reducing to zero.

Standing up, Feng Jun thrust his hands forward and the wind in front of him rippled.

Han Xuhan felt a great, invisible pressure landing on his chest, as if he had dived dozens of meters underwater.

Elemental techniques... No wonder Feng Jun had chosen the elemental type law techniques. Due to his inexperience with duels between cultivators, Han Xuhan had forgotten about the fact that he was facing cultivators who could cast all sorts of magical spells. Although most cultivators had expended all of their qi during the entrance into the third test, the test had offered qi replenishment, something Xuhan had overlooked. That mistake came to bite him in the ass real quick.

Unable to even get up, Han Xuhan gazed at the two cultivators closing in on him cautiously while Qian Yun jogged over to the place he had fallen.

"Don't worry, guys. No need to be cautious. I'm fully willing to handle this like civilized people" Han Xuhan said nervously.

Right then, while Qian Yun, Feng Jun, and the other cultivator's attention was on him, a distant yelp from behind them caught everyone off guard...well, everyone except Xuhan.

The cultivator who had been guarding Mu Ran was lying on the ground, unconscious. Mu Ran stood over him with his arms crossed and his qi rippling around him, making it evident that he had just executed a technique. Han Xuhan could recognize that 'astral heatwave' spell even from where he was held down.

"That vitality-stimulating law fragment works, it seems," Han Xuhan muttered to himself.

The sixth move had been set into motion!