NOVEL NEXT Chapter 85: Howling Meadows
A chuckle resounded in his head once more.
"Prideful Dragon. Fortunately for both of us, today is not the day I've decided for us to die."
Feng wished he shared his phantom's optimism.
Bihui snapped his — their? Feng still remembered the ghostly, near-inhuman figure behind the facade — nose back into place. A single drop of ghastly black blood fell to the sand, hissing into thick vapours within seconds.
"Well, you have done it now." The same serene smile and tone greeted the pair. "Do not think for a second you will get a quick death. All three of you."
Bihui's arm lashed out, lightning quick, as he slapped aside an incoming projectile. The tentacled seed slammed into the sands, snarling in rage before being obliterated by invisible winds.
Someone spoke from the stadium.
"Hm. Guess that won't work any more."
They leapt from the stands and fell into place beside the pair of Phoenix cultivators. Neither Feng nor Elder Jun risked a glance beside them, daring not to take their eyes off the opponent.
Elder Jun, however, did grimace. "I was hoping it would be Lady Lianshi."
A familiar snort. "What, I'm not good enough for you?"
The Elder did not hesitate in his reply. "In this particular case, yes. You are nowhere close to good enough."
A sigh. "You see, this is why I'm dating Dai and not you. Dai would have said I'm good enough for him."
Elder Jun scoffed. "No, you're not. Don't delude yourself. That idiot is just too nice to properly rid himself of you."
A sharp tsk. Feng found it in himself to smile.
"I thank you for your aid in assisting us, Sister Shao," Feng greeted.
The Core Disciple of the Split-Headed Carnivore Sect flexed her qi, readying herself for a hard fight. "Don't thank me just yet, Young Master. I have yet seen you to safety. We might all still be dead by the hour's end."
"I assure you, there is no need to ponder," Bihui called out. "You will all definitely be dead within the next five minutes."
"Don't look down on us so much," Shao countered. "I'm positive we can last six, at least. Maybe seven if Jun here offers himself up as a punching bag."
"Your jokes have somehow worsened over the years," Elder Jun grunted.
Shao shrugged, eyes still focused on their opponent. "Might be the last I get to make. If you somehow survive, and I don't, tell Dai—"
"Tell him yourself, you stupid hag," the Elder cut in. "I refuse to get involved in that ridiculous relationship the two of you share. My life has enough absurdity in it already."
Feng recognised what the two were trying to do. Their banter, stupid as it was, was buying them precious seconds of time. The fleeing crowd would soon alert the rest of the Sect, which might get them some much-needed reinforcements.
Off the top of his head, however, Feng could barely think of five people who might be of aid against their opponent. His father was one of them. Lianshi was another. Brother Dai would be a worthy blade, though nowhere near enough to guarantee their survival. The other Elders would be a great boon, but not all were as well-versed in combat as they needed to be to face a Young Master in the Nascent Realm.
What of the spectators? Nearly all the mortals had left the stadium already, but quite a few of the cultivators had stayed. Fights between Nascent Realm cultivators were as devastating as they were rare, but it was those very qualities that compelled them to stay.
To be able to witness such a battle within the Outer Provinces… What secrets and lessons might they glean to see the apex monsters of their region fight to the death?
Feng held a glimmer of hope that perhaps one of them might choose to aid them. With the Young Master's life at risk, doing so would earn them no small manner of gratitude from the Sect, and scant were the opportunities where one might gain the favour of the Patriarch himself.
None came. The Young Master could not really find it in himself to blame them. Their opponent was truly that daunting of a monster.
Nascent Realm, Sixth Step. And no doubt trained well in martial affairs due to his background. It was a death sentence for any cultivator save those who exist in the same Realm of standing, and there were none to be found in the audience.
"I've had quite enough of your comedy routine, I think," Bihui called out. "Hand over the Young Master to me, and I might be inclined to let your previous insults be."
"What, you are already trying to back out of a fight?" Shao taunted.
"No," the foreign cultivator shook his head sadly. "I merely thought that you might have wanted to live."
Several things quickly happened after that.
The ground beneath Bihui erupted, though the phenomenon was not his doing. A wave of plate-armoured tentacles sprouted from the sands, along with the mouth of some squid-like insect.
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[Arts of the Split-Headed Carnivores — Severed Form Predation]
Disciple Shao must have prepared her trap even before she entered the arena, birthing an independent entity using her Divine Art to slither beneath the sands and emerge as a voracious maw.
Elder Jun sprang into action as well, drawing both regenerated fists back before punching them forth in unison. A gout of golden flames roared from his hands towards Bihui. Feng recognised the fires as part of an advanced Sect technique.
Feng's eyes glowed and fired off a piercing laser. He aimed for his opponent's head, hoping to at least hinder his vision, even if the attack would likely fail to harm.
None of it slowed Bihui for even a single second.
He did something. The motions were too fast for Feng to perceive. There was a blur, and suddenly, the tentacle maw of the half-formed beast beneath was utterly destroyed, sliced into a thousand pieces, each no bigger than a finger.
Within that same breath, the foreign cultivator was already somehow standing beside Elder Jun's outstretched arm. The golden stream of flames had not even reached its target destination yet.
Before the Elder could even react, Bihui made a motion with his hand, and the venerable senior's arms were lopped off.
A series of blows followed: Flank, throat, and nose. Three wounds burst upon Elder Jun's body, mirroring the ones he gave Bihui earlier, though more debilitating by far. The Elder was barely able to emit a sound before he keeled over, blood dribbling from slackened lips and glazed eyes.
Shao moved fast — faster than Feng thought possible for her standing. Her arm, now transformed into a crab-like pincer, snapped for Bihui's neck. There was a blur of movement as the man parried and Shao assailed. To Feng's utter shock, the Sister managed to score a line of blood against her vastly superior opponent, slashing against the foreign cultivator's throat.
The wound was too shallow to be fatal, but all the same, the cheery facade of Bihui's face flickered off again. Their true face was still obscure, but Feng saw eyes — far too many eyes, in too many colours — each blinking and leering with rage, shock, or glee.
The disguise flicked on again. Another blur of movement, and suddenly, Shao was shot back. Her torso was cratered inwards — ribs bursting out from her chest in inverted arcs — before she slammed against the far wall of the arena, leaving cracks in the granite structure.
All of that happened in less than the span of a second.
Feng was already moving the moment Bihui appeared in front of Elder Jun, but compared to the other combatants, he might as well be a slug. No matter how much he pushed, his speed simply could not compare to theirs. Still, the Young Master's fingers managed to reach close to Bihui's head.
[Severed Heads Apostles]
A fiery snake formed in Feng's hands once more. The serpent reared its form back and plunged for Bihui's ear hole, as it had done for the earlier opponent Feng had faced.
It did not even make it an inch towards the orifice before the foreign cultivator's hand snapped up and grabbed the offending summon.
Bihui turned to face Feng, his cheery eyes blackening into nightmarish pits. The man scoffed. "Please. What could you have possibly hoped to accomplish with that?"
The summon was crushed in his hand, dissipating into ash. Feng smiled.
"I made you look away, fool," Feng said.
[Fiery Comet Step; Jun's variant — Violent Soaring Crescent]
Elder Jun's right foot rocketed upwards in an explosive skyward kick, slamming straight into the underside of the foreign cultivator's chin. Such was the heat and pressure of his infernal jaw-strike that Feng was thrown back by the rushing winds. The skin and hair on his face were instantly seared off, but the Young Master gritted his teeth and used the momentum of the blow to his advantage.
[Fiery Comet Step; Feng's variant — Dance of a Flickering Star]
Propelled by momentous pressure, Feng moved as swiftly as the wind. His form darted to the middle of the arena, where his glaive still stood embedded in the sands. Swooping like a hawk, he snatched the polearm from its rest before turning back.
In those few seconds spent as Feng had grabbed his blade, Elder Jun already bore new wounds upon his torso. Countless perforations across his form were delivered by unknown means, so numerous and wide that the Young Master could practically see through the Elder.
Whatever technique Bihui used was beyond Feng's experience or ability to comprehend. It was as if the foreign cultivator had simply willed the Elder's body to destruction, and the universe obeyed.
Nevertheless, his back was to Feng, and there lay his desperate opportunity to end the fight with a single stroke.
[Fiery Comet Step]
The Young Master soared, glaive rising like an executioner's blade, and his form blurred with blinding light. Feng perceived himself as if moving in slow motion, for no matter how much power he had placed in his movement, the damnable Bihui was still faster.
The foreign cultivator was already fully turned, hand raised to intercept the incoming attack. For a brief moment, Feng nearly lost all hope.
Then, from the cracked edge of the arena, salvation came. It arrived as a minuscule pod, propelled to supersonic speed via the inhuman mutation of a wounded — but half-transformed — Disciple Shao. The hardened seed delivered via the spiral grooves and expelled propellant of Shao's morphed biology smashed into Bihui's wrist. It failed to shatter it — or even draw blood — but the focused impact whipped the arm away from its guardian post.
In that transient moment, Bihui's neck was exposed.
The blade came down with superheated fury, fuelled by the pain-stricken scream of the Young Master's fire-flayed face. An expression comprising nought but melting eyeballs, burning facial muscles, and incandescent rage met the strained, transfixed smile of Bihui.
The leading edge of the glaive ran red with heat when it kissed the flesh of its target's throat. The tremor of the impact reverberated up Feng's arms, splitting the skin of his flesh.
Never before had the Young Master faced a resistance such as this. Never before had Feng seen the supernatural steel of Dai's precious weapon be halted. Yet here it was; the decapitating cleave that once knew no parallel was slowed by the cultivated skin of a Nascent Realm cultivator.
Slowed… but not stopped.
It was as if time stood still. Adrenaline, pain, and madness propelled Feng's mind to perceive the events of microseconds in perfect clarity. The nameless steel pressed against a defence indestructible to all mundane constructs of the Outer Province, halted in place. A microsecond of stasis, then two…
Before, finally, Bihui's impervious skin broke.
The blade slid deep, severing tendons and spine. Feng's skinless face never ceased screaming as he swung with all his might. Inch by inch, microsecond by microsecond, the glaive sliced ever more of Bihui's neck away, until all that was left holding his head to his torso was a sliver of flesh.
The facade of the foreign cultivator's face was torn away. The handsome smile and easy gaze were replaced by a nightmare weave of twinkling blackness and blinking eyes. Feng did not let the sight impede his swing. He pushed himself to exert the final necessary stretch, muscles tensed and tearing to deal the finishing blow—!
"YOU INSOLENT SHIT!"
[Arts of the Howling Meadows — Griefstrike Palm]
Bihui's hand slammed into Feng's lifeless Heart, and everything went black.