Dragon's Descent [Xianxia, Reverse Cultivation]

Ming Lian felt the tide beginning to turn, but victory remained distant. His analysis of Chen Rui's techniques was working, but each dissolved construct took precious energy he couldn't afford to lose. The corruption in his system was spreading, and Tan Minzhi's tendrils continued their relentless assault from multiple directions.

More importantly, he was still thinking defensively. Still trying to survive rather than win.

"Different force," he muttered, echoing Xiaolong's words as another tendril lashed toward his throat. "Not harder, but smarter."

Instead of deflecting the attack, he caught it—then used it as a conduit to trace Tan Minzhi's spiritual signature back to its source. The technique burned like holding molten metal, but it also revealed something crucial about the Black Dao cultivator's approach.

Tan Minzhi wasn't just using corrupted Azure Waters techniques—he was using them wrong. The inversions he'd created fought against water's essential nature at every level, creating massive inefficiencies that he was compensating for through brute force and external power sources.

But compensation had limits. And if Ming Lian could push him past those limits...

He began deliberately triggering the instabilities in Tan Minzhi's formation, not by attacking the techniques directly but by creating resonance patterns that amplified their internal contradictions. Water that wanted to flow clockwise but was being forced counter-clockwise. Energy that sought harmony but was being twisted toward discord.

"Impossible," Tan Minzhi snarled, his formation beginning to waver as contradictions multiplied faster than he could suppress them. "You're barely River Current realm! You can't possibly understand techniques at this level!"

"Can't understand because I've convinced myself I'm not supposed to?" Ming Lian asked, his blade moving through forms he'd forgotten he knew. "Or can't succeed because I've spent years afraid to try?"

But even as understanding bloomed, even as confidence built, the odds remained daunting. Two opponents, both drawing power from corrupted sources that enhanced their techniques while poisoning his. The wound in his side was spreading, corruption eating toward his spiritual core with every heartbeat.

He was going to lose. And this time, losing meant more than just another sparring session where he pulled his punches to preserve someone else's feelings.

"Song Lin," Chen Rui called desperately as his remaining claw constructs began dissolving under Ming Lian's systematic analysis, "if you can stand, we need reinforcement!"

Song Lin pushed himself upright with obvious effort, shaking his head to clear the ringing in his ears. His gaze swept the battlefield—taking in Zhao Shen's terrified retreat from Xiaolong's casual devastation, Chen Rui's failing techniques, and Tan Minzhi's increasingly frantic efforts to maintain formation stability.

"You idiots," he said clearly, his voice carrying disgust and something approaching professional disappointment. "If you hadn't let your egos run wild, we wouldn't be struggling against two random sect disciples. But since you did..."

He retrieved his sword from the tree with some difficulty—the blade had embedded itself remarkably deeply—and tested its balance with the critical eye of someone evaluating damaged equipment.

"Prudence demands an early exit. Enjoy your 'glorious victory' against a woman who treats our best techniques like mild entertainment."

With that, Song Lin melted into the forest shadows with surprising stealth for someone so clearly aggrieved, abandoning his companions to face the consequences of their overconfidence.

"Coward!" Tan Minzhi shouted after him, but the word carried more desperation than genuine anger. His formation was collapsing as Ming Lian's interference created cascade failures throughout its structure. "Zhao Shen! Stop playing with the woman and help us finish this!"

But Zhao Shen was backing away from Xiaolong with the careful movements of someone who had learned painful lessons about overestimating his capabilities. His weapon was destroyed, his spiritual circulation was disrupted, and his confidence had evaporated entirely.

"Against a demonic cultivator?" He laughed bitterly, still retreating as she watched him with that curious, disinterested gaze. "This fight is already lost. At least I'll have a head start if I run now."

And run he did.

Now it was two against one—better odds, but Ming Lian was tiring. Blood loss and spiritual poisoning were catching up, and his hands trembled with the effort of keeping his blade moving.

Tan Minzhi recognized the opportunity and pressed harder, drawing power not just from the corrupted pool but from his own spiritual reserves, burning through cultivation base to fuel techniques that would either end the fight immediately or leave him too exhausted to continue.

The construct that emerged was massive—a dragon of corrupted water and crystallized malice, its eyes burning with stolen fire, its claws trailing essence that dissolved stone where they touched.

It was also, Ming Lian realized with crystalline clarity, completely unsustainable. The technique was too complex, too demanding, built from pieces that had never been meant to work together. Like all parasitism, it carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

But recognizing the weakness and surviving long enough to exploit it were different challenges entirely.

The dragon construct struck with speed that blurred the air, claws extended to tear Ming Lian's heart from his chest.

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Ming Lian tried to dodge, but his wounded leg betrayed him. He stumbled, barely managed to get his blade up in time to catch the first claw, and felt the impact drive him to one knee as corrupted essence ate through his sword's guard toward his hands.

The second claw raked across his back, shredding robes and skin alike. The third caught his shoulder, spinning him sideways into the path of the fourth, which would have opened his throat if pure instinct hadn't thrown him backward at the last possible moment.

He landed hard, sword skittering away across stone, blood pooling beneath him as corruption worked deeper into his system. The dragon reared above him, preparing to deliver a final strike that would end both the fight and his life.

This is how it ends, he thought with strange calm. All those years of holding back, and when I finally find my courage, it's too late to matter

But then he heard Xiaolong's voice, soft but carrying clearly across the clearing:

"The most dangerous moment in any battle isn't when you're losing. It's when your opponent thinks they've already won."

The words struck him like lightning. The dragon above him was magnificent, terrifying, absolutely overwhelming—and completely focused on delivering a killing blow to a defeated enemy.

Which meant it wasn't watching for what that enemy might do next.

Ming Lian didn't try to dodge the descending claws. Instead, he rolled toward the dragon's center of mass, came up inside its guard, and placed both hands directly against the construct's chest.

Not to fight it. Not to resist it. But to welcome it.

"The problem with stolen techniques," he said, his voice carrying absolute certainty even as claws passed inches from his throat, "is that you never fully understand what you're stealing."

His spiritual energy flowed into the dragon—not as attack or defense, but as understanding. He traced every line of its construction, followed every thread of its spiritual weaving, identified every point where incompatible elements had been forced together through will rather than wisdom.

The dragon began to slow. Its burning eyes flickered as contradictions in its spiritual structure multiplied faster than Tan Minzhi could compensate. It was too complex, too demanding, built from techniques that actively fought against each other even as they created the illusion of unified purpose.

Ming Lian gave it the gentlest possible push toward its natural conclusion.

The construct collapsed, taking Tan Minzhi's remaining reserves with it. The Black Dao cultivator fell to his knees, gasping, his spiritual circulation in shambles from attempting to maintain the unmaintainable.

Chen Rui, seeing both his leader defeated and his remaining ally fled, made a desperate lunge for Ming Lian's prone form. But the effort was born of panic rather than strategy, and Ming Lian's blade—recovered during the dragon's collapse—met him with a technique that was part River's Memory, part pure intuition, and entirely decisive.

Chen Rui's weapon flew from his grasp. A moment later, he joined Tan Minzhi in unconsciousness, victim of spiritual backlash from techniques disrupted at their source.

The sudden silence felt enormous.

Ming Lian remained kneeling in the center of the clearing, breathing heavily, surrounded by purified water that reflected starlight like scattered diamonds. The corruption that had been eating at his wounds was dissolving, washed away by essence that remembered its proper nature.

His spiritual circulation was stabilizing into patterns that felt different—not more powerful, but more complete. Like he'd been holding his breath for years and finally remembered how to exhale properly.

Xiaolong approached, having apprehended and trussed both Chen Rui and Zhao Shen, and was now dragging them behind her in a manner that seemed both efficient and disrespectful of their dignity. Her robes remained immaculate, untouched by mud or blood or anything else that might testify to the evening's activities.

The look on her face suggested that something he'd just done was deeply significant, but he wasn't sure which part she was focusing on and couldn't find the energy to ask. Probably something to do with the battle. Or the water. Or the way that everything suddenly felt different.

"Well fought," she said.

Ming Lian's laugh bubbled up from some deep well of relief and wonder. "I almost lost. I was losing, right until the end. If you hadn't shown me..." He gestured vaguely at the clearing, at the purified water, at his own trembling hands. "I was fighting them the wrong way. Fighting everything the wrong way."

"You found the right way when it mattered most. That's what separates those who grow from those who stagnate in comfortable limitations."

"I was so afraid of not being good enough that I never tried to discover if I actually was." He held up his hands, studying them as if seeing them clearly for the first time. "All these years, I thought limiting myself was preserving something valuable. But I was just... protecting my own fear of inadequacy."

"And now?"

"Now I know." His spiritual pressure settled into new equilibrium—stable, confident, complete. "I know that trying my hardest doesn't diminish what I value. It honors it." He took a slow breath, feeling old anxieties melt away with the exhalation.

"It's strange," he admitted after a long moment. "Like I've been looking at a reflection of myself for all these years, and suddenly there's a window where I can see through to the person behind."

The clearing around them had transformed along with his understanding. Where corrupted water had created stagnant pools of malevolence, clean streams now bubbled cheerfully over stones, their sound like quiet celebration in the evening air.

"We should secure the other two and examine their belongings," Xiaolong said, nodding toward the unconscious Black Dao cultivators. "If they represent advance preparation for larger conflicts, their equipment will contain intelligence worth reporting."

"Right. Yes." Ming Lian rose to his feet with only a slight wince, his focus shifting from internal revolution to external responsibilities. "And then we need to begin purifying the village's water sources. The corruption will take time to fully cleanse, but we can start the process tonight."

They spent the next hour binding their prisoners and searching equipment. What they discovered painted a disturbing picture: detailed maps of Azure Waters territory, supply lists for extended operations, correspondence revealing organizational structure that extended far beyond simple banditry.

"Elder Wei needs to see this immediately," Ming Lian said, holding up letters that discussed territorial seizure timelines with clinical precision. "This isn't cultivation crime. This is coordinated invasion planning."

"Tomorrow. Tonight, we return these prisoners to the village and begin the cleansing work that will restore their spiritual infrastructure."

Ming Lian nodded, then paused, his expression growing thoughtful.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "Not just for trusting me to fight my own battle, but for showing me how. Your words during the fight—they weren't really meant for your opponents, were they?"

Xiaolong smiled enigmatically. "Sometimes the most important lessons are the ones that seem to be intended for someone else."

She began dragging the bound Black Dao cultivators toward the path to town, and by the time they'd descended far enough for moonlight to break through the forest canopy, it had become apparent that Xiaolong was humming quietly under her breath as she walked.

A gentle tune in the night. And a promise that some lessons, no matter how long they took to learn, were absolutely worth the price.