The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

Rix spun to find Luna on one knee. The sonic blast must have clipped the back of her leg. She was desperately defending and, as he watched, one of her opponents found a gap, spearing her arm with the bladed tip of its own. Her body crackled blue as her own mantle burned mana to defend her.

Hissing, he dashed closer, firing Energy Surge again to unleash a [Force Hammer] at one of her opponents. As he'd suspected, even when enhanced with qi, the attack was too slow to catch the mantis, but a ripple of force shot out from his weapon as it thundered into the ground, sending both fades stumbling and giving Luna time to right herself.

She nodded in thanks, but Rix didn't feel like he deserved it. The reality was that he should have been there earlier. Rix had rarely been forced to fight as a team. Fighting alone had trained him to be self-sufficient.

Maybe too self-sufficient.

Despite being mostly bestial in nature, the mantises were working together better than he and Luna. They'd already lured the two of them into an ambush and were far better at synchronising their attacks. Rix had fought against groups several times now, from the spider fades to Yutaro and Kenzo, and a big part of what made that difficult was that they became more than the sum of their parts. He and Luna were nowhere near that level.

With their trap sprung and their trump card revealed, the fades stopped holding back. As if to drive home the point about teamwork, the one engaging Rix reared up and let loose another scream. Though it didn't cause much in the way of damage, it sent him stumbling backwards. One of Luna's did the same, and while she had seen enough to anticipate and dodge the technique itself, it still drove her several steps to her left.

"They're splitting us up," he hissed, his staff whirling to block another strike. "That technique is too fast for us to kill them front on. We need to turn them around."

To her credit, Luna understood immediately. "On it!"

As her second opponent opened its mouth to screech, she made her move, spinning and firing [Wind Dash] to shoot past her fades in a blur. They whirled to follow, and just like that, they had their backs to Rix. He feinted an attack at his own enemy, then activated Energy Surge briefly again and launched himself the other way.

This time his [Wind Blade] found no opposition as it cleaved straight through the chest of one of Luna's fades. There was a rush of essence, and it dropped to the ground in two pieces. A grin split his face.

His original opponent reengaged before he could strike down her remaining fade, but the damage was done. They'd put themselves on even footing again.

Now they had to finish the job.

Rix was getting better at reading the sonic attacks now. Though it wasn't a big bodily gesture, there were telltale signs, a little tremble in the fade's throat, a certain set of its jaw. The attack was still fast enough to be a threat, but the next one barely clipped him, and the one after that went wide altogether. Was this what Luna saw when she'd so easily dodged his every punch? Could she read him so clearly?

He also kept a modicum of attention on Luna herself. Now that she knew what to look for, the girl was even more adept than he at avoiding the technique. Her fade quickly gave up using it altogether and returned to trying to skewer her with its limbs. She was mixing in her third technique now, [Deflecting Palm], which let her block the fade's blows with her own open hand. Each time they met, mana surged at the point of contact, and the fade's attack was thrown to the side. It was powerful enough to send the fade stumbling momentarily.

And that gave Rix an idea.

"Send it my way next time," he called.

She looked momentarily confused, but then her eyes lit up. In their next exchange, she waited until a blow came at the right angle and deployed [Deflecting Palm] again. Anticipating the moment, Rix was ready, and as the fade staggered to its left again, he was there. The fade tried to escape, but they'd timed things perfectly, and Rix bisected its torso just as he'd done to its brother.

More essence, and then there was one. The fight was over quickly after that, with Luna splitting the final fade's skull open from behind.

As it dropped, Rix let out a long breath. "That was better at the end. If we're going to keep doing this, we should probably work on fighting together."

Luna shot him an incredulous look. "What? And muddy up who's killing what? How will we keep score? This partnership is never going to work if we don't know who's winning!"

"So you admit it is a partnership?"

She shook her head vehemently. "Slip of the tongue. You are merely doing a terrible job of being bodyguarded." She adjusted her grip on her sword. "Now come on. You technically got two kills to my one there. I need to get even."

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The mention of being bodyguarded brought his mind back to Han and his friend. During the fight, his attention had been solely on the fades. If they'd been found at that moment, they might have been taken by surprise. He needed to work on that.

They kept moving. Though the area around them stayed rocky, they began encountering more of the ethereal crystals that Rix had seen on an earlier dive. They shot from the ground in random locations, glistening and white and often taller than he was.

They encountered more fades too. With Luna already stronger than the area and Rix comfortable there, every successive battle felt a little better. Nobody would look at them and see a well-honed team, but after their initial stumbles, they at least began to fight like they weren't alone. Rix began to consider the ways Luna's abilities could synergise with his, and he could see her doing the same. Building proper cohesion would take time, but they both seemed to recognise that it was important, particularly as they stepped up to fight tougher opponents when Rix ranked up.

"I'm guessing you didn't fight much as a team in your sect," Rix said after one battle.

"A Martial Soul is forged alone," she said, clearly repeating some kind of proverb.

Rix hesitated. "What was it like living there? If you don't mind me asking." The sects were a mystery to anyone from the city. He'd heard all sorts of bizarre rumours, but he also knew enough to realise they may well be exaggerations.

Her expression grew wistful. "Oh, you know, pretty normal. Morning meditation, ritual battle for breakfast portions, tending the spirit herbs, that sort of thing."

Rix stared at her for a beat, but it was clear she was being serious. "That sounds…interesting."

"It was!" she said. "The thing I miss most is the food. We had the most spectacular gardens. And the orchards! You've never had such big peaches before."

"I've never had a peach before at all," Rix replied.

Luna's jaw dropped open. "What do you mean?"

Rix stared blankly at her. "I mean, I've never had a peach."

She blinked several times. "I don't know how to process that. What is even the point?"

"Of living without peaches?" Rix asked flatly.

"'Living' might be stretching it." The girl shook her head. "What about plums? Apricots? Figs? Tell me you've had a fig!"

Rix shrugged. "I've had apples, if that makes you feel better? Honestly, food in general was often a struggle growing up. I took what I could get, but fresh fruit wasn't exactly abundant in the Lantern District."

He'd heard of peaches and figs, of course, but they were the sort of thing that lined the tables of Novas and Omens. They weren't for sale on dirty street corners. He'd never really felt like he was missing out, but seeing Luna's expression, he was beginning to re-evaluate that.

"No wonder everybody here is so angry," she said, as if solving a great mystery. "Your souls are nutrient deprived."

"To be fair, we were more concerned about our bodies," Rix replied.

Luna's expression was one of someone questioning their entire worldview. "They always said people in the city lived lives of decadence and luxury."

Rix scoffed. "The Martial Souls, maybe. For a lot of the rest of us, we were just scraping to get by."

"That is…not what I was expecting."

"For what it's worth, they tell us you lot live like animals and perform blood rituals under the moon to strengthen your techniques."

"Ah, the blood rituals," she deadpanned. "To be fair, they're only once a month, but it was always something to look forward to."

Rix cracked a smile. "Good to know."

"Is everyone in the sect a Martial Soul?" he asked.

Luna's face grew darker momentarily. "Not everyone. We have limited access to our Fractured Realm, so seeds go to the people most likely to bring glory to the Falling Leaf."

"Doesn't sound that different to the city," Rix said, "though all they care about is profit. Can't get System access unless some corp thinks you're going to be worth something." He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, but mostly failed.

"I take it that wasn't you?"

He shook his head. "I didn't have what it takes, apparently."

Luna gave a slow nod, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else. After a few seconds, she refocused. "For what it's worth, it doesn't look that way to me. Sure, you're raw, but you haven't died yet."

"Ah yes, the true measure of greatness. Not dying."

Luna shrugged. "If you don't die for long enough, eventually you'll live forever. All the strongest Martial Souls I know haven't died yet."

Rix managed a laugh. "That's a fair point. I have…things I need to do, though. Things that are going to require more from me than simply surviving. I need to get stronger as fast as possible."

"Now that is something I do think we have in common." A smile spread across her face. "Sounds like we need to kill something."

Rix grinned back. "I wouldn't say no."

At Luna's request, they continued to go deeper, until they were close to the border with the High Whisper zone. "Might get lucky and find a tougher fade hanging on the outskirts," Luna said. "I could do with a challenge." Rix felt that hunger too. Even the first fight with the mantises hadn't posed a true threat once they got a handle on their opponents. He'd yet to feel that rush, that spike of blood-thunder that he'd come to associate with diving. Mortal Rix would have thought it insane to actively want his life on the line, but he wasn't the same boy who had walked through those prison doors. The problem he had now was controlling that urge. It was one thing to walk along the edge, and quite another to throw yourself off it.

So when he heard the vague hint of another presence pinging off the canyon walls in the distance, he felt a rush of conflicting feelings. "There's someone nearby," he said.

Luna cocked her head. "I didn't hear anything."

Another vague echo, the sound of voices, and Rix nodded behind them. "There are definitely people there."

By that time, the rock around them had given way almost entirely to the strange white crystal. Furthermore, the canyon itself had closed at the top, leaving them in what was basically a cave. The walls glowed faintly with an unearthly light.

"I'll take your word for it," Luna said. She raised an eyebrow. "Thoughts?"

Rix hesitated. They'd just been talking about how much they wanted a real fight, but if this was the Iron Hand it was more than a real fight. The reality was that although he'd technically 'beaten' Yutaro and Kenzo, it had only been through a combination of trickery and Breaker's help. Furthermore, they had both been weaker than Han and his friend. Sure, he had Luna this time, but even if she was somehow Han's equal, that woman with the knives was Peak Whisper too.

He didn't know what to do, and that hesitation cost him as Han did indeed appear in the canyon about two hundred feet behind them. But he didn't have his lone friend with him.

He had six.