5.48 - The Dragon of Heaven

The heavenly dragon roared. He Yu struck out with his guandao, the blade cloaked in wind and lightning both. Opposite their foe, Tan Xiaoling advanced with flames dancing along the edges of her paired dao. Tan Qingsheng met them both.

He used the metal blades manifested by his version of the Breath of the White Desert much in the same way He Yu used the Spring Rain Mirror. He beat back both his attackers with sword or technique, seeming to care little that he was outnumbered or outflanked. His nine-ringed blade crashed down, black flames burning the very air around them as he split the earth where He Yu had been an instant before.

It was an opening the Peerless Judgment wouldn’t let him miss. He Yu formed the Rushing Wind, and charged in. With the wind at his back and curling around his blade, He Yu advanced. He slammed one foot down on the back edge of Tan Qingsheng’s blade just before the larger man could raise it. The guandao gleamed in the afternoon light with his killing intent, and he layered Heaven’s Descending Blade into the attack. He felt flesh give. Blood flow.

Tan Xiaoling landed behind her uncle. Her flaming sabers scored twin wounds across his back, and He Yu smelled seared skin. She called the Mark of the Dark Sun, and for an instant engulfed him in an explosion of black flame. Her sandstorm expanded, the ten thousand razor shards biting into Tan Qingsheng and He Yu both.

Through it all, Tan Qingsheng simply laughed. He spun, striking his niece with a closed fisted backhand even as he launched all seven of his blades at He Yu. As proficient as he’d become with the Spring Rain Mirror, He Yu couldn’t manage all seven at once. He fell back, as Tan Qingsheng had clearly intended.

With his blade free once more, Tan Qingsheng turned his full attention to Tan Xiaoling. The rings lining the back of his sword jangled with each sweep of the blade. Although He Yu had trained with Tan Xiaoling well enough to know her skill with her sabers, Tan Qingsheng was an expert swordsman himself. He fought not only with his weapon, but he also wove in punches and kicks. His style was much the same as Tan Xiaoling’s in its overall character—sheer aggression that sought to overwhelm his opponent, forcing them to stay on the defensive.

Tan Xiaoling was not a defensive fighter. She threw herself into her uncle’s assault, meeting every one of his attacks with one of her own. Her increased mastery of the Mark of the Dark Sun served her well here. She launched one flaming black spear after another, no longer needing to release one of her sabers to form the technique.

The two of them engaged in a brutal dance that saw them both take their own share of wounds. He Yu’s own attacks mostly met Tan Qingsheng blades from his Breath of the White Desert, but that was acceptable in his eyes. It meant Tan Qingsheng couldn’t bring the technique to bear against his niece. And while the blades themselves were effective in keeping He Yu mostly occupied, he still had far greater reach than either of the Tan cultivators with his techniques.

The Spring Rain Mirror flashed into being, turning aside one of Tan Qingsheng’s blades. It winked out, then back, turning aside another. Two more blades bit into He Yu’s flesh, but the damage was acceptable. He still had plenty of qi with which to heal himself, and the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering allowed him to avoid the rest.

With a surge of heaven qi, he called Heaven’s Descending Blade. Great sheets of lightning poured down from the churning black clouds overhead. They ripped through Tan Qingsheng’s formation of the Breath of the White Desert. The earth was left blackened and ruined, the cracked remains of boulders turned to molten slag.

The fight wore on. Again and again, day turned to night and back. This land had once been densely wooded hills sloping up to the south, reaching to heaven as they became the Jade Mountains proper. Now it was a blasted wasteland. Scoured of life, whether by techniques or the mere existence of the three experts. Flood and drought came and went. Black clouds struggled against twin black suns. Oasis or forest of blades. It mattered little. The weight of three Soul Refining experts, wholly unrestrained, was too much for the mortal world to bear.

Too much for He Yu to allow. As the clash went back and forth for what seemed like the thousandth time, a part of his mind retreated. Retreated to contemplation on what he saw before him, on what he had wrought. With the judgment of an emperor, he saw.

His was the duty to protect, to shield those who could not do the same for themselves. What of the mortals who struggled to eke out a life under the feet of giants? Even a cultivator of the Body Refining stage could wipe out a village with little effort. What would have been the cost had this battle taken place in more peaceful lands? In lands where mortals and lower realm cultivators could live outside fortress cities such as Jade Mountain Citadel? He Yu, of course, knew the answer. He’d seen what happened to the weak. He’d seen the depravations of the strong. He’d seen what immortals could do simply by allowing their spirits free rein over the mortal world.

Within the depths of his spirit, He Yu’s Wayborn Seed split open. Roots bust out, and a growth like a vine reached for the ineffable. Reached for his Dao. In an instant, the desert vanished. Rolling black clouds, dark and heavy with rain and flashing with the fury of heaven, covered the sky. The clouds broke, and rain covered the land. He Yu stood atop the sky. Around him coiled the dragon of heaven, its azure scales flashing with flickering golden arcs of heavenly qi. Lightning forked across its horns. Its beard swayed in the tempest winds.

The dragon’s jaws opened. It roared. Heaven poured down from the black clouds.

  *

Tan Xiaoling nearly collapsed under the weight of—well, whatever He Yu had just done. Fortunately, her uncle turned his full attention to He Yu as he flexed his own spirit in order to remain standing as well. She took the hint and did the same, but it wasn’t enough to push back the storm.

She desperately wished for a proper perception technique. Without one she couldn’t be certain, but He Yu certainly didn’t feel like he’d advanced. So then why could neither her nor her uncle assert their presences? They’d been able to for this entire battle so far. It had been an ebb and flow of desert and storm for days—perhaps even weeks. She’d long since stopped tracking time.

No, this was something else. Something beyond her understanding. As her uncle threw himself at He Yu, she took the opportunity to observe. And to pull the pill He Yu had given her out of her storage treasure. The gift from Yan Shirong.

She cracked open the pillbox, and a strong medicinal scent filled her nose. At least before the scent of rain and lighting overpowered it. When she bit down on the pill, the medicine nearly surged out of her control. Fire and metal aspected qi flooded her meridians, restored her core. She instantly felt as though she hadn’t been fighting for the last week or more. Silently, she thanked Yan Shirong.

Turning her attention back to He Yu and her uncle, she almost couldn’t believe what she saw. He Yu was actually pushing him. Even with Tan Qingsheng’s version of the Breath of the White Desert—a variation of the technique that was almost a perfect counter to He Yu’s defenses—her uncle was obviously on the back foot.

Heaven ripped apart the air around them both. The seven metal blades screamed as He Yu’s lighting shattered them to pieces. Tan Qingsheng flexed his spirit and reformed the technique, only for He Yu to sunder it once more. With looping sweeps that were equal parts powerful and graceful, He Yu advanced with his guandao trailing wind and heaven alike. Each meeting of their blades sent qi sparking and leaping into the air.

With the flood of Yan Shirong’s medicine screaming through her meridians, Tan Qiaoling threw herself into the fray once again.

  *

If it had been just the one, perhaps Tan Qingsheng could have made it. Perhaps he could have fought one of them back. As he barely turned aside another blow from He Yu’s guandao, he had to admit—the kid had talent. Well, not really a kid, he supposed. He was fully in the Sixth Realm, after all. And somehow already approaching a Daoist Mind. That was the only explanation for this sudden surge in ability.

Tan Qingsheng knew, perhaps better than anyone, the importance of moments like this. Moments that pushed an expert to the very edge of their capabilities, then forced them beyond. His Dao of Strife was all about such moments. He’d gone into this fight knowing something like this might happen, but he’d assumed it would be his niece that would form such connections. Reap the rewards of the insights gained only when one danced on a knife’s edge.

He’d never expected she would go as far as it seemed He Yu had.

The path beyond Soul Refining was the same for all immortals. Grasp the nature of one’s personal Dao. Define it and integrate it fully into one’s Way. That would allow passage through the bottleneck to the next realm—Divine Body Attainment. In the Seventh Realm, the expert must connect their Wayborn Seed to their Dao, fully integrating the two.

It seemed, by Tan Qingsheng’s estimation, that He Yu had already managed that step. If he’d managed such a feat this early on his Way, how far would he go? Even at early Soul Refining, he’d already cleared the most difficult step to reach Divine Body Attainment. Tan Qingsheng would bet every spirit stone he had that He Yu had fully grasped his Dao before he’d even advanced.

Figured it would end like this. With He Yu pushing him this hard, he couldn’t spare half a thought for his niece. His niece, who’d managed to take some medicine, restore herself to peak condition, and was now pushing him nearly as hard as He Yu was. She was close, he had to admit. Close to the same sort of epiphany that He Yu just had. She’d push through that bottleneck sooner or later.

Well, Tan Qingsheng would remain true to his Way until the last. Which meant he wasn’t going to make this easy.

  *

Shenlong wrapped around heaven and earth. The storm spit lightning across the sky and flooded the earth. For every blade that erupted from the sodden ground, a bolt from heaven shattered it. For every black burning spear Tan Qingsheng launched, the Spring Rain Mirror turned it aside.

As he fought, He Yu found himself somewhere far away. Somewhere calm, like the eye of a great storm. Though the heavens might rage around him, though the great dragon brought the floods, he was the center of calm. He was the ineffable nameless ease of being that sages called the Dao.

Tan Qingsheng turned aside He Yu’s guandao, then expertly followed up with a slash from his nine-ringed blade. It wasn’t enough. He Yu saw the gap, the error, the moment the fight was over. When the Fist of the Heavens connected with Tan Qingsheng’s chest, when bones harder than the Jade Mountains themselves shattered and Tan Qingsheng’s face finally let show some measure of pain, He Yu knew.

Twinned dao sabers erupted from his chest. Fire and blood coated them in equal measure, and flesh sizzled beneath Tan Xiaoling’s fire-aspected sword technique.

As Tan Qingsheng fell to his knees, he grinned one last bloody grin. “I couldn’t have asked for a better death,” he managed to rumble before the light went out in his golden eyes.

He Yu and Tan Xiaoling stood across from one another, over the fallen body of her uncle.

“You owe me an explanation,” she said, chest heaving.

He leaned on his guandao, using it like an over-sized metal walking stick. “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” She looked off into the distance, toward the Jade Mountains, and the Cloud Dragon Valley Sect. “The others should be along shortly. Yan Shirong just recalled one of his constructs.”

He Yu nodded. The battle, however many weeks it had taken, was finally catching up to him. “What next?” he asked.

“I honor my obligations,” she said. “Next, we go speak to my father.”

“Do we need to wait for the others?”

“My father is a king. Just how easy do you think it is for even me to see him?”

“Fair,” he said. Together they trudged northward. Toward Jade Mountain Citadel, to meet the legendary Tan Zihao.