5.46 - Strife

Tan Xiaoling nodded her thanks to He Yu as he helped her back to her feet. Her uncle’s kick still smarted in her ribs, but her qi had already repaired most of the damage. The Golden Tiger Cultivation Law had many strengths, the least of which was the sheer resilience it gave to its practitioners.

Which brought Tan Xiaoling to her current problem.

Her uncle stood atop a hill—or what remained of it—several dozen yards away. His presence expanded outward, leeching life from the land and shining relentless heat upon all those below. The forest of jagged metal blades protruding from the vast white expanse of sand gleamed under the light of a black sun hanging in a harsh sky. Tan Qingsheng stood with sword in hand, mirth in his smile, and deadly killing intent rolling off him in waves.

Tan Xiaoling did her best to match it. Her own desert endured beneath that same sun, but rather than a forest of blades, her spirit manifested an oasis. A hidden danger, tempting as it was deadly. She paid little attention to what that might mean. The lush green fronds at her center were nothing more than somewhere for the tiger to stalk. The tiger whose likeness she had come to further resemble with this latest advancement.

Fitting. Her family art marked her. Just as it marked her father, her uncle. It was said the first cultivators of the Golden Tiger Cultivation Law learned the secrets of the art from a golden tiger that had advanced far enough to fully assume human form. Tan Xiaoling wouldn’t have been surprised to learn those legends were true. With each step along her Way, she’d grown stronger, faster, and somewhat more feral. Her hair had gotten so impossible to tame since reaching Nascent Soul that she’d simply stopped trying. Her eyes had always been lighter than most, and they’d only grown more so until now they were two pools of molten gold that regarded the world with a predator’s perception.

And in her uncle, she saw nothing resembling prey.

As the last of her ribs knit themselves back together, Tan Xiaoling gripped the hilts of her paired dao sabers. She spared a glance at the grim work He Yu had just finished. Wang Xiaobo and Xin Lu would have been distractions, at best, but she was glad they’d been dealt with. Neither of them had any place in this fight, and she suspected they’d only been allowed to come so her uncle could assess He Yu’s advancement.

The twinge of bitter envy she felt at that thought wasn’t something she could afford to focus on, so she cast it aside. If her uncle wanted to fight the both of them, then so be it. If she were honest with herself—and she always was—that first exchange hadn’t left her much hope of beating Tan Qingsheng on her own. Even after her advancement.

The Golden Tiger Cultivation Law was one focused almost exclusively on physical ability. That made it easy to forget that, compared to most cultivators, she was tremendously strong for her advancement. Having to bear the weight of her uncle’s blows, to turn aside the edge of his nine-ringed blade, was enough to drive home the true power her family art provided.

“Thank you for coming,” she said without taking her eyes off her uncle.

“I told you I’d help in any way I could,” He Yu answered.

Tan Xiaoling allowed herself a bit of a smile, then. It was something she’d always been a bit self-conscious of as a girl, the way one side of her lips quirked up higher than the other, making the whole thing into a bit of a crooked smirk that was hardly befitting someone of her station. Sharing it with an ally—a friend—gave her a small comfort she hadn’t known that she needed.

Tan Qingsheng threw his arms out to his sides and bellowed a challenge. “Come!” he roared with far too much excitement and glee. “Will you demonstrate your techniques, or shall I?”

As the Breath of the White Desert kicked up around her, Tan Xiaoling banished the last of her idle thoughts. She kept the storm of razors close and tightly controlled. She’d expand it as necessary. While it was an efficient technique, it was still a drain on her qi. The coming fight would demand all her reserves, she was certain.

Flames leaped along the edges of her paired dao. The Phoenix Feather Sword Style was a difficult art to master, and even now she’d only fully grasped its most rudimentary elements. If she could survive this—when she survived this—it would come into its fullness and be a powerful addition to her arsenal.

“Plan?” He Yu asked from beside her.

“Win. Don’t die.”

She took his lack of a response for agreement and launched herself at her uncle. Two tigers met on white sands beneath a black sun, while all around them a storm raged with the fury of heaven. This was a true struggle worthy of Soul Refining immortals, not the sort of slap fights they’d gotten into back at the sect. Back when they’d been little better than children.

This was a battle to shake the heavens and remake the earth.

The first exchange obliterated the surrounding land for miles. The Breath of the White Desert scoured hills down to nothing and tore up plants and stone alike. Great bolts of heaven left smoking craters where they struck. Anything that wasn’t blasted to memory by techniques withered under the relentless sun of the two Tan family presences—or drowned beneath the unending torrent of He Yu’s storm.

In the distance, the ancient and powerful formation scripts protecting Jade Mountain Citadel activated. A precaution against a stray technique, or even the mere proximity to the Sixth Realm experts doing battle. Even if that battle took place miles away. That meant her father at least had taken notice.

Tan Qingsheng’s nine-ringed blade slammed into the ground, turned aside by He Yu’s Spring Rain Mirror. It formed a canyon a hundred feet deep and a thousand feet long. He roared that gleeful roar of his as he brought the weapon back up for another strike. Tan Xiaoling expanded her formation of the Breath of the White Desert. The cyclone carved out the edges and walls of her uncle’s canyon, making it into just another crater among all the others.

A golden tiger roared as it burst forth from the sandstorm, its teeth and claws gleaming metallic and heavy with killing intent. Tan Xiaoling let the paralyzing wave wash over her. She cycled her qi to her muscles, to her bones. Through sheer grit, sheer strength, she willed herself to move.

Strife did not stand still. Strife was like a wind, a tide. It came, it flowed, it crashed over all that stood in its way. Tan Xiaoling moved with her Dao. She released her grip on the idea of control, and simply acted in accordance to her nature, to her spirit, and to her Way. Flames erupted along the leading edges of her sabers, and she roared back. Beneath her gown, the muscles in her arms and legs bunched, then exploded with power. With gleaming eyes and streaming wild hair, she threw herself at Tan Qingsheng.

He met her on equal ground. Metal screamed as their blades met. His own version of the Breath of the White Desert, those massive blades that spun around him, took aim at her heart. The wave of heat and steel—fire and metal aspected qi—exploded out, leaving them both standing at the bottom of a crater smooth as glass.

Tan Qingsheng leaned forward, his golden eyes a finger’s breadth from her own, a feral grin pulling back his lips. “Excellent. Show me your strength. Your claws of steel. Meet death, or become its harbinger.”

She slammed her forehead into his nose. Felt the crunch as much as she heard it, as hot blood flowed into her eyes. She blinked, her uncle laughed. He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the ground. The nine-ringed blade flashed under the black sun’s light, and she rolled away. Back on her feet, she sparked flame across her blades once more.

“Little Xiaoling has teeth!” he bellowed. Then he laughed once more.

The storm broke then, with He Yu slamming into the ground on the opposite side of Tan Qingsheng. Heaven arced along the length of his guandao as his presence battled the two deserts for influence upon the mortal world. Half the sky grew dark with flashing clouds as the winds rose and the rains fell. Tan Xiaoling shuddered under the weight of He Yu’s spirit and killing intent. As far as she’d come since their one true struggle against each other in the sect tournament, he’d come further.

With a sweep of his guandao, wind and heaven reached across the space between He Yu and Tan Qingsheng. Great forks of golden power cracked the earth and ripped through the metal blades Tan Qingsheng kept close around him. For a moment, the clouds swallowed the sun, and the white sands of the desert turned to mud as the torrent beat down ceaselessly. Amidst the clouds, a great azure serpent with scales of shimmering heaven wrapped itself around the sky. Its breath was lightning, and its roar thunder.

Tan Xiaoling joined the battle with metal and flame. Her sandstorm exploded out from her once again, this time carrying with it the flashing embers of her sword art. Her uncle met them both, with blade and fist alike. He was older and more experienced. He’d spent decades cultivating in the Soul Refining realm, and although he was still at the early stage, he’d done much work to solidify his cultivation base.

A cross punch from He Yu with the head of a roaring dragon slammed into Tan Qingsheng’s face. Tan Qingsheng punched He Yu back. Tan Xiaoling tore into her uncle with her paired dao, and took a number of deep wounds for her trouble.

“That you would kill your own family,” He Yu said. “And for what, rule of a kingdom? I can’t say how Tan Xiaoling would rule, but she would be more just a ruler than you.”

Something about He Yu’s words moved her, stirred a feeling deep in her heart. They carried a weight to them, stretching beyond the battlefield. Beyond the mere clash of techniques and iron blades. Reaching for a deeper truth to grasp something profound.

Tan Qingsheng noticed, too. “Oh?” He shifted and turned, so he could easily see them both at once. “I’d wondered when last we fought. When you swept aside those two dogs of that witch who calls herself empress. How could one so young come so far and so fast? Now I know. Xiaoling, I expected as much. She is of the Jade Kingdom. We aren’t soft, like the cultivators of the empire. We know who we are.”

A greater force, much like that which had imbued He Yu’s words, joined his presence. The black sun reemerged, and the desert grew parched once more. Tan Qingsheng himself almost seemed to grow, his bulk becoming more spiritual than physical. A sound of distant battle drifted on the lifeless air. The sensation which joined her uncle’s presence called to Tan Xiaoling. It was a sensation she’d carried with her for decades now and had only just recently appraised in fullness.

The Dao of Strife called, and Tan Xiaoling answered. Their battle rejoined raged across the heavens. Two tigers vied in the storm, and all three experts ripped apart the world. Each technique, each clash of ringing metal, Tan Qingsheng laughed. He laughed with the unrestrained glee of one who sought battle above all else.

He carried with him a song that Tan Xiaoling understood to the depths of her spirit. Between them, the only potential heirs to the Jade Kingdom, this was how it had always been fated. This was why her father, Tan Zihao, had allowed the challenge. Allowed the threat to his only child’s life. It was why Tan Qingsheng had waited.

Her uncle had long ago defined his Dao. Long ago passed the spiritual gate for advancing to the Seventh Realm. Yet he remained here, at the early Sixth. Waiting in the Soul Refining stage for the one person in the whole of the Jade Kingdom who could truly give him what he craved. That she’d been joined by an expert such as He Yu was just a happy bonus as far as her uncle was concerned. With a clash of metal and flame, Tan Xiaoling locked blades and eyes with her uncle.

“So we understand one another,” he said, still smiling, but the glee replaced by an appraising seriousness.

“We do.”

“Good. Then let us struggle.” He roared. “To the strongest!”