Xin Lu’s presence exploded out from him. He was much as He Yu remembered. A furious blaze, sparking with the wrath of heaven. A pillar of swirling flame towered above them, twisting around itself and raining embers down from above. Lightning coursed along its length, cracking and sparking with each turn of the massive blazing column. The addition of a twinge of darkness, of shadow, of blood wasn’t something He Yu wanted to see, but it didn’t surprise him.

  Whatever bargain Xin Lu had formed with Jin Xifeng, it was driven by the humiliation he’d suffered at He Yu and Li Heng’s hands. It explained why he’d been given authority over the lands formerly administered by the sect. Given authority over Shulin. Over He Yu’s home.

  None of that was what bothered He Yu about Xin Lu’s presence unleashed. It was the fact that he’d reached late Nascent Soul. A two full stages above He Yu, and a realm’s advantage compared to Chen Fei. As He Yu brought his new weapon to bear, he prepared himself to once again face an opponent beyond his ability. Outmatched as they may have been, He Yu and Chen Fei answered Xin Lu in kind.

  Chen Fei grew to fill the heavens, to dominate the landscape for miles around. She reached down into the earth and drew up its strength and power. Her bare arms bunched, her muscles hardening to iron. Looming over the both of them, she became the mountain.

  The weight of her spirit pressed down on the world, with all the heaviness of its aspects. Earth and metal and mountain, she drew from the earth and became indomitable. With her activation of the third stage of the White Mountain Body Art—the Titan Panoply—a suit of ornate armor forged of metal aspected qi formed around her. She fell into a fist stance, and rings of silver formation characters glowed around her wrists, and along her metal encased knuckles.

  He Yu unleashed the storm. For the first time since his advancement to the Fifth Realm, he allowed his spirit free rein. Winds lifted him from the ground as the Sky Dragon’s Flight carried him upon its wings. The once-gentle breeze whipped into a howling gale. The undergrowth and ground cover within a hundred feet of He Yu lifted into the air, whipped by the storm, before finally blasting away.

  Five mighty pillars burst forth around him, reaching to heaven. Arcs of heavenly qi surged along their length, leaped toward He Yu waiting in their center. The Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering was a body enforcement art that emphasized agility above all else—but that did not mean it provided nothing more. Now that it had reached its fifth stage, it hardened He Yu’s skin and muscles and bones more than it ever had. He was stronger and tougher than ever, while still being even faster than he was at the peak of Golden Core. Even the tiniest of his movements was a flickering jump from one place to the next.

  The storm above him churned and swirled around its center. Rain fell and extinguished the countless tiny fires started by his own sparking spirit, and the embers falling from Xin Lu. The sheets of rain pouring down all around them stood ready—ready to turn away any strike, any technique, and turn it from its course. Turn the course and open the path for He Yu’s own strike, He Yu’s own techniques.

  All three of them moved at once.

  A river of flame poured forth. The storm answered by drowning the land. A bolt of heaven split the sky. The mountain stood scarred but firm. Aspects of fire and storm and heaven and earth crashed against one another. Within moments, the land turned to blackened ash. Trees crashed to the ground, either ripped apart by the winds, felled by lightning, burned to cinders, or uprooted as the very earth they stood upon rose to join the battle. Stones cracked under the strength of the mountain. They melted beneath unrelenting flames, only to blacken and cool under the endless deluge.

  Steam exploded from each exchange of techniques between He Yu and Xin Lu. Fires turned aside by the Spring Rain Mirror, winds subsumed by Xin Lu’s raging tempest of fury and flame. The gleaming black halberd struck out with the speed of the lightning that surged along its length. It only found empty air as He Yu moved with the same speed, flickering from one place to the other, and striking with wind and heaven alike.

  Chen Fei launched a barrage of gleaming fists, each strike flashing with formation characters. Force, strength, stone. She used the Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols to give her strength and power beyond what a peak Golden Core could otherwise muster. To lend aspects she didn’t cultivate to her techniques, if only by degrees. All throughout, the armor she’d encased herself in hardened and drew upon the very earth to give it strength and durability.

  Despite their best efforts, Xin Lu beat them back inch-by-inch. It was the outcome He Yu had expected from the beginning—the only surprise coming from the fact it had simply taken longer than he’d first expected.

  Xin Lu’s double halberd slammed into one of Chen Fei’s barriers. The silver characters winked out, and the formation shattered. He lashed out with a powerful kick aimed at her chest. The impact released an explosion of flame and heaven and metal. Chen Fei slammed into the side of a hill, leaving a crater nearly the size of the one left by the fallen star.

  “It is a shame my brother isn’t here to take part in your defeat,” Xin Lu said. The twisting mass of flame and lightning that was his presence hadn’t dimmed over the course of their fight. He Yu already felt the strain of battle, despite his vastly increased cultivation base compared to their last encounter.

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  “I’m not beaten yet,” He Yu answered. He still stood, he still had a weapon, and he still had qi to spare. As he’d promised Wang Xiaobo all those years ago, he wasn’t about to make this easy.

  The two cultivators launched themselves at each other once more, meeting in an explosion of heaven and flame and wind and rain. He Yu’s new guandao was certainly a treasure, surpassing even his greatest hopes. Chen Fei’s formation work was of expert quality all on its own, despite her protests. The addition of the star metal to the characters only elevated the formation’s ability to channel his qi through the weapon, the blade’s ability to withstand the rigors of battle between immortals. The blade itself, formed of heavenly material by his own father’s hand, already carried noticeable spiritual significance. It reacted to his techniques and his qi in ways no other weapon he’d ever held had.

  Back and forth they went, their techniques tearing open the earth, splitting the sky, and turning the surrounding forest to cinders. As their battle raged, the sun sank to the west. The stars winked into being one by one, and eventually the eastern sky grew light. Dawn broke, and the fight dragged on. He Yu and Xin Lu threw themselves against one another, exchanging techniques freely, and ripping apart the mortal world with their battle. As the fight dragged on and the sun rose ever higher, several things became clear.

  This was not a fight He Yu could win. He might stand against Xin Lu for now, but he couldn’t effectively wound the more advanced cultivator. Sure, he scored hits. Plenty of them. Even now, as the fighting fell into a brief lull and the two Fifth Realm cultivators took stock of the other, Xin Lu showed signs of damage.

  His armor was cracked. One of his shoulder guards had completely fallen off, and countless wounds had opened and healed over any exposed skin He Yu could reach over the past day. It wasn’t enough. For every blow He Yu had landed, Xin Lu struck two. With greater advancement came a greater cultivation base. While He Yu still had plenty left, Xin Lu clearly had more. Over the course of the night, the battle had settled into one of attrition, and a battle of attrition was one He Yu knew he’d lose, eventually.

  The second thing that had become obvious regarded Chen Fei. She wasn’t exactly holding He Yu back—in fact, she often took enough pressure off of him and allowed him to land some of his most significant blows. Her techniques were disruptive, and her peerless durability and endurance had kept her in the fight far longer than could be reasonably expected of a Golden Core against an opponent of the Nascent Soul stage.

  Despite that, she was rapidly flagging. Her spirit had dimmed considerably since the previous afternoon, and her Titan Panoply showed even more cracks and rents than Xin Lu’s armor. She’d bleed more than He Yu, and even now nursed an arm that hadn’t quite finished mending after Xin Lu had broken it. Worse, even when she landed a solid hit, it barely affected him. She wasn’t exactly a liability, but as the fight dragged on, He Yu’s concern for her continued to grow, and he knew it was only a matter of time before Xin Lu battered down her defenses completely.

  The last thing was at once the most vexing, and perhaps their best chance at salvaging something of worth. Xin Lu seemed wholly focused on He Yu. Although he could easily take Chen Fei out of the fight any time he wanted, he only spared the barest attention for her, and only when she got too bothersome, or threatened to distract him from He Yu for too long. Then he’d unleash an attack that would take her out of the fight long enough for him to return his attention to his true target. When she invariably recovered, the cycle would repeat.

  He Yu would bet every spirit stone he had left that if Chen Fei simply ran, Xin Lu would let her go. He could continue to hold of the stronger cultivator for a time. Once she’d gotten far enough away, He Yu could use the Sky Dragon’s Flight to escape. Over the course of the battle, Xin Lu hadn’t used any techniques matching He Yu’s raw speed. He’d displayed no evidence of a treasure that granted flight, and techniques that did the same were rare in the Fifth Realm. He Yu was certain that if he could use his full speed without worry, Xin Lu wouldn’t be able to catch him.

  “No!” Chen Fei shouted once he’d relayed his plan. “Not leaving you.” She slammed into Xin Lu with the force of an avalanche. The middle Fifth Realm cultivator didn’t even flinch.

  Instead, he drove the end of his halberd into her midsection and levered her into the air. A follow-up kick sent her crashing into a pile of uprooted trees, reducing the once-mighty trunks to kindling. The disdain and utter contempt were obvious on his features—he considered her a nuisance, not even worth inflicting real harm on. He considered her so far beneath him, that she wasn’t even a foe worth defeating properly.

  He Yu formed Heaven’s Descending Blade. With aching arms, he slammed his guandao down, calling a blinding column of heavenly qi. Xin Lu brought up his double halberd, successfully weathering the attack, but his pained grunt told He Yu it had cost him.

  “We can’t win here, we need to escape,” he said as Chen Fei picked herself up for the thousandth time and made ready to throw herself at Xin Lu once again.

  A renewed assault from Xin Lu ended any further conversation. He Yu desperately fought back the larger, more powerful man. With each successive strike from the double halberd, whether he turned it away with his guandao or his techniques, he took a step closer to the edge. It was only a matter of time before he fell off.

  Chen Fei slammed a palm into Xin Lu’s back. She’d withdrawn her presence so she could sneak up on him—a risky move as it left her defenseless. But the gamble paid off. A ring of silver formation characters blazed around Xin Lu’s feet. He Yu pulled himself back as Chen Fei’s barrier activated, barely escaping her trap.

  With her armor gone and having spent what must have been a massive amount of qi, she looked awful. Her hair had mostly come out of its braid, and her leather vest was ripped and stained with blood. But Xin Lu was trapped. For now.

  “He’ll break out before long,” she gasped.

  They went west. It was the opposite direction to where Shulin and its meager population of mortals lay. Not to mention He Yu’s father. If they would find refuge, He Yu couldn’t have said.

  They each took a pill as they ran. The first restorative either of them had used since the fight began a day ago. As they headed towards the setting sun, Chen Fei turned to He Yu.

  “You don’t have to do it alone,” she said. “And I’m not abandoning you.”

  Before he had the chance to respond, an explosion of heaven and flame lit the horizon behind them. He Yu grimaced. “You may not have a choice,” he said.

  Xin Lu was free already.