Xin Lu’s presence was a tower of flame, coursing with twisting channels of heaven running along its length. A rain of sparks and embers fell all around him, setting alight countless tiny blazes. The twinge of darkness and blood He Yu had detected down south still lurked within Xin Lu’s spirit, but to He Yu’s relief it hadn’t grown any more potent. Gripping his double halberd in one hand, Xin Lu cast his furious gaze over the five of them.

  Finally he turned his full attention to He Yu. “Surrender yourself,” he commanded. “Do so, and I will spare the others. I will even tell Tan Qingsheng that you were alone. That I could not find his niece. This is your one chance to spare your companions. Take it.”

  He Yu tightened his grip on his guandao. It took all the willpower he could muster to keep his gaze fixed on Xin Lu. To keep himself from casting a worried look at Tan Xiaoling. He knew full well she considered dealing with her uncle her first priority. Would she betray him to buy herself more time? None of them were ready to deal with Tan Qingsheng. Although Xin Lu’s arrival threatened to disrupt their plans, he’d at least offered Tan Xiaoling a way to salvage her own goals.

  He needn’t have worried. Tan Xiaoling stepped up next to him, her tiger-pommeled sabers in hand.

  “Begone,” she practically spat. “You think I would accept any terms from trash like you? I have made my choice of companions. Do not insult my honor by asking me to betray them.”

  He Yu pushed aside his suspicions that she’d spoken more for his sake than Xin Lu’s. He’d always been easy to read, and his advancement to Nascent Soul hadn’t changed that. Along with the others, he released the full weight of his presence.

  Xin Lu wasted no time. In a burst of furious heaven and flame, he appeared before He Yu and Tan Xiaoling. They both reacted as one, bringing their weapons up to meet his attack. Even with their combined strength, they barely managed to hold back the massive strike, brimming with lightning and flame.

  He Yu activated the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. His advancement to middle Nascent Soul hadn’t added any more pillars to the art—that would come with higher realms—but it had increased the potency of the five pillars he’d already formed. His skin took on the faint shine that marked his activation of the body enforcement, and arcs of heaven coursed along the length of his limbs. The storm roared in his ears.

  At his side, Tan Xiaoling called the Breath of the White Desert. A thousand thousand razor shards whipped up around her. Swirling and churning, ripping apart the ground at her feet, and screaming through the air. She called her own storm—one of metal, sharp and cold and laden with killing intent. In the moment before she attacked, He Yu saw the tiger coil. Muscles bunched, gathering strength and power.

  Xin Lu staggered back. He caught himself almost immediately, but that briefest moment was all the opening Tan Xiaoling needed. She lunged inside the reach of his halberd, paired dao flashing in the afternoon light as flame danced along their edges. The blades bit deep, parting the lamellar of his armor like cloth.

  In the hair’s breadth moment after her attack, Xin Lu grabbed her by the throat. Even as he lifted her off the ground, her expression twisted in fury. She sank one of her sabers into the flesh where his shoulder met his neck, but his grip held firm. Heaven and flame surged up his arm. Tan Xiaoling released a sound halfway between a scream and a roar, a mix of fury and pain that rooted He Yu to the ground for an instant.

  But the instant passed. He Yu hit Xin Lu at the same time as all the others. The battle was joined.

  A formation of the Sweeping Wind, crackling with all the sharp edges of Heaven’s Descending Blade, arced out towards his peak Nascent Soul opponent. Li Heng stepped into the space between He Yu’s technique and Tan Xiaoling’s still raging storm of blades. The Darkmoon Strife left its scar upon the world. Chen Fei hit Xin Lu from behind like a collapsing mountain. Yan Shirong’s poisoned daggers came from every direction, even as a mass of shadow curled itself around Xin Lu’s ankles.

  Xin Lu answered their assault in a manner befitting his advancement. Tan Xiaoling crashed into He Yu, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. In the fraction of a heartbeat it took them to recover and regain their feet, Xin Lu had already beaten back Li Heng.

  The black iron of Xin Lu’s halberd stood in contrast to the ever-brightening gleam of Li Heng’s jian. As impressive as his defense was, he still wasn’t a match for Xin Lu’s raw power and aggression. Flames roared around them both as Xin Lu’s strikes send arcs of heaven streaking across the sky. After a furious exchange, Li Heng flashed away with the White Hare Dance, finally getting out of Xin Lu’s reach. The following river of sword light he released from the Winter Moon Reflection was the most potent He Yu had seen him use yet.

  Darkness fell over the field. Countless eyes peered out from it, laying bare all within. Yan Shirong rose above them all, carried by the very same strands of shadow he’d used to bind Xin Lu. Around him, an army of constructs formed into ranks.

  “You’re outmatched, Xin Lu,” Yan Shirong said, his voice echoing through every one of his puppets. “There are five of us, and one of you. Leave with your life while you still have it.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Although He Yu couldn’t find any fault in Yan Shirong’s flare for the dramatic, the threat wasn’t effective. Xin Lu roared a wordless shout, and flames burned away the shadows entwining his limbs. The army of constructs descended upon him. Sprays of black spikes burst from dozens of constructs all at once as Yan Shirong used them to channel the Myriad Black Thorns. Even more constructs reached out for Xin Lu, sending dozens of shadowy strands reaching for his weapon and limbs. Skeletal birds flitted above, releasing a steady barrage of poison-tipped daggers.

  Flames burst out from Xin Lu, forming an expanding sphere that reminded He Yu of the Bracing Wind. Constructs burned away by the dozens, and the darkness Yan Shirong had called lifted. When the wave of fire subsided, Chen Fei slammed a fist into the small of Xin Lu’s back.

  The burst of mountain qi from her Falling Star Strike briefly overwhelmed Xin Lu’s own mass of fire and heaven. He recovered quickly, thrusting the end cap of his halberd back behind him. Chen Fei doubled over under the force of his blow, and Xin Lu readied the bladed end of his weapon as he turned on her.

  He Yu struck. The heavens opened, pouring lightning down over the battlefield. The storm above churned with black clouds as the deluge broke. Steam hissed as the dozens of fires littered about died. Wind howled as it carried He Yu forward on its wings.

  Xin Lu answered in kind. The column of fire and heaven rose to meet the storm. They clashed in a twisting mass of wind and rain, fire and lightning. Flashes of heaven’s spark accompanied the exchange of blows as halberd and guandao clashed, blade against blade, haft against haft.

  They exchanged strikes from their polearms. Kicks, punches. At one point, Xin Lu smashed his forehead into He Yu’s nose. Hot blood flowed freely. He Yu formed his still imperfect technique, calling the dragon that lurked within the storm. Lamellar and bone bent and cracked beneath his fist. Heaven qi coursed through him and into Xin Lu in a spike laden with killing intent.

  Beneath them, the muddy ground churned even as their strikes rent great craters in the surrounding landscape. Li Heng slipped in, frost blooming out as he stepped out from nothing. The ground froze, only to melt an instant later. A storm of metal screamed in He Yu’s ears. Countless lacerations opened and healed over Xin Lu’s skin.

  And still, Xin Lu met them blow for blow. “You’ve grown strong,” he said, flames twisting around the length of his halberd as sparks leaped from his skin. “Your time in the Jade Mountains has served you well.”

  Not well enough. He Yu cast a quick glance at the others. They were holding up, but the fight had dragged on for over a day by this point. The entire valley floor outside Tan Xiaoling’s cave was a ruin. Cracked boulders littered what had once been forest. Craters and the smoking remains of fires scarred the land. Hoarfrost and jagged crystals of ice crept up the trunks of trees at the far edge where the flames of Xin Lu and Tan Xiaoling’s respective techniques hadn’t yet melted it away. Pools of rainwater mixed with mud and blood formed red-brown puddles in the bottom of ditches carved by weapon and technique alike.

  They had brought ruin to the once pristine wilderness. Any beasts or spirits in the area had long since fled. And by He Yu’s estimation, the battle was far from over. Xin Lu stood proud. He Yu and his companions remained similarly defiant. All of them had taken wounds, all had healed with their massive reserves of qi. None of them had needed to consume any medicine yet. As they stared at each other across the open expanse their clash had formed, the reality of their struggle settled over He Yu.

  This was a battle between immortals in truth. All of them wielded power unfathomable to even those in the early stages of cultivation, and they did so with ease. What if there had been a settlement here? A town like Shulin, with no walls, no local experts to hold back the destruction they wrought.

  It was a reminder of what He Yu fought for, if ever there was one. Mortals would be helpless against any one of them, let alone all of them. Should someone like Xin Lu decide to obliterate even a walled town—that was it. There would be nothing any of them could do.

  So He Yu needed to keep pushing. Keep growing stronger, keep advancing, and keep challenging those who wielded their strength with impunity. Most of all, to face down Jin Xifeng, and all that she’d brought to the empire. And to do any of that, he had to face down Xin Lu who stood in his way now.

  Carried by the wind and cloaked in the sharp edges of heaven, He Yu surged forward. His guandao once again clashed against the black iron of Xin Lu’s double halberd. Heaven’s Descending Blade reached down and touched the earth. Stone shattered, and the last remnants of Xin Lu’s armor fell away.

  In the space between breaths, Tan Xiaoling joined He Yu’s assault. Black flames flickered along the edges of her twinned dao sabers. She cut a pair of bloody gashes across Xin Lu’s chest, and followed up with a kick to his thigh, just above the knee.

  Xin Lu stumbled, but caught himself before he completely fell. A blast of heaven and flame forced He Yu back. When his vision cleared, Xin Lu had used a movement technique to create a considerable amount of space. In one hand, he held his double halberd, the black blades low to the ground in his relaxed grip. In his other hand, a paper talisman.

  A trickle of qi flowed into the talisman, and it burned to ash in his fingers. “You think I would truly come here alone?” he asked as a column of brilliant light shot into the heavens. At the far side of the valley, two presences revealed themselves.

  One, He Yu recognized. A brilliant jian hung over a still and serene lake. The sword glistened in the morning light as dew beaded along its length. A single drop formed at the tip, then fell into the lake below. Killing intent rippled through the lake, shone from the blade. It was a presence he’d not felt in over a decade. Although it was stronger than last time, even more refined, He Yu recognized it still.

  Wang Xiaobo. Like Xin Lu, he’d since reached the late stage of Nascent Soul. His presence rushed towards them from the far side of the valley with the same coursing power He Yu had come to recognize in Zhang Lifen’s water-aspected spirit.

  The second presence was one He Yu had never felt before. But he recognized it just the same. It was a hot, burning desert. Jagged spikes of broken, bloody metal rose from the desolate expanse. A blackened sun with a deep crimson corona beat down mercilessly from above. Rather than an oasis at the center, this spirit held a bastion. A squat fortress, brimming with instruments of war. A glance at Tan Xiaoling was all the confirmation He Yu had needed. As if the presence of a Sixth Realm spirit that cultivated the Tan family arts hadn’t been enough on its own.

  Tan Qingsheng had come, and they weren’t ready.