Heat funnelled past Abby’s face, forcing her to rotate her Water Qi to witness the sight unfolding before her. Her feet dug into the ground, resisting the pressure against her body as the sword lodged into Sun Cai opened his cultivation base to Arden.

A golden, fiery light reflected in Abby’s eyes, enveloping Arden, infusing into his being, and accepting him as its new master. The light amalgamated into a pair of wings similar to Sun Cai’s previous ones, but this time sprouting from Arden’s back. However, the flames didn’t stop there and began condensing along Arden’s sword, forming a rounded, flaming bat, too.

“NO!” Arden yelled, shaking his hand to pry it from the weapon inserted into his master, but he couldn’t as Sun Cai held his hand in a death grip. Arden was forced to watch as Sun Cai’s aura withered with each passing second, and the skin that once was smooth was burdened with the wrinkles of aging skin.

“This is the only chance, fool; use it to save the others.” Sun Cai told Arden, crumbling into glowing cinders that floated past Arden, brushing past his face before disappearing as tendrils of strength.

Sun Cai was gone, reborn as Arden’s new strength.

“No…”

A sudden gust lifted Abby’s feet from the ground, sending her tumbling away from Arden’s side and clearing the area of dust and flames. She hurriedly formed a ball of Water Qi around her, padding her fall as she skipped across the ground like a stone. Abby embedded herself into a nearby wall with a crunch, dropping to the ground as the water sphere dissipated.

“Arden!” Abby yelled as she got up, but her cry was overpowered by a bellowing laugh from Gou Da, who watched Arden rise high into the air.

“You think you can defeat me by being forced into the Gateway Foundation Realm? Sun Cai really will die a worthless martyr after all!” Gou Da mocked.

“You aren’t worthy to speak his name!” Arden yelled, leaving a trench behind as he bolted towards Gou Da, striking him with his flaming bat. Unexpectedly, Gou Da’s arms relented, and he was lifted high into the air by the force of Arden’s strike.

Tremor!

Aftershocks bounced off the ground, shaking Abby’s feet as she ran to the battle. But, the speed between Arden and Gou Da had increased to a level beyond the earlier battle. She could only see sparks as weapons clashed, and the two unleashed everything they had.

“A technique capable of gifting a Qi Condensation Cultivator the power to kill a Gateway Formation Cultivator?” Abby questioned and used her watery whips to latch onto unbroken structures. Abby shot herself past the trench like a slingshot and went up to the highest point of the sect, the Gou Brother’s residence building.

Abby arrived, her skin tingling from the brushes of heat and the sour smell of burnt metal. The Water Qi within her reinforced her eyes, providing a layman's method of enhancing her eyesight without a proper technique. But it did the job.

The sparks became afterimages as her eyes struggled to keep up, but she could see now.

Arden’s flaming bat swung down, causing Gou Da’s sceptre to bend and nearly break in two. But, before it could break, Gou Da slid the bat along his sceptre, parrying the strike's momentum away from him and using the other end to attack Arden’s arm. Arden retreated backwards, allowing Gou Da to unleash a flurry of spinning strikes that changed angles in seconds, resembling a storm of carnivorous fish trying to eat their prey.

Ack!

Arden ate a few attacks, but the flaming wings behind him folded, blocking most of the attacks as he got closer to Gou Da.

Crunch!

“Arden!”

Gou Da’s foot stopped Arden’s flaming bat, producing a crunching sound from toes breaking under the pressure. However, a wide smile graced Gou Da’s face as his sceptre swept towards Arden’s chest, impacting and sending the two enemies back from each other.

Gou Da spiralled towards Abby, stopping just above the residence building where Abby observed from. Meanwhile, Arden spiralled away from Abby, stabilizing and glaring down below with glowing eyes that viewed the life beneath him as nothing but an enemy to be burned to cinders.

“Is that it!?”

Tch.

From behind Gou Da, Abby saw her brother’s expression darken. The bat in his hand lifted, even as the blood dripped from the wound on his chest and burned into reinforcing flames.

“The disciple has taken on the master's wish to die! Do you really think you can defeat me? Do you think you’re a hero? That you can save everyone by killing me!?”

In response to Arden’s stance, Gou Da readied himself, and the metallic hue along his skin shifted from covering his body to gathering in his arms, darkening the red colour on his skin further. Even his sceptre darkened as Metal Qi spiralled off it.

Something is off.

Abby’s feeling grew as Arden charged his attack, like a nagging suspicion was telling her of potential danger.

“I am done talking! We settle this now!” Arden denied, and the bat above him likewise collected the flames across his body. The flaming bat grew in size, and fiery funnels sprouted from its sides, turning into claws and a beak. The wings attached to Arden’s body enveloped him as a resounding cry echoed into the sky.

The Golden Crow Descends!

“Your master was no martyr!” Gou Da proclaimed, biting his tongue and spitting blood onto his arms and sceptre, which both shone with a deeper metallic colour.

Abby’s eyes tracked everything she could witness, including Arden’s majesty, as he dove down with his Golden Crow Technique. In parallel to Arden’s rage, Gou Da’s body calmly tensed as the strength funnelling to his arms continued, building up the most strength he could muster, with even his life force added into the mix. It wasn’t until the last moment, as Arden’s strike neared Gou Da, that his neck twisted, and his cruel eyes landed on Abby.

Gou Da’s metal sceptre swung with the full strength of his technique, shooting the attack down toward Abby and causing her eyes to widen.

“This is how a martyr dies!” Gou Da announced as the Golden Crow shredded through his body, burning him to cinders and wreaking havoc through him. Unable to control the borrowed power of his strike, Arden grunted and tried to force the power elsewhere, but the power was sucked in like it was gripped by a force much more powerful.

The Golden Crow left Arden’s flaming bat and sailed along Gou Da’s strike, reinforcing it and causing the air to vibrate.

“Abby!” Arden yelled, but his voice was drowned out as the strike landed.

 

*****

 

Huff, huff, huff.

Dirt rose to repair the gashes in my earthen armour while the violet mist funnelled through, healing the cuts underneath that leaked blood. Slowly, I was beginning to look like a red-violet earth puppet.

I certainly felt like one, with the way Gou Jia had played me.

“When are you coming out of that mist, Louie?” Gou Jia called out from his perch on the cobblestones, his daggers tightly gripped.

Stomp.

My leg burst apart a stone, sending flying rock shards toward Gou Jia, but he didn’t even deign to slice them with his daggers anymore. Instead, the blood droplets, which had increased to ten in number with his spike of power, raced around him, cutting apart the shards to harmless sizes that bounced off his body.

“Don’t you want to end this once and for all? Haven’t you taken on my sister’s dying wish, becoming a violet warrior to end this sect’s future?” Gou Jia said.

I circled the area, attempting to find a way in that wasn’t closely guarded by Gou Jia, but like a human radar, Gou Jia switched positions, tracking my location in the violet mist.

“You need to do it fast, Louie! Before long, my brother will be here with sacrifices. The people you care about will be killed before your eyes, and then there'll be nothing you can do to stop us!”

Stop, don’t fall for his taunts!

Gou Jing tried to reason with me, but I neglected her warning and charged through the barrier. When I crossed the threshold, half-moons of slicing blood took chunks out of my earthen armour and continued to rotate around, scoring into the gaps they created for more valuable flesh.

“I won’t let you!” I yelled, and with a single leap, I closed the distance. With a heavy upwards swing, the ground shifted along my blade, and despite Gou Jia evading my sword, he was hit by the rocks I raised. They crumbled against his skin, and Gou Jia reared his fist, breaking them apart like he was batting a fly away. The punch suddenly extended towards me, hitting my blocking sword but forcing me back with its momentum.

Ack!

I huffed out a breath from taking the blow, only to feel the tingling sensation of the blood droplets slicing into my skin from their prolonged attacks. I retreated outside the barrier to the violet mist, watching the blood droplets stay behind, waiting for me to enter again.

Don’t rush in, you idiot!

My mouth frowned.

“All I had to do was act a bit in the beginning, and now you’ve become powerless to stop me.” Gou Jia continued to taunt me, even as my teeth gritted from his words.

“You thought that with your meagre power, you could face me? With the power of a little Qi hill, you could reach the heavens where I stand? How foolish can one cultivator—”

“Enough!”

I slammed my sword into the ground, causing vibrations to tremor the violet earth and deeply embedding my sword into the soil. My grip loosened from the sword, leaving it in the ground.

Wait, what are you doing? Stop!

Gou Jing questioned me, and I replied while cracking the knuckles on my hands. My eyes levelled against Gou Jia.

“No, I won't stop. I should have just done this all my way. The way that I’ve lived til now…”

Crack!

“…With my fists.”