"Argh… just…"
A man, his arm missing, and his body covered in burnt marks, was slowly crawling on the ground, advancing meter by meter.
"A bit more…"
Wu Leihao, while badly injured, was still alive, thanks to the arm wielding the Composite Wind Gauntlet Blade taking the brunt of the explosion.
"Heavens… didn't abandon me yet… I just need… to reach the border…"
Yes, if he reached the strong wind separating the inside of the Void Hurricane from the outside and used his Earth talent to pass through, nobody would be able to follow him and he would escape with his life! Just… a few more meters!
"You look really bad, young master Wu. I guess you finally understood that talent isn't everything… Well, especially when trying to bridge half a major realm worth of difference, right?"
Leihao's heart sank. Now in front of him was a tall, well-built man with grey hair, black eyes, a rugged face, looking to be in his sixties. In one hand, he held a sword made of blood essence and, in the other, he held a severed head.
"Ahh, you… already killed Jian Shen…" he panted, gritting his teeth. "Zhang Baotian"
Baotian, watching his seeth, didn't even feel like smiling anymore, despite their hard-earned victory.
"Yes, it wasn't easy but I've done it" he said, just wanting to be done with the entire thing. "And now, it's your turn"
Instead, he just raised the sword.
"Wu Leihao, your error was to believe that talent was an armor that couldn't be broken by any attack. No, talent… is merely one more tool to advance on one's path. And because you overused this tool, it ended up breaking. That is the error that will cost your life"
"Curse you…"
Baotian slashed down.
"... Demon"
With this last word, Leihao's head separated from his body. As Baotian took possession of his blood essence and Qi Cube, Zi Moyan landed beside him:
"Is he dead?" she asked.
"Yes… he is" Baotian replied flatly. "Now let's leave, I don't want to risk meeting with a revengeful cultivator of the Divine Storm Sect, and I have a lot to tell you once we're in a safer place"
The two of them started flying toward a breach in the strong wind, to exit the Void Hurricane. Zi Moyan pouted:
"Hmph, you better explain well then, unworthy junior brother! Zhang Baotian!? Zhang Ming's heir? You better be a good narrator!"
Baotian scoffed, but then smiled:
"I missed you, senior sister"
Zi Moyan, surprised for a second, quickly smiled back:
"Zhang Baotian or Ba Ke, it doesn't matter that much" she said. "I missed you too, junior brother"
After all the time they had spent together, if Baotian was to honestly say what he thought of Zi Moyan, he would undoubtedly answer that she was like a sister to him. If she was asked the same question, she would answer that he was like the brother she never had, as well.
They had strictly platonic feelings for each other, and Baotian was perfectly happy with this fact. However, he couldn't help but think about the one other person he had once seen as his sibling:
'I wonder… what Zhenyun is doing now'
He quickly shook his head. That bond was already in the past. After all, as someone not-so-wise had said, one must look at the future.
.
.
.
What he ignored was that, in a completely different place, Zhenyun wasn't in a much better shape than him, struggling to stand as he coughed blood repeatedly. However, unlike Baotian, it wasn't due to a rough fight, but for an entirely different reason:
"Ahh… ahh… damnation… I failed to advance!"
Zhenyun, just like Baotian many years ago, had successfully passed the tribulation, but had still ended up failing the advancement itself, falling back from the grand perfection to the late stage of Core Formation. For as long as he could remember, since he had reached early stage Qi Refining, such a thing had never happened to him.
"Zhenyun! Are you okay!?"
Seeing the woman running toward him, who had recently advanced to Qi Building, he simply smiled:
"I'm okay, Yue, don't worry" he replied, grunting as he got up. "I'm a bit surprised but after all, after advancing so fast, I was bound to suffer some form of setback at one point or another"
Jin Yue, the woman he was talking to, approached him, and applied her slender, pale hands on his body. Immediately, light shone around them, and Zhenyun's injuries began to heal several times faster as the pain quickly left his body.
"Haha, no need to exhaust yourself like this, Yue, I can heal from this by myself…" Zhenyun said, though he didn't seem eager for her to stop.
"Hah, Zhenyun, you're really too reckless, you know?" she said. "How many times did I have to bring you back from death's doors after you fought an enemy one or two minor realms above yourself?"
Zhenyun grabbed his chin between his thumb and index, seriously considering the question:
"Hmm… I think it was seventeen times. Maybe eighteen?" he said. "There was this time when I just reached Core Formation, where I tried to fight a grand perfection cultivator. But technically, that's more than one or two stages so it doesn't really cou- argh!"
Zhenyun was interrupted by a fan hitting the crown of his head.
"Argh, it hurts!" he shouted. "Where did you even get that!?"
"Sir Liu Jianhong gave it to me and told me to use it if you started acting out while he wasn't there" Jin Yue replied.
Zhenyun silently cursed his master as Jin Yue continued to heal him, but eventually, he sighed:
"I don't think I will be able to try advancing to Nascent Soul for a moment" he said. "Matter of fact, I think it'll take me a while to return to the grand perfection stage"
"What!? What do you mean by that?" Jin Yue asked, worried for him. "Did… Was your Spirit Core damaged?"
Zhenyun shook his head:
"Don't worry, my core is perfectly fine" he answered. "Instead, the true problem is tied to my talent"
"Your talent? What do you mean?"
Zhenyun looked around, ensuring nobody was there, and then transmitted the answer through his spiritual sense:
"You must have noticed but even compared to Earthly talents, my cultivation speed is much higher" he transmitted. "But as a drawback, there's a condition for it to stay on…"
As he told her, Jin Yue's eyes widened:
"B-but then…"
"Yes, it seems I will have to take some more risks - and some more beatings - from now on, it I want to advance to Nascent Soul in the near future"
Hearing him saying this, Jin Yue was filled with anger for a moment, thinking of all the times she would have to exhaust herself healing him in the future. But then, she sighed and smiled:
"Alright, Zhenyun" she said. "Just… don't die, alright?"
He nodded, and took her in his arms:
"I promise" he said.
His life might have a few setbacks from time to time, but he genuinely couldn't dream of someone with a better one.
'If anything… I just wish Baotian was still there'
"Zhenyun, are you alright? You look a bit sad"
Snapped back to reality by Jin Yue, he put these thoughts in a corner of his mind. Yes, Baotian was already gone from his life, either becoming some unknown demonic cultivator, or dead. Either way, he was out of his life, right now.
'No, that's naive thinking. Baotian is smart, maybe the smartest person I ever met, and he has the infamous Blood Torrent Grandmaster's inheritance. With his cultivation block gone, there's a real chance he becomes a serious threat in the future'
In fact, Zhenyun would discover the next day just how right he was, hearing the news about Wu Leihao's death at the hands of 'Zhang Baotian' from his trembling master.
But as it was said, ignorance sometimes was a blessing. And for now, he simply enjoyed his life, spending the next hours having a good time with Jin Yuu and, eventually, kissing her.
.
.
.
"Oh, heavens, what kind of terrible situation did you put me in once again…"
Sat on his throne, the sovereign of the Xuanhe Kingdom's face was covered by his hand, as he read the reports he had received from the recent situation.
"Zhang Ming's successor has manifested… Zhang Baotian… he even killed Wu Leihao"
Xuanhe Wuxin, the king, almost bit his finger off. Unpleasant memories came to his mind as he remembered this infamous demon he had fought, back when he had just broken through to the Void Ascension realm. Blood Torrent Grandmaster Zhang Ming had only been a grand perfection stage Nascent Soul cultivator, and yet back then, he had been forced to ask for help from the sovereign of Zhaoqing Country to defeat him. And even then, as he could now realize, they had not managed to completely get rid of him.
"And now, I have to deal with his heir… Of course, this little brat just had to kill one of my potential successors"
Xuanhe Wuxin, beyond annoyed, shortly considered putting bounties on their heads. However, he quickly abandoned this idea:
"Forget it, with the loss of one successor and the recent problems with the Lands of Yaoling, we cannot risk immediate conflicts with the demonic path by targeting their promising talents"
Thus, he focused back on the current situation. The infiltration team he had sent in Yaoling had been eradicated and, similarly, the Spirit Beasts that had invaded Xuanhe in return had been killed. The tension between the kingdom and the Spirit Beasts had reached a much higher level than it should, and the Griffin king had even sent him a letter personally.
Xuanhe Wuxin winced at the thought: for him, the Griffin king was not much different from a Void Ascension-level Zhang Ming, and the last thing he wanted was to confront him.
"This fighting-obsessed lunatic… He wants to settle it with a duel!? Insane!"
As if he'd ever accept such a thing.
"But how can I settle it with as little damage as possible…"
As he thought it out, a small voice echoed in his head, quickly formulating a plan. The king's eyes brightened as he had finally found an easy way out:
"The thing the Griffin king likes the most after fighting is to watch other strong people fight! I just have to suggest a friendly sparring between a Nascent Soul cultivator from Xuanhe and a Nascent Soul cultivator from Yaoling, and that should satisfy him!"
Best case, either nobody died and the peace returned, or one of the Spirit Beasts' Nascent Soul powerhouses disappeared, inducing them to stay calm for a while. Worst case, he would have sacrificed a Nascent Soul for the peace of the kingdom. Either way, as long as he wasn't the one at risk, Xuanhe Wuxin could stomach the loss.
"Servitor! Bring me enchanted paper, I need to write a letter, now!"
As the king ordered and the servitors obeyed, a small insect crawled out of the throne room, and then out of the royal castle. Finally, it crawled the long of a certain person's slender body, and wrapped itself around its wrist. The cultivator, an early stage nascent soul with long white hair and a golden mask, listened to the sounds it emitted, and then chuckled:
"Would you believe that… No matter a person's age, or their power, it seems that nobody is really spared from cowardice" they mocked. "Well, in this case, it works just good for me"
The Nascent Soul cultivator smiled and, with a thought, turned the centipede into a hundred thread that entered their sleeve, as if hiding in it.
"Now, with that, I believe I truly managed to drag the Spirit Beasts into my game. It might take a century, or even a few, but in the end, it won't just be a few cultivators, or even a single nation"
They smiled behind their mask:
"This entire realm… shall be my stepping stone"