Chapter 451: The Truth of the Blackblood Physique

How long had it been since Zae Zin Nim had truly fought another cultivator? She had exterminated some weaker than her, and occasionally challenged herself, but most of her truly serious fights had been against opponents with wild techniques from many sources.

Here, trading blows with Xir Xan Khan, she found herself returning to the movements she had set aside for so long. He wasn't a brute using raw strength, or a fool with flashy but unrefined qi techniques, just a skilled martial artist who would have made her father proud. Strike after strike flowed between them, sleeves wheeling to deflect qi attacks, neither managing to pierce the other's defenses.

His words made anger flare inside her, but she wasn't an impetuous girl anymore and all her emotion was channeled into cold rage. He was shocked at first, then actually seemed pleased that she fought so well. But in the end, no matter his attitude, he wanted to drag her back and make her into the person she had once been.

And she would not allow that to happen.

Their sweeping attacks culminated in each thrusting a palm forward, impacting one another. Zae Zin Nim chose this moment to impart her blow with some of her mana, creating a shockwave of blue fire that repelled her opponent's qi and knocked him backward.

This time he couldn't easily maintain his stance and he skidded back, bumping into one of the fallen Krysali. Xir Xan Khan looked at the man with disgust, then kicked him aside with a swift blow that could well have killed him.

"Hey, stop that!" Nirka staggered toward him, hurling a dagger of crystal, but Xir Xan Khan knocked it aside contemptuously. He retaliated with a qi bolt that would normally have taken her head off, but Cragrila jumped in the way, crystals forming around her arm.

The crystal shield shattered on impact, and both staggered back, but they survived.

"What a pathetic path of cultivation." Xir Xan Khan looked mildly amused as he gathered a more powerful technique, power coiling around his arm, then unleashed it.

Zae Zin Nim met the attack in midair, striking it aside. She had intended to follow up with more attacks to keep him from targeting the others, but Xir Xan Khan reacted with stunning speed and was on her in an instant. Off-balance, she could barely deflect his blows and was forced backward until a knifing hand stabbed out, piercing her defenses.

At the last second, the Coldfire Corona lit up to defend her. It stopped his hand and saved her, but as she skidded back, she still felt a slight ache. The fire had singed his hand, but since his essence had been reforged as a Sky Soul, he wasn't seriously harmed.

"You had an opening to attack me, but instead you defended these vermin?" Xir Xan Khan shook his head sadly. "You've grown weak, Zin Nim. Soft. These people use a worthless bastard offshoot of cultivation. They'll never be worth anything to you, even as fodder."

They stared at one another, within the other cultivator's range and so not daring to attack. Cragrila had been preparing a spear of crystals, but as she realized the gulf between them, she instead backed up. She pulled Nirka with her and tried to get the other Krysali away from the battlefield. Good.

"I could target them at any time I wanted," her old fiance continued, "and you would always be at a disadvantage, overextending yourself to defend the pathetic. A true cultivator fights for himself and would never weaken themselves like this. I'll leave them all alive if you see reason and come with me."

"No." Zae Zin Nim took a deep breath and prepared herself for the next round.

"Well, I won't strike them, even though it would be so easy. But you must see that your time among barbarians has softened your edge."

He leapt at her, now using the spiraling techniques he'd used against the Krysali. Curving purple paths arced around his body like additional limbs, allowing him to strike multiple times at once. It would have been utterly overwhelming to her once, but Zae Zin Nim had seen worse. With just her own limbs she fought back, deflecting each and every strike that came her way.

She realized that he was her equal in martial arts, and her superior in pure qi.

But not her superior.

When she next thrust out her arm, she manifested a true Coldfire Palm, larger than his entire body. His fists and his arcing qi slammed into it, only to not slow it down in the slightest. She caught a split second glimpse of his eyes widening in surprise, then the palm swept over him, driving him through the air and into a crater on the nearest hill.

Given his Heavenly Body enhancement, it wasn't enough to kill him, but his mouth was again filled with blood. As a Sky Soul, he should have been untouchable here, yet now he looked shaken. She realized that up until this point, he had believed that her greater Power was merely a hodgepodge of unrelated abilities that he could overcome with his superior refinement.

As he realized that he was actually outmatched, even slightly, his shock turned to rage.

"Enough!" Xir Xan Khan rose into the air, a column of power rising along with him. This must be a secret technique of his own, and she could feel that he was burning his own life force to generate it. But the rise in his power made him truly formidable, and then he descended on her.

Each time he struck, a great wall of his qi arced around, slamming into her like a mountain. It took all her strength, reinforced by the Pure Yin Shroud, for her not to be staggered by each impact. For several seconds Zae Zin Nim was driven backward by the raw force of his assault.

And yet, gradually, she began to fight back. First she managed to deflect one of the massive qi arcs, then she met another with her palm and held firm. This was exactly the sort of large assault that Brightwind techniques were designed to pierce through, and her martial arts were now reinforced by mana and qi as well.

Xir Xan Khan looked at her in astonishment, slowly lowering to the ground as he needed to focus more and more of his qi on precise attacks. She pressed in, getting inside the effective range of the hammering qi arcs, getting closer with every exchanged blow.

Then she thrust out a palm, and at the last second saw his eyes change.

He might have been shocked by her strength, yes, but he was no arrogant fool who believed no one could be stronger than him. Instead he had let her get close, then at the last second switched back to his internal martial arts. Their palms met and their qi shot through one another.

Both cultivators staggered back, coughing up blood as the internal strike pierced through all other defenses. A weaker woman might have been defeated in that moment, but the Blackblood Physique protected Zae Zin Nim from a mortal blow. And she had dealt her opponent a real injury too, so the battle was still close.

To her surprise, she saw the man looking at her in something like disgust. She realized that her mouthful of blood had been pitch black and now stained her robes.

"So it's true." Xir Xan Khan remained in a defensive position, but he watched her with a new look in his eyes. "You never purified the Blackblood Physique, you held on to it. This is a serious deviation, Zin Nim. If you had truly purified yourself, you would have a pristine body, maybe even the strength to beat me."

"It seemed to work well enough," she said. Somehow the words even sounded confident despite the fact that he was striking at her insecurities.

"But this is less than your true potential. I'm truly concerned for you, Zin Nim. Stop fighting, let me give you something."

He pulled a scroll from his sleeve, or more likely a spatial object within it, and tossed it toward her. Zae Zin Nim immediately suspected a trick and deflected it to the ground with qi to avoid touching it. However, the scroll didn't seem to have any particular power, it was just paper. No sense of poison, either, and her awareness of poison had been greatly increased by Omilaena.

"There's no trick to it," Xir Xan Khan said. "That is the information I was able to acquire about the Blackblood Physique, when I was offered your hand in marriage. You need to get back on the proper path or your body will be ruined."

Still suspicious, Zae Zin Nim waved a hand and extended qi to pick up the scroll. She couldn't discern any traps and her opponent didn't take advantage of her movements. Of course she wasn't going to investigate here, just in case, but he seemed to be speaking in earnest.

"The Blackblood Physique removes impurities from the body just as cultivation removes them from the soul. Yes, the result strengthens a cultivator permanently, but that is only secondary. When it is purged, your body will gain a purity that could never be attained by lesser women. This is what makes women who have gone through the Blackblood Physique into perfect brides. But if you cling to the temporary strength, you will never attain the potential beyond. Your body and blood are at odds, and that conflict will eventually destroy you."

Could he be telling the truth? The words made Zae Zin Nim tremble, but she didn't think he was manipulating her: to him, this was just how the world was. He expected her to be happy that her technique prepared her to be harvested by some man.

Yet he wasn't wrong that she hadn't found the true form of the Blackblood Physique. Perhaps the scroll...

"And this explains the proper path?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"Yes, even if you escape now, at least you'll be able to purge it yourself." Xir Xan Khan looked slightly relieved, as if she was bending. Which was exactly what she wanted him to think. Even if she took this path, she would offer all that power to Kai and Omilaena, not him.

It seemed almost as if their battle might have stopped. She thought she could win if it persisted, but there was no point in risking so many other lives for nothing. Perhaps it would be possible to delay and receive him until her other allies arrived. Zae Zin Nim lowered her palms slowly and watched her opponent do the same.

Then the cultivators appeared around them and Zae Zin Nim realized her mistake.

The scroll had never been a trap, or even a distraction: Xir Xan Khan was just buying time. He had emphasized fighting alone when in fact he had allies who had been gradually catching up to his pace. While she had been so focused on their duel, they had surrounded the hill and now struck from all sides.

Lines of qi shot out toward her, an attempt at a binding technique that would freeze her cultivation base. Zae Zin Nim whirled faster than ever before, deflecting every one that came her way. She even managed to knock aside the column of qi Xir Xan Khan hurled at her, but in the moment it took to stop that stronger attack, one line of qi slipped through and caught her arm.

Of course the cultivator pulled back, trying to tug her off balance. Using the Pure Yin Shroud, Zae Zin Nim was able to resist him with raw strength, forcing him to dig in his heels. But it was still a limitation, and Xir Xan Khan was prepared to fight her again. In fact, while she struggled he swallowed several medicinal pills and then advanced with a smile.

Beyond the two of them, she realized that more cultivators were chasing down the Krysali. A few like Cragrila could hold their own, since these were just at Nascent Foundation stage, but most of the others were basically helpless.

"Alright, let's try this again," Xir Xan Khan said. "You can either surrender now and save their lives, or you can persist in a futile battle and watch them all die."

"You're a coward," Zae Zin Nim spat.

He snorted. "I'm victorious. I told you, you've grown soft. We all have our allies, but yours are weak and you care far too much for them. Now, be sensible and surrender."

Silence stretched between them... and then was interrupted by a cultivator spitting up a mouthful of blood.

Xir Xan Khan stared in surprise, but Zae Zin Nim saw the source: a dark quill piercing the woman's neck. All around the hill, other cultivators were falling, pierced one after another by the dark quills flying from the shadows in the trees.

One of those shadows swept past her, reaching the cultivator who was trying to keep her bound. By the time Zae Zin Nim turned, she saw Kai's claws tearing deep into the cultivator's body, then he tore the man in half in a shower of blood that rained down over his monstrous features.