The Fourth Fall - Chapter 45 preview

Long Wu Ying was bald. It was a silly fact, but one that kept running through his mind, over and over again as he fought the ruler of the Cai nation. Not that their battle was registering much gain, though he had been stabbed three times and managed to land a single attack of note on his opponent. Of course, that attack had been the upward cut of A Dragon Rises that had bisected one foot and torn apart the already damaged breastplate of his opponent, so he counted it an attack well landed.

It had also been his goal, to strip his opponent of his enchanted equipment. The cloak had burnt away, slowing Meng Dai down after repeated lightning strikes. Much like Wu Ying’s own robes or his shoes and his hair. The shoes of his opponent were burnt crisp, though they still hung on, even if their abilities had been tarnished and only worked occasionally. Taking the breastplate had been a major upset, though it came with consequences.

Not just the stab in his left shoulder that had nearly skewered his heart and meant his left arm was no longer working, but in the protection the breastplate and Meng Dai and his own’s combined aura had provided to mitigate the effects of the lightning.

The next bolt that came down, he dropped low, coming under his opponent rather than putting his blade into contact with the other. Ren was glowing red hot in his hand, having been struck so often the metal was beginning to warp. So was the armour he wore, armour that seared his flesh and burnt into his body.

He could smell the stench of cooked meat, vaguely. His sense of smell, his nerves had been overwhelmed long ago, the taste of metal and blood and vomit in his mouth even as his flesh sizzled and his nerves screamed from moment to moment. He could not stop, though it was only the kindness of the winds that bore him aloft now.

Most of them.

The seventh wind, rejected and discarded had left. The sixth, the wind of the hells, laughed and threw itself more into the effort instead. Not because it approved, but because it wanted to see the result of these decisions.

His hair was gone, his flesh was broken open and weeping, his body itself half-consumed in an attempt to repair the damage. His stores of energy were nearly empty, even as he was wracked with pain from the clash of body and soul. Wu Ying could sense the cracks in his self, in his immortal body, knew that he was on his last legs.

Lightning fell, and the pair burned. It passed through Meng Dai as he shielded himself against the attack. There was no way to stop lightning from passing through though, and all he could do was guard himself, allow the energy to pass around his aura and disallow its entrance to himself. He failed, of course, but it did let him pass on a significant portion of the energy to Wu Ying, the true target.

After all, even if the heavens might wish to target Meng Dai, and the lightning that danced was not just natural lightning, Wu Ying was the one which was the focus of this tribulation.

Lightning struck, and once more, Wu Ying’s body was highlighted. An involuntary scream was ripped from his throat, though his throat was so parched it emerged as a strangled croak.

Lightning. Burning. Pain.

And then, it was over.

And Meng Dai was attacking, turning himself and launching himself at Wu Ying. He had stopped retreating, instead attacking with all the ferocity of a cornered bear. If he managed to end Wu Ying, perhaps the heavenly tribulation would end too. His sabre, the curved single sided sword was wrapped with the full strength of his dao, arced down and met the raised blade. Ren bowed, Wu Ying’s own grip slackened as failing muscles gave way and the blade lodged in his shoulder. hurtling him to the ground.

Now, Meng Dai was no longer attempting to retreat. Instead, he followed his opponent down, bearing him low.

One last lightning bolt gathered, high above. It was the largest and strongest by far, and though Meng Dai was injured; he was only weakened, not even crippled.

The impact of his body crashing into the earth, his form unable to split away as Meng Dai’s dao wrapped around him, his body too injured for such a desperate action anyway shattered even more bones. Muscles that had been clenching tight from repeated shocks tightened again, cracking bones as the shock of slamming into the ground revebrated through his form.

Blood flew into the air, as the sabre was ripped from his shoulder. Mouth opened into a scream, Wu Ying swung his sword in an attempt to cut his opponent only to fail, the weak motion deflected by a simple block as it glanced off the armoured bracer.

Then, the sword rose again, raised to fall.

Eyes wide, Wu Ying tried to move. His body failed him, refusing to even acknowledge the anguished mental prompts he diverted at it, as he tried to roll aside, tried to call the wind to his aid, tried to focus hard enough to do something. Anything. Even a little bit.

He failed, for his body was broken and torn, bleeding life force and chi into the earth. It took a lot to kill a half-Immortal, even one as flawed as he was. But that was what Heavenly Tribulation was meant to do, what it was geared towards. Not just refinement, but a test and a method to slay those who dared.

He could not rise up, could not block the attack as it fell. The only thing that saved him was the cloud that rolled in, bindings of mist and wind that wrapped around the arm as it fell. It could not stop it, of course, not something as ephemeral as cloud. But it did not need to do so, it just needed to slow down.

Just enough, for the last bolt of lightning to fall.

To wrap around the raised sword, arc through the body and ground itself in the earth, to jump from earth into the sprawled, fallen body of Wu Ying in the deep crater that he lay, for it to burn and injure immortal body and waste its final energy there. Lightning coursing through both bodies, splitting open flesh, burning eyes and causing muscles to clench and release, for broken bones to crack and displace further.

To do damage.

Enough, perhaps, Wu Ying hoped, felt, to kill his opponent. Or at least, make him vulnerable.

Enough.

Or so he hoped.

Then, consciousness faded, as a mind and body strained by the repeated clashes gave way.

***

Meng Dai staggered, hands no longer working. His dao that he had been wielding was shattered, heated by multiple lightning strikes then cooled too fast by swarming bands of moisture. It had exploded the area surrounding steam but had cooled too fast as the water and clouds gathered around it, enough to send the dao splintering.

A weapon, forged by a true Master of the blade, handed down over centuries from sword master to sword master. Destroyed. His dao. His!

The king swayed, fury bathing the surroundings as his aura pressed upon the world, commanding it to his presence. He was injured, gravely so; but if those cultivators thought it was enough to see him brought low, they were fools. If they thought they were the only ones with failsafes, they did not know the true height of Mount Tai even if it stood before them.

Fools.

Hands trembling, the storage ring in his hand stuttering as it tried to pull forth the pill he intended to use; he let himself sway and begin to collapse. The bonds of moisture and cloud that held him close, it had broken apart during the last lightning strike. It had left him free, and it had not come back.

Not yet.

He felt them coming, the pair. The two old men, one older than the other. The sneak and the real threat, that interferer. As he fell, he felt them near, the old man darting at the edges, doing what he did best; attempting to strike from afar. As though strength came from assisting others, allowing others to dictate the battle.

The Verdant Sect Head struck with his weapon, a polearm trailing cloud and chi, killing intent wrapped within. A powerful weapon, and one that Meng Dai had no desire to face.

So he did not.

A shadow, his shadow, emerged finally. It caught the Sect Head across the chest, just under the falling elbows and scraped along enchanted robes, tearing through them and leaving a bleeding, open wound. Droplets flew through the air, a poison meant to kill even Nascent Soul cultivators. The polearm shifted, its target turned. It tore through his shadow, ending the cunke’s life in a single strike.

It did not matter.

That was what those servants were for. Trained from birth, forced to dedicate their lives to the kingdom. There was only one end for them, one existence. In the next life, they could find something less tragic. For now, they did their job.

The Sect Head retreated, pulling his weapon to him to guard himself from the expected follow-up attack. An automatic movement that placed his life ahead of others.

A logical movement. And he was right, Meng Dai was moving.

As he did, he did two things that were outside of his opponent’s expectations. The first was during his flight as he finished extracting the pill and consumed it. The Longgui Vitality Pill was a national treasure. Not because of how hard it was to make - though it did require the skills of a Nascent Soul cultivator to even attempt - but because of the cost of producing it. Even owning a kingdom, the cost of distilling the energy and herbs to make it was staggering. The entire Cai kingdom only had two - and one was stored in the kingdom’s treasury and had only been finished in the last year.

The pill as he swallowed it poured its energy into his body, bypassing the meridians and soaking into flesh and bone and healing them. It accelerated the natural healing energies of his body, a healing rate that was prodigous as it stood. However, all healing took energy from somewhere and that was the point of the Longgui Vitality Pill; for it also provided the natural healing energies needed.

It would take a few minutes to complete even so, but it did mean that his current exertions was not adding to his injuries.

The second thing he did that surprised his opponents was simple. If they had a moment to consider, they would have known it would happen. But they did not have that time, not at the speeds these battles occurred at. Instead of attacking the Sect Head, he flickered through the battlefield and struck at the Patriarch of the Eight Gates.

He had no sword, but he did not need it for such a frail opponent.

The feel of his fist smashed into his opponent’s face, crushing bones and tearing skin as it impacted. He laughed a little, a manic laughter that bubbled up from his stomach as he swung with his other first, his feet digging into the ground as he charged after the retreating body.

Battle lust filled the air and his dao warped the surroundings, slowing the flying away body, smashing aside the protective enchantments that rose up to protect the Patriarch. Not all of them, of course. He ignored the lines of pain that flayed his skin, one attack piercing his own defences to expose ribs and leave a line of flesh and muscle hanging from his chest as it glanced off his reinforced bones, blood splaying the air in a multitude of droplets.

More formations, enchantments triggered. He dodged around the falling brush that nearly skewered him, leaving him splashed with ink that sizzled like poison itself. Words, even mangled and slurred, rose from the Patriarch’s mouth, around the damage he had caused it on purpose. Shattered cheekbones, displaced jaw and bloody mouth or not, it was insufficient to make the other stop utilizing his skills.

Bands of ice and silk, wrapping around his body to slow him. Colourful birds, beaks piercing his flesh and bone, tearing apart his aura and piercing skin itself, made of light and dreams. More attacks, audio and light and mental, concepts and thoughts unbalancing his mind, throwing his vision off.

All the while, his fists were flying. Striking, again and again. When his sight showed him lies, of a fleeing Patriarch, a dead one. He closed them and trusted to his dao. When his balance was upset and he could no longer stand without falling, he grabbed a leg and pulled himself onto his opponent, leveraging his head to slam into stomach, chest, face.

Face.

Again and again, still helmed, he brought it down. He barely felt the polearm that caught him in the side, threw him away with the force of its attack as his deepest defences kicked in, the ones embedded in his flesh itself. He tumbled away, came back up, realised that the attacks - the formations, the hovering brush, the poems that had hovered around them - was gone.

Collapsed, away as its caster lay dead.

Then, it was the Verdant Green Waters Sect Head and the General of the Sixth Army before him, astride his horse at last. That magnificent beast, supposedly gifted from the far west, a creature two hands taller than even his own. A magnificent, magical, almost sapient creature who was like a bonded companion to the rider.

Nascent Soul; but bloody and tired and a peak Core Formation cultivator and his trusted beast. All intent on stopping him, and that merchant. He had tried to avoid killing her, worried her parents would join the fight. But he could feel his wounds slowing down, the healing stuttering to its regular tempo as the pill ran its course.

No more chances. He would finish this, and then destroy their sect, their kingdoms, their homes. Show them, show the world and the heavens who the true ruler of all was. They had pushed him harder than ever, but now he was done indulging them. It would be a pity, that he would have to kill to his recently made allies. Perhaps a few could be left alive.

His dao began to unfurl, and deep within, Meng Dai touched the gem that had been embedded within his chest next to his heart. A gift, from admirers. The second of his surprises, the last - but greatest - of his secrets.

Grinning wide, blood dripping from his mouth, leaking from his side, King Cai Meng Dai straightened. Unbeaten and unbowed, even after all this.