Chapter 237

  Legend of the Masked Children (VII)

  Dai Xiu was sitting in one of the alcoves, feeling rather bored and entirely uninterested in the competition, when she felt the tendrils of Qi crack like thunder above her. She immediately shot up to her feet and ran out, facing the sky just as the voice boomed across the entire city.

  Not ten seconds later, she found herself drifting in darkness; rather than panic, she felt excitement--she was about to fight! And fight for real, not needing to put on a show like she was an exhibit in a circus.

  She needed to wait for only a few moments for the shadows to fade and for the world of colors to return--she was back on the stage, sans the screaming sea of irrelevant. The only thing missing was her Master seeing her in all her glory--but there'd be other times to make him proud.

  Even when sparring, Dai Xiu knew that none of them went all out; there was no need for it, after all, as they ran the risk of getting hurt. But now... now there were sixty-something cloaked figures with an air of confusion about them that were about to become her punching bags.

  Donning the gauntlets given to her by the greatest man alive, she slammed her fists together as her body began to tremble with the bursts of Qi, her hair violently whipping in the self-formed winds.

  As she flexed her muscles, the ground beneath her cracked, enduring the weight of her first step for only a second; she shot herself forward like a cannonball, immediately arriving in front of the group and taking the first swing.

  Her fist burst through with a dull thud, immediately immobilizing at least ten of them as the sheer after-force from one hit dulled the remaining nine in the process. Just as they were coming to and beginning to retaliate, she spun to the side and onto her arm, twirling in place to avoid several attacks before landing and taking another swing at the person's jaw, immediately snapping their neck and killing them.

  She could feel the blood within her boil with excitement as a strike of a sword landed on her back only to bounce away as though she were made of steel; there was an ebb and flow to fighting, one that she was made painfully aware of while sparring with Senior Brother Tao.

  Of the many, many lessons that he tried to teach her, only a few truly stuck: unlike Senior Sister Wan Lan, whose entire body was a weapon, her body--though a weapon, too--was more so a utility. Even if she could endure hacks and slashes of the bladed edges, it only went up to a point; she had to become wind and water, duck and weave between strikes as though she were an amorphous blob.

  Trusting her senses, she sidestepped an overhead axe swing, her fist already striking out accurately, pressing against the man's chest and imploding his heart through the sheer transitory force of her Qi. She expelled a very small amount with each attack, using most of her vast reserves to be entirely aware of every inch of her surroundings, all so within an entire foot and a half from her.

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  As soon as something came within that sphere of influence, she became acutely aware of it--not just the position, but also its trajectory, its speed, the point where it would hit, its strength... everything.

  Bladed weapons flew, arrays of light storming over and around her, and yet she became the wind blowing past them all--the ground beneath was levied with a thousand scorch marks and nicks and tears, yet, save for that one strike of the sword, none of them managed to touch her.

  Her familiarity with the gauntlets grew with each punch--especially so when their special properties were set off. Facing a spinning cudgel of ice, she struck directly at its heart as the gauntlets shook and vibrated, sapping a good amount of her Qi in the process, before exploding forth with the force of a thousand suns--the cudgel shattered into millions of pieces as layered cones of stacked Qi thrust forth from her fist, one after another, annihilating everything in front of her, including the six or so figures that perfectly lined up.

  She lost herself in the sensation of a battle--there was nothing else inside her mind but the awareness of things coming at her and the position of her own body. At every second, she knew precisely where she was and what she was doing, yet... she didn't think about it, not truly.

  Before long, it was just her and one more figure--a stray strand of Qi must have cut through his mask, revealing the face of a middle-aged man whose expression was one of pure, unfiltered terror as he stared at her.

  He stood about ten feet from her, his body visibly shaking, irises tiny dots in the cloud of horror within his gaze.

  "W-w-who... who are... you..." His lips parted, and a stutter came out, his body collapsing back. A pungent smell of urine broke out as Dai Xiu frowned; she hated this part the most, becoming aware as things came to a close. A lot of rancid smells mixed, as it was one of the unfortunate realities of breaking their bodies--even if they were cultivators, they still had the tendency to... leak after dying. Except, he wasn't dead.

  Rather than responding, she flashed over and stomped his head into the ground, shattering his skull and immediately regretting it as her boots and robes turned grizzly red and white.

  Mumbling a few curses under her breath and using Art of Surviving to try to clean it the best she could, she snapped her fingers gently and undid the array--just so in time to witness Junior Brother Xi Zhao's attack.

  A magnificent array of sword light came from the seeming nowhere and tore through several buildings, collapsing them in the process, before stopping. At the origin stood a tall figure who spun and faced her. They only exchanged glances, as both realized that the entire city had been engulfed in the state of war.

  Everywhere she looked, she saw dead and dying.

  Pushing Qi into her feet, she shot off to the side--opposite of Xi Zhao--and began climbing the stands by digging her heels into the stone and scaling the wall vertically. Once up, she joined several skirmishes in a row, her fists raining down terror wherever she went, saving as many people as she could.

  She knew how much her Master cared for life, even if she herself didn't feel as zealous about it.

  She stopped rather abruptly as she came face-to-face with a stalwart figure blocking her way up. It was a woman, Dai Xiu supposed based on the way the clothes framed the body, and she held a spear upright.

  "A worthy seed," the voice was coarse and deep, yet still distinctly feminine. "You shall be mine, child."

  Dai Xiu's frown deepened; she'd just recently broken through into the middle of Foundation Establishment, and the woman in front of her was actually in the Revolving Core Realm, two whole layers above her.

  But... it didn't matter.

  Whoever stood in her way, or even more so went against her Master's desires, they'd all end up in the same place: wherever people went after they died.