The Earth clone reached Zhou Kang first.

  Their fists collided, then again, then again—rapid exchanges, stone against steel, earth qi flashing against saber qi.

  Zhou Kang's blade moved in tight arcs, blocking, cutting, keeping the clone at bay.

  Huo Chen stayed behind, his hands already moving. The ground beneath him exploded. Rocks tore free from the earth, pulled upward by his qi, compressing into smooth round shapes the size of his fist. They spun rapidly beside his face, rotating faster and faster until they blurred.

  Then they shot forward.

  The stones moved like bullets, cutting through the air with sharp whistling sounds. They reached Zhou Kang in an instant. Zhou Kang's saber became a blur. He twisted, spun, blocked—each stone meeting steel with a sharp crack. His movements were precise and controlled deflecting every projectile with practiced efficiency.

  But his focus was split.

  The clone materialized beside him like a ghost. Its fist was already moving, aimed directly at Zhou Kang's head.

  Zhou Kang's eyes widened. He threw himself sideways at the last possible moment, his body twisting mid-motion. The punch missed by inches.

  But Huo Chen was already airborne. His flying kick came from above, earth qi wrapping around his leg.

  The impact caught Zhou Kang square in the face.

  BANG!

  Zhou Kang flew backward, blood spraying from his nose. The stone bullets followed him, streaking through the air like lightning.

  Mid-flight, Zhou Kang's saber came up.

  "Gale Severing Slash!"

  His blade cut outward in all directions, saber qi exploding in a protective barrier around him. The bullets shattered against it, fragments scattering.

  The clone closed the distance instantly, moving with him through the air. Its fist drove into his face before the barrier could reform.

  CRACK!

  Zhou Kang's head snapped back. More blood. He hit the ground hard and rolled, coming up on one knee, breathing heavily. Blood poured from his nose and split lip.

  His breathing was heavy. Huo Chen stood ten meters away, the clone beside him, both watching.

  "Hmph." Huo Chen snorted his voice calm. "You may be stronger than me, but how can you fight when I'm in two places at the same time?"

  Zhou Kang's eyes moved between them. His mind was racing. The synchronization was perfect—one attacked while the other created openings, then they switched, exploiting every gap in his defense before he could recover.

  Fighting both at once was impossible.

  He'd lost. He knew it.

  His jaw tightened and he stood slowly, blood still dripping from his face.

  "You think you've won." His voice was rough but steady. "A seventh-layer cultivator with a clone technique this advanced? That's not normal. You know what happens when word spreads about something like this?"

  Huo Chen said nothing.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "Foundation Establishment experts will hunt you. Maybe even Golden Core cultivators. They'll want to know how you did it, where you got it, what makes it work." Zhou Kang's smile was cold despite the blood. "I'll make sure the information reaches them. One way or another."

  His hand moved to his robe. A talisman appeared between his fingers—pale blue, covered in intricate formations.

  He crushed it.

  The talisman disintegrated and spiritual energy flooded into his body.His speed doubled, then tripled.

  Zhou Kang moved like thunder shooting forward in a straight line, covering massive distance in seconds, heading away from the battlefield at a speed Huo Chen couldn't match.

  Huo Chen's eyes narrowed. "You must be dreaming if you think you can escape."

  His clone beside him dissolved. Its form broke apart into countless particles of earth Qi, so small they were nearly invisible.

  The particles shot forward silently, flowing low along the ground, blending with dust and shadow, tracking Zhou Kang without a sound.

  Zhou Kang didn't notice.

  He was focused entirely on speed, putting as much distance between them as possible. The talisman's effect would last for several minutes—more than enough time to get away.

  Huo Chen began moving as well, but his pace was slower. He couldn’t keep up with the talisman-enhanced speed.

  Minutes passed.

  Zhou Kang covered an enormous distance, his talisman-enhanced speed eating up the terrain.

  Fields. Hills. Sparse forest. He kept moving, his breathing ragged but his pace relentless.

  Zhou Kang's speed began to slow slightly as the talisman's energy started to fade. His breathing was labored from the sustained sprint.

  The particles moved. They shot forward, passing Zhou Kang entirely, and positioned themselves several meters ahead of him in his direct path.

  Then they dove into the ground and burrowed beneath the surface. Zhou Kang kept running, unaware.

  Then the particles erupted from the earth directly in front of him, bursting upward into the air and reforming into the clone's body mid-flight.

  At the same instant, the switch happened. Huo Chen's body vanished from his position far behind and appeared where the clone had been—suspended in the air ahead of Zhou Kang.

  The clone materialized where Huo Chen had been, continuing the chase from that distant position.

  Zhou Kang's eyes went wide. He tried to stop but his momentum carried him forward.

  Huo Chen's leg was already moving. A spinning kick from the side, his body rotating in the air with all his force behind it.

  His saber came up.

  Huo Chen's kick drove into the blade.

  The impact sent Zhou Kang stumbling backward.

  Then the stone bullets came. They materialized around Huo Chen's position, formed from the earth qi he'd been gathering during the chase.

  Dozens of them. All compressed.

  They shot forward.

  Zhou Kang's saber moved desperately, trying to block, but there were too many.

  Too fast.

  The first bullet pierced his shoulder. The second his thigh. The third caught him in the side. Then his head. Multiple stones struck simultaneously, punching through his skull from different angles.

  They came out the back in sprays of blood and bone. His eyes went wide. Shock. Confusion. He didn't understand how the clone had tracked him.

  How it had gotten ahead. How—

  He fell backward. His body hit the ground with a heavy thud. Dead before he landed.

  Huo Chen landed a few meters away, his breathing steady. He walked over slowly and looked down at Zhou Kang's corpse. Blood pooled beneath the shattered head. The eyes stared upward at nothing, still frozen in that final moment of disbelief.

  He said nothing.

  He crouched, pulled the storage ring from Zhou Kang's finger, and slipped it into his own storage bag. Then he stood and walked away without looking back.

  ---

  Time passed.

  Footsteps approached from the direction of Qingfeng City. Voices carried on the wind. A group of cultivators appeared over a low rise, moving quickly, clearly searching for something. They spotted the body from a distance and slowed, approaching cautiously.

  One of them—a woman in her forties—gasped when she got close enough to see the face. "That's Zhou Kang."

  The others gathered around, staring down at the corpse. The brutal head wounds. The blood pooling beneath him. The shocked expression frozen on what remained of his face.

  "How did this happen?"

  "A whole Zhou Kang... dead."

  "That kid. The one from the auction. He actually killed him?"

  "Impossible. He was only at the sixth layer."

  "A tiger pretending to be a pig," another muttered.

  "We all thought the kid was dead for sure."

  One of the cultivators—an older man with a scarred face—sneered. He'd known Zhou Kang in life and clearly held no love for him.

  "Hmph. The result of his arrogance. He has no one to blame for his death."

  A few people turned to look at him. He met their eyes without flinching, then turned and walked away, not caring what they thought.

  The others stood around the body for a while longer, talking in low voices, trying to piece together what had happened.

  Eventually, they started to disperse, heading back toward the city in small groups. The conversations continued as they walked.

  "Zhou Kang. Dead. I still can't believe it."

  "That kid must have had a trump card. Something Zhou Kang didn't know about."

  "Whatever it was, it worked." Their voices faded into the distance, leaving Zhou Kang's corpse alone under the open sky.