Tuoba Lie's blade hung suspended in midair, while Blood Without Trace's blood cloud hovered overhead. The two killing intents wove into a net, crushing the rocks until they cracked inch by inch. Chen Wuya still stood where he was, his feet sunk three inches into the ground, his dead branch drooping to the earth, the streak of blood at the corner of his mouth not yet dry.
He did not raise a hand to wipe it away.
Blood dripped from his chin, punching tiny pits into the sand. Every drop was like a drumbeat against his heart. Pain spread from his lips to his brow, yet instead made his mind clearer than ever. The Misaligned Force rampaged through his meridians as though it meant to rip apart his organs, but he did not suppress it.
"Since this path won't work..." he murmured, so quietly that only he could hear, "then I'll get it all wrong."
Before his words faded, the true qi in his body suddenly stalled, then surged backward. The opening stance of the Qingfeng Thirteen Forms surfaced in his mind, only to be scattered by an invisible force just as it was about to circulate; the sequence of power for Countercurrent Strike had barely taken shape before another force threw it into chaos. He was not deliberately dismantling them—the Misaligned Force was restructuring itself. It followed no form and obeyed no rules, piecing things together only in the most absurd way possible.
The Shanzhong Acupoint abruptly grew hot, and a pale golden radiance shone from within, lighting up the coarse cloth over his chest.
Bai Zhi crouched behind cover, fingers clenched tightly around her sword hilt, her gaze locked on that light. She had never seen qi circulate like this—not as orderly and conventional as orthodox internal arts,