Fight to the Death

Inside World-Aiding Hall, the fire beneath the pill furnace flickered bright and dim, casting shifting light across Chen Chong's face.

The furnace flames shifted from orange-red to dark crimson, then from dark crimson to a ghostly blue, like a silent breath rising and falling in his eyes.

After a long while, a thread of pill fragrance drifted out, curling past the desk, through the window lattice, and into the deepening dusk of the courtyard.

Chen Chong lifted the furnace lid. Six pills lay upon the porcelain plate, jade-white and round, their surfaces marked with fine cracks like ice-crack porcelain glaze. Their scent was elegant and refreshing, permeating the heart and spleen.

Six pills had been formed.

Delight flashed in Chen Chong's eyes. Six Jade Marrow Essence-Coalescing Pills. If he refined them all, he might be able to enter the Bone Tempering Realm.

He swallowed one. As the medicinal power entered his stomach, that familiar undercurrent of inward pressure rose once more, climbing up his spine and sinking into the depths of his bones.

This time, it was clearer, like mercury seeping into bone, filling every crevice until even his marrow felt soothingly warm.

He closed his eyes and sensed the medicinal power circulating, permeating, and settling.

One pill. Two pills. Three pills.

The sun slanted westward, and dark-red sunset clouds dyed the horizon like an old scar stretched across the sky. Chen Chong opened his eyes and looked at the panel.

[Realm] Tendon-Tremor Realm (9760/10000).

He shook his head. He was only a hair's breadth away. Medicinal power filled his body, and the bloated fullness of having eaten too much told him that he could not refine any more today.

This was the first time he had felt this way. The Jade Marrow Essence-Coalescing Pill truly lived up to its name. More importantly, its effect on his bones was becoming increasingly apparent.

He vaguely sensed something changing deep within his bones. They were denser, heavier, as though an invisible membrane had been plated over them.

This body-strengthening effect was what delighted him most.

Chen Chong looked at the sky, rose to tidy up, and prepared to return to his courtyard. Dusk rolled over from beyond the city walls, swallowing the streets and alleys inch by inch.

He followed the familiar road home.

As his small courtyard drew near, the blue-gray walls, low gatehouse, and jujube branches reaching over the wall all looked increasingly dear to him.

Suddenly, Chen Chong pushed the Dragon Abyss Tiger-Subduing Art to its limit.

His figure moved so swiftly that afterimages seemed to trail behind him. His feet barely touched the bluestone slabs before he swept past, his robes fluttering like a night bird gliding close to the ground. The next instant, Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge.

He drew his saber.

A flash of blade-light streaked out, and a head soared into the sky. Its owner did not even have time to grunt.

Flesh-Nourishing Stage, hidden in the shadow beside the courtyard gate, with his breathing concealed perfectly and his heartbeat suppressed to a crawl. Yet beneath the Dragon Abyss Tiger-Subduing Art's perception, he had nowhere to hide.

Immediately afterward, an immense aura surged from the other side. Chen Chong hurriedly raised his saber to block.

"Clang—!"

The blades collided, scattering sparks in all directions. Chen Chong felt as though his own saber had been chipped.

A Hundred-Forged Saber.

His opponent's saber was certainly not something from an ordinary roadside blacksmith's shop. Though the material might have been the same, after a thousand hammerings and ten thousand refinements, its edge and resilience were worlds apart.

Yet the immense force of Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge had caught his opponent off guard and still drove him back.

Chen Chong retreated half a step and saw his attacker clearly.

Yang He.

He had sensed that familiar Bone Tempering Realm aura from far away.

Yang He's saber came again. This strike was even faster, its edge tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.

Chen Chong blocked again with Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge. He could actually withstand a Bone Tempering Realm opponent. But another chip appeared on the saber in his hand, deeper than the second.

The saber strikes grew faster and faster. Yang He's saber technique was fierce and seasoned, every stroke aimed straight at Chen Chong's throat, heart, or ribs.

Chen Chong blocked, dodged, and counterattacked, unleashing Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge again and again to dissolve the assault.

But the chips in his saber grew more numerous, like a silent mouth splitting open.

I need to find an opportunity.

Dragonwalk. Chen Chong's footwork changed.

His straight advances and retreats became circling and feinting, weaving left and right. He moved like a swimming dragon gliding over the ground, circling Yang He. Yang He's saber followed, but gradually fell half a beat behind. Without realizing it, he had already entered Chen Chong's rhythm.

Now.

Tiger Roar. Chen Chong suddenly opened his mouth, and a tiger's roar exploded from the depths of his throat. The soundwave condensed into seemingly tangible force and rushed straight at Yang He's face. Yang He clearly had not expected Chen Chong's technique to possess such a move, something beyond all his understanding. The Tiger Roar stunned him for an instant.

That instant was enough.

Chen Chong's saber came down. A deep wound slashed diagonally from Yang He's right shoulder to his left ribs. Blood gushed out, yet it did not spray as Chen Chong had expected.

Chen Chong's heart tightened. The Bone Tempering Realm was still too strong.

Yang He's resistance to Tiger Roar was greater than expected. He actually circulated his technique and, with the formidable vitality and control of the Bone Tempering Realm, temporarily restrained his wound. His muscles contracted, sealing off the blood vessels and reducing the bleeding to a minimum.

His steps shifted. Chen Chong knew he could only keep drawing things out.

Their blades clashed without pause. What should have been a life-or-death struggle decided in an instant became a drawn-out tug-of-war.

And Chen Chong was guiding every part of it. The Dragon Abyss Tiger-Subduing Art supplied him with force, Dragonwalk constantly pulled at the distance, and Tiger Roar disrupted his opponent whenever he sought an opening.

Yang He's saber technique was powerful and sharp, every slash seeking to cleave through Chen Chong's defense. But Chen Chong was like a slippery fish, swimming between the blade edges and giving him no chance for a decisive battle.

Blood slowly flowed from Yang He's chest. The wound he had previously suppressed split open again amid the movement.

Yang He had clearly noticed it and wanted to change tactics, either ending the battle swiftly or escaping the battlefield.

But the tempo of the battle had always been controlled by Chen Chong. When Yang He's saber was fast, Chen Chong retreated; when it slowed, Chen Chong advanced. Between advance and retreat, Yang He was always led by the nose.

The wound on his chest gradually began to affect Yang He. This effect might have been difficult to detect, but Chen Chong, who controlled the rhythm and possessed the Dragon Abyss Tiger-Subduing Art, seized hold of it.

The saber came from an utterly unexpected angle. Yang He was clearly still thinking about how to escape.

Yes, Yang He regretted it. This battle had surpassed everything he knew. He had fought desperately, finally breaking through into the Bone Tempering Realm, only to encounter Chen Chong. His opponent's techniques were completely beyond his understanding.

One saber suddenly plunged into Yang He's chest.

Yang He's saber had been only the slightest fraction away from blocking it. But that slightest fraction was everything.

He lowered his head to look at the saber in his chest, as though he wanted to say something. When he opened his mouth, however, blood spurted out. He looked at Chen Chong, and the light in his eyes slowly faded.

Chen Chong panted heavily. His taut nerves finally relaxed.

Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge gave him strength comparable to the Bone Tempering Realm, Dragonwalk constantly drew things out, and Dragon Abyss Tiger-Subduing Art supplied ample force. In short, he had won.

A Tendon-Tremor Realm cultivator had killed a Bone Tempering Realm cultivator.

As if recalling something, Chen Chong walked toward a patch of shadow. He looked at the severed head still staring wide-eyed and helped it close its eyes.

Wang Zheng.

Chen Chong fell silent for a moment.

Perhaps Wang Zheng had blamed everything on him? Or perhaps he simply believed an alchemy master ought to be wealthy? It might have been both.

Desire drove people forward, but it also pushed them into the abyss.

He pulled open Yang He's clothing. When he had struck just now, he had always felt something was strange.

A steel plate had been bound tightly against Yang He's flesh, warmed slightly by body heat.

Words were carved into the steel plate, the grooves deeply cut, every stroke beginning and ending as sharp as saber cuts. It was carved by an ancient method, each stroke biting deep into the steel.

Over the years, the steel surface had developed a layer of dark, heavy sheen, like iron that had lain at the bottom of a deep pool for years. Even time's erosion had only made it heavier and stiller.

The middle had been pierced through by the saber. Fortunately, Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge had penetrated cleanly, and the words remained legible.

Mystic Astral Body-Forging Art.

A line of text appeared on the panel—

"Would you like to consume one thousand taels of silver to fuse?"

Chen Chong froze. A fusion costing one thousand taels of silver. If he put those thousand taels in, it would surely be another evolution.

But he did not have that much silver now, so he could only study the technique first and see what was so profound about it.

Only after reading it did he learn how ruthless this technique was. Ordinary body refinement merely nourished the body with medicine and tempered sinews with force.

The Mystic Astral Body-Forging Art took another path: Astral Force as the hammer, one's own body as the anvil.

The practitioner had to draw Astral Force into the body and, from within to without, hammer the sinews and bones layer by layer, shattering the body's texture again and again. Once the body broke, pills were used to preserve one last breath, while medicinal baths gathered back the scattered vitality.

Break, then mend. Mend, then break. Each time, one pushed one's constitution another fraction forward at the edge of death.

Repeated thus, like a blacksmith forging a saber through a thousand hammerings and ten thousand refinements, only then could the fleshly body be forged into a vessel capable of bearing Astral Force.

Even when Chen Chong used Myriad Ravines Return to the Edge with all his might, he had only touched upon the faintest embryonic trace of Astral Force. He was still separated from truly condensing Astral Force by a gulf of one hundred and eight thousand miles.

And to shatter the body, he would need pills to keep his life hanging on and medicinal baths to call back his soul.

He had never even heard the names of most of those pills and medicinal ingredients. He did not know whether the ancient text was simply too old, or whether they had always been so rare that they existed only in legend.

After reading for a while, he thought, I'll wait until fusion simplifies it. After the panel simplifies it, I probably won't need to mutilate myself.

As the thought shifted, a wave of phantom pain struck him.

He put away the Hundred-Forged Saber. He tossed Wang Zheng and Yang He's corpses into an alley.

Night had fallen. A full moon had just risen, hanging at the center of Dingshan County's night sky, round and cold.

Moonlight fell like a thin frost, illuminating Chen Chong as he walked down the empty street. His shadow stretched long behind him. The jujube tree stood silent, and the rim of the well gleamed silver-white.

Chen Chong sat on the well's rim, placed the steel plate across his knees, and examined the words upon it again by moonlight.

Moonlight flowed into the carved grooves, deep and shallow, illuminating a road not yet fully traveled.