Thunder flashed over the dark sea, the wind howled and waves slanted, and clouds black as ink hung over the lonely island.
Sword drawn, saber hidden, spirit followed momentum, and fighting resolve soared through the storm.
Rumble-
In the deathly silent strait, a bolt of lightning tore through the churning sea of clouds, illuminating the figures standing at either end of the roof ridge.
Waves surged and rain poured. Countless people gathered on both shores of the strait and aboard pleasure boats, yet the whole world was so still that only the two men on the ship seemed to remain; everything else had become an irrelevant distraction.
Long Zhengqing stood amid the storm with his azure-edged sword in hand. The fleeting pride in his eyes had faded, replaced by a stillness capable of suppressing all the wind and rain in the sky. He looked like an unyielding rock that had stood in the sea for millions of years: let oceans become mulberry fields, let seas dry up and stones wear through-he would still hold his sword across the heavens, unmoved even if the Heavenly Gods and Buddhas came in person.
Ye Jingtang stood a hundred feet away. His ink-black cloak drifted slowly in the wind and rain, raindrops splashing against his Bamboo Hat. His sharply defined eyes held little emotion as he quietly watched his opponent's every breath.
The Bright Deity Diagram represented the "spirit" in "Essence, Energy, and Spirit," and was the most mysterious of the first six Dragon-Mingling Diagrams. The other five strengthened the human body inside and out, whereas the Bright Deity Diagram enhanced perception, reactions, and more, allowing a martial artist to "move before all under heaven." It could already be considered something bordering on the mystical.
One step beyond that lay the final three lost