Tournament 16
Ling Qi wasn't quite certain what to think of the girl standing next to her. There was something a little different about Cai Renxiang this morning, and she was not certain that she liked it. She wasn't referring to the change in look, not really, though it was a little unsettling, given how unchanging the other girls appearance had been for the last year.
Though it was still obviously Liming from the crimson wings formed of folded cloth still splashed across her chest, the dress spirit had been obviously altered. It had in some ways been simplified, the wide billowing sleeves were now drawn in, cinched tightly around it's wearers wrists. The cut of the whole thing seemed more boyish, despite the way it clung to her chest and hips even more tightly than ever. The lower hem even ended a few inches above the ground, leaving exposed the white, high heeled boots Cai Renxiang wore underneath, with a long cut up on side showing that they rose to her knees, when the powder blue under-layer shifted.
Ling Qi glanced again at the other girls face, the touch of cosmetics was incredibly light, but still rather stark given their previous lack. Rather than playing down her sharp, unforgiving features though, it somehow gave her an even more imperious and forbidding air. Even her hair had changed, twin braids held by white ribbons framing her face in the front while the rest spilled down to her lower back in a smooth waterfall free and unstyled
She couldn't help but notice that Renxiang's eyes held an unsettling emptiness compared to when they had parted last night though.
That said, Ling Qi turned her attention to the arena ahead, she couldn't afford to gawk at the other girl in public. Sun Liling and Shen Hu were mounting the stairs which lead into the first arena already, overseen by Sect Head Yuan. He had already given a short speech, extolling the virtue and strength of the eight disciples to the audience, as well as urging them to give their all now, for the honor of their families, the Sect, and the Empire.
Sun Liling wore a cool expression today, strolling into the arena at a casual pace. The simmering anger that Ling Qi had seen in her demeanor yesterday was nowhere to be found. Shen Hu on the other hand, had an expression equally as passive as it had been yesterday. Yet, Ling Qi could not help but notice the more serious set of his shoulders, and the other little signs of tension in his frame as the combatants offered polite bows to one other.
"You know, it's funny, a few few days ago, I'd never heard of ya," Sun Liling said casually as she straightened and lowered her hands, her bow having been more of a nod of acknowledgement.
"Hm, well. I thought the mountain would be a bit too noisy, you know?" Shen Hu replied as the air began to shimmer. "I like to take things at my own pace."
"Heh, I guess that's fair enough," Sun Liling replied, rolling her shoulders in that eye catching way she had. "I'm surprised ya didn't get rusty, just wandering out in the woods."
"Well, the beasts around here are a little weak," Shen Hu admitted easily. "They can still make good opponents if you handicap yourself," he continued, falling into a wide defensive stance. "It's surprising how much of a fight they can put up when you limit yourself."
She laughed, not bothering to take a stance herself, though Ling Qi noticed her fingers curling, preparing to grasp the haft of a spear as the terrain solidified around them. "Well, I guess your not lacking courage," she said, a smirk finding its way onto her face. "Gotta say, I still think your training plan is flawed."
They stood now on the shore of a small lake, only a hundred odd meters across, with a small burbling stream feeding it. The stream passed between them, where they stood on the grass shore, dotted with only a handful of trees.
"Hm, probably," Shen Hu admitted, breathing in deeply as he opened his hands and extended his fingers claw-like. "I won't be an easy opponent though."
"You've got a good attitude at least," Sun Liling said idly, subtly shifting her feet.
A thunderclap stirred the faint morning mists shrouding the lake then, and the two figures blurred.
Shen Hu's forward foot dug into the mud, and the rich earth at his feet shattered in his wake as he launched himself forward, bubbling mud and marsh reeds pouring from his shoulders even as glittering diamond claws grew to encase his outstretched fingertips. The crimson princess merely grinned in the face of the charge though, her green eyes gleaming with open bloodlust. Blood gushed from her palms, crawling up her limbs to form gauntlet and vambrace, even as her terrible black barbed spear took shape. Even as her own feet launched her backward, she drew her arm back, and in the blink of an eye launched the spear, screaming through the air like a newly launched arrow.
A great granite slab shimmered into existence in front of Shen Hu, as wide and tall as a full grown man. In the next instant, the blurring missile struck it's surface and shattered, sending a spiderweb of hairline fractures across it's surface.
...Only it didn't. Ling QI grimaced, restraining the urge to rub her eyes as the spear simultaneously struck Shen Hu's shield and warped past it, it's straight arc bending at a sharp angle once, and then again to shoot past his defense and dig a bloody line across the wide eyed boys shoulder even as he arrested his charge to dodge,
As Sun Liling landed lightly on the extended branch of a leafless tree, Ling Qi caught a faint, split second fluttering of her eyes, any hope that the Sun girl had suffered a setback died though as qi flared from the center of her forehead, and the thousand rainbow patterned leaves of a vast lotus flower flickered into sight behind her like a mighty banner.
"Tricky," she said, clicking her tongue as the armor finished forming across her chest, and twin skeletal arms grew, from beneath her own, clutching jagged blades. "You've got a second spirit after all."
Shen Hu, for his part, didn't respond, now fully encased in the hulking form of his earth spirit. With even his head submerged, Shen Hu seemed to be entirely fused with his beast, and impression made all the greater as it's limbs swelled, taking on muscular definition, and half meter long spines of black crystal erupted from its back and club like hands. Lanhua's footfalls shook the earth as thundered toward the Sun princess.
It was not content merely charging though, as the tree Sun Liling had landed on tilted drunkenly, the soil at its roots softing as grasping muddy hands rose to clutch at the girls limbs. She laughed, launching herself from the branch, her voice now distorted, reverberating within the fanged maw of the three faced demonic helm that now covered her head. "You've made another mistake, you know!" She exclaimed, bloody mist erupting from channels all across her armor as she spun gracefully through the air, avoiding the grasping hands and launched spikes of crystal as easily as Ling Qi herself had, if not moreso.
Ling Qi felt it then, a ripple of disquieting qi that spread outward from the now fallen tree that Sun Liling had stood upon. The very air shimmered with it… or perhaps something else. Brightly colored flowers bloomed from now swiftly rotting bark, and spread outward, devouring grass and soil alike in a multichromatic carpet. It reached Lanhua's thick, trunk-like feet only a few seconds later, despite the beasts alarmed step backward.
She winced as the beast, who had suffered everything she had rained on it in near silence, let out a warbling scream, a great gash of a mouth opening across it's upper body as hungry rootlets dug into its muddy flesh, and new flowers bloomed, crawling swiftly up the earthen pillars of the beasts legs. Lanhua tore it's feet from the writhing ground, leaving behind head sized chunks of mud in the grasp of the hungry rootlets. Yet it wasn't enough to escape, already new blooms of vibrant green were swelling with cancerous life across the beasts pockmarked legs.
Almost as if to add insult to injury, a blurred, six armed form fell on the beleaguered spirit from above. A barbed spear dug into muddy flesh, whipping and darting in a red blur, digging great furrows to seek the flesh beneath, and a mighty arm, raised to swat away the foe, fell with a crash to the earth, cleaved from it's body with a single stroke of a mighty black bladed axe. Lanhua's torso bubbled then, and Shen Hu emerged, gleaming crystal talons raised, only to crash against two upraised curved blades dripping wetly with sizzling sanguine fluid.
Still, the weight of the clashed forced her away from the thrashing Lanhua, whose wet, bubbling screams had not stopped. The brightly colored growths blooming across the spirits body wriggled and writhed, spreading with impossible speed, and even as she watched, the dusky skinned Dhartiri, bloomed from the other spirits back, woody stems and soft roots alike flowing together to form bare limbs of inhuman beauty. The jungle spirits beatific smile didn't change at all despite the other spirits wailing.
Lanhua dissolved then, mud and reed disintegrating back into earthy qi that flowed back into the scowling Shen Hu's navel. He stood at the ready in a vast field of flowers now, flanked on one side by the near naked Dhartiri, and on the other by Sun Liling. The princess' armor had evolved since Ling Qi had seen it last. She still held her twisted, thorny spear easily in her two true arms, but the curved blades held in the false limbs below had grown smoother and more refineed, as well as longer, and now, a third pair of arms, seemingly thick with muscle, sprouted from above her natural limbs. The right hand held the massive curve bladed black axe which had taken Lanhua's arm so easily, while the left was empty, it's hand held near her face, palm out and fingers straight, as if half in prayer.
"That was unnecessary," Shen Hu said flatly, ignoring the bloody cut on his shoulder.
"Well, what can ya expect?" Sun Liling's reverberating voice answered. "Waving a meal like that in front of my poor spirit's face?"
The boy's lips were set in a thin line as he he turned on his heel and charged, crystal claws outstretched toward Liling's smiling spirit. Sun Liling blurred forward, but the slab of gray rock that was Shen Hu's domain weapon shimmered into existence, blocking her path with a crash. Yet concern never appeared on the spirit Dhartiri's features as black claws slashed through the space where her head had been. The curvaceous creatures spine bent, silken garments fluttering as she escaped the path of Shen Hu's attacks, leaving him to catch only a few strands of dark hair.
The air around them shimmered with spreading pollen as the spirit fell back before him, still smiling gently, and when next Shen Hu's crystal claws rose, they met twisted talons of thorn and wood, scoring deep wounds that wept glistening sap. The sound of shattering stone heralded the end of his advantage though, as Sun Liling fell upon him like a crimson meteor. To his credit, he held under her initial assault.
...Yet for all of his ability, Ling Qi could see that he was losing. Even as black greaves formed over his legs in a desperate attempt to even the number of limbs, wounds opened across his arms and chest. Sun Liling was simply overwhelming in her speed and strength, and worst still, Ling Qi could feel still more power flooding into the demonic girl, powered by the melodic voice of the jungle spirit Dhartiri, who in the wake of her partners assault had simply leapt lightly back, escaping the battle, her limbs already swaying gracefully through the movements of an eye catching dance even as her rich voice rose in a foreign song.
Ling Qi felt a spike of irritation, watching it.
The battle was not really in question by that point, unable to break her guard, nor to get away, Shen Hu had no path to victory. As she watched, Sun Liling danced around him, the staggering complexity of her five limbed assault impossible to follow with her eyes. It was to Shen Hu's credit that the battle lasted near two minutes from there.
"The winner of the days first round is Sun Liling, by right of knockout," Sect Head Yuan announced as Shen Hu slumped to the ground, dissolving into glittering lights along with the terrain, voice rising over the cheers of the crowd.
She met the eyes of the princess for moment as the red haired girl hopped lightly down from the raised arena, her monstrous armor and cruel armaments dissolving like so much smoke. There was no anger there, nor elation from victory, despite the easy smile on her lips. Only a stony determination. The moment didn't linger, as Sun Liling returned to her place at the far end of the line, and Ling Qi herself was called forward along with her opponent.
She marched silently with practised poise to the arena, alongside the boy who had once been a commoner like her, without giving him a more than a glance. Some trace of a thuggish swagger remained in his steps, but it seemed that even he had learned to move with more dignity. Soon enough, they split apart, moving to face one another from opposite sides of the arena.
"You know, it's funny," The scarred boy commented idly, cracking his knuckles. "I don't think we've ever actually had a conversation before."
"Is that so," Ling Qi replied aloofly, standing ready with her hands at her sides, affecting an attitude similar to her best friend.
"Yeah," Ji Rong replied evenly. "Ya know why I never tried to talk to you, back at the beginning?"
"I couldn't guess, Baron Ji," she said blandly. "I am sure you were very busy."
He grimaced, giving her a sour look. "Tch," he scoffed, not otherwise responding to her words. "I thought I had you pegged. I'd seen people like you before."
"Do share your insights," she drawled, narrowing her eyes as the formations began to activate, shrouding them in shimmering lights.
He returned her flat look. "You were a rat," he replied. "To weak to fight, to scared to join up with anyone. The kinda person who'd trip a friend up if it meant getting a few more seconds lead on the guard."
"How rude," she replied coldly, feeling stung despite herself. He wasn't wrong after all. "Do you think I haven't seen your type before, Ji Rong," she continued. "Swaggering bullies who get their friends together to pretend at authority, so they can feel like they control something?" She finished with a scoff. "How many streets did your gang claim as its fief?"
"Not very many," Ji Rong replied with a lopsided smirk that carried a note of bitter nostalgia. "Xizhou is barely a city."
"Did you have a point then?" Ling Qi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not sure, if I'm bein honest," he replied, cracking his neck as the lights began to coalesce into solid terrain. "Guess I'm just curious what made you change."
"...You are much less angry than I was expecting," Ling Qi admitted, giving him a suspicious look.
"Oh, I'm still pretty pissed," he admitted mildly. "We're enemies, and you're just as cruel as the rest of your lot, and you're not that big idiot Gan," he met her gaze steadily, cracking his knuckles. "If that jackass whose been tutoring me made one thing stick, it's that I can't lose my temper against an enemy who might be stronger than me."
Ling Qi frowned at him, electing to ignore the last part of his statement, as gratifying as it was. "I don't think your group has any right to call us cruel."
Ji Rong snorted, giving her an incredulous look. "Right, tell that to the poor sods who had the misfortune to cross 'Miss' Bai's path," he drawled, spitting the term of ostensible respect. "The reason you get to pretend to be better is cause you won. Just like everyone else."
"Only one side was fighting for something besides their own pride," Ling Qi replied as the shape of the terrain began to solidify around them, they stood at the top of a large hill in a lightly wooded scrubland, the sky bright with the colors of sunset. "But this conversation is pointless, isn't it?"
'Suppose so," Ji Rong admitted, a lopsided grin spreading across his face as he raised his fists into a guard stance. "Gonna break your face now." He said cockily, his usual demeanor returning.
Ling Qi scoffed, and thunder boomed.
Her flute formed in her right hand, and Zhengui began to take shape in front of her, a dark shadow in the grass. Even as she raised her hand to bring her flute to her lips though, she found herself staring point blank at the knuckles of Ji Rong's right hand, thick rings of bronze, arcing with electricity adorning them. She had a bare instant to flood vibrant wood wi through her spine and activate Ten Ring defense before it crashed into her nose.
Even as she moved with the force of the blow, reducing the impact, stars exploded in her vision, and she felt something in her face snap. She tasted blood on her lips as she retreated, avoiding the follow up blow by leaping over it, her gown fluttering in the wind as she landed on the far side of the now solid Zhengui.
Above them, their clash was reenacted, a wailing sword with a spiralling blade meeting a flashing golden mirror in a cacophony of noise and light.
How long had it been since she her nose had been broken? The idle though scurried across her thoughts as she began to play, suppressing the twitching in her muscles and nerves from the lighting flooding her body. He had chipped her front teeth as well, she thought, adjusting her playing for the slight change. Zhengui cried out in fury as her mists rolled over the battlefield, and superheated ash mingled with shadow haunted mist. The cherry red embers greeted her like an old friend and the cool, slick feeling of moon-aligned qi quelled the lightning seizing her muscles.
It wasn't enough though, Ji Rong was back in her face in an instant, the scent of his burning sandals reaching her nose as he landed lightly a top Zhengui's shell, a quick jab snapping Zhen's head back, and away while his follow up caught her in the shoulder, his fist shrouded in blinding actinic light.
She had to fight against her own muscles as they tried to become rigid with the voltage flooding them until Sixiang could act, and only the protection of Deepwood Vitality and her armor prevented the damage from being worse. Yet, as she met her enemies eyes in the moment before he leaped away to avoid Zhengui's retaliation, she saw surprise there. He had been hoping to overwhelm her entirely.
So it was with a bloody smile that she summoned a qi card into her hand in preparation. Not yet though, were her minions unleashed. Instead, she spun away limbs swaying to an unheard tune, and flooded the field with laughing, dancing phantoms. A riot of color and light spilled from her, casting the sunset hill in lurid color as fairies danced in the sky and elfin figures reveled on the ground.
At the same moment, she brought the disparate parts of her Thousand Ring's together, and activated the Hundred Ring's Armament. Rippling green light spilled across her limbs, coalescing the faint vital aura into something more solid, for Ji Rong navigated the tittering grasping figures with the light of heaven burning in his eyes. This time, when he rounded on her again through the thickening ash illusions and mist, embers burning in his hair, she raised her arms to block the lightning fast jab aimed for her face.
Their limbs met with the crack of a millenial tree struck by heaven's fury, and though her arm trembled and her feet were driven back through the dirt, gauging furrows in the ground, she held. The surprise in his eyes was worth the bruise she could already feel forming across most of her forearm. As he withdrew, recovering his balance, the card in her hand flashed and sizzled, and from the earth, hissing grey worms the length of her arm sprang. He was driven back then, shadows shredding the wide sleeves of his shirt, while spearing roots tore his already damaged sandals asunder and hissing worms leaped ugly, toothy maws agape at him, chasing the boy through the ephemeral revel. He moved with incredible alacrity still though, none of these lesser assaults penetrating his guard. A crack of thunder rang through the eerie music as he drove Zhengui's tortoise head face first into the ground with a kick, pushing her little brother back.
Yet it still gave Ling Qi room to breath, and even as the card in her hand flashed again, summoning still more of the foul worms of the earth, she let out a wordless shout, carried on a surge of flowing fiery qi that washed over her Zhengui and her summons alike infusing them with a burning vigor.
Ji Rong did not simply allow himself to be pushed back though, she saw the determination in his eyes as he hardened his guard, standing firm under the multi-headed assault of the trap she had laid for him. She felt the surge of qi a fraction of a second before the scarred boy bellowed a warcry and heavenly qi surged. Eyes burning with the blue light of lightning and hair spiked up with static, the sheer force of his unleashed spirit was like s small explosion, blowing the worms circling him away in a blast of crackling wind, even as he batted aside a burning glob of venom spat by Zhen, suffering an angry burn across the entirety of his forearm for the effort.
His fist slammed into her gut a moment later, and Ling Qi tasted blood as lightning erupted from her back, charring a black line across the hillside. Despite pain she felt, Ling Qi glared at the glowing boy, and before he could withdraw his fist, blew single note from her flute. It was a thing of absolute cold, the song of winter condensed into a single rattling wail like a blizzard howling through a dead city.
Bolstered by the wisps of qi circling his limbs, left by the failed attacks of her spirit and summons, it struck with terrible force, patches of flesh on Ji Rong's chest turned black and cracked, weeping a sluggish stream of blood and hoarfrost spread across his limbs, leaving him to stagger back off balance.
Golden light flared then, and the sound of shattering glass echoed across the hillside, Ling Qi saw Ji Rong's weapon, the golden mirror falling to pieces, leaving her own blade to zoom through the air where it had been. Her eyes widened then as she turned them back to Ji Rong who was straightening up, rejuvenating qi melting away ice and shrinking the patches of frostbitten flesh.
She grimaced, as she leapt back, darting back into Zhengui's ashfield and putting her little brother between them again. They were not done yet. Renewing her mist, she weathered his next assault, feeling a painful crack as the bone in her blocking forearm fractured… and yet, she felt a surge of confidence as Ji Rong was punished for blowing past her summons, being driven back by gnawing teeth and biting shadows yet again. Her reserve of qi was lower than it had been in a long time, from weathering his blows and activating her defense, but…
A silent command sent the qi reserved in the worms surging, and they struck as one, a hissing carpet of writhing flesh… and Ji Rong missed a step, his bare foot sliding a few centimeters too far, right into the waiting grasp of one of the half dozen worms assaulting him. The hissing beast coiled around his leg in an instant, and for a single second, her opponent was held still. Grasping roots seized his other ankle.
In that moment of vulnerability, Ling Qi finally was able to make distance and then the revelers laughter boomed, and phantom hands grew all too solid. With some satisfaction, she saw Ji Rong's eyes widen even as lightning charred the worm on his leg to ash. His next attack went wide, a boiling beam of plasma going wide, and sending giggling fairies spinning in the heated channel of air it left in its wake.
Then the wailing of her flying sword struck and staggered him, and the hands of a pretty spirit with the glittering multifaceted eyes of an insect grasped his, spinning him away in a wild dance. She heard him shout the noise drowned out by laughter and music. Lightning flashed, but it brought only a giggle from the spirit restraining him as he found himself spun into the grasp of of a laughing man-beast.
In only another minute, Ji Rong fell, his already badly drained of qi failing him.
The moment that Ling Qi felt his qi cease resisting her, her trembling legs collapsed under her, bringing her down to one knee. Taking a shuddering breath, Ling Qi forced herself to straighten up as the terrain and her arts began to fade.
Her left arm was broken, a hairline fracture that sent sharp pain with every movement. She could taste blood in her mouth, and a terrible burn scarred her stomach and back… but she had won. She felt a foreign yet familiar qi tugging at her own then. In it's soft yet insistent touch, she could feel the presence of Xin.
She supposed a trip to the infirmary probably was in order… but, did she really want to miss the other fights?
[] Accept and allow yourself to be taken to the infirmary
[] Decline, you can suffer a little pain to support your friends
Though it was still obviously Liming from the crimson wings formed of folded cloth still splashed across her chest, the dress spirit had been obviously altered. It had in some ways been simplified, the wide billowing sleeves were now drawn in, cinched tightly around it's wearers wrists. The cut of the whole thing seemed more boyish, despite the way it clung to her chest and hips even more tightly than ever. The lower hem even ended a few inches above the ground, leaving exposed the white, high heeled boots Cai Renxiang wore underneath, with a long cut up on side showing that they rose to her knees, when the powder blue under-layer shifted.
Ling Qi glanced again at the other girls face, the touch of cosmetics was incredibly light, but still rather stark given their previous lack. Rather than playing down her sharp, unforgiving features though, it somehow gave her an even more imperious and forbidding air. Even her hair had changed, twin braids held by white ribbons framing her face in the front while the rest spilled down to her lower back in a smooth waterfall free and unstyled
She couldn't help but notice that Renxiang's eyes held an unsettling emptiness compared to when they had parted last night though.
That said, Ling Qi turned her attention to the arena ahead, she couldn't afford to gawk at the other girl in public. Sun Liling and Shen Hu were mounting the stairs which lead into the first arena already, overseen by Sect Head Yuan. He had already given a short speech, extolling the virtue and strength of the eight disciples to the audience, as well as urging them to give their all now, for the honor of their families, the Sect, and the Empire.
Sun Liling wore a cool expression today, strolling into the arena at a casual pace. The simmering anger that Ling Qi had seen in her demeanor yesterday was nowhere to be found. Shen Hu on the other hand, had an expression equally as passive as it had been yesterday. Yet, Ling Qi could not help but notice the more serious set of his shoulders, and the other little signs of tension in his frame as the combatants offered polite bows to one other.
"You know, it's funny, a few few days ago, I'd never heard of ya," Sun Liling said casually as she straightened and lowered her hands, her bow having been more of a nod of acknowledgement.
"Hm, well. I thought the mountain would be a bit too noisy, you know?" Shen Hu replied as the air began to shimmer. "I like to take things at my own pace."
"Heh, I guess that's fair enough," Sun Liling replied, rolling her shoulders in that eye catching way she had. "I'm surprised ya didn't get rusty, just wandering out in the woods."
"Well, the beasts around here are a little weak," Shen Hu admitted easily. "They can still make good opponents if you handicap yourself," he continued, falling into a wide defensive stance. "It's surprising how much of a fight they can put up when you limit yourself."
She laughed, not bothering to take a stance herself, though Ling Qi noticed her fingers curling, preparing to grasp the haft of a spear as the terrain solidified around them. "Well, I guess your not lacking courage," she said, a smirk finding its way onto her face. "Gotta say, I still think your training plan is flawed."
They stood now on the shore of a small lake, only a hundred odd meters across, with a small burbling stream feeding it. The stream passed between them, where they stood on the grass shore, dotted with only a handful of trees.
"Hm, probably," Shen Hu admitted, breathing in deeply as he opened his hands and extended his fingers claw-like. "I won't be an easy opponent though."
"You've got a good attitude at least," Sun Liling said idly, subtly shifting her feet.
A thunderclap stirred the faint morning mists shrouding the lake then, and the two figures blurred.
Shen Hu's forward foot dug into the mud, and the rich earth at his feet shattered in his wake as he launched himself forward, bubbling mud and marsh reeds pouring from his shoulders even as glittering diamond claws grew to encase his outstretched fingertips. The crimson princess merely grinned in the face of the charge though, her green eyes gleaming with open bloodlust. Blood gushed from her palms, crawling up her limbs to form gauntlet and vambrace, even as her terrible black barbed spear took shape. Even as her own feet launched her backward, she drew her arm back, and in the blink of an eye launched the spear, screaming through the air like a newly launched arrow.
A great granite slab shimmered into existence in front of Shen Hu, as wide and tall as a full grown man. In the next instant, the blurring missile struck it's surface and shattered, sending a spiderweb of hairline fractures across it's surface.
...Only it didn't. Ling QI grimaced, restraining the urge to rub her eyes as the spear simultaneously struck Shen Hu's shield and warped past it, it's straight arc bending at a sharp angle once, and then again to shoot past his defense and dig a bloody line across the wide eyed boys shoulder even as he arrested his charge to dodge,
As Sun Liling landed lightly on the extended branch of a leafless tree, Ling Qi caught a faint, split second fluttering of her eyes, any hope that the Sun girl had suffered a setback died though as qi flared from the center of her forehead, and the thousand rainbow patterned leaves of a vast lotus flower flickered into sight behind her like a mighty banner.
"Tricky," she said, clicking her tongue as the armor finished forming across her chest, and twin skeletal arms grew, from beneath her own, clutching jagged blades. "You've got a second spirit after all."
Shen Hu, for his part, didn't respond, now fully encased in the hulking form of his earth spirit. With even his head submerged, Shen Hu seemed to be entirely fused with his beast, and impression made all the greater as it's limbs swelled, taking on muscular definition, and half meter long spines of black crystal erupted from its back and club like hands. Lanhua's footfalls shook the earth as thundered toward the Sun princess.
It was not content merely charging though, as the tree Sun Liling had landed on tilted drunkenly, the soil at its roots softing as grasping muddy hands rose to clutch at the girls limbs. She laughed, launching herself from the branch, her voice now distorted, reverberating within the fanged maw of the three faced demonic helm that now covered her head. "You've made another mistake, you know!" She exclaimed, bloody mist erupting from channels all across her armor as she spun gracefully through the air, avoiding the grasping hands and launched spikes of crystal as easily as Ling Qi herself had, if not moreso.
Ling Qi felt it then, a ripple of disquieting qi that spread outward from the now fallen tree that Sun Liling had stood upon. The very air shimmered with it… or perhaps something else. Brightly colored flowers bloomed from now swiftly rotting bark, and spread outward, devouring grass and soil alike in a multichromatic carpet. It reached Lanhua's thick, trunk-like feet only a few seconds later, despite the beasts alarmed step backward.
She winced as the beast, who had suffered everything she had rained on it in near silence, let out a warbling scream, a great gash of a mouth opening across it's upper body as hungry rootlets dug into its muddy flesh, and new flowers bloomed, crawling swiftly up the earthen pillars of the beasts legs. Lanhua tore it's feet from the writhing ground, leaving behind head sized chunks of mud in the grasp of the hungry rootlets. Yet it wasn't enough to escape, already new blooms of vibrant green were swelling with cancerous life across the beasts pockmarked legs.
Almost as if to add insult to injury, a blurred, six armed form fell on the beleaguered spirit from above. A barbed spear dug into muddy flesh, whipping and darting in a red blur, digging great furrows to seek the flesh beneath, and a mighty arm, raised to swat away the foe, fell with a crash to the earth, cleaved from it's body with a single stroke of a mighty black bladed axe. Lanhua's torso bubbled then, and Shen Hu emerged, gleaming crystal talons raised, only to crash against two upraised curved blades dripping wetly with sizzling sanguine fluid.
Still, the weight of the clashed forced her away from the thrashing Lanhua, whose wet, bubbling screams had not stopped. The brightly colored growths blooming across the spirits body wriggled and writhed, spreading with impossible speed, and even as she watched, the dusky skinned Dhartiri, bloomed from the other spirits back, woody stems and soft roots alike flowing together to form bare limbs of inhuman beauty. The jungle spirits beatific smile didn't change at all despite the other spirits wailing.
Lanhua dissolved then, mud and reed disintegrating back into earthy qi that flowed back into the scowling Shen Hu's navel. He stood at the ready in a vast field of flowers now, flanked on one side by the near naked Dhartiri, and on the other by Sun Liling. The princess' armor had evolved since Ling Qi had seen it last. She still held her twisted, thorny spear easily in her two true arms, but the curved blades held in the false limbs below had grown smoother and more refineed, as well as longer, and now, a third pair of arms, seemingly thick with muscle, sprouted from above her natural limbs. The right hand held the massive curve bladed black axe which had taken Lanhua's arm so easily, while the left was empty, it's hand held near her face, palm out and fingers straight, as if half in prayer.
"That was unnecessary," Shen Hu said flatly, ignoring the bloody cut on his shoulder.
"Well, what can ya expect?" Sun Liling's reverberating voice answered. "Waving a meal like that in front of my poor spirit's face?"
The boy's lips were set in a thin line as he he turned on his heel and charged, crystal claws outstretched toward Liling's smiling spirit. Sun Liling blurred forward, but the slab of gray rock that was Shen Hu's domain weapon shimmered into existence, blocking her path with a crash. Yet concern never appeared on the spirit Dhartiri's features as black claws slashed through the space where her head had been. The curvaceous creatures spine bent, silken garments fluttering as she escaped the path of Shen Hu's attacks, leaving him to catch only a few strands of dark hair.
The air around them shimmered with spreading pollen as the spirit fell back before him, still smiling gently, and when next Shen Hu's crystal claws rose, they met twisted talons of thorn and wood, scoring deep wounds that wept glistening sap. The sound of shattering stone heralded the end of his advantage though, as Sun Liling fell upon him like a crimson meteor. To his credit, he held under her initial assault.
...Yet for all of his ability, Ling Qi could see that he was losing. Even as black greaves formed over his legs in a desperate attempt to even the number of limbs, wounds opened across his arms and chest. Sun Liling was simply overwhelming in her speed and strength, and worst still, Ling Qi could feel still more power flooding into the demonic girl, powered by the melodic voice of the jungle spirit Dhartiri, who in the wake of her partners assault had simply leapt lightly back, escaping the battle, her limbs already swaying gracefully through the movements of an eye catching dance even as her rich voice rose in a foreign song.
Ling Qi felt a spike of irritation, watching it.
The battle was not really in question by that point, unable to break her guard, nor to get away, Shen Hu had no path to victory. As she watched, Sun Liling danced around him, the staggering complexity of her five limbed assault impossible to follow with her eyes. It was to Shen Hu's credit that the battle lasted near two minutes from there.
"The winner of the days first round is Sun Liling, by right of knockout," Sect Head Yuan announced as Shen Hu slumped to the ground, dissolving into glittering lights along with the terrain, voice rising over the cheers of the crowd.
She met the eyes of the princess for moment as the red haired girl hopped lightly down from the raised arena, her monstrous armor and cruel armaments dissolving like so much smoke. There was no anger there, nor elation from victory, despite the easy smile on her lips. Only a stony determination. The moment didn't linger, as Sun Liling returned to her place at the far end of the line, and Ling Qi herself was called forward along with her opponent.
She marched silently with practised poise to the arena, alongside the boy who had once been a commoner like her, without giving him a more than a glance. Some trace of a thuggish swagger remained in his steps, but it seemed that even he had learned to move with more dignity. Soon enough, they split apart, moving to face one another from opposite sides of the arena.
"You know, it's funny," The scarred boy commented idly, cracking his knuckles. "I don't think we've ever actually had a conversation before."
"Is that so," Ling Qi replied aloofly, standing ready with her hands at her sides, affecting an attitude similar to her best friend.
"Yeah," Ji Rong replied evenly. "Ya know why I never tried to talk to you, back at the beginning?"
"I couldn't guess, Baron Ji," she said blandly. "I am sure you were very busy."
He grimaced, giving her a sour look. "Tch," he scoffed, not otherwise responding to her words. "I thought I had you pegged. I'd seen people like you before."
"Do share your insights," she drawled, narrowing her eyes as the formations began to activate, shrouding them in shimmering lights.
He returned her flat look. "You were a rat," he replied. "To weak to fight, to scared to join up with anyone. The kinda person who'd trip a friend up if it meant getting a few more seconds lead on the guard."
"How rude," she replied coldly, feeling stung despite herself. He wasn't wrong after all. "Do you think I haven't seen your type before, Ji Rong," she continued. "Swaggering bullies who get their friends together to pretend at authority, so they can feel like they control something?" She finished with a scoff. "How many streets did your gang claim as its fief?"
"Not very many," Ji Rong replied with a lopsided smirk that carried a note of bitter nostalgia. "Xizhou is barely a city."
"Did you have a point then?" Ling Qi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not sure, if I'm bein honest," he replied, cracking his neck as the lights began to coalesce into solid terrain. "Guess I'm just curious what made you change."
"...You are much less angry than I was expecting," Ling Qi admitted, giving him a suspicious look.
"Oh, I'm still pretty pissed," he admitted mildly. "We're enemies, and you're just as cruel as the rest of your lot, and you're not that big idiot Gan," he met her gaze steadily, cracking his knuckles. "If that jackass whose been tutoring me made one thing stick, it's that I can't lose my temper against an enemy who might be stronger than me."
Ling Qi frowned at him, electing to ignore the last part of his statement, as gratifying as it was. "I don't think your group has any right to call us cruel."
Ji Rong snorted, giving her an incredulous look. "Right, tell that to the poor sods who had the misfortune to cross 'Miss' Bai's path," he drawled, spitting the term of ostensible respect. "The reason you get to pretend to be better is cause you won. Just like everyone else."
"Only one side was fighting for something besides their own pride," Ling Qi replied as the shape of the terrain began to solidify around them, they stood at the top of a large hill in a lightly wooded scrubland, the sky bright with the colors of sunset. "But this conversation is pointless, isn't it?"
'Suppose so," Ji Rong admitted, a lopsided grin spreading across his face as he raised his fists into a guard stance. "Gonna break your face now." He said cockily, his usual demeanor returning.
Ling Qi scoffed, and thunder boomed.
Her flute formed in her right hand, and Zhengui began to take shape in front of her, a dark shadow in the grass. Even as she raised her hand to bring her flute to her lips though, she found herself staring point blank at the knuckles of Ji Rong's right hand, thick rings of bronze, arcing with electricity adorning them. She had a bare instant to flood vibrant wood wi through her spine and activate Ten Ring defense before it crashed into her nose.
Even as she moved with the force of the blow, reducing the impact, stars exploded in her vision, and she felt something in her face snap. She tasted blood on her lips as she retreated, avoiding the follow up blow by leaping over it, her gown fluttering in the wind as she landed on the far side of the now solid Zhengui.
Above them, their clash was reenacted, a wailing sword with a spiralling blade meeting a flashing golden mirror in a cacophony of noise and light.
How long had it been since she her nose had been broken? The idle though scurried across her thoughts as she began to play, suppressing the twitching in her muscles and nerves from the lighting flooding her body. He had chipped her front teeth as well, she thought, adjusting her playing for the slight change. Zhengui cried out in fury as her mists rolled over the battlefield, and superheated ash mingled with shadow haunted mist. The cherry red embers greeted her like an old friend and the cool, slick feeling of moon-aligned qi quelled the lightning seizing her muscles.
It wasn't enough though, Ji Rong was back in her face in an instant, the scent of his burning sandals reaching her nose as he landed lightly a top Zhengui's shell, a quick jab snapping Zhen's head back, and away while his follow up caught her in the shoulder, his fist shrouded in blinding actinic light.
She had to fight against her own muscles as they tried to become rigid with the voltage flooding them until Sixiang could act, and only the protection of Deepwood Vitality and her armor prevented the damage from being worse. Yet, as she met her enemies eyes in the moment before he leaped away to avoid Zhengui's retaliation, she saw surprise there. He had been hoping to overwhelm her entirely.
So it was with a bloody smile that she summoned a qi card into her hand in preparation. Not yet though, were her minions unleashed. Instead, she spun away limbs swaying to an unheard tune, and flooded the field with laughing, dancing phantoms. A riot of color and light spilled from her, casting the sunset hill in lurid color as fairies danced in the sky and elfin figures reveled on the ground.
At the same moment, she brought the disparate parts of her Thousand Ring's together, and activated the Hundred Ring's Armament. Rippling green light spilled across her limbs, coalescing the faint vital aura into something more solid, for Ji Rong navigated the tittering grasping figures with the light of heaven burning in his eyes. This time, when he rounded on her again through the thickening ash illusions and mist, embers burning in his hair, she raised her arms to block the lightning fast jab aimed for her face.
Their limbs met with the crack of a millenial tree struck by heaven's fury, and though her arm trembled and her feet were driven back through the dirt, gauging furrows in the ground, she held. The surprise in his eyes was worth the bruise she could already feel forming across most of her forearm. As he withdrew, recovering his balance, the card in her hand flashed and sizzled, and from the earth, hissing grey worms the length of her arm sprang. He was driven back then, shadows shredding the wide sleeves of his shirt, while spearing roots tore his already damaged sandals asunder and hissing worms leaped ugly, toothy maws agape at him, chasing the boy through the ephemeral revel. He moved with incredible alacrity still though, none of these lesser assaults penetrating his guard. A crack of thunder rang through the eerie music as he drove Zhengui's tortoise head face first into the ground with a kick, pushing her little brother back.
Yet it still gave Ling Qi room to breath, and even as the card in her hand flashed again, summoning still more of the foul worms of the earth, she let out a wordless shout, carried on a surge of flowing fiery qi that washed over her Zhengui and her summons alike infusing them with a burning vigor.
Ji Rong did not simply allow himself to be pushed back though, she saw the determination in his eyes as he hardened his guard, standing firm under the multi-headed assault of the trap she had laid for him. She felt the surge of qi a fraction of a second before the scarred boy bellowed a warcry and heavenly qi surged. Eyes burning with the blue light of lightning and hair spiked up with static, the sheer force of his unleashed spirit was like s small explosion, blowing the worms circling him away in a blast of crackling wind, even as he batted aside a burning glob of venom spat by Zhen, suffering an angry burn across the entirety of his forearm for the effort.
His fist slammed into her gut a moment later, and Ling Qi tasted blood as lightning erupted from her back, charring a black line across the hillside. Despite pain she felt, Ling Qi glared at the glowing boy, and before he could withdraw his fist, blew single note from her flute. It was a thing of absolute cold, the song of winter condensed into a single rattling wail like a blizzard howling through a dead city.
Bolstered by the wisps of qi circling his limbs, left by the failed attacks of her spirit and summons, it struck with terrible force, patches of flesh on Ji Rong's chest turned black and cracked, weeping a sluggish stream of blood and hoarfrost spread across his limbs, leaving him to stagger back off balance.
Golden light flared then, and the sound of shattering glass echoed across the hillside, Ling Qi saw Ji Rong's weapon, the golden mirror falling to pieces, leaving her own blade to zoom through the air where it had been. Her eyes widened then as she turned them back to Ji Rong who was straightening up, rejuvenating qi melting away ice and shrinking the patches of frostbitten flesh.
She grimaced, as she leapt back, darting back into Zhengui's ashfield and putting her little brother between them again. They were not done yet. Renewing her mist, she weathered his next assault, feeling a painful crack as the bone in her blocking forearm fractured… and yet, she felt a surge of confidence as Ji Rong was punished for blowing past her summons, being driven back by gnawing teeth and biting shadows yet again. Her reserve of qi was lower than it had been in a long time, from weathering his blows and activating her defense, but…
A silent command sent the qi reserved in the worms surging, and they struck as one, a hissing carpet of writhing flesh… and Ji Rong missed a step, his bare foot sliding a few centimeters too far, right into the waiting grasp of one of the half dozen worms assaulting him. The hissing beast coiled around his leg in an instant, and for a single second, her opponent was held still. Grasping roots seized his other ankle.
In that moment of vulnerability, Ling Qi finally was able to make distance and then the revelers laughter boomed, and phantom hands grew all too solid. With some satisfaction, she saw Ji Rong's eyes widen even as lightning charred the worm on his leg to ash. His next attack went wide, a boiling beam of plasma going wide, and sending giggling fairies spinning in the heated channel of air it left in its wake.
Then the wailing of her flying sword struck and staggered him, and the hands of a pretty spirit with the glittering multifaceted eyes of an insect grasped his, spinning him away in a wild dance. She heard him shout the noise drowned out by laughter and music. Lightning flashed, but it brought only a giggle from the spirit restraining him as he found himself spun into the grasp of of a laughing man-beast.
In only another minute, Ji Rong fell, his already badly drained of qi failing him.
The moment that Ling Qi felt his qi cease resisting her, her trembling legs collapsed under her, bringing her down to one knee. Taking a shuddering breath, Ling Qi forced herself to straighten up as the terrain and her arts began to fade.
Her left arm was broken, a hairline fracture that sent sharp pain with every movement. She could taste blood in her mouth, and a terrible burn scarred her stomach and back… but she had won. She felt a foreign yet familiar qi tugging at her own then. In it's soft yet insistent touch, she could feel the presence of Xin.
She supposed a trip to the infirmary probably was in order… but, did she really want to miss the other fights?
[] Accept and allow yourself to be taken to the infirmary
[] Decline, you can suffer a little pain to support your friends
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