Chapter 237 – Legend of the Masked Children (VII)

Chapter 237

Legend of the Masked Children (VII)

Dai Xiu was sitting in one of the alcoves, feeling rather bored and entirely uninterested in the competition, when she felt the tendrils of Qi crack like thunder above her. She immediately shot up to her feet and ran out, facing the sky just as the voice boomed across the entire city.

Not ten seconds later, she found herself drifting in darkness; rather than panic, she felt excitement–she was about to fight! And fight for real, not needing to put on a show like she was an exhibit in a circus.

She needed to wait for only a few moments for the shadows to fade and for the world of colors to return–she was back on the stage, sans the screaming sea of irrelevant. The only thing missing was her Master seeing her in all her glory–but there’d be other times to make him proud.

Even when sparring, Dai Xiu knew that none of them went all out; there was no need for it, after all, as they ran the risk of getting hurt. But now… now there were sixty-something cloaked figures with an air of confusion about them that were about to become her punching bags.

Donning the gauntlets given to her by the greatest man alive, she slammed her fists together as her body began to tremble with the bursts of Qi, her hair violently whipping in the self-formed winds.

As she flexed her muscles, the ground beneath her cracked, enduring the weight of her first step for only a second; she shot herself forward like a cannonball, immediately arriving in front of the group and taking the first swing.

Her fist burst through with a dull thud, immediately immobilizing at least ten of them as the sheer after-force from one hit dulled the remaining nine in the process. Just as they were coming to and beginning to retaliate, she spun to the side and onto her arm, twirling in place to avoid several attacks before landing and taking another swing at the person’s jaw, immediately snapping their neck and killing them.

She could feel the blood within her boil with excitement as a strike of a sword landed on her back only to bounce away as though she were made of steel; there was an ebb and flow to fighting, one that she was made painfully aware of while sparring with Senior Brother Tao.

Of the many, many lessons that he tried to teach her, only a few truly stuck: unlike Senior Sister Wan Lan, whose entire body was a weapon, her body–though a weapon, too–was more so a utility. Even if she could endure hacks and slashes of the bladed edges, it only went up to a point; she had to become wind and water, duck and weave between strikes as though she were an amorphous blob.

Trusting her senses, she sidestepped an overhead axe swing, her fist already striking out accurately, pressing against the man’s chest and imploding his heart through the sheer transitory force of her Qi. She expelled a very small amount with each attack, using most of her vast reserves to be entirely aware of every inch of her surroundings, all so within an entire foot and a half from her.

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As soon as something came within that sphere of influence, she became acutely aware of it–not just the position, but also its trajectory, its speed, the point where it would hit, its strength… everything.

Bladed weapons flew, arrays of light storming over and around her, and yet she became the wind blowing past them all–the ground beneath was levied with a thousand scorch marks and nicks and tears, yet, save for that one strike of the sword, none of them managed to touch her.