359 The Struggle

Jiang Zhiwei raised her sword suddenly. Meng Qi was not allowed even a moment of respite. Her movements were elegant and mystifying like the stars glimmering in the misted sky as the Sword of the Sun-Penetrating Rainbow sang to a cryptic rhythm. No matter how Meng Qi tried, whether with his sixth sense or observation and listening, he was not able to fully discern the next move of his possessed companion.

Drawing back his saber, Meng Qi shifted his stroke into a slow, slanted slice. Like his opponent before him, he too had countless countermoves concealed within his gambit. Each and every single reprisal would be as quick as a blinding flash to counter changes of Zhiwei's stroke with alterations of his own.

The blades clanged defiantly as they met each other continuously. Meng Qi sensed Jiang Zhiwei's genuine Qi being immensely concentrated. Her blows were imbued with her genuine Qi, as if they were extensions of her blade. With her sword Qi energies, she permitted him without any breach to exploit and nullified every response that he came up with.

With another shift, Jiang Zhiwei retracted her sword and her stroke turned into a simple and unbecoming downward strike, but her blade came down so hard that it threatened to split his head asunder. Simple was the blow but it was a strike that was nonetheless strengthened by Qi energy. Meng Qi felt as if a mountain was being dropped on him.

Rays of the luminous glow of the holy Buddha shone upon their hostile array, providing the perfect setting for their fierce and thrilling duel. The strokes and maneuvers of their sword and saber glinted with warm sparkles of the divine illumination that seemed to bounce off their tools of carnage and suspend in mid-air. For a moment, their fight seemed to have drifted into an ethereal dimension, a surrealistic dream where their duel of steel had turned into a dance of death.

In the face of the impending cleave, Meng Qi did not have the opportunity to use the Secret Voice-sending spell or cry out Zhiwei's name as a means of distracting her. His only viable option was to parry her strike with a slice of his own. With a swift flicker, his saber sped up to meet her sword.

It was as if Jiang Zhiwei had anticipated Meng Qi's response. With a sudden burst of speed, the mirage of her blade trailed behind her sword as she struck at Meng Qi's saber with a heavy blow.

Caught against the momentum, Meng Qi could only absorb the heavy strike painfully and Heaven's Inflicted Pain was nearly knocked out of his hand.

With a new poise, Jiang Zhiwei initiated another assault. Her sword danced like a creature of prey. Quick like a flickering image, it became motionless in the next moment. It was mystifying with permutations of dazzling finesse before but her strokes subsequently turned into violent and blunt hacks. At times, her techniques seemed to disobey the principles of swordsmanship, yet at times it struck with synchronized fluidity.

Her blade strokes displayed her extensive grasp of the essence of her swordsmanship like it was an extension of her limb. Beating Meng Qi from every aspect, pushing him back at each juncture, her skills were a testament to her superiority over Meng Qi.

Meng Qi was also extremely skilled in his own right, being learned in the essences of more than ten different kinds of bladesmanship. But Meng Qi had yet to fully integrate his plethora of varying skill sets into one synchronized style. It was like being able to erect the pillars of a hall yet unable to fully complete the construction of the entire building.

On the other hand, Jiang Zhiwei's skills were clearly opposing. Her sword obeyed her every beck and call, testing his defenses and prodding for flaws. Each of her slices and stabs were precise and exact in focusing on Meng Qi's weaknesses yet they flowed with the undulating motion of an unknown rhythm.

Her sword shifted with unbridled cadence; from intricate strokes to blunt strikes and vice versa. It was a perfect re-enactment of a sword dance the legendary swordsman Dugu himself would have performed.

Her prowess with her blade forced Meng Qi on the defensive. Tense and taut like a nocked arrow on a bow, he could only wait for his chance to recover lost ground. Meng Qi knew he must endure patiently and wait for his opportunity, lest his carelessness allow Jiang Zhiwei to successfully mount waves of decisive assaults that would eventually overwhelm him into defeat.

Then again, up against his own companion, Meng Qi could not bear to seriously put his all into the fight, lest he might injure, or worse, accidentally take the life of his own comrade. As the fight continued, Meng Qi was being squashed by a possessed ally without being able to fully demonstrate his full strength and his skills with both his sword and saber. The odds were not in his favor and he understood clearly that he would require considerable effort to turn the tide.

He simply could not allow this to drag on any further!

Knowing full well that his window of opportunity was slipping by, Meng Qi realized that he would surely lose his chance to retaliate if the fight was prolonged!

He channeled his powers and used the Eight Nine Mysteries technique. A faint glow of gold emanated upon him. His saber swung forth in a sudden arc. It was a final do-or-die gamble, to deal damage and regain his initiative by risking injury upon himself.

Sparks flew like fireworks when the blades clashed. Tendril-like traces of her strokes circled the air like fireflies in the spectral illumination of the divine glow in their surroundings. With a flip of her sword, Jiang Zhiwei aimed and stabbed at the blade of the Heaven's Inflicted Pain. Then came another blow. The repetitive strikes almost forced the saber out of Meng Qi's grasp, each blow struck with the residual energy from the previous attack.

Another thrust lunged forth. The timing could not have been more perfect as Meng Qi's saber dipped in the instant that the Flowing Fire in his left hand sprang forth to meet Jiang Zhiwei's blade.

Jiang Zhiwei maneuvered and leveled her stroke. The hilt of her sword clashed with the feeble thrust of the Flowing Fire.

The Heaven's Inflicted Pain arced upwards. Its glinting cold blade swung down with deadly intent upon the head of his adversary. It shimmered in the air as the blade whizzed vertically through the air for eight consecutive swings. In the last and ninth stroke, his blade bit true.

Violent Thunder Shocking The Sky technique!

With the Eight Nine Mysteries spell and his mastery of the Left-Right Support fighting techniques with both his hands, Meng Qi finally had the chance to mount a counterattack!

Under common conditions, Meng Qi would have used the Ananda Oath-Breaking Bladesmanship to better restrain his opponent. But he was fearful that his possessed companion might be provoked into an insatiable bloodlust with the shade of the Primogenitor Devil's influence.

"BOOM!"

The immense force of the eight initial swings of Meng Qi's saber created a power vacuum that caused a loud crack in the air. So powerful was the technique that even its wake would leave foes quivering and trembling.

Purple bolts of lightning sprung forth from within Meng Qi, transforming into ferocious and raging dragons. With the Seventh Acupore of his Eight Nine Mysteries spell unsealed, Meng Qi no longer had to actively accumulate Purple Thunder Force. He could channel energies directly with the Mystic Arts and the core Dharma Access of Purple Thunder Force to generate shafts of purple lightning.

Its power and force dominated even the Minor Signless Forces and the Power of Omni-Concealment techniques!

Meng Qi would naturally be first required to learn the core fundamentals of the technique and Qi-conducting before he could effectively harness the power and potency of the technique to its full potential.

The ferocious dragons began to fly in circles, picking up speed and harnessing the winds into a vacuum. The purple dragons of lightning spun so quickly in the air like a spinning wheel of destruction. Everything around them was drawn into its center, leaving on only bareness and desolation in its wake!

Falling for Meng Qi's feint, Jiang Zhiwei should have been forced on the defensive as the tables looked to have been turned. However, the Sword of the Sun-Penetrating Rainbow rebounded quicker than Meng Qi would have expected.

Forfeiting her defense in favor of doubling her offensive pressure on her opponent, Jiang Zhiwei fell into another invasive onslaught. Flurries of blade strokes descended upon Meng Qi and the glint of her blade seemed to fill every space between them. Her blade sang and clanged at Meng Qi's blades, a song of her thirst for his blood resounded in his ears. The advantage that Meng Qi had so laboriously created was undone in mere seconds.

"How is this possible?" Meng Qi's eyes were wide with a look of shock on his face, while his surroundings were outlined in his mind, tendril-like traces of contours in the illumination of the glossy divine light had still not faded, those were the contours followed by the blade strokes of Jiang Zhiwei's dexterous swordsmanship from her earlier strokes up until the Hitting the Sea technique that she had just executed.

The coiling contours swirled in the holy glow like the moving celestial bodies of the universe. The glint of the tip of her sword shone like the stars hanging upon the intense orange sky in an evening dusk.

The glazed glowing lights surrounded them like the expansive universe, and the contour lines of the strokes of the Sword of the Sun-Penetrating Rainbow filled the void between them. The blade danced with virile agility, confining and evaporating Meng Qi's counterattacks in the void like a black hole, threatening even to devour his will to win.

Sparkling stars and tracing contours formed a luminous nebula of color and light. The most brilliant of the shining stars were, in fact, the Hitting the Sea technique!

"She had been waiting for the momentum to build up before unleashing this technique! Clearly, she had not expected my feint earlier. If I had not recouped some lost ground earlier with my Eight Nine Mysteries spell and the Left-Right Support fighting techniques, I would have surely conceded this fight!"

"BOOM!"

The nine circling dragons of purple thunderbolts were slashed into halves, bursting and fading into the void as the shock disrupted the swirling lines of the traces upon the luminous glow surrounding them. The clashes of the blades no longer emitted clangs of steel on steel, but thunderous explosions instead.

Meng Qi's saber was blown backward by the clash. The channeling of his genuine Qi was stopped dead for a split second, slowing him by a half beat in executing his Heavenly Fairy technique.

On the other hand, Jiang Zhiwei had already recovered herself and was going to deliver another blow, when Meng Qi felt a sudden shudder on his Vital Spirit. His body went numb and his movements faltered.

She was using the Anata Sword technique: a potent and fatal technique in which the spirit of the adversary was first struck before the physical blow was being dealt. The attack was so powerful that even the surrounding shades of tangerine of the divine illumination shrouding them have darkened under the effect of the strike.

Being able to discern an opponent's technique and being able to react to it were two different contexts. Meng Qi had realized the technique that Jiang Zhiwei had employed, but his Vital Spirit was still laboring under the constraints of the swordwill of her technique. His movements became staggered as he was on the verge of losing consciousness. Every movement that he tried to make was slowed and jerky.

With immense difficulty, he tried to activate Immortal Pressing Art and Supernatural Power of Shaking Heaven and Earth spells to initiate the Heavenly Fairy technique. But the vivid glow of the condensed sword light on the Sword of the Sun-Penetrating Rainbow prompted him to glance at his opponent, whose cold stare was fixed upon him with her ghastly, bloodshot eyes.

A slight tremor came to her eyes suddenly. She fidgeted and twitched, and her swordwill faltered momentarily.

"Was this a chance? "Without further consideration, Meng Qi leaned forward and broke into a sprint to close their distance. He was within three feet from her and he hit the tip of the Sword of the Sun-Penetrating Rainbow with his left shoulder. The blade bit through his golden protection and into his flesh, but he managed to minimize his injury by squeezing his muscles and bones tightly.

Zhiwei drew back her sword forcefully and Meng Qi rushed forward. They were so near to each other that they could feel each other's breathing.

Jiang Zhiwei made no further attempt in drawing back her sword. Instead, she bolstered and strengthened her Sword Qi. The backlash that had resulted from the sudden interruption of her Dharmakaya technique had affected her and she could not yet activate her Precious Weapon.

Meng Qi's golden protective glow shone with a sudden brilliance, defending against Sword Qi of his adversary that was intensifying. Sounds of his ripping flesh filled the silence of their horrific duel.

"This would be settled in just a moment!"

Meng Qi released Heaven's Inflicted Pain from his right hand and formed the Arcane Seal with his fingers. He then depressed and sealed the main meridian point which was at the front of Jiang Zhiwei's body.

Zhiwei retaliated by forming the Sword Seal; a pointing gesture with two fingers outward thrust toward the center of his palm.

Meng Qi's palm avoided her sudden retaliation by raising upwards. In her haste to strike his palm, Meng Qi had evaded her stroke but her fingers struck his nose instead. Although much of the force of her strike was nullified by the Eight Nine Mysteries spell, blood trickled out of his nose.

Immediately, with a wave of his right hand, he hit Jiang Zhiwei in the middle of her chest with the back of his hand, and proceeded to rapidly strike her other main meridian points with the speed and intensity of a falling star.

The Accupoint-Attacking Finger technique!

Zhiwei slumped slowly onto the ground, motionless. Her sword remained tightly gripped in her hand.

With a light gasp of relief, he immediately searched her for a Filth-Extracting Pill.

Slowly, he opened her mouth with a little force and fed her the pills which melted in her mouth.

With his palms to her back, Meng Qi then channeled his powers and tried to enhance the effects of the medicine. He lit the Buddha's Lamp to help with the process.

The small flames of the lamp shone brightly as if responding to the glossy luminescent glow of the surrounding. Warmth, peace and, calmness flowed with the radiance of the holy illumination that chased away all but the deepest shadows.

This was the Demonic World no more, but the Holy Domain of the Buddha.

The radiance of the holy artifact bathed Jiang Zhiwei and began to cleanse her of the corruption that was consuming her. Devil Qi in forms of dark tendrils of smokes came from within her and a speck of darkness rose from her forehead.

Meng Qi's face turned solemn and he immediately cast his Supernatural Power of Shaking Heaven and Earth spell to force his entry into her spiritual domain.

One half of her spiritual domain was black as the darkest night whilst another half was being sustained by her Sword Qi, feebly resisting the pernicious effects of its sinister half.

Jiang Zhiwei's Vital Spirit was afloat in mid-air, looking weak and fragile. Tendrils of black fumes coiled around her and her eyes were bloody and hollow. The sharpness of her Qi energy was diminishing slowly and being devoured by the dark energies that was poisoning her.

Then came the cleansing light of the Buddha's Lamp that shone upon her like divine providence. The effects of the medicine began to develop and dispel the black fumes from her.

Meng Qi called upon Zhiwei's shards of memories beneath her spiritual ocean. A shower of gold that rose from the bottom of the sea rained upon her and merged with her Vital Spirit, quelling her thirst for destruction and restoring her to herself once again.

"... I finally thought of a moniker that you can use when you are famous."

"What?"

"The Chicken-Slaying Sword God."

Her voice reverberated through the entire spiritual expanse. Her eyes returned to normal and her Vital Spirit turned into a wisp of Sword Qi that shot up into the sky.

The black fumes of Devil Qi were destroyed into nothingness that came with a terrible shriek of horror, Meng Qi's astral projection was also expelled out of the spiritual domain.

Black fumes continued to flow out of the seven Acupores of Jiang Zhiwei's body, but the smoke dissipated and vanished under the radiant glow of the Buddha's Lamp. With a heavy cough, she vomited a poisonous substance that was dark and squalid. Like her Vital Spirit, her eyes returned to normal and the traces of her former evil allure were all but gone.

"You're finally back." Meng Qi could not help but grin in relief. He then tended to his wounds and the soreness from his strained muscles.

Jiang Zhiwei looked at Meng Qi. He was still bleeding from his nose. Biting her lips as she suppressed her laughter, she tried to hide the fact that she was touched by Meng Qi's efforts to save her, "Your face. It needs wiping."

Meng Qi acknowledged wordlessly. He unsealed the meridian points on Jiang Zhiwei and wiped the blood trickling from his nose.

"My thanks to you again," heaved Jiang Zhiwei in gratitude, "It was like a nightmare that I could not wake up from."

The salvation of his companion elevated his spirits slightly. Nodding to his recovered companion, he said, "Time is pressing, we must seek out Senior Brother Qi and the others in haste, lest their corruption get stronger and we have to bear the Herculean task of recovering them. We'll speak as we walk."