Chapter 158: This Young Master Does What You Do Better

Chapter 158: This Young Master Does What You Do Better

The cheers of the Garrison forces rang loud, and the barrier shuddered as the main force built up ramps and began hammering at it with waves of fire qi. The elites that had engaged with the rebel forces began to fall back and fight defensively now that time had switched sides. The rebels attempted to push back with a counterattack, but it was clear their spirits were wavering, and they were beginning to retreat up the pyramid.

Chen Haoran jumped back to Bao Si’s side in the face of Captain Liu’s sudden arrival. The Garrison officer flared his qi threateningly, and it served as fuel to stoke his blue flames higher and send a superheated blast of blistering air outward in every direction. Chen Haoran stood in front of Bao Si and triggered the True Reflection Mysterious Mirror Armor’s barrier to reflect the heat.

“Are you alright, Captain Pan?” Captain Liu asked, his voice clear and normal despite him being entirely made of fire.

“I’ll live,” Pan Gong said. They were the absolute last words Chen Haoran wanted to hear right now. “Buy me some time, will you? I took a careless hit.”

Captain Liu slammed his fists together, creating a flurry of sparks. “Leave it to me.”

Right. He had until Pan Gong recovered to stop this situation from going bad to worse. He was pretty sure he could survive whatever these two could throw at him as long as he qi reserves held out but soon enough it wouldn’t be just two of them.

“If you have another Spirit Stone I can use the Depredation of Three Killers again,” Bao Si said.

Chen Haoran shook his head. “They won’t give you another opportunity to use it. We can’t afford to stall for time anymore.”

“What’s your plan then?”

“Go get Xie Jin before the barrier falls and then find a rebel,” Chen Haoran said. “Qiong Qi wouldn’t have chased Lu Aotian into the altar if he didn’t think there was a real chance he could get the final reward, which means it won’t be long before the Trial ends and we get teleported out.”

Bao Si’s Gu brought its mandibles close to her ear and chittered softly as if a whisper. She paid it no mind, though. “And what will you be doing?”

Captain Liu rocketed toward them.

“Holding them off. I’ll meet up with you.” Chen Haoran flooded qi to his legs and launched himself into the living fireball. When the flames collided with silver metal, they were repulsed at triple speed. Captain Liu’s real body emerged from the flames, and he planted his feet on the ground to skid to a stop, leaving long black marks along the stones.

“How dare you!” Captain Liu roared and melted into flames again but instead of Chen Haoran he threw himself into two streams of liquid miasma that targeted Pan Gong. The miasma flash-boiled when it hit Captain Liu’s fiery form and turned into equally ineffective poisonous steam. Bao Si was unfazed by the interruption and, with a flick of her finger, had her Gu throwing up clouds of miasma to cover Captain Liu with.

“What are you doing?” Chen Haoran demanded.

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Bao Si retorted.

That... was not the well-reasoned counter-idea to his plan that he’d been expecting. In fact, that answer wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. Certainly not from her, of all people. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

“I’ll fight with you or die,” Bao Si said, all too solemn. They locked eyes as Captain Liu vaporized the miasma.

Chen Haoran looked away. “Fine.”

Blue fire flooded from Captain Liu in an all-encompassing wave. The Yellow Dragon roared, and liquid qi flooded from Chen Haoran, only to evaporate into gas when it touched the flames. His qi was suppressed in every way by the stronger cultivator despite the elemental advantage. He gave up on matching qi for qi, instead opening his arms wide and letting the flames wash over him and turn back on itself, creating a safe space for Bao Si behind him. The Yellow Dragon growled a warning and launched itself out his body as a hand emerged from the fires and grabbed at Bao Si. The Yellow Dragon evaporated as soon as it blocked the hand but it provided Bao Si’s Gu the time to spit out a bloody mass of miasma that soared above the hand and out of sight.

“Captain Pan!”

The hand and the flames collapsed, and Chen Haoran could see Captain Liu standing protectively in front of Pan Gong, clutching the bloody mass in his fist and burning it to ashes.

“How many times can you do that?” Chen Haoran asked.

“That was made using the blood I harvested earlier. It was about as effective as I could make it,” Bao Si said.

“Damn.”

Chen Haoran quickly ran through the calculus in his head. If he was being generous, then each side had a person who could counter the other. He blocked Captain Liu, Bao Si harrassed Pan Gong, Captain Liu targeted Bao Si, and Pan Gong frustrated him. In reality Captain Liu could much more easily protect Pan Gong from Bao Si than Chen Haoran could protect her from him. Captain Liu hadn’t even used any real technique yet. Just flooding the place with fire was enough for them to be overwhelmed. Without his sword, the math didn’t favor them making it out of this unscathed if they let this drag out.

Chen Haoran felt a twinge of pain in.... well, his entire body, really, but particularly his chest, and amended his previous thought. He already wasn’t getting out of this unscathed, but it would be nice to avoid getting hurt more. He hoped Bao Si would hurry up with whatever she was planning.

“Are you alright, Captain Pan?” Captain Liu asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Pan Gong replied. He held his shoulder and rolled his arm around, making a satisfied noise upon seeing he had a full range of motion. “It’s my first time facing a Black Bone Shaman. You truly do live up to the rumors.” He cast a critical eye on Bao Si’s Centipede Gu. “I wonder if that’s the power that convinced the Sunset Emperor to spare your people?”

Bao Si scoffed. “Careful now. It sounds like you’re implying your precious Emperor is anything less than infallible. Is one treason not enough for you?”

“What a vicious curse,” Pan Gong mused. “Is it not enough for you that I won’t be able to sleep easy knowing a Shaman took blood from me?”

“There’s no need to be concerned, Captain Pan.” Fire flared from Captain Liu. “She can’t cast any curses if I burn them to a crisp.”

“Or you can just leave?” Chen Haoran suggested. One of Bao Si’s Gu threaded itself around his legs.

Pan Gong shook his head in exasperation and stepped forward. Smashing one fist into the other palm. “At the very least, I won’t be forgetting this fight anytime soon. Captain Liu, after you.”

“With pleasure.”

Chen Haoran silently cursed and raised his fists. He was never going anywhere without a spare sword ever again.

“Brother Chen!”

“Took him long enough,” Bao Si muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Bao Si said, breathless. “I can control them normally but... but....”

“This isn’t normal,” Xie Jin finished for her. “What kind of essence is this? Some kind of plant. Mine is saying 200? 300?”

“300,” Bao Si confirmed. “Both of mine are in agreement.”

Xie Jin looked at the altar with a mixture of awe and wariness. “What kind of plant could do this with just 300 years of essence?”

The golden light eventually evaporated and Qiong Qi came barreling out the entrance of the altar. Whatever had happened inside, he’d suffered the worst of it. A mass of grasping roots was all that was left of the red lotus on his left shoulder, and the arm connected to that shoulder had been ripped off at the elbow. In his other hand was a shining fruit in the shape of a fat little monk sitting in a meditative position. Chen Haoran only had the scarcest glimpse of it before Qiong Qi stashed it into his storage bag, but it did nothing to cover up the presence it left behind. He warily surveyed his surroundings and retreated a few paces further. Both from the altar-building and from the ravenous Gu.

“Qiong Qi, what happened in there?” Chen Haoran asked.

“Trouble,” Qiong Qi curtly said. His eyes flicked from him to the Gu, to Pan Gong, and back to the altar in succession.

“When’s our exit coming?” Chen Haoran demanded.

Vines extended from Qiong Qi’s armor from his stump of an arm and wrapped themselves into a new prosthetic vine hand. “Not quick enough.”

The altar was now glowing with a new light. This time, in all five colors of the five elements. Like a blot against a canvas, however, a vicious, bestial red qi was growing.

Lu Aotian emerged from the altar like a predator from his cave. One leg was charred entirely black, but from the way he walked—no, prowled, Chen Haoran would believe he wasn’t hurt at all. There was a look of wonder on his face as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Yet when their eyes met Chen Haoran felt he wasn’t so much looking at him as he was past him. There was a sense of threat to it he hadn’t felt before from Lu Aotian’s usual predatory gaze. One that made him tighten his grip on his sword.

Pan Gong’s whisper broke the silence. “A Bodhi Pear.” Unmistakable envy filled his face, and endless regret colored his tone.

Xie Jin reacted with visceral shock, and even Bao Si’s cool composure morphed into disbelief.

Chen Haoran didn’t know what that was, but the name sounded oddly familiar to him nonetheless. Where had he heard it before?

“What’s a Bodhi Pear?” Chen Haoran asked. Struggling to remember where he’d heard the name.

“A treasure among treasures,” Bao Si answered, her voice hoarse. “The Enlightenment Fruit. One sniff will clear frustrations. One bite will clear doubts. One whole will reveal all answers. Here? Of all places?”

“A hundred years means nothing to its growth,” Xie Jin said. His eyes slid over to Qiong Qi. “Even a thousand years. If this place was able to grow them. If there’s a tree here. The Military Governor, no, the whole Empire would rip this place out of the ground.”

“Unfortunately, there is no tree,” Lu Aotian said. His voice rang clear and devoid of his usual disdain, and behind it, Chen Haoran couldn’t shake the image of a lion speaking human words. “Only an ambitious kingdom’s hodgepodge method to improve the quality of the fruits. I’ll give them their credit; however, their work really was sublime even if they would never enjoy the culmination of their labor.”

With every word, the impression Chen Haoran got was different. Lion, bear, eagle, panther. A new predator speaking in Lu Aotian’s voice. Or were they all just Lu Aotian himself?

Lu Aotian spread his arms wide and laughed, full of honest joy and mirth. “The sayings were true then. There really is a light at the end of the tunnel for those who wait.” His clear eyes fell on Pan Gong. “This is why I never bothered with your Palace School. Could they ever give you this? Would they? Go and play student your whole life, Pan Gong. I’ll be going on ahead of you.”

“I may not be able to see what you see right now, but I can recognize you’ve yet to Harmonize truly,” Pan Gong calmy replied.

Harmonize this was something Chen Haoran knew. Was that what was going on now? He’d felt Lu Aotian’s Harmonization with his Technique before. Was he trying to do the same now for his cultivation method? Was he becoming one of the monsters Song Yuelin had described before?

“Five minutes,” Qiong Qi suddenly spoke. “Survive for five minutes, and then we can all leave here.”

Lu Aotian turned to him. “Do you think you can?”

“Are you really going to risk wasting your epiphany, you crazy bastard?” Qiong Qi snarled.

Lu Aotian smiled. “Waste? No. This is enlightenment by combat.” A red aurora rose from his body. The Yellow Dragon roared defiantly at the new threat it felt. “Besides, you were crazy enough not to eat yours when you had the chance. I’ll thank your generosity in advance when I pick it from your corpse.”

Bodhi Pear. Generosity. Yellow Dragon.

Oh.

The air—no, the qi around Lu Aotian took on a red tint. Not because he flooded his own qi but because the surrounding qi suddenly became his own. The red air rose, and his Liquid Qi rose smoothly in tandem with it, growing larger even as it left his body, first tripling, then quadrupling in size until it shrouded the entire peak and cast a red shadow down the pyramid.

What emerged from the qi was the nightmare masterpiece of a mad taxidermist. Four massive legs made of countless legs, capped with claws formed of countless claws. They held up a patchwork body of fur, feathers, and scales and a rope of thousands of tails twisted into a facsimile of one. The head was the worst, however. From far away, it might look like a lion’s head at a casual glance, but standing beneath it revealed in detail every single one of the individual heads that formed it. An entire ecosystem of predators decapitated and mashed till every jaw, beak, maw, and snout formed a mocking mask of the King of Beasts.

Xie Jin and Bao Si paled under the oppressive weight of the qi and the King of Beasts tortured majesty. Qiong Qi’s face became grim. Pan Gong stood back with his arms crossed, though his eyes constantly tracked Qiong Qi. Chen Haoran sent a pulse of qi to his helmet and allowed the face plate to open up.

Bao Si bit her lip and stepped forward. “Stay behind me. I have a defensive tool from my master. I can at least hold him off—”

Chen Haoran placed his hand on her shoulder and stopped her. “If you could use that casually, you would have done it already. Whatever price isn’t worth it.”

“There’s no other way....” her voice trailed off as she stared with wide eyes at the fat little fruit that appeared in Chen Haoran’s hand. It looked more like a green statue of a monk than a pear. The details of the monk’s face and clothes were too fine in detail to ever be grown naturally, but it was impossible to mistake it for what it was. Golden light, stronger than before, gently pulsed from the fruit in waves, and the oppressive weight of Lu Aotian’s qi was washed away.

500-year-old Bodhi Pear

Chen Haoran stared at the Machu River’s gift with a complicated gaze. “I guess we’ll see how this goes.”

He took a bite.