Fierce War (Part 2)
Qing Ming’s vice-like grip sent pain shooting down Mu Yu’s right side. Mu Yu gritted his teeth to summon Shadow Splitter Sword and warded Qing Ming off. Mu Yu spotted an opening at Qing Ming’s kneecap, but he wasn’t swift enough to capitalise on it. Qing Ming, to the contrary, was so fast that he rammed his foot into Mu Yu’s chest and forced the latter into a sand dune before Mu Yu even knew what hit. Luckily for Mu Yu, he landed on a formation, so he cushioned his fall and cancelled out the force of Qing Ming’s strike, then back flipped to the edge of the eight trigrams formation.
“Shadow Wolf Assassination!”
Qing Ming threw two Shadow Blades up and expanded the black energy that he transformed them into. Next, he fused them and morphed the single entity into a huge black wolf that was strong enough to rock the eight trigrams formation.
The black wolf zoomed over to Mu Yu and tried to belt Mu Yu with an air-distorting whack.
“Gentle Wind Falling Dragon Roars!”
Mu Yu leveraged his “gentle” position on his eight trigrams formation to boost his Celestial Swords Nine Summons’ fifth technique. In the same time, he shifted to the south of the diagram, using “gentle” and “wind” position to power the eight trigrams formation.
The spot Mu Yu was on glowed black and white. Eight Shadow Splitter Swords emerged from the eight positions of the eight trigrams diagram and continued into the sky, each lining up behind the other and curving as they ascended. The dragon vine then emerged from Mu Yu’s arm and reverted to its true size to gobble all eight swords, transforming it into a dragon sword.
Boom!
Mu Yu pinned his feet to the eight trigrams diagram, lest he flew away from the shockwave generated. The shadow wolf returned to Qing Ming, who hadn’t budged from where he stood. The dragon vine continued monitoring its foe through its copper eyes after the two collided to a draw.
Qing Ming clicked his tongue, frustrated he still didn’t have it in the bag as he expected. “How are you still able to utilise such large-scaled formations?”
“You talk too much for an assassin.”
Mu Yu wanted to end the match as soon as possible because a drawn-out match was to his disadvantage, especially in consideration of his depleted spiritual energy. Mu Yu was forced to consume a spirit restoration pill; it didn’t do much for a Body Severing Realm cultivator and one pill was the daily limit, unfortunately. Though he had more spiritual energy than before owing to the black spiritual energy and white spiritual energy, the time it took to replenish his spiritual energy extended once it dropped below a certain threshold.
“Shadow Wolf, go!”
“Mu Yu, that dog is substantially stronger than me. I can only stall for a short window while the formation is active, so you better hurry,” notified the dragon vine, intercepting the shadow wolf again.
“Got it,” responded Mu Yu. He analysed in his mind, Qing Ming needs to control his shadow wolf manually, while I don’t need to control Gentle Wind Falling Dragon Roars. Heavenly Star Formation is eating up a lot of spiritual qi and spiritual energy. I reckon I can use it three more times at most. If I can’t finish him by then, I’ll be done in.
Noticing an opening on Qing Ming’s right wrist but out of Shadow Splitter Swords, Mu Yu had no option but to resort to gambling on Wood Spirit Sword. Mu Yu flashed in and cut down at Qing Ming’s exposed wrist.
“Wh-” Qing Ming hastily covered his right wrist with his left hand.
Though Wood Spirit Sword was rather dull, it was sharp enough to cut deep enough to expose Qing Ming’s bone. Qing Ming churned spiritual energy to his leg and whipped it at Mu Yu, creating space once again.
Toss this, Mu Yu told himself.
Mu Yu transformed Wood Spirit Sword into a towering linden tree with black branches and leaves with white streaks down the centre. As the leaves belted down, Mu Yu used them as cover to circle to Qing Ming’s left, striving to bait Qing Ming’s counter to expose an opening.
“Hmph!”
Qing Ming freed his sixteen pasqueflowers from Mu Yu’s formation and directed them toward the tree leaves. Since the pasqueflowers no longer produced light, shadows were cast, putting a smile on Qing Ming’s lips right before he took cover in the shadows.
“Dark Shadow Assassination!” Qing Ming’s voice sounded deep, yet creepy, as he performed a technique shadow assassins used to absorb light when light hampered their usage of Shadow Concealment Technique.
When Qing Ming appeared as a body of black gas in the eight trigram diagram, his black qi absorbed he light, dimming the area, leading to Mu Yu’s shadow also being cast in the diagram. The drawback of the technique was that he’d also be immobilised in the shadow for two hours. Hence, the technique was a last resort shadow assassins used. Qing Ming resorted to the technique only once he detected Mu Yu’s spiritual energy levels close to evaporating.
“Let’s see you dodge now.”
Upon jumping into Mu Yu’s shadow, the Shadow Wolf returned to Qing Ming’s hands as two Shadow Blades. Qing Ming wore on a confident grin as he speared toward Mu Yu’s heart.
“Watch out, Mu Yu!”
The dragon vine dove down to save Mu Yu. Alas, it was too late for Qing Ming already lodged his dagger in Mu Yu before the latter could even finish turning his head around. Qing Ming choked Mu Yu with his free hand and disparaged, “I’ll admit you exceeded my expectations. Nevertheless, this is as far as you go.”
Crack! Qing Ming crushed Mu Yu’s throat… or so he thought for a second. The murder veteran knew better than anyone that nobody’s neck-cracking sound resembled the sound of a tree branch snapping.
As Qing Ming spaced out, a quiet sound from behind grew louder and louder in his ear…
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