Chapter 607: Mirror-of-the-Sky Blood (11)

Qing’s figure lifts off lightly.

Not a jump, but a self-propelled ascent—an elegant poise, as if she slipped past the world’s laws and rose upstream toward the sky.

It was the Moon Maiden Mountain Steps’ signature anti-gravity gait.

At the apex—about a sheet’s height up.

Qing’s body suddenly spins.

She plants her foot where the back of her head just was, tucking her knees tight and lowering her posture—as if she’d set a foot on the sky and squatted upside down.

Qing raises her head and locks eyes with Nacheok, the Vajrayana Master of the Blood Thunder Sound Temple.

A shiver flits through Nacheok; without meaning to, he grips his monk’s staff with both hands and thrusts it forward.

Good. Block it. Don’t dodge—block.

Thoom! Qing scythes the empty air with a kick and—head first—shears forward with a shriek, a shell fired from a gun.

Her fluid body bends back so far the right shoulder looks almost wrenched loose, and there—the hexagonal flanged mace’s vicious spiked iron head yanked to full draw.

Call it a grand falling-technique.

Kick the air and drop to earth; at the moment of impact, swing the flanged mace down with full force to bleed off the body’s shock.

Said another way, when the form fully unfolds, the power of a fallen star is packed into a single downward strike.

Qing’s body lances in at the speed of an iron awl that laughs at sheet iron.

Only at arm’s reach does the spiked head, hidden by her torso, surge in as if stitching space together—

Terror rises on Nacheok’s face.

He flings himself backward—barely—her toes brush him as the star crashes down.

—...!

The earth shudders as if it will collapse.

A translucent ring expands violently and races beyond the world, and a beat late a roaring wind comes after.

Rrrrr—crrrrk—the alley’s houses shed stone dust in an ominous tremble.

Great-Sage Shakes-Heaven Demon-Staff, Eighth Form. Meteor Drop.

Before the earth and sky, before the heavens and the stars, a human is a paltry bug.

Who dares stand against a falling star?

But—what if you just get out of the way?

Amid flying gravel and a shock that dents the frozen permafrost, Qing kneels on one knee, bracing to the ground with the flanged mace, a human shield crazed with terror slung in her other arm. She snaps her head up.

Nacheok, fallen on his back and craning up from his shoulders, meets the eye-light that is raw murderous intent itself.

“Slayer of the world—”

“Save you, my ass! Begging for your life out of nowhere, you craven old man!”

Qing shouts and springs.

Nacheok is more dumbfounded than frightened.

He was about to say “slayer of the world,” that’s all.

But now it sounds like he actually begged to be spared.

“Who—”

“You just begged to be spared!”

Qing drives the flanged mace straight down—shraaaak!

Nacheok scrambles, flips, and tumbles—roll, roll.

They call this the toady’s art worse than death.

No one knows why such nonsense exists when every fighter alive rolls on the ground in danger.

Bang, bang, bang—she smashes the earth, takes the rebound, raises the mace, and smashes again—on repeat.

Like whacking moles, Qing hammers the ground over and over.

The old monk rolling and crawling, hopping like a frog—he’s almost pitiful.

So the disciple, unable to bear his master’s wretchedness—

“Where—do you think—you’re going!”

With a shout, a Vajrayana Monk flings out his hand.

A blood-red palm blinks in and out; its color seems to vanish, then leap the intervening space, then reappear.

But they already planned for this.

Qing sets the human shield to meet the Blood Handprint.

His windpipe is slit and he can’t make a sound, but his face screams pain.

“[W-what—what is this...!]”

The monk who hurled the Blood Handprint chokes on shock, words failing; arm still thrust, eyes shaking in their sockets—

A hand seizes his sleeve.

Gyeon Pohee, who hasn’t looked at anyone but Qing, joins faster than anyone.

Her hem snaps, and with her grip on his arm the man’s torso spins about five times; the crushed arm hangs limp as if the bone has vanished.

The cost of looking away mid-fight.

“You cur!!”

With a furious bellow, Nacheok’s hand—still on the floor—sketches a familiar shape.

Index and middle fingers together: a mimic of a Buddha mudra.

Ssssss—what seems to swirl is not wind but inner-energy itself.

Ambient vital energy gathers dense enough to be seen.

A strange art impossible without Ideation.

Sensing danger in the uncanny setup, Qing stamps the ground at once.

Soot-black Heaven-Rending Demon-Energy fumes up like dry dust; Qing rockets skyward, opening the gap fast.

Qing, hanging in the air, and Nacheok lock eyes.

The old man grins a gummy, nasty smile.

Still holding a Buddhist mudra in one hand, he pulls the gathered vital energy into a whirling vortex.

Ah—damn. Fooled by an old bastard.

It was a method that takes real time to issue from the start.

By retreating on her own, Qing has bought him time.

Scarlet Steel Qi explodes from Nacheok’s hand and rakes outward in all directions.

In that instant, Qing’s body—high in the air—halts in place.

She flips, plants on the sky, lowers her body—the posture for Great-Sage Shakes-Heaven Demon-Staff: Meteor Drop.

Nacheok looks up, teeth bared.

The old monk’s hand has shaped its blood-red qi into a massive palm—over 2 ft 4 in long—growling, ready to blast at any time.

His eyebrow twitches; Qing kicks the sky again to replay the fall of a star.

Nacheok, refusing to yield, thrusts out his hand—

Ooooom...!!

A great mantra fills the world.

“Om” is the sacred syllable in Buddhism; it precedes all mantras.

Because “Om” names the root of the cosmos and, at once, Vairocana—the source of all buddhas.

And the human root is blood.

So when the Blood Thunder Sound Temple of the western range—who revere Vairocana as the Great Sun Tathāgata—forge a divine art from that image, of course it takes on a blood-red hue.

A gigantic blood-red palm surges out.

Tantric Great Handprint, Eighth Form: Earth-Supporting Great Sun Tathāgata Hand.

The Great Sun Tathāgata, Vairocana, whose hand upholds the world across past, present, and future.

With the pure sound of Om—the sound of luminous wisdom—the most destructive power at the root drums the world.

A destruction so vast even Qing, who transcends realms, would not dare meet head-on—

Misses!

KA-WHAM!! The meteor slams the earth with a thunderclap; the after-gust whispers past Nacheok’s left ear a breath later.

Left ear?

Nacheok snaps his head around.

Over there—splattered chunks of flesh flung everywhere.

The hostage in that wretched state, and the disciple tending him—both of them have become things that used to be a disciple.

Shattered meat strewn to all sides.

Qing was never the type to meet the unstoppable when she can simply slip it.

Some men call that pride and blather about “true manhood.”

I’m not a cripple. You see him using some blatantly powerful art; why would I charge straight in?

Why did I take to Great-Sage Shakes-Heaven Demon-Staff without a second thought when I saw it?

Not for the raw power of the art.

For the mobility—the ability to break away fast in one direction while airborne.

Still... mm. It feels incredible.

Killing in one blow is a shame, but—hoo—this... really... hoo... if I’m not careful, I’ll get addicted.

“[Vile!]”

Leaving Nacheok’s praise behind, Qing whips the flanged mace and cracks the back of another Vajrayana Monk who was tending one of the “chosen” hostages.

Ahhh—this heavy point, worming between the hard vertebrae. Hnn—Qing lets out a dumb little laugh before she can help it.

With a single blow the disciple’s spine snaps; his upper body folds at a grotesque angle.

The old Vajrayana Monk charges, livid.

The rings on his staff clash—jarr-r-rk—rattling as he rushes.

Qing lets the flanged mace drop with a thud and shoves the human shield straight out front.

A screech you could almost see with your eyes—and the staff grinds to a hair’s breadth stop.

In the same beat, Qing and the human shield split into eight and streak to the eight directions.

Nacheok, panicking at the translucent Qing rushing him, swings the staff—but it just passes through and cuts the air.

Since His Lord the Heavenly Demon uses clone-and-shrink-the-earth tricks, Qing—on the high lineage of Flowing-Wave Steps—ghosts to the rear of Nacheok and instantly hurls the flanged mace.

Thunk! Right into the back of the Vajrayana Monk who had been thrusting his staff at Seol Iri.

A blunt weapon, thrown with power beyond human limits.

As the monk lurches forward with a wet smack, Seol Iri’s ice-blade does not miss and slices his forearm.

“You {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} cur!”

In that beat, Qing’s hand hooks like a claw—Nacheok slashes his arm across to meet it—clang!

Cloth strikes cloth with a steel-breaking crack.

A tic jumps at Nacheok’s eye.

What seeps into the hand he met is night—an aggregate of vicious malice that slips in from the minor meridians and tears them to shreds from within.

Only now does he notice the Steel Qi faint on Qing’s hand—and, perched on her dorsum like a mirage, a pale, twisted after-image.

“You witch, that’s the Minor—”

“Waaagh! What the hell—why is there no one left who doesn’t know me!?”

Qing yells to cut off the bad line and chains another movement of the malice-rich Minor-Demon Art.

TANG-tang-tang-tang—like several iron hammers beating out of time on steel—raucous clamor.

Hiding behind a human shield and raking in with mean little swipes—that’s Qing; Nacheok can do nothing but fall back, and back, and back again, swatting her hands aside in a panic.

And then—Ooooom...!

Why—that sound?

Qing snaps her head around.

A massive Blood Handprint slams earth—hostage or not, be damned—and grinds to paste.

Peng Daesan and Gyeon Pohee scatter, white with shock, barely slipping outside the range of the Tantric Great Handprint’s supreme technique.

The smile drains from Qing’s face.

What the hell—why are there two in Flower Realm?

I need to help—no. No.

San and Hee-mae aren’t children I have to babysit.

Two super-transcendents against one in Harmony is one short on numbers, but—they can hold.

So—don’t get impatient.

Qing heaves the human shield away.

Nacheok darts and barely snatches his limbless disciple out of the air.

In that instant—BWONG!

A bell-rung shock that wakes Brahmā; a savage air-kick smashes Nacheok.

Qing uses that beat to scan the field.

The seven enemies are now three.

One is busy dragging the wounded, trying to peel off from the fight—Qing jabs a finger and barks at once—

“Over here! That bastard!”

“Yes!”

Seol Iri sprints for the Vajrayana Monk pulling the wounded out.

But Nacheok whips toward Seol Iri at once.

“[Where do you—!]” “Where!”

Qing and Nacheok shout in the same breath.

Dusk-hued sword-qi from the Moonlight Sword draws a long tail at the old monk—

Clang!

Blade to staff, sword-qi to staff-qi—and the soles of Qing’s feet screech, scraping her back about 2 ft 5 in.

Nacheok, by contrast, stands firm.

Because even within the same Harmony, the early-mid-late strata divide is strict.

He seems to realize it too; his face eases, his ferocity rises.

Qing answers with a matched smile.

Yeah, I get it—you’re not some pushover.

But if realm alone decided everything, why the hell do fighters fight?

Ask each other’s realm, let the lower one spare himself the trouble, admit defeat, and kill himself.

Qing’s left hand shoots sideways.

BWONG—! With the thud of a great bell—whump—the Vajrayana Monk over there, scrabbling and twitching, caroms away.

Triumph drops out of Nacheok’s face.

Qing strains not to show haste and forces her voice slow:

“You see that? Keep standing around and all your precious disciples are going to die. What are you doing, spectating? Not coming in?”

Then—she jabs a finger at him.

Flips the hand, folds and flicks her index finger.