Song Song walked past and stood on the blackened grass where the previous array had struck.
"This might hurt a bit," I warned her.
"Mhm," she nodded, a bored look in her eyes.
I erected the sa barrier as before, with so minor tweaks. One of them was to avoid shooting lightning randomly, as that cost Qi. Instead, I replaced it with a single bolt of lightning that would act like normal lightning.
Of course, lightning and electricity are lazy forms of energy. They chose the fastest path to the ground, and that path was Song Song. I had found my lightning rod.
Sothing interesting happened as the lightning rumbled and was about to strike Song Song. Her hair rose, and even she looked curious.
"Hm?" She turned toward , raising a questioning brow.
But the only answer she got was a lightning bolt raining down. Before the first bolt was done, another ca down. They rained so frequently that the victim wouldn't have ti to breathe.
This was good. Of course, it had a major weakness—if soone carried so tal, threw it around, or used a sword, it might make the array useless. Also, lightning cost too much Qi to use the array at full power.
I walked toward the barrier and entered it without trouble, and the lightning imdiately stopped hitting Song Song. This revealed that she was covered in a dark crust. The crust cracked, showing one of her piercing blue eyes. She looked awake, not bored from hanging around the house and cultivating.
As the lightning rumbled in the dark clouds above, I felt a soft tingle on my scalp.
I was about to be hit by the lightning too. The array didn't discriminate. Good thing I learned this here rather than in the middle of a battle.
Before the main lightning strike, the electricity traveled toward the earth in many random paths. Once a path was found, the big strike happened exactly through that path. So indeed, the lightning didn't know where the rod was; it searched to find it.
A simple barrier that stopped that signal was easy to make, which was another weakness of this technique. Any Array Conjurer with basic mastery could make a simple barrier to prevent this and bypass the lightning strike.
"Even at Foundation Establishnt, I felt a stunning effect for a second," Song Song said as she broke out of her darkened crust. Her hair, clothes, and skin were perfectly fine, without a scratch. "Though after the first ti, it was easy to push the lightning out of my body using Qi. Kind of like this."
As she said that, her hair rose again and a lightning bolt rained down on her. But the electricity seed to pass straight through her this ti, causing no damage.
It was frustrating how easily she dismantled a technique like this, making it almost ineffective against her. However, it wasn't as easy as she made it seem; she had to dispel the lightning the instant it touched her.
"How about a friendly spar?" she asked, a soft smile dancing on her lips. "After all, you need to test this technique in real combat."
I knew she was trying to bullshit . With a smile like that, she almost looked like the friendly girl next door—the kind you'd have a crush on but never the courage to ask out. In this context, and considering it was Song Song, she was definitely using that smile to get to do sothing. She probably knew the smile wouldn't work on , but her other smile would have been too intimidating.
But she knew I was a sucker for trying out new techniques.
"Sure," I said, clasping my hands together and imdiately changing the shape of the array, making it a closer barrier from the ground. Though it was a small change, it disrupted the delicate balance Song Song had with her technique, and she frowned.
I charged at her like a bullet. Halfway there, I realized I wouldn't be able to attack her without taking down the simple barrier, as it would be destroyed when we made contact.
In a split second, I changed the array's rules so it would search for a new target every half a second. That gave about half a second without needing the barrier, allowing to hit her.
As I got close and Song Song was being bombarded by lightning, the frown on her face turned upside down. She smirked as she noticed my fist aid at her stomach. She grabbed my hand, and imdiately, the lightning shock traveled through my body. The lightning array, modified so much, had beco fragile, and that instant of shock was enough to cause the barrier to crash.
"I might not know much about arrays, but I have been trained to counter them," Song Song revealed with her signature villainous smile. "Changing the array's rules so many tis makes it fragile. You must cast a new array with those rules in mind to avoid creating that weakness. And with holding you, there's no way I'd let you do that."
"Okay, can you let go now?" I raised a questioning brow and pointed at where she had caught my forearm.
Next ti, I would use gloves made from Dancing Jade Armor when punching soone stunned by my lightning.
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Instead of letting go, she tightened her grip on my arm and asked, "Do you know how easily I could have ripped your head off if this had been a real fight?"
"Yeah, I would expect you to be able to do that. There's a huge difference in power between us. If you couldn't kill in one attack with that gap, you'd be incompetent," I shrugged.
She didn't let go of my forearm and dangerously narrowed her eyes. "That is why you should never pick a fight with a Foundation Establishnt Cultivator, no matter how confident you might feel."
"Why would I feel confident?" I raised a questioning brow.
"Sorry, I might have missed sothing, but I rember seeing five or six corpses in the icy room after I broke through," she said. "I might not have been able to see or hear anything due to your barriers. However, I could still sense everything that was happening."
"I don't quite see where you're going with this."
"What I an is that you're a reckless fool and might have the tendency to risk your life for certain people due to the inherited goodness of your heart. Next ti you try to protect soone with your life and you die, I will make sure to kill whoever you saved," Song Song's gaze was cold as ice; she really ant what she was saying.
It wasn't like I enjoyed risking my life, but there was context to the situation every ti I did so. Often, there was no chance to escape, and ironically, risking my life was the best chance I had at surviving. During those kinds of situations, I put my emotions and heart aside. But I doubted she would care about my explanations.
After a few seconds of staring at , she let go of my arm. Despite her firm grasp, there were no injuries.
"What if the person I'm trying to save is you?" I asked, smiling. This was a paradoxical question.
She was taking this whole thing too seriously. We were cultivators; we walked beside death all the ti. If I wanted safety, I would have closed myself in the Outer Sect's dormitory room and never co out.
"Why would I need a Qi Gathering Cultivator to co and save ? I made the mistake of taking a risk to try and gain recognition and not sha people who don't care about . Those sa people didn't even bother taking out of prison when I was there. I won't make the sa mistake twice," she said. "You're an adviser, rember that. You're not supposed to fight my battles."
Staying closed up in here and not killing anyone might be getting to her. Or we were really beginning to affect each other; she was growing softer, and I was becoming a harsher person.
People used to say that you beco those you hang out with. It couldn't be more true in our case. I just hoped no one else would notice the weakness Song Song had developed by becoming softer.
Though it wasn't like she hadn't grown more dangerous either. This was no longer the raging, berserker-like Song Song they were dealing with. Now, she knew how to sche and trick people. It was perfectly shown when she acted like she was hurt by my lightning—Song Song would have usually never done sothing like this.
"Anyway, how long would it take for an average cultivator to expel the lightning, a normal Foundation Establishnt Cultivator?" I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from useless worries. Despite Song Song's warning, I knew my own limits best.
My question was genuine, not just a diversion. However, asking about this right after she cautioned against fighting opponents of her caliber might seem insensitive. But Song Song understood I was intrinsically curious.
"Against soone like , the lightning disperses as soon as it touches my blood. For others, it could take four to five seconds if caught off guard. Maybe less, but they'd definitely be stunned," Song Song explained.
Given Song Song's reaction ti, this array seed sowhat ineffective against her. But we were discussing normal cultivators here.
I closed my eyes, focusing on adjusting the array. Making changes before erecting it wouldn't compromise its durability—only alterations after construction affected that.
"Do you want to spar again?" Song Song asked, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she gave a dangerous smile. "This ti, let's go a bit all out."
What did "a bit all out" even an?
Without waiting for a signal, I erected a barrier around us. Song Song smiled, not taking my little trick to heart; we both knew I stood no chance. It was all in good fun, and I was testing so of my wilder ideas.
Her hand twitched, activating the new paraters of the barrier. A lightning bolt shot toward her, much more powerful than before. It slamd into her at full force, but she effortlessly broke through it. Suddenly shifting from seeing the bright lightning to feeling her hand about to grab my face, blocking my vision completely, was startling.
Song Song grabbed my head, ready to smash it against the barrier walls. I quickly dismissed the barrier, but she tried to throw away like a ragdoll before I could deploy more tricks.
However, this worked in my favor. I didn't even touch the ground and swiftly erected a stationary barrier mid-air—a translucent slab capable of supporting my weight. It was an idea inspired by the floating carpet the governor had given .
Song Song's smile widened. She made a flickering motion with her middle finger, closed one eye to aim better, and a Qi bead the size of a bean ford in front of her. With a flick, she launched it at .
"Shit!" I muttered as I sensed the attack coming. I jumped off the platform just in ti to barely dodge the explosion from the destroyed barrier platform.
Song Song was like those annoying opponents I used to battle in Street Fighter when I was younger—a relentless spamr ready to flick another red bead of Qi at without hesitation.
With a quick thought, I conjured a jade soldier beside in mid-air. It grabbed my arm and swung away from the crimson Qi bead hurtling my way.
Song Song's eyes tracked like a hawk honing in on its prey.
She was significantly stronger since breaking through. This Song Song could easily finish off Ye An in one attack.
I barely had ti to process this as Song Song blitzed through my defenses. In an instant, she was in front of , gripping my face gently as she brought to the ground. Her fist swung down, smashing into the earth beside my head, causing the ground to shake, crack, and form a small crater. Also, the sound of the ground crashing made my ears ring.
That would have turned my head into tomato soup if it had landed…
"You know, if you're so bad at hiding, you really shouldn't try it," Song Song called out, glancing towards the shadow of a tree near the pond where Song San stood with his usual nonchalant gaze.
He wasn't lying down as usual. He looked ready to defend himself, suggesting he saw his sister as a threat.
"Hey, I'm not here to fight," Song San raised his hands. "Actually, I'm here to give you so news. Have you heard about the situation on the war front? Also, you were both making so much noise, I couldn’t help myself but co and check what was happening."
“That is a lie right there, I know there was an array that stops noise from going out, and outside noise from coming in,” Song Song refuted, and stood up from where she was holding down and turned toward her brother.
“Well, the main point is the developnt in the war front,” Song San took a step back and a bead of sweat rolled down his brow. It seed like he was expecting her to attack him for that lie.
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