Song Wei slamd the doors open. Ive brought your statue!
Hui quickly fixed his robes and climbed off the throne. Yes, yes. Thank you!
Still sitting on the throne, Bai Xue clicked her tongue. We barely even had ti to get started.
Song Wei glared at her, the silver mask hiding his face.
Without a word or hesitation, Bai Xue glared back. Murderous intent clashed between the two of them, all but sparking on the air.
Aanyways, lets leave them to it, and Ill focus on bringing back Ying Lin! Hui looked the statue up and down, only to frown at the dirt attached to the bottom. Song Wei, how did you get this statue?
I took it, Song Wei said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.
Er, took it how?
Song Wei smiled.
You know what, Id rather not know, Hui muttered to himself.
Zhubi leaped off Song Weis throat and flew to Huis, quickly wrapping himself tightly as if to apologize for leaving. Hui gripped at him a little, choking. Zhubihelp
Tian Lan flew over after Zhubi, going for Huis neck. Huis eyes widened. Im going to die, Im going to get choked to death for real!
Rearing up, Zhubi hissed at Tian Lan. At the last second, she diverted and wrapped around Huis upper arm instead, leaning up to nose Zhubi. Zhubi flicked her away with his tail. Only when he saw that Tian Lan wasnt going for Huis throat did he loosen his grip on Huis neck.
Hui gasped. Thank you, Elder Brother!
Zhubi looked up at him and tilted his head, confused.
Drawing closer to the statue, he inspected it again. Theres the faint aura of the power of ti, but Ive been wondering. Is that a bluff?
Most people dont have many different types of barriers. If the Golden Immortal created the principles of the Inspectors barriersthe way a Senior or Sect Master would in a Sect, then I can probably use the sa principles I used to attack that barrier to attack this one.
Well, its a reasonable starting point, anyways. Lets crack it open and take a look!
Hui looked over his shoulder at Song Wei and Bai Xue, still feuding. Can I trust you two to guard while I break this barrier?
Thats a barrier? Bai Xue asked.
Fool. Anything is a barrier if Master says it is, Song Wei countered.
Er, can I trust you? Hui repeated.
Of course. Master can trust with anything, Song Wei declared.
Bai Xue thumped her chest. Im not your spouse for nothing! Ill protect you.
Song Wei imdiately whipped around and glared at Bai Xue, who grinned back.
Im not really sure that Im happy with the two of them going at it like this, but on the other hand, at least Bai Xue isnt all depressed and sulky anymore. Hui nodded. He sat down on the floor, assuming a lotus pose, and imrsed himself into ditation. Imdiately, the barrier appeared in his minds eye, gold and bright. A powerful blast of the power of ti washed over him, then faded. On the other side, he found himself facing a familiar barrier made up of large golden characters.
He took a deep breath and settled himself. Okay. Step one. Corrupt one of the characters. And when the self-repair feature cos out, thats when I strike!
Drawing out his qi, he twisted it into a compressed thread and jabbed it at the nearest character. The character shimred. It trembled, then darkened, slowly torn apart by Huis death qi.
Hui held his breath. He prepared to catch the shards of qi and reform them.
Just as it was about to fall apart, the power of ti thrumd out from the character. All the corruption reversed, and the character returned to its beginning bright gold shine.
Hui licked his lips. Well. Fuck.
No, no. I guess I cant be too surprised. It did have the aura of the power of ti. And even if the Inspectors barriers are based on the principles of the Golden Immortals barriers, it isnt too much of a surprise that they failed to fully comprehend the true form of his barriers and instead created a sort of halfway point.
Damn. Couldnt have made it easy for , huh?
Hui sighed aloud, then threw himself back into it. I cant throw a tantrum just because I failed once. Im going to defeat the barrier one way or another!
The power of ti to roll back the damage. Do you have enough comprehension of the power of ti to fight that directly?
No no. I have enough for our purposes, but I cant exactly fine grained stuff is
Understood. Then lets find another angle.
Hui put a hand on his chin and sunk into thought. If I corrupt a character, the power of ti undoes all my progress. Then will the power of ti not intervene until Ive corrupted a certain amount of a character?
I wont be able to fully break the barrier. Even if I corrupt all the characters to the maximum non-power-of-ti-proccing level, it wont be enough to break the barrier.
But do I need to break it? What if I lift it a little? Loosen it up? Ying Lin is alive. If I loosen it enough to wake her, she can escape on her own.
Hui nodded. Lets try it. If it doesnt work, in the worst case, Im back where I am right now. Nothing lost, but I have the chance to gain sothing along the way.
Once again, he ford the thread. This ti, though, he made a dozen threads, then a hundred, pouring all his death qi and phoenix fire into them until he had no more to give. He threw his hands out, spreading his threads over the surface of the barrier. Each thread hovered over a character, the threads lined up precisely with the characters in a neat grid. The threads sharp ends bobbed with the natural motion of the barriers.
Here we go. Hui dropped his hand. The threads hurtled down toward the characters. Black smashed into the gold, and the gold shimred, building up energy to fight back. With all the characters attacked at once, the energy wavered, unable to gather enough power from its central power source to fix all the characters at once.
Of course, the second the power amps up, or if I let up, the gold power of ti will erase everything. The power of ti isnt sothing I can currently fight back against or at least, that this cant. This is my shot. My one chance. I need to overwhelm the barrier just enough to give Ying Lin a chance to break through!
Ying Lin, Im counting on you!
Yes!
The characters trembled, decaying to the greatest extent they could before the power of ti burst out. Hui clawed his hands and yanked them apart, tearing the characters under his control away from one another. A gap opened in the barrier.
A hand thrust out, reaching. Master!
Hui looked at his hands, holding the gap open. Even as he stood there, his arms trembled. The gold energy pushed against his hands, pushing them shut. He grit his teeth, thinking for a mont, then quickly swapped into lotus mode and grew a third arm. His third arm reached out to Ying Lin. Quickly!
Ying Lin clasped his hand. He hauled back. Even as he yanked, the gap slamd into his arms with its full strength. His grip slipped. The characters slamd toward Ying Lin like a guillotine.
Ying Lin! Hui shouted, terrified.
Reviews
All reviews (0)