Cultivation System: Elder Edition

Chapter 328

Truths and Lies (XIV)

Xi Zhao felt rather spent, having consumed well over half of his Qi reserves on the draw attack. Though it 'succeeded', there was a deep frown on his face; his control over the attack was still lacking, and the Qi spent wasn't proportionate to the level of attack, whatever the outside world believed.

He knew himself best, and he knew that the excess spent Qi was entirely due to his lack of fine control--though it had improved over the past few months, in a realistic scenario, a decision to use the massive draw attack would be a rather moronic one. In fact, were it not for Dai Xiu, Wan Lan, and even Rayce, who'd joined them, he would have likely been killed almost immediately.

As the city lord's daughter screeched for vengeance like a banshee and the city lord himself ordered an attack, dozens of enshadowed figures sprung from every direction, all converging toward them. Dai Xiu and Wan Lan were the first to react, with the latter pulling Light to the platform where Xi Zhao was, and the former directly intercepting several figures and demolishing them into mists of blood before they could reach him.

"Thank you," he said, popping a Qi-replenishing pill that Master Lao gave him.

"That was quite an attack." She turned toward him, frowning. "How come you never attacked me with it? Huh?"

"Uhm..."

"Because you'd die and Master would be sad." It was Light that so profoundly explained it. Dai Xiu looked like she was about to argue for a moment but stopped; no matter how proud she was and how, on average, she was stronger than him, it was likely that only Master and Senior Brother Tao were able to execute a single attack that outmatched Xi Zhao's.

"Forget about that for now," Wan Lan said as she joined them. "Xiu, keep watch over Zhao; Light, support me. That bitch will likely take a while to recover and will keep hiding at the back. Zhao, if you ever get a chance, rip her a new one. Seeing her ripped to pieces once just isn't enough."

"Yeah," Dai Xiu nodded. "I missed her expression the last time; the wretched bitch needs to be put in her place."

"..." Xi Zhao grimaced but didn't say anything, merely sighing and nodding.

Light flicked her fingers gently next to him as a dozen or so tendrils of darkness surged from underneath the floor, rapidly crafting a wall that stopped dozens of smoke-doused daggers from reaching them.

At the same time, Rayce ripped a sheet of paper with brilliant, gold letters--lines of light billowed from the torn sheet, blindingly bright, and spread out into forty-seven identical lines, all shooting in seemingly random directions. Within a second, having seemed to reach their destination, they turned into tall pillars of light reaching toward the sky.

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Screams diluted with horror broke out into the world not long after as the golden pillars turned crimson with blood, chunks of flesh visibly floating up and dispersing into mist as the pillars disappeared.

Slack-jawed, Xi Zhao turned toward Rayce, who smiled fleetingly.

"Master... is really one of a kind..." the man mumbled, the look in his eyes... strange.

Xi Zhao's frown deepened; he loved and respected Master, too, but sometimes his brothers and sisters made his skin crawl.

It was true, in every way, that without that man, Xi Zhao would have died a long, long time ago. If not by being a complete failure, then alongside everyone else in the Sect when it was leveled.

Dai Xiu would be in a similar position, as she would have likely rotted away in the sect's slums until she drew her last breath. Light would have no doubt been exploited by the Sect Master, and who knows how long Madame Lu would have been able to fend off the lord that wanted Wan Lan?

Rayce, too, would have been consumed by the ritual, his soul annihilated in the process.

Xing Feng would still be locked away in the Sunless Forest, haunted by invisible ghosts, never to see the sun again.

Perhaps only Senior Brother Tao would have found his place in this world without Master, though to what degree of success... it was uncertain.

... no, perhaps he was the odd one with the lack of somewhat demented zealotry.

"Watch out!" He moved by instinct, using Shadow Steps to dodge backwards; just in time, too, as a flash of lightning sparked above where he stood and tore a giant hole in the floor as it shuttled down.

Wan Lan warned him, but the attack itself came from that woman--she hadn't stopped staring at him ever since being 'reborn', her expression not all that... human.

There were red lines running across her face, her lips had turned oddly blue, and her skin was unfolding; it was as though she had aged several centuries in the span of a few minutes but also contracted sixteen different diseases that were wreaking havoc in her body.

"I will rip your skin from your bones!!" she screeched yet again, her voice suffused with Qi, forcing him to defend as she spread out her arms, conjuring a thick bolt of lightning in one and a massive sphere of fire in another. Rather than then tossing them toward him, she slammed them together, fusing them into an increasingly swelling pole of fire; it roared, a faint dragon coiling around the shaft of flames.

She grasped it with her right arm and tossed it like a javelin, hurtling it straight at Xi Zhao; taking a deep breath, he slowly poured Qi into his sword, popping a few more pills at the same time.

The fire crossed the distance between the two immediately, all while everyone around was already embroiled in conflict.

His heart was calm, as steady as a boulder, and he faced death straight on--there was no fear within his gaze as Qi poured out of him like a river and straight into the sword.

He drew it out, each drag of the blade against the scabbard like the quaking of a mountain.

His muscles turned taut, pressure building up massively, and he could feel the tiny blood vessels in his forearm snapping as it began to bruise like dipping ink into the water.

Twenty-five feet left.

The blade was halfway out, and he was beginning to slowly lose control of it. Just one misstep, it felt, and the draw would snap the scabbard, and he'd be flung in a random direction--or, at least, his arm would.

Try as he may, he could not do it any further; excising the remaining Qi, he completed the draw and swung, just as the hurtling fire came within ten feet of him. He drew the sword upward, cutting in a beautiful arc. Despite controlling it as best he could, the sheer force of the draw and the drag of the blade pulled him backwards, but the attack's trajectory remained as intended.

It was flung forward, clashing with the flame just fifteen feet from him.