Fates Parallel Chapter 69 - Vanish

It had worked! Lee Jia hadn’t been certain it would, and she knew that she would have just lost the fight if it hadn’t. It had been a narrow thing, but Jia thought it had worked well for something so rushed together, and she was lucky that her friends had been able to put it together for her.

When she had asked Rika and Dae to make her some force shield talismans, they had been skeptical of the idea.

---

“Miss Lee, I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded that talismans need to be specially prepared in order to be usable by someone other than their creator.”

Jia nodded and grinned at Dae.

“That’s why I need your help, Dae. Is it possible for you and Rika to work together to make force shield talismans that I can use?”

Dae scratched his head and chuckled nervously.

“Hehe, it’s...theoretically possible. I could prepare the paper for her to inscribe, but I’m concerned about the rate of failure and the quality of the—”

“Great! Could I ask you two to try to prepare them, then? As soon as possible, since we’re about to start the spars. I’ll try to make it up to you!”

Dae sighed with resignation and nodded while Rika laughed boisterously and patted Jia on the shoulder.

“Sure thing, Jia! I might be a bit rusty with the mana shield talismans, though. I don’t usually use them since it gives away my real position, but if you think it will help I’ll give it a shot!”

---

Dae had been right about the rate of failure. Rika had burned through a lot of ki just to make a small handful of viable talismans, which might have ended up costing her the spar earlier—Jia would have to apologize for that. The results spoke for themselves, though—thanks to the force shield talisman, Lee Jia had been able to block what would otherwise have been a match-ending blow.

Of course, the shield had only been able to withstand a single blow before collapsing, but she had a few more talismans left and more than enough mana to cast them all. Normally the mana cost was one of the greatest limitations of a mana shield—especially when activating an elemental shield with regular mana—but Jia’s domain meant that she had access to all of the mana in her surroundings, and the mountain peak had a lot to work with.

Minami Yuuko’s expression went from stunned awe to frustrated anger as she snapped out of her shock.

“How!? You’re supposed to have a lightning affinity!”

Jia laughed and shrugged.

“I do! Rika doesn’t, though—and she’s the best force-element martial artist I know. Uh, no offense.”

Jia winced as Minami ground her teeth together angrily. She really hadn’t meant to offend them—she’d just forgotten that they all used the force element regardless of affinity.

Fujino shook his head and chuckled.

“I’m amazed that you managed to put that together so quickly—I only told you about the force shields yesterday. You must have been preparing for this ever since.”

Jia scratched her cheek awkwardly.

“Uh...I actually came up with the idea less than an hour ago.”

Minami and Fujino both paused for a moment before Minami shook her head and whirled on Fujino.

“Putting her ridiculous lies aside, you told her about our mana shields? How could you give up secrets to the enemy like that?”

Fujino held his hands up defensively and took a step back from Minami.

“I would hardly call Miss Lee our enemy, Yuuko.”

Minami growled with frustration and began shouting at Fujino while Lee Jia watched on in awkward silence—this wasn’t going the way she had hoped it would.

“Rrrgh! I can’t stand this anymore! You, Izumi, everyone looks up to her as some sort of inspiration but she hasn’t done anything praiseworthy! So what if she beat some stuck up cultivator in a duel? Everyone knows that Dae’s talismans carried her through that fight, and now she’s just doing the same thing again!

“None of you seem to understand that she’s a complete fraud! Have you even heard some of the things people say about her? The only thing remarkable about Lee Jia is the people she hides behind, and I’m going to prove it right now.”

Minami’s outburst had drawn attention from all over the plateau, and Hayakawa seemed prepared to step in at any moment, but was holding back. Lee Jia felt herself blushing from all the attention. She hadn’t realized that there had been people looking up to her like that, nor that Minami felt so strongly about it.

Lee Jia could sense several more talismans activating within Minami’s aura, and Fujino’s expression turned to one of alarm as he took a step towards her.

“Yuuko! Those are only supposed to be for—”

“Shut up, Eiji! And stay back, I’m going to handle this on my own, unlike her!”

Fujino took a step back and glanced between Minami and Lee Jia with a worried expression.

“Miss Lee—”

“Not a word, Eiji! You’ve spilled enough of our secrets already!”

With an exasperated sigh, Fujino backed off to join the crowd—which now included everyone on the plateau. Lee Jia wasn’t entirely certain what was going on, but she understood that this was now a very serious one on one duel between her and Minami Yuuko.

“I’m not going to pretend I understand your issue with me, Miss Minami, but it’s these you take exception to, right?”

Jia held up the three remaining force shield talismans.

“It’s true that I have gained a lot from my friends—even relied on them at times—but if you think that the only thing I can do is hide behind the abilities of those around me, you’re mistaken.”

Lee Jia punctuated her statement by creating a spark of lightning between her fingers that ignited the talismans. She stared Minami down as she let them burn away in her fingers, but the moment was ruined by a cry from the crowd.

“Ah! Jia, what the hell!? We worked hard on those!”

She struggled to keep a straight face as Rika yelled at her, causing her to redden with embarrassment. Minami didn’t seem to appreciate the comedy of the moment, and just snarled angrily at her.

“I’m not going to debate you, Lee! If you think you can get out of this fight with words, you’re mistaken! Either shut up and fight me, or surrender and prove me right!”

Lee Jia sighed—she hadn’t really intended to try to get out of the duel, but Minami clearly intended to assume the worst of her no matter what. She took up a fighting stance and nodded.

“Then—”

Minami didn’t wait for Lee Jia to finish speaking, darting forward with incredible speed and launching a devastating flurry of strikes that Jia needed her full concentration to avoid. She immediately regretted burning the force shield talismans, as whatever new talismans Minami was using were much more potent than the ones she had used before.

The pressure was relentless, and Lee Jia struggled to find any openings to fight back. Worse, the speed and force of each strike reminded her of sparring with Hayakawa—she knew that the match could be decided by a single blow.

In an attempt to break the equilibrium, Lee Jia spared a tiny bit of attention to casting one of the spells she had been working on ever since she had been kidnapped. It was a slightly modified mana shield spell that made use of the natural instability of the lightning element to create a burst of lightning around her—she called the spell Lightning Nova.

Unfortunately the prototype spell was not quite what Lee Jia intended yet. The energy snapped into place around her and immediately erupted, sending bolts of lightning in every direction and forcing Minami to back off a few steps. The downside was that every direction meant every direction, and Lee Jia was struck by the backlash from her own spell.

She ignored her twitching muscles and followed up with a shock spell directed at Minami. Eui had warned her that Minami was stronger in a brawl, and Lee Jia had already made the mistake of letting her engage once—she wasn’t keen to repeat it.

Minami’s incredible speed and reflexes allowed her to deflect the bolt of lightning with a burst of ki, and Lee Jia grumbled internally. First Hayakawa and now Minami, how did people keep doing that? She used the opening to back off and continue to fire shock spells, forcing Minami to go on the defensive.

As soon as Jia had backed off enough that Minami was no longer within her domain, she realized she’d made another error. Without her aura, she wouldn’t be wearing Minami down with the corrosive effect, nor would she be able to sense the activation of any more spells. Minami seemed to realize the same thing as she grinned at Lee Jia from a distance.

The first sign that she was being attacked came as she detected a manifestation of foreign mana within her domain, moving towards her at incredible speed. She slipped her head to the side and just barely managed to dodge the invisible bolt of force as it blew past her, causing her hair to flutter in the turbulence of its wake.

Lee Jia felt a cold sweat beginning to form on her neck. That had been a serious attack—Minami was not holding anything back, and did not seem particularly concerned about using potentially lethal force. How had Hayakawa not put a stop to this yet!?

Jia realized just how dire her situation was. She was at a disadvantage at every range. Up close, Minami would overwhelm her in hand to hand combat, and even if Jia could counter-attack, Minami’s force shield was a hard counter to her style of fighting. At long range, Minami’s force bolts were a deadly threat that Lee Jia was forced to dodge on reflex alone—not something she wanted to risk.

Ostensibly a mid-range fight was in Jia’s favor, she could hold Minami off with spells while wearing her down with the corrosive aura, but her supply of shock spells wasn’t unlimited, and she would be running the constant risk of Minami closing the distance and forcing her into another brawl.

She had to do something different—her usual style just wasn’t enough against this opponent. What other tools did she have, though? Once more, she wished she hadn’t burned the force shield talismans—adding something new to her toolkit was the entire reason she’d had them made in the first place. The only thing she had left was Steps of the Stalker, but she had never used it in combat, and she wasn’t even sure what it was capable of in the first place.

As soon as she thought of it, she felt a presence within her domain, urging her playfully. She felt the now familiar sensation of shadow essence welling up within her, reminding her that she had made it a part of herself. She felt the sense of cold and safety—the aspect of the scared prey, hiding from its pursuers, and that of the silent predator, stalking its prey through the night.

Within her domain, the shadows grew longer and darker—a passing cloud seemed to blot out the sun, instead of simply darkening the sky. Minami noticed that something was happening and launched another barrage of force bolts, but Jia was fully focused on her domain and dodged them as soon as she sensed them.

As Jia circulated the shadow qi within her and summoned it up from her dantian to her heart, she felt the presence within her domain matching it, sending a similar amount of shadow mana into her body from the other direction. The strands of essence met within her heart chamber and flooded throughout her body, naturally suppressing her lightning affinity without her even needing to do so consciously.

As the shadow ki suffused her body, the entire world went completely dark and she heard a collective gasp from the crowd. Though she could no longer see, Lee Jia could sense through her domain that she had completely vanished from sight. She had no idea why that also made her blind, but as long as she had her other senses and her domain, it wouldn’t hold her back.

She strode forward silently, and saw Minami casting about in a panic, trying to find where Lee Jia had disappeared to. The corrosive aura was no longer active, and there was nothing to give away her location, even as she stood right next to Minami, who was now shouting into the air.

“What is this!? Another stolen trick? Some artifact you took from Yan!? Show yourself you coward!”

Lee Jia nodded. It really was a cowardly technique, as well as a cold and ruthless one. Very fitting for the shadow element, she thought, as she circled around behind Minami. In her panic, Minami had failed to maintain her force shield, leaving her defenses open. Lee Jia lowered herself into a stance and allowed the suppressed lightning ki within her to well up for a moment, before releasing it all in a single, swift spear-hand blow to Minami’s temple.

She reappeared at the exact moment that her strike landed, sending the built-up lightning ki rampaging through the pressure point and ravaging Minami’s meridians, immediately knocking her unconscious. Lee Jia hadn’t held anything back from that strike, and caught Minami as she collapsed.

“Eui! She’s going to need help!”

Eui rushed over while the rest of the crowd stared in shocked silence. She glanced up at Jia with a smirk as she began treating Minami’s wounds.

“I said to teach her a lesson, not fucking kill her, you maniac.”

Lee Jia sighed, as Eui snickered quietly, allowing herself a smile at Eui’s morbid sense of humor. The silence of the crowd was broken by the sound of a single person clapping. Hayakawa emerged from the crowd as she applauded.

“Congratulations, Miss Lee, and well fought. That was a fearsome technique you used at the end—a match for my own Mujuuryoku, I should think.”

The gathered disciples matched Hayakawa’s applause, and Lee Jia awkwardly bowed toward them in thanks before turning back to Hayakawa.

“Thanks. I wasn’t sure if it would work—I’ve never tried it in combat before.”

As she spoke, Jia took stock of her shadow essence, seeing that she had used up more than half of it just now. Definitely not something she could use very often.

“Well, they say that the greatest cultivators are forged in the fire of adversity. I’d say you’ve adequately proven your merits to everyone present.”

Jia looked around and saw that even Miyata—the ever-skeptical toady who constantly shadowed Hayakawa—seemed to be looking at her with a newfound sense of respect and appreciation. She wilted a bit under the attention, but Hayakawa soon broke up the gawking crowd and sent them back to continue their own training.

Fujino came forward, with the rest of his group trailing behind him.

“Well fought, Miss Lee! I’ll admit, I was more than a little concerned when Minami used her emergency spells. We each only have one set, and they were very expensive to produce.”

Jia touched the lightning bolt talisman hanging from her neck—her own emergency spell.

“I know what you mean, I have something similar, and I had to use some pretty limited resources to defeat her anyway.”

Fujino inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“Nevertheless, she gave it her all, and you defeated her. I think I speak for all of us—Yuuko included—when I say that it would be an honor to train with you.”

Fujino punctuated the statement by bowing deeply, and the rest of the group repeated the gesture. Lee Jia blushed and waved her hands in protest.

“No no! It’s fine, there’s no need for that! Let’s just try to be friends going forward, okay?”

Fujino stood up straight and nodded with a smile.

“Of course, Miss Lee—no, Senior Lee—I’m sure the group would be pleased if you considered us friends.”

Lee Jia smiled stiffly. She wasn’t sure he really understood, but she wasn’t about to argue with him about it—she wasn’t Eunae.

Suddenly, Minami woke with a start, sitting up and looking around frantically before Eui pushed her back down by the forehead.

“Don’t move, stupid! Jia kicked your ass really hard, and I’m trying to make sure your heart keeps beating while I fix your meridians.”

Jia went pale as Eui spoke—had she really done that much damage? Minami blinked in confusion for a moment before relaxing.

“I...lost? Also, ow! My head! You’re the worst doctor, ever.”

Eui scowled and jabbed Minami in the ribs sharply.

“Yes, you lost! Now stop talking before I decide to finish what Jia started instead of undoing it!”

Jia sighed and gave Minami a rueful smile.

“We can talk later, alright?”

Minami hesitated for a moment, but then nodded once and closed her eyes to let Eui finish healing her. The rest of Jia’s friends joined them a moment later, and Rika immediately cuffed Jia in the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for!?”

“That was for burning those talismans you drama queen!”

Rika cuffed her again.

“And that one was for Dae, since he’s too nice to do it himself.”

Dae just chuckled nervously as Jia rubbed the back of her head and pouted, bowing apologetically.

“S-sorry. I won’t do that again.”

Rika crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

“You better not!”

Jia reflected that it had been a good experience, overall. Hopefully she’d gained Minami Yuuko’s respect, and she’d learned how to use one of her most powerful techniques in the process—even if it was prohibitively expensive.

“By the way, Miss Lee...”

Fujino called for Lee Jia’s attention, and had a curious expression on his face.

“Forgive my impertinence but, uh, where did that kitten come from?”

“Hm? What kitt—”

Jia’s blood turned to ice as she froze and looked down. She hadn’t noticed it in her domain—in fact, she couldn’t detect its presence at all—but there at her feet was a tiny black kitten. The very same one that had been in her soulscape.

Jia felt a headache coming on as it stared up at her and meowed adorably.