Chapter 498: Destined Matches, Entangled Strategy

(Cognosticon here. On one hand, I just signed the largest deal of my life for the audiobook rights to DH. On the other, the worst has come to pass: I'm almost out of backlog with my back against a wall.

I have done my best to never miss chapters, and announce hiatuses only rarely, but I'm going to need to take a week. Normal chapters this week, announcement Friday.)

Despite all the times he had used Thunderbird's Wings, Kai had never generated thunderclouds like the original monster did. In fact, he had intentionally turned away from that potential for the essence, focusing instead on the brutal efficiency of speed. And yet ever since he'd begun using Famished World, the monstrous essence in him had seemed more alive than before, raw and hungry.

That essence had taken them straight through the Masterful Crown clan's patriarch, with more success than he'd expected, and to their real opponents.

As the massive floating piece of jade loomed closer, Kai glanced over at Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena. They'd known this was likely to happen, sooner or later, and their plans weren't ruined by it being sooner. Still, they hadn't anticipated quite this many supporting cultivators from the Coiling Island and Brightwind sects, plus they needed to fight in the middle of Floodisle City. Even if the clan had been decapitated, it might still have allies willing to take action.

"You see?" Xir Xan Khan said loudly. "They've already finished Patriarch Yul. Anything less than this would have been insufficient."

"Yes." Zae Clen Ban stepped up to the side of the ship and gazed down at them. "I have never been so simultaneously impressed and disappointed. Do you still insist on this, daughter, even now?"

"It doesn't seem like anything can convince you," Zae Zin Nim called to him, "so why do you think you can convince me?"

Omilaena stepped up to the side of the damaged balcony and called out to the ship in general. "Are you still trying this? Could recapturing her possibly be worth it? At some point you have to acknowledge the sunk cost fallacy."

Zae Clen Ban shook his head. "Her new form, while perverse, does appear to be unusually powerful. We need her in order to master the Blackblood Physique, and we will get what we need... one way or another."

Kai didn't even try to reason with them, since he was certain they were beyond that. Instead, he was looking over all the cultivators and trying to adjust their plan to compensate. The basic idea could still work, but it was going to require breaking up the huge formation, and there was undoubtedly going to be a lot of chaos across the city.

As soon as the talking stopped, the cultivators behind the leaders began to gather their qi, preparing for some sort of formation. Kai was faster, hurling himself toward the air above the massive jade ship.

He crashed into a barrier of wind that tore against him, painful even though it couldn't penetrate the dark armor covering most of his body. Kai was jarred by the impact against a barrier he couldn't break but ignored the impact, instead throwing himself against the wind repeatedly, drawing the attention of the cultivators who used their large formations to target him.

They shouldn't have: Zae Zin Nim had flown to a lower point and thrust out her hand.

Instead of the familiar Coldfire Palm, she used the same technique to manifest the hand of flame with two fingers extended. They struck the wind barrier and began to grind through it, making the wind dissipate in a large region.

The instant the blue flames faded, Kai broke off his distraction. He shot down with one shockwave, then reversed direction and hurled himself through the hole in the barrier. Suddenly he was inside, flying over the vast ship. Cultivators on all sides stared in shock and began to shout or generate qi techniques.

Too late. Manticore Spines shot out from Kai's body like a hail of arrows, carpet-bombing the ship as he flew. Even though many of the cultivators were able to evade or defend, those who were struck still represented a massive percentage of their fighting force dying instantly. Those who endured the poison would just draw more attention, trying to get help from the others, consuming medicinal pills, and otherwise breaking apart the bulk of their forces.

Just as Kai flew free of the enemy, terrible force slammed into him from overhead. He struck the jade ship, cracked straight through it, and smashed down into the city. From the crater where he'd landed, Kai grunted and rubbed his head as he got up. The force had been blunt, so it more stunned than harmed, but it had knocked him down an immense distance in an instant.

This fight would be all about distance and control, so that could work for or against him.

There was no question as to who had struck him: Xir Xan Khan shot down in a blur of purple and reformed opposite him. They had landed in an outer courtyard of some sect, the inhabitants of which were reasonably running and screaming. Kai and Xir Xan Khan ignored them entirely as they faced one another, neither speaking until the screaming stopped.

"You've taken two treasures from me," Xir Xan Khan said. "For that, you deserve death."

"I don't know why you try to justify yourself," Kai said as he limbered his claws. "It all comes down to violence in the end anyway. Pretending otherwise just makes you seem childish."

Xir Xan Khan's eyes blazed and he leapt at him, so Kai leapt in response. He'd planned to unleash several techniques, but before they could collide, something dark lashed from the side. It took all his speed to block it, and the impact still smashed him into the courtyard wall.

When Kai got his feet under him again, he was surprised to see that his arms were bleeding. When he looked at Xir Xan Khan, he saw that a dark serpent-like magic twisted around him, tail darting with lethal intent, purple eyes glowing with something almost like intelligence.

<

Name: Xir Xan Khan

Total Power: 1735

Cultivation: Sky Soul (1000)

Physique: E-2 (86)

Heavenly Body (+100)

Immortal Body (+300)

Soul Level: 7 (49)

Coiling Presence (+100)

Coiling Death (+100)

>

His power had substantially increased, making the fight a close one, and worse, Kai guessed that his choice of new ability had not been random...

"This is the Coiling Death," Xir Xan Khan announced as he advanced. "It is one of the four most prestigious arts in the Coiling Island sect, and it can be invoked only once in your lifetime. I chose to use it now in order to kill you."

"I figured." Kai rubbed the injury, coaxing it to heal, and got ready to fight. This was going to be trickier than he thought.

.

..

.

While Kai and Zin Nim fought all the cultivators, Omilaena - for once - didn't draw attention to herself. She did her best to appear nonthreatening, awed by the ship or some idiocy like that. A few cultivators aimed attacks at her and she dodged frantically, as if overwhelmed by the assault.

All the while she continued concentrating poisonous gas in the jar she held in one hand.

Then, once Zin Nim had taken down the shield and Kai had thinned their ranks, Omilaena saw her moment. She took several lunging steps forward to the very edge of the balcony and hurled the jar with all the speed she could muster, arcing it over the top of the ship to the main deck where all the surviving cultivators waited.

They almost didn't notice until too late, then several cultivators attacked at once. The jar exploded overhead, expelling huge amounts of super-compressed poison gas over the ship. Some cultivators actually perished in the smoke, but most summoned wind shields or retreated.

That was more casualties than she'd predicted, actually: her real goal was the hanging cloud of poison that continued to spread over the surface of the ship. She'd put a lot of chakra into it, so they'd either need to use substantial amounts of wind qi to clear it, or stop using the ship as a combat platform. Either would work just fine for her goals.

Of course, this drew real attention to her. She was prepared for cultivators, but the bodies that leapt at her moved with unnaturally stilted movements. Omilaena didn't even attempt to breathe poison, not when she knew what was coming.

"You've gotten stronger." Jackal Thirteen spoke from her side as he walked onto the grand balcony. His puppets had spread out and some even landed on the roof behind her, blocking off her escape. The old Manticore patriarch, Ahn Xi Feida, and his old mercenary comrades... he'd brought all his puppets this time.

<

Name: Jackal Thirteen

Total Power: 1491

Cultivation: Sky Soul (910)

Demonic Threads (+112)

Physique Level: D-1 (205)

Immortal Body (+200)

Soul Level: 8 (64)

>

"So have you," she said after a glance at his soul. Damn them for guzzling their remaining immortality elixir and getting such huge power boosts. She was convinced that it was a dead end, even more so after her latest breakthrough, but that didn't make anything easier now.

"Such a shame that you've mostly strengthened your poison..." Jackal Thirteen said. "The very thing that's useless against my techniques."

"You know, I almost get the sense that you don't actually think it's a shame."

Without warning Omilaena threw herself backward, over the line of puppets along the edge of the balcony. Jackal Thirteen hurled out razor threads at her, which she managed to freeze easily enough, but the puppets launched weapons and several of them grazed her.

Briefly in midair, Omilaena looked and saw Zin Nim in the sky, preparing to face her father. They locked eyes, then Omilaena plummeted into the city beneath the ship.

There she managed to catch herself, but her legs hurt like hell. She could fight with the minor injuries, but this was a bad start. Even though Jackal Thirteen's strength was under hers in absolute terms, he was a terrible matchup for her, so there was the very real chance she could die even if their plan otherwise went off without a hitch.

Puppets began to land all around her and the mercenary descended toward the streets on razor threads.

.

..

.

Zae Zin Nim and her father spun through the air, sleeves flashing as they fought hand to hand. Neither used their qi for anything but reinforcement, just testing one another in pure martial arts. He began with the fundamentals, attacking with palm strikes more focused and deadly than any she had known, but she met him strike for strike.

Soon he advanced, to secret arts that he had never taught her, but Zae Zin Nim showed him all the techniques she had learned in her travels. His qi might be more potent than hers, but her body was reinforced by the Pure Yin Shroud and Blackblood Physique.

She was now trading blows with the man who had once been a terrible god to her.

The plan had never been to try to defeat him so early, but she couldn't stop, not faced with a challenge like this. Zae Zin Nim saw him preparing for a finishing palm strike and pretended to let it slip through, the palm rushing at her face.

That was the moment she first used the Coldfire Corona to save her, and Zae Zin Nim counter-attacked in the same instant that the flames blocked his palm. Her own strike hit him in the chest and rang like a bell, shocking his internal organs and sending blood flying from his mouth.

Yet his hand, already extended, thrust again, smashing through her defenses into her face.

Jade smashed against her back as she was knocked across the ship and into one of the bulkheads. Once the blow would have disabled her, but she was too physically tough for that now. She had survived a direct palm strike from her father... and unfortunately he had survived hers.

<

Name: Zae Clen Ban

Total Power: 1956

Cultivation: Sky Soul (1000)

Heavenly Cultivation (325)

Physique: D-0 (200)

Immortal Body (+100)

Soul Level: 9 (81)

Brightwind Meridian Perfection (250)

>

As he contemptuously spat out blood, she saw the reason he had been able to resist: he had drank some of the immortal elixir. She had not believed he would do such a thing, not when he always stayed on the orthodox Brightwind sect path. It was a mark of how seriously he took this that he had used it... and something that could well turn all this against them.

"I can see my blood in you," Zae Clen Ban said, "but you are no daughter of mine any longer. I strip you of your family name and cast you out of the sect. Even if you escape, you will wander as no one, with no family name and-"

"No."

The Brightwind patriarch blinked. In his long life, few had ever dared to contradict him. "What?"

"You can't take my name from me," Zae Zin Nim told him as she set her feet. "It disgusts me to be related to you, but after I kill you, the Zae name will be clean again. And mine alone."

Her father's face grew ugly with rage, as she had seen so many times in her childhood. This time, she stood firm as he attacked.