6.13 - A Desperate Escape

Zhang Lifen fled for her life. To be sure, she gave almost as good as she got. But almost was far from enough. Especially, as it turned out, against someone who had fully mastered a demon core. When considering what Sha Xiang had become, the only word that fit was “monster.” Blow for blow she was more than a match for Zhang Lifen.

While she’d never been the strongest close-in fighter, Zhang Lifen was no slouch. There’d been a reason she taught He Yu the value of a good, solid punch, after all. But whenever Sha Xiang closed in—which was far more often than she cared to admit—Sha Xiang left her with little choice but to fall back.

For weeks now, they’d played this game. Sha Xiang pursued atop her flying sword, launching molten boulders as she closed in for a round of devastating punches. Zhang Lifen would avoid the ranged techniques and then surge away using the Tidewalker Step. All the while, she pushed her bow art—the Heart Piercing Black Rain to its limit. She pushed her qi to its limit. Along with everything else.

She couldn’t deny it. She was exhausted. Her dantian ached, and her meridians screamed with every technique. Never had she pushed herself so hard for so long. Nobody had posed this much a threat to her, except the time she’d caught Kong Huizhong’s attention. At least he’d been a stage above her. But even then, she’d had Yi Xiurong to rely on.

This time, she was alone. Alone against someone who stood at equal advancement, and for the first time in her life, was a better fighter.

Zhang Lifen swallowed that bitter pill for the thousandth time as she drew back her bowstring once again. The lacquered black treasure was a comforting weight in her hand—the only real comfort she had anymore. With a pulse of qi, she loosed her arrow. Even before it split for the first time, she activated the Tidewalker Step and flowed away from a flaming mass of stone hurtling her way. One arrow became nine, and each of those became nine more. They all turned toward Sha Xiang’s heart and surged forward like a dark tide.

With a half-crazed feral roar, Sha Xiang lunged through the barrage of Zhang Lifen’s technique. All around them, the earth split. Gouts of toxic yellow smoke poured into the air, and molten stone erupted from ever-widening fissures. A fist encased in glowing red stone crashed through Zhang Lifen’s guard, cracking her ribs for what must have been the hundredth time.

Zhang Lifen threw a punch of her own, surging with water qi. Sha Xiang grabbed her by the wrist, and wrenched her arm out of its socket. Only by tapping her Dao of Grace was Zhang Lifen able to slide away from the follow-up, slip from Sha Xiang’s grip, and activate her movement technique—once more putting enough distance between to risk taking a restorative pill.

Molten earth exploded all around her just as she popped the pill in her mouth and bit down on it. Sha Xiang lunged from within the thick yellow smoke, with all four of her arms. Two of flesh and blood, and two more of inky black demonic qi.

Medicinal qi surged through her meridians, knitting her bones and tendons once again. Her cultivation base went wild. Water surged through her spirit, and the world about her reeled. Although she’d managed to avoid that last attack, Sha Xiang’s follow-up clipped her on the side of the head. She saw stars as she stumbled to the side, head ringing and cultivation barely under her control. It only took her a second to wrestle her qi back into its orderly flow, but that second had been enough—her head rang from that last punch. She knew well enough what a concussion felt like.

Worse, she’d nearly suffered a medicinal backlash. As she regained control of her cultivation base, she let the tides carry her away from another flurry of attacks. This was it. No more pills. She couldn’t afford to deal with a full backlash in a fight like this. Which meant she couldn’t afford another hit. Of course that really meant this fight was over, and Zhang Lifen had lost. Sha Xiang always got her in the end—she was just too fast, too strong, and too aggressive.

Zhang Lifen launched a parting shot and surged ever west. She could make out the formations of Iron Gate City in her spiritual sight. Unsurprising they’d activated their defenses. It would have been foolish not to, given the approach of two battling immortals, both at the peak of Soul Refining. Hopefully, the Li would grant her refuge.

If there was one bright spot, it was that Zhang Lifen was probably the best-suited to dealing with Sha Xiang like this. Between herself, Yi Xiurong, and Ren Huang, she was the fastest on the ground. Sha Xiang likely would have caught either of the other two weeks ago. Zhang Lifen could only hope they’d avoided that Long Tingguang character.

She pushed that thought as far down as she could manage. He was fully in the Eighth Realm. He could have followed one, killed them, then caught the other and done the same. It would have taken him moments. Her only hope that he hadn’t was that Sha Xiang was still after her. If Long Tingguang was going to step in and deal with the former disciples, there was no reason he’d leave her to Sha Xiang.

So there was hope, faint as it was.

“Hold still and fight me like you have some fucking pride,” Sha Xiang roared, bursting forth once again from the toxic fumes she forced from the earth.

“I’d rather not.” Zhang Lifen launched another volley of arrows as she poured everything she had into speed. Iron Gate City had finally come into view. It was her only chance at escape—and it only hinged on the Li letting her past the walls.

She raced across the grassy, arid plain of the Western Passage, abandoning all attempts to fight. A moment later, she stood before the great iron gates for which the city had been named. They stood closed. Sealed by formations far more powerful than she could breach. Several guards peeked over the wall above, far too low of advancement to risk themselves against either Sha Xiang or herself.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me in,” she called up, casting a glance over her shoulder.

They answered with silence. Well, at least she’d tried.

Sha Xiang arrived in a burst of molten earth. Zhang Lifen drifted to the side, releasing a trio of arrows. An explosion of earth and fire qi crashed against Iron Gate City’s formation, causing the barrier to flare a brilliant white. A shockwave of power erupted out from the formation, causing Zhang Lifen to stumble. She recovered just as Sha Xiang reached her, barely avoiding a flurry of strikes. They exchanged techniques in front of the gates of the Li’s fortress, water and molten earth vying against one another in a clash of steam and mud.

A great river rose over its banks, sweeping over the flat arid scrublands of the Western Passage. The cracked land swallowed the flood, drinking like a man dying of thirst in the desert. The yellow fumes belched forth by those cracks and crags lightened, turning a white as the smoke turned to steam. Then the sulfurous vents spewed forth angry molten earth anew—a flood of glowing red slag beating back the flood, followed by a bank of poison clouds. Explosions of qi accompanied their techniques. Even the mighty walls of Iron Gate City shook with each exchange, despite the bolstered fortifications of the ancient citadel.

Then, a newcomer. Zhang Lifen allowed her shoulders to slump as winter fell over the ruined field before Iron Gate City’s mighty walls. As day turned to cold silent night, lit only by the silver glow of the full moon. A pure, single note rang out, and a jian flashed silver. This was not the technique Zhang Lifen had seen so many times when He Yu had sparred with Li Heng. This was the art matured, wielded by a master with a hundred years and more worth of experience.

A man who could only be the mighty General of the West stood before her. Marquis Li Bao of the Western Passage pointed his blade at Sha Xiang, its gleaming sliver edge heavy with killing intent. She had to admit he cut an imposing figure, even if he was of equal advancement to them both.

“What business do you have here?” he demanded of Sha Xiang.

“You must be related to that asshole Li Heng,” she said. “Good. Needed to talk to you.”

To Li Bao’s credit, he kept his composure in the face of her insult. “It’s clear we have no words to exchange.”

“I was gonna say you need to fall in line. But Empress Jin said I can do what I want as long as I put her interests first. From where I stand, it’s in Empress Jin’s best interests that I put you down like a sick dog. Let someone who understands loyalty run this shit-hole of a city.”

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, Zhang Lifen would have never believed it. Sha Xiang attacked General Li Bao, Marquis of the Western Passage. It was a staggering breach of rank, if she’d ever seen one. Sha Xiang was a baron, by all reports. Yes, she’d been granted a writ of nobility by Jin Xifeng, but she was at the bottom of the ladder. Li Bao was her elder by a hundred years at least, and significantly outranked her. Such a breach would be grounds for death in the old empire.

Although she supposed she should have seen it coming—Sha Xiang had never been one to observe propriety if she thought she could simply push around someone instead. And as much as Zhang Lifen didn’t want to admit it, Sha Xiang looked perfectly capable of backing up her insults and threats.

A cascade of golden earth qi erupted from Sha Xiang’s fists. All four of them. She roared with a barely controlled and feral fury as she launched herself into combat once again. Li Bao stood his ground admirably, however, releasing that same river of silver power Zhang Lifen had witnessed his son use so many times.

Sha Xiang took the technique head-on. She burst through the torrent of lunar and sword aspected qi as if it were nothing more than a wisp of smoke carried by a gentle breeze. The exchange between fist and sword that followed was almost too fast for Zhang Lifen to track. Still, she wasn’t about to let Li Bao fight this one alone.

The two of them had been fighting a running battle for weeks, and Sha Xiang had to be in nearly as bad shape Zhang Lifen was. If she were normal, at least. She still couldn’t say for sure what abilities the demon core granted. Increased strength and durability were clearly among them. By all appearances, Sha Xiang hardly looked like she’d been fighting, despite having taken multiple direct hits from Zhang Lifen during their fight, and now even more from Li Bao.

Zhang Lifen loosed volley after volley from her qilin horn bow, pushing the Heart Piercing Black Rain to its limit every time. What little qi she still hadn’t spent went into these techniques. Hopefully, with the addition of a fresh and capably deadly combatant, the two of them could bury Sha Xiang once and for all. Never mind that would only incite further reprisals from Jin Xifeng. That was a bridge Li Bao crossed when he stood against Sha Xiang, anyway.

For another day, the three immortals battled outside Iron Gate City. Although Li Bao’s fortuitous appearance briefly swung things against Sha Xiang, she regained that ground blow by blow. Zhang Lifen grimaced. This shouldn’t be. Li Bao was considered a peerless swordsman, and Zhang Lifen had proved herself countless times against the talents of the Shrouded Peaks. But somehow, Sha Xiang wore them down while seeming to hardly tire. Grimly, Zhang Lifen realized this wasn’t a fight they could win.

After a particularly vicious exchange, Li Bao seemed to arrive at the same conclusion. He flashed over to her in a burst of moonlight and snow. He wrapped his free arm around Zhang Lifen’s waist before she could react, and the world turned white.

She blinked, and looked around, then realized she was inside the outer courtyard of the main gatehouse. Just on the other side of the massive iron gates, a thunderous pounding made the formations gleam, even as furious shouted threats sounded from outside the walls.

Zhang Lifen finally send her bow to storage and leaned against the nearby wall. “My hero,” she said with a smile, inclining her head to Li Bao. The wall trembled underneath her with each of Sha Xiang’s relentless strikes.

“The gates should be enough to keep her out,” Li Bao said. “Now, tell me who you are, and why you brought that monster to my city.”

“Gladly,” she said. “Although, could we perhaps go somewhere more comfortable to speak? It’s a rather long story, and it involves your son.”

Li Bao sighed, finally breaking his composure. “I was afraid you’d say something like that. You’re Lady Zhang, of the Shrouded Peaks Sect, then, I take it?”

“None other,” she said with a smile as she followed Li Bao into Iron Gate City proper. “I’m pleased that even here, my reputation precedes me.”