Destiny in Cinders

The battle had long lost its suspense. Every one of He Wuchang’s punches was something that An Jing couldn’t afford to take even with all the force he could muster. Every palm strike could send An Jing flying even if he blocked it with everything he had. There was no longer a point for An Jing to speed up his thoughts and perceive his opponent’s slowed movements.

Many deep cuts appeared on his body as a result of the overwhelmingly sharp strikes he suffered. Blood leaked from his mouse, nose, ears and eyes, making him appear as if he was drenched in crimson rain. Even in this state, An Jing continued to search for an opening and attempted to counter with his own strikes. Yet, He Wuchang’s incredible caution and focus allowed him to punch An Jing’s fist so hard that his flesh fell apart to reveal the bone underneath.

This battle was ten times tougher than what a Fortification martialist should be able to handle. An Jing’s stance finally crumbled after taking a heavy punch. He got slammed into the wall onto the opposite side, half his body buried in bricks.

”Fucking hell...” Even though An Jing was the one who got knocked away, He Wuchang was the one who complained and sighed in fatigue. He turned to where the youth had landed with a look of admiration. ”What kind of monster is he?”

He Wuchang had finally realized that he couldn’t afford to dally in a fight against An Jing after the latter blew the head of his blood-lethal-qi arcane corpus apart. An Jing wasn’t the only one who was in dire straits. He Wuchang, a mighty sage of the Void Divine Treasures Realm, had been forced to give his full attention and skill in a fight against a young Fortification martialist.

Even though what he could unleash with his arcane corpus wasn’t his full power and he didn’t have the fortification of his wonders and fundamental formation diagram, it was still an arcane corpus he had formed using his lifearc ability and other techniques. He wouldn’t have believed that a Fortification martialist that could fight him squarely to this extent and even threaten to kill him existed even if it cost his life, and that was after this kid severely injured two other adepts!

How in the world did a junior like him display as much, if not more skill than I have to the point that he can properly fight Clearing Realm adepts? How does this make sense? It should simply be impossible! Those thoughts filled his mind, but He Wuchang was no stranger to feeling like reality was stranger than fiction. At least, he had won.

”I will ensure that your talent and lifearc will not go wasted, Jing Xuan. Before this, I would’ve never accepted letting someone’s soul fuse with mine, even if this was the original intent of an older form of the Lifevore Secret Art, Lifesnatch Substitution.” He Wuchang approached An Jing slowly and spoke with a woeful tone. ”You won’t die. Instead, you’ll become a part of the new me. It’s truly amazing when I think about it. I had thought that I would never allow anyone to fuse with me. I didn’t think that it was just because I hadn’t met anyone worthy enough to consider it...”

He Wuchang’s movements slowed as he fell into deep thought. Then, he snapped with realization. ”I see... So this is the true meaning of the ancient Lifesnatch Substitution. It embodies a certain feeling of yearning, the yearning to become a better existence. That’s why the practitioner should seek to inherit other lifearcs, allowing oneself to be transformed into a different person entirely...”

He laughed manically and continued, ”So this is the true meaning of this arcanum! I understand it now... I’ve fully comprehended it! Jing Xuan, you were my fortuitous encounter after all!”

An Jing didn’t respond in the rubble and merely focused on slow breaths as He Wuchang approached. Right then, a brilliant beam of light reflected from a mirror pierced the veil of rain and parted the clouds in the sky! Raindrops stopped falling at that moment. All of the dark clouds and showers of rain in the air froze before they morphed into a mirror surface.

The mirror formed from water in the sky hung high in the firmament, pushing the clouds farther and farther away, creating a massive hole in the veil of clouds and allowing sunlight through. The mirror gleamed so brightly, and though it wasn’t the sun itself, it shone brighter than the real sun that remained partially blocked by the clouds.

”This is Master’s ability...” An Jing opened his eyes slightly and looked at the light from the mirror, though he didn’t feel glad in the slightest. The fact that his master had used an extraordinary trump card meant that he had been pushed to his limits. He wouldn’t be able to defeat his enemy if he didn’t go all out, just like the situation An Jing was in.

”Ming! Guang! Chen!” He Wuchang looked at the mirror in the sky and forgot about his target entirely. He gritted his teeth with a sense of glee. ”To think that you still had more tricks hidden up your sleeves... But this will be the last of it. Both you and your disciple will fall on this day!”

Right as he expressed his awe and bliss, An Jing struggled to rise quietly in the rubble. He had never been in such a sorry state. During his time as a refugee, the worst he suffered was extreme hunger, and even then, his body listened to his will. He was able to exert force to kill the enemies he needed to, stand up straight, hunt his prey and cross the snowfields. If not for his mother’s injuries, he was confident he would’ve been able to leave the northern frontier on his own. There wasn’t even the slightest bit of doubt there.

But now, the bones in his right arm were almost entirely shattered. He had five broken ribs, one of which pierced his lung. He was only able to gradually push it out with incredibly fine control and pure grit. The parts of his chest, shoulders and arms that offered the leverage he needed to apply force had been pummeled into a meaty mush through which his platinum-tinged bones were visible.

Despite being the closest he had been to death, his soul shone with strength like never before. In this state, it took him only one second to enter the selfless, wantless state of Heaven’s Child Art. In his perfect silent meditation, he was able to perceive his internal state with full clarity.

Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal continued to operate unabated. Through his inner perception, he could sense that his near-death body was actually filled with vitality. Just like how He Wuchang’s arcane corpus of cursed blood didn’t have any vitals, bodies refined by Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal, a technique used by ancient qi cultivators or even the immortals themselves, could be pushed past the limits of mortality. The secret to that was the divine seals that spread across the cultivator’s entire body.

Even as the physical body hovered at the brink of death, the divine seals continued to operate tirelessly. This would be the case even if the cultivator’s soul was extinguished. The divine seals wouldn’t stop until they were utterly destroyed down to the smallest minutiae.

An Jing’s physical body was constantly being reconstructed by the qi essence he had stocked up on. Arcane seals flowed freely throughout the Evenstar seal seeds and his body parts where the divine seals had manifested, mending his injuries rapidly. The arcane seals gathered near his injuries like coagulating blood and applied a film of metallic platinum liquid on them.

This alone shouldn’t have been enough. Even though An Jing didn’t lack the funds to consume spirit-beast flesh day in and out to nourish himself fully, and had also amassed an abundant amount of qi essence using the Minor Yang Sword Art, he had used most of it in progressing his cultivation, not leaving much within his body.

It wouldn’t have been enough... unless there was someone there to help him out.

An Jing felt a stream of vitality, as pure water from the clearest spring, flow out from the imperial blood droplet in his sea of consciousness into his dantian before it spread throughout his entire body. It was a warm, serene and nourishing healing force that could only be generated by Qi Soul Lending.