Destiny in Cinders

Talk it out? An Jing was so speechless that he raised the sword case and fired once more. However, the twin martial-scholar formation discs behind Mo Li emitted a huge wave of power to reinforce the young master from the divine capital. He raised his left hand and gathered icy blue light quickly as he grabbed the flying sword out of thin air with two fingers and crushed it to dust.

”Ugh!” Despite the sheer power he unleashed, Mo Li looked to be in great pain. The formation discs, Four Symbols of Virtuous Reign and Martial Fruition, contained far more power than his body could handle. Each surge of power coursed through every part of his body, disintegrating and reconstituting it every time he used it.

His lifearc was called Leveraged Misfortune, one that only unleashed power after suffering some kind of setback. Bearers of this lifearc suffered misfortunes that affect themselves, their families, careers, and finances. But once the losses add up to a certain point, a massive reversal occurred in the form of a sudden stroke of good fortune, specifically, lifearc power. It was the kind of lifearc that required its bearer to have benefactors to help them overcome tribulations, and the tribulation that Mo Li would have to survive this time was An Jing!

”You’re impressive. As expected of a divine-arc bearer,” Mo Li said, desperately holding on and not giving up on the attempt to talk. ”I don’t know why you insist on attacking us, but I’m sure we can come to an agreement. What do you need? What do you want to do? Let’s negotiate, whatever it is! There’s no need for us to fight to the death, right? We don’t bear any grudge against one another!”

”Oh?” An Jing raised his brow, hands on his blade’s hilt without any hint of urgency. ”So you’re still willing to make peace after I killed so many of your people. What would your subordinates think? Can they really let me get off scot-free for all that I’ve done?”

”You can as long as I say so!” Mo Li’s eyes brightened when An Jing finally answered. Using the formation discs to fight was far too painful. He didn’t want to fight An Jing in this fashion if he didn’t have to. Winning would hurt too much, and he wouldn’t engage in unnecessary battles. ”No official soldiers are posted here, so I have the final say. I will pay a pension to the families of those you killed. As long as you’re willing to stop, we can make it as if all this didn’t happen!”

Mo Li believed that An Jing had no grudge against him, completely ignorant as to how he managed to offend the divine-arc bearer in the first place. Even so, he lowered his stature to sue for peace while holding on to the formation discs’ power just in case. There should be no reason An Jing absolutely had to kill him! However, he heard his grandfather’s sigh of resignation and noticed An Jing’s odd expression.

”So there really aren’t any official soldiers posted in the region, huh?” An Jing repeated Mo Li words in an intriguing tone. ”Young master from the divine capital, do you really understand what you just said?”

”Huh? But there really isn’t—”

Though Mo Li wanted to say more, An Jing immediately charged in with his blades after a quick thought. He had initially wanted to hold back just in case there was a secret unit of elite soldiers posted in the city by the Dragon General or some other hidden operative of Grand Chen hiding in ambush. He didn’t think that the city of Riverside was entirely void of Grand Chen’s influence. That being the case, there was no reason to hesitate!

While the Ocean Domination blade was of the water aspect, it was made from metal at the end of the day. Evenstar lethal qi flowed into the blade, causing it to emanate one sharp edge of qi after another. Killer whales formed using explosive white qi essence came slamming toward Mo Li. While the blade strikes weren’t that powerful as a whole, the invisible metal qi that coalesced at the edges had been compressed so densely that it became blades that could cut through space itself!

”You wild madman!” Anger filled his heart, but Mo Li had no choice but to push ahead. He had underestimated An Jing.

The ground that was made from bluestone sank three inches below, beating up quite a bit of dust as he connected himself to the terrestrial veins and cast a Mountainfirm spell on himself. Mo Li also followed his grandfather Mo Que’s instructions and raised his left hand, forming ice into a shield with the formation discs’ power. The moment An Jing’s blade cut into the shield of ice, it would be frozen over and stuck within. Then, Mountainfirm would help Mo Li disarm An Jing!

However, the blade suddenly shifted from a slash to a flick. The flat surface of the blade crashed against the shield with great force, slapping it apart. All Mo Li felt was the sudden loss of control of the formation discs’ power. He had invested too much energy into his attempt to disarm An Jing, only to have it exploited; his shield parry had left his chest wide open!

Not good! Though Mo Li was a young scion, he was far from spoiled and had experience serving at the Great Wall of North Ocean. He knew that if he showed the slightest opening, there was no way he would survive even with the formation discs’ power or his grandfather’s instruction.

He grit his teeth and allowed the frost shield that he had infused lots of qi into to fly off. Then, he blocked with both arms right before the blade in An Jing’s hand came slashing down. Blood trickled as the blade slashed into his arms, mixed with frost qi. The next instant, the two formation discs pulsed once more, sending a wave of qi that drove An Jing back.

”Oh?” He did a backflip and landed on a broken pillar, looking at the haggardly breathing young master with genuine surprise. To think that the young master had been able to block his attack when he started taking things seriously. Even someone like the Lord Inspector of the West had suffered quite a huge loss when he carelessly faced off against An Jing, yet someone like Mo Li, whom he had killed once earlier with a single blow, survived with his head still on his shoulders. Was Mo Que’s guidance really that good, or was Mo Li simply more capable than he appeared to be on the surface?

Though Mo Li knew full well why An Jing was surprised, he couldn’t even muster the energy to get angry about it. But when he began to circulate his powers of frost and rain, scales surfaced where his arms were cut and temporarily sealed off the wound, essentially healing it.

Yvelbane remarked with a hint of surprise, ”Dragonblood... A true-spirit art. Ah, I see. This fellow’s ancestor slayed a great fey with dragonblood and eventually replaced his own blood with the fey’s blood. That’s how he got the blood of a true spirit! It’s no wonder this young one came all the way to the northern frontier. His bloodline is that of a frost dragon, which gives him some control over wind, frost and rain, making the snow calamity the perfect opportunity to cultivate!”

”What about the formation discs?” An Jing asked. ”They both possess Clearing Realm power. I tried to block it by force earlier and it felt like going up against Clearing adepts like the Lord Inspector of the West. I can’t breach them with brute force. If not for his poor control over the discs, I probably wouldn’t have been able to wound him with that earlier slash.”

”The formation discs drew out the last remnants of terrestrial-vein power that remained after the divine armament here was withdrawn.” Yvelbane was immediately able to read the flow of the terrestrial veins. ”In other words, the formation discs are substituting in for the divine armament. The reason they’re only at the Clearing Realm is that they haven’t fully integrated with the terrestrial veins. Once they are, they will probably reach the Treasures Realm in power. That aside, you should pay attention to their precise effects. Either way, the only way to deal with them is the same as what you would do to suppress divine armaments.”

Recalling what happened in Keensight, An Jing said, ”The terrestrial-vein nodes?”

”Yes.” The sword soul sounded rather worried. ”But this was probably something we should’ve prepared in advance. It might be a little too late now.”

”There’s no rush.” An Jing smiled and yelled thunderously, ”Destroy the terrestrial-vein nodes!” His voice reverberated across half of Riverside.

”Huh?” Xu Tai heard him and hesitated somewhat. While he couldn’t tell how capable the young master was, the kid was still a descendant of the Dragon General. It was one thing to take on the grandson of such a figure, but destroying terrestrial-vein nodes just for that purpose was a bit too much. At the very least, it wouldn’t be good to do it so blatantly. What Xu Tai didn’t know was that An Jing wasn’t calling out to him, but Bai Qinghan instead.

”Auntie, I have to go help Senior Disciple,” Bai Qinghan said as she bowed slightly to Shen Mubai in the courtyard.

The lady was still surprised at the commotion that her son had caused. She waved the girl off and said, ”You don’t have to tell me everything. I will take care of myself. You are free to make up your own mind.”

Then, Bai Qinghan’s figure disappeared into the snow.

Back at the city center, An Jing unleashed a few more rounds of attacks on Mo Li. Though they didn’t seem to do much, his excitement wasn’t dampened in the slightest.

”Not bad!” An Jing said as he was pushed back by the formation discs’ power once more, cracks forming on the ground he landed on. Not worried or rushed in the slightest, he joyfully said, ”You have the power of the Clearing Realm, yet you don’t have any martial techniques to match. What a good training dummy you are.”

After experiencing such a high-pressure environment in Keensight, An Jing found Riverside to be nothing special at all. While it was said that he had killed three adepts, he knew that most of it was thanks to his preparations as well as his master, Ming Guangchen’s help. During that whole episode, he was constantly scrambling for survival as a few adepts ganged up upon him. The young master with Fortification Realm skills and Clearing Realm power, on the other hand, left quite a lot of room for An Jing to flex his moves.

Knowing that his foe no longer had any hidden tricks, An Jing went all out and used both his grand abilities, Qiform Arsenal and Smelting Arms Forging Soul! With his blade held before him, his entire body twisted into a haze of flame and white smoke. Nothing was visible apart from the two bloody lights that flickered above his head like a pair of human eyes.