Immortality Starts With Generosity

The hollow collapsed as the tree uprooted itself and dropped its entire weight on top of their heads. Three different lights of peach pink and metal white flashed and split the tree from the bottom to the top in a rain of kindling.

Jiang Lei and Wang Xiao stood together with their swords drawn. A scent of peaches filled the air. Chen Haoran stood a ways away from them to the side. Phelps clung to his back and continually hissed. White energy scoured the ground around them.

The Gu hovered in front of them. A hawk-sized dragonfly. Amorphous qi emitted from its body in intermittent waves. Two topaz-like eyes seemed to stare at him from every direction within their hundreds of facets.

A slow clapping filled the air. From the darkness of the jungle emerged a man clad in the scarlet uniform of the empire. A large bone snake curled into a spiraling pattern hung from his neck. Chen Haoran reached out with his sense, and his heart fell. Liquid Meridian. The man did not emerge alone from the jungle. A dozen other scarlet-clad soldiers followed him and surrounded them, the lowest being Qi Realm Eighth-Layer.

The man whistled, and the Gu fell to perch on his arm. “Your senses are better than I expected. I was hoping to end this in one fell swoop.”

Jiang Lei pointed his sword at the Shaman. “Simply put. You suck.”

Chen Haoran chuckled despite himself. Did Jiang Lei really have to steal his lines like that?

The Shaman’s smile thinned. “Rude bastards, aren’t you.” He exaggeratedly sniffed the air. “Peachbloods, eh? How about I cut you a deal?” He motioned to Chen Haoran. “Step aside while we apprehend him.”

“I will have to refuse,” Jiang Lei said.

The Shaman raised an eyebrow. “You, of all people, should know the price of defiance. You’ve stepped into the Liquid Meridian Realm at such a young age. It’d be a shame if you never advanced again.”

“I believe I will be fine.”

Chen Haoran frowned as he looked between the shaman and the other soldiers. They were talking too much. He took a step closer to Jiang Lei. At that moment, his senses screamed at him. He dropped to the ground even as the clash of metal sounded behind him. Jiang Lei blocked the axe of the second Liquid Meridian that tried ambushing them while they were distracted. With his other hand, he cast a wave of peach-colored liquid qi over Chen Haoran’s head and toward the Shaman. The Dragonfly Gu interposed itself between its master and the wave and dispersed the liquid qi with a beat of its wings.

Chen Haoran cycled his qi and rolled away from Jiang Lei and the Liquid Meridian. Phelps squealed, and Chen Haoran looked up in shock as the Shaman was suddenly there and reaching for him. Jiang Lei’s sword carved a wall of liquid qi between him and the Shaman. Another burst of liquid qi pushed Chen Haoran away from the battle. The Shaman and his fellow shared a look, and they attacked Jiang Lei simultaneously. Chen Haoran didn’t have the time to pay attention to their battle as he was assailed by the other soldiers.

A sword filled his vision, and he slashed his scimitar wildly. White cutting light flew out, and the soldier hastily retreated with a burst of flames to avoid the edge. Chen Haoran sensed five other qi circling him, and he whirled his blade in a circle of white light. The soldiers all backed away, and Chen Haoran cursed when he realized they all had some form of movement technique.

With the temporary breathing room he created, he glanced over at the others. Jiang Lei and the Liquid Meridians forms were obscured by the waves of liquid qi crashing against each other. On the other side of that, he could see Wang Xiao skating around the other six soldiers and fighting them all at once. With the Liquid Meridians’ in the way, they wouldn’t be able to link up unless they could go around.

Phelps squealed, and Chen Haoran spun and smashed a lance of fire into sparks with a flash of white light. The soldiers’ weapons and hands glowed with qi as they switched up their mode of attack. Another lance of fire came from behind him. A net of fire fell from the front. Beneath his feet rose a snake of quicksand. Two vines studded with thorns whipped from his left and right.

His scimitar flashed white, and he buried it into the earth, annihilating the quicksand snake. A storm of white blades erupted with him as the center and diced the techniques to pieces. His control of the White Tyrant’s Harmonization hadn’t necessarily improved in his short time training with Jiang Lei, but he at least learned something.

When in doubt. Feed it more qi.

He cycled more qi into the scimitar, and a wall of cutting light swept toward the soldier who summoned the quicksand. The woman released a shout, and the earth beneath her feet sank. She took a step to the right, and the earth rose back up again and propelled her to safety. Chen Haoran tried to follow her, but a lance of fire shot toward his side, and he was forced to defend himself.

The battle fell into a stalemate. The soldiers struck at him from one direction with techniques. Chen Haoran destroyed those techniques and counter-attacked. The soldiers then attack him from the other direction while their comrades dodged. The soldiers couldn’t get near Chen Haoran thanks to the White Tyrant’s Harmonization, but they were too nimble for him to actually hit. It was a battle of attrition now, and while he was still confident in winning even six qi reserves to one, he couldn’t shake the feeling the soldiers were like wolves circling prey. Being the ostensible bigger animal in this situation didn’t comfort him much. It would only take one opening.

And the soldiers just found it.contemporary romance

A lance of fire flew toward his back, and as he turned to block it, a vine whipped at his back from the other side. He chopped both attacks apart with a large swing of his scimitar, but even as he did, another attack fell upon his back, and he was forced to turn again. They were targeting Phelps. The sloth had done well to keep his head down during the fight, but even so, his position on Chen Haoran’s back was too obvious a weakness. Chen Haoran reached back to pull Phelps to his chest. As soon as he did, the soldiers simultaneously attacked him from six directions.

“Fuck.” Chen Haoran cycled qi to his legs and leapt into the air. As if waiting for that exact moment, an arrow shot out of the jungle and buried into his shoulder. Chen Haoran cried out in pain. Phelps squealed in distress, gripped Chen Haoran tightly, and flung them further into the air under the power of his floating ability.

From the jungle came another arrow. Chen Haoran raised his scimitar, but Phelps jerked them out of the way. The avoided arrow twisted in the air like a fish and fell back down on them. Chen Haoran properly broke it with a wave of his scimitar, then tracked its trajectory back to the source. A chunk of qi disappeared into his blade, and when he swung it, a single beam of white light turned the jungle to powder. He couldn’t tell if the archer was a part of the powder before Phelps squealed and pulled him to avoid two burning lances from below. Chen Haoran rained down blades of cutting light like rain, and the soldiers scattered to avoid it.

This wouldn’t do. It was just more of the same from up high. He grabbed the arrow shaft, cycled qi to his shoulder, and pulled out the arrow with a drawn-out hiss of pain. The wound bled freely before his qi set to work and forced his blood to clot and halt the worst of it. Casting away the arrow, he reached into his storage bag and brushed his fingers over smooth metal. A pulse of qi brought the metal alive as it began wrapping around his hand.

“Let go, Phelps. Go up.”

Phelps squealed and floated further up, but he didn’t let go of him. Chen Haoran flexed his qi and shrugged out of Phelps’s grip, ignoring the sloth’s squeals as he fell through the air and pulled the rest of the Clear Heart Mirror Armor out of the storage bag. The Earth-Rank artifact looked like someone had taken a glass mirror and shaped it into plate armor. It was far from being as fragile as it looked. When the helmet finally slipped itself on over Chen Haoran’s face, he crashed feet-first onto the ground and barely felt a jolt.

The soldiers were on him in an instant with an onslaught of techniques. In that same instant, they were forced to dodge as their techniques touched the mirror armor and were immediately reflected back. Chen Haoran cycled qi to his legs and shot forward in a dead sprint toward the nearest soldier. Even when he chased them, their movement techniques would keep them ahead. He didn’t need to reach them, however.

He just needed to get closer.

The soldier summoning vines fell down with a cry of pain as he couldn’t dodge fast enough and was clipped in the side by a blade of metal energy. The glancing blow was enough to nearly cut clean through his leg, and he couldn’t avoid the next blade that cut him clean down the middle.

Curses and attacks rained down on Chen Haoran, but fell uselessly on his armor. He lunged for the next soldier whipping up a constant barrage of white blades when the soil beneath him became quicksand. He sank up to his chest and quickly located the woman responsible. Her hands were glowing with yellow qi, and when she clapped them together, the quicksand around him rose and became a giant jaw. Chen Haoran plunged his scimitar into the ground, and the quicksand jaw split apart as white blades of light parted the earth like water. The earth sank beneath the woman, but rather than rise back and propel her to safety like before, it opened up entirely, and she fell through. White light flashed and tore up the ground until it was a mess of blood and loose soil.

Chen Haoran lifted himself out of the pit with a burst of qi and faced the remaining soldiers. They quickly backed away with solemn expressions, and he trailed after them, dragging his scimitar against the ground.

“That’s two,” Chen Haoran said.

The soldier’s qi soared as they charged their techniques. Chen Haoran walked forward and cycled his qi as he considered his next target. The techniques flew. Chen Haoran charged.

Amorphous qi appeared above his head and covered Chen Haoran before just as abruptly vanishing, leaving him feeling exposed. He halted and looked upward at the Dragonfly Gu that suddenly appeared. The night breeze was cold across his neck.

Why was it holding his armor?

It was Chen Haoran’s last thought before he burst into flames.

done.co