The Nature of the Blade Forge
Bo's Blade Forge is a Divine Technique embedded into his very marrow. It allows him to transmute anything he touches into a weapon. The quality of the result followed a strict hierarchy: a simple straw could be transformed into a Low-Spirit Grade weapon, while rarer materials yielded higher grades.
However, the weapon's true potency relies on Bo's familiarity with the medium. Because he had spent a lifetime in his own skin, a single strand of his hair could produce a sword rivalling a Supreme Grade blade. If he went so far as to use his own blood, the purity and lethality of the weapon would reach a level that defied the natural laws of forging.
"Come on then, my impatient disciple," Bo spoke, a wide, feral grin stretching across his face.
"Delightful Sword: First Form."
"Delightful Sword: First Form."
They murmured the incantation in unison. The air between them shivered and buckled as two distinct auras erupted. Lian was shrouded in a dense, cascading veil of white Qi, while the tip of Bo's hair-blade thrummed with a sharp, piercing blue light.
"Plum Blossom!" Bo roared.
"Yin-Yang Resolution!" Lian countered.
Bo's blade shattered into a thousand glowing shards, a storm of blue steel raining down. Lian's hands moved in a blur of impossible speed, his blade parrying every fragment with surgical precision. But as the last shard clanged against his steel, Bo's form blurred. He melted into the space between heartbeats and reappeared instantly behind Lian.
With a casual flick of his finger, Bo struck the back of Lian's head.
CRACK!
The force sent Lian hurtling through the air. He slammed into the earth, his body carving a trench through the dirt before he dug his blade into the ground to arrest his momentum.
"Mmmmm."
Lian didn't hesitate. Using the tension of his stop, he coiled his body and lunged upward. He swung his blade in a rising diagonal; a white arc of light shrieked through the air. Without pausing, he followed through with a devastating downward strike, sending a second arc of dark, heavy energy chasing the first like a predator stalking its prey.
"This technique allows me to use the very momentum of the attacks I've received," Lian smiled, drawing his blade in a defensive arc before his chest.
"Master, you're about to face the strength of your own strike, returned tenfold. I hope you're ready."
The white and dark arcs of energy didn't just fly forward; they began to spiral around one another, accelerating into a grinding vortex of dualities.
"Yin-Yang Resolved!" Lian whispered.
BOOM!
A thunderous detonation levelled the clearing where Bo stood. The shockwave was so violent that every tree in the vicinity was reduced to drifting splinters and grey dust.
Lian exhaled a long, ragged breath, his muscles twitching from the exertion. "Hu..."
"You really thought that was enough to catch me, didn't you?"
The smoke cleared instantly. Bo stood untouched, his expression bored. "Not bad. The potency is there, but the execution? Still half-baked."
BANG!
Before Lian could even blink, Bo blurred. Another casual flick of his finger connected with Lian's shoulder, sending him spiralling backwards through the air once more.
"Tch... that flick of his is truly frightening," Lian thought, his vision swimming as he hurtled through the sky. He forced his mind to focus, raising his hand even as he flew. He knew he couldn't outrun a Sovereign, so he had to outthink one.
"I know I'm no match for your speed, Master," Lian muttered, his fingers twisting into a complex mudra. He tucked his index finger behind his ring finger, locking his Qi into a specific resonance.
"Bind!"
From the very spot where Bo stood, a pillar of blinding light erupted. The ground groaned and jaggedly tore open, revealing a void beneath. Thousands of spectral hands, forged from condensed white Qi, reached out from the earth like a rising tide, latching onto Bo's ankles, robes, and wrists, dragging him toward the fracturing soil.
"You managed to set up an array in such a short time? Brilliant," Bo grinned, his voice booming over the roar of the erupting light.
"Show me more!" he roared, the spectral hands tightening their grip on his frame.
"Tch, just you wait. I'm just getting to the good part," Lian shot back. He bent his knees mid-air as he flew vertically, his muscles coiling like a serpent ready to strike.
"Void Jump," he murmured.
A translucent bubble of distorted space shimmered beneath his feet. For a fraction of a second, his speed slowed as his legs seemed to compress, building up a terrifying amount of energy against the fabric of reality.
"Delightful Sword: The Blade of Joy!"
He detonated forward. The compressed space behind him exploded, propelling him with a velocity that turned the world into a blur of grey and gold. "While trying to master the Void Step, I discovered something very interesting about how space reacts when you modify the technique a little," Lian thought.
In a single heartbeat, he was in front of Bo. The Master stood motionless, his feet still anchored by the thousands of spectral hands dragging him toward the abyss. Lian unsheathed Guǐ Shā Shǒu in a flash of silver. The blade sliced through the air like light itself, passing cleanly through Bo's head.
Lian landed on the other side, the impact crushing the earth beneath him. His feet dug deep furrows into the ground as he forced his momentum to a dead stop.
"Hu... I got him." He breathed heavily, his heart hammering against his ribs at a thousand beats a minute.
He turned his head, his gaze seeking out the fallen Master. But his head flung back in shock.
CRASH!
Bo's body didn't fall. It shattered like a sheet of frozen glass, the fragments melting into dark, swirling shadows before they even hit the ground. It was an afterimage of a Shadow Decoy.
"You really thought you had me with that one, huh?"
Bo's voice materialised directly in front of Lian's face. He was already there, his radiant hair-blade raised high, descending in a vertical arc that seemed to split the very horizon.
"You disappoint me."