The Fire Beast (3)
A low growl rumbled through the air.
Caught under the three men's stares, the Fire Beast snarled and let its irritation show. It seemed to resent that prey already caught in its trap still refused to look afraid.
As if answering that displeasure, five spheres that had been lying hidden nearby streaked toward Cheonhwa and his companions.
"If you'd kept them hidden, maybe. But if you show them this openly, you think we can't stop them?"
Neungpung clicked his tongue at the sight of the approaching spheres, as if offended by how little the beast thought of them. In the next breath he nocked arrows to his bowstring.
The string cracked against the air, and the arrows flew.
Five shots loosed in an instant. Yellow qi coiled around each shaft—clearly Intent Qi Manifestation. In the split second before they punched through their targets, Cheonhwa saw the Fire Beast smile.
Don't tell me… it wanted us to detonate them…?!
Too late, he grasped the beast's design. The Six Harmony Sensory Path, honed to a razor's edge, caught the faint current of fire qi pouring into the spheres. Left alone, the blasts would suck in the surrounding heat and hurl the forest's flames over the whole party.
I have to stop it!
The moment he decided, Cheonhwa moved. He layered his inner force around Dark Heaven True Qi—the energy that stood opposite fire—and, reading the current, cut the excess from every motion as he sent out his sword stroke. He caught the arrows at the exact instant their Intent Qi Manifestation was about to pierce the spheres.
The shafts punched holes. The spheres shuddered, unstable, and began to drink in the heat around them—and in that breath a four-colored flash of sword light, overwhelming in its force, severed the flow.
A chain of explosions tore through the forest, the blast hammering their ears. Both Peak Experts understood at once what Cheonhwa had just done.
He cut the stream of fire qi being pulled into the flame spheres?
It wasn't just the aftershock he blocked. He completely shielded himself—and us. Without a blade that fine, that would be impossible.
In a single exchange they saw that Cheonhwa's skill was far from ordinary. He flicked Okgyeong clean with a light motion and spoke.
"I'll open the path. Please follow behind me and keep the beast in check."
With that, Cheonhwa advanced on the Fire Beast. Sensing the threat, the creature spun out new flame orbs and flung them all at once. The Six Harmony Sensory Path traced their arcs and read the current. Wind-Cloud Divine Form steadied his charge; where his sword force fell short, he made up the difference with forms of Heavenly Moon Shadow, using void-grasp to fill the gaps.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Stroke after stroke flowed like water, shattering the spheres as he went. The searing heat was shoved aside by the pressure of his overwhelming Jin Release, and a road to the Fire Beast opened wide.
Hyeonmyeong did not waste the opening. He swept his sword. From the tip unfurled true qi tinted with the red of a crimson plum blossom. A single cut sent Intent Qi Manifestation riding the sword wind. Three streams of force split into dozens, as if buds were bursting into bloom; where they collided, countless shards of sword qi scattered like plum blossoms. That was one of the Mount Hua Sect's prized high arts—one of the Three Plum Blossom Swords: the Seven Absolute Plum Blossom Sword.
Faced with a field of scarlet light, the Fire Beast roared and erupted heat from its entire body.
A howl split the air. The heat warped the space with shimmering haze and drove back the tide of sword qi. But in the instant heat and blade canceled each other, a yellow ray of light slipped through the seam—Neungpung's arrow, charged with Intent Qi Manifestation. It threaded the gap and flew straight for the beast's eye. Realizing it could not dodge, the Fire Beast detonated a sphere it had held ready nearby and used the blast to hurl its own body aside.
A ugly cry tore from its throat. Even a spirit beast resistant to fire could not shrug off a point-blank explosion. For a heartbeat it thought the arrow was gone—then the shaft, flung wide by the blast, bent on a strange arc and came for its eye again.
The Fire Beast screamed as the arrow sank home. Neungpung clicked his tongue.
"I meant to put one through its skull in a single ambush. Failed."
"Senior Neung, that just now was…"
"Qi-Guided Arrow. One of the few tricks that lets a hunter play at being a Peak Expert."
Neungpung laughed it off as nothing, but Hyeonmyeong knew the art he had just witnessed was of the highest order. Qi-Guided Arrow was nothing less than sword-guiding applied to arrows, and sword-guiding stood on a different plane from simply moving objects through the void. It demanded that weapon and user become one. Even a single sword was hard enough to master that way—to do it with volleys of arrows was astonishing.
Blinded by the pain of the shaft in its eye, the Fire Beast stopped directing its flame orbs. The three closed the distance at once. Feeling their approach, the beast convulsed and poured heat from every pore. The aura it shed reeked of demonic qi; like the Heavenly Yang Divine Art, it burned so hot it seemed ready to consume even its own flesh. The arrow in its eye charred away, and the wound sealed under the heat. Black fur that had endured a burning forest caught fire; scarlet heat began to scorch everything around the beast.
Hyeonmyeong struck again with the Seven Absolute Plum Blossom Sword, but the flood of sword qi never reached the Fire Beast—it burned out in the heat. Closing in looked impossible.
Cheonhwa saw something else.
It looks like heat pouring out in every direction—but there's a current in it too.
And where there was a current, he could interfere. He pushed the Six Harmony Sensory Path to its limit and raised Okgyeong overhead. Four-colored force on the blade compressed until it was one with the sword itself—the heavy-sword principle of the Star-Net Sword Art, forged into a blade meant to pierce all-consuming heat.
His stomping footfall thundered with the full weight of his charge. Jin Release, inner force, and intent—body, energy, and spirit—gathered at the tip. The hard-sword principle of the Great Heavenly Hard Sword Art. The stroke cut the fading current of heat as if it meant to split the sky itself.
A sharp hiss—and the heat parted under overwhelming sword force.
"Brilliant!"
"Not bad at all!"
The path to the Fire Beast opened once more. Neungpung and Hyeonmyeong charged as if this were their last chance. Arrows streaked for the spirit beast's joints. Still reeling from the wound to its eye, the Fire Beast could not avoid them. Yellow-wreathed shafts shattered the joints, and a scream of pure agony tore from its throat. Its movement was as good as sealed. The Plum Blossom Sword Master seized the chance the other two had made and thrust.
Dark Fragrance Drift—footwork as smooth as the subtle scent of plum—carried him forward. The blade rode that momentum in a flash of sword-light, leaving afterimages in its wake. The second of Mount Hua's Three Plum Blossom Swords: the Three-Edged Plum Blossom Sword. Swift, keen afterimages bloomed into a plum of sword-light that drove for the Fire Beast's neck.
Hyeonmyeong's sword punched through thick hide and sheared bone with a dull crack. Even with the heat stripped away by Cheonhwa, the blast at point-blank range was merciless; protective qi could not keep his skin from searing. He ignored the pain and poured more strength into the blade.
"Hah!"
With a shout the reddened sword moved again—and the Fire Beast's head left its body and spun through the air. At last they had cut the life from the corrupted spirit beast that had burned a village to ash.
Then why does this feel so wrong?
Cheonhwa's eyes found the flying head by instinct. The Fire Beast's mouth, which should have been twisted in agony, was smiling—half in despair, half as if mocking them. It looked like a sneer at moths that did not know their own fate. One question rose in Cheonhwa's mind.
When the Fire Beast dies… what happens to the flame orbs it set?
Those condensed spheres of heat were held together solely by the beast's fire-wielding power. If it died and that power vanished—
The condensed heat detonates all at once…!
The Six Harmony Sensory Path already counted more than a dozen spheres; given how thorough the beast had been, there had to be dozens more hidden. If they all went off at once, even protective qi would not be enough.
Can I cut the current of the blast the way I did before?
Impossible. This would not come from one direction but from every side. Block one line and the rest would still crash in; try to hold every direction at once and he could never raise enough sword force to shove the blast away.
Simply blocking won't work. I have to change the current and let it slip past.
Cheonhwa stepped between Hyeonmyeong and Neungpung and reset his grip on Okgyeong. Mist rose from the jade wooden sword and, in a heartbeat, coiled around both men as if to shield them. They stared at him, asking what he thought he was doing—but there was no time for explanations.
As Cheonhwa had feared, the spheres began to explode. Heat from every side fused into a great tidal wave and bore down on them. Through the Six Harmony Sensory Path he read the current of the fire.
It's not enough to turn a single stream. I have to rewrite the whole flow of the space where the two of them stand.
Interfering with so wide a current was almost beyond him—but the moment he gave up, none of them would walk away. He steeled himself and drew up inner force and intent. Through Neutralizing Jin he took hold of the flow in the space the mist touched—the soft-sword principle of the Flowing Cloud Sword Art. Then he added one more art: void-grasp, another technique that could shape a current through true qi. Once it had only raised attraction or repulsion from the blade to hinder an enemy; fused with the soft sword, it became a form that rewrote the current of an entire space.
Twenty-Ninth Form
All Under Heaven Moonplay
Within the mist, the current of void-grasp twisted the blast's heat aside—and with the shimmering haze, a flash of light bloomed in full flower.