She's learning. She's learning fast.

Bin Wei's managed to keep whittling her down, kept her from fully regenerating from what should very much have been lethal wounds, but she just refuses to die. The idea that this Rai Ka is some sort of construct, a master-work of biomancy, remains at the forefront of his mind, but it's just too aware. There's no thread connecting the body to a puppeteer, none that he can detect, and no construct can be this aware… but he has no idea how anyone could have survived what has been done to her.

There is some Qi now, leaking out from her broken frame, but still so little, and so tightly wrapped around muscle, bone and blood. Not enough to explain the amount of force and violence she's committing, just as the idea of her having a still-functioning brain in her skull feels impossible as well. The level of control she's demonstrating over each individual muscle, every strand of fiber and ligament moving faster and faster, in closer and closer sequence… it's almost frightening.

He launches another whirlwind from his renewed "World-Shattering Rain of Form" technique, carving another furrow into the terrain, which he then renews with his Domain as he moves over it. And he is moving now- staying still would be a foolish choice, one that would allow his opponent to move freely around him. In turn, as he shifts, he reshapes the terrain, passing his Domain over it and leaving it more intact than the glassed, dead landscape left behind after his last "serious" technique.

And she, in turn, moves, and moves, and moves.

Skittering on every limb available, stabbing the ground and throwing herself from point to point, launching off of every odd angle or shape like a humanoid cannonball.

Another whirlwind flies off, a spear of annihilation carving open the world and multiplied by his Domain as it travels. A sequence of four attacks flies from it- he purposefully destabilizes the technique, turning the singular blast of force into an explosion, and follows it up with three more whirlwinds to cover escape options.

Rai Ka, in turn, contorts, shifting her body like a collection of puzzle pieces loosely connected, moving in a way that no body, not even her own, seems built for.

But it works. A clawed hand uses the ground as a fulcrum to whip her lower body away from the explosion, minimizing the damage, and lets go at the perfect time to use the force of the blast to be lifted rather than thrown.

With the maneuver, she dodges two of the three whirlwinds- and catches the last one.

Her body cycles, limp in places, taut in others, and just like that, a lethal blow is turned on its head, reformed into something she surfs through, limbs dancing and flashing and unweaving the technique from the inside out.

It's mesmerizing. A focus on technique, on execution, that to any other being would already have led them to their death. Never before has Bin Wei seen such dedication to pure martial prowess, never before has he seen such wanton disregard for one's own life. Surely she must experience no pain, or have been constructed bereft of nerves, for anything that could feel what has been done to her would surely collapse from shock.

And yet, she keeps moving.

Her foot finds purchase on a stray piece of solid-state matter in the whirlwind, rising up in its cycle, and it launches her into the air, arcing towards him.

Once again, he catches her with a direct blow.

In spite of how impressed he is, he's already shown three whole techniques in this battle, and unless he needs to, he won't be unveiling another. An enemy sect that's caught sight of this display could already be fomenting clearer plans to cut him down. And… frankly, until his opponent unleashes something new, he doesn't need to.

She just… doesn't die.

Every exchange leaves her slightly more intact than the last- she's regrown a third arm, reconnecting hip-joints and lower extremities, even grown a tail, and yet, despite her apparent lesser immortality, she just doesn't have the tools with which to strike him. He learns too, and millenia of combat experience have highlighted her weaknesses aptly- the only reason she managed to strike him the first time was due to his own overconfidence and her hidden advantages: the fact that, even without a Domain of her own, she can't be affected by his directly, and the fact that he didn't predict how she'd use his spatial warping against him.

But even still, she just doesn't have the tools to encroach on his Domain if he doesn't want to let her. Without unleashing new techniques, she can't make it into his territory faster than he can dissolve away the ground, or turn the air to solid-state, and he's learned to leave a proper buffer between himself and the world outside the bubble of his idealized world. For all her power, it's useless without being able to get into melee range.

But she just doesn't die.

His World Shattering Rain of Form technique is still damaging her, and hitting about as often, but she's always just fast enough, moves with just enough precision, to remain a step ahead, taking damage but never losing anything too vital. By which he means, apparently, her skull and some kind of inner organ- there's a core of matter there, one that he hasn't yet found but has tracked from her regeneration speeds.

She cannot reach him, not without something new… but he cannot end the fight without improving or changing tactics himself.

Seven more whirlwinds in sequence, some detonated, some penetrating directly forward, and again, all but two are evaded. One of the two tears off one of the intact arms on her left, while the other is-

A double-overhand strike and a frame-perfect shift of hips and tail slams into the tip of the technique, tearing a shallow crater of flesh and armor off of her- and then diverting the technique into the ground, where it explodes rock and earth and launches her perfectly away form his final two strikes.

He's smiling. It's been a while since he fought something so fun.

But still, it would not do for an elder to neglect the possibility of defeat. And… well, if he doesn't show any "new" techniques, then there's nothing to worry about, is there?

His opponent lands on territory that he's already detonating, having tracked her flight- and is then faced by his fist.

His Domain is collapsed, kept to millimeters above his skin- and yet, within it, space is distorted, such that his actual form is meters away from the "surface". His Qi rages, flowing through his body in a freeing, refreshing state, similar to meditation, pushing him far and beyond mortal limits, allowing him to move beyond the imposed rules of the Heavens.

His Domain-clad fist strikes the flung body of the impossible humanoid- and shatters the world.

"Roaring Heavens, Broken Skies!" he roars, the technique, born of his cultivation, powered by his Qi, multiplied by his Domain, impacting the existence of the woman who refuses to die. The strike is many times stronger than the last time, and he's already re-expanding his Domain, pushing it from an armor into an area of denial, already ready to turn the air around his enemy to solid matter-

Just the slightest touch on his wrist. Barely a whisper, really.

The strike, which should have struck dead-center on Rai Ka's face, strikes her shoulder instead, ripping open arm, rib-cage, center-torso… but not killing her.

He looks down at the tail that lightly pushed the strike, which moved faster than a whip, faster than the eye can track- and invisible to his senses, free of Qi or bleeding energies.

Alien and faceless, he still recognizes her smile, even as his world collapses into solidity in a cocoon around her.

The remaining arm shoots out, inhumanly fast, impossibly fast for a being free of cultivation, reaching directly for his eyes- and stops, a centimeter from his face.

A centimeter that is a dozen feet from the surface of his skin, but closer than he'd like nonetheless.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He stares at the aqua-blue cocoon of swirling stone before him, held perfectly still in the air. It warps and roils, conscious and subconscious intent shaping it to his will, and he begins to compress.

"Tap twice if you wish to surrender, junior!" he says, still smiling.

No taps come- so he squeezes down.

He might not be able to control her in his Domain, but the air, space, form, and matter within it, especially to him and his cultivation, are entirely obedient to him. The cocoon turns to an orb, perfectly spherical with an ever-changing surface, and he raises a hand, closing it into a fist as the sphere becomes half its size, then half again.

No taps. Though perhaps she has no room to do even that.

Ah well. Victory taken is even richer than victory given.

He squeezes his fist, and the sphere-

With a shattering sound, solid air is made into shattered chunks, shoved forward- only to be frozen again.

He compresses- and she breaks it. Compresses again, and somehow, she still cracks the orb, pushing it outwards just enough that he's certain she isn't dead.

He can't help but grin. Such a durable creature! He's rarely met anything so difficult to kill. Even if she cannot slay him, it's still-

The orb cracks again, harder, half-bursting before the space between the cracks is turned solid as well.

Hmm. Improving at short range strikes, perhaps? What an inquisitive beast this junior is!

He is certain of that now. An aged immortal would know better the capabilities of one such as he- while Bin Wei is long-lived and powerful indeed, he is no true exemplar of battle. There are many greater than he, in grander sects than his, though, in his opinion, none in more important sects than his. To be experimenting so wildly, so clearly growing before his very eyes, must mean that his opponent is either new to her powers, or new to using them in this way. That, or she's brash, young, and impatient.

All entirely possible, and possibly all true at once.

The orb cracks again, pushed out by an internal blow, but he's gotten a feel for her pattern. He might not be able to sense her directly, but he can sense the parts of the cocoon she's touching by the physical effects on them, and can preemptively strengthen or shape the orb around her as needed. There's no way out for her now.

"I believe, junior, that with this, I shall be claiming my victory. While I'm certain that you could struggle on longer, as you can no longer challenge me directly, it would seem that you must surrender, if only by default.

The orb cracks in a line all down its front, half-shattering- but it holds.

"No need to-"

Again.

She's going faster.

"Junior, this senior is both honorable and generous, and could have slain you in a hundred ways. Accept your-

Crack.

Crack.

CRACK.

How is she doing that?

He decides to forsake propriety, a little part of him glorying at being able to use his powers freely and another annoyed at her insistence on this losing battle. He begins condensing his Domain, bringing it into a smaller and smaller space, all while adding to its internal size and piling more and more solid matter on the orb. It's doubled in size, then tripled, then tripled again, but from the way he warps the world, it begins to compress to an orb no larger to him than the size of his fist.

"Hmm. I suppose I could keep you like this a while. Long enough for the air to run out, anyways. Should be any moment now. Perhaps it would be best for you to-

crack.

There. Smaller, quieter… but only due to the inverted scale.

crack.

Crack.

Crack.

CRACK.

The orb is breaking further.

It would be insulting if it wasn't so very novel.

"I hadn't imagined I'd need this trick, junior, but since you refuse to bow to your superior…"

He begins to alternate layers, making them of varying density, turning some parts to air and then siphoning that air out. It's a struggle, keeping his opponent bound as he changes the gaol, but he is used to struggle.

One final burst, one final crack that nearly shatters the orb, and then… he unleashes the vacuum.

The sphere implodes.

What was an orb becomes a jagged pike of not-stone, a pillar of crushed and malformed shrapnel pulled into itself. But he waits.

Thick, indigo-crimson blood leaks from the edges of some of the cracks… but he waits.

crack.

Now that can't be right-

The crushed pillar explodes, the front half of it detonating with enough force that some of the matter is powdered back into liquid and air states against his will. From within, he catches a single glimpse of the figure inside, a skeleton of middling form, barely alive… but with a single arm extended, a line of unbroken muscle decorating it, a single knuckle extended for a blow.

A one-inch punch, delivered with a tenth of the space to move and a hundred times the impact.

He is smiling, but already moving to re-secure the shattered orb-

As he watches, too slow to stop the movement that should not by rights be possible, the arm bends back, hooks a single finger under her chin, and yanks.

The spine detaches with a squelch. The jaw is shattered with the pull.

The skull, with one still functioning eye, is thrown bodily outside of the binding matter.

It's irrelevant, he-

Faster than before, the skull regenerates, extending a spinal column down to legs and arms, the absolute bare minimum amount of tendon and muscle required for it to move forming as it does, and then she has leapt off the solidifying air and out of the edge of his Domain.

He frowns, casting aside the shattered, former body of the creature, and stares at her as she rebuilds herself yet again.

"Was it a Sacrifice?" he asks, staring her down. "Did you somehow trade your cultivation for an undying body, as in the ways of the Craft? It surely cannot be a technique or natural-born ability that allows you to survive such."

She grins, not bothering to regenerate her skin. "Just some… tricks I've… learned." A lung pops into place and grows into her ribcage, allowing her to breathe fully for the first time since he began his assault. "Hard to kill is all. I'm a bit disappointed. You're stronger than the last Warrior-realm I fought, but I assumed I'd be able to do something against you."

"To survive against me as I actually exert myself is no mean feat, junior."

She shrugs, the motion alien beneath pitch-black bioarmor. "Perhaps. But I came here to do more than just survive."

"Then I assume you still do not surrender?"

A grin, alien and shark-toothed. "Why, what makes you think that, senior?"

He expands his Domain, raising orbs of solid matter into the air, and launches them at her. Less directly effective than his "World-Shattering Rain of Form" technique, but harder to parry for their weight, adapted to her methods. She dodges, weaves, ducks, but one orb finally impacts, half the size of the rest and thrice as fast. He hears the crunch of armor shattering, waits for the second wave of orbs to hit, three whirlwinds of his world-shattering Rain prepared to circle around as tendrils, and-

Hmm.

Where did-

He turns just in time to bring a shield of liquid and solid azure up, blocking the closest thing she's gotten to a strike on him in minutes.

Her eyes, nostrils and mouth are gushing blood, her frame is leaking it out of seams in the outer shell- but she moved faster than before, as fast as he's seen yet. It takes his brain a microsecond to backtrack- she took the hit, pushed off of the orb in her armor, launched herself up, then horizontal, then…

An acrobat display like one he's never seen before. If not for being bound by the limitations of flesh and physics, it might even have struck him a terrible blow. What a pity, that this Rai Ka has reached such heights with a skill that can take her no further.

Though… a moment ago, he couldn't have predicted what she'd just done. And in this battle of attrition, he's actually starting to feel the Qi he's lost, nearly a tenth of his reserve expended by now.

With a flex of will, he once again collapses space and matter in around her, preparing to contain her-

She uses her fist as a launch-point, flexing muscles in perfect sync and shoving away faster than he can react, but there she is, she has to land to move again, and he can track the movement through the air-

A spear of burnished copper appears in the world.

The air implodes in behind it, then explodes back outward from the heat caused by the detonation, and solid earth ripples like liquid and then is torn open. A field larger than the hillsides that originally stood here, those long minutes ago, is turned to liquid fire and detonation, strange plantlife blooming from the flames.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" roars a voice that Bin Wei recognizes.

Externally, he turns and bows on a moment's notice, but internally, he can't help but groan.

He is going to have paperwork for decades over this. His fellow elder is not the merciful type.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.