The floating leaves flying at Yung Mai's face shifted to Kai the moment Yung Mai's expression tensed.

Kai's eyes rolled in circles the moment he saw the same stare he had seen in Yung Mai's eyes before he moved and attacked him with the stick.

"Now, let's see if you can use the sword with the horse stance." Yung Mai turned to Kai and grinned.

For a fleeting moment, Kai stood there, calming his breath and chest. After thirty minutes, his chest heaved as he let his knees bend, sliding into Ma Bu.

As he spread his legs wider, grounding himself, the gravel bit into the soles of his feet. Holding the sword in the Ma Bu felt as if its weight had doubled in his hands.

Soft wind flew by his shoulders, raising the strands of hair that rested there.

When a sudden gust burst, letting the leaves rattle against the stone wall, Yung Mai pushed himself forward and covered his mouth.

There, dust swirled around both Kai and Yung Mai, covering any other person from seeing them.

Kai felt the vibrations from the earth burning through his bones as he flexed his thighs.

When he moved the sword, it hummed in a steady rhythm that synced with his heartbeat and the drops of sweat falling off his face.

The silver light pulsing in the blade of the sword flickered across the grass-filled land, painting the swirling leaves in ghostly strokes.

He exhaled, letting his shoulder drop, and then rotated the blade in a slow, wide arc.

A wave of wind streaked outward as the sword sliced forward, scattering dust and whipping leaves into a chaotic spiral.

Every fiber of his body tensed as he held the stance in a good posture, locking his legs, straightening his torso, and clenching his fist firmly on the handle of the sword.

The sword vibrated against his palms as if it were alive and eager to strike when he raised his head and stared at Yung Mai.

With a slow thrust, Kai moved the sword forward, forcing the air to split apart.

With every strike through the empty space at his front, the blade hummed, vibrating violently and sending shivers up his arms and into his shoulders.

The dust and leaves puffed into the air with each deliberate step of his horse stance. Only a few leaves swirled against the glowing edge of the sword before fluttering down like ash.

Kai rotated the sword to the left and to the right, pushing more air on the tall grass.

The feeling of pushed wind scaled through his waist, legs, arms, and chest. His breath came in short bursts, mixing with the swirling wind around him and turning visible in the cold night air.

Meanwhile, at the front of the half-moon arc door of the Shadow Cult, Lena and Jinx paused their step when a hardened skin rat crawled beneath their feet at high speed.

"What is that?!" Jinx raised her leg sharply, her expression shifting from shock to confusion.

When Lena saw the rat, she shook her head and tilted her gaze at Jinx.

"That's just a rat." She turned her gaze to the closed door and stretched her right arm forward.

The moment her knuckles touched the surface of the door, her eyes widened as the door automatically opened.

Jinx stepped back the moment she noticed the ground and the sky inside the door were darker than that of the one they stood under.

"Are you entering?" Chills ran down her spine as she turned and stared at Lena.

"You can go back and wait." Lena said in a cold voice that scraped the fear she was having out of her.

'Flee, flee, flee. No, let me just follow her. If something happens, I will run back here.' A silent smile tore on Jinx's lips as she stared at Lena.

Taking into the Shadow Cult land, the smell of burnt food staff struck her nose so intensely that she covered her nose before she could actually breathe.

"Silly girl." Lena turned, smiled, and then frowned when she turned her gaze back to the vast land at their front.

At the remote part of the Shadow Cult land, Kai barely had a moment to steady himself before Yung Mai stepped forward again.

This time, Kai saw Yung Mai's left arm tucked firmly behind his back, leaving the right hand free to wield the stick with deadly precision.

Kai's teeth ground together as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and ran down his jaw as he felt the tip of the stick move past his face.

The black skin at his left shoulder moved the moment a drop of his own blood fell from his chin and landed on the shoulder.

Yung Mai lunged, his right arm swinging the stick in a brutal arc, aiming for the boy's shoulder where the black skin was.

As Kai shifted his weight in the Ma Bu stance, gravel flew beneath his feet the moment his legs trembled and promised to fall.

A metal clashing sound erupted as the sword shot up to meet the strike. The impact jolted Kai's shoulder, leaving a twinge that ran down his arm and into his fingertips.

With a forward thrust, Kai countered, letting the silver light slice through the air, but Yung Mai sidestepped and blocked.

Pain exploded across Kai's side when the parried stick whipped and struck Kai on the ribs.

A warm red liquid seeped through from the shallow cut the stick had carved on Kai's ribs.

Each breath flew into Kai's lungs in a mixture of dust and leaves.

Kai pivoted, using the horse stance to maintain his balance while his body screamed in protest.

Without resting, another strike came, but this time, Kai blocked it with the flat surface of the sword.

Though he wasn't struck, the impact alone jarred his wrist and sent a shock through his forearm.

Tiny pebbles exploded into the air as his feet scraped the gravel, leaving thin red streaks across the ground.

His vision blurred with sweat, blood, and the pulsing sword holding him, yet he forced his legs to move and hold.

Yung Mai's stick snapped against Kai's thigh when he struck forward. Pain lanced through Kai's muscle, letting a line of blood bloom across his leg.

Sweat and blood slicked his hands, but he clung to the hilt.

The pulse of the sword throbbed violently, almost reacting to Kai's pain.

…

Meanwhile, at a far distance from the west side of Westeros to the south, four men stood at the front of Gorg City, grinning.

At the center, where a man wearing a military uniform and holding a long sword stood, a girl stood behind him, tears falling from her eyes.

"Theo, let your men take her to the city for me. I will join them when we're done with the temple people." Wang's face shimmered with hatred.

He smiled the moment the engine of the jeep the girl was taken into started.

"It's left with eight days for Lord Osai to return, so we must go and take the boy out completely." Rolling the beads wrapped around his fist one after another, Jim turned his head slightly and sighed.

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