Chapter 20 – Peerless

  The title of Fel was such a stupid thing. It was just an excuse for people to kill and rob each other, then brag about their exploits when they finally broke through to the Dharma realm. Meilan and the rest of her Lianhua clan never had someone with the Fel title. Of course, Meilan would constantly hear how Su Shuyi could have become a Fel if she so desired.

  But every so often, an event would happen that would be told and passed down generations. It was the kind of events that sent more young cultivators to their deaths, chasing the glory of a Fel. It was when a singular powerful cultivator went against all odds and stood out above the rest.

  And right now, Fel Yuhan Diyuan was standing alone against over a dozen foes, all of whom were between level 1 to level 3 Spiritweave.

  “He’s alive? Didn’t Xie Yanshuang say she killed him?”

  “I thought we agreed to not lie about this in the Carcass Grotto. What is she playing at?”

  One man stepped forward. “Who cares. The game is still on. Winner takes the bounty, yeah?”

  Meilan saw a couple of her own people mixed in with the group. [Get over here, don’t be involved,] she commanded.

  The two of them hesitated, but walked away from the others. Yuhan Diyuan smiled.

  “Poor me, an itty-bitty Foundation cultivator who lost his way,” he said.

  “Too late for regrets. Don’t know why Gu Guan’s so ticked at you, but it’s free stones for us.”

  Yuhan Diyuan smiled. “Yup.”

  Meilan thought the entire scene was ridiculous. A Foundation cultivator had no chance against the Spiritweave realm. Their body gained great strength and defense. Even if he had killed two already in that surprise attack earlier, there was no way he could win against over a dozen!

  The Honglie cultivators began their transformation. She could see how some animalistic forms affected their elbows or face, and sometimes the feet. But as they were transforming, several others simply ran forward, weapons out. A whip, a sword, a spear. Some just stuck with their fist.

  But then, all of the sudden, all of them stopped moving. It was like time had stopped. Only their eyes moved. Some abilities that were forming got disrupted and disappeared. The mid-transformation of the other Honglie members went still.

  “Stunlock Bind, a neat Yuhan skill,” Yuhan Diyuan said. “Doesn’t do much if the cultivation level is too great, but that’s not what you guys are.”

  And then he vanished. A sharp, reverberating sound sliced through the air as he reappeared, now with glowing white eyes, using one foot to stand on the shoulder of a half-transformed Honglie member, where both arms were partially transformed into snakes.

  “I really don’t like this demonic beast arte. Bad memories,” Yuhan Diyuan said as he pierced the head of the Honglie cultivator with his black sword. That Honglie cultivator was at the level 2 Spiritweave realm. The strength needed to pierce skin wasn’t something that could be done with just one hand, and yet Yuhan Diyuan’s arm seemed to have the strength beyond what was possible.

  He jumped off the shoulder towards another cultivator, someone he had picked out from the crowd for whatever reason, and killed him before Stunlock Bind wore off.

  Everyone unfroze and the battle began.

  Yuhan Diyuan was using their numbers against them. One Gu clan member spun with his spear and created a rain of spears, which Yuhan Diyuan baited to the slower opponents. He touched two of them physically, stunning them in place, as they got wounded by the spears while he himself vanished and reappeared elsewhere.

  He would block a sword hit from a level 2 Spiritweave cultivator, getting knocked back several feet. She realized that he would purposely get pushed around because when someone else came to attack, he was capable of blocking without moving a single inch.

  He would throw out daggers, but they could only pierce less than an inch at most, not killing like it might have if the cultivation levels were closer. More artes interfered with each other. A Honglie member’s whip had no room to navigate, except the whip was soon controlled like it was a snake. Yuhan Diyuan made it a priority to kill her before the others.

  Maybe he had a fear of snakes.

  A winged cultivator flew up. Despite not being level 5 Spiritweave, the Honglie could have wings if their demonic beast transformation arte had one.

  “His sword is black cold steel!” The flying cultivator said. “That’s why your attacks feel like they're not doing anything. Don’t let him bait you!”

  “I say whoever kills him should let the rest of us gambit over the sword. Don’t be greedy!” another would shout.

  Meilan continued to watch. Despite being surrounded, whenever it got too dangerous, Yuhan Diyuan would simply teleport to a safer spot, striking at wounds he had previously made on his enemies. It was difficult for him to kill anyone in a single blow when they were doing their own parrying, but his accuracy was always pinpoint so it added up. He would also switch how he held his sword; sometimes it was normal, sometimes it was reverse gripped. He switched back and forth smoothly depending on the distance between his foes.

  Whenever the Gu clan tried to set up a formation, Yuhan Diyuan would stun them from a distance and make them the new target. He didn’t seem to stun them otherwise, despite having the ability to do so. The larger group seemed to take that as an unconscious agreement to not use formations. And when someone tried to use a talisman, it would be wasted as Yuhan Diyuan always vanished the moment before it activated, dodging the effects of the lightning or the soundwave.

  The flying Honglie cultivator created arrows and rained them down on Yuhan Diyuan. He always perfectly parried them when he couldn’t dodge, but it seemed to require too much attention as he ended up getting hit in the side by a Gu member’s distant palm strike. Regardless, whatever wounds Yuhan Diyuan received quickly recovered at a rate that his opponents began to comment on it.

  “If he’s using pills, stop him before he pops it!”

  “The healing isn’t a pill; the Yuhan family has an arte for it.”

  “Not like that they don’t; his body is harder than ours and he’s healing faster than a demonic beast!”

  Yuhan Diyuan chuckled. “If you think this body is hard, you should know that it’s at half strength at the moment, courtesy of Xie Yanshuang bullying a weak Foundation cultivator.”

  Meilan saw a small ghostly creature flying in the air. No one else seemed to notice as it came up behind the flying Honglie member. It looked like all the fighting was attracting some demonic beasts, so she was about to speak up to draw attention to it.

  [Say nothing,] Yuhan Diyuan said to her in a sound transmission.

  Meilan’s eyes went wide when she realized what had happened. To use sound transmission required the power of a Spiritweave cultivator, yet Yuhan Diyuan was clearly at the Foundation realm. Was his cultivation actually higher? Was it hidden with a special arte or spirit artifact that no one knew about? That would certainly explain the situation they were in. He was deceiving them all by pretending to be weak.

  And pretend he did. If he had seen her about to speak up, that meant he had been watching her this entire time too. Did Yuhan Diyuan assume it was possible for her to attack him when he wasn’t expecting it?

  The ghostly serpent bumped into the back of the flying Honglie cultivator.

  “What in the…?” He turned to look at what had hit him.

  Zap!

  The talisman that was attached to his back went off. A lightning thundered from it and struck true. His wings had a spasm and he began to fall to the ground. Yuhan Diyuan vanished again, appearing just above the falling man, and he kicked off of the air to fall faster, towards the Honglie winged man. Yuhan Diyuan’s sword pierced the other man’s heart as they collided on the ground.

  The white ghostly creature was already gone, not seen by anyone else.

  “It’s obvious who keeps up with martial art skills and who simply relies on flashy cultivation artes.” Yuhan Diyuan pulled his sword out of the other’s body. He took in a deep breath and exhaled; he didn’t look tired at all.

  The fighting continued. They came to realize that Yuhan Diyuan couldn’t freely teleport when they used an arte that threw out a dome net. He broke out by throwing a spirit artifact arrow, which broke immediately after it made an opening out of the net, releasing a puff of energy. After that, he knew when and how to dodge the dome trap. Even if that arte was dodged, it would land on the ground and caused everyone within to be slowed if they stood within it; it was like a free formation. Yuhan Diyuan started to use it to his advantage when he could, controlling the battlefield to his whims.

  One Honglie clan member could create multiple mirage fangs, where a few of them were real and others were fake. Yuhan Diyuan would get hit by a couple of those, though the actual damage on him seemed to be much less than what others were expecting, and healed rather quickly too.

  “This is that defensive arte that Gu Guan told us about!”

  “There’s no Foundation arte that can increase his defense this much. It’s something else, an artifact most likely.”

  A beam of nonstop sharp objects. Multiple small palm attacks that pushed and crushed the castle walls. A roar that would stun—though Yuhan Diyuan always seemed to know when it was about to come, as he started to dodge even faster than his enemies. A poison arte was used; he acted like he was always trying to dodge out of the poison, only to run into it and kill someone when they let their guard down. It seemed they had forgotten he was immune to the miasma, and so he might be immune to other poisons as well.

  “Forget this!” one man said as he ran away. But just as he reached the end of the courtyard and was inside the door, he froze in place, stuck by the stunning arte. The white ghostly creature was briefly seen at an off angle before it hid itself.

  Meilan saw two talismans on the side of the door activate. Two earth stalagmites appeared, piercing through the man’s frozen body. She gasped and looked away from the sight. Meilan couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. She was certain that the small ghostly creature was a demonic beast of some sort, yet it was placing talismans for Yuhan Diyuan’s benefit!

  Spirit artifacts were now in play. Several Gu clan members took theirs out, no longer caring if it would attract a demonic beast or not. One had a quill, which allowed him to write characters in the air—the same kind that might be written in a talisman. Another took out a mirror, that caused perception to be flipped; that one affected more people than just Yuhan Diyuan.

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  Meilan really thought the mirror would be his defeat, but strangely…it didn’t affect him at all? Instead, he closed his eyes and kept fighting that way. Unless he had a way to see without his eyes, she couldn’t understand how he was still able to dodge attacks.

  She did notice the ghostly bone creature peeking, watching the battlefield, and keeping an eye on everything. No one else seemed to notice it was there, and Diyuan was fighting in a way to keep their eyes in every direction but where the ghostly bone creature was at. After he targeted, stunned, and maimed the mirror’s owner, that person put the mirror away and tried to run away as well. Yuhan Diyuan made swift work and killed him. He opened his eyes and the ghostly creature hid again.

  He was very acrobatic as well. Just when it seemed like he would be trapped by two weapons, he jumped sideways into the air, and jumped a second time, maneuvering between the weapons as he twisted his body. Some were just barely missing his face, but he looked as if that was intended.

  When it seemed like Yuhan Diyuan was invincible, all that changed in a single moment.

  A Giant Poison Toad came in from the sky and crashed at the direct center of the courtyard, cracking the ground beneath. It was taller than any man, and had bulbs on its back which would shoot out poison in the area once activated. She didn’t know about anyone else, but it required a strong antidote pill and a high cultivation level to keep it from affecting them. And most people here did not meet the minimum cultivation level anymore to fight the poison.

  As for killing this demonic beast, only a Dharma cultivator or a large group of Spiritweave cultivators could reliably have it done.

  “Run!” Meilan shouted to no one in particular. Her people who were watching from the side ran up to her as she turned to flee herself.

  Several more of her Lianhua team were lagging behind a bit. The Giant Poison Toad spit out a stream of acid, hitting two of her members, melting them. She could hear their screams as she turned the corner into the castle, entering deeper into it.

  She and her group met up with the now-Foundation level alchemist, where the remaining members had gathered. They were now their full group, minus the two that had died.

  “What’s happening out there?” He asked.

  “Giant Poison Toad. Let’s get inside. What traps have triggered?” Meilan asked.

  “Walls rearranging like a maze. Our maps are no good. I heard gas hissing, so I expect poison in some spots.”

  She nodded and ran in.

  The castle walls opened and closed. It never trapped them outright, but she was always anxious and concerned that something would chase her and the walls might block her escape.

  All she needed to do was reach the throne room. Once she was there and collected the item the Lianhua clan came here for, then she could leave without worrying about anything else.

  The walls rearrange some more. Multiple hallways opened up.

  [As planned, we’ll split up. Whoever gets to the throne room first completes the task given,] Meilan said.

  Meilan took half and the Foundation alchemist took the other half. They continued on separately. After a moment, another set of multiple hallways opened.

  A scream.

  Two bodies flew in the air. Yuhan Diyuan, midair, had a dagger in the eye of the other person, who hit the wall. Yuhan Diyuan kicked off of the air somehow and landed; his bloody dagger disappeared and he brought out his black sword again. Yuhan Diyuan noticed them, saluted respectfully, looted the storage ring, and ran back into the hallway. The hallway shifted and separated Yuhan Diyuan from the rest of them.

  [He’s seriously fighting even now!?] The brute guard asked, his voice incredulous.

  [Aren’t you glad I asked you to step away from the crowd?] Meilan couldn’t help but feel a sense of superiority.

  The brute grunted, but otherwise said nothing. Su Shuyi did warn them not to engage with Yuhan Diyuan with the intent to kill. Their greatest Lianhua warrior seemed to recognize potential threats just by their attitude. Though, Su Shuyi might not know the exact extent of it. Meilan would have to tell her exactly what Yuhan Diyuan was capable of once they were out.

  Their travel through the maze took time, as they would sometimes need to wait for the walls to move in the way that they needed to keep going forward. Certain plants were placed at various areas, which were clues to indicate what trap would lay ahead. Thorns for arrows, depressive herbs for some form of illusionary or gas-like danger, and a shriveled plant, which needed time for an alchemist to review to determine why it shriveled.

  One path led to a large room, where they witnessed heavy poisonous gas emit from it. They were about to turn and leave when they heard combat inside. They looked deeper within and saw the Giant Poison Toad and Yuhan Diyuan fighting. Poisonous gas saturated the room.

  [He can’t win alone,] Meilan said, turning to her brute to do something.

  [I thought you said that poison would kill me since I can’t refine the antidote fast enough anymore. If he wants to stay and fight it, that’s his choice.]

  She looked over to witness what might be Yuhan Diyuan’s final battle. The poison meant nothing to him, but half of his sleeve had melted away. And his arm seemed to had gotten hit by acid, though he was healing faster than the acid melted his skin. Meilan could see him reflect some pain in his face, but he was otherwise determined to continue the fight.

  This wasn’t a battle he was forced into; he picked this fight himself.

  The white ghostly creature flew around the area, hitting the top side of the toad. It didn’t do any damage, but it did plant a paper talisman. Yuhan Diyuan would throw out another talisman, which the bone creature caught in its mouth and flew to plant it again, all while he dodged thick blobs of something that the Giant Poison Toad spit out.

  Cracks of lightning struck the back of the toad. About five in total, which one of the Lianhua brutes commented was a massive amount of spirit stones wasted in one go. Those hits should lower the defensive power of the demonic beast, but Yuhan Diyuan still wasn’t able to pierce it with his sword.

  Whenever it began to shoot the stream of acid, he didn’t bother engaging with it at all and simply vanished and reappeared on top of it, adding more talismans.

  The wall moved behind Meilan. She quickly turned to see what escape they might have, but realized it was all cutoff. The path forward was through the poison room, where another hallway appeared that wasn’t there before.

  The ghostly bone creature flew up and activated a paper talisman in the air. It wasn’t lightning or anything like that, but a suction of wind.

  [Stay in front of my wall!] the grunt shouted in the sound transmission. He stepped ahead of them, partially in the poisonous gas, and created a transparent wall behind him as he faced Meilan and the party.

  Air began to suck towards where the talisman activated. It was a condenser talisman, she realized. It was mostly used to clear the air of poison, which was exactly what happened to the gas in the air—it all sucked towards that one spot. But it wasn’t just that, it was also the Giant Poison Toad and Yuhan Diyuan that got sucked in. He looked surprised, as if he didn’t expect the power of the talisman.

  He landed on the toad, which hovered midair inside the center of gravity created by the talisman. He slapped a couple more talisman on it, activating it to cause lightning hits, then vanished, reappearing directly below on the ground. He was still being sucked up, but he stood upside down, somehow stopping the air from pulling him up again; like his feet was standing on solid ground.

  While upside down, he placed several more talisman on the ground, while looking back up at the toad to measure the angle.

  The air suction ceased. The gas released and the toad fell. Yuhan Diyuan vanished with his teleporting arte. Just as the toad was about to hit the ground, about six earth spikes appeared, piercing through the Giant Poison Toad. It twitched for a moment before it finally died. The poisonous gas it created quickly dissipated, leaving the room free of dangers.

  The brute coughed and collapsed to the ground. He began to twitch.

  “The poison!” Meilan realized. The brute’s wall protected them from being pulled in, but he was still hit by the demonic beast’s poison. She quickly pulled out an antidote pill, but already knew his cultivation couldn’t use it efficiently enough; the poison would move too quickly. He was going to die.

  Yuhan Diyuan walked to them and saluted. “I can cure him if you help me get the toad’s eyes. I hear they might be good for alchemy, but I don’t know the proper way to extract them.”

  Meilan looked at him, seeing his arm completely healed without evidence of acid, excluding the melted sleeve.

  “He can’t circulate any pills quickly enough to fend off this poison, I’m afraid,” she said.

  “I won’t use a pill, but my poison purifying arte.”

  Meilan nodded. Was it possible for him to use such an arte on someone else at the Foundation realm? Or was this more evidence that he was at the Spiritweave realm? At this point, she was simply going to believe he could do whatever he said.

  “And the eyes aren’t useful for alchemy. You’re thinking about the Giant Tongue Toad,” Meilan said. “This one has the poison sacs below the bulbs on its back. I can help you with them.”

  Yuhan Diyuan touched the grunt and stood there. After a moment, the grunt’s breathing became steady and his discolored skin returned to its normal color. When that was done, Yuhan Diyuan turned and walked away.

  Was that it? Just a simple touch? Such a powerful antidote arte…it was no wonder he was immune to the poison and miasma.

  The grunt stood and saluted Yuhan Diyuan. “You have saved my life. I will forever be grateful to you.”

  “Sure. As long as you keep resisting that temptation for the five million spirit stones,” Yuhan Diyuan said dismissively.

  Meilan then showed him how to extract the toad’s sacs by first dealing with the bulbs. He watched earnestly, even more than some of her own students. She taught him while showing him just like she would in the classroom. The techniques she was using was passed down from their last headmaster, who, ironically enough, had gone missing in the Carcass Grotto several centuries ago.

  It gave her pride when she watched him take out the second sac himself. It would have been easier for him, since he could physically touch it without a problem with his poison immunity, but he limited himself on purpose and followed her instructions perfectly. She offered to teach him about taking out the demonic beast core as well, which he agreed to, though he gifted her the core.

  “A reward for not aiming for my bounty,” he said.

  They began to travel together. The brute exchanged his name with Yuhan Diyuan, but he would always be a brute to her. They started talking about combat, like typical men.

  “Are you at the Spiritweave realm? I saw you activate the mid-grade talismans.”

  “Something like that,” Yuhan Diyuan said.

  “Is that how you are able to fight against so many other cultivators? But even if you were a Spiritweave cultivator in secret, your skills outperformed them by a landslide. That shouldn’t be possible, since their age is so much higher than yours,” the grunt commented.

  “Their strength comes from their artes and toys,” Yuhan Diyuan said. “Take those away, and what are they? All flash and no substance. And in the Carcass Grotto, the miasma’s goal is to take away just that. I spent a lot of time training in formations and things that were similar to formations. It was varied enough to prepare for me different types of artes.”

  “That must have cost a lot, especially to maintain the formations like that,” the grunt said. “But part of me wonders how you would do against Xie Yanshuang. She’s better than everyone else when it comes to combat because her ‘toys’ aren’t taken away.”

  “What do you mean?” Yuhan Diyuan asked.

  “Her horns.” The grunt mimicked horns on his head with his fingers. “The Ancient Onyx Behemoth can use…what’s the word—future power? They can use their future strength by charging power to their horns. If she wanted to, she could technically use her capstone Dharma arte, Ecliptic Meteor Rain, as long as she charged. Though it would probably only shoot one, instead of an actual rain of meteors.”

  Yuhan Diyuan tilted in confusion. “That arte was a level 5 Dharma arte?”

  The brute grunted. “You sound like you’ve seen it, but yeah. So even if she strolls up here reduced to level 2 or 3 Spiritweave, she can easily use level 5 Spiritweave artes, though maybe weaker than normal. And she had a special defense arte that your stun arte won’t work against. I don’t recommend fighting her, unless you got a great number of talismans left.”

  “Most of it is gone.” Yuhan Diyuan looked at his storage ring. “But part of me wants to fight her, anyway.”

  The brute grunted again, though with an approving tone. “That’s because you’re a man.”

  Their conversations continued to the previous courtyard battle. The brute asked Yuhan Diyuan why he didn’t use his stun arte as often as he could have.

  “The threat of the stun has more of an advantage than the stun itself. Do you know how long I need to wait between uses?”

  “It seemed like you could use it whenever you want—ah!” The brute’s eyes lit up, acting like the young man had said something profound.

  Meilan, however, had no idea why that was supposed to be smart. But she wasn’t a fighter, so she didn’t think like them.

  They continued walking, stepping closer to the throne room, the very room where the Lianhua clan’s secret must remain a secret. They would need to distract Yuhan Diyuan at the proper moment, otherwise they would be forced to attack him. She never killed anyone before and she decided she would make sure Yuhan Diyuan didn’t need to go on the Lianhua’s list of enemies.

  ***

  Su Shuyi continued to float even on the third day. Another gambit board match had started a bit ago between Patriarch Dali and Xunran, but Xunran still had never won once yet.

  The portal rift shimmered. Someone came out. A Honglie cultivator with authentic demonic beast wings.

  “Xie Yanshuang!” He shouted angrily.

  Everyone’s attention snapped to him. Whatever he was angry about, though, none of them knew since the conversation changed to sound transmission. He did, however, communicate very vividly with his body language. He thrusted his finger accusatory at Xie Yanshuang and Pan Mumo. He then pointed at the portal rift. Xie Yanshuang’s face became stern. She saluted Gu Guan, who’s hand stiffened around the Wind’s Edge spirit artifact.

  A moment later, the winged Honglie member flew back inside the portal rift. Xie Yanshuang and Pan Mumo began to walk towards it as well.

  Yuhan Ranxi hovered forward.

  “Sounds like something troubling happened inside,” she said smugly.

  Xie Yanshuang scoffed. “Just a demonic beast rampaging at the castle. Nothing that won’t be dead by end of the day.”

  “Yes, and this demonic beast has glowing white eyes, right?” Yuhan Ranxi motioned to the portal rift. “Do take care. If they sent someone out here to bring you in, a lot of them must have lost their lives already.”

  “I’m no alchemist, but I do know how to rip out a beast’s core.” Xie Yanshuang spat on the ground. She and Pan Mumo entered into the portal rift.

  Xunran smiled and leaned on the gambit board. “Huh, would you look at that. I guess we never do know how it’ll turn out until the end, right?”

  Patriarch Dali sighed. “I can see your elbow pushing a piece out of position.”

  “Cheating is part of cultivation.”

  Su Shuyi’s thoughts focused back to the Carcass Grotto. She didn’t know what the situation was like inside, but the third day was the day the castle fully opened. Elder Meilan needed to enter the throne room without outsiders. Hopefully, in case Fel Yuhan Diyuan was still alive, Xie Yanshuang would distract him in time.

  Their secret was something they would be willing to wage war to keep.