Demonic Tribulations - Chapter 52 preview (Patreon)

**Author note - Captain Mao is female, I do need to fix these typos since I put he instead of she. These chapters are rough drafts and in the final version this will fixed. - Tao

Chapter  52 - CMYW

Captain Mao begrudgingly had to admit to himself that she was no fool. Once the darkness reached her, the Ascendant had begun moving. Darting to the side, angling to close the distance but not in a straight charge.

He was beginning to understand how she thought. The ex-merchant would never come at him in a straight line but would always attempt to find a weakness first to exploit. Her fans were but an extension of that philosophy, the way it captured and transferred attacks over, trading defense and attack at the same time. Always at a cost to the other, as it drained a portion of the energy of anything that entered the shadow realm.

The darkness was not entirely for show, however, or to blind her. It also allowed him to call upon the forms trapped in his armour, stolen from past opponents. Echoes of their slain souls, forever trapped for his to command.

“The baimin are white ghosts, often fighting with their spirit companions rather than doing battle alone. They are cavalry and harassers, slipping in to nip at our flanks and then darting away. Their companions very presence scare our mounts and makes even the most stalwart hesitate a little.” The darkness faded, leaving him with white armour and highlights of black. He strode forward, swinging his weapon and a freezing wave of cold rushed outwards, a glacial gust that caught Yang Mu by surprise.

As she struggled to stand upright into the wind, snow and sand mixing together to blind her and force a hand to rise and the fan to open as an instrument of protection and shade rather than a weapon, Ya Wen flickered forward. Carried on the cold, he appeared by her side and struck with the butt of his polearm.

She took the strike in her ribs, kicking out at the last moment to strike his arm as she flew away. The counter-attack was weak and hit mostly his armour, so he ignored it as he surged forward.

“They are sneaks and utilize ice chi. Alone, they are dangerous. Together, they utilize a clan-based cultivation method that empowers a single champion.” He punctuated each sentence with a swing, causing Yang Mu to dodge. Its passage left traces of frost behind, ice hanging in the air and coating the surroundings. Her robes were growing tight, frost lining the outside and if she had not concentrated her own chi, the cold would have leeched into her body as well.

Even Ya Wen’s movements had changed, mimicking the attacks he had once noted. The new Ascendant was fast though, ascertaining the gap that he left for her in a half-dozen passes and striking into it. The edged tips of her closed fan punched through a gap above his polearm, sent him skipping backwards as he recovered his balance.

Shadows erupted from his cloak and armour, enveloping him. When he returned, he left the polearm in the floor and rushed forward, a new form now. Robes instead of armour, though the robes were a strong as amour themselves. He moved in a strange, skipping fashion, one foot and then another shifting directory, arms swinging wide but furiously.

Clumsy attacks, but her own retaliations bounced off the robes. Black robes bounced off the opened, cutting edges of the fans and knees that went into thighs and torso.

“Elder jiangshi, risen from the accumulation of yin chi. There are demonic realms where the jiangshi dominate, controlling all. The regular are pitiful, unworthy of discussion. The elders move with more fluidity and are nearly important to harm without the proper weapon.”

Another blow, turning his face. He spun around, hands striking her own and then rotated backwards like a top, swinging his arms at full extension to catch and throw her into the sky to slam into the protective barrier.

She caught herself, slid downwards as he continued to speak, not having followed up.

“Your fans are worthless. Bring a peach wood sword.” Shadows, engulfing him, replacing him now. He hunched lower, his body lower to the ground, two cured swords with sharpened tips formed for shadows in his hands. Black hair hung over his body, while his helmet had a red tongue hanging out of it.

“The aoyin are four-legged in their base form. Killing their mortal forms just requires sufficient force or a precision strike against their red tongues as they attempt to consume your heart and brains. Their immortal forms are humanoid, their horns become their swords, their tongues retract.”

He blurred again, charging her. More straightforward in his attacks, but fast and aggressive. She defended, striking back, but once again found herself unable to injure him and barely able to divert his movements.

Only when she managed to slip his own striking short sword through a fan, have it reappear from the shadow beneath the flapping red tongue and have it strike itself did Ya Wen concede the battle. As he fell back, allowing Yang Mu to catch her breath did he reiterate his point.

“The aoyin’s weakness is the same still – their concentration of their core energies in their tongue. Watch for such concentrations, focus on your dao and your spirit senses. You fight like a mortal, thinking the solution is the same as before.

“You are wrong.”

To punctuate his point, shadows wrapped around him again. Ya Wen smirked as he watched the surprise in Yang Mu’s eyes as his head lurched forward, nearly headbutting her. She stumbled to the side, as he whispered, head spinning to track her on the extra long, near snake-like neck followed.

“The fei tou luan are dangerous, for they use all five of their limbs to fight.” She struck with the closed edge of her fan, but the helmet he wore deflected the strike. In the meantime, his body snuck up on her, striking from a different angle and surrounding her, the sweeping polearm catching her in the center of her body and folding her in half.

“Pay attention! Or die.”

She managed to roll out of the way of the descending blade, barely. He had slowed the attack to give her time to recover and escape, of course. This was a training session after all. Still, he did not allow her long to recover, as he charged on, head bobbing and striking from above, around, his body joining in.

It was a strain, however, controlling his body in this way. The more esoteric forms were always hardest to utilize. It drained his energies, strained his armour and intensified the burn behind his eyes. All of which he ignored, as he watched her begin to understand.

He could feel her reaching for her dao, to tap into her spiritual senses further and note the flow of chi. Each of the demons he showcased had a weakness, whether in the way they formed and utilized chi attacks or where they concentrated their core.

Strike those, and a battle could be ended before it had truly begun.

Otherwise, you had to slog through the battles. Wearing down armour and chi, testing strength against strength. To cut through the nonsense and posturing, that was what he intended. When he was done, she would fight like a soldier rather than a cultivator and be able to recognize at least some of the demons she would face.

It was all he could offer – all he would offer – to aid her in her quest.

It would up to them and the fates if it was enough.