STNS: Chapter 463 (Patreon)

The battle between Wu Jian and his replica lasted for the better part of an hour.

Most real fights did not last long. True combat typically lasted anywhere between a few minutes and a few seconds. The outcome of a fight is always unpredictable due to the fact that participants were unlikely to know each other’s abilities, strengths, or weaknesses.

A fight between oneself lasted much longer. Wu Jian knew all of his own strengths, weaknesses, and techniques, which meant they were easily countered. Of course, his replica knew everything he knew. A battle between two cultivators with the same skills and abilities always came down to a combination of outside factors and luck.

Wu Jian, having realized that acting unpredictably was the only way to throw himself off guard, had managed to claim the advantage by shattering his opponent’s Pale Moon replica. The replica was not as strong as the original. The echoforge essence likely did not have enough chi to create a true replica. While he didn’t know everything there was to know about this magical beast, he could make some theories based on common knowledge.

Arguably the most important guess was that the echoforge essence could only create a replica that had a lower cultivation than itself. If the echoforge essence was at the Seeker Realm, it would not be able to recreate an exact replica with the same strength as someone at the Realization Realm. This also explained why it hadn’t been able to create a replica of Master Yun Chi. Wu Jian assumed it had decided creating a replica of an alchemist was a waste of resources, but perhaps the more likely scenario was that it couldn’t.

As the battle raged on, Wu Jian found himself finally pushing back his replica. It had cost him his hand, which was now all but unusable, but he would take that over losing any day.

[Swords of Space Rondo - Pale Moon Variation]

Wu Jian spun Pale Moon around in a circle before him. Several swords of spatial energy appeared as if from the ether. Unlike his normal variant, which created simple blades, this time, he recreated the sword he had been wielding this entire time. It was a brand new technique that he had come up with on the spot. That also meant his replica did not have this technique.

The swords shot forward so fast they were mere blurs. His replica decided dodging was pointless. It spread its feet apart and moved its hands in circular motions, creating a massive black hole through which his swords disappeared--or would have had he not manipulated.

[Space Folding]

With a flick of his wrist, he created his own black hole right in front of his enemy’s. The swords went through it, then came out of another black hole behind his opponent, though sadly, his foe had predicted this and created a black hole to counter. Space bent and warped as the two began folding and manipulating it around his attacks. The Pale Moon replicas shot around Wu Jian’s enemy over and over but couldn’t touch him. But while his enemy was distracted, Wu Jian split his attention two ways, keeping one part of his mind focused on the swords and his constant manipulation of space around them, while the rest of him focused on manipulating space around himself.

[Teleportation]

[Nihility]

Wu Jian suddenly appeared right next to his enemy. The replica had noticed him and tried to cut him apart with a spatial attack, but Wu Jian had already activated Nihility to let it pass through. He only used Nihility around one part of his body. He reached out and grabbed his replica’s head, then squeezed.

It was a good thing replicas were not made of flesh and blood like real people. The head in his hand exploded, but not with blood, guts, and brain matter. Something akin to sand erupted between his fingers as the head vanished. His replica’s body soon fell backward, hitting the ground and bursting into particles.

Phew… that battle was a lot harder than the previous ones.

It had taken him much longer to defeat his replica than he would have liked, though he blamed that on having to battle against several other replicas at the same time. He glanced at the other replicas. They were currently in battle against their respective originals. Now that he had won, Wu Jian decided to aid his comrades.

[Swords of Space Rondo]

He created well over a dozen swords and sent them at the replicas. Tang Tiantian’s had great senses and moved out of the other, but the other replicas were perforated with numerous holes and died quickly. Tang Tiantian’s didn’t last much longer either. His attack had given the original the opening she needed to remove the enemy from the equation.

“Good work, everyone,” said Tang Tiantian. “Especially you, Jian Wu. That was some excellent fighting there. Are you okay, though? That’s a pretty severe injury.”

“Thanks, and I’m fine.”

Wu Jian held up his hand. His replica’s Pale Moon had dug straight into the flesh between his middle and ring finger. It had stopped at the bone, but his hand looked almost like it was gonna split in half. Blood was pouring from the wound as well. Actually, he was beginning to feel a little woozy. Maybe that attack had cut through one of his veins?

“Er… on second thought, maybe I should sit down for a second.”

Wu Jian pressed his back to the wall and slid to the ground. Tang Tiantian decided to help mend his wound. She took several bandages from her storage ring and began binding his hand. She also had him take a pill that would help the wound heal.

“You should be good as new in about an hour,” she told him.

“Thanks,” he said.

It was while she was tending to his injury that Master Yun Chi and Lili Ling emerged from the tunnel. He had sensed the chi from refining the pill had vanished some time ago, but he hadn’t been able to pay much attention.

“Master Yun Chi, I take it you successfully refined the pill?” asked Tang Tiantian.

“Hmph. Just who do you think you’re talking to? Of course I did,” Master Yun Chi said with his arms crossed.

A palpable sense of relief filled the tunnel. Now that they had that pill, they could take the fight to the echoforge essence.

***

It was decided that Wu Jian would take the perception pill, the reason being that, as someone who understood the Dao of Space, he had greater spatial awareness than anyone else present. The effects of the pill were quite strange. Moments after taking it, his eyes began burning. It wasn’t painful. It was just uncomfortable. The burning soon faded and his vision became very different. He no longer saw shapes. Everything was in shades of red, orange, and yellow.

“Everything looks weird,” Wu Jian murmured.

“As it should. What you’re seeing is people’s chi,” Master Yun Chi lectured. “The perception pill allows someone to see other’s chi. This isn’t limited to just humans either. You can see the chi for magical beasts and artifacts as well. The chi will show up as different colors based on the person’s, object’s, or creature’s natural affinity.”

“Whoa… you’re right.”

Wu Jian had held up his sword and saw that pale blue chi was wafting from it. So the reason he only saw red, orange, and yellow in the people around him was due to their natural affinities.

“I just realized something,” Wu Jian said after another moment. “I can’t see anything else aside from chi.”

“That is natural. Chi is not something a person can normally see. In order to make it visible, you have to see into a different spectrum than a human is normally capable of,” Master Yun Chi explained.

“Are there people who can see chi?” asked Wu Jian.

“There are a few,” Master Yun Chi shrugged. “But they are quite rare, and most of them can only see chi, so they are essentially blind.”

“Hmmm. Sounds troublesome. How long do these effects last?”

“About an hour.”

“Then we had better get moving.”

Because Wu Jian couldn’t see, he needed to have someone guide him around. This task fell to Lili Ling, who was not a fighter like the others. She took him by the hand and pulled him along.

Despite only being able to see chi, Wu Jian could still fight, though he did so from a distance, sending spatial blades and manipulating the space around their enemies. Wu Jian was even able to comprehend a bit more about space, perhaps because he could actually see the chi when he manipulated it. During one of his fights, he had manipulated his enemy’s chi with the Dao of Space and created several spatial blades inside of them. The attack had torn his enemy’s body apart from the inside out. He wondered if he’d be able to do that after the effects wore off.

It took them almost an hour to find the echoforge essence. The effects of the pill wore off barely a few seconds after Wu Jian found it. Had they not moved quickly enough, the creature might have even escaped, but Wu Jian had locked the magical beast in place before it could run and the others finished it off.

“That was almost too easy,” Wu Jian said.

“The echoforge essence is not strong on its own. That’s why it has the power to create perfect replicas. Because its own body is quite weak.” Master Yun Chi paused for a moment, then shrugged. “But I understand how you feel. That was a very anticlimactic ending for such a troublesome foe.”

“Well, now that we’ve defeated the echoforge essence, we can take on those terracotta guardians,” Tang Tiantian said.

“How about we wait for a day?” asked Wu Jian.

Everyone frowned at him.

“Why should we wait?” asked one of the bodyguards. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend another minute in this tomb than I have to.”

“I don’t either,” said Wu Jian, shrugging. “But I can’t use my trump card yet.”

“You mean that transformation?” asked Tang Tiantian.

Wu Jian nodded. “That’s right. I need to let it recharge before I can use it.”

It was not really a good idea to reveal too much about his abilities to these people. They were allies now, but they could just as easily become enemies later. The world of cultivation was one of constantly shifting alliances. However, since they were going up against a powerful enemy, Wu Jian thought it would be a bad idea to not at least give them a little information about himself to convince them to wait a day.

Tang Tiantian scratched her head in consternation. She also seemed eager to complete this mission. He understood where she and the others were coming from. He really did.

“I suppose… we could spend a day strategizing.” Tang Tiantian glanced at Master Yun Chi.

“If waiting a day can guarantee us victory, then I believe we should wait,” he said.

With their decision made, the group set up camp in an open room. Fortunately for them, the echoforge essence’s presence had ensured there were no other enemies in this general vicinity. Not only could it replicate humans perfectly, but it also did the same thing for magical beasts. The only reason the magical beasts down below were still alive was because they never left that subterranean area. The echoforge essence had deemed them non-hostile and didn’t bother with them.

During dinner, their group spent a long time discussing what to do about the terracotta guardians. Wu Jian already believed they would need to defeat them with a single strong attack that could overpower their defenses and Tang Tiantian agreed. When asked, he admitted to having an attack he believed would work, but it would take time for him to activate. That meant someone would need to distract both terracotta guardians while he channeled his chi.

“I believe we can accomplish that so long as we’re fighting to buy time,” Tang Tiantian said. “I’ll take on the terracotta guardian with the dual scimitars.” She looked at her fellow guards. “You two will distract the other one. Remember, you don’t need to fight it. You just need to keep its attention on you.”

The two men looked pale, but they both nodded. Like that, the day passed and it was soon time to begin their second battle with the terracotta guardians.