Destiny in Cinders

Sword flashes came down heavily like rain, glinting like powerful tides carrying the unmistakable scent of death. In the instant An Jing faced the countless heart swords, his eyes widened. Deep within his gold-crimson True Spirit Eyes, one could see hints of the workings of the Spherical-Heaven Principle! With Temporal Grasp active, An Jing took a deep breath that seemed to last for an eternity until the qi within his body burned from the tension, compressing and circulating at double the rate.

It only took an instant, but Fu Zhengan could notice the unbelievable changes that An Jing’s body experienced. His smooth, glossy black hair that looked like raven feathers suddenly withered. Then, the blazing flame and lightning within his eyes dimmed. His vigor fizzled away, followed by his qi essence. An Jing’s body hunched over during his impressive and powerful charge. Even the bounce and luster of his skin was nowhere to be seen.

This all seemed like an illusion. It took mere moments for a young and spry martialist like An Jing to turn into an old man who was moments away from the grave, nothing but a walking corpse! Fu Zhengan froze in confusion for a moment, causing the countless lively heart swords to lose their target for an instant, allowing An Jing to survive the most dangerous moment.

An Jing finally succeeded! While Brightmirror Heart had countless different profound forms, he understood his master’s form of Return. In fact, his talent allowed him to ride on his master’s coattails to take the next step ahead, going from Return to Elixir!

The elixir was crimson in color, representing the essence of blood, will of life and prenatal form. Those who bear the elixir bear the potential for rebirth and rejuvenation and could gather innate qi to stabilize one’s life! This was Brightmirror Heart’s form of elixir incubation! An Jing had achieved it with the power of a wonder of Void Embrace’s martial path!

In the next instant, An Jing pushed his soul using Temporal Grasp and used Ming Guangchen’s Brightmirror Heart wonder to ”return” the aura, qi essence and spirit energy around him, allowing him to detonate the grand elixir of qi essence!

Typically, the detonation of the qi essence and energy within the body resulted in instant death from the internal meridians being ripped apart. An Jing, however, had Temporal Grasp and Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal. He could regulate the precise trajectories of qi essence within his body while his thoughts were accelerated according to the principles of elixir incubation and Heaven’s Child Art to redirect the explosive power that should’ve torn his meridians to shreds for his own use!

Every single wonder inherited from Mirror Me played the role the qi-essence-filled grand elixir core’s fuse. Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal reinforced An Jing’s physical body, increasing its resilience and inward pressure to boost the blast’s explosive power! In fact, the Hexsun Formation itself collapsed during the annihilation, a sign that the full power of an adept was concentrated at a singular, compressed point only to be unleashed in an instant! The magnitude of that kind of power and impact was difficult to comprehend.

It only took a single moment. An Jing’s depowered body continued to slump ahead. In that extremely weakened state, he was not too different from a corpse. But the moment he achieved elixir incubation, he took another step forward right as his face touched the ground and launched himself into the air! The ground beneath him cracked, forming spiderweb fractures around where his foot was, sending chunks of stone and dirt into the air.

Fu Zhengan, meanwhile, weaved a web of swords in the sky, waiting there like a spider waiting for prey. Yet, the only thing that came smashing his way was a figure holding a pair of violet-gold maces, covered entirely in Evenstar lethal qi! This was no little fly for the spider to prey on; it was a massive, feral beast!

An Jing’s pale skin turned crimson like blood without warning. His eyes shone like radiant suns. The veins on his arms pulsed powerfully, appearing as tough as steel. Then, cracks resembling those on a damaged porcelain surface spread outward from within his body. His blood flowed like piping hot magma and gave off rising steam!

This attack would hurt his enemies more than it would hurt him. He blended all the profound martial insights he got in his past and current lives and used up Mirror Me’s power in one final burst, amassing sheer brute force. Even he didn’t know how powerful he truly was in that state.

Thunder rumbled time and again as lightning bolts pelted the web rapidly, instantly setting it aflame. The Deepsoul Heartsword Formation immediately contorted and distorted. All the swords that shot toward him crumbled instantly. An Jing’s ability, Qiform Arsenal, and his trait from the Evenstar enhanced the durability of the weapons to their limits. As they swept across the air, smashing even more of those swords that flew toward him. With but a single step, An Jing had broken near a hundred heart swords and forcefully closed the distance to Fu Zhengan!

”This is impossible! Die for me!” Seeing An Jing approach in the span of an instant, Fu Zhengan had no idea what happened to An Jing at all. He thought that An Jing had merely used some kind of playing-dead technique to trick the homing capabilities of his heart swords, but there seemed to be more than that, such as An Jing’s sudden increase in physical capabilities!

Facing the threat of death, Fu Zhengan no longer had the luxury of trying to figure this out. With a loud grunt, his survival instincts kicked in. Then, his lifearc halo glowed and turned behind his head, causing a mystical formation to appear, linking five bright stars together! Those were his wonders, Upper Profound Soul, Dantian Ocean, Cycle Network, Jade Marrow and Dew-Bearing Pillar. They joined together within his fundamental formation diagram, the Deepsoul Heartsword Formation.

A spark of will emerged from Fu Zhengan’s mind, transforming his innate qi into light. It spread through the circulatory network of his dantian and meridians, reached his bones, traveled up his spine and gathered into a sword of light that emerged out of his head. The photonic blade emitted a blinding radiance as it unleashed a blazingly bright horizontal slash.

An Jing managed to swerve aside right the next instant, but his right arm and chest still got sliced through! The cut was so clean that the stump of his arm was as smooth as a polished mirror. Traces of arcane-seal patterns were visible from the blood that leaked out. His beating heart could be seen through the wound in his chest, spurting out mists of blood.

Did I win?! Fu Zhengan was overjoyed. His heart swords were far superior to typical weapons. Even martialists who practiced body reinforcement wouldn’t be able to block them. Yet, he saw something that caused him to doubt his own eyes right after.

The bones in An Jing’s right arm and chest had been sliced through completely, leaving only thin strips of flesh that kept the parts connected. Yet, he didn’t seem fearful in the least. In fact, the bloody glow in his eyes shone even brighter.

Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal surged at full power, causing the arcane seals within his flesh to activate. Then, his severed right arm snapped back into its original position as if it had been pulled back by a powerful magnet. The wound on his chest also shrank into a healed scar. Though the bloody injury had neutralized most of the momentum An Jing was packing, his control over the remaining force was even more exquisite than before. His injuries hadn’t properly healed, but he was well enough to swing his maces down at Fu Zhengan!

How in the— He raised both arms to block, but martialists of the Seated Mirage Sect simply didn’t have the bodily constitution required to bear the full-force attack, fueled by the explosive power approximating that of a Clearing Realm adept. One of the devastated maces smashed squarely into his head and sent his entire body flying. His skull caved in while he was still in the air and exploded into a bloody mist! Then, the headless corpse landed on the street, twitching for a few moments before it stopped moving entirely.

Countless serpentine bolts of lightning came crashing down as rain fell. An Jing landed heavily on the ground, sending dirt and stone flying, motionless as the raindrops pelted him. His presence became incredibly weak. The side effects from using elixir incubation finally caught up to him. All of Ming Guangchen’s Mirror Me power had been drained.

An Jing’s body was also heavily injured, not to mention the lost blood. However, his eyes were still lucid and his breathing even. In fact, he smiled as if he had benefited immensely.

”What in the...”

The ghostly figure and Bo Zongshan had just shaken themselves free of the lightning and flames from the explosion, covered entirely in wounds. They looked at An Jing as if they were looking at a monster in the guise of a human being.

”Did Fu Zhengan just... die?”

”One down...” An Jing turned around; the immense blood loss he suffered made him as pale as a ghost. ”Two to go.”