Hui Ming

The shell around me was breaking. A hammer struck the pod. A jagged crack opened down the middle. It was midnight, but light from the cultivators flowed through the crack into the dark interior. I never thought I would dread to see light.

Dao and many cultivators above the sixth stage were outside.

I looked through the crack. The hammer was as tall as its wielder. The head of the hammer was a huge block of metal. He smashed it into the crack. A series of deafening thuds rang out as the same hammer came down on the shell. The strikes widened the crack, allowing more light into the shell. I shrunk back, my heart pounding.

This man was at least at the seventh stage. A man stood outside swinging a hammer as tall as he was. I couldn’t see much, but I knew the market around us must have been decimated. My master’s shell and I were at the bottom of a ragged crater. Dozens of powerful cultivators stood at its edge. They were heroes, commanders, and tyrants. People of extraordinary strength. Two emitted auras on par with my old sect’s elders.

The mere presence of these people threw the ambient Qi in the air into disarray. Tornadoes formed and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

They followed the commands of somebody floating on a flying sword. It was Dao. I stared at Dao through the shell and he stared back.

One last hammer blow destroyed what was left of the shell. I jumped out and Dao’s cultivators attacked.

My Qi was at the sixth stage and I had a toughened body. Master had given me a series of pills that made my body as tough as that of an eighth stage cultivator. But that wasn’t enough to stop this group. These were the rulers of the land. Dao had found enough powerhouses to overrun just about anything except the top tier sects.

After a quick count, I determined there were fifteen people coming at me. This was a team that could sweep through the city. Me alone couldn't stop them. The only ones who could stop them were sect ancestors. Escape was my only option, but that was also impossible.

I rose the flat of my blade to the sky. I put my hands on both ends of the sword. The massive hammer smashed into it. My arms buckled and the hammer knocked me to the ground. I gripped my sword and struck back.

I took a sharp breath. I felt a ridiculous amount of Qi focused in one place behind me. They attacked from the front and back.

The man with the hammer tried to block my sword with a gloved hand. I jerked my blade down, evading his hand and slashing at his knees. The hammer wielder shifted his leg away. My blade nicked his kneecap.

At the same time, I aimed a kick behind me. My armored shoes met a spear, head on.

The spear overpowered my kick, but that was the plan. The spear pushed me up and I used the momentum to propel myself to the sky. I shot into the sky like a bird fleeing its cage.

I looked down with a bird’s eye view. Our short exchange had been more destructive than I thought it would be. A cloud of dust hovered over the battleground. A gust of wind blew the dust aside, revealing many scars we carved into the earth. Those scars were just the beginning.

The dust, cracks in the earth, and everything else lie at the bottom of a much larger crater. Scars within scars, this was the result of the short battle.

I could feel the power flowing through, the power from my master’s pills. I wasn’t familiar with this power.

A woman jumped at me, meeting me in the air. She carried a knife in her right hand and wore a green mask. She sighed through her mask as if she was reluctant to attack me. Her movements were controlled and precise, unlike the brute force of the others.

I swung the sword at her. With a flow created by decades of experience, her knife guided my sword away. She spun vertically. Her foot slammed into the back of my head, sending me back down to the ground.

A wall of gold was waiting for me at the bottom. Light distorted and time itself seemed to shiver. Qi congregated around a ninth stage cultivator’s sword. The intangible Qi turned into a tangible golden energy. He didn’t wait for me to fall to him. He sprung up.

I saw that sword and trembled. There was no way I could take that blade. I smashed the second and last box father had given me. Another shell grew around me. The gold sword sunk into the shell but it didn’t cut through.

Is this it? I guess it has to be. I could make one more gamble at an escape, but the chance of success was too small. My master said he would come if he could, but unless he came in the next half a minute...

I heard a crunching sound over the noise of our battle. It sounded like somebody was grinding boulders together. It got louder and louder. I saw Dao glance sideways. His eyes widened. “Disperse!” he yelled.

Everybody looked at him in confusion.

Red light overwhelmed the golden glow from the sword. It lit up the night sky, brighter than the sun or anything else I had seen before. The red wave rammed against the shell. The pod jerked to the side, smashing me against its walls.

I looked out and gasped, my calm from before replaced by panic and confusion. I could be at peace with death, but not the phenomenon occurring outside. Hundreds of red lights caught me and the shell in their destructive embrace. Death awaited anybody who resisted the tide.

Swept by the tide of red, the ninth stage cultivator that had attacked me bounced past me. Without a shell around him, he had to devote all his attention to defense.

One by one, the lights vanished. The shell tumbled to a stop. The wave had been so violent it decimated the rest of the shell. I stepped out and stared at it. Dozens of gaping holes covered shell. I looked to the side and saw a lane blasted through the city layout.

A line appeared in the city, everything on that line became rubble.

My eyes went down the line of destruction and ended at an enormous green...thing. It was a building mounted on two rotating treads. Power rods mounted its front end, pointed in my direction. A familiar face stood atop the green monster.

Jing.