Zu Mari waited atop the hill, the wind blowing his long hair.

Xashu Cougar jumped over the edge and landed in a halo of dust. He held a spear and ran forward with a gleam of hatred in his pale yellow eyes.

"I won't let you be destroyed this time," Zu Mari promised Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death, then leapt forward to meet his nemesis.

Xashu reacted quickly, too quickly for Zu to finish him off in a single blow like he had the first time. Instead, Xashu and Zu clashed in a gust of wind and power. The weight of Xashu’s spirit weighed on Zu immediately, making it harder to think or move. But he wasn’t as unprepared now, and he let his inner phoenix rise up within him. Its fire burned through the oppressive presence surrounding him, giving Zu space to breathe.

After a moment of furious exchanges, the two combatants disengaged and stood back, watching each other warily.

“You are surprisingly strong for a Mari,” Xashu sneered, flexing his grotesquely huge muscles, “but it won’t be enough to defeat me!”

“I’ve killed you before and I’ll kill you again,” Zu promised darkly. “You are strong and fast, but not as strong and fast as me. If not for your presence and technique, you’d already be dead.”

Xashu laughed aloud, a twisted and mocking sound. “Presence and technique? That is all that there is to power! Mere physical strength is insufficient. It is only the power of your core and the clarity of your abilities that matters.”

“Then you are outmatched, because my core is perfect,” Zu said with well-earned pride in his accomplishments.

“Your core is pathetic and weak.” Xashu dismissed Zu’s strength in his ignorance. “It doesn’t matter how well-formed your base is if it is an empty foundation. You can build shoddy advancement as easily on a perfect core as on a fractured one.”

"Then watch and see!" Zu sprang forward again, his phoenix flaring out to push him forward. "Capturing Spirit Vision!"

The world seemed to slow as he flew through the air, his family’s secret technique that allowed him to analyze an enemy’s form also working to show him minute changes in Xashu’s stance and analyze him for weaknesses.

Xashu was weaker and his core was flawed. He would remain stuck where he was forever, while Zu would soon surpass him and claim his rightful place in the heavens. But Xashu did have both monstrous strength and a tyrannical aura, which were all that saved him from being instantly destroyed before Zu’s might.

Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death had said he needed to attain mastery, not just perfection, and Zu had taken his wise mentor’s words to heart.

Xashu’s whip slashed through the air, moving in twisting coils like a living thing, its patterns tearing rents in the flow of the world’s energy. The sickly glow around it was not a glow, but a wrongness in the verity of existence.

Zu knew that he must stop this foe, as much to prevent greater damage to the soul of the world as to save Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death.

“I give my power to you,” he whispered, and unleashed the Phoenix spirit, sending it into Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death. Immediately the aura of his sword shifted, its crimson glow turning to brilliant gold of purest sunlight, while the deep purple seemed to grow darker still. Like fire and shadow, Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death burned through the air, catching the whip mid-strike. Zu’s mighty stroke sliced the whip into four pieces. The remnants of the whip fell limp to the ground where they would never again do harm.

Xashu roared in rage and took up his mighty sword, but Zu felt no fear. Only the perfect unity of spirit between himself, Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death, and the phoenix that bound their souls together in fire and destruction. Perfect harmony in unquenchable balance.

Xashu didn’t understand. Everything had just changed. He was nothing but a child now

He charged forward as though Zu were still only a master cultivator, and not a master swordsman.

Zu shifted to the side, raised his blade and tilted it a fraction. The unyielding flames cut through Xashu’s heavy aura as easily as a scimitar through a leaf. Xashu couldn’t stop fast enough, his eyes widening as he realized his peril too late. His momentum carried him forward as he frantically brought his sword up to block.

Too slow. Too late.

Xashu’s body slammed full force, impaling him upon the flaming blade.

“Impossible,” he breathed, as his body and soul burned away to nothing but ashes drifting in the breeze.

Zu stood over the pile of remains for a moment, paying respect to the warrior who’d foolishly tried to stop him, his long hair blowing dramatically in the wind. Then he knelt and picked up the stone on its chain, the only thing remaining from Xashu. He blew off the ashes of its former owner, then replaced it around his own neck where it belonged.

Death Shadow flew up and landed on his shoulder with a welcoming hoot. “Well done, wise master! Your knowledge and mastery are unsurpassed!”

But Zu’s eyes were full of determination. “Not yet,” he said, his eyes roaming across the forest below. “I will be unsurpassed only once I have felled my nemesis: the Demonic Prune Tree must fall!”

It was unforgivable that a mere demon tree had killed him, Zu Mari. He would rather face Xashu Cougar a thousand times than admit defeat to a mere tree.

“This time, I shall not fail!”