“Opportunity knocks but once.”

- Ancient Proverb

Year 258, Reign of Empress Cao Ming Yung

Even with the ability to see his opponents, the battle still wasn’t easy for Jianyu. Their dark robes obscured their faces, giving off a terrifying aura that caused him to sweat. His hands grew clammy and he forced himself to keep a grip. He had to face 4 opponents that were only a substage below his level in cultivation. Additionally, his Weak Vortex technique was almost halfway through its duration. As soon as it ran its course, Jianyu would be in dire straits.

Now that he had assessed the skill of his opponents, however, Jianyu had other techniques in his bag of tricks. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold back for this battle, and so he activated the 3rd and 4th of the Cloud Runner Sect’s signature techniques; Cloud Puppeteer and Winds of Fortune.

Cloud Puppeteer involved the cultivator allowing most of their Qi to disperse into the environment, slowing down opponents with increased air pressure, or augmenting the user’s speed. Strings of wind qi attached themselves to the cultivator’s body, allowing complete bodily control, hence the name. When used with Vortex, qi was spent at a much lower rate. Winds of Fortune was another technique with a barely perceptible impact on the battle. In this technique, the qi of the practitioner manipulated the wind itself to boost or weaken the strength of incoming or outgoing attacks.

After activating his Soul Sight, Jianyu observed that the 4 Silver Masked assassins visibly slowed down due to his Cloud Puppeteer technique. Winds of Fortune wasn’t likely to be effective against the Void-based attacks of the assassins, but he knew he had to try everything he knew to win this battle.

After the activation of his techniques, Jianyu once more engaged his opponents, this time on the offensive. He knew his only chance was to quickly dispatch one of the attackers, which would decrease the cohesion of the group greatly. He picked out one assassin who seemed to be larger and slower than the rest and targeted them exclusively.

Using the speed boost provided by Cloud Puppeteer, Jianyu defended against countless attacks. At a flash of silver speeding towards his face, he ducked, only realizing afterwards that the blade would have taken his eye. He quickly counterattacked, his jian sweeping in a crescent to defend his front.

He felt an incredible pain in his right cheek as the second attacker’s boot slammed into the back of his knee, forcing him to kneel. Cold blasted through his legs as a glacial burst of wind, burst from the pores of his calf, halting his descent. With an effort of will, he repeated the action, sending another frigid gust through his body, this time to his back to propel him forward. He held his jian firmly above his head, meeting slight resistance as he finished his slash. Even without his eyes, Jianyu knew that his blade had struck true, and he braced himself for the resulting spray of blood and viscera. Two heartbeats passed, then three. What are they, that they do not even bleed, he thought to himself as he involuntarily shuddered with disgust.

Regardless of the nature of the assassins, Jianyu’s blade had struck its target, and the assassin fell to its knees before falling to the side, dead.

Following their failed attack, Jianyu’s assailants withdrew to plan their next move. If the assassins lamented their comrade’s death, it was not visible behind their ornate silver masks. Unfortunately for him, even novice practitioners were able to communicate via a neural link, and with the assassin’s masks, he had no idea what their next move would be.

For a dozen heartbeats they waited, during which Jianyu frantically cultivated to recover the qi he had already spent. The opposing sides stared at one another, neither moving a muscle. On the surface, Jianyu looked calm, but internally, his heart was racing, hot blood rushing through his veins. Though he wasn’t breathing heavily(due to his advanced stage of body cultivation), he had no doubt that his opponents could detect his unease. He wiped the sweat from his face, putting an end to the burning in his eyes. Although he didn’t need his eyes to see his opponents, they didn’t know that, and the largest of three sprang forward to catch him off guard.

Finally, Jianyu saw an opening to attack. He knew better than to fully commit to a strike, but he couldn’t see how this could go wrong. The other two assailants were too far away to help, and the closest assassin had their guard down. Right before his blade met his opponent's robes, Jianyu felt chills down his spine. Trusting his intuition, he used the Cloud Step, appearing to step off of the air itself to propel himself backwards.

As he floated in the air, his qi slipping away from him, he sensed something that made his entire body shiver. It was as if the jaws of death themselves were closing in on him, offering no respite, and he wasn’t even hit by the full technique. Thank the ancestors that I dodged that technique, he thought to himself. The lifeblood of the world froze around him, drained to power the technique. Even Jianyu, who lacked a proper education, knew that qi was the source of all life. Without access to qi, any living being would die as soon as their reserves ran out, and he was no exception.

It would appear that the assassins had finally gotten serious.

But just as the technique was incredibly deadly, a failed activation incurred significant backlash. As Jianyu observed blue-white transcendent qi fall like rain from the heavens, he struck. His blade found purchase in the cold bodies of the assassins, stabbing and slashing until one had been decapitated and another bisected.

Unfortunately for him, just as he dispatched his opponents, reinforcements came to engage him once more. Though these new opponents were weaker, Jianyu was now facing nearly twenty opponents, and there was a strength in numbers.

In a desperate play to even the field, Jianyu performed a desperate lunge towards his opponent’s chest. The assassin turned around and attempted to block the attack between his two daggers, but this forced Jianyu’s attack to pierce his mask and through his brain, killing him instantly. Jianyu felt the ease with which his jian sliced through his opponent, as if through water. As the mask split in twain, the ghastly visage of a damned soul emerged from the head of the deceased, as their body collapsed to the ground.

Jianyu knew that he would not be able to dodge the attacks of his other opponents, but he had decided that it was a necessary danger. Even if he would die with even a miniscule exposure to Void Qi, he had one final trump card. As attacks descended upon him from 3 directions simultaneously, the first assassin stabbing toward his temple and neck, a second towards his right leg, and a third towards his heart and lower torso, Jianyu activated the 5th and final signature technique of the Cloud Runner Sect; Cloud Body. As his body turned ethereal, he slaughtered his opponents, his intangible body offering no purchase for the assailants’ weapons.

In this form, every second counted, so he wasted no time targeting the body. Instead, his blade sought eyes, mouths, scalps, and ears, the blood that would have covered his body instead painting the ground crimson. It felt like a dream to the young cultivator, his senses muted by his technique. Any resistance bones typically offered was nonexistent, and so his movements were perfectly fluid.

After only six opponents remained, Jianyu deactivated his technique. Even though Cloud Body had been active for less than ten heartbeats, it still drained half of his energy stores, leaving him only a fifth of his maximum.

Jianyu knew he had to end the battle quickly, so after pulling his jian from the corpse of his defeated opponent, he kneecapped the assassin that had been aiming for his torso with a cut behind him. With his Soul Sight, Jianyu had an omnidirectional detection ability, making such an attack easy for him.

After crippling his previous victim, he descended upon the final five assassins in a flurry of jabs and slices. His first jab was directed towards the heart of the opponent on his left. His opponent barely managed a simple redirection such that his blade would go wide, but Jianyu turned his body, putting the second opponent in danger of bisection. He put all of his strength into this attack, so when the assassin attempted to block, he was thrown back, crashing into the west wall of the outer courtyard with an audible crack before laying still.

Though only three remained, Jianyu didn’t let his guard down. He knew that even a single mistake could result in his end, so he carefully sized up his opposition. He watched on in disbelief as two of the remaining assailants ran themselves through with their own blades. Their bodies disappeared, sucked through a portal into the Void before Jianyu could blink.

This strange turn of events did not bode well, and he still had one opponent. Though he could not determine the gender of his opponent, they were slender in figure and almost as tall as he was, clothed in black robes as dark as starless night. The dark viscosity unique to Void Qi dripped from the tips of their daggers, before fading into the ethereal plane, gone from the world entirely.

If the Sect’s research on the Void Sect was correct, he thought to himself, that was likely a sacrificial technique.

As if confirming his fears, a crunching sound was audible from the body of the assassin, and they began to contort into shapes that broke bones and tore muscles. The assassin was eerily silent, further irking him. When the transformation ended, his opponent had increased in size by nearly half, and their mask began to change color from silver to gold. Jianyu eyed this development with a modicum of fear and caution, as he knew he could not defeat a gold masked assassin alone. To his relief, the mask only turned into a swirling mixture of gold and silver, as if the breakthrough was only halfway complete.

Either this is a unique limit-breaking technique, thought Jianyu, or this opponent just broke through in cultivation during this battle. Geniuses like this put him to shame, and he envied how they just received what he had to work for years to achieve.

Jianyu mentally prepared himself for the most difficult battle of his life, running through the techniques and stances he could use to better his chances. The duration of Vortex had elapsed, though it hadn’t done much anyways, as Void Qi was unaffected by the technique. Instead, it had only recycled the qi wasted as a result of his own flawed techniques. Given how much he had trained while in seclusion, the qi he recovered wasn’t substantial.

Although the opponent had broken through to the peak of Foundation Establishment, it appeared that the transformation had destroyed any semblance of rationality, as they began their assault with a frontal attack that Jianyu could read from several li away. He waited until the last moment, allowing his opponent to get within his guard, before dodging to the side and slicing towards their right Achilles. What he wasn’t prepared for was his blade bouncing off of the assassin, throwing him off his balance and barely leaving a scratch upon his opponents skin.

This turn of events caused Jianyu to bring the full strength of his Organ Tempering Body Cultivation to bear. First, he forced his heart to pump faster, increasing oxygen flow to his muscles, and allowing him to have a more drawn out and faster-paced duel. Although this would render him completely vulnerable for a day after its use, Jianyu saw no other option. Next, he accelerated the speed at which his synapses fired, allowing him to make quicker decisions and react at an enhanced rate. With this, he risked damaging his nervous system, but he had no choice. It was either that or die.

Finally ready for his opponent, Jianyu slowly assumed the bow stance, his feet parallel, his weight on the balls of his feet. Without hesitation, his opponent attacked once more. Their daggers were a flurry of motion as they sought purchase on Jianyu’s body. Since he only had the advantage at a distance, his opponent moved within his guard, forcing him to dodge every attack. Jianyu was barely able to keep up, a streak of black and purple causing him to reflexively block a strike that never came. Realizing his mistake, he tried to retreat, but his opponent would not oblige him. As he backpedaled, he felt the blade cut through the hairs on his chin. His body was already near its limit, and despite this, he couldn’t afford to stop. He ducked under a slash aimed at his head, before stepping to his left to avoid a stab towards his right side. Jianyu attempted to increase the distance between them, but the assassin closed it just as quickly, putting him in a dangerous position.

His opponent was ferocious, never stopping or slowing his tempo. The two warriors, disciple and assassin, settled into a rhythm, the former predicting the latter even as the latter cemented their victory.

After a few more bouts, Jianyu knew he couldn’t continue this forever. He grimly debated what to do. At this rate, I’ll be dead within an incense time, he thought to himself. It’s all or nothing now. Even if his opponent was predictable, they were too agile for him to capitalize on any openings. If they won’t give me any chances, I’ll have to create one, he concluded. His mind settled, Jianyu prepared for the end. A poor block sent him reeling, his wrist badly sprained.

He let out an involuntary yelp as the pain eclipsed every other thought in his mind, and like an injured animal, he tried to escape. Predictably, his grotesque assailant followed. After gaining distance, in the moment before his opponent closed, Jianyu sent a crisp burst of qi through the soles of his feet, somersaulting over his opponent. He held his blade firmly above his head as he spun. The assassin blocked this first strike with crossed daggers, staggering back from the sheer power Jianyu was drawing upon. But to his dismay, the assassin held fast. His time had come.