Qi Like Tar

Paike pulled deeper on the qi layered into his body. Focusing on his physical cultivation, he delved further and found that special thing about his attunement. He grabbed it and it grabbed him back, but this time he was prepared.

The last time he had tried this he had lost himself completely. Last time it had dragged him down and consumed him whole. This time he fought to hold on. The disassociation from his body that he had experienced was not allowed to overwhelm him. When he moved and looked up at the Topaz cultivator, he felt as if he was far from his body, but not as if he was watching himself from above.

Going deeper, he directed qi to pool at his extremities, from there it seemed to take over. His extremities slowly oozed qi, along not only his fingers, but this time along the blades of his forearms and moving to coat the staff as well. The tips of his fingers felt as if they were tipped in steel, and the staff was a naked blade.

A primitive instance told him that only the layer of qi on his hands prevented his fingers and plans from being flayed as he held the blade like a staff. The patterns the qi took were reminiscent of the plates that his physical cultivation had formed in his subdermal layer.

He stepped forward and snapped the blade to his side, a motion he had trained many times with the staff, but never one that was sharp. As his robe billowed with his movement the staff sliced through a part of his sleeve and the edge of the robe flowing beside him. Leaving two pieces of cloth flapping away in the light breeze.

All five of the Fang clan froze, watching him as he could feel the retreating forms of his teammates behind him. Instead of running around and trying to make their way to the sect compound, they were retreating back towards the training ground.

Perhaps they would fetch Elder Ji. The thought was distant as Paike crouched from his position and sprang forward, his staff that was now a solid blade spinning through the air as it flashed towards the Topaz cultivator's throat.

The young boy frantically got his sword up in time, but Paike's staff sheared right through it with minimal effort. The Topaz cultivator fell back, avoiding the blade but losing several strands of hair as he did so. Then a Peak Ruby cultivator came at Paike from the side, and Paike snapped a kick out, the qi coating not on his legs, but somehow the force traveled up his knee, but much slower than it normally would. It was as if he were using a steel beam to kick the boy instead of his own flesh and blood.

The Peak Ruby cultivator doubled over as he was sent flying backwards, blood coming out of his mouth and nose, as Paike spun the staff in his other hand. Feeling a Late Ruby and a Middle Ruby cultivator coming at him from that side, he heard a scream of pain and a slight tug as the blade passed through flesh, and a slight clang as it knocked a dagger out of another hand.

He barely had time to look to see a hand lying in the dirt as it rolled over, as his staff whirled over his head and stabbed down at another cultivator who flung themselves in the dirt and rolled. The Topaz cultivator was coming back, and Paike swept low with his staff, forcing him to jump.

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He let go fo the staff with one hand, and backhanding the cultivator's face. His nails seemingly trailed the reinforced qi with the razor sharpe stone tips as they tore four deep lines from one cheek to the other, nearly bisecting the cultivator's nose.

Paike was mostly not in control, and a part of him was aghast at the brutality and blood. He'd been trained to fight, but fighting other cultivators was an exchange of techniques, and perhaps one would die from backlash or be overwhelmed by their qi. But it was always a sort of distant description in his training.

Sure, he had seen blood and injuries, but it was different. This was not someone who had just been injured in an exchange. This was more primal. There was no smoking body having been struck by lightning, but a ferocity that wasn't part of the civilized view of cultivators. He was tearing them apart like some vicious spirit. No face or consideration given.

He had always been taught to be the warrior who fought to win. Never let your enemy recover, or speak. Keep the pressure up and talk when you have complete victory.

Well, he was winning. Maybe. He twisted, and his knee popped again. But despite the flare of pain, it didn't alter his movement, as he used the back side of his elbow to bludgeon aside one other Middle Ruby cultivator and a knee to crush the sternum of the last one.

Paike stood in the center of opponents who were either groaning or chugging healing pills. The Topaz cultivator was back on his feet, the gashes in his face beginning to close as he tossed aside an empty vial of some elixir, glaring daggers.

"Kong Paike!" he screamed as he flashed forward, the broken half of his sword rimmed with flames.

Paike spun his staff to meet it, and the qi struck qi and bounced off, the flames fluttering, but his staff remained undamaged. Paike's thoughts took an abstract path far away form the fight. That shouldn't have been possible. Despite everything, the Topaz cultivator was still a realm above him. His qi should not be the one threatening to break. Was the higher realm qi of that spirit creature in the cave do this much? That didn’t seem possible.

As his body fought on instinct, Paike examined the qi forming around his arms and staff, even as he continued to fight with only part of his brain.

No, his was still Ruby powered qi. He had broken it down enough that whatever higher realm influence was no longer affecting it. And as he watched, he noticed that the qi was also wavering at the point where it had clashed with the Topaz fire qi. If anything it was disrupted even more intently than the Fang cultivator's fire, but slower, as if the vibrations were moving through a viscous liquid rather than water.

This was just his innate lack of fluidity in his qi. His lack of talent.

The slow ripples of light—every time his qi received a blow, it rippled like a still pond with a rock thrown in it, but at a fraction of the speed. As Paike focused on the qi around him and meditated on how his physical cultivation was reacting to the damage in his knee or how it moved with his body, he began to slip further away, his consciousness fading further and further from the fight.

Until there was nothing but the qi around his body, and a growing pain in every single fiber of his being. As the qi roared in exultation at the bloody fight around it, the pain and roar grew step by step until it was overwhelming. There was nothing Paike could do but scream in his mind, as his body was doing its own thing that he could no longer even sense. There was blackness, blackness, and qi and pain, and that was all.

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