Black and White

I fended off her first attack, but the next one sent me hurtling away. I coughed, feeling the world spin about me. The effects of a soul attack, huh? Fortunately, Ghost Fang in my spatial pouch mitigated that, absorbing the worst oof the soul attack away.

Throwing out a hand, I managed to push myself off the ground and propel myself backward. Bai Ning Shuang pressed her attack, those soul-like wisps leaving her blade and creating an illusory effect that obscured my vision.

Closing my eyes, I relied more on my qi sense to block her next strike. But she channeled more strength and a burst of devastating white qi knocked me to the side. Hitting the ground, I rolled away and tried to get up to a knee.

"Darken, Abyssal Edge!"

My katana transformed into the usual black sword and I parried Bai Ning Shuang's next attack more successfully. Her white soul qi washed over me, but I neutralized it with Shadow Sword Strike. Black and white qi clashed, swirling and exploding in a spherical maelstrom that almost resembled the yin yang symbol.

Both of us sprang apart, our weapons vibrating violently from that fierce exchange. Undaunted, Bai Ning Shuang lunged at me again, immediately attacking as best as she could. I met her white soul attack with my Shadow Sword Strike, and the arena was filled with colliding waves of black and white qi. The ground underneath our feet crumbled, but we paid no heed to our disintegrating surroundings as we traded another couple of blows.

Twirling her sword about fancifully, Bai Ning Shuang delivered a riposte that almost cut through my arm. I retaliated with a swing of my sword, shadows surging out of the black blade to overwhelm her. If I couldn't defeat her with swordsmanship, I could at least overwhelm her with my superior amount of qi.

After all was said and done, I was still at a higher level of cultivation realm.

Using my greater quantity of qi to my advantage, I obliterated whatever soul techniques Bai Ning Shuang had and blasted her swordsmanship aside using raw power. It was incredibly inefficient, but it was the only strategy I had…for now. Fortunately, it was something Bai Ning Shuang wasn't expecting, so I could catch her off guard this one time.

"Ugh!"

Bai Ning Shuang retreated from the pressure, black wisps of qi fuming from her arms and shoulders. Blood dripped on the ground from shallow wounds, but at the very least I had hurt her. That was all that mattered for now.

Unfortunately, it would only work the first time. Raw strength and brute force were fine and all, but they weren't everything. Sure, they provided some advantage, but the reason why people developed techniques was to overcome the different in physical prowess. Yeah, you always had a bunch of idiots making fun of other people for being "weak" – but martial arts were techniques created for the so-called weak to defend themselves against the strong in the first place. Otherwise what was the point of learning martial arts and techniques if you were going to brute force everything?

All those morons championing absolute power with quotes like "all strategies and tricks are meaningless in the face of absolute power" were just being idiots. "You can't fight nukes with sticks and stones!" Well, duh…if you were fighting them head-on, then you deserve to lose. Why do you think nations developed intelligence agencies that were skilled in infiltration, subterfuge and hacking? A superpower could have all the nukes in the world, but a genius hacker could simply override the systems and detonate the store of nuclear armaments right inside their own arsenal and reduce the poor country into a radioactive wasteland.

It wasn't always about so-called absolute power. Intelligence was more often than not the deciding factor. Wars weren't won because of a single champion laying waste to thousands of foes with his godlike skills. They were won by strategy, efficient use of resources and sheer grit.

All those cultivation story authors probably played too much Dynasty Warriors or something.

In any event, I knew that depending on a greater amount of qi wouldn't work out in the long term. Already Bai Ning Shuang was adjusting her strategy and changing her stance, her footwork becoming more nimble. She was avoiding less head-to-head clashes and instead depending on swifter, more precise strokes to wear me down. With her superior swordsmanship, she could out maneuver me easily and strike from my blind spots. I was able to deflect and parry the deadliest of her blows, but I lost blood from superficial cuts that only continued to increase in number as the duel wore on.

Spinning my sword about, I knocked her aside with Shadow Dragon. Bai Ning Shuang was sent hurtling away, caught entirely by surprise. She was able to land on her feet several meters away, bleeding shallowly, but otherwise intact. She raised her sword to launch a counterattack, but I was faster than her this time.

Bombarding her with Shadow Sword Storm, I forced her to an ignoble retreat. She plunged her sword into the ground and conjured a white barrier that blocked all of the shadow swords. Heaving from the exertion, she leaned on her sword.

For all of her techniques, she was slowly being whittled down by exhaustion. I had successfully turned this into a battle of attrition, making use of my better stamina to outlast her. Bai Ning Shuang was aware that this rate of combat was not sustainable for her.

"I'll have to end this quickly," she murmured. She plunged her sword into the ground, clamped her hands together and took a deep breath.

I immediately recognized that technique. Reaching into my spatial pouch, I began making preparations of my own.

"Divine Spirit Ascension Boost!"

Bai Ning Shuang's qi increased exponentially, a white fog that unfurled to saturate the entire area in soul energy. I felt my limbs grow heavier and my mind duller, but I continued planting down talismans and artifacts in my area, working quickly to ensure I complete my formation before my foe realized what I was doing.

The moment Bai Ning Shuang temporarily broke through to Saint Realm, she ran her hand over the white blade of her sword.

"Heaven and Man as One: Divine Spirit Embodiment Descent!"

The gigantic goddess materialized over her once more, almost crouching as if to protect its summoner. Bai Ning Shuang pointed her sword at me.

"Crush him!"

The gigantic goddess lifted her hand and made to flatten me with her palm, but I activated my fully set up formation at the same time. Four gates and a central palace materialized, along with their five guardians.

Black Tortoise of the North. Vermillion Phoenix of the South. Green Dragon of the East. White Tiger of the West. And Golden Kirin of the Center.

They swarmed the goddess immediately, their spiritual and intangible bodies bursting with power. The gates and central palace glowed in resonance, and they unleashed their respective elements with unbridled fury. A tidal wave washed over the goddess, knocking her off her feet. An inferno engulfed her, incinerating her robes and azure-tinted spiritual skin. Wood wrapped around, piercing her spiritual body with torns and restricting her movements. As the goddess struggled free, lightning struck her from the heavens, scorching her flesh.

Then the earth beneath her shook and erupted, impaling her in many different places.

"The Palace of the Celestial Creatures…" Huang Qian Jin shook his head in amazement. "Bro Ye has really done it this time."

"A ninth level spirit array?" Even Bai Yao Cai was stunned. "He knows how to set up a ninth level spirit array?!"

"This kid is full of surprises," Xing Chen remarked with a chuckle. "He should be in my sect instead. Old Bai, you wouldn't mind if I poach him from you, would you?"

"Hell, no. I ain't letting you lay your hands on him."

"Pity…that said, if he can already set up a ninth level spirit array, then he's better than almost everyone in my Astral Star Sect. There's nothing we can teach him. I wonder where he learned them from?"

The Heaven and Earth Sect…my master, in particular. But obviously I couldn't tell them that.

The goddess continued to flail about, bombarded by the various elements. Meanwhile, the emblems of the five celestial creatures continued to glow around me, each of them etched across the shimmering gates and palace that I had conjured. My celestial creatures were smaller, but somehow they were faster, whipping around the turning goddess and striking from unexpected directions. The goddess seemed to shrink somehow as parts of her spiritual body were forcibly dissipated into qi from enduring the ferocious elemental attacks.

"He's making use of formations to overcome the gap between cultivation realms," Wu Xing observed calmly. "Even an Innate Realm cultivator can fight on par with a Saint Realm using arrays."

The celestial creatures continued to surround and attack the goddess from all sides, their strength and fury undiminished because I continued to pour the natural qi of the heavens and earth into them. In contrast, it appeared that the goddess was weakening. Each of them might be half of the goddess's size, but there were five of them and they were overwhelming the fallen goddess with their greater numbers. In the distance, Bai Ning Shuang was panting, dropping to her knees.

Clearly her Divine Spirit Ascension Boost was taking a toll on her. As I suspected, it was not a technique that she could use for long. Artificially elevating her cultivation realm by one major realm – it wasn't even a couple of levels but an entire major realm – would definitely have serious side effects. Additionally, it couldn't be maintained for long, not without destroying her own body.

Already I could see blood streaming down her eyes and from her mouth. Her body was unable to withstand the tremendous influx of spiritual qi. It had not been conditioned yet too endure the immense amounts of qi that came with being a Saint Realm. How do I put it, the body was like a container. If it was normally used to containing just an amount of qi, suddenly pouring in extra amounts would cause it to shatter or something, especially if there was no outlet for the excess quantities to spill out from.

Bai Ning Shuang was going to blow.

Fortunately, I wasn't going to wait for her to kill herself. Jumping out of the celestial creature palace that I had constructed, I sailed high into the air before landing on the forehead of the kneeling goddess.

Slamming my foot against the head, I used Seismic Step. The head of the goddess blew apart into shards of spiritual qi that rained down. The rest of the goddess's body toppled over and shattered against the ground, throwing up more fragments of spiritual qi.

"Ugh!"

Bai Ning Shuang coughed out blood and fell to her knees, bleeding profusely from several orifices. She gritted her teeth and stared up at me with wide eyes, shocked.

"That…that technique…you…"

"What's wrong with my technique?" I retorted, landing in front of her and drawing Abyssal Edge to finish her off once and for all. She was so weak and damaged from her own technique that she couldn't even lift up her white sword to defend herself.

"You were the one…who saved me that night…the guy with the mask…"

"Huh? Saved you? From what?" I rolled my eyes.

"From…Feng Zi…"

"Oh, the dude who tried to rape you. And the mask you were talking about…was it this?" I took it out of my spatial pouch. Bai Ning Shuang's jaw dropped and her shoulders slumped.

"It really was…you…"

"Well…" I shrugged. "I suppose so, but so what?" Returning my obsidian mask to my spatial pouch, I placed the blade of Abyssal Edge against her neck. "Do you yield?"

"…yes." Bai Ning Shuang sighed and closed her eyes. "It's not so bad to lose to you…if you really were the one who saved me."

The referee quickly intervened, as if afraid that I might slip up with my sword and cut her throat. "The match is over! The winner is Hei Ye of White Herb Sect!"

"OOOOH!"

"I don't believe it! The maniac actually did it! The suicidal maniac! He made it all the way to the finals and defeated the Divine Spirit Body!"

"This has to be the first time in history!"

"Not surprising…he did have a higher cultivation realm than her to begin with, so it wasn't as if it was impossible."

"But she temporarily elevated her cultivation realm with that cheat technique!"

"Are you blind? Did you not see the side effects? Such a powerful technique comes with a heavy price! And she ended up losing because of how reckless she was!"

While the spectators discussed the outcome of the intersect tourament excitedly, a single figure was trembling with fury, his shaking fists clenched so hard that his fingers drew blood from his palms.

Cheng Kun glared at me from above, his eyes brimming with hatred. Clearly he couldn't accept the result of the final match of the intersect tournament.