Chapter 121 - Soul Burning Suppression

When Ao Wen spoke the word 'Inferiority', several sparks flared past Long Ma's aquatic aura, each finding their own purchase on the soldier's soul.

"I am inferior to NO ONE!" Long Ma shouted, flexing his muscles and tearing Wild Fang from Ao Wen's hands, flinging her saber into the dark depths of the murky waters. 

Trying to keep the weapon would have been a fatal mistake, she had no strength to match against the enraged soldier, despite the elixir she'd crafted to propel herself to become a late-stage Brawler. The gap was just too vast. That gap, however, would begin to shrink soon enough. Taking advantage of the opportunity created when she lost her saber, Ao Wen leaped away from Long Ma, gracefully moving through the air and retrieving two silk fans from her waistband, snapping them open in a flurry of sparks. 

"You are inferior though," Ao Wen teased, fluttering her fans and sending several butterfly-like flames to swarm around Long Ma from a dozen different directions. The soldier quickly spun his spear in a double figure eight, drawing on the power of water to surround himself with a spray of water like a shield that snuffed out many of her flames. A few, however, still managed to find purchase on the soldier's soul where they began to smolder. "Flood dragons are inferior from the day they're born!" Ao Wen mocked, pouring her energy into the flames already burning Long Ma. "Flood Dragons have no pride in being the Greatest of Sea Serpents, instead, they dream endlessly about becoming a true sovereign of water, praying for the day they can become a True Dragon of the Water Clan," she continued, adding oil to the fire, continuing her spiritual and verbal assault. 

The words burned at Long Ma because he couldn't deny their truth. A rage began to burn within him, a desire to silence this girl before she said anything else, before she laid bare other wounds that he'd carefully plastered over to present his perfect public persona. "Shut up!" Long Ma snapped, sweeping out with his spear and sending a torrential wave of water at the tree Ao Wen perched upon. 

The water, however, never so much as splashed a corner of her robes, despite striking with enough force to strip the bark off the tree. Instead, Ao Wen spun away, robes fluttering in the torchlit night, fans moving in an enchanting spiral that wreathed her in a swarm of glowing flaming flower petals. Several petals were extinguished by Long Ma's attack but it didn't matter, she had plenty more still available to her. 

"How long has your inherent inferiority burned within you," Ao Wen said, feeding the fire that was consuming Long Ma. "You're inferior to Father Feng in basically every way. You have no wife, no children, no position of power," she ticked off, sending a swirling storm of flaming petals to envelop Long Ma. "Father Feng must make you feel inferior not just as a Soldier but as a man doesn't he?" Ao Wen said grinding verbal salt deeper into his wounds. "Was it like that with your brother too? Did Long Ming make you feel inferior with his beautiful wife and darling children?"

"SHUT UP!" Long Ma roared, summoning a fountain of water to snuff out the flaming petals and rushing over the water to lung at Ao Wen. Dozens of thrusts from River's bite surged at the young woman, tearing at the cloth of her dark robes and creating half a dozen lurid red wounds on her ribs, arms, and upper thighs. All of those wounds could have been much more serious had Ao Wen's bewitching movements not been deeply deceptive, using the play of torchlight and shadow to make it seem like she was centimeters further in one direction or another than she actually was. "My brother had infinitely more potential than I ever had! He could have led our family's rise, could have done so much more if he'd only had the ambition and the courage to do so!" Flames had begun to burn within Long Ma's eyes, the growing intensity driving him further into his own madness as his internal sense of inferiority grew like a fire stoked by blacksmith's bellows. 

"You hated him for that didn't you?" Ao Wen said, desperately trying to find a way to get closer to Long Ma. Staying at a distance would only doom her to the point and blade of his spear. Close, if she could dance around him as though they were on a ballroom floor, she could use his own larger body against him. Her fans worked against her as they tied up her hands, preventing her from leveraging the grappling techniques of the Obsidian Night Scoprion Saber Art. A scorpion took hold of their prey and never allowed them to escape. Ao Wen, however, needed both hands to produce enough flame to overwhelm the watery aura that Long Ma constantly used to defend himself from her assault. "You hated him for not giving you an easy path to power. You hated him for not paving the way for you. You hated him for being better than you and not even caring about it," she relentlessly provoked, trying to find greater purchase for her soul flames to consume him from within. 

"My brother gave me EVERYTHING!" Long Ma shouted, sweeping River's bite in a flat arc, slamming it into her lower ribs and sending her splashing into one of the deeper regions of water in the swam. Not one to waste an opportunity, Long Ma charged forward, thrusting his spear beneath the surface of the water, slicing deeply into Ao Wen's left shoulder, spilling a cloud of dark red blood into the murky water. "His blood, his flesh, his heart, his EVERYTHING!" Long Ma raged. "You know nothing of my brother's sacrifice!"

Ao Wen surged from the water with a gasp, backpedaling through the water, frantically trying to reach a tree to pull herself onto. Once she'd been knocked out of the air, reigniting her Wind Walking Flame Steps was incredibly difficult, especially when she'd been plunged into so much water! "Sacrifice? I don't believe your brother sacrificed himself for you, for your ambitions," Ao Wen shouted loudly. "He loved his wife and children didn't he?"

"That love blinded him to the threat of Blood and Slaughter!" Long Ma shouted, sweeping Ao Wen's feet out from under her, sending her plunging back into the water before the Soldier's powerful left hand grabbed a fist full of her robes at her chest and hauled her from the water, staring into her eyes from centimeters away. "My brother's death was noble and necessary, just as yours will be!" 

"Jin!" Ao Wen shouted, twisting away from Long Ma to look into the darkness. 

The odd move from Ao Wen made Long Ma pause, staring into the dark as Tang Jin pushed forward yet another flat-bottomed boat, this one carrying Long Ming's widow, Teng Shien, and their two young children. When Ao Wen had proposed sending hunters to search for the remainder of the Long family, she hadn't intended to use them as hostages the way Long Ma had taken Ao Yang. Rather, she'd hoped that when they realized what Long Ma had done to Ao Yang the widow and her children would be able to talk Long Ma down. Now, however, learning that Long Ma had slain his own brother to consume his power… Ao Wen had no idea what would happen next!