Sharpening His Blade

Wei Fang smiled lightly, his expression a mask of false sincerity, "Now, we don't have to get violent here. We should really consider our earlier talk—"

At that moment, Miao Ying's eyes turned profound, a deep wisdom and understanding reflected in their depths. He didn't give a rat's ass about playing these scheming games, his spirit yearning for the thrill of combat and the rush of victory. 

When he could fight and kill, Miao Ying would never hesitate, his very essence crying out for action.

'Bang!' 

A stormy explosion of lightning ambient energy rumbled the ground, the very earth trembling beneath their feet. Sheer forces of ambient energy power with terrifying lightning razed the dirt to dust beneath Miao Ying, the air crackling with a fearsome intensity. 

The strong air pushed into Wei Fang and the other two disciples, their bodies buffeted by the sheer power of Miao Ying's cultivation.

"Tch!" The trio of disciples - Wei Fang, Li Hao, and Zhang Jun - stood with teeth bared in irritation, their finely chiseled features contorted with aggravation as Miao Ying's ambient energy washed over them. 

Despite his inferior cultivation at only the 9th stage of Body Refinement, the faint yet unmistakable pressure emanating from Miao Ying testified to a strength and potential that far outstripped his peers.

It was a constant thorn in their pride, a galling reminder of their own positions as the Blazing Sun Sect's powerful Earth Abode disciples. The humiliation stung all the more fiercely because Miao Ying was a mere commoner, while they received help from Young Master Chetian.

A sudden leaden sensation intruded upon their embittered thoughts, foreign and inexorable. In an instant, their bodies felt as if mired in quicksand, sluggish and unresponsive.

"What's happening?!" Li Hao's usual aristocratic drawl rose sharply in pitch, eyes wide with shock.

Zhang Jun, ever quick to anger, snarled: "Damn that Miao Ying! I'll rip him to-"

His threat dissolved into a strangled gasp as he felt his painstakingly cultivated Qi unraveling from his flesh and bones, the unnatural reversal of the sacred process that had remade him into so much more than mortal.

Wei Fang, the most poised of the three, couldn't keep the disbelief from his face as Miao Ying's aura intensified to a suffocating weight upon their souls. "What is this? How is this possible?!"

The musings of these proud disciples of power, accustomed to effortlessly dominating their lessers, scattered like dew under the harsh glare of noon as their vision abruptly flared with blinding brilliance.

A sword, its edge glinting with lethal intent, materialized before them, tracing unerring arcs toward their unprotected throats. 

In the Blazing Sun Sect, disputes between disciples were often settled in blood - but rarely with such naked killing intent!

"Die, you bastard!" Wei Fang and Li Hao roared in unison, desperation roughening their cultured voices. 

Qi seared from their pores in blistering waves as they slashed out with their own low-grade spirit-tier swords, pouring their all into shattering these sudden swords.

However, to the disciples' disbelieving fury, their weapons cleaved through the swords without resistance, as if they were simply cutting empty air. 

Too late, they noticed that Miao Ying himself had materialized behind the third projected blade, his presence as overwhelming as a looming thunderhead.

Zhang Jun, the weakest of the trio, could only scream his terror and defiance to the sky as he stared death in the face, summoning every scrap of his cultivation in a frantic surge that distorted the air with heat shimmer and spiritual pressure. 

Pulsing vessels stood out like cords on his neck as he strained to transcend his limits, heedless of the damage to his foundations.

Miao Ying's sneer held no sympathy for this arrogant disciple's plight, only cruel amusement. The terrifying Lightning cultivator's Devourer Dao rune pulsed in eager anticipation, drinking in the abundant Qi like fine wine. 

Zhang Jun convulsed as his hard-won inner strength was siphoned away, leaving him a dry husk operating at a mere 30%.

"Y-you monster!" Zhang Jun's curse emerged as a thready whisper, all venom and no substance.

Looking upon this once-arrogant disciple with cold eyes, Miao Ying felt nothing but the desire to remove this obstacle from his path. He had always been carefree and spirited in pursuing his desires - and now, he desired to send an unmistakable message to all who would stand against him!

Clenching his sword arm until the muscles jumped beneath his skin, Miao Ying drew upon the ambient energy raging through his body like a flooded river. The immensity of it threatened to burst his body like a ruptured wineskin, but he weathered the storm with fey determination, diverting the excess into his thrumming sword.

Tiny dragons of lightning danced up and down the immaculate blade, their light reflected in eyes that had already seen too much darkness.

BOOM! 

Sword met sword with the fury of clashing storm fronts, thunder, and fire blooming in an instant of incandescent destruction. 

"Ahhh!!" Zhang Jun's agonized scream knifed through the tumult, raw and primal.

"Zhang Jun!" Li Hao's shout emerged strangled, the disbelief choking him as thoroughly as any assassin's garrote.

Struck senseless by the sheer immensity of the detonation, the fearful disciples gawped dumbly at the macabre spectacle before them.

Zhang Jun, a talented 5th stage Qi Establishment expert, lay shattered in a crater of his own making, his lower sword arm a gory ruin terminating in splintered bone. A charred hole gaped obscenely in his chest, angry threads of lightning still cascading through the wound and into his body.

"This...!" Wei Fang choked out, throat tight with disbelief at the gruesome sight. 

One devastating blow had crippled a powerful peer, revealing the depths of Miao Ying's terrifying strength. They finally grasped the true scale of the threat before them.

He'd thought Miao Ying was potentially dangerous, but still a commoner at heart. He knew the youth had attained some minor success with the famed Thousand Sword Shadow Art, an epitome of swordplay demanding flawless speed and precision...but to so thoroughly outclass a superior foe in one exchange?

And that esoteric technique that leeched away Qi, still restricting their strength even now...Wei Fang's mind churned with the beginnings of a cold sweat. 

He had to end this fast, before that freak's methods could erode his cultivation further! 

As his eyes met Li Hao's, he saw the same calculation and desperation mirrored there. 

No more games - Miao Ying had to die!

The two disciples blurred into motion, robes snapping as they charged with killing intent. 

Every blow would be aimed to main and slay! The humming of their spirit blades filled the air with menace.

In the back of his racing thoughts, Wei Fang couldn't help but marvel at how freakish Miao Ying was. When the commoner was first admitted into the Earth Abode, that rarefied training ground reserved only for the sect's most heaven-favored geniuses, he believed sooner or later he would be like a mouse among tigers - timid, scurrying, always wary of giving offense.

But the truth was completely different, a fearsome thing had emerged within their sect!

Miao Ying moved to meet the two disciples head-on, his sword flashing out to block both fatal descents at once. 

CLANG! 

The very air screamed as three low-grade spirit swords forged from premium spirit tier materials ground against each other, their wielders straining to obliterate their opposite's guard through sheer force.

With a grunt, Miao Ying shifted his wrists and sent his opponents' locked swords skidding off-target. In that brief window, he flowed into the gap like quicksilver, his own edge darting in a lethal thrust at Li Hao's throat.

"Not today, brat!" Li Hao snarled, barely managing to angle his blade in time to catch the probing stab. 

His sword channeled his Qi in a flash of scarlet radiance as he sought to cleave through Miao Ying's weapon - only to feel an unyielding hardness that locked down his sword.

Shock rooted his feet to the earth in that crucial heartbeat - and then mind-blanking agony exploded through Li Hao's sword arm as Miao Ying rebounded off the block and into a scything slash that laid the disciple's flesh open to the bone!

Howling, Li Hao jerked back on pure instinct - which saved his life as Wei Fang abruptly materialized behind Miao Ying, his sword ripping through his robes and drawing a line of blood across his left arm.

But Miao Ying gave no sign that he even felt the wound. The instant his foot touched the soil, he whirled like a dervish to crash his blade against Wei Fang's hasty guard. 

Sparks showered the two grim-faced youths as they struggled to break the deadlock, their swords rising and falling in a storm of steel.