Profund Connection To The World

All the while, that inexorable pressure continued to bear down on Wei Fang and Li Hao, a yoke of dread that transcended mere cultivation. 

Every time they felt their Qi surge in response to Miao Ying's relentless assault, that thrice-damned force would leech away their progress like a glutton at a feast!

It was all they could do to maintain a mere 50% of their peak strength. 

Wei Fang's ragged breaths tore from his throat as he wove his blade in ever-tightening arcs, seeking to bypass Miao Ying's guard and carve out the insolent wretch's heart. Desperation fueled his movements, lending strength to limbs leaden with fatigue. 

"Thousand Flying Blossoms!"

With a snarl, he poured his Qi into his spirit sword, fragmenting a part of it into a thousand glittering shards. Each lethal sliver carried a portion of his essence, thrumming with killing intent. 

The deadly rain peppered the lightning cultivator from every direction, a storm of steel that would have reduced any lesser foe to a fine crimson mist.

But Miao Ying was no ordinary prey.

The commoner's figure blurred, his body flowing like quicksilver as he slid through the minute gaps in Wei Fang's formation. Sword energy licked out in a web of silver radiance, the Thousand Shadow Sword art pushed to its utmost limits.

"Damn monster!" Wei Fang hissed as a line of fire erupted along his ribs, blood blooming across tattered robes of finest silk.

"Haha! Come on then!" Miao Ying's laugh was vicious and raw, his spirited personality finding joy even in the midst of life-and-death struggle. 

Unrestrained by the lofty airs of nobility, he fought with a wild abandon, intent on wringing every last drop of excitement from the battle.

The commoner's sword danced and thrust with the fluidity of a viper, each jab avoided only by the barest margins. 

Miao Ying's determined strikes flowed from one to the other with liquid grace, always probing for the slightest weakness. It was a testament to his combat instincts, honed through endless hours of relentless battle.

Li Hao rejoined the fray with a wordless roar, his own blade shrouded in crackling flames. As a proud disciple of the Blazing Sun Sect, he could not allow a mere commoner to make a mockery of them! 

"Blazing Meteor Shower!"

A hail of fireballs streaked from his sword, each one a miniature sun radiating scorching heat. They detonated against Miao Ying's hastily raised guard in a staccato beat of concussive force, the stink of scorched cloth and charred flesh hanging thick in the air.

But even that was not enough to stop Miao Ying.

The lightning cultivator charged through the barrage with gritted teeth, his sword lashing out in a frenzy. He refused to yield, to give his foes even an inch! 

Steel sparked and rang as the trio danced their lethal beat, blades rising and falling in a whirlwind where a single error meant death.

Li Hao and Wei Fang gave as good as they got, decades of training under the Blazing Sun Sect's august masters showing in their seamless teamwork. The mighty sect spared no effort in forging their disciples into peerless warriors, their skills as much a work of art as the paintings and jade carvings that adorned their palatial halls.

They were disciple, proud geniuses destined to ascend to the pinnacle of the cultivation world! Weaving offense and defense in perfect concert, they sought to pin Miao Ying between them and extinguish his life. 

Surely, a mere Body Refinement cultivator, for all his freakish talent, could not stand against the might of two 5th stage Qi Establishment experts for so long!

But Miao Ying refused to follow the script.

Snaking and flowing like the lightning he commanded, Miao Ying slid around their pincer attacks with preternatural poise. His sword flashed and darted, always angled to turn a block into a riposte, a dodge into a lethal lunge. 

The Speed As Supremacy art lent him burst of acceleration that defied logic, his body blurring into phantasmal after-images that left his foes striking at empty air.

The longer the fight dragged on, the more Wei Fang felt like a mortal trying to catch a vengeful ghost. His heart hammered in his chest, his Qi roiling and churning as he strained to keep up with Miao Ying's otherworldly speed.

Even the score of bleeding rents that adorned Miao Ying's robes failed to slow the freak down. If anything, each wound only seemed to further enrage him, stoking the flames of his fighting spirit to impossible heights!

Miao Ying's aura buffeted the senses like the promise of an oncoming thunderstorm, dark and ominous and ready to split the earth. The air crackled with barely-leashed power, his killing intent a living thing that prowled the battlefield in search of prey.

Blow after blow rang out, a cacophony of ringing metal punctuated by grunts of effort and pain. 

Li Hao and Wei Fang broke apart, chests heaving as they gulped down air that seared their lungs. 

Li Hao felt his vision wavering, dark spots flickering at the edges as exhaustion dragged at his limbs like leaden weights.

"We can't...keep this up!" Li Hao's usually smooth and refined voice, a product of years of education in the literary arts, was mangled into a reedy gasp. His immaculate features were marred by an ugly grimace, blood flecking his lips from internal injuries.

Eyeing his compatriot's bleeding wounds and the unhealthy gray pallor of his skin, Wei Fang knew they had only one chance left. 

One last gamble to put an end to this humiliation!

"Pour everything into the next strike!" he barked, all pretense of nobility abandoned in the face of imminent defeat. "We'll obliterate him down to the last scrap of his soul! Now!"

Roaring with the last dregs of their strength, the two disciples rushed at Miao Ying, their blades erupting into searing coronas of flame. 

This was a technique that stood at the pinnacle of their spirit tier arts, a destructive confluence of power that could annihilate all but the strongest of foes!

"Ashes To Ashes!" Li Hao howled, the scorching heat of his ultimate technique sending ripples through the air. His sword seemingly transformed into a meteor, blazing with the fire of stars, ready to reduce all in its path to naught but scattered cinders!

"Dust To Dust!" Wei Fang echoed; all his essence subsumed in one world-ending blow. His blade howled with the voice of crematoriums, hungering for the sweet release of the grave!

Against those twin streaks of apocalyptic might, what could one measly commoner do?

Everything.

In that eternal instant between one breath and the next, staring down onrushing destruction without a flicker of fear in those unyielding eyes, Miao Ying felt something within him resonate. 

A connection snapped into place, a sense of unity with the Heavenly Dao itself.

A profound epiphany crested over his consciousness like a lightning bolt connecting heaven and earth, searing away all hesitation and doubt. The flowing currents of the world, the untamed fury of thunder, the inviolable purity of the sword - he was one with them all, and they with him!

CRACK!

Translucent fractures spiderwebbed through the halo of his ambient energy, the boundary of the 9th stage of Body Refinement unable to withstand the burgeoning might within. 

With a sound like shattering glass, it exploded into glittering motes, releasing a surge of blinding Qi.

The power of that eruption sent Li Hao and Wei Fang stumbling back, their faces slack with disbelief. 

Miao Ying stood at the heart of a raging tempest, arcs of lightning whipping around him in a frenzy of snapping light and roaring thunder.

A cataclysmic BANG rang out, the heaven-shaking peal of thunder and rending of space itself. In a display of incomprehensible might, scything bolts of lightning pierced through the oncoming blaze, tearing Li Hao and Wei Fang's ultimate attacks to shreds as if they were nothing more than paper swept up in a storm!

"What?!" Wei Fang cried, his voice nearly lost in the cacophony. 

This couldn't be happening! 

A mere Body Refinement cultivator overcoming the peak combined might of two talented 5th stage Qi Establishment experts from the Earth Abode? 

It defied belief!

But the proof was there before his disbelieving eyes.

Within Miao Ying's dantian, a miraculous transformation was taking place. Endless currents of spiritual energy poured in, coalescing at a breakneck pace into a fantastical Qi Seed. 

Scintillating filaments of lightning and sword Qi danced around the nucleus, melding seamlessly with a faint mote of tenebrous miasma born of his Devourer Art.

The seed pulsed once, twice - and then erupted with a force that rattled Miao Ying to his very foundations. 

In that singular transformative moment, he ascended to the 1st stage of Qi Establishment, crossing a threshold that countless cultivators strived for their entire lives!