The old man didn't carry any weapon and instead used a finger technique… Thousandfold Glaring Sword!
Back in his youth, he had chanced upon the inheritance of an 'expert': it had contained the way to take his first steps onto the path of cultivation. Alongside a basic 'Guide to Cultivation' manual, the inheritance grounds had also included the tome for the 'Thousandfold Glaring Sword' skill, along with a list of materials and training routines necessary to practice it.
According to the description in the tome, practicing it to the peak level would grant one enough strength to rock the world, bare hands having the might of a thousand blades and the sharpness to cut open continents! However, even after many decades of effort, he had yet to unlock the technique's full potential.
At times he would end up musing whether him finding the inheritance had taken away the chance to rise to greatness from some destined genius.
At others however, he couldn't help but question whether the skill truly was as great as its late creator had made it out to be, or if perhaps it had just been the foolish bragging of a dead man.
Xiao Wu had already done some researching prior to the fight and thus she knew the elder practiced a close-combat technique. Aware of that, she made the choice not to summon her blades and only called out the Purple Moon: it was her best chance to test her own hand-to-hand skills!
Her third Martial Way, as well as the most peculiar one, quietly shone down from above, dyeing the world reflected in the emerald orbs with its purple moonlight.
"In a moonless night, a veil of blackness will descend and cover the lands…"
The sound of chanting could be heard as the emerald of her green eyes interlaced with purple.
In the few days Xiao Wu had been absorbing the virgin rays of sunlight from the rising sun, their gathering speed and amount had risen exponentially with each session. As such, the purple moonlight she could release with her Martial Way had increased in intensity. With this, not only the violet streams of Spiritual Energy in her field of vision had been growing clearer and clearer, but the effective radius had grown as well!
Who knows just how big an area it would be able to affect after decades of accumulation…
Like so, the Purple Moon silently dyed the battlefield the illusive purple that to others might even barely be noticeable, while to the practitioners of I See A Purple Moonlit World it gave birth to their fearsome sixth sense.
Xiao Wu took her stance under the starry sky and the two moons hanging overhead, one crescent and pristine, and the other round and a bewitching violet. As she raised her right arm, her slender fingers, covered in blisters and cuts, curled fiercely like a dragon's talons. The child-dragoness slightly bent forward with her right foot pointing ahead and her left one forming a ninety-degree angle with it, roughly a shoulder-width apart from each other. The left palm she kept by her side, hidden from sight; her index and thumb were tucked in, while the middle, ring, and pinkie fingers stuck together closely in the shape of a knife: a so-called 'wolf' grasp.
Xiao Wu's eyes narrowed underneath the azure mask. Her arrangements, subconsciously carried out by a body that had once been trained under the proud head warriors of the Xiao Clan, were elegantly completed in the blink of an eye.
Similarly, the old man across her had also finished his own preparations: his two hands had been raised in front of him with each finger lighting up in order, with the pinky finger being the darkest and the middle finger being the brightest.
Just like Xiao Wu, the elderly cultivator had also gotten into a stance more comfortable to him: this stance was odd to say the least, as after the showy actions of earlier he instead tucked both hands in the long sleeves of his Sect robes, as if he were holding hidden weapons of some sort there. Exactly because of how peculiar it was, Xiao Wu didn't dare to underestimate it and immediately guided even more Spiritual Energy to power her Purple Moon's Scripture.
The night breeze battered the clothes of the two opponents in black and azure, the surrounding quieting down as the tension rose higher and higher.
Until eventually…
""Please treat me well!""
Both parties kicked off the ground and the battle began!
Under the cover of his wide sleeves, the old cultivator's pinky lit up and pointed forward; a glaring blade of light cut through the air.
This attack, despite having its charging-up motions hidden underneath the cloth, was still seen through by Xiao Wu. After all, she had known of the incoming 'surprise attack' from the moment the other had started his move and the purple streams around his fingertips had picked up in intensity. Still, the speed of the sword of light surpassed her expectations and almost managed to still hit her; shockingly enough, despite her preemptive actions, by the time she had reacted and dodged, the ethereal blade had already reached a hair's breadth away from her mask. Sparks were emitted due to the friction as the attack passed by, carving a long scar onto the pale vizard that barely hang on and remained in place.
It had been a close call, however Xiao Wu was confident she'd be able to react accordingly the next time around now that she had enough information. After a week's worth of battle experience, the hours she had invested in those six days coupled with her solid foundations showed their worth as the girl managed to maintain her cool and look for an opening amidst the danger.
Immediately after recovering from the close shave, Xiao Wu began her own offensive with a decisive leap forward, into a handstand, into a spinning kick she skillfully aligned with the other's temples. Of course, she powered her kick with an amount of Spiritual Energy that, thanks to her monstrous output as a ten-thousand-foot pillar genius, could match the average Basic Stage cultivators even without the need to rotate her Pseudo-Core.
Sensing the shocking power of a kick backed by what should merely be an Inferior Stage cultivation base, the old man frowned and correctly judged it would be best not to attempt to block it. Instead he agilely bent backwards like a drawn bow, his aged body performing the feat without a hitch as if he had suddenly gotten sixty years younger, and the kick hit only air. With some experienced footwork, the old man's upper body slipped past the extended leg and he sneaked in another sword-finger attack aimed to pierce into the Night Challenger's side.
Through her purple-dyed field of view that encompassed the entirety of the small yard, Xiao Wu could see that this time the other had used not one, not two, but three fingers; all but his thumb and pinky. Initially, she had approximated it to mean a roughly three-fold increase in power when compared to the first attack, which she had confidence in fending off head-on with her Xiao Clan's own fist skill.
However, the girl's confident expression immediately fell as her judgment was proven wrong: her frightened emerald-violet eyes reflected a strange technique at work, compressing and sharpening the Spiritual Energy gathered around the aged, wrinkly hand, pressing and refining the skill in the shape of a single sword tip from a total of three; when put together into the sharp sword of light, each finger's individual might complemented each other, and actually increased the overall output to eight times that of a single finger!
Xiao Wu's expression grew serious and she immediately made a single rotation of her Pseudo-Core, kicking off the air with that very leg she had used to previously attack the old man: with her Advanced Stage ability granting her temporary quasi-flight, her foot seemed to have hit something solid as she was able to twist her body in midair and narrowly evade the threatening finger-sword by rolling on the ground.
She had dodged the blow again!
This time the old man was actually stunned for a second, allowing Xiao Wu to jump back up, kick off the ground, and stab her left hand's three-finger 'knife' deep into his right shoulder. The physical pain immediately woke him up from his stupor as he felt his flesh tear apart, as if it had been carved with an actual blade.
"Keugh!"
But being shocked was being shocked. The old man quickly got back to his senses and hit the slim hand in the shape of a wolf aside. Seeking some breathing room, he kicked off the ground and leapt far away backwards, coughing a mouthful of blood as soon as he landed back down.
In his panicked state, he could not figure out how the masked figure could evade the blow while still in midair, and his instincts immediately got the better of his reason: without even thinking about it he entered a new stance where the legs were aligned towards his opponent, one in front of the other. His whole body bent forward and his hands reached to his sides, as if he were a samurai attacking as he drew the blade. By now, all ten fingers had lit up dangerously. In the Moonlit Purple World, Xiao Wu witnessed a frightening amount of Spiritual Energy dyeing everything a foot away from the pair of fists purple, sending shivers down her spine.
As if a pair of hundred-foot-long blades had been drawn, two pairs of five fingers slashed in the shape of a slanted cross, and two blades of blinding light shot out followed the motions, slashing towards the blue robed figure.
The strength behind each of those slashes of the light blade was more than thirty times the power of a single finger-sword strike, and just as fast!
Besting Xiao Wu's wolf knife? Let alone defeating his masked opponent, the two attacks thrown by the old man when pushed into a corner were much, much more powerful than that; enough to obliterate a human body with little to no effort!
Regaining clarity soon after, the old man's face changed to show terror as he came to the realization that the one he had just dealt had been an actual killer move. He felt despair, for that attack had more than enough power to kill if it connected!
He could almost picture the tiny body splitting in four in a fountain of blood…
"Damn!"
He wished he could somehow cut off the power, but by then it was far too late! The pair of light sword slashes charged towards Xiao Wu...
Seemingly unhindered by the threatening might behind the attack from the old man, Xiao Wu rotated on her right leg, the Purple Moon shining bright and the Pseudo-Core rotating at great speeds...
Patiently, wait for the right moment…
"…Fu!"
Tap!
Xiao Wu kicked off the ground!
Her tiny body flew through the air like a fiery and elegant phoenix: her black robes fluttered like flames, her agile feet stepping onto the air thrice as she drew her arms closer to her body and she beautifully swayed left, back, and right. Under her precise motions, her figure danced on the edge of the blade light… And ultimately sneaked past them.
The two lines of pure light passed right by her, leaving deep scars on the ground, and yet not managing to harm even a single strand of hair on her body!
She had dodged the killer move!
Before the man could even understand what was going on, her right fist was already in front of his face.
*Trickle…*
The hit had stopped just shy of directly impacting his nose, alright. However some blood still trickled from his nostrils due to the massive force behind a punch powered by one of the strongest cultivation bases to be found among all other Inferior Stage cultivators. No matter how shady that last exchange might have seemed, with the Night Challenger actually dodging his killer move while stepping on thin air, the old cultivator could only admit defeat, as the rightful winner of the duel couldn't possibly be any clearer.
Just like before, Xiao Wu exchanged some polite words and then left without leaving behind any more information than necessary. However, this time around she had also made some gains: just like the youth with an axe had realized he still had aspects he could improve on, Xiao Wu had found some gaps in her close-combat ability through this extremely close clash.
In the end, had it not been for her Pseudo-Core, she would have been in quite the dire situation. This could only mean that there were ways she could improve in close quarter combat!
If she wished to truly become a valuable asset in the eyes of her companions, she needed to refine her skills even further so that her skill could eventually reach a state of perfection.
Of course, the old man whom had just suffered such a tragic defeat at the hands of one much younger and of a 'lower cultivation' was shaking his head bitterly.
"This junior… they were truly incredible! As I thought, geniuses are really on a whole another level; especially this one, it truly was the luck of a lifetime to face them in battle. Even now, I do not understand how exactly they predicted and dodged all my attacks… It might be worth spectating this year's Outer Disciple exam! I guess this set of old bones might also try it out this time, even if just to see them again!"
# # #
Author's Note
[1] Want to make a wolf knife yourself? Just raise either hand and place it so that the palm is facing you. Then, tuck in your index finger and thumb, with only the latter's tip sticking out slightly, while your three remaining fingers are kept straight and stuck together: shine a light and the shadow will be that of a wolf! (Or of a wolf-like dog, at least. Wolf knife sounded better than dog knife, deal with it.)
You can even move your pinky up and down to make it howl (bark)!
And guess what?
*Raises second, non-dominant hand*
You can EVEN have two!
Bark! Bark!
[2] OG readers, what's this? You can SPECTATE the Outer Disciple exam? Wasn't it held in an underground labyrinth last time around? Something smells fishy... it couldn't possibly be... the selfish author changed the setting again? (Yes. It's been more than three years since I first thought up the Outer Disciple Exam arc, so it was in dire need of a new look. Get up with the times, you old men!)
~ Cookie