As Pang Hei Shan hurled his hail of orbs at me, I remained calm and analyzed them as best as I could with Heavenly Flow and Earthly Paths. Taking a deep breath, I began weaving through the fierce bombardment, evading them as best as I could.
It wasn't too difficult of a task. I could sense the currents upon which these heavy orbs flowed along and take measures to avoid them, simply by sidestepping them. My senses predicted the trajectories of each and very orb, almost as if the currents they were following were highlighted in front of me. All that I needed was the speed and reflexes to move out of their way in time.
However, there were far too many of them and they were coming in swiftly and furiously. No matter how perceptive my Heavenly Flow and Earthly Paths was, my weaker physical body simply couldn't keep up with the speed and volume of the attacks.
"Instructor Su Yan!" I called out to the referee. "I'm allowed to use weapons in this match, right?"
"That's right," Su Yan replied without any hesitation. "Both parties are allowed to use whatever weapons they may possess. If you wish to call for a timeout and request that someone brings you a weapon, you can…"
"That's all right. I don't need anyone to do that for me." I reached behind me and drew my dragon sword. "I already have a weapon on me."
Since I had no way of avoiding all the attacks, my only way was to slice through those that were impossible to evade.
Activating my enhanced sixth sense in a single short burst, I cut through the volley of orbs in front of me, twisting and twirling my sword with precise movements. Closing my eyes to shut out all distractions, I cleaved the incoming orbs while avoiding the rest.
"How?!"
Pang Hei Shan couldn't believe what he was seeing. He snarled furiously before lunging at me, but I avoided his punch while slashing at his midriff. He cursed and rammed his elbow against my blade deflecting it away from his gut, and then retaliated with a kick. I reversed the grip on my sword and parried his foot with the blade, but the impact sent me skidding a few paces away.
"DIE!"
Pang Hei Shan roared furiously before hurling a gigantic orb at me. Seeing that I couldn't evade the massive orb in time, I enhanced my sixth sense for a second to slice through the colossal projectile.
At the same time, I could sense the flow of qi in Pang Hei Shan's body. The guy had disappeared from my sight, sinking into the shadows. A shadow technique that was akin to teleportation, huh? Even without having to sense his movements, I could already predict where he moved to.
Behind me.
My opponent burst out of my shadow and threw a punch, but I was already spinning around to block his fist. My blade vibrated violently as it absorbed the impact and I found myself thrown back several meters.
"Ugh…!"
Blood trickled from my mouth, the terrible force almost tearing my insides apart. The difference between cultivation realms was not something I could simply make up for in skill or techniques. At the fourth level of Heaven realm, Pang Hei Shan was almost an elemental force of nature. My inferior cultivation realm meant that I couldn't stand up to him in a direct fight.
If it weren't for my dragon sword, I might have suffered from broken ribs when his attack landed.
"I don't believe I can't kill you!" Pang Hei Shan bellowed before kicking off the ground and throwing another mountain shattering punch that was imbued with ominous black qi. Instead of parrying his fist, I dropped to the ground and swept his legs right under him using my sword. As I anticipated, he avoided losing his legs by jumping up before making use of his momentum to launch a kick at me. Rolling away, I watched as he left a crater in the ground.
Pivoting on his foot, he then hurled another volley of orbs in my direction. Placing one hand on the ground, I pushed myself to my feet and slashed apart the first few orbs. Whirling about, I evaded the others while cutting those I couldn't avoid.
While picking out the currents upon which these deadly orbs flowed to evade them, I kept part of my sixth sense on Pang Hei Shan. As I expected, he wasn't waiting idly while I dealt with his relentless bombardment of orbs.
He was sinking into the ground once again, disappearing from the spectators' view.
Slicing an orb, I then spun around. As I expected, Pang Hei Shan was emerging from my shadow and delivering a mountain shattering punch. This time, I stepped to the side and allowed his fist to breeze past me. Shockwaves buffeted me and I coughed out some blood, but I endured the violent energies and forced myself to stand my ground.
Before my opponent could react, I swung my sword while activating my enhanced sixth sense for a short burst, tracing the blade along the line of qi that I perceived to be his weakness. No matter how much stronger than me my enemy was, as long as I could see his most vulnerable areas and attack those parts, I stood a chance of victory.
"Ugh!"
Pang Hei Shan stumbled back, his right arm reduced to a stump where blood profusely spurted out. His disembodied arm spun about and landed on the ground, only for me to unceremoniously kick it away. A way of adding insult to injury, I supposed.
I then followed up with a thrust, but Pang Hei Shan slammed his feet against the ground before propelling himself away to avoid what might otherwise be a fatal strike. Skidding against the floor, he grabbed at the broken concrete with his remaining hand to force himself to a halt.
"You bastard!" he bellowed. I merely stared at him from behind my glasses, temporarily deactivating my enhanced sixth sense.
"Did you really think I would fall for the same trick twice? It's your own fault for getting complacent and underestimating me."
"I'll kill you! I'll definitely kill you!"
Desperately trying to stop the bleeding on his arm, Pang Hei Shan then conjured a fresh wave of orbs – much more than before – and threw them at me. I calmly stood my ground before executing a series of strikes that cut through them. Simultaneously, I wove a path through them, allowing the outer layer of the orbs to hurtle past me. That was just a waste of qi since they were so easy to avoid, but then again it was necessary for Pang Hei Shan to create such a massive volume of orbs so that I wouldn't simply dodge the precise ones in the center of the bombardment.
Of course, Pang Hei Shan had already thought ahead and he was vanishing into the shadows once more. This time, he was smart enough not to leap out from my shadow, instead choosing another shadow a couple of meters away, one that was cast by the shadows of his many orbs that I had dodged.
Smart. He was using his head this time. If it weren't for my Heavenly Flow and Earthly Paths allowing me to detect his movements – the flow of his qi, which telegraphed his intentions – I might have fallen for it. Indeed, I bet that many a veteran warrior would have fallen for his trap.
Emerging from that shadow that wasn't too far away and wasn't too near either, Pang Hei Shan leaped at me, spinning his body about for a powerful kick. Ominous black qi wreathed his leg, oozing death and horror.
I didn't feel fear, though. Executing a footwork technique, I disappeared and then appeared right next to him. Before he realized what had just occurred, I whirled around and cut off his leg in a single stroke. My blade cut into the qi line that I perceived with my enhanced sixth sense with impeccable precision and I drew it along that weakest of current. Pang Hei Shan shrieked as his leg flew off, blood erupting from his ruined stump. I rammed my elbow into his chest as he flew by, but he managed to block my strike with his hand. Even so, it was more from reflex than actual thought, and he didn't clamp down on my elbow. The momentum of my attack sent him spiraling to the ground.
"You…you fucking scoundrel!" he screamed, clutching at his stump with his remaining hand. Tears flowed from his eyes. "I'll kill you! I'll definitely kill you! I swear!"
"Huh." I shifted my glasses and approached him, sword in hand. "So you refuse to surrender?"
"Who's going to surrender to trash like you?!"
"The same trash who cut off your arm and leg? If I'm trash, what does that make you? You can't even beat someone who is of a lower cultivation realm than you."
"You…you…!" Pang Hei Shan spluttered. He gritted his teeth and raised his remaining hand, coalescing all of his qi into one final attack. "Losing an arm and leg to kill trash like you…it's totally worth it!"
"Whoa!"
I raised my head and watched as the black qi coalesced and transformed into a colossal mountain that floated above him. With a single swing of his hand, he sent the gigantic mountain crashing down upon the arena. It was so huge that it covered the entire coliseum. There was no way for me to escape, even if I pushed my footwork techniques to their limits.
"Black Mountain Strike!���
That was a fitting name for the technique that Pang Hei Shan had just unleashed. He literally just dropped a black mountain on all of us.
"You'll die here with everybody else!" Pang Hei Shan cackled. He had reason to believe that because his mountain was so massive that it covered the entire coliseum, and the spectators were all panicking.
On the other hand, Su Yan remained composed. He raised an arm and conjured a barrier that covered all of the fleeing audience, a dome of qi sturdy enough to obliterate whatever technique Pang Hei Shan conjured. The more aware of the spectators paused and watched, knowing that their instructor would protect them.
However, the protection didn't extend to me. As far as Su Yan was concerned, I was still in the duel and I had to overcome this problem on my own. He would step in if I surrendered, but he correctly guessed that I still had a few cards to play.
My first thought was to summon my magic carp and ask him to devour the mountain. But seeing the ominous black qi that suffused this abstract mountain, I decided against it. Having my magic carp devour something as creepy and disgusting at that…I wouldn't be surprised if he suffered from a stomachache. Nah, I wasn't going to make my spirit beast partner suffer.
So instead, I dropped to a crouch and readied my sword. Closing my eyes for a second, I then enhanced my sixth sense to its limits.
There. A weak point in the massive mountain. As long as I could drive my blade into that point of qi, I would be able to obliterate it.
Wasting no time, I kicked off the ground and launched myself at the mountain. Thrusting my sword forward, I stabbed the point of qi that glowed like a baleful eye, the center and foundation of this technique. The source of its qi, and also the point that held everything together.
And just like that, the mountain ceased to exist. It exploded into countless black shards, all of them raining down harmlessly on the arena.
"You…what the hell did you do?!"
Pang Hei Shan couldn't believe his eyes. He gaped at me as I landed on the ground, flicking my sword and sheathing it.
"Thanks to my Mystical Eyes of Qi Perception…ahem, I mean enhanced sixth sense, there is nothing in this world that I cannot cut."
Then I turned away. Pang Hei Shan tried to scramble to his feet and conjure yet another orb to hurl at me…but before he could do that, blood erupted from a cut on his body. A deep wound that stretched from his collarbone to his hip.
"…when did you…?"
Those were his last words before his body split into two and fell apart, spilling his organs onto the bloodstained floor.