The decision settled in the space of a breath. They would fight.
"He's still controlling the big one," Liang said, his eyes darting to the massive Diamond Cobra still coiled around the girl. "That's splitting his focus. It's our edge."
Li Fen gave a sharp nod. "I thought the same."
Gen cracked his neck, a fierce grin spreading. "Enough talking." **Jingdao** energy, warm and gold, surged over his skin. He shot forward like a released arrow, aimed straight at Jun's center.
Liang watched him, a flicker of understanding. "He's right. If we run just because his number is bigger, our will might as well be sand."
Jun didn't move until the last second. "Will is useless to a dead person." His body snapped into motion, a deep bronze light—**Jingdao**—hardening his arms and torso. He didn't meet Gen's charge head-on. As Gen's fist flew toward his face, Jun's own hands moved in a fluid, circular pattern. His fists gleamed, reinforced to the density of granite, but the energy around them didn't sit still. He layered **Shidow** over the reinforcement, making the force *flow* like a river around a rock. This was the **Flowering Rock** technique.
His fist didn't block Gen's. It slid along the outside of Gen's forearm, redirecting the punch's momentum, then rode its own current inward. It slipped past Gen's guard and hammered into the side of his neck.
***THWACK!***
The sound was brutal. Gen's charge shattered into a stumbling, gasping stagger. His vision swam.
Li Fen was already there. She had moved with Gen's attack, a silent shadow. Her own **Jingdao**, a cooler silver-white, formed a knife-hand strike aimed at the kidney Jun had exposed.
Jun didn't turn. He read the shift in air pressure. His forearm came up in a crisp parry, not just blocking, but using **Shidow** to subtly *guide* her force. He used her own momentum, pivoting on the ball of his foot—the spin accelerated by a manipulative push against the ground—to swing a devastating back-fist toward Liang, who was rushing in low from the flank.
Liang saw it coming and crossed his arms in a reinforced 'X'. The impact, amplified by Jun's flawless transfer of force, sent him skidding backwards through the dirt.
Their plan was clear: gang up, use their **Jingdao**, and overwhelm him with numbers before his higher Wheel mastery could take over. They came at him in a synchronized storm. Gen, shaking off the neck blow, roared back in with heavy, sweeping blows. Liang darted and weaved, aiming for joints and ankles. Li Fen struck with surgical precision at nerves and pressure points.
For a furious minute, the hollow echoed with the percussive symphony of their clash—the *crack* of forearms meeting, the *thud* of kicks absorbed, the *hiss* of displaced air.
Jun deflected them all. He was a master of economy. A punch from Gen was met with a flowing redirection that left Gen overextended. A low kick from Liang was avoided by a subtle lift from a **Shidow**-boosted hop. A jab from Li Fen was caught and twisted, forcing her to spin away to avoid a lock. He was reading the flow of three fighters at once, his movements a blend of hardened flesh and manipulated energy.
"You think I don't understand?" Jun mocked, a cruel smile on his face as he used a gentle **Shidow** nudge to make Gen and Liang's attacks interfere with each other. "Overwhelm the superior cultivator before he can bring his full arts to bear. Predictable."
He took a single, gliding step back, creating a precious foot of space. His hands rose, weaving a new, more complex pattern in the air. This was not Shidow. This was **Zhidow**. **Creation**.
From the swirling energy, a dozen smaller, serpentine forms condensed into being. They were perfect, shimmering constructs of hard light—miniature Diamond Cobras. With a flick of his wrists, threads of **Shidow** energy connected to each, and they became an extension of his will, a deadly cloud of puppets.
The puppet-serpents shot outward in a coordinated frenzy. One lunged for Li Fen's throat. She jerked her head back, and its jaws snapped shut on empty air, but the force of its passage, guided by Jun's manipulation, shattered the trunk of a young tree behind her into splinters.
Li Fen's eyes narrowed. She abandoned direct attack. Planting her feet, she raised her hands, palms open to the sky. This was not Creation. This was her true foundation—**Shidow**, **Manipulation**. She reached into the latent life energy of the forest floor, the sleeping potential in a million seeds and roots, and *accelerated* it.
The earth erupted. Not with one tree, but with a violent, spreading network. Thick, ropy roots and thorned vines burst upward in a chaotic thicket, tangling around Jun's legs, whipping at his puppet-serpents, transforming the clean rocky hollow into a dense, living maze in seconds.
Jun grunted, surprised. He had to blast the roots clinging to his ankles with a pulse of force. A vine snagged one of his puppet-strings, and two of the light-cobras winked out.
It was the opening.
Gen saw it. He channeled the full, dense power of his **Eternal Body** into his legs and plowed through the new undergrowth like a golden avalanche.
***BOOM!***
His fist, a meteor of reinforced intent, connected squarely with Jun's crossed arms. This time, there was no flowing redirection. Jun had to take the blow. The impact sent him crashing backwards through a wall of vines, skidding on the stone.
Liang was already there. He had used the chaos to flank. The **Kalash of Elements** materialized before him, its mouth blazing with violent, crackling **white lightning**. He didn't shout. He released.
The searing bolt lanced across the short distance, aimed at Jun's exposed back.
*Got him,* Gen thought, chest heaving. They'd learned each other. Li Fen's Jingdao was solid, but her base was Shidow—control, alteration. And Liang held the shocking, finishing power.
Jun, off-balance and assailed from two sides, smirked.
As the white lightning reached him, he didn't dodge. With his free hand, he conjured a billowing, grey cloud of smoke around himself—a simple **Zhidow** creation. Then, with a sharp, pulling gesture of **Shidow**, he *manipulated* the cloud's nature. It swirled inward, becoming a vortex not of obscurity, but of *absorption*. The violent white energy hit the smoky whirlpool and was swallowed, its light dimming, choked by the grey.
Jun pivoted in mid-air, the very wind bending to his will. He pointed the hand controlling the cloud toward Gen and Li Fen.
The corrupted lightning, now streaked with sickly grey, erupted back out.
Liang's face turned to ash. "MOVE!"
The attack was a wide, furious spray. Too fast. Too broad.
Gen saw Li Fen, closer to the blast's center. Her skills were in manipulation, evasion, control—not in weathering a raw, concussive blast. His body moved before his mind finished the thought.
He kicked off a root, crossed the gap in a flash of golden light, and planted himself in front of her, his Eternal Body shining like a shield. He didn't have time to grab her.
So he kicked. A hard, reinforced shove to her midsection that sent her tumbling backwards, out of the direct line of fire.
"Jiang, you—!" Her cry was cut short by the blast.
The corrupted energy hit Gen point-blank.
The world vanished in a roar of agony and light. He was flung off his feet, the smell of his own scorched flesh filling his nose. He crashed through the thorny thicket, snapping vines, before slamming back-first into the unyielding trunk of an ancient tree. Smoke curled from his robes and skin. He slid down to the roots, a crumpled heap, struggling to draw breath.
Jun landed lightly a few paces away, the grey smoke dissolving from his fingertips. He looked from the smoking, fallen Gen to the horrified Liang and the stunned Li Fen, who was scrambling to her feet. A grim, triumphant smile touched his lips.
"You see?" he said, his voice smooth and cold. "This has only just begun. I am going to crush your so-called will into dust."