CHAPTER 40: CHAPTER 40: WAR PATH PT5 — BAIHAN V RI

Marquis and his secretary landed behind Ri—Marquis was impressed by the show of strength from RI, a lone slash had restructured the landscape.

Ri turned to look at Marquis and grinned. "You are late."

Marquis just chuckled. "Well, you were faster than us." after they left the sanctuary of the Nine Heavens, he briefed Ri on the situation at hand, and the latter took charge, and left them behind.

Ri’s carefree demeanor shifted when he saw two more people come alongside Baihan. "Can you handle those two? The one that creates ash is mine." He swung the scythe clearing the row of Mecha beasts that come at them cutting them through with a compressed scythe blade.

Marquis looked at the two newcomers—his vision left them briefly and looked at his secretary. He was unsure if she could handle the woman to the left of Baihan. "Can you handle her Mirai?"

Mirai adjusted her red-rimmed glasses and scoffed—she adjusted the sleeves of her t-shirt and rolled them to her elbows. "I’ll be more than capable of doing that, I am an Awakened Saint cultivator after all."

Marquis nodded. "Be careful."

"Likewise."

Ri listened to them and once reassured that they could pull their weight chuckled. "Show time." He declared as he squatted and blasted off from the ground, cracking it in the process while pushing away Dravnel forces from the strength of his shockwave.

In a blink of an eye—Ri was in front of Baihan, his free hand outstretched to cover Baihan’s face.

SHIFT

His cultivation ability kicked in and the space around them glitched—the events happened so fast Baihan and his allies couldn’t react in time, they could only blink and then the location had switched to another surrounded by massive cliffs, and huge trees. Ri threw Baihan towards the trees as an opening move and stabbed his scythe on the ground while he stood on the pole.

Baihan caught himself mid-air, his ash coming out in quantity creating a foothold which he ceremoniously stepped on.

He looked at Ri, and his eyes flashed as the scanner he had upgraded his eyes with accessed the man. His lips thinned, there were no records of the man in the archives that he had access to, but with further infiltration of the system, Baihan was able to get the detailed information on Ri.

"So the Nine Heavens have come out of their hiding." Baihan commented as he commanded his ash to flow around him and into the surroundings.

Ri chuckled—his carefree spirit reflecting. "So you know who I am, and here I thought you were nothing but a puppet."

"I’d thread lightly if I were you." Baihan warned, his eyebrow dangerously lowered.

Ri faked concern. "Oh I’m sorry I hurt your feelings." He intentionally worded his statement that way, hoping to see if he could obtain a reaction derived from anger.

Baihan scoffed and ushered his hands forward—the ash circulating around him, shot towards Ri in waves—the latter jumped over the ashes, cutting some of the ash spikes with his scythe as he distanced himself from them.

Ri swung his scythe mid-air releasing a compressed air wave that tore through the ground as it approached Baihan—a wall of ash rose up and took the attack, stopping it from reaching its target.

So an automatic defense. Ri thought as he evaded more of the barrages that were coming at him. His eyes tracked down angles in which he could find openings—but the man he was fighting had created a nigh-impenetrable field with his ash.

However, Ri was not part of the Nine Heavens for nothing. He skidded to a stop and held his scythe in both hands—if he couldn’t attack from the distance, then close quarters would do—a risky gamble he was taking, breathing in, he darted forward, his body fading in and out of sight as he dodged more of the ash.

Quick footwork allowed Ri, to maneuver through the terrain and in a burst of additional speed he changed positions leaving his afterimages to charge at Baihan while he took a sneaky approach, hiding behind his afterimages.

"Got you!"

Baihan’s eyes widened when he saw Ri within arms reach of him—he was late to react as the tip of the scythe ran along his torso, cutting him diagonally drawing blood and tearing his robes. Baihan jumped back to minimize the damage and clutched his hand forcing his ash to cover Ri.

Ri covered in a cocoon of ash spread his hand stopping its compression of the cocoon. "Shit." He muttered to himself as he channeled Neuro-Qi to his hands to reinforce them under the crushing pressure.

THORNS OF ASH

Baihan brought the ash he had scattered together and shaped it into thorns which pierced through everything inside a 500 meter area—the thorns pierced through the cocoon and silence befell the battlefield giving Baihan a false impression that he had won making the man lower his guard.

Something that proved to be a mistake.

Ri grinned from within the cocoon, the attack of thorns had not even touched him—his control over space had come in handy when it came to shifting the thorns to another pocket of space. His robe fell down and two more hands appeared hidden under his robe, he grabbed the scythe with his additional arms and swung the weapon causing a fissure to form in space, cutting through the rather durable cocoon and Baihan’s shoulder.

Baihan knelt on the ground bleeding and turned to look over his shoulder. "Why aren’t you dead?" he questioned—his Neuro-Qi sensory couldn’t detect any use of Neuro-Qi and he couldn’t see any life force either.

Ri stepped out of the split cocoon. "My name is Ri, and my ability? Spatial manipulation."

LIMIT BREAKER

Ri placed his hands together and two spheres appeared behind him—each sphere boasted a rather powerful gravitational singularity and they merged above his head. He breathed in and fired the sphere in the direction of Baihan—calamity followed, the path of the sphere laid waste to everything—matter was deleted from existence, trees were pulled into it and a massive curvature appeared beneath the sphere.

Baihan knew that if he got caught it was over—his body submerged into the ash and he commanded it to move him out of the path of the sphere.

As the attack from Ri died down—Baihan knew exactly what he was dealing with.

The mountains behind them? They were no more, the peaks that reached the clouds were reduced to nothing but dust from the attack itself—an empty void occupied the area where the mountains, the trees and lakes used to be. In a single instance, Ri, had restructured the terrain to a frightening sight.

Ri finally breathed out and whistled—his intention was to charge limit breaker a bit but for some reason he had put more power into it—he looked at Baihan who was gaping at the show of destruction and a chuckle left his lips.

"As you can see, I am stronger than you so why don’t you just give up and go home? I don’t want to kill unnecessarily."