Chapter 284: You Had One Job
Li Yao was aggressively squeezing the blob Xiang Yu, hugging it tightly against her chest. After this had been happening for so long, Xiang Yu had completely given up on protesting.
"You idiot, what are you doing?" Li Yao shouted in frustration as she watched the battle unfolding outside. "That’s not how you hold a sword!" she spoke with exasperation.
After a few more seconds of watching, she spoke up again with even more irritation. "How do you even drop your sword? You literally had one job!" Li Yao complained as she watched her younger self fumble almost every strike she made with the divine weapon.
The empress sighed deeply as she watched this. She then spoke up toward the frustrated Li Yao. [Just like you didn’t inherit the domain from her, she also didn’t inherit your swordsmanship,] the empress said.
"What now? It’s like we’re back to square one," Xiang Yu spoke with concern. He thought to himself that Li Yao had already been incredibly strong with the divine weapon, she had just lacked a domain to properly counter her opponent’s domain. But now that she finally had access to the domain, she had lost all her refined swordsmanship abilities.
[Not necessarily,] the empress said thoughtfully. Then, addressing the young Li Yao directly, [Stop trying to use the sword if you can’t handle it properly. Just use your domain abilities instead,] the empress advised.
When Xiang Yu heard this suggestion, he also nodded in agreement. Indeed, since the younger Li Yao didn’t know anything meaningful about swordsmanship, continuing to struggle with the weapon was just unnecessarily weakening her overall combat effectiveness.
Still, he remained worried about the outcome. Based on his simulations, he knew that this version of Li Yao was not nearly strong enough to defeat a Void realm cultivator in direct combat, she wasn’t even halfway there.
The elder watched as Li Yao clumsily blocked another attack and smiled with satisfaction. She thought to herself that she had been worried about nothing. When Li Yao had undergone her transformation, she had initially feared that the girl would become even stronger than before.
While it was certainly true that Li Yao had become much more powerful and significantly faster, she seemed to have completely lost her exceptional swordsmanship skills, which had been the primary factor holding the elder back previously.
As she was thinking of this, she noticed Li Yao suddenly sheathing her sword entirely. "What is she doing now?" she wondered.
"Well, no matter," she thought dismissively as she controlled her domain, making hundreds of massive flame fists charge directly toward Li Yao’s position.
As the attacks were about to land on her, Li Yao didn’t seem to be moving at all to defend herself. The elder smiled.
"Did you finally give up?"
But her eyes widened in shock as she witnessed what actually happened. When the powerful fists collided with Li Yao’s form, her entire body suddenly transformed into pure lightning before dissipating into the air.
She then heard someone giggling playfully from behind her. She spun around quickly and struck out with a palm attack, but just like before, the figure turned into lightning and dissipated.
"What the..." she began to say in confusion. As she was desperately trying to understand what was happening, more and more childish giggling started popping up all around her.
All around her in every direction, she saw hundreds of identical Li Yao clones floating in the air, all giggling.
She controlled her domain once again and sent out hundreds of concentrated flame attacks toward the numerous clones. But when the attacks successfully destroyed several Li Yao copies, two more would immediately take their place in an endless cycle.
Then, the clones started moving. Batches of up to ten began rushing toward her position simultaneously. She smiled confidently, readying her fist to counter-attack the incoming assault.
But when the charging clones reached her position, they all exploded simultaneously. The tremendous force of the explosion pushed her back several feet, leaving her momentarily stunned.
As she steadied herself and regained her balance, even more clones charged at her from multiple directions. She tried to escape in a different direction, but even more copies found her new position almost instantly.
After several minutes of this relentless assault, she had received quite a few injuries throughout her body. Though they were still relatively minor wounds.
She stared at the seemingly never-ending stream of clones, wondering which one could possibly be the real Li Yao. She had been scanning intensively for the original for so long, but they were all absolutely perfect copies of each other. They were either all real or all fake.
...
"What are you doing?" Li Yao asked with growing irritation as she watched the battle.
"Attacking," Yao Yao responded matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, and dealing like one damage every blue moon," Li Yao retorted.
"Hmph," Yao Yao scoffed dismissively.
"You..." Li Yao was furious, and even more so as she couldn’t do anything about it.
"Calm down," Xiang Yu spoke soothingly, patting her head gently to help ease her anger. "And also stop squeezing me so hard - I can’t breathe," he thought, though he didn’t voice it out loud.
Outside, the small Li Yao looked at the elder. Her older version was right about the situation. The elder didn’t seem to be taking any meaningful damage from her lightning clone attacks.
She had tried repeatedly to use the rules of her domain to inflict damage, but it wasn’t working. Her domain was being suppressed, so this approach was honestly the most she could accomplish under these circumstances.
Suddenly, she had a brilliant idea and her eyes brightened. "That’s right! I’ll ask senior brother for help," she said with excitement. "Senior brother knows how to use the sword properly - he can use it to help me fight!"
Inside the spiritual sea, Li Yao looked at her with confusion. "Ask senior brother for help? He’s like a thousand miles away from here. How will you possibly ask him for help?"
Outside, the small Li Yao completely ignored her. She clasped her hands together in concentration, and as she slowly pulled them apart, a small toy made entirely out of lightning began to form between her palms.
The lightning construct was about half a meter in size and was mostly composed of an oversized head. It looked remarkably similar to Xiang Yu’s soul fragment.
When Xiang Yu saw this, he smiled as he immediately understood what she was planning. She was creating a body for him to inhabit, just like he had done when creating his elemental clones.
He wondered if this would actually work in practice. He disappeared from Li Yao’s grip and appeared outside, entering the lightning body that had been prepared for him.
When he successfully entered the body, he was genuinely surprised that this body was surprisingly comfortable. Although it didn’t have actual flesh and was composed entirely of pure elemental energy, it still felt remarkably natural and responsive.
He experimented by thinking about having arms, and arms immediately protruded from his lightning body exactly as he had envisioned. He thought to himself that this form was just like his soul fragment.
"Senior brother, do you like it?" she asked eagerly.
"Yes, I love it. Yao Yao is really smart," Xiang Yu said warmly, patting her head.
"Hehehe, I knew senior brother would like it," she giggled at his praise.
Xiang Yu reached for the void sword and unsheathed it. He thought to himself that this would be his first real combat in a while.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t scared at all, even though their opponent was a powerful Void realm cultivator. This confidence probably came from the fact that he wasn’t physically present himself.
He smoothly unsheathed the divine weapon and then tossed the scabbard to Yao Yao. "Use that to defend yourself," he instructed.
He then gripped the sword with both hands, testing its balance in this unusual form. "Now, let’s see if I still got it..."
...
A/N: How can he use it with the soul binding rune? Well, technically, this is still Li Yao as the body is made by her so it’s an extension of her...