Chapter 88: Flame Vs Flame
Xiang Yu watched the growing flame attack with dread, his mind racing through possible countermeasures. Should he coat his sword with lightning and attempt to split the fireball? No, this wasn’t some fantasy movie. Besides, even if he somehow managed such a feat, what if the separated halves crashed into his carefully buried talismans? The resulting chain reaction would only hasten his demise.
His thoughts turned to using earth qi to burrow underground for escape. That wouldn’t work either—disturbing the ground would trigger the very talismans he’d planted, sending him to meet his ancestors even sooner. Damn it! He’d cornered himself with his own strategy.
"All those novels lied," he thought bitterly. Weren’t villains supposed to be predictable idiots? Shouldn’t this cultivator be cursing and blindly charging at him instead of employing such effective tactics? Xiang Yu exhaled slowly, recognizing he was getting too agitated. He needed to maintain his composure and find a solution.
Before he could formulate a plan, he noticed something concerning. "Hmm, why is it still getting bigger?" he muttered, observing the expanding fireball. "Wait..."
Realization struck him—the Core Formation expert had actually thrown the attack. This wasn’t following the script at all! Shouldn’t the man first demand he kowtow three times, then perhaps magnanimously offer to leave his corpse intact?
The fireball continued growing in size as it descended toward him, the heat intensifying with each passing second. Xiang Yu wondered if this truly marked the end of his journey. "Junior sister," he thought wistfully, "it seems I can’t marry you in this lifetime."
Just as he’d resigned himself to his fate, he felt something shift inside him. "Wait! That’s..." His expression transformed from resignation to hope. "It seems luck is still on my side."
Meanwhile, the Core Formation cultivator pushed the massive fireball toward Xiang Yu, his face deliberately devoid of emotion. Internally, he was certain this attack would annihilate the troublesome youth. He refrained from voicing any curses or premature celebrations—he didn’t want to jinx his victory.
He reflected on the strange progression of their encounter. Initially, he’d dismissed Xiang Yu as a powerless mortal, yet the young man had managed to injure him. He’d attributed this to luck, but then Xiang Yu had killed both his subordinates. Perhaps extraordinary fortune was at play? But after suffering a second and third injury at the youth’s hands, coincidence seemed increasingly implausible.
More unsettling was how Xiang Yu had maintained control throughout their battle despite his apparent weakness. It felt as though the young cultivator was orchestrating every exchange, making the Core Formation expert dance in the palm of his hand. He wouldn’t be surprised if Xiang Yu was actually some ancient master using rejuvenation arts—that battle awareness was unnervingly precise. Facing him evoked the same uneasiness as confronting the sect master; no, not even the sect master gave him such a "seen though" feeling.
He needed to end this quickly before Xiang Yu somehow reversed their positions yet again.
"Hmm... where’s the chain reaction?" the cultivator wondered. He’d expected the buried talismans to begin exploding, creating a domino effect of destruction. Could Xiang Yu have been bluffing all along?
Then he noticed something peculiar. "Is it just me, or is the fireball growing smaller?" From his elevated position, he couldn’t see beneath the massive flaming sphere, and since it was made of qi, it interfered with his qi sense.
After brief deliberation, he descended from his vantage point, gliding cautiously toward the ground. His suspicions were confirmed—the flame was indeed diminishing in size. Within seconds, the entire attack had vanished completely.
Xiang Yu’s face split into a smug smile that made the Core Formation cultivator uneasy.
...
As Xiang Yu observed the incoming fireball, resignation settling over him, he suddenly felt something stir deep within his core. A familiar energy pulsed through his meridians, demanding his attention. Recognition dawned on his face as he identified the source—his Abyssal Void Flame awakening in response to the threat.
A smile spread across his features as he remembered Elder Huang’s words about the flame. "...but when I tried to absorb this flame, it also tried to absorb my flames..." she had said. He hadn’t paid attention to this before but now...
That had been when the Abyssal Void Flame was still in the seventh grade. Now, after his system’s exponential growth, it had nearly reached the fifth grade.
"Looks like luck is still on my side," Xiang Yu murmured, confidence replacing his earlier despair. With this improved spirit flame, he doubted the Core Formation cultivator’s ordinary qi-based fireball stood a chance. He could feel the Abyssal Void Flame’s hunger—its primal desire to consume other flames pulsing through their connection.
As the massive fireball approached, its heat scorching the air between them, Xiang Yu raised his hand. The Abyssal Void Flame manifested before him, hovering above his palm—an impossible darkness that absorbed all light rather than emitting it. The flame cast no shadows and reflected nothing; its surface was a perfect void broken only by occasional white sparks flickering within its depths.
To any observer, it resembled a miniature black hole. And it might as well have been as the approaching fireball began behaving strangely. The enormous sphere of destructive energy started swirling like a tornado, its trajectory bending toward the void flame as if caught in an irresistible gravitational pull. What began as a subtle distortion quickly intensified, the fireball elongating and spiraling toward Xiang Yu’s palm with increasing speed.
Xiang Yu felt the raw power of the incoming attack—violent, chaotic, and destructive—but the moment it made contact with his Abyssal Void Flame, the energy settled instantly, as though tamed by a greater force. The fireball’s essence poured into his spirit flame like water down a drain, feeding it, though Xiang Yu noted the contribution to his flame’s growth wasn’t particularly significant.
The vortex accelerated, the fireball’s rotation becoming a blur of motion as the last portions of the attack vanished into the Abyssal Void Flame’s endless hunger. Within seconds, the devastating attack had completely disappeared, leaving nothing between Xiang Yu and the Core Formation cultivator who hovered above.
The man stared down at Xiang Yu, his expression transitioning from confident victory to stunned disbelief. What divine ability was that? And was that truly a spirit flame? When he focused on the dark flame hovering above Xiang Yu’s palm, all color drained from his face.
For just an instant—a fraction of a second so brief he nearly missed it—the Abyssal Void Flame had looked back at him. In that moment, raw existential dread flooded through the cultivator’s body. An overwhelming certainty of his own mortality gripped him, as though he’d glimpsed the ultimate end of all things within that bottomless darkness.
"No!" The thought screamed through his mind. "I need to get out of here." The mission, Elder Mei’s orders, the sect’s objectives—fuck all that. He wanted nothing to do with whatever eldritch entity this youth commanded.
When Xiang Yu noticed the man’s expression of absolute terror, he didn’t understand the cause, but he recognized an opportunity. With the powerful cultivator momentarily distracted and hovering at low altitude, this was his chance to strike decisively before the man could ascend beyond his reach.
With this thought burning in his mind, Xiang Yu activated his final trump card...
...
Author’s Corner:
What do y’all think of this, I hadn’t even planed this method it just happened naturally lol