章 47: Confrontation
During the small window of time in which Shin Sumi, Bai Xuengen and Lan Hui split up, Chu Erlong had actually chosen to launch a surprise attack!
Her goons and her quickly and swiftly invaded the corridors following their vanguard, Liu Qing.
As she mapped the way for the large group, she stopped momentarily, using a silent gesture of her hand to signal some of the red robed disciples.
Nodding in unison, the five red robes slapped their bags of holding and produced paper talismans.
Infusing the talismans with Shinsoo, a transparent and odorless mist rose from the papers to envelop their entire squads. In less than five breaths of time, the twenty plus fighters had been swallowed by the invisible mist.
A while back, the disciples had found the talismans after beating a swarm of fist sized insects, back in the first area of the trial dimension. Later on they had been accepted by Chu Erlong as part of her group, exactly because of these talismans.
The hiding magic of the Cloaking Mist ensured that no disciple up to the great circle of the Liquid Realm could sense them. The group was still visible and could be heard but if a divine sense were to probe the mist, it would only reveal empty space.
What was even more important was that the divine senses coming from the group also benefited from the mist!
For these disciples still young and inexperienced, the importance of these talismans was unfathomable. As long as they stayed far away enough, they could probe Shin Sumi and her group without them realizing they were coming for them!
Lan Hui was the first to come back to the meeting point. He was almost jolly and was bringing good news with him, having found carvings of arrows probably left by previous disciples who had passed by the stairs.
He was the weakest of the three, which went in Chu Erlong's favor.
Lan Hui only saw a blur as one of Shin Sumi's goons jumped out of the shadows and held him from behind, restraining his movements and his mouth.
The second one was Bai Xuengen, coming from the tunnel on the left of the crossing. Bai Xuengen was worthy of his talent and he immediately realized that something was wrong with the situation. He had sensed Lan Hui's presence earlier but somehow it had disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"Brother Bai, something is going on here!" he didn't hesitate to say as loudly as possible, calling Shin Sumi.
"Well too bad our sneak attack failed on you, Bai Xuengen" said a voice from a hidden place. The darkness of the underground maze didn't allow his eyes to reach more than a few dozen meters, and even his divine sense was dumbfounded.
Bai Xuengen could sense where the voice was coming from but he could not pinpoint the exact location using his divine sense.
"I'd recognize your voice anywhere. Chu Erlong, come out of hiding, I know you're here."
Chu Erlong's suave voice was highly recognizable, and she was the only disciple without yellow robes daring to address him by his full name without showing an ounce of respect.
But it wasn't Chu Erlong who came out of the shadows. Bai Xuengen was yellow talented after all, and would be a hard opponent to beat, even for Chu Erlong and the artefacts at her disposal. Instead she sent all of her troops against him.
Shin Sumi was currently racing back to the meeting point. Her divine sense was still too constricted to feel what was happening all the way back but Bai Xuengen's call had reached her.
She stepped out of the path she had taken only to see and hear Bai Xuengen fighting a dozen disciples at the same time. She was surprised to see him fight when her divine sense had only shown an empty tunnel.
It didn't take long to catch up on what was happening. In a reflex emphasized by all her training in the mountains and her encounters during the Rising Star Tournament, she grabbed the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword, throwing it ahead of her as she ran along.
The golden blur sped across the air but failed to hit any of the disciples attacking Bai Xuengen.
Now that Shin Sumi had arrived, the lack of divine sense didn't matter anymore. She had something nobody, not even Chu Erlong could expect.
The Copper Bell made it so that the darkness that clouded all disciple's visions was as bright as day for her.
Shin Sumi's sword didn't aim for any disciple but the one she could see restricting Lan Hui in the distance.
The sword pierced the disciple's shoulder, embedded in his flesh to the hilt.
A scream of pain that made one's soul shiver erupted from the hidden disciple's mouth. Lan Hui didn't waste any time, escaping his grasp and taking him out with a blow to the head.
For a split second, the Affairs Pavilion minister froze when he saw the shining golden weapon. The next instant, the sword was recalled by Shin Sumi, leaving the unconscious red robed man to bleed out.
By then, Shin Sumi had joined Bai Xuengen and was using her bare fists to help him, outnumbered by red robes.
Lan Hui joined the fray, taking out two daggers and clenching his teeth. He might have not been the best fighter around but his cultivation level didn't lack for a red robed disciple.
Chu Erlong was stunned for a moment. She had been ready for many possibilities but the scene unfolding in front of her exceeded her plans by far.
"Who is he?! He's able to see through the Cloaking Mist and to control a flying sword to this extent??! How can Bai Fulong be an Honorary Disciple?!"
A single move from Bai Fulong had turned the tables around in less than five seconds.
Lan Hui was almost back to where Shin Sumi and Bai Xuengen were fighting, showing an unexpected fighting spirit and ability. His twin daggers seemed to split the air in twisted motions and evade the blocks of his opponents, taking a few of them out quickly.
When Chu Erlong finally reacted, the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was back in Shin Sumi's hand, Bai Xuengen was continuously blocking all attacks with ease and Lan Hui was almost with them.
The orange robed girl closed her eyes, chanting a short incantation. The ring on her finger immediately turned to dust and the thousands of tiny particles started to float in a circular motion in front of her, like a disc of broken crystal.
Shin Sumi was parrying two red robed disciples at the same time with her sword when a familiar but distant feeling rose in her as well as a sharp pain that the rush of battle quickly drowned out.
"The little nut" she thought as she recalled what the sensation was. "Chu Erlong is about to do something! Brother Bai, Brother Lan, get behind me!"
Without questioning Bai Fulong's words, both his comrades followed the command. They didn't have time to ascertain what danger was coming but they trusted Bai Fulong with their life. They had no choice.
"Get back, we should run! NOW!"
The two of them leaped backwards as fast as possible, watching Shin Sumi fight off the disciples to make their escape easier.
Of course, Shin Sumi had no intention of staying there for whatever Chu Erlong was preparing in the shadows in the back of the corridor. She turned around and started to run, sword still in hand.
Lan Hui stole a glance at the particular golden sword held in Bai Fulong's hand as he turned, but he did not process right away. They had to run for now, explanations would naturally come later.
Chu Erlong's chanted incantation finished right as Shin Sumi and her group were about to reach the crossing from where they had come mere minutes earlier.
The thousands of crystal shards had collapsed into a big fiery ball of molten matter, glowing a bright yellow color.
Chu Erlong's lips closed in a grin as she said "How do you plan on escaping THAT now, eh?"
The ball flew away from her hands with astonishing speed. Thankfully for the red robed disciples, their misfortune of fighting the combo of both Bai Brothers made it so most of them were on the ground, already unconscious or wallowing in pain.
The fireball flew above their head, the radiated head almost too much for them even if they miraculously avoided it's path.
Having almost no time to read to the blazing sun that was coming their way, Shin Sumi who was the closest to the doom projectile launched her sword while jumping with all her strength.
Bai Xuengen and Lan Hui were already halfway up the stairs when the yellow fireball hit the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword with a deafening explosion.
The Gold Tyrant Flying Sword took the brunt of the blast, redirecting it upwards instead of straight at Shin Sumi's group.
The remaining power of the fireball hit the ceiling of the stone corridor, provoking a storm of dust and fine power.
Due to the confined environment and the strength of the blast, every disciple was momentarily rendered blind and deaf by the explosion. Even Chu Erlong being as far as she was ended up on the floor, her senses momentarily stolen.
Silence settled after a few dozen seconds and Shin Sumi finally managed to open her eyes, the black veil that had been clouding her vision finally replaced by the white of the dust.
"Brother Lan? Brother Bai?" she called uselessly.
The ceiling had collapsed right after the shockwave from the explosion sent her off in the side tunnel. Shin Sumi's divine sense quickly searched her surroundings, only to find that a huge portion of the upper level was in rubble, filling completely the tunnel they were previously in.
The crossing of tunnels was now sealed off by chunks of rocks the size of houses!
Thankfully the rubble had only destroyed the first half of the set of stairs, leaving Bai Xuengen and Lan Hui unscathed but separated from Shin Sumi.
Due to the strange laws of physics in place, the disciples could not communicate via divine sense through the walls of stone but Shin Sumi could feel the presence of two different groups on the other side of the rubble.
"Chu Erlong is blocked too! Lan Hui needs to escape now, and so do I. Don't worry my friends, we'll join each other soon!"
Somehow, they had all escaped the blazing fire that had been thrown at them by Chu Erlong.
"What kind of magic was that?! Thankfully the Gold Tyrant Divine Sword redirected the blast, or we would have been fried instantly!"
Shin Sumi was thinking about the frightening magic in Chu Erlong's possession.
"First the Black Cloud Curse, now a small blazing fireball, how deep does her arsenal run? With that she can fight on equal footing with anyone under the Liquid Realm!"
Shin Sumi was about to curse her for having so many opportunities due to her being the heir to an important Clan of the sect when she realized how hypocritical it was from her.
Starting as a nobody without even an ounce of Shinsoo affinity, Shin Sumi had managed to rise and become one of the strongest Honorary Disciple too.
"And it was all thanks to the little nut that saved me once again today... Without it I would have died countless times, and I wouldn't have found the Copper Bell, and never gained the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword from Senior Brother Fen, and... My Sword!!"
Only then did she feel her empty hand. Her memories right before the blast were fuzzy but she recalled the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword being blasted away by the explosion.
Concentrating on her mental link to the weapon, Shin Sumi sent out her divine sense trying to call the blade to return to her.
Some small rocks close to the collapsed area started to rumble before letting out a golden blur that found its way to her hand.
Shin Sumi let out a long breath. In her anxiousness she had forgotten to breathe. At least she still had her sword, even if her friends were separated from her.
Weapon in hand, Shin Sumi felt like she could do anything. Upon closer inspection she had seen that the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was completely intact, even after the massive amount of damage done by Chu Erlong's spell.
If a small sun colliding with the sword didn't leave as much as a scratch on it, then what could possibly happen? As long as she avoided monsters like the Water Ghoul, she could probably surpass anything that was thrown her way.
She thought about the giant crocodile from the first area of the trial for a brief second, wondering how she would now fare against it but didn't give it much thought. The enclosed area of the maze was way too tight for a huge beast like that. As for the 'blur' that had reduced the crocodile to its sorry state... well she wasn't so sure.
***
At the time of the confrontation between Shin Sumi's group and Chu Erlong's gang, not many elders were present in the Grand Hall of the Dark Sky Starry Sect as it was the middle of the night.
Outside of the timeless dimension where no sun ever rose, the life of the sect needed to continue, the Elders occupied with their disciples or simply taken by matters of the sect.
There was always at least one Elder present though, just in case in order to alert the others if an unexpected even arose.
The trial by fire had been going on for months now and the possibility of a disciple breaking through to the Liquid Realm was growing bigger.
Patriarch Sen spent most of his time seated in his high chair overseeing the large hall, seemingly meditating but his divine sense always connected to the Shinsoo screen displaying the map.
Nobody besides him knew what he was thinking of, which were the rules of the Rising Star Tournament that he himself had set up.
"It is still too early for a breakthrough. Even the most advanced disciples cultivation-wise have a really shallow level of experience. When they reach the Liquid Realm, they will finally take their first real step into the cultivation world, by then the more experience the better."
The Honorary Disciples in the midst of the trial were so engrossed in their own adventures and their knowledge of cultivation and breaking through were too poor to realize that some of them had already acquired more Shinsoo than what was necessary for breaking through.
The main condition for finishing the test was to reach the exit, which could be done independently of the individual's level. But other forces were at play that even Elders didn't necessarily know about.
Patriarch Sen knew that some of the Elders had picked up on it silently after watching their disciples fail to break through.
Reaching the Liquid Realm can only be done in the fifth area of the floating continent. The central ring, that was where the exit was located as well as the only place that allowed a breakthrough.
"If a kid like Jun Qian, Tai Bu or Sui Lin who have been waiting for a long time at the top of the Shinsoo Gathering Realm were to be allowed a breakthrough, they would have done that immediately in the first ring!
Where would be the fun in that?! Eh-eh-eh!"
The Patriarch laughed to himself, "what we need is a shift in power to push everybody to their limits! And the longer they stay in the training dimension the more benefits they can reap from it!"
Continuing his thought process, he focused his divine sense on the green dot of the map.
"For example like finding the Veins of Hell Fire..."
***
Shin Sumi had been roaming the maze for a week straight with little to no rest. It was not the first time she was alone underground, but she had somewhat gotten used to moving with Bai Xuengen and Lan Hui.
Even if she was more of a loner, the stuffy atmosphere of the rock all around her was slowly taking a toll on her mental.
"Exploring was much easier with the others. And faster too" she sighed out loud after having to retrace her steps back for what seemed like the hundredth time, "dead ends everywhere."
Her spirits were lifted for a while when she accidentally stepped in the middle of a room containing five Blood Wolves. That would have scared any red or orange robed disciple but for Shin Sumi it was just an occupation to kill her boredom.
The pack of wolves were without a doubt protecting a treasure and her divine sense indicated that they were not too strong.
The five wolves were standing around a large hole in the ground that was too far away for her divine sense to penetrate, not daring to attack her but clearly not going to leave the hole unprotected.
"Something in this hole must be of value! I have to get it!"
After fighting easily against them, sharp golden sword versus dark claws, Shin Sumi collected the red cores from their corpses, unaffected by the sight of their blood splashed everywhere.
Feeding the cores to the little nut, Shin Sumi stepped on the border of the hole.
The gaping mouth of darkness stared at her, giving rise to an uneasy feeling in her guts.
For some reason even the Copper Bell was unable to tear away at the darkness, as if some higher level of power had dictated the laws of this place.
In fact a stifling pressure seemed to rise off of the hole, the kind that was usually enough to make any disciple renounce on exploring that place.
Nevertheless, although Shin Sumi was a prudent and rational person not prone to rash decisions, she couldn't bring herself to ignore the possibility of a glorious treasure and some adventure.
"I hope it's some kind of dimensional artefact that would show me the way out of this maze!"
It was just wishful thinking and she knew it, but she wanted to believe.
Resting for a bit just to make sure she was in her best condition, Shin Sumi soon lept in the darkness.
***
"What in the Heavens is she doing?!! She can't enter that!" back in the sect, Patriarch Sen suddenly opened his eyes and yelled out loud.
The heads of the Elders present turned quickly, confused, waiting for an explanation.
"One of the disciples went to a sealed off area... Who in their right mind would do that?!"
It was also the reason why the Copper Bell couldn't diffuse the darkness. The area was normally limited to Liquid Realm disciples, but... Shin Sumi had entered the Blood Wolf's Nest.
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