“It… it’s gone…” Wu Meiying’s muttered words were clearly heard within the now silent area as she collapsed to the ground like a puppet without strings.
“Shit! Mei! Get up!” Wu Jian shouted, but the woman did not move. It was as if she couldn’t hear him at all.
“Ha… ha ha… ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!”
Another sound soon echoed around them. It started small and soft, filled with a mixture of disbelief, but then it filled the area, the sound now proud and filled with joy. Laughter. Zhou Shiwei had thrust his head back and was laughing. The man who had been so cold and calm up to now was laughing like a loon.
“I cannot believe it! My master has been after you for millenia! Not once had he ever managed to capture you! His men all tried so hard, but they were never able to sever that bond you two shared… until now.” He eyed the woman with a knowing smile. “Yes, I know how you managed to evade capture for so long.”
Wu Meiying’s head shot up. She stared at Zhou Shiwei with clear hatred raging in her eyes. Before long, the woman had blasted off, reaching Zhou Shiwei as though she had teleported.
“Shut up!” She snapped, lashing out with a knife strike infused with the Dao of Time. Zhou Shiwei avoided it with ease, and then began taunting her even more.
“You are quite the cruel woman. Our master compiled tomes on how to capture you. Did you know that? Every time we failed to sever your bonds and capture you both, we would add it into the tome. It became so large that we eventually had to make two, then three, then many. Right now, there is a large library filled with hundreds of books, and each one is dedicated to you. Your mannerisms after every reincarnation, your tactics to avoid capture, and even any new powers you come to possess. These tomes are accessible to everyone within Moon Time Palace.”
“Stop talking! Shut up!” Wu Meiying screamed. She sounded hysterical.
Zhou Shiwei smirked, then kicked the woman in the torso. She folded over his foot before he retracted it and slammed a punch into the underside of her jaw. The attack launched her clear into the air and she landed on the ground with a harsh thud.
“You change tactics with almost every incarnation, but when it is clear that you have no way out, when it seems as though we have you dead to rights, you kill Wu Jian, and then yourself to avoid having the bond between you two severed.”
His words were like a punch to the gut for Wu Meiying. She had just been getting to her feet when she staggered as though physically struck.
Zhou Shiwei chuckled as he eyed them all. “Yes, you are a tenacious and cruel woman. You’re so merciless that you would even kill the man you claim to love. I’m impressed. Truly. I wish I had your ruthlessness. If I was half as cold-hearted as you, some of my problems on this small sealed world would have never become a problem in the first place.”
“You… you killed Wu Jian… in your previous lifetimes?” asked Hou Jingshu, and the look of horror on her face said it all. It told everyone exactly what she thought of Wu Meiying now that she knew.
“Meiying…” Zhou Lihua with a look that was a mix of revulsion and horror.
Wu Meiying took their looks like a knife to the face. Her own expression was like someone had torn her face apart, like it was splitting. She then looked at Wu Jian.
“Jian… it… it’s not…” she tried to say, but she couldn’t lie to him.
No.
It was more like she wouldn’t lie to him.
He could tell simply from the way she went silent that everything Zhou Shiwei said was true. Wu Meiying, in at least several of her previous incarnations, had killed him--not in a fit of rage, but because her former apprentice’s people were going to break the connection she had formed between them during their very first incarnation.
“Wu Jian…” Zhou Shiwei said in a voice that was placating, almost grandfatherly. “You are a victim in all this. You know, this woman’s obsession with you has transcended anything and everything. The number of atrocities she has committed, the amount of taboos she has broken are innumerable… but you are blameless. Merely the result of this woman’s obsession. I will let you walk away. My master may take issue with this decision, but we won’t fight it so long as she comes back into the fold.”
He held out his hand as though asking Wu Jian to accept the gesture. Wu Meiying struggled. The way her face twitched made it obvious that she wanted to say something… but she held her tongue. She looked at Wu Jian with eyes that made him think she’d start crying the second he opened his mouth.
Wu Jian was silent for a moment. It was clear to him now that Wu Meiying had left quite a bit out of her explanations to him. There were stories she hadn’t told him, perhaps out of fear that he would feel the same disgust toward her that Hou Jingshu and Zhou Lihua were openly displaying.
He glanced back at Zhou Shiwei, who still held a grandfatherly smile, and then back to Wu Meiying.
He could feel something in this moment. Right here, right now, was a pivotal moment. His decision here could change the course of his entire timeline. He didn’t even need to understand the Dao of Time to know this. The decision he made now would be a permanent fixture in his timeline.
Wu Jian took a deep breath.
“Teleport.”
And then he was suddenly right behind Zhou Shiwei.
“Black Hole.”
He moved so fast that Zhou Shiwei, who must have expected him to accept his proposal, could not move in time. The black hole tore into his side. It didn’t do enough damage to kill him, but as the robes he wore were shredded and sucked into the black hole, a massive, gaping gash became visible on the man’s torso.
Hmmm…
Wu Jian had a thought as he saw the damage he had done. That was a lot more than he had expected to do.
“You!!!” Zhou Shiwei growled. “I offer you a way out and this is how you thank me? You have forgotten kindness and are betraying righteousness!”
“I have not forgotten anything,” Wu Jian declared. “I have simply decided who my loyalty should be toward--and it’s not you or your master. I know who I should trust… even if she is a little crazy.”
***
Hou Jingshu could do nothing but stare at Wu JIan as he renewed his battle with Zhou Shiwei.
She didn’t understand what he was thinking.
While she didn’t dismiss the possibility that Zhou Shiwei was blowing smoke up their asses, she had a strong feeling that everything he said about Wu Meiying was true. She shuddered, recalling how easily Wu Meiying had been able to kill the Wu Jians in the illusion they had been trapped in. Hou Jingshu originally thought the reason she could so easily slaughter them was because they were not really Wu Jian.
Now she was beginning to think otherwise.
“I don’t understand…” she said to herself. “How can he defend her?”
Zhou Lihua took a deep breath. “I can’t say I fully understand either, but I don’t think it matters. Will knowing his reasons change his decision? Will it change yours?”
“Lili…?”
Zhou Lihua stood up under the watchful eyes of her friend.
“I love Wu Jian, and I will support all of his decisions, even if I don’t understand them,” she declared. “Besides, we won’t be able to understand his or… Mei’s situation unless we survive this situation long enough to ask.”
Hou JIngshu let those words sink in. The battle between Wu Jian and Zhou Shiwei was surprisingly even for the moment. They were trading blows at a rapid pace. What really stuck out was how Zhou Shiwei was not using any of his techniques.
“You’re right,” she said, standing up. “We need to all make it out of this before we can figure out anything else. Besides, thinking was never my strong suit.” She looked back at her friend and grinned. “Let’s get in there.”
***
“Swords of Space Rondo!”
Several hundred swords made from spatial energy and sword intent flew toward Zhou Shiwei, who dodged as many of them as he could. A few reached him. Those he smashed with a fist. However…
I knew it!
Wu Jian had been watching him. During their previous battle, Zhou Shiwei had been throwing techniques like they were going out of style, but now he was fighting conservatively. The only reason someone would change how they fought so dramatically like this was if they were running out of qi. That technique to sever the bond between him and Wu Meiying must have taken a lot more qi than he initially thought it would. A man as cautious as Zhou Shiwei would not have done this otherwise.
Wu Meiying flew in as they fought and joined him. She shifted around his body, moving as though she knew what he would do first, and released a kick that was blocked by a shin, but then Wu Jian swung Pale Moon. His attack sliced through the man’s leg. It fell to the ground in a clean cut. Zhou Shiwei hobbled back as the leg regrew like time was rewinding.
“Don’t think I will allow you to use time like that,” Wu Meiying shouted as she raised her hand. “Reversal Disruption!”
The leg stopped growing before it could fully form. Now that he had a lot less qi to work with, Zhou Shiwei was unable to protect himself from her techniques.
He still tried to attack, but Zhou Lihua and Hou Jingshu joined the fray soon after, and their attacks combined with his and Wu Meiying’s made it impossible for the man to even fight back. Cuts soon littered his body.
This did not mean he was done. Not by a long shot. With a growl, the man removed a ring that sat on his finger.
“Oh, shi--” Wu Meiying said before power exploded from the man’s body.
Wu Jian was forced to standstill as something oppressive tried to crush him into the ground. The others were in a similar position. Zhou Lihua had fallen face first into the ground, while Wu Meiying and Hou Jingshu were on their hands and knees.
The sensation of power wafting off this man was different from what Wu Jian felt in the presence of other Perfection Realm cultivators. There was a quality to it that made him feel like a god stood before him, and he should be bowing his head in supplication. Divine was the only word he could think of to describe the power this man standing before him possessed.
That artifact must have been restraining his cultivation so he could stay in this world.
“I do not have much time, but it will be long enough to make sure you die,” Zhou Shiwei declared.