Han Yimu braced his ribs against the impact and coughed up a mouthful of blood as he just barely landed on his feet, digging into the ground with his heels and slowly skidding back some twenty yards before coming to a stop.
Just as he did, he keeled over and vomited thrice as much blood, coughing after the fact as his vision blurred for a moment. He immediately started circulating Surging Spirit Art and barely managed to stabilize his body before passing out; each and every time he'd use it, he'd be left in absolute awe, unable to fully comprehend how it was physically possible for an art to be almost as good as a healing pill of great quality.
His eyes wandered forward toward the man who started shouting about something, though Han Yimu wasn't certain what precisely was happening. Up until a moment ago, he was mostly deflecting them and almost looked as though he was 'entertaining' them, and now... now he looked to be on the verge of losing his mind.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!!" he shouted yet again while, a mere blink of an eye later, he saw the oddest of Master's disciples--Long Tao--emerge from nothing not ten or twenty feet from the man.
Han Yimu's heart paused; though he'd encountered plenty of cloaking arts as they were dime-a-dozen in the Upper Realms, that clearly went well beyond something ordinary or average, as even the man himself seemed shocked.
"Simply what had to be done," Long Tao said in a relatively casual tone as an ordinary-seeming sword appeared in his hand.
Han Yimu's heart skipped a beat in excitement; he'd never seen the boy fight, though considering how the other kids treated him, it was evident from day one that he was by far the strongest. And now... he was openly challenging a man that all the rest of the kids, including Han Yimu himself, were struggling to merely contain.
"YOU BASTARD!!" the man screamed and whipped the sword violently toward Long Tao, plumes of Sword Qi arising like a wave of a tsunami.
The boy, on the other hand, gracefully extended his sword arm and swung it rapidly within small area; an invisible whip of energy surged forward and tore open the wave, perfectly splitting it down the middle so that the two halves went past the boy.
At the same time, he moved, disappearing and appearing almost instantaneously next to the man, swing already charged and unloaded. The latter swung back but bucked under the weight, and the seemingly impossible happened--he was moved. No... he was outright catapulted just like the kids and he had been all this while.
However, unlike with them, Long Tao didn't wait for the man to free himself of the freefall, catching up to him midair and swinging violently yet again. Each strike was so simple, so ordinary-looking that, from the outside looking in, Han Yimu would swear they'd be beyond easy to deflect.
And yet, the man struggled.
He whipped the sword around while rolling midair, slowly dissipating the backward momentum, and deflecting the sword strike, using the energy of the collision to pummel himself down to the ground. As soon as he touched it, he dug his heel in and caused a small crater to explode before he shot back up, reaching Long Tao immediately.
And thus the dance began--one that Han Yimu could just barely follow, occasionally losing the figures and only seeing streaks of light.
There were no exaggerated moves--that was the first thing he noticed. Neither Long Tao nor the man went for flashy sword strikes that unleashed an unholy volley of winds and Qi; rather, their attacks were simple and deliberate, so much so that Han Yimu felt for a moment he was seeing things wrong.
... but he caught it, when Long Tao swung above with a slightly exaggerated downward force, and the man swung from below matching it. At the moment of collision, a terrible surge of Qi overwhelmed Han Yimu to the point cold sweat broke out of his back. He instinctively braced and covered his face, anticipating a shockwave that would annihilate the entire cave and possibly even damage the array above, but it never came.
They folded it, the energy. Somehow, they folded it unto itself and dissipated it between each other before it could echo out. Something... something only the Elders in the Sect could do.
More and more, it truly looked like a coordinated, choreographed fight, akin to those disciples would put on during annual festivals. But it wasn't. Both of them were simply adjusting so quickly that it broke Han Yimu's perception of reality.
Long Tao was merely at the Revolving Core Realm, that much was certain. And even though he was fighting 'just' an Avatar, and one that has clearly been exhausted, it should never be that a literal child was to do what he was doing.
It cannot be.
And yet it was.
Yet another collision sparked fire embers to shoot out like fireworks as the two made some distance between one another, staring back and forth in silence, swords at a ready. Though it couldn't have been longer than a second or two, it felt like it took eternity for them to move.
Long Tao was the first to execute an attack; it was a straight pierce, one so quick that Han Yimu didn't even really see it--merely the result of it, which was a sword stabbed in the man's thigh. On the other end, Long Tao was missing a good chunk of his left arm, the stump bleeding profusely. And yet... he looked as unbothered as he always did.
The man coughed and sprayed out a massive chunk of blood, black as tar, collapsing to his knees as the visage of him began to waver.
"W-who... who the hell are you?!"
"Just my Master's favorite disciple." Long Tao replied, pulling back the sword and slinging it sideways, cleaning it free of blood.
"Hah, as if!" Dai Xiu suddenly shouted from the side. "The day you become Master's favorite disciple is the day rest of us die!"
Why were they so unbothered? So casual? Were they not aware of what just happened?!
"Tsk, brother Tao, you have to learn to stop being such a showoff," sister Wan Lan said. "Be more like Master--humble and quaint."
"..." Long Tao's eyebrows twitched as he glanced at them for a moment. "I really have been going easy on you during the training, haven't I? Ah, I have been too kind."
"You can't threaten us with that anymore! You've broken our bones so many times that it's no different than snapping twigs in front of us!" Dai Xiu boldly proclaimed.
"I guess I should then start carving out your organs mid-fight and tossing them at you to see whether I can shove them back in where they belong by a throw."
... what was this conversation? Han Yimu felt his entire world spin, his entire understanding of reality collapsing. Just then, and before the others could utter a retort, Long Tao extended his left and grabbed at nothing in the air.
"Where do you think you're going?" he said as light beamed between his fingers, revealing trace of the purest energy Han Yimu had ever seen--True Qi! "So rude. We didn't even finish our conversation. Looks like I have to carve some manners into you, too. Oh, so many lessons to teach... it's all so tiring."
Han Yimu's eyebrows twitched as everyone rolled their eyes and grunted, ignoring him. Even Master had lowered his head, hand on the forehead, shaking it.
Truly, he thought, looking up with grief in his eyes. What the hell did I entangle myself with?