The realization struck me like a lightning bolt—he predicted my Blink.
And yet, instead of panic, a slow smile curled across my lips.
This was exactly what I wanted. Vex had committed everything—his trump card, his poisons, his pride. He was all-in. And that meant he had nothing left to hold back.
I took a deep breath, exhaling through my nose as my mind settled into stillness. It was time to use one of my trump cards - White Lotus Combat Style.
The world sharpened. The rustle of leaves, the scent of blood, the faint hum of Vex’s malevolent aura—everything crystallized into perfect clarity.
[White Lotus: Closed Petal]
My stance shifted, weight balanced between both feet, daggers held in loose reverse grips. My breathing slowed. My senses expanded.
The first wave came—not the true Falling Fang, but its prelude.
Daggers of condensed aura rained down from above, streaking through the night like black meteors. Each one hummed with killing intent, aimed to pin me in place before the real strike landed.
[White Lotus: Petals Drift]
My daggers moved in fluid arcs, not blocking, but redirecting.
A flick of the wrist sent the first blade veering harmlessly into the dirt. A twist of my body let the second graze my shoulder, drawing blood but nothing deeper. The third, I caught flat against my dagger’s edge, spinning it away with a sharp clang.
But I wasn’t perfect since I had been training for just a month. I should be happy I managed to reach Intermediate Stage mastery.
One slipped past my guard—a razor-thin cut along my ribs. Another nicked my thigh. The wounds burned, but they were shallow. Manageable.
Vex’s voice echoed from the shadows, mocking. "Pathetic."
I didn’t answer. My focus wasn’t on his words—it was on the rhythm.
The false daggers weren’t random. They were a pattern. A setup.
A shift in the air. A pressure building like a storm.
The real Falling Fang descended.
Vex’s form blurred into a single, concentrated point of darkness, his dagger aimed straight for my heart. The ground beneath me cratered from the sheer force of his descent.
This was it. The moment he’d gambled everything on.
And the moment I’d been waiting for.
[White Lotus: First Bloom]
I stepped forward into the heart of the storm.
My body moved without thought, every instinct honed by pain, by pressure, by the near-constant dance with death. The world narrowed to a single falling point—Vexes descending like judgment from above.
But I had already stepped beyond fear.
Steel shrieked as our blades met—once, twice, three times—in rapid succession. His strength was monstrous now, bolstered by that cursed pill, but my movements were sharper. Leaner. Flowing like wind around a mountain.
I rotated my wrist, my dagger catching the angle of his second strike just so, deflecting it past my ribs instead of through them. My left leg slipped behind me, foot barely kissing the grass. The petals of this bloom were elusive—a dodge refined into an art form.
A clone slashed for my back—illusion or not, I didn’t care.
A perfect arc. My heel connected with shadowy ribs, disrupting its form. The clone dispersed in a burst of crimson smoke.
My body flowed like water over rocks, sliding beneath the attack as my elbow smashed up into a chin—real or fake, it didn’t matter. My real goal was timing.
Another clone lunged with a downward slash. I stepped just inside its range, drawing a short, shallow breath, and raised my forearm. Instead of blocking, I guided the dagger’s edge—turning its momentum outward, away from my flesh.
A flick of my wrist sent my own blade slicing through the haze of its form, shattering the illusion into bleeding mist.
But my body stung with poison, and my limbs burned. The haze around Vex’s aura pressed in, trying to drown me in dread and suffocation.
But my thoughts were clear.
Sharper than they had ever been.
I met the real Vex mid-charge. His aura lashed out like a storm, but I was already weaving through it—daggers redirecting his own strikes, feet moving in strange, looping patterns. Each movement flowed into the next. Each breath carried power.
Clang. Step. Spin. Cut. Deflect. Strike. Slip.
The final clone tried to pierce my side—I turned and struck before it could blink. My palm caught the shadow’s throat.
Only the real Vex remained.
My muscles coiled. Every step, every cut, every breath I’d taken led to this moment. Seven blooms opened within me—one for each layer of understanding, each layer of mastery.
I could feel it in my blood, in the rhythm of the world, in the wind that paused for a heartbeat to witness what came next. Was this...
....an enlightenment?
The petals had fully opened.
My eyes snapped wide open.
[White Lotus: Full Bloom]
Not because of fear, but because he didn’t understand.
To him, I probably looked unguarded and relaxed, even. Empty-handed and unguarded. A fool standing bare before a killing stroke.
But he wasn’t without openings either. I figured out the trick to his technique.
The clones moved as one—because they were extensions of a single mind. And where there’s a mind, there’s a blind spot.
And I think I found it.
And that was his final mistake.
My body moved like a blossom caught in the breeze—fluid, graceful, almost... serene.
I let go of all tension. I flowed into the technique, not executing it, but becoming it.
Vex’s blade lunged toward my throat—
With one open palm, I brushed the dagger aside.
I didn’t block it, didn’t counter it, but redirected.
His weight suddenly shifted.
His technique was crumbling mid-air.
I flowed forward, my palm bypassed his aura, and struck.
A soft, elegant palm to empty air.
But that empty air was exactly where the real Vex was hiding.
The strike landed on his solar plexus with impossible precision. A clean, surgical hit that bypassed his aura and stabbed directly into the foundation of his technique. Not even his enhanced body could absorb the shock.
The clones shattered like glass, evaporating in crimson smoke.
Vex’s momentum broke instantly—his form crumpling mid-air.
His dagger slipped from nerveless fingers.
He crashed into the ground like a puppet with its strings cut—eyes wide, blood bubbling from his lips.
For a moment, he lay there, stunned.
Then his violent aura broke, scattered into the atmosphere, his body growing pale.
A final gust of wind passed over the battlefield, stirring fallen leaves into a gentle spiral.
I stood above him—scarred, bloodied, poisoned—but alive.
He looked up at me with something between awe and horror.
"You... You’re not..."
He fainted before he could finish his words.