Chapter 124 - Dragon Dominance

For the first time since the night began and indeed for the first time in the many years since he'd consumed Long Ming's power, Long Ma found himself afraid. Every time he tried to circulate his energy it felt sluggish, as though his meridians had become thinner, his acupoints congested with sludge that barely allowed him to bring forth any of his energy compared to normal. Worse, the long comforting presence of his brother's essence, as though he'd had a constant partner, had begun to fade. "Why are you abandoning me now brother?" Long Ma cursed silently. "Is it because she knows? Are you too ashamed to support me now that she knows the truth? Brother, I've kept my promise!" Long Ma pleaded instantly. The dead, however, had no voice here and his brother, real or imagined, remained silent. 

Suddenly, flames split the night as a brilliant ball of flame thundered toward Long Ma! Desperately, the man swung the tip of River's Bite in a wide circle, dipping the tip of the spear into the murky water and conjuring a shimmering liquid shield moments before the fireball struck. The explosive force of the impact sent him skidding more than a dozen meters across the water and superheated steam scorched his face, pinking his skin in an instant as though he'd spent hours baking under the midsummer sun. 

Long Ma had few moments to collect himself, however, as Ao Wen arrived a moment behind the fireball, her saber swinging in brutal successive overhand chops, raining blow after blow down on his spear, never giving Long Ma a moment to pivot from defense to offense. His Flood Dragon blood surged and quaked in fear, feeling the firey breath and blazing aura of a True Dragon, utterly suppressing his mastery of water as though they were parlor tricks before a master magician. 

Working carefully but rapidly, Ao Wen shifted the angle of her attacks, no longer raining blows at his head, neck, and shoulders but lowering her targets, shoulders, arms, and floating ribs. It took more strength from her wrists, particularly with the heavy weight towards the flared end of the heavy saber but Ao pushed forward despite burning muscles and screaming wrists. Long Ma had fallen into her rhythm, warding left and right sides as her blade pivoted from one to the next, the spear held almost vertical, pointing to the sky as he maximized the blocking potential of the long spear shaft. It wasn't perfect but it was close enough! 

Drawing as much earth energy as she could while fighting above the water, Ao Wen unleashed her fastest Rending Pincer to date. She had no intention to land the blow on Long Ma, the man would never let such heavy blows through his guard. Rather, as her saber bounded off one side of the spear haft, Long Ma all but helped her move it into position to receive the second blow of her Rending Pincer! Earthen energy exploded among the wooden fibers of the spear haft, shattering the weapon in a shower of splinters. The lower half vanished instantly into the water leaving Long Ma scrambling to maintain his grip on the upper portion of the much shorter spear, now with barely two-thirds of a meter of haft remaining before the long serpentine blade of the spear began. 

In the boat next to Ao Yang, Aesthete Qing shook his head in sadness. How was he supposed to feel right now? Long Ma had provided him with luxurious materials to produce what had arguably been his greatest Named Weapon ever built. The River's Bite included so many high-end materials that virtually no one in Turning Leaf town would have been able to afford it. Yet it had been shattered by an unnamed blade in the hands of a much younger cultivator. The only silver lining in that moment was that the unnamed blade had also been one of his creations! When the fight had begun, he'd been sure that Ao Wen was doomed, even more so after Long Ma had used the power of the spear to summon his water serpents! All of this had amounted to nothing against Ao Wen, however. Was she truly that much more skilled than the people of Turning Leaf town? 

Long Ma's moment of panic to secure his weapon was the opportunity Ao Wen had hoped to manufacture. Breathing deep she unleashed a focused jet of fiery breath, instantly igniting Long Ma's robes, burning his long beard, mustache, and eyebrows from his face and raising blisters that ruptured as the fluid within his flesh flash-boiled.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!" Screaming in pain, Long Ma hurled himself beneath the surface of the water, desperate to extinguish the searing flames and find a path to escape the pain. The little girl had all but danced on the tip of his spear this evening, just how had she changed things so quickly? Why did she make him feel so… inferior before her? Was this what it was like for a Flood Dragon to face a True Dragon, even though he was stronger than her by almost a full stage?

Ao Wen held herself back from chasing Long Ma, instead dropping one hand into her hip pouch and retrieving a small metal flask. Turning it over, a thick oil began to pour onto the surface of the water, flowing in the direction that Long Ma had last moved in when he dove. Moments later, with the flask empty, Ao Wen let loose a small puff of flame setting the floating spill of oil ablaze with a dirty, sooty flame that refused to be extinguished by water. 

Bursting from the water not far from the burning oil, a haggard-looking Long Ma drew a ragged breath, turning rapidly as his eyes cast about to catch a glimpse of Ao Wen. No sooner had he discovered her, already charging toward him than she was upon him, the powerful thrust of her Heart Piercing Sting easily knocking his feeble block with a broken spear aside as the blade's broad tip cleaved through the bones of Long Ma's ribcage, sinking deeply into his chest, tearing his heart in two before the blade's tip skipped off his flexible spine on it's way out as Ao Wen drove the saber all the way to the hilt in Long Ma's chest. 

"Even Flood Dragons have their pride," Ao Wen said, returning Long Ma's words back to him. "But one should know not to touch the reverse scale of a True Dragon. My mother would never allow someone to harm her family and neither will I!"

"You think you've won," Long Ma said weekly, frothy pink blood spilling from his lips as he spoke. "Your father will still die to the venom of a Flood Dragon within a day. Your family will fall," he gasped, smiling wickedly as he spoke his last. "To Blood and Slaughter."