The second those words came out of my mouth, I saw that he was stunned in his place, not even caring about breathing anymore, he looked at his left and only found an empty sleeve there, even though he had already recovered from his depressed state, that didn't mean he still accepted the loss of an arm and made terms with it .
So seeing him currently like this wasn't that much surprising to me, in fact I very much anticipated it, what I didn't anticipate was him suddenly appearing before me and holding my shoulder with his arm almost dislocating it in the process, how many times was he stronger than me was already clear .
I heard my late esteemed Master say before that only in the Organ Quenching Realm will the Martial Artists start to gain actual strength, even though at this stage, he is still far from being called an actual Martial Artist, I couldn't help buy wince in pain slightly after he did this .
Luckily, he seemed to be aware that what he just did was dangerous, so he let go of me instantly and said with disbelief written all over his face and with a quivering voice :
Can you really do something like this ? .
" I will try, so don't raise your expectations, whether will my method will succeed or not, remember the feelings you had just gotten and the signs of the path you had already chosen, do you understand what I'm trying to tell you .
His face become solemn for a while, but then he finally nodded his head looking all serious about this, seeing him like this, I understood that he still want to try and get his arm back, who wouldn't be happy if there was a chance for the recovering of a lost limb .
Swallowing a Blood Qi Recovery Pill and starting to execute the postures needed to operate the method and gather Heaven and Earth energy while chanting the incantation that Zi Xue taught me, I saw a lot of mixed emotions appear on Chu Jian's face in front of me .
He seemed to be shocked at what he was seeing, expectant and a little wary even, the second that the swirling golden flames appeared on my hand, his face turned grave instantly, I didn't know if he was scared of fire, or maybe it had him recall something, but either way, his expression didn't made me stop carrying on with my actions .
My hand directly landed on what was left of his left arm, then a magical scene started to happen right before my eyes, Chu Jian's empty sleeve started to soak with blood, the shadows of veins like tree branches started to form right instantly together with the bones, then the tissues covered the bones, meridians soon followed, blood vessels, muscle fibers and tissues, all of the arm components came to fuse together flawlessly,
Then finally came the turn of the Flesh, I was already at my limit, but forcing myself to eat another Blood Qi Recovery Pill using my soul power, I carried on the process of healing him and reconstructing him an arm from the scratch, him losing conscious helped me greatly with that, he had already lost conscious due to how painful the process was .
Seconds after the operation started he directly collapsed on the ground, luckily this didn't hinder the operation in the slightest, flesh started to cover his left hand, the scene was quite gruesome, but through gritted teeth and the use of most the Blood Qi Recovery Pills in my hands, all but one, skin finally started to appear, covering the exposed flesh, hand, fingers, nails, everything was restored .
After seeing that the results of the operation was indeed a success, I too finally took a breath of relief and collapsed on the floor as well, this time was the longest period and most difficult time I had used this method to heal someone, not to mention the most consuming as well .
This method was quite majestic, but this time it took more than just the operation of this method to heal him, that what made the process difficult, as Zi Xue had mentioned before, to use this method efficiently one would need to have some experience in medicine and back then I only need to reattach some bones together .
Growing an arm back from nothing required more extensive knowledge about the anatomy of the human body, luckily the seal that Zi Xue had said to have left inside my sea of consciousness finally came to effect and helped me in controlling the whole process, my Soul Power helped me with enhancing my control over the whole process, thankfully .
This was by far the most direst situation, I had found myself in, even slightly more dire than back when I failed to heal Ji Xi, it required much more Blood Qi as even when I burned my Blood Qi, I was unable to support its consumption, carrying on for this long was thanks to the recovery pills I kept on taking, the only thing left now was for me to wake him up and see how it felt .
I saw that his eyes were rolled to the back of his head, his face carried an anguished expression on it, he was gritting his teeth, which were also bloodied for some reason, it seem that he had some Internal Organs injured from the intense torrents of pain he tried to endure just now .
I didn't know how painful it was, but recalling the scene with Chu Cheng and how was he screaming of agony, together with looking at the expression on Chu Jian's face, I can already understand that it was tormenting pain, but it should be okay to wake him up now, or so I was at least thinking .
As I tried to pour some water on him, he woke up, his eyes were bulging and a second later, he screamed so loudly that even the people around him who was still sleeping woke up startled and those who were already sober were struck with fear, trying to discern what was going on .
His screams didn't stop for a while, before it slowly started to die down after a few minutes seemed to pass, finally he calmed down, he was still gritting his teeth and his eyes were completely white, he seemed to be still completely out of it, I tried to recall him a few times, but to no avail, he just doesn't seem to snap out of it .
The pain seem to have left an imprint of some kind on his mind, that imprint turned him to whatever the state he was in could be called, I initially thought that soon he would snap out of it in his own, but after a few seconds passed, he stood there unmoving and unresponsive .
I was beginning to worry that somethin might have went wrong with the process, so I stepped forward to try and see how was he feeling, but never would I have expected that the second I tried to reach him, he would actually take an offensive posture, the sword that had fallen behind him, seem to be recalled and it flew directly to his recoverd left hand, but that wasn't all, another sword flew towards his right hand, but it was a normal sword that was laying on the ground around us .
He held two swords in hand and took a fighting stance, seem to be on guard against me, I stopped trying to approach him and started calling him, but he was again completely out of his wits, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on with him, so I swallowed the last Blood Qi Recovery Pill and used my enhanced senses to try and find some clues which could help me to understand what was going on .
The second I did, Chu Jian actually launched himself at me, sprinting towards me while releasing his killing intent, the distance between the two of us wasn't that big, so he covered it easily and almost instantly and slashed at me diagonally with his right hand, aiming for the kill directly .
I urged my Dragon-Tiger Transformation secret martial skill and withdraw Wind-Chaser from my pouch using Soul Power, then proceeded to use Fluidity that allowed me to use Thunderclap Essence and infuse it with my body or my weapons and just as the slash was about to land, I parried it with Wind-Chaser in my hand, but there was still a bit power gap between me and him .
So even though, I managed to parry, I was forced to take 6 steps backwards, while I was retreating he was advancing, continuing to carry an endless onslaught on me, his two swords kept coming at me from all sorts of angles, aiming for the kill, I evaded some, parried some, managed to push him back a few times, but then he will just twist his body in inhumane and supernatural way then try to finish me off .
My body had already suffered quite the amount of cuts that I was neither able to parry in time or evade, I no longer had pills to recover my energy, so I couldn't use Fluidity as freely as I used it in that weird space before, I learned that lesson in the most harshest way, using Fluidity and Integration consume Blood Qi and Soul Power, which was what put a huge strain on my body .
Once my body calmed down and was given a sense of relief, which made it succumb finally to how tired it actually was, it took me 15 days or more just so that I can wake up, so using it from now on should be with the consequences of overusing it in mind, that what made me believe that using it currently to evade those attacks was nothing but reckless .
There was also another reason, it was related to the fact that I felt something inside me starting to burn brightly as we started fighting, my fighting spirit was ignited and I was starting to actually indulge myself in this fight with him for real, I looked at my side and saw a wider area, where we can fight to both of our hearts content .
I parried another sharp cur horizontally aimed at my chest and using the momentum behind his strength, I gilded towards the area in mind, luckily even though he seemed to have completely lost his mind, he still didn't go indiscriminately attacking people, he stared at me and soon followed right after .
Seeing him like this I had completely forgotten about anything else and started to resume our fight, each time he attack with his two swords, his movements are sharp and elegant and quite coordinated as well, he was waving those two swords at me as if they were one, his Swordsmanship was also quite broad, at least the me currently can't seem to see its depth .
I was being bullied by his attack and managed to land a few punches from time to time, how effective were those punches in forcing him back, well the simple answer would be that they were completely useless, in those few punches and if I intended to kill him then I had more than enough methods to achieve that, but as for defeating him without killing him by any of those methods, it just wasn't possible .
Wind-Chaser didn't had any advantage in our swordfight, mainly because I lacked in particular when it come to swordsmanship and my opponent was a great swordsman, every time I tried to create a gap where I could trust my sword through to injure him even slightly and bring him back to his mind, I saw that he would parry it without any problem, he made it look quite easy too and effortless .
It was at least a good news that he didn't seem to be able to use sword skills and techniques, just pure swordsmanship and using my advantages, I was luckily able to coop with his attacks, at least for them not to end up seriously injuring me, the clothes on me was more or less already unrecognizable anymore, evading another thrust that was aimed at my neck, I made some distance between us and as if fate was laughing at me .
I saw that he actually didn't chase me directly, he stopped and his white eyes seemed to squint slightly, I first thought that my efforts had brought results and that he finally came back to his senses, but a second later, I saw that he shifted his stance, his current stance was shockingly similar to the stance Chu Jian had made when he had an epiphany just now .
I suddenly got a bad premonition in my heart, then second later that premonition become a reality, his whole body started to flash with blue like energy, that energy appearance confirmed that he was currently going to unleash a sword skill at me, the energy seeped into his two swords and the two swords become clad in blue energy in an instant .
Then without a second of hesitation, he slashed at me and I was forced to use Integration to play back with him, I was forced because I started to feel that the two energy blades that he released at me was completely locked on me, there was no escaping them, only meeting them head on would let me have a chance in parring .
I used integration and urged my Blood Qi to circulate in the way Tiger's Strike operated with and swinged my sword at the incoming two slashes made of energy, the second the two attacks collided, a strong shockwave appeared and directly swept through the whole place, trees around us which were unfortunate enough to get hit by some of the exuded energy fell down, tent began to shake as if they would collapse any second .
People started to scream all around us, but we were currently indulging in the results of our fight, my attacks didn't hold on for that much time, I was forced to release 6 more horizontal slashes made of energy to just keep this stalemate, which seem to not be nearly enough still, I saw that the two blue light slashes of his didn't seem to be even pushed back slightly by my efforts .
Instead my slashes were the one to start breaking down and cracking, a second later, they were swept through completely, I would have suffered some internal damage because of this, but the Panel had helped me up with that, I withdraw Retribution Sword from my pouch and urged Life-Severing secret technique and used my spiritual energy to control the Resentment energy, preparing myself to bear the incoming attacks of those two slashes that hadn't stopped in tracks .
I could have been imagining it, but an image of a weird shaped crocodile opening its mouth and showing its teeth appeared behind the two slashes and was currently heading twords me, the attack finally came and the two energy had collided with one another .
Then a second later, all my defences shattered after a while and the image I was imagining directly swarmed into my body and disappeared right after it had propelled me towards the far distance .
Then a sudden booming sound of wind sounded in my ears and my chest felt a powerful burning sensation, looking down while still in the air, I saw a slash mark that almost exposed the bones appearing in my sight, as if the slashes just now came to swallow my Flesh, then another burning sensation was on my neck and the reason should be the same thing .
As I felt this sensation and heard with my enhanced senses the ~plop~ sound of my blood landing on the earth beneath me, I found my whole body get stimulated by the smell of nearing death, I kicked the air under me and stopped myself midair, landing on the earth again, I wasted no time in moving to where I just cane from instantly covering the distance .
I saw him waiting for me there and his body seemed to be starting to flash again, not willing to let him finish what he was going to do, I let go of all my constraints and concerns and directly sprinted towards Chu Jian, he didn't seem to have anticipate that I would still be able to do something like this, using Fluidity and burning my own Blood for Blood Qi, I managed to parry his hurried attacks, then directly thrust my sword towards his neck, but this was nothing but a feint, my real goal was .
I evaded the other sword that came to parry my attack and flickered then appeared right behind him using Gliding Swallow, pointing my sword at the back of his neck and releasing my killing intent, I seem to have succeeded in what I wanted to, I saw him dropping his two swords on the ground behind him and his eyes returned to normal as he turned his head and looked at me with confusion and bewilderment being written all over his face as he said :
What was going on, why are you this severely injured ? .
He really did seem concerned, what shocked me was that he really seem to have no clue about what had just happened, hearing his inquiry, I was about to tell him what happened, but my injuries had finally come to take effect at the worst time possible, before I know it, I had already lost my consciousness .
A few minutes later, I had finally woke up and was quite startled, this was because I had seen a bad dream just now, I saw me and Chu Jian fighting in the dream as well, he was still in his weird state, but unlike what happened with me disarming him with an unexpected attack, him in the dream hadn't only successfully evaded my counter attack, he manged to chop my head off in one attack .
That's why I was like this now, I woke up to finding myself laying on a bed in an empty tent and two shadows seemed to be standing in front of my tent walking back and forth, Lu Jian and Chu Jian .