After hours of relentless combat, trading heavy blows and powerful qi techniques that severely drained their dantian, both fighters were exhausted—yet the fire in their eyes still burned.
Jalen had long realized brute force wouldn't win against himself. He had to outthink himself. But that's easier said than done since his clone had the same idea as him. Still, he had no choice; he needed to win this battle to move on to the next trial, the sooner the better. Time is of the essence.
Jalen baited the clone with a false opening, letting it strike with the eighth technique of the Spirit Wind Art: Spirit Rend. But at the last moment, Jalen activated the fifth technique of the Ice Art: Fractured Echo, creating mirrored icicle illusions. The clone struck the wrong target.
Jalen emerged from the mist—silent, lethal. The Wind Spirit Needle struck true, not to kill, but to destabilize the clone's core, disrupting its internal qi flow.
Then, he did something the clone couldn't predict.
He activated the Flaming Palm Barrage—a technique born in the Scorch Realm, forged in the sub-realm of hellfire where even flame qi feared to exist. Though this version was a lesser manifestation, it still carried the imprint of the Sky Limit Realm, the same divine flame law that had once summoned six colossal flaming hands capable of erasing existence.
Three flaming palms erupted before him, each one crackling with annihilation flame. They surged forward like divine judgment.
The clone responded instantly, deploying every defensive technique in Jalen's arsenal as it dodged these deadly palm strikes—Ice Wall, Cryo Lance Spiral, and even the tenth Spirit Fire Art technique: Nuclear. But the palms tore through them all. Frost melted. Wind shattered. Flame was consumed.
Desperate to regain control, the clone unleashed Blizzard Coil—the eighth technique of the Ice Art. A vortex of snow and frost erupted around Jalen, visibility vanishing in a swirl of biting wind and razor-sharp ice. The temperature plummeted. Movement slowed. Pain surged.
Jalen staggered, his skin lacerated by shards of ice, blood freezing against his torn robes. The storm clawed at him, trying to trap him in a prison of frost. But he refused to yield.
With a subtle shift of his stance, he activated Gust Dance. His body sliced through the swirling currents with razor finesse, slipping between the vortex's layers before they could fully constrict.
The blizzard faltered.
Jalen emerged from the spiral with only minor wounds—ice cuts across his arms, a shallow gash on his cheek—but his momentum remained intact.
He then gritted his teeth, summoned every last thread of qi, and poured it into the Flaming Palm Barrage.
The three colossal flaming palms roared to life once more, their heat clashing violently against the blizzard's chill. Steam hissed. Ice melted. The vortex cracked.
The clone tried to counter, but its defenses were already fraying. The palms surged forward, burning through the final remnants of resistance. The clone faltered. Overwhelmed. Crushed beneath the barrage.
Its form disintegrated into ash and light.
Jalen collapsed to one knee, breath ragged, body trembling. The Blizzard Coil had left him gravely wounded, and the Flaming Palm Barrage had drained him to the edge of collapse. But he had endured. He had outlasted himself.
If the clone hadn't been weakened, if he'd used the technique earlier, it would've simply evaded him until his qi burned out. But the timing had been perfect. The risk—worth it.
The chamber pulsed once, then bathed him in radiant light.
Trial Complete.
Jalen was granted the Reflection Technique—a luminous art that allows him to mirror incoming attacks with precision, bending light itself to deflect and redirect force.
___
The chamber flared with light, restoring Jalen's body and qi. Before he could react, he was transported to Trial Six: Light Chains.
Glowing chains of refined light qi lashed out, wrapping him from shoulder to ankle and suspending him midair. They were a high-grade binding light technique, designed to drain qi continuously and suppress movement.
Above him, a timer appeared:
5:00
"Break free before your qi runs dry," the familiar voice echoed through the chamber.
Then the timer began to count down.
Jalen first tries various techniques to get out.
Cryo Lance Spiral He channels the formation, but the chains constrict tighter. The qi fizzles mid-core. The technique collapses before it even reaches his palm.
Flame Implosion A desperate surge. The ignition sparks—then dies. The light qi reacts violently, punishing the attempt with a spike of pain.
Gust Dance He tries to vibrate the chains loose, but the light qi adapts, syncing with the rhythm and locking down harder.
Each failure costs him seconds.
Jalen closes his eyes. No more brute force; they don't work anyway and just make his qi drain even faster. He sinks inward, tuning out the pain and pressure. He listens—not with ears, but with his spirit sense.
He maps the chains' metrics:
Their rhythm. Their anchor points. The pulse of light qi flowing through them
He identifies three spiritual nodes—points where the chains interface with his soul threads.
First node: A microburst of spirit energy. It doesn't destroy the chain but disrupts its feedback loop, causing a momentary slack. Second node: He sends a ripple through his spirit sense, mimicking the chain's frequency—then inverts it. The node destabilizes, but the backlash nearly knocks him unconscious. Third node: His final gambit. He condenses his remaining spirit energy into a single needle and launches it. It hits—but the chain resists. Not because it wasn't effective, but because his realm was too weak.
He's out of qi. Seconds from collapse when a silver pulse erupts from his chest, unraveling the chains, thread by thread, like truth dissolving illusion.
He dropped to the chamber floor, breath ragged, qi flickering like a dying ember—but free.
The chamber hums with approval. A single link from the light chain then materializes before him before entering his spirit sea.
Technique Acquired: Light Chain Binding
A high-grade spiritual technique—once used against him, now his to command.