This fic has been deleted by Webnovel because of the R18 chapters.
You can read Chapter 2-37 in Scribblehub: https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1979230/atla-fire-adept/ or you can just search ATLA: Fire Adept over there.
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I felt several fireballs strike the sphere and a couple of new arrows hit it. Zhao had to leap back to avoid being consumed by my flame. But even so, the fire still managed to reach him. Zhao's arms were scorched up to the elbows. I noticed this while the fire was just beginning to manifest.
My defensive technique allowed the Princess to prepare her most powerful Firebending skill. A branching bolt of lightning shot directly out of the still-spinning sphere. The barrage against us instantly ceased. Screams of pain pierced the roar of my flames. The rotating fire abruptly stopped and rushed forward. Meanwhile, Princess Azula and I retreated once again behind one of the houses. My gaze caught that Zhao was lucky, as the lightning had missed him. But several men from his squad were dead.
"What is going on?" I should have been the one to ask this question, but Azula voiced it first.
From my expression, she realized she had asked the wrong person.
A soldier from Zhao's squad peeked his head around the opposite corner of the building and was immediately hit in the face by a fireball. The black clothes on the fighter caught fire almost instantly.
"Only one thing is clear: Zhao has betrayed the Fire Nation. He is no longer our ally."
Azula threw her arm out from behind the building, and lightning discharged from it again. Screams of pain confirmed that she had struck the soldiers creeping up on us.
"We need to capture him and interrogate him. I'm curious to know his reason for betraying his own country and the Fire Lord."
In principle, it was possible. Zhao's fighters, and the Captain himself, were not particularly strong warriors. Together with the Princess, I should be able to handle them.
I cupped my hands. Azula immediately understood and, using my assistance, climbed onto the roof of the building. A moment later, a wave of blue fire swept down from above, covering the soldiers who had tried to sneak up on us again. I then ran out of cover and, striking the air about a dozen times in a couple of seconds, sent numerous fireballs into the cluster of enemies.
The explosions of my bending and Princess Azula's flames caused pandemonium among the opponents' ranks. The soldiers clearly hadn't expected us to launch an attack ourselves.
I didn't linger any further. Dodging numerous attacks, I began my breakthrough toward Zhao, covered by Princess Azula. The fire daggers I had grown fond of flashed in my hands. The lucky ones among Zhao's fighters only lost a limb upon my approach, not their lives.
Dodging attacks from bending or cold steel with all sorts of pirouettes, a fighting style more characteristic of the Princess than my own, and occasionally using my low-level acceleration and flight, I soon stood before Captain Zhao. He visibly tensed up. He snarled and unleashed a jet of fire. I simply let the fire Zhao launched pass over me by ducking sharply. However, several of his soldiers behind me were less fortunate. The fire hit them, and their clothes burst into flames.
Unleashing a jet of flame from my leg, I performed a feigned sweep, aimed not at Zhao himself but at the sand. A cloud of sand particles billowed into the air, disorienting the Captain. The daggers vanished from my hands. I clapped my palms over Zhao's ears, and now he could neither see nor hear what was happening around him. The Captain then took a knee strike to the groin, the liver, and, as he doubled over in pain, the nose. The series of blows forced him to fall to the ground.
I heard a cry behind me and spun around. A soldier with a sword was running straight at me. I took a small step aside, dodging the attack, and grabbed his arm. The sword soon flew out of the hands of Zhao's fighter, and his life ended immediately after, cut short by the fire daggers that flared up in my hands.
Captain Zhao tried to get back to his feet, but I quelled this urge with a sharp kick to the ribs. I heard a crunch. Zhao literally forgot how to breathe for a couple of seconds.
Immediately, two Firebenders almost incinerated me along with Zhao himself. I shattered the first one's fireball with a rough block of my arms, which were covered in my own flames, and simply dodged the other's jet of flame. Mid-jump, I began a complex set of arm movements, split my chi into two streams, and upon landing, unleashed a bolt of lightning at the opponents. The lightning missed, but the impact into the ground near them temporarily disoriented both benders. I quickly ran up and finished them off.
Suddenly, I heard the shouts of many people. With their swords drawn and ready to unleash fire, even more soldiers than those who had recently knelt before Princess Azula were running toward me from the center of the settlement. Perhaps even more. Was Zhao able to infiltrate the Earth Kingdom with such a large force?
I was about to unleash a new bolt of lightning when a wall of blue flame erupted a few meters away from me, blocking the enemy's reinforcement. I turned back to where the sounds of battle had ceased a few seconds ago.
Most of Zhao's fighters from the first group were either dead or lying on the sand, groaning in pain from numerous burns or other injuries. They were unable to continue the fight. In the center of the largest cluster of defeated enemies stood a slightly breathless Princess Azula, who had managed to descend to the ground and teach them a lesson in "why you shouldn't mess with members of the Fire Nation royal family." Habitually smoothing a strand of her hair, Azula said with a serious expression:
"Long, we need to get out of here. I saw at least ten sand-sailers gliding across the sand towards this settlement while I was on the roof."
Zhao made a mistake. He violated the unwritten rule of the locals: he invaded and ravaged the settlement. The residents of Si Wong probably learned of the Captain's actions and came for revenge. To put the outsiders in their place. Sand-sailers are usually used by the nomadic tribes. They move thanks to the skills of Sandbenders.
Zhao and the surviving part of his squad were left behind. They could delay the new enemy. Heroically engaging both groups in battle seemed like an extremely foolish decision. Neither Azula nor I wished to be caught between a hammer and an anvil.
Grabbing my bag with my belongings, and also taking water skins from several soldiers, I ran out of the settlement area with Azula. Fortunately, the nomads were approaching from the other side. But it wasn't long before the sand-sailers began to bypass the settlement and sped after us. Yet, this wasn't what surprised our duo the most. People in typical nomad attire were moving toward us, accompanied by Zhao's soldiers. The fact that they were the Captain's soldiers became clear from his own shouts:
"Capture them at any cost!"
How can he even shout? His ribs are broken, which means they should be hurting terribly, preventing him from taking a full breath.
It was unclear what was going on here. Only one thing was certain: the nomad sand-sailers would soon catch up to us.
One of the pursuers pulled far ahead. A plan immediately formed. Just as the sand-sailer was about to run us down, Princess Azula and I stopped abruptly and jumped onto it. The unwanted passengers were immediately thrown from the transport by a jet of flame. Azula sprang to the spot where the bender responsible for the sail-sailing was standing and grabbed him by the throat.
"You will be killed immediately if you stop or try to attack us."
From Azula's look, it was clear that she was ready to carry out her threat at any moment. The bender only gave a jerky nod, showing that he understood everything. It looked like a wet patch had appeared on his pants. An incredibly weak-willed person.
"Good boy. Now speed up. Slowing down also means your certain death."
The chase lasted several hours. And Zhao's men, along with the nomads, almost managed to catch us. But their fervor noticeably diminished when I used lightning to destroy the third sand-sailer. The battle was not one-sided. The back of our sail-sailer was also slightly damaged. Zhao himself was responsible, as he almost set our vehicle on fire. His own transport was the third one destroyed.
Soon after, the opponents decided to finally give up the chase. Although I was sure Zhao planned to pursue us to the very end. For if the Fire Nation found out about his betrayal, he would immediately end up behind bars or lose his head altogether.
"Long, are you skilled at interrogating people?" Azula asked, digging her nails into the Sandbender's neck.
"Yes, Princess," I nodded submissively.
"Excellent." Azula shoved the bender, and he tumbled off the sand-sailer onto the sand. Immediately after landing, the bender tried to use his bending, but a kick to the jaw broke his concentration. "I wish to know what exactly is going on here."
"It will be done, Princess," I replied to her, mercilessly breaking one of the enemy bender's upper and lower limbs at a time.
Sandbenders are not as unique a type of bender as they might seem at first glance. They are the same Earthbenders who have developed control and honed their manipulation of the finest mineral particles. Compared to them, Lavabenders or even Mudbenders look much more interesting. The Sandbender sub-discipline can only cause trouble in the desert. And even then, not all of them can, as is clear from the bender we captured. In general, they are extremely weak on their own. It's another matter that Sandbenders usually operate in cohesive groups. That's when fighting them becomes difficult.
The bender we took prisoner proved to be weak not only as a bender but also mentally. I broke his arm and leg to make it harder for him to use bending. I hadn't even begun to torture him to make him crack, yet he started begging me to stop immediately after the first fracture, promising to tell me everything.
So, Zhao has gone insane. Our prisoner didn't say this, but the conclusion was obvious. The Captain had been wandering the Si Wong Desert for a long time, searching for something. And his squad attracted the attention of bandits, one of the nomadic tribes. Only, the nomads miscalculated their strength and broke their teeth on the trained Fire Nation soldiers. That's how Zhao seized control of one of the nomadic tribes.
For a while, the Captain used the strength of this tribe to continue his search for the Spirit Library of Wan Shi Tong, but another group of nomads attacked him. And once again, they fell under his subjugation. That's when something snapped in Captain Zhao's head. If he had previously wanted to curry favor with the Fire Lord and climb as high as possible in rank, now that goal seemed too small for him.
Why would he want a rank in some country that doesn't value him, exiles him to search for the Library of the Spirit of Knowledge, which will take years, when Zhao is capable of creating his own country, raising a great empire?
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