Universal Knowledge of the Dao - Chapter 58 In The Light Of The Candle

The candle appearing between Shin Sumi and Jun Qian was roughly the size of a person.

With each passing breath of time, Shin Sumi felt the pressure rise drastically as the ethereal object seemed to become corporeal.

“How can it be a weapon?! Either way it’s powerful.”

It appeared to her that Jun Qian was concentrating really hard at this point, immobile and his arms pointing at the candle with open palms towards it.

While he was starting his magic technique, he was defenseless!

Shin Sumi took advantage of that, leaping straight at him with the speed of the great circle of Shinsoo Gathering.

Once more she concentrated her power in a punch. She reached the apex of her trajectory in the air right above the huge candle.

And then she fell. In an instant all of her concentrated energy disappeared from her meridians, leaving her coughing a mouthful of blood.

“An attack?! From where? And when?”

It felt to her as if something hit her hard. That was the effect of losing a big amount of energy in one shot. Like a brick hitting directly her dantian.

It was when she saw the candle gain thirty percent more consistence right after she fell that she understood.

The ethereal candle formed a spiritual wall between her and her opponent, draining the Shinsoo she was circulating whenever she attempted to go past it.

And the candle was only half physical yet! With every instant the pressure that the candle emanated was rising steadily.

“If I can’t use Shinsoo, then I’ll just bash his head in with physical power!”

Shin Sumi was getting annoyed. She still hadn’t acclimated to her new level of power and already she had to deal with two of the strongest opponents she knew.

Without daring to enhance her muscles with Shinsoo, Shin Sumi started running. She passed the candle with a bit of apprehension but thankfully she remained fine.

It seemed like the candle was only after her Shinsoo.

Bare handed, Shin Sumi attempted to hit Jun Qian when a flash of orange got in her way.

“If Bai Fulong isn’t using magic, then alone I’m more than enough to kill him!”

Chu Erlong intercepted Shin Sumi, using a second sword, not as fancy or strong as the Sun-Cloud Eater.

Shin Sumi may have had incredible strength, without reinforcing her fist with Shinsoo she could not accomplish the feat of breaking a sword a second time.

By sheer reflex, Shinsoo started spinning in her dantian as she readied her hand. Shin Sumi only thought about what she was doing a moment to late.

The blade and her right hand collided the instant before the candle sucked the energy out of her. Had it been a moment before, Chu Erlong would have sliced through her entire arm!

Shin Sumi was blasted back, a second drainage of energy taking a toll of her.

Having the Shinsoo in one’s body dissipated forcefully was never a good sign. Even the power coming from the remoulding of her body was temporarily cut short.

Back on the other side of the arena, Shin Sumi slapped her bag of holding to produce a beast core. Anything that could minimize the loss of Shinsoo helped.

“If only the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword was obeying me! I could slice through that pile of wax in no time!”

The candle was now more than eighty percent corporeal.

Shin Sumi knew it was only the start. Whatever the candle did, ruining her momentum and her Shinsoo circulation was obviously not its only ability.

Because of the two consecutive losses of Shinsoo, the refining of her body had paused, as if her own body was feeling that it was not the time for it.

But in doing so, the raw energy created inside her had nowhere to go, rendering her even more unstable, bubbling in her meridians.

“I can’t circulate energy, but my physical strength is not enough to deal with Chu Erlong and strike Jun Qian at the same time. And now the candle looks complete.”

Shin Sumi was not able to decide what to do in time before Jun Qian moved his hands together, the candle now being a hundred percent physical.

“You have held up this long against us, but now is time for you to die.”

Jun Qian’s voice was cold. Shin Sumi could tell that he was not talking out of rage or in order to provoke her.

He was speaking like it was a fact and he fully intended to kill Bai Fulong.

“First Light: Flame Flickering!”

Following his words, the pillar of wax started shining, the brown wick suddenly catching fire.

The flame looked completely normal but a sense of dread rose from within Shin Sumi.

Somehow she could feel a connexion to the flame. She couldn’t ignore the fact that almost half of the candle had been materialized using her own energy and turning it to wax.

“So essentially the flame is burning my energy!”

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Shin Sumi couldn’t beat Jun Qian’s magic using Shinsoo and she couldn’t fight properly against Chu Erlong with only her physical strength.

The situation looked a bit dire but Shin Sumi remained focused. She stayed far from the odd couple to regroup and observe the scene a bit.

“I have a couple weapons but without Shinsoo they won’t hold for long enough to get rid of Chu Erlong. And I’m sure that the candle is not simply a passive magic.”

The might radiating from the magical human sized candle was vastly above what it had done to her so far. The true potential of Jun Qian’s magic had yet to be revealed in full.

Right as she was thinking that, Jun Qian’s hands formed a different sigil and he murmured.

“Second Light: Wax Modeling !”

Instantly the greyish wax of the candle started moving. The top part of the pillar, where the brown wick was sticking out slowly melted, shaping the first fifth of the candle in the form of a head.

It was Shin Sumi’s own head! Or rather Bai Fulong’s.

The terrifying sight of a candle copying her appearance froze Shin Sumi in place.

Whatever that meant was definitely very bad for her.

Not delaying for longer, Shin Sumi resumed her assault, relying on her strong legs to move side to side in order to shake off Chu Erlong.

She was close to approaching Jun Qian when finally the orange robed girl caught up to her, swinging her sword wildly at her head.

“You fell for it” thought Shin Sumi, ducking at the same instant as she rotated on the ground.

Her heel spun backwards, planting itself in the middle of Chu Erlong’s chest, right below where she held her sword.

Under Shin Sumi’s fast kick, Chu Erlong felt her breasts crushed inside her ribcage. Who would have known that her ample bosom would be what prevented her from breaking a few ribs!

Nevertheless, the orange talented girl was pushed back coughing, the air having left her lungs in an instant.

Shin Sumi stood up and ran towards Jun Qian.

One step. Two steps. The distance separating the two was rapidly decreasing.

For the first time Shin Sumi thought that she had a chance at beating him or at least severing his connexion to the magical candle.

Brandishing a fist, using all the momentum she could gather, she hit Jun Qian with a lot of force but only to find her hand squishing into a soft and warm substance.

“More wax ?!”

As fast as lightning, Shin Sumi retracted her hand and moved away.

“You know, my spell is not about the candle. It’s about the wax!”

Jun Qian laughed madly behind the screen of wax that had blocked Shin Sumi’s blow.

“Making a shield out of wax is much easier than a candle. And so is a spear!”

The wax wall condensed into a whiter and harder substance, suddenly becoming a spear two meters long, directly into his hand and pointing at Shin Sumi.

“HAAaa!”

Hurling the spear with unbelievable force, Jun Qian hit Shin Sumi’s robes, piercing a hole into the folds right where her heart had been before she jumped out of the way.

Shin Sumi was back to square one, forced away from her enemy and with Chu Erlong now back in the fight with more rage than ever.

Shin Sumi’s dantian had momentarily resumed her transformation, her adaptation after having absorbed the fifth Vein of Hell Fire.

The wax candle though was still trying to steal her energy from within her, slowing down the process by a lot.

And even more perturbing was the fact that Bai Fulong’s face on the candle was now becoming more and more realistic. From the dead looking grey of the wax, the features were now gaining hints of color, almost copying exactly her skin tone.

Below the copy of her bust, shoulders were being drawn out of the melted wax, and one arm was even half carved.

Shin Sumi’s instinct was screaming that something really bad for her was going to happen when the statue of Bai Fulong was completed.

Trying something new, Shin Sumi slapped her bag of holding open, producing three short swords.

Moving at the same time to ensure that Jun Qian could not produce a shield for all three of the incoming attacks, Shin Sumi threw the first blade.

A leap later, Shin Sumi was throwing a second sword from mid-air.

She was about to throw the third one, still holding it in her left hand, when her grip on the sword’s handle tightened.

For some reason she was suddenly unable to let go of the sword.

She had targeted the yellow robed genius cultivator with both swords, only one of which he blocked. The second one was intercepted by Chu Erlong by his side.

Surely the third one would have hit its target, so why didn’t Shin Sumi’s arm let it go?

A strange feeling took over her, making her terrified to look at her own left arm. She knew what had happened before even glancing at it.

At some point between her second throw and the third, her movement had become sluggish very rapidly. And now her forearm and hand were unable to move.

Her member was coated in a thin layer of wax. In fact with every passing breath her healthy looking arm was turning greyish.

The color of cold wax.

Despite the dread instilled into her and the cold sweat on her back, Shin Sumi still had the clearness of mind to understand the true power of the candle conjured by Jun Qian.

Because the candle had stolen her Shinsoo to take a physical form, she had been forcefully linked to it.

As long as the energy link lasted, the more Shin Sumi wasted time and energy, the more the candle would transform into a puppet version of her.

Ever since the Second Light enchantment uttered by Jun Qian, the wax from the candle had gone from grey to the color of her skin. The arm of the wax figure was now perfectly realistic while her real arm had been slowly transforming into wax.

That was a level of magic unheard of for Shin Sumi!

Invisible to the three disciples in the arena, the white crane floating above their heads suddenly turned its white eye towards the distance. A second later the bird blurred out of existence, reappearing only a few moments later while another presence appeared at the entrance to the arena.

Shin Sumi was too petrified to care about her surroundings that much and didn’t realize that someone else had arrived.

Jun Qian and Chu Erlong both looked at the newcomer, the yellow robed young man almost immediately uninterested. But Chu Erlong’s eyes turned another shade of dark, her teeth clenching a bit more than before.

“Xiao Yue !”

How could Chu Erlong ignore the orange robed girl’s face? She was after all another strong contender for the title of best orange robed disciple.

Shin Sumi heard Chu Erlong’s cry absentmindedly but the familiar name suddenly jolted her out of her miserable state.

“…Yue?!”

“Hey, Bai Fulong, how are you doing? Not too good I see…”

Xiao Yue only took a single glance to successfully assess the situation. She had just beat an opponent in her third arena of the mountain when she found herself instantly transported to this place.

The actions of the white crane were cryptic at best, and out of the four people in the current arena, only Shin Sumi had ever seen who was behind the sudden transportations.

“Chu Erlong” Xiao Yue called out, “Is this how you do things? Two versus one? And with Senior Brother Jun nevertheless…”

“Xiao Yue, this was never about you. Stay out of it or join us, unless you want to die a miserable death.”

Xiao Yue arrogantly laughed. Unless she was around Shin Sumi, Xiao Yue was never the very feminine and gentle girl, instead resembling more and more the ‘Black Devil Maiden’ Xiao Yue.

“Eh-eh-eh I would really like to see you try!”

Stabbing her Black Devil Spear into the ground, Xiao Yue took her stance. She had decided that, just because she was against Chu Erlong and Jun Qian, she would take Bai Fulong’s side.

“Hey, Bai Fulong, can you move? Are you alright?”

“Y-Yes, Jun Qian’s magic wax surprised me, You have to be careful with his candles. They are very potent, even for me and you.”

Xiao Yue had never really faced Jun Qian in a fight before. She knew how he fought thanks to the rumors but she never imagined that he would be so tough for Bai Fulong.

Xiao Yue remembered clearly the few weeks she had spent with Bai Fulong and how astonishingly strong he seemed to be.

And now he was wearing yellow robes as well, maybe having finally revealed his true colors.

“No matter what you do, if Jun Qian materializes a new candle, you can’t use Shinsoo close to it! Keep it to physical attacks.”

Xiao Yue nodded. Having arrived later, she was able to make good use of the knowledge Bai Fulong had painfully gathered.

Maybe now they had a chance!

The fight had suddenly become a two versus two combat. Jun Qian didn’t seem phased by it at all, but Chu Erlong was starting to wonder if they were really going to get beaten.

“Stop worrying Erlong, you have the first raked Honorary Disciple on your side. Nothing bad can happen” she was reassuring herself and once more preparing mentally for the fight.

“Half of Bai Fulong’s arm is already cast in wax. The more he uses magic the faster the wax will take over, transforming him in a puppet of some sort. Like this, maybe he has around a stick of incense before become completely incapacitated. Unless we…uh?”

Xiao Yue’s thoughts were suddenly stopped because of a crackling of thunder right besides her.

Shin Sumi’s mind had gone blank for a moment. Because of the temporary delay in attacks brought by Xiao Yue’s arrival, her dantian had finally resumed the process of remoulding her body from the inside.

As they were speaking, her adaptation had finally reached a hundred percent.

Shin Sumi was now in the great circle of Shinsoo Gathering!

It was a state long lost to the world, at least in the small Dark Sky Starry Sect. She could even be considered half a step into the Liquid Realm!

Her entire insides had turned golden and every single one of her Shinsoo Apertures was flowing smoothly with gold looking Shinsoo.

It was the perfect cultivation to the uppermost limit of Shinsoo Gathering!!

And the Heavens themselves had reacted to it.

The first bolt of lightning had condensed out of thin air, before the dark clouds even formed.

It struck Shin Sumi right in her dantian, trying to destroy the perfect state she had achieved.

It was known as Tribulation Lightning, something that would usually never come for a cultivator until the end of the Core Development Realm.

Shin Sumi felt a strong sense of rejection from the world itself, as well as an even stronger impulse of attraction from inside.

Even Jun Qian, Chu Erlong and Xiao Yue had been paralyzed by the change in atmosphere happening at a higher level than themselves.

Only the invisible white crane in the sky was floating as ever. It had been him that protected Shin Sumi during the first lightning strike.

“Impossible… Bai Fulong is breaking through to the Liquid Realm?! It shouldn’t be allowed until the top of the mountain!”

Jun Qian was the first to break out of the daze brought by the Heavens taking part in the situation.

Because Shin Sumi’s cultivation was so special, the Heavens intervened and the frail laws about breaking through in this dimension had been torn apart by her own energy.

Forced to sit down by an invisible force, Shin Sumi quickly entered a meditative state.

At the same time, Jun Qian’s had fully realized how quick the tables were turning.

“I can’t allow him to succeed! I have to turn him into a wax puppet before he breaks through!”

Biting his tongue hard, Jun Qian spat out a mouthful of blood, spraying the candle in front of him with a thin mist.

His magic rapidly increased at the price of his own energy, the wax on Shin Sumi quickly expanding at the same time as the candle sculpture of her became more realistic.

Chu Erlong joined as well, rushing like the wind, sword in hand. Now that Shin Sumi was in a trance, she could not react at all, that was the perfect opportunity for her.

A pitch black cloud of smoke blocked Chu Erlong’s sword. Xiao Yue had reacted just in time, her Black Devil Spear spinning rapidly.

“I’m your opponent now, Chu Erlong!”

The two orange robed girls were exchanging blows at an impressive speed, metal crashing against metal.

Shin Sumi was in the process of being covered in wax, and Xiao Yue was alone to defend her.

Pushing himself to his limits, Jun Qian conjured a second ethereal candle out of his wax magic, forcibly linking Xiao Yue to it.

“Come on Bai Fulong! Please succeed quickly, I can’t hold them off for too long!”

Judging by Xiao Yue’s estimations, she could only last ten or so minutes before being herself caught in wax. And that was without counting Chu Erlong’s relentless attacks.