A Waste of Time

Chapter 79: Elevated Murmurs

Eyes locked — and sparks flew between Jia and Xue Lian like flint on steel, the crackle of raw animosity stretching the hush over the clearing until every watching throat forgot to breathe. Anticipation shimmered through the crowd — merchants leaning off wagons, villagers clutching baskets halfway to the ground — all eyes pinned on the two girls poised for what the boy’s sharp decree had promised: one last clash to decide it all.

Elder Ping’s fan frozen mid-flick as even her sharp eyes squinted to drink it all in. Daemon’s hand idly tapped Kirin’s talon behind him, each rap matching the hammering pulse that thudded under Jia’s ribs.

But it was Xue Lian’s move to make, and the Senior Disciple in her bright yellow robes didn’t flinch from her moment — and she seized it without hesitation. The yellow of her Inner Disciple’s robes flared in the sunrise’s slanting light as her Qi burst outward, no trickle but a sudden flood.

She stepped forward, spine straight, ruthless brilliance as if she’d slammed her heel onto the throttle and snapped it clean off. The air around her shimmered with rippling heat — a blinding hue that hovered somewhere between sunlit gold and searing orange, warm enough to prickle skin yet hiding a cutting edge behind its dazzling glow.

She flicked her fingers in a fast sign — knuckles flashing as she dragged something deep out of her Bloodline.

The air above her left shoulder split with a hush of static. A creature unfurled from that tear — ragged fur tarnished brass, slicked by a shimmer of false sunlight. It rose on two lean hind legs, beady eyes burning with the unblinking hunger of a predator born starving. A Weasel — but no soft henhouse sneak-thief. This thing was rangy, sinewed, feral; its scraggly tail lashed once like a whip. Wicked teeth flashed behind twitching lips as it sniffed the air once, locking so wholly on the twin Martial Spirits perched on Jia’s shoulders that even the tension in the clearing seemed to flinch under its stare.

Daemon’s brow ticked as he turned toward Ru, the question plain in his eyes before he even spoke. The Swordsman’s hand tightened on the hilt of the half-forged Sword angled at his side, then loosened as he gave a slow nod. “That’s Light,” Ru murmured under his breath, voice low as wind through dry grass, just loud enough for Daemon and Elder Ping to hear. “She’s blessed with Elemental-Compatibility for Light — Rare. Dangerous if wielded right. But whether that’s all she’s hiding…”

Gods, he thought, I hope so. If she’s holding another trick, my sister’s pride will snap like cheap jade — and I’ll be left picking up the shards when we’re barely a week into this Path of Immortality.

Ru’s jaw worked as he added, “It’s not fair.” The Swordsman’s voice turned low, almost bitter. “One week. One week of frantic Cultivation — and before that? Scraps of incomplete lessons, fragments of stolen Techniques, half-wrecked scrolls pieced together on muddy floors. The two of us — forging ahead blind while these so-called ‘cubs’ hoard years of Qi, polish Treasures like family heirlooms, lap up lectures from fathers and uncles and Sect Elders we’d never dare approach when we were nothing but street rats in mortal skin."

Elder Ping’s eyes flicked at him. She snapped her fan shut, the wooden ribs clicking like distant thunder. “Your guess is sound,” she said softly, never glancing at Daemon but feeling his sharp focus prickling at her temple, She studied the ripple of the weasel’s fur as it flexed its lean claws against Xue Lian’s shoulder, then dipped her chin in slow agreement. “Your instincts indeed serves you well,” she said calmly. “Martial Spirits don’t just grow strong — they grow wise. They feed on their master’s Qi in the Dantian, and they learn alongside them. With every Major Realm and each Minor-Realm — every three Sub-Realms — it sharpens them further, it layers more instinct and mind into that Spirit until it might even out-think its master.” She let the words linger — a quiet prod to test whether this strange boy even grasped what kind of weapons he’d unleashed into the world with only scraps and stubborn will for armor, her eyes flitted to Daemon, gauging whether any of this knowledge even stuck in that hidden forge of thoughts behind his too-calm expression.

Daemon watched — like every other pair of eyes in that hush-struck clearing — as the brass-colored Weasel made its move. For a heartbeat it crouched low, shoulders coiling tight like drawn wire, then it vanished. One blink and it was gone — so fast that even its ragged fur left no blur, only the ghost of its presence scraping a gasp from every mortal throat.

The crowd jolted — a dropped basket rolled under a wagon, an old man’s pipe fell forgotten from numb fingers. Some villagers stumbled back, craning for a glimpse of that flicker in the midday haze. The cultivators among them, sharper senses honed by years of Qi circulation, caught flashes of its trajectory: slivers of brass fur slicing air in fractured afterimages.

But Daemon — Daemon saw it whole. Mortal eyes, yet unblinking, fixed on the predator that had chosen the battlefield overhead. He felt the shape of its motion carve itself into his mind — a lesson hammered home by the sudden twist in his gut when he saw where that Weasel was headed.

It was hunting the tiny Phoenix — the little golden flame perched on Jia’s shoulder, barely a scrap of its usual fierce blaze. He could tell, even from here, how ragged its wings beat the air — how the flame inside its plumes sputtered thin and pale. It had emptied almost every drop of Fire Qi in Jia’s Dantian during that brutal clash moments ago. Now it perched here out of stubborn pride alone — alive thanks only to the flicker of Lightning Qi its sibling Spirit — the tiny black Raven — kept feeding it, thread by painstaking thread.

But the brass-colored Weasel saw weakness, not kinship. And it lunged for the Phoenix like hunger given fangs.

Daemon’s pulse slammed once — then the clearing erupted.

The Raven moved first. From its hooked beak, a tiny Lance of Lightning crackled into shape — sparks dancing like vengeful spirits. It let out a sharp caw, the sound slicing the hush like a blade, and launched the Lance with pinpoint fury at the streak of brass.

The Weasel twisted mid-pounce — fast enough that mortal eyes lost it again — but the Lance struck true enough to force its path sideways. The crack of Lightning on Light sent a shudder through the air, a flicker of brilliance that left spots dancing behind eyelids. Yet the Weasel emerged nearly unscathed — only a single claw blackened, the tiny burn mark hissing against its pale fur.

That tiny wound seemed to mock the Raven — but it enraged the Phoenix more. Daemon felt its pride catch fire — it refused to let some brass scavenger make it prey. A shrill twitter split the midday hush. Gold feathers burst from its wings in a scatter of sparks — each feather an Arrow, each Arrow an ember that combusted mid-flight into a swarm of miniature Fireballs.

They rained down like judgment. The Weasel had no choice but to abandon subtlety. It skittered and spun through the barrage, claws digging trenches in the dirt, its lean shape twisting between burning hailstones that sizzled when they struck the earth.

For a moment, the onlookers thought the Phoenix might stand triumphant. But then they saw it — what Daemon had feared. The little Spirit hovered there, wings trembling, body shrunk and skeletal. Where once feathers had been gold and glorious, now thin skin stretched over jutting bones. Its eyes dimmed — a creature born of Fire Qi that had burned itself dry for pride.

A hushed sigh rippled through the clearing — a soft mourning for something more spirit than beast, but whose defiance mirrored every cultivator’s deepest oath. Even Elder Ping’s eyes narrowed with a flicker of pity. The villagers glanced at one another — hardened farmers and dusty hawkers — seeing their own weariness mirrored in that tiny Phoenix’s flickering flame.

Daemon’s jaw tightened. He read that grim truth in the lines of Ru’s clenched fists too — they both knew what came next if the Weasel struck again. And still, the Raven perched protectively beside its partner, wings spread wide, ready to fling the last of its borrowed Lightning Qi into the predator’s fangs if that’s what it took.

No one spoke. Not a breath wasted on empty prayers. In the hush between two heartbeats, they waited — to see if a spark was enough to defy a maw full of brass-colored hunger.

Jia was receiving the harshest mental blow of her life — a crushing weight that splintered her confidence until it teetered on the edge of despair. This Martial Spirit wasn’t just a tool or a fancy trick; it was one of two precious gifts, blessings entrusted to her by her young master — Daemon. It was her duty to protect them, nurture them, and let them grow with her on her Path of Immortality — not squander their spark the way she’d once squandered her mortal days, slinking through blood-drenched shadows as nothing more than a lowly Assassin for hire, a blade that bowed to silver coins and whispered contracts.

But now — now she felt it.

The breath of life within the tiny Phoenix flickering like a candle caught in a storm. Its Spirituality, once so warm and stubborn, slipping away by the heartbeat. Her mind reeled as her senses stretched inward — there, where the fragile bond pulsed inside her Dantian — and she tasted ashes where once she’d tasted flame.

Her eyes met its eyes — those bright gold orbs that so often shimmered with mischief and pride. Now they stared back at her with something else: frailty. An unwilling farewell. A tiny apology buried in the warmth of its gaze that cut deeper than any blade.

It was the final straw. Something inside Jia cracked. A dam of regrets she’d bricked up behind sheer will and stubborn defiance buckled wide open, flooding her with sorrow so raw it burned. Regret that she’d ever dared hope she could protect something so pure. Regret that she hadn’t grown stronger, faster — that she hadn’t clawed for every scrap of power sooner. Regret that she’d let this Phoenix, this innocent fragment of her future, shoulder the cost of her weakness.

Frozen by that grief, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t even lift a hand as the tiny Phoenix shuffled forward, feathers dull and brittle, before it sprang from her shoulder in one last spark of defiant life.

Like everyone else in the clearing, she could only watch — powerless — as her Martial Spirit plunged into the storm of its own making. It dove straight into the eye of the Fireballs, its wings igniting fresh trails of flame that turned the air molten. The brass-colored Weasel — for all its cunning — found itself caught inside a burning cage that no predator’s speed could slip through.

And then the world tore open.

A roar like a forge splitting stone. Fire swelled into a pillar that punched straight through the noon sky — a spire of Hellfire so bright that villagers in the distance shielded their eyes and even Elder Ping took half a step back, one sleeve flung up to protect her face.

Ru waved his hand and a layer of Water Qi blocked the heat from reaching himself or his young master, Kirin ducked its head and shrunk its huge body to take cover there because this Phoenix flame proved lethal to its feathers, it wanted to protect them since it hasn't recovered from the incident of its first encounter with Daemon. 

Xue Lian, with her Martial Spirit at the heart of that inferno, threw her head back and screamed. The agony wasn’t just flesh-deep — it dug greedy fingers through her marrow, clawed at her soul until even the rigid composure of a Senior Disciple couldn’t dam the shrieks that ripped from her throat.

And Jia — Jia fell. Her knees struck the scorched earth with a thud that cracked through the hush. Her mouth opened, closed — no sound emerged. Only the heat of fresh tears streaming down her cheeks as her mind fumbled for that delicate thread that once bound her to her first Phoenix. Nothing. No warmth. No heartbeat. No spark left to cradle.

A sob tore free — muffled by the roar of Hellfire that still scorched the sky — and all she could do was clutch her chest with trembling fingers, searching for a ghost that had already flown.

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