Chapter 109: Step fight

Kian tilted his head at Feimei. "Want to move up with me?"

She looked past him, up to the sixth step and further, then let out a slow breath. "No."

He raised a brow, but didn’t interrupt.

Feimei shook her head with a look that said she was, in her own way, quite annoyed at herself. "This step already makes me fight for every breath, it’s not as easy as it looks. The next will be worse. The captain warned us there’s trouble waiting higher up. I’d only be a burden to you."

"As logical as ever." Kian grabbed her and kissed her temple, then rolled his shoulders. "Stay with the girls. I’ll clear the way."

Lower down the steps, Jia frowned with worry and turned to the captain. "Tell me again. What’s really waiting on the next step?"

The captain exhaled through her nose, eyes fixed upward. "The same as I said. More pressure, more blades, and those people."

Jia looked up the stone stairs, her jaw tight. "Why the hell does he have to walk up naked? That idiot. Let him get back home and I’ll tell him!"

Mia looped an arm through hers. "Don’t worry idiot. He’s also a lot stronger than he was a few days ago. Trust me. In bed, he’s been... different."

She said it lightly, but her cheeks warmed. "He’s not the same Kian from the sect."

Xiao Cui just listened, small and quiet, her eyes following the distant figure on the fifth step.

He stepped on the sixth step.

Eyes turned towards him.

Jiao Yin, standing a little apart from Jia, smiled wide.

The captain made a low sound, clearly eager to see whatever was to happen. In her mind, she was already calculating Kian’s defeat and using his girls against him.

Kian might be strong, but were his girls?

But she didn’t move. Her gaze stayed on Kian’s bare back as he grinned.

Kian stopped on the sixth step and counted the people in front of him out loud.

"Five. Six. Hm?"

One of them was a broad-shouldered young man he almost didn’t recognize—the iron skin random dude from Iron Serpeant Dojo whom he had seen before. The man looked somewhat fierce now, chest heaving and fists shaking at his sides.

Kian’s grin didn’t reach his eyes.

The attacks came at him in air blade shapes from everywhere, not from the people but from the air itself, but none landed. Kian moved so fast he must be looking still to most people, he thought.

From the lower step, the captain frowned.

"Weird," she said. "Why is no one attacking him? And why is he standing still? Is the step not hitting him?"

Feimei was already walking down. "Because he is moving so fast that he is avoiding all the attacks while staying still at the same time. It is beyond your understanding."

The captain’s mouth opened, then closed. She stared even more intently, horrified in her heart.

That fast?

Kian turned his head to the terrified bunch on the same step as him, all standing before him.

"This step must be testing combat spells," he said casually. "That’s what Stage Six cultivation unlocks. Right?"

He rolled his shoulders.

"To reach here, you need, I’d say, at least Stage Four cultivation with a deep foundation, then you can fight hard to climb. I could have reached here when I myself was stage four."

He nodded to himself.

"At Stage Six, this step should be easy if your foundation is solid and you are well trained. Unlike my Feimei, who should also be able to climb this far if she weren’t untrained."

Down below, Feimei pouted. "My cultivation is still quite new to me."

The people on the sixth step only listened, frozen.

Kian sighed.

"So?" he asked. "Are any of you going to attack me?"

None said a word.

He smiled. "Good."

Then he walked toward the next step and left them behind.

The moment he was gone, the people on step six collapsed. They stumbled back a step, gasping and cursing.

"What the hell!" one of them choked. "I felt like he was moving faster than I could even see!"

Another fell to one knee and wiped cold sweat from his face.

Kian stepped onto the seventh stone and met the eyes of the people waiting there.

A woman stood at the front, her stance low and guarded.

He thought she would attack, but she just stared at him. Then, she spoke calmly.

"To survive step seven, you need Qi wings," she said. "If you have them, you can hold your balance. Otherwise, you will fall back."

"I see."

Kian didn’t hesitate. A pair of indigo wings unfolded from his back, snapping wide and steadying him against the pressure.

He would have had to use his movement technique to fly before, but after burning through so many unbelievable quality spirit stones, he had already unlocked the seventh-stage reward.

The woman stared.

"Such a young face, and already at the seventh stage..."

Kian let the wings flex.

"Indeed. So. Are you going to attack me? Or stop me from reaching the eighth step where Su Chen is?"

The woman lifted her chin.

"Indeed, we are going to stop you. This bell belongs to my brother Su Chen."

Kian shifted his attention from the woman to the lone figure on the eighth step, taking his time. The woman in front of him was the same one he had seen beside Su Chen the other day.

Up close, she was sharper than he remembered.

Kian searched her face, the guarded set of her shoulders, the way her hand hovered near a short blade at her hip.

"It seems you are dead set despite not having much confidence."

"I am confident, I just do not want to kill another person."

"Why battle then?"

"For family, I must."

Kian chuckled.

"Miss, before we fight, can I ask you a question?"

She blinked, wary. "Yes."

"Have you felt that Su Chen’s behavior has been odd the past few days?"

On the eighth step, Su Chen finally turned. His gaze swung down, flat and unreadable. The woman in front of Kian frowned, her brow pinching as if the question had struck something she had been trying not to touch.

"His personality," Kian went on, letting the words fall slow and deliberate. "Does it seem different? His habits, his little ticks, the way he looks at you, his sister? The way he talks, the way he moves. Has all of that suddenly changed?"

Su Chen’s eyes turned sharp, he opened his mouth slightly.

The woman’s breath caught. Her fingers whitened around the short blade at her hip, knuckles straining. She took half a step back.

"That’s not—" She swallowed, glancing up at Su Chen on the eighth step, then back to Kian. "How do you know about my brother? We’ve never met."

By now, Su Chen seemed to understand something as well.

Kian didn’t answer her question. He only smiled, patient and knowing, as a sudden rush of unstable Qi shoved against his right side. His balance dipped. One foot shifted an inch across the stone. But his indigo wings snapped wider, catching the air, and he straightened as if the pressure meant nothing.

"I know because the man you grew up with is gone," Kian said, his voice low enough that only she could hear. "And you’ve felt it too. Your brother got possessed by an old demon, he is no longer who you think he is. That’s why your hand hasn’t drawn that blade yet."

"Foolish words," Su Chen said from the eighth step. The words dropped like cold stones. "What do you think I am? A Soul Lord capable of possession?"

That’s exactly who you are! Fucker.

Kian didn’t say it, but his smile became stiff. The system was the one that told him about Su Chen to begin with and he wouldn’t leak such things.

Su Chen could never know how much he knew.

Kian raised his voice, calm. "It’s obvious, you old monster. No young boy like the original Su Chen looks like their eyes are dead fish eyes. You are emotionless, but he was not."

Su Chen said coldly: "People can change. What are your intentions? First, you stole my maid. Now, you also want my sister?"

The woman’s breath shuddered. "What? He stole Xiao Cui?"

She looked from Kian to Su Chen, her hand finally falling away from her blade. For one heartbeat, the seventh step seemed to hold its breath.

Su Chen’s face didn’t change.

"You talk too much, sis. When pest like this comes, you shouldn’t hesitate to kill. He is trying to sow discord between us," he said.

"Motherfucker, I am sowing facebook not discord!"

"What?"

Kian sneered. "You think too highly of yourself."

"If that is the case, why don’t you come upto the eigth step?"

Kian took a deep breath, then smiled.

Since all the steps so far needed you to be in equivalent cultivation stages, step 8 would need him to be a Stage 8 cultivator to properly stay there.

And truth was that Kian was already Stage 8, though, due to the unique complexity of this stage, he hadn’t fully become one yet despite having more than enough Qi Sparks to reach even Stage 9!