Awakening the Divine Spark

’Alright! Only the excess energy ...’ Lee said to himself, placing one palm on Jian Wuji’s chest and the other on the spot where the hand was cut off.

He focused on the two clouds of elemental particles revolving around the sparks, but then froze in confusion.

From what he understood, the so called healers used the elemental energy of water to heal a person. He had no clue how to do that – neither he had the proper techniques, nor he wished to exchange his life force for another person. He liked Jian Wuji, but not enough to die for him.

Then thing was – Lee had two kinds of energies, but in this case, maybe both could be useful?

Logically the human body was the product of both – water and earth, so the earth particles could be used to fix something, right? Something like ... attaching the arm that was cut off?

Normally Lee wouldn’t allow himself to play around with another person’s life, but Jian Wuji was almost on the other side. In addition, it was not like Lee could harm him even more – at least he hoped so.

The process turned out to be kind of interesting.

Lee tried to guide the water particles to Wuji’s chest and earth – the arm. At first it felt like both types of elemental particles bumped into a wall.

Lee felt his palms becoming warm with how the energy accumulated there, without being able to transit into the foreign body.

But then the strangest thing happened – the previous resistance he felt on Jian Wuji’s chest disappeared and the water particles began to flow in at rapid pace. It was almost as if they were sucked in by a small tornado.

The process was smooth and felt natural, but the problem was that the earth particles continued to accumulate in the other hand.

When he tried to assist Edward, Lee transferred both elemental energies, without paying much attention to detail. He was panicking at the time, but continued the process because he could transfer all the excess elemental energy.

Now, being able to release only one type, he felt discomfort, and even pain in both – his hand and the abdomen. With this part he was familiar after practicing the explosive thrust technique that allowed to blow up dreadtalons.

If Lee used one type of elemental particles more than the other, the energy within became unbalanced. As the result he welt stinging pain until similar amounts of the second elemental energy was released. It was inconvenient, but doable with a bit of concentration.

Now he decided to follow the same principle.

He guessed the peculiarities might have something to do with Jian Wuji’s wind spark and the wind element in general. It happily assisted transferring the water particles, but earth was kind of a counter element, an opposite polarity.

Therefore, to not create a counterbalance within him or Jian Wuji, Lee began to release the earth particles not into Jian Wuji’s shoulder, but around the wound in the arm. He tried to imagine he was creating something akin to a bracelet, and this time it worked more naturally.

All he had to do was to monitor the flow of water particles and adjust the intensity of earth energy accordingly. It was kind of a fun exercise and Lee was curious about the result. It would be nice if he turned out to be helpful, but anyone if asked, he wouldn’t bet on it. This was just a spontaneous idea, an inspiration, not really attempt to save anyone.

***

"Lee! Lee, can you hear me?" Lee heard Edward’s voice in the distance, and slowly returned to the reality. He had no clue how long he was experimenting with Jian Wuji’s life, but it was still dark, the distant building was still on fire, and Tianyu’s expression was as despaired as before.

"Senior Sister He Zhenzhu is here! She’ll help!" Edward said, seeing Lee open his eyes.

"I’m not your senior anymore. Call me Sister He." She said.

"Right. That’s what we need to clarify now. Go on guys, it’s important!" Lee gave a shallow laugh and got up.

Half way, though, he froze. There was this strange sensation of his palms being glued to Jian Wuji’s body, but it turned out to only be an illusion.

"How is he?" He Zhenzhu asked, ignoring Lee’s sarcasm.

"No idea. Alive for now." Lee shrugged.

Then he remembered he had a more important task, and said, "I’ll go check on Lian. You guys ..."

"I’ll go with you." Edward said, "This area is more or less secured. Seni... Sister He will be fine."

Lee was not going to refuse a bodyguard at an elemental master’s level, even if the guy was weakened and out of breath. He grabbed one of the swords lying around, and said, "Let’s go!"

***

The part of the outer sect where Qin Yujian lived, along with the other female disciples of the Hall of Ascension, was around two miles away from the residences of Lee and Xiao Lian. It was not close, but not too far either.

On the way they passed few ongoing skirmishes, but even though Edward felt they had to assist, Lee ignored him and rushed forth. The freshly forged elemental master kept mumbling something about selfishness, but followed nevertheless.

They made it around half way, and were past a secluded pavilion, when Edward stopped in his tracks, pushing Lee to the side. The latter stumbled to the ground in confusion, but when he lifted his eyes, he similarly froze.

Covered under a dark hooded cloak, back at them stared two red eyes. It was surreal how they shone in the darkness of the night, but Lee didn’t need to see the face to recognize the owner. And neither did Edward.

For a split second Lee felt deeply upset. It was the third time this night when someone was after his life, but this time he had no clue what divine intervention was needed for him not to die.

The world was unfair. He tried to save someone’s life ... and he just got an amazing weapon ...

"It was so much work to track you down, Edward!" The most melodious and disgusting voice of all times said, "But who could’ve guessed I’ll get both of you in one sweep!"

"Victoria! You don’t have to do this!" Edward said, "We’ve been through so much together ..."

Lee felt slightly nauseated from how cheesy his words sounded, but the best part was about to come.

"I’m starting a new life and don’t need any reminders of the previous failures." Victoria said, "I’m ..."

"You should’ve seen how she stabbed the arrow through Tycen’s neck!" Lee said, pretending to not hear her, "I don’t know how she forced the dreadtalons on you two, but the poor Deen died a miserable death too."

While talking, he slightly tilted his head left and right, indicating they should split up to increase their chances to escape. The words, of course, were only to divert Victoria’s attention and make it clear for Edward that there was no talking their way out of this.

"So you you were the thief in the tower back then!" Victoria said, and slowly unsheathed her sword.

"How about we talk?" Edward said, but mirrored her action, "I’m sure some secrets can be kept for eternity."

"Of course!" Victoria said, and it sounded as if she smiled, "I’ll make sure of it! Die!"

Lee didn’t wait anymore and dashed away, but Edward didn’t. He charged straight at his ex-finacee, seemingly trying to hold her back to give Lee a chance to escape.

’Idiot!’ Lee cursed, noticing his actions. This was not the way to use an assassin’s move.

He had no idea that Edward was fully aware of the gap in their strength, and already accepted the fact that he wasn’t her match. Even more, on Serrakar Plateau the guy came to a strange realization that he had been saved from sure death and had to repay his savior, even at the cost of his own life.

Unfortunately he still underestimated Victoria’s abilities.

Lee barely managed to take the second step, when the familiar phoenix bloomed behind him. He didn’t see how Edward fell, but the blast of fire threw him to the ground. His naked back was scorched and smelled like burnt meat, but fortunately no other moves followed. The fight was over in one move.

The downside was that most likely Edward was probably done for, but Lee figured it was only a matter of time till she got him anyway. Victoria was clearly obsessed with starting from a clean slate and had been eliminating her companions one after another for a long time.

Lee couldn’t get up, but even if he could, he would continue to pretend to be dead. This was the only course of action he could think of that gave him a slim chance to survive.

"Bastard!" Lee heard Victoria hissing behind him, and then stabbing Edward several times.

Lee didn’t know if she was only venting or making sure he was really dead, but then she took few steps toward him clearing it up.

He felt her sword stabbing through his chest twice, then her kicking him, and then everything turned black.