>>5852900

Which isn't at all a challenge for the intelligence and cunning of a once in ten generations prodigy such as yourself. Your evasion of his instant win attack has made Xue Laohue cautious, and so he's reverted to his usual reactionary fighting style and is waiting for you to make your move and strike, knowing that another clash is inevitable. You can't avoid it, either you attack him or you crash into the barrier of the array he's established and he's able to strike you without fear of reprisal. Either you break yourself against his guard or get slammed into his shield through the cruel whims of gravity. But you understand the gravity of the situation just as well as he does, but unlike him, you know the breadth of your abilities, techniques and the zenith of your powers and strength. He knows himself, but doesn't know you, while you know yourself and most of the tricks he keeps hidden up his frozen sleeves.

While the cloud cover makes it difficult to determine exactly what hour of day it is, your ability to call upon the moon to change itself into a blood moon to further increase the boon moonlight grants you, will surely play a pivotal role in the fight later since while you're strong you aren't certain if you can command the astral dancing of the sun and moon and force day to turn to night. Well at least not yet, but you do know you get a boost from moonlight and can paint the moon crimson to make that boost even more profound and powerful.

And you also know, of a curious ability granted by your new, moon aligned, cosmic existences. The ability to transmute ordinary water into blood. And Xue Laohue, in all his postering that has frozen half of Chuan and killed or ruined countless innocent lives that had nothing to do with your familial grudge with him or his hatred of anything that steps out of line with the strict mandates of the gods, has brought to you a large supply of water in the form of the enchanted snow storm that follows his every step.

With how much your ghostly law, supreme Yin physique and nature as a cosmic beast improve you control of and empower the potency of your yin aligned abilities, wresting the blizzard out from his control to turn it into a rain of blood should be as easy as lifting up a kitten by the scruff of its neck. While you're uncertain if you can force the Moon to break from its solar partner to darken the sky and bless you with its mystical energies, you do know that stealing a weapon from an enemy to turn into your own advantage is a sound, and usually winning strategy. And while Xue Laohue may be the eye of this storm, eyes are easily plucked out and as a natural born ruler, you are more qualified to command this storm than the old monster would've been even during his peak years.

The winds and snow themselves will bend to your will, you demand them to.
Cont

>>5852901

Crouching on the falling piece of grossly overgrown insect, you lock eyes with Xue Laohue's only functioning eye. Sparks fly between you, fragments of ice and carmine embers spitting into the air as the will of the half dead master comes is assaulted by the resolve of you who dances blithely between the boundaries of life and death! This isn't the first time you've wrestled a spell from the hands of its caster, since you practiced a similar thieving technique against the spirit stone pillars his sect had first used smother Chuan with a mystical and lethal snowstorm. And pulling magic still being channeled by living hands, isn't so different from chasing it away from lifeless stone or altering its essence within its crystalline vessel.

Willpower+Magic trial. DC 115. DC greatly reduced by Yin physique, two Yin aligned spiritual roots (Ghostly yin and Cosmic: Lunar), and Cosmic nature: Blood moon evolution, and the strength of your resolve/ Self-esteem.

>>5852903
best of 5 of course

Rolled 87, 70 = 157 (2d100)

>>5852903
its 2d100 correct?

>>5852905
and 2d100 for the roll.

Rolled 62, 11 = 73 (2d100)

>>5852903

Rolled 33, 67 = 100 (2d100)

>>5852903

Rolled 100, 54 = 154 (2d100)

>>5852903

Rolled 66, 58 = 124 (2d100)

>>5852903
So if two rolls, both have the same degree of dos but one is a crit and one is a few numbers higher. Which is better? Which best taken?

>>5852932
Much like crit fails work, since there are ways for you to still hit them even if 1's don't proc them for Huan (And only Huan), but they don't override the winning roll

So >>5852931
this roll, provides a bonus that piggy backs off of >>5852907
Not that it matters, much, since that roll is 1 DoS higher than it, but still, that 100 will make things a bit more interesting.

So

Fantastic Success. 50 over DC. Update will arrive shortly

>>5852944
Wait, sorry 40 Over DC. Still a Great success, especially with the crit augmenting it.

>>5852944
>>5852945
Thanks Grandfather.

Also, This fucker thinks he can win in a contest of Self confidence? With Huan?! Bahahahahahahahaha.

Hahahahahhaha.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The dao itself couldnt make us feel small?!

>>5852952
>"I have lived for centuries. I have staved off death through sheer force of will. I have brought to heel my entire clan and sect. I could freeze this world as simply as breathing."
>"I am a cat."
Dude really thought he stood a chance.

>>5852959
Putting a fragile item on the flat plane.
Truly he is courting death!

>>5852931
I was hoping for a nat 100 when I did the write in. Thinking it would be funny.
It brings a smile to my face, secondary I didn't know the time of day so I just threw in the Bloodmoon.

>>5852973
I honestly thought it'd be a bad DC, which is why I was against it, but apparently my eyes cannot see Mt.Tai.

>>5852982
Understandable, now I half remember a talk about his weakness. Hyper focus, reactionary and fire. Fire being because he's currently if believed using ice to slow his death. If be I'd further weaken him transforming the blood to fire. Or ghostly fire to turn up the heat.

>>5852989
turning blood to fire?
i think it's doable since blood should be yang aligned!

we could even make his own blood boil from inside!

>>5852989
>>5853007
>turn water into blood
>turn blood into fire
>we turned water into fire
Fucking Chinese magic, I swear

https://youtu.be/bnPk-p49MJ4

It is a contest of willpower and determination, a clash of pride, a tug of war with the breath of the killing cold and wailing winds, a struggle over the spell that created the blizzard and all of the Qi spent in its creation. Xue Laohue adjusts his posture, thrusting out his chest and righting his shoulders, kicking up the scythe made of your sister's beast core and corpse up from the ground and over his shoulders where they now rest. Ringlets of pale blue light surround him, throbbing with a rhythm of a heart beat as they expand and grow, floating above the now glowing array of ice at his feet. The half of him that has been turned to ice glows with the same radiance, flashing as he calls upon every ounce of spiritual energy within every part of himself. His meridians, his golden core, every drop of Qi within the well of his cultivation base, including that breath of heaven and earth that he had tucked away within his weary bones and pale flesh. His hair lifts, the frost formed on it falling as the icicles clinging to it break apart and float in the air, held aloft by the sheer density of the Qi he channels, both within and without to contest your open grab to usurp his Sect's greatest strength and advantage against the armies marching under the banners of the palace of natural laws and their allies.

It isn't an attack only directed towards him, but a lashing out that will spell disaster for all of his disciples and followers present in this field today.

You simply express your imperial aura, allowing the fountains of Qi your body natural produces to spill out from your heart and twin cores as you let go of the centipede and hold both your arms aloft at your sides, glaring down at him with disdain and boredom as your eyes lock firmly with his. Deathly Yin Qi, Fresh Blood Qi, Primordial Beast essence, and the breath of moonlight all surge out from you, First darkening your surroundings, then tinging them red, then emerald and then at last silver, as mock ghost flames circle around you like a halo of fire, while swirls and drags of carmine paint the air around you like bloody hand prints or the flow of living veins, before images of postering beasts and animals making threatening display appear within the explosions of beastial energy steadily flowing out of you, as your Aura waxes and wanes as its color fades in and out of pitch, tomb black, warm blood red, spring greens and golds, and shimmering silver dust. Your graveyard aura swallows the whole colosseum, its mere appearance causing a lull in Jionghuagege's mystical barrage and from the dulling of the distant sounds of battle, Tiexingege's fight against the winter blossoming wisdom sect.

Xue Laohue steps back, single eye wide with astonishment, fear or awe, it doesn't matter which. Seeing his reaction, a crooked, witches grin drags itself across your fair face, replacing your composed yet confident smirk that had before lain upon your lips.
Cont

>>5853022

But he still refuses to relent and release the storm in his hand, clenching his fist tighter and drawing up reserves of energy and life that he shouldn't have to push back against your idle expression of overwhelming power and authority. His refuses to take another step back as you look down on him with the same low disgust you would at seeing a pile of dog shit in front of you.

Centuries of experience, stubbornness that staved off death itself for years, the dignity of a sect head who has lead his clan and sect for decades if not centuries and power enough to turn the whole world to ice. He musters and calls up all of it to challenge your serene display of superiority, unshaken and unmoved by his own grasping attempts to pull back his blizzard from your grip, when the process of exchanging ownership has already begun. The winds calm, still and then die as they dance in the palms of your hand as you turn over your hands so those same palms with face the cloud darkened sky. Snow dances and swirls over your fingers, hail falls into your palm, and melts into rain.

Red rain. Blood that has never been trapped within veins. His eye widens further, if it opens up any more it might just fall out of the half of his head he still has. For all of his conviction and self worth earned over a life time of success and supremacy, it is nothing compared to your inborn sense of entitlement and simple natural excellence. Your ever growing pride simply cannot be resisted by a man whose follows the laws set by others, even if those others are Gods and Celestial immortals!

His shoulders slacken with his jaw as he gasps as he sees his trump card crumble to dust before his eyes.

The clouds turn from black to scarlet, the winds cease howling to whisper, and the falling snow turns into drops of blood as with your alien insights and lunar essence, and a bit of help from your eclipsed yang phsyique, you take the whole spell born storm that is so vast as to cover half of Chuan, a magic that is leagues in every direction and composed by an expert's hands with highly refined and pure Qi, and with a snap of your fingers, transmute all of it to blood, robbing him of his sole advantage against you and causing a downpour of blood to fall and drench the lands of Chuan once frozen by his hand. Ushering in new life and your new era as Xue Laohue stumbles back, coughing up blood and gasping for air as the whiplash of having all of that power and spiritually energy torn from his command slams into him.

And as the storm clouds thin and part as the fierce blizzard turns into a beautiful rainstorm most would call ghastly, your crooked, toothy grin becomes triumphant and over joyed as what slips through those clouds makes you nearly drunk with raw elation and murderous excitement.
Cont

>>5853024

It would seem fortune favors you again! It seems you spent so long speaking with Shidi and Xia about how Xue Laohue fights, and the old bastard took so long to hobble his way to your defensive line, that the storm he beckoned had hidden the transition from night to day~!

And with a craning of your neck and playful tilt of your head, and feeling the moonlight washing on your back resonating with the moondust in your veins and meridians and feeling it ooze into and fill you like a warm drought of tea, you raise up one of your hands to the sky while swinging the other with manic excitement towards Xue Laohue as he wipes the blood from his mouth.

"What can half a man do to oppose my will?! WHEN THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES OBEY ME LIKE A WELL TRAINED DOG!?" You howl with laughter, boasting blasphemously as your amber eyes glow with carmine light, the silver rings of their pupils themselves glowing through the blood red veil of light "Weep pitifully! Cry out in fear and fall to your knees beneath the bleeding moon, you mongrels!"

"What have you done?!" Xue Laohue cries out as the full moon at shining upon you wavers, as if a haze of heat had fallen over it as it grows indistinct and turns a terrifying blood red hue as the light washing on you changes its essence, the spell you took ownership of fueling this grandest display of might dominance. And leaning forward, you answer his question with a innocent titter.

Panicked, he swings his scythe, coating it with Qi as the magic stolen from Xuebai's beast core radiates from within it, as he thrashes it through the air, whipping it back and forth as he creates a net of Ice magic in the air that spreads out around him. A defensive technique that is also offensive? Curious, but its just an act of desperation to give him time to adapt to something his mind that has not basked in the brilliance of the stars, that has not bleed upon the moon, just simply cannot grasp or comprehend!

And from the sounds of the screams, the ill omen of the bloody moon and rain has revealed what kind of cloth those beneath Xue Laohue are cut from and revealed them as the rank cowards they truly are. But, can they be blamed for running? Their advantage had been taken and turned against them, and they were now fighting in a bloody mire against Monsters, Demonic beast and oh so scary heretics!

"Did you think my haughtiness was unearned, "Father?" You mock, as with a second swish of your wrist, you direct the bloody rain to fall up the net of ice branching through the air, subduing it and halting its path before a wave of intoxicating power surges down your spine and pulls a groan out of your lips. You can feel the moonlight bolstering your carmine mystic's heart and it is beyond intoxicating. Once you kill Laohue, you might just sharpen your claws on his army, if there's any left alive by then.
Cont

>>5853025

With your spiritual sense, you notice Monu has recovered and is casting a spell of her own as Xue Laohue gnashes his teeth, seeing his second attack bungled, and vanishes.

But he's already coated in blood. You can smell and sense him moving through the air as if you still had whiskers. He reabsorbed the Qi he spent to build his careful constructed array and poured it into a physical strengthen technique similar to your blood torrent rush. He's been pushed to react, fearful of what will come next now that you've commanded the weather and the seemingly corrupted the moon without any real effort. Like a hunter lunging with their spear as they're charged by their prey. Or rather, a mouse lashing out with its bite when its cornered by a sadistically playful cat. You track his swift ascent through the melting canopy of ice, as some of the cultivators commanded by Jionghuagege turn and blindly fire towards where he was standing a fraction of a second before.

He's clever, using bubbles of Qi to disguise his position, but your predatory senses and the blood infused with your blood Qi soaking into his clothes, drying on his skin, reveal his true position.

So when he "Suddenly" Appears behind you after bounding between columns, pillars and thin spies of melting ice, you simply turn to face him with the same half mad smile you've been wearing since you've realized you were fighting in the night this whole time.

"Bad Luck~" You purr as he lifts up Xuebai's corpse over his head, preparing to swing it down onto your neck to sever your head in once clean slice when the crescent blade fell down upon you. He hops back, abandoning his attack wisely as you swing out with one hand in a clawing motion, five lines of raw destructive Yin Qi cutting through the air like a cat's scratch. But surprisingly, he lunges forward after the destructive force has subsided, closing the distance as Monu sends a string of wooden puppets from out of her sleeves, each one growing to the size of a man as she flashes mystical handsigns with both of her hands, casting different spells with each.

This time, Xue Laohue is thrusting with the haft of his scythe, trying to create distance by stepping up to you to send you flying away. Even when he's attacking, he's obsessed with keeping his guard up! What a spineless way of fighting!
Cont

>>5853026

How do you counter his attempt to push you back Huanliuxue? DCs reduced significantly due to Blood Moon's light buffs

>With a dying grudge shield, the moonlight may not be empowering it, but its a nasty surprise nonetheless (Magic Trial. DC 100)

>Spit Sinner bone centipede venom in his eye, it won't do anything but blind him temporarily, but he expects poison from your mother, not you (Trickery trial. DC 140)

>Fueled by moonlight and the scent of blood in the air, use one of your Blood Moon Awakened Perfected Carmine Mysticism techniques on him (Magic: Blood Sorcery: Carmine Mysticism: Trial. DC 90)

>Violently! Grab hold of the scythe and try to pull him in so you can tear his throat out with your teeth. They may not be as sharp as your fangs, but human teeth can still tear flesh! (Strength trial. DC 120)

>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)

>Write in

Anons, I haven't read the update and THIS IS NOT A VOTE, but I had an idea so hear me out...

>Blood Draining Fang
>Weeping Scar Curse
>Blood Red Lightning Cat Step
>Cat catches star
>The Eye stealing grasp

Some debuff and an actual bombardment of a bunch of our bullshit techniques, so we can finish it off with taking one of his eyes out would be cool

File: 1665251342779928.jpg (59 KB, 640x372)

59 KB JPG

>>5853029
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)
Could we do this but instead of using him as a club against the planet maneuver him to use the Eye Stealing grasp and permanently blind him? I'm sure he'll adapt to it but at least for a little while he'd be helpless and scared. I want to take it because his gaze is already blind to the truth and glory of Huan. I don't think he deserves to waste his remaining eye any longer. It may as well go into our pocket instead of staying in his socket!

And it'll make it so that Monu can probably finish him off to get the vengeance and closure she deserves, or we can with effectively zero effort as he panics.

>>5853029
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)

Bad Xue! Go back to the blood pit below!

>>5853029
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)
Mikiri Counter the fucker.

>>5853078
And yeah, if we can follow-up into Eye Stealing Grasp, that would be perfect.

>>5853078
>>5853079
I support this.

Fuck this bitch. Its on like donkey king

>>5853029
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)
>Follow up with blood draining Fang
I like Eye Stealing Grasp, it totally went over my head that he technically only has one eye here, but i want to put the DoT on him ASAP. For a defensive combatant, having a timer on yourself is the worst possible outcome, especially when said timer is bleeding out in front of the blood mage on steroids.

>>5853029
Some trash talk lines we invoke through blood are heard through out the battlefield.

>"How does it feel to be the prey father?"
>"How does it feel to be helpless?"
>"How does it feel to be like the children you kill?"

>"A father who drove his son to drinking a dog's death! Who gave up on love for power! Who sees the lives under him as so little!"

>"The heaven eyes may have turned blind to your actions. But your daughter will seek justice for ten generations! For the lives that have suffered and lost because of your foul storm!"

>Laugh laugh madly, "You are no noble cultivator, you are demonic in everything you touch. I can see the karma threads stained pitch black ready to drag you down to hell."

Take your pic my dudes we need some good trash-talking

>>5853203
I see it as right now we have a huge surprise buff, he may get over the sheer shock of how strong we are in a second here, but if we blind him we apply another new debuff. Then we'd hit him with the DOOM status effect. I do see what you're saying though and it is very sensible. A very solid course of action.

>>5853029
>>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)

>>5853029

>Fueled by moonlight and the scent of blood in the air, use one of your Blood Moon Awakened Perfected Carmine Mysticism techniques on him (Magic: Blood Sorcery: Carmine Mysticism: Trial. DC 90)

I wanna see what this button does

>>5853206

It's also already implied that he's burning resources he doesn't have, but is getting anyway. This genre isn't usually very kind to people who are an inch from death--they might be good for one more fight, but not a massive campaign like this. They're too fragile and prone to exploding like bloodbags to sustain that level of input without a whole body.

I suspect another of the Fallen Gods has hooked up a faucet of power and providence to him, just like how one of them shot space catte down when she tried to sneak past the Heavens.

What we really want to do in this moment of surprise before he or his patron kicks in to the next gear is get that scythe away from him.

>>5853257
I figure he's doing something wacky without realizing it like burning his soul as fuel. But having a benefactor giving him some kind of providence is certainly an idea I hadn't considered. Foolish of me. Disarming him would also probably significantly reduce his ability to project Ice qi as well. That's for sure something to keep in mind.

>>5853029
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)

>and use the eye stealing grasp on his one good eyes as a combo finisher

I also eventually want to grab the scythe from his grasp he has no right to hold our sister's corpse as a weapon against us.

>>5853205
All this while we trash talk his ass like he deserves

>>5853037
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)
> Followed by eye stealing grasp

>>5853029

> Write in

As

>Violently! Grab hold of the scythe and try to pull him in so you can tear his throat out with your teeth. They may not be as sharp as your fangs, but human teeth can still tear flesh! (Strength trial. DC 120)

But instead of going for the throat rip his good hand off.

>>5853029
>Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)
>Follow up with Eye Stealing Grasp
We’ve gotten him rattled, so moving to further throw off his game by blinding him will keep him off balance.

>>5853029
Supporting >>5853399. Just a shame Xuebai can't be here to savor the fight with us. I really want to see what happens if we use Cat's Court: Spiteful Blood Legacy with his scythe as a medium. Fucker is wielding our dead sister's corpse, and we control grudges. Seems like an easy way to disarm him to me.

>>5853025
Brothers I just came in, how'd last thread g-
>What can half a man do to oppose my will?! WHEN THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES OBEY ME LIKE A WELL TRAINED DOG!?"
I see.

>>5854279
To be fair to Haun
That line was straight fire

>>5853029
Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground (Martial trial. DC 110)
>Write in
>>5853205
>How does it feel to be the prey father?"
>"How does it feel to be helpless?"
>"How does it feel to be like the children you kill?"
Don't go out tonight
she's bound to take your life
There's a Blood Moon on the Rise..
>>5853784
Remind me what that does, because I really, really like the sound of it.

>>5854295
>"Cat's Court: Spiteful Blood Legacy"- Forcefully awakens the last lingering dregs of personality within the rage left behind and inherited within a single drop of blood. Can be used to enhance one's self through the rage of their ancestors, create grudge miasma within a target to "poison" them, or as an attack by briefly giving the long sleeping anger a physical form. Very versatile. A mixture of "Pure" Carmine Mysticism and Necromancy, and an evolution of Blood Refinement.
Basically, my idea was that we use it on his scythe, which was made out of our sister-- enabling the lingering grudge left over in her body to lash out against Xue Laohue, since she's not physically here. At worst, it'd disarm him and make his weapon unusable. At best, we might get a new awakened weapon out of the deal, or use it as magical leverage to worsen his existing body-turning-to-ice curse.

Ending the vote, tallying the result now.

Use your feline martial arts to redirect his thrust downwards, and the Shooting star stampede to send him hurtling back towards the ground:11
-Include the eye stealing grasp:8
-Include the Vein draining vein:1

Trash talk:4

Fueled by moonlight and the scent of blood in the air, use one of your Blood Moon Awakened Perfected Carmine Mysticism techniques on him: 1

Violently! Grab hold of the scythe and try to pull him in so you can tear his throat out with your teeth. They may not be as sharp as your fangs, but human teeth can still tear flesh!:1
-But tear off his hand instead: 1

So you'll use your ghostly soft style to redirect Laohue's lunge, leading him into a quick series Shooting Star Stampede kicks and stomps, and then try to finish the combination with an Eye stealing grasp to pluck out his eye.

Update will arrive shortly

>>5853205
Junior has been practicing the demonic art of shittalking, I see, and mastered it! What art!

Yet as gutless as his singularly defense obsessed martial style is, the number of options for how to counter a simple lunging thrust rival the stars above your head in number. The wisdom that comes with honing one's own martial skills and fighting nearly only life or death battles since they began practicing martial arts, joins its voice with instincts both natural and trained. Sure, it appears like a simple thrust, a harmless push. But even when all he's trying to achieve is creating distance between himself and the mysteries powers you wield, buying time to breath and reform his strategy in the face of your perhaps somewhat excessive display of strength and superiority, you can feel the strength in both his arm of meat and gristle and his arm of ice. Getting hit by that trust would break a few of your ribs and might even reduce a few of your internal organs to a meaty, bloody pulp. A gruesome thought, yet buried beneath all the tactically minded thoughts sprinting and swimming between your ears, you can't help but wonder what sort of color they'd be if he hit you hard enough to make your liquified viscera spill out of you like juice from an overripe peach.

'No color I want to see' You decide, calming and halting that line of thinking entirely before it could distract your or make even a single finger tremble with dread because of it. Even that little hesitation could prove lethal in a fight against an opponent of this caliber and experience, though even if Xue Laohue stands at the false peak of orthodox cultivation you fly in the clouds above him in realms he dares not even imagine. Would he even dare to picture his belly being burst open and all the hidden paints within his bowels and viscera spilling out of him? Probably not. That is another advantage of yours. By accepting the possibility of being horrifically wounded or gruesomely injured, the number of answers you have to any potential attack increases dramatically.

A more timorous mind than you own regal mentality wouldn't dare to consider acting on any imagined scenario where they risk taking the first blow in a clash, especially in a fight where both parties want nothing more than to pummel each other into bloody paste. You do not have that weakness, at least not now. Your intuition tells you that Xue Laohue could hit you and even with moonlight fueling every "furnace" in your body, it would hurt like hell if his thrust hits you anywhere, but especially if it hits his intended target just above your bellybutton.

And that's only the thrust. There's something more in the apparently entirely mundane move, but your instincts beastly and martial and your more human intuition can't figure out what the hidden danger they sense actually is.

'Well no matter' You say, limply raising up your arms and relaxing your whole body, preparing to bash the scythe down with the back of your hand like it were a bird in flight in needing of smacking back down to the earth.
Cont

>>5854624

You think you'll follow with a short burst of Shooting Star Stampede kicks, maybe one of its lower and more simplistic levels, just so the stomping in store for Xue Laohue doesn't teach him what to expect later in this fight. Maybe it'd be worth using its first and easiest level. The specter lightness skill and its "True" counterpart are similar at a glance, but ever since you learned the latter, you've idly imagined a very nasty trick where you use your lightness skill as bait to make your opponent expect the illusion of stalled time but run head first into the reality of it. Hmm. Yeah, the first level of the stampede would be the best. Xue Laohue will obviously figure out the "Lie" of your curious form of Qinggong, but that knowledge will be more to your advantage than his since you'll keep your newest and perhaps one of your most profound techniques up your sleeve in-case the fight stops going the way you want it to.

So as Monu's gang of puppets unsheathe daggers hidden in their palms and flock like crows above Xue Laohue in the moment as he steps forward to slam the end of his scythe into your gut, you subtly maneuver your hands, ready to catch his weapon and stomp him back to the ground, where worms like him belong.

'And when he's laid out on his back, I'll pluck out that sharp eye of his! Heh-Heh" You think viciously as you allow a smug smile to distort your expression

Roll 2d100. Best of five. DC 110

Rolled 56, 67 = 123 (2d100)

>>5854626
The eye will be a useful material, another for the collection.

Rolled 26, 60 = 86 (2d100)

>>5854626
FUCK YOU, "DAD"!

Rolled 97, 5 = 102 (2d100)

>>5854626
Let's get that eye in peak condition.

Rolled 88, 88 = 176 (2d100)

>>5854626

>>5854626

>>5854667
>Two 88s
>Four 8s
Holy Shit.
How deeply auspicious.

>>5854668
How I roll again on this site it dice + right

Rolled 84, 66 = 150 (2d100)

>>5854626
>>5854667
Holy crap! Damn!
Happy blood shed goes ham.

>>5854674

>>5854667
60 over DC! Incredible Success. Update will arrive shortly

Special condition met!

>>5854674
dice+2d100 in the options field.

Rolled 15, 71 = 86 (2d100)

>>5854687

>>5854687
Thanks

>>5854686
>Special condition met!
LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Be real with me Grandfather, do you make up the Special Conditions as we go or do you have a list of them somewhere?

>>5854304
I knew I liked the sound of it. It's what we used against the God that lopped our arms off in Heaven yeah? No Blood means No Go, tragically; I'd love for some part of Xuebei to get some redress and closure. But; seeing as we're about to pluck out his eye and presumably make him bleed, isn't it possible for us to bring someone else back and make it into a proper Xue Family Reunion?

>>5854712

You have to wonder what using Cat's Court on the blood rain would do, since it's blood that's never known a vein.

I wonder if we could develop a technique something like this:

> Blood Red Cat's Cradle: A daring and nearly mad technique inspired by Haun’s brush with death in the heavens and the madness of the blood moon. Haun rips off her own arm, then under the power of the True Specter Lightness skill weaves of a net of her own blood around the target. She then activates Cat’s Court: Spiteful Blood Legacy, swarming the target with an onslaught of grudge and blood empowered ghosts.

But your distorted grin of brutal mirth, and the movements of your limp hands like a jiangshi holding out their arms as they go hopping in search of Qi and Lifeforce, were all diversions. And the feral grin that Xue Laohue flashes when he spots them and bites into the hook you've left floating in front of his face, is all the signal you need to carry out the actual means of diverting his strike and sending him back down to the dirt to grovel where he belongs! He leans forward, bowing her back, tilting his scythe's pole like haft down to avoid the not so obvious counter he sees, as expected of a master of defense. However, he's made a fatal mistake. That for all your regal bearing, noble grace and high and mighty posture, that you would not lower yourself by using a thug's moves, that you wouldn't deign to act brutishly.

So the triumph in his one eye turns to confusion as instead of grasping for his scythe or brushing it away you lift one leg up and making use of your natural flexibility lift it over your head. Then, with all of your moonlight infused strength, slam it down through the air with an axe kick. You move so swiftly, that as your heel cuts the air it unleashes an unnatural sounding shriek like the wailing of a hungry ghost. And the strange material of the steel like silk covering your leg, shaped into the form of armor in the shape of a cat's hind paw, glows first red then white hot. There's a snapping sound, not of the scythe breaking, but of the point of contact rocketing downwards and nearly out of the hands of the old bastard who made an entire province kneel and weep as their tears froze to their faces! His strength is nothing compared to yours, and you think you hear his flesh arm disconnect at the shoulder from the sudden force of his scythe bending after being stomped by a kick that could out pace lightning.

He grits his teeth, but its too late for him to swing up his scythe's blunt end and catch you between your legs. Wrapping your kicking leg around it, locking it in place between your thigh and lower leg holding it behind your knee, you twist around his scythe and use it as an anchor to whip your other leg into his head. A crack runs along the brow of the frozen half of his head and the blow stuns him, blood flies. Licking your lips you release your hold on his scythe, and spin behind him, activating your specter lightness skill as he reels from the whiplash of having his arm nearly torn from its socket and having his head hammer with a knee strike that could've knocked the peak off of a mountain!

He slows to a crawl as your lightness skill extends and catches him in its illusionary slowed time. He sees the world slowed, except for you. But with his brain bouncing around in his skull, he won't recognize what is happening. And you feel absolutely no shame in taking advantage of his condition!
Cont

>>5854761

And so you unleash the stampede properly, starting with a kick to his hindquarters. Followed by a stomp to the back of his flesh and bone knee as he stiffens from the first time. The ponderous flow of time makes it easy for you to plan out the next step of your stomping dance. Having just stood up straight only to be made to kneel, you lift up the leg you used to spank him and stomp it on his back. Again. and Again. And Again. And a fifth time! After the first, you saw his eyes shimmer with understanding, so you're certain he's realized that the slowing of time was just a trick of perceptions. But it didn't matter if he did or didn't, since the second stomp, between his shoulder blades, sent him hurtling, turning over and flipping around as he rocketed out of the sphere of your specter lightness skill's influence.

The third, forth and fifth stomps landed because you were moving to fast and he was still reeling from the first two and the near breaking of his only real leg to stand on.

He lands, face first, and rises with a gust of cold air, turning around just in time to meet the heel of your foot as you land ontop of him, using your momentum to kick him onto his back and send him through a few yards of hard packed soil. He pushes himself up, swaying as he struggles to find any sense of balance. You do not relent. Or show mercy.

By time he blinks, you're on top of him, enshrouded by moonlight as the bloodmoon frames you from behind as you straddle him. Cackling just like your move, you extend two fingers, strengthening flesh and blow with a quick bit of blood manipulation and alchemy, and then, jab them past his ice blue eye. it happens so quick, he's unable to react to the jab, or your two fingers curling and the metal claws of your gauntlets, probably meant to be ornamental, cleaning cut through the nerves of his eye and pluck it out.

Eye of Xue Laohue, perfect quality, obtained

And then, the force of your pouncing on top of him, collapses the floor of the arena. Monu is calling out to both of you, having been unable to keep up with a red shooting star, and as the two of you separate and fall away from eachother as the collapsing for breaks into the massive network of tunnels Tiexingege and her kids carved, and makes them collapse into a sinkhole large enough to swallow at least one of Suiqi's quarters.

But credit where credit is do, your mother catches onto what happened when the ground bursts open, and you see a few of her puppets decending into the darkness with you. Xuebai's corpse turned scythe glints in the gloom, like ice reflecting firelight, and then it zips away. You turn away from the eye dangly daintily between your fingers to watch where it flies, where it is called.
Cont

>>5854762

You land on your feet of course, playfully swinging the eye and twirling its nerves around one finger before twisting it the other away around and pocketing it for safe keeping. Xue Laohue is standing, subterranean streams pouring around him as crimson moonlight illuminates the cavern you created with his back.

Blood is weeping out of the empty space his eye used to be, freezing to pink hoarfrost from his breath as he holds himself up with his scythe.

"Do you truly think that would blind me to your presence? That without eyes, I would be unable to predict your location? Your cultivation aura is as bright as a star!" He barks raggedly, clearly feeling...well everything you just did to him, but quickly rallying and finding enough strength to stand with pride in his shoulders again, as if having his eye ripped out and being given a concussion really didn't affect him all that much "And you reek of death and blood! I could chop off my nose, burst my eardrums and still track you by the foul taste you exude into the air alone! Even if I sealed my spiritual sense, I can feel the vibrations of your footsteps!"

And true to his boasting, he does turn his head to follow you as you stalk closer to him and around his side. He lifts up his scythe as you stand, flabbergasted that the old bastard didn't so much as flinch from the beating you gave him, and he tosses his scythe, sending it spinning through the air as he lifts up two fingers of his ice hand and as you reflexively retreat and find that there isn't solid ground beneath your feet where you stepped. You stumble backwards, the scythe blade flying over your head without even trimming your hair

Special condition met: Roll two 88's in one roll, Double joy becomes Quadruple joy! Repeatable
EVENT: A Treasure in the trash!


But instead of your hands finding more empty space or hard stone when you fall, your right palm touches something. Rusted metal? A hilt that fits perfectly in the palm of your hand. A knife. Your fingers dance over its surface, and it vibrates. Resonating to your touch, to the energy always radiating from you. Primordial Beast Essence? Blood Qi?

The rust flakes off at your touch, and you feel a metal unlike any other beneath your finger tips. And Sense the spiritual energy of the knife kindle from just the heat of the palm of your hand. It is a magical tool! An artifact buried beneath who knows how much dirt and rocks. It must be ancient beyond reckoning, since you cannot reckon how old it would have to be to be buried so far beneath the surface just from the natural cycles of decay and erosion and if you can't reckon it, then no one else would be able to obviously! Just how much good luck can you have in a single night!?

The scythe wails as it cuts through the air, like your big sister is crying out in despair at her bones being used against her beloved younger sister.
Cont

>>5854763

You stand, and reacting instantly, catch its blade with the guard of the dagger as it flies to cut through your neck, turning on your heel and seeing the face of Xue laohue in the moonlit gloom as he rushes to catch you from behind, having expected you to dodge his flying scythe. Sparks illuminate the darkness, spitting from where the scythe meets the knife you nearly fell on top of.

A headbutt sends Xue Laohue reeling back. But he grabs his scythe with his outstretched arm, rubbing his brow with his icy fingers as he vanishes back into the darkness.

"Damn these human eyes" You growl, refusing to give chase into the impenetrable darkness in the cavern where the crimson moonlight can't reach. You won't give away the advantage it gives you, nor would you chase an ambush predator into the darkness before your eyes adjust to it. He might be using Yin Qi to increase it, even without your feline eyes, your physical cultivation and its refinement to your sense should've made the darkness look like day. But does he want you to pursue him, or to stay right where you are in the sanctuary of moonlight?

"Tch" you click your tongue, calming your racing heart by giving it a forceful clench with your blood Qi and decide to first figure out exactly what it was you picked up, before the frozen mutt comes screaming out of the darkness a second time.
Cont

>>5854764

What is the form of the dagger that you found in the dark (Choice determines origin, powers and intended use)

>A butcher's knife. A cleaver for cutting meat and bones. It has a handle made out of a human femur, decorated with a ring of bloodstone beneath its curled hook guard. The metal of its blade is pitted, and black like meteoritic iron, except where it is sharpened. It's cutting and chopping edge is the color of fresh blood. JUST LIKE YOUR HAIR! Oh its perfect! (Blood Qi / Carmine mystic artifact. It thirsts)

>It has a wavy blade, white and grey like incense smoke. It has a hilt of gold, speckled with tarnish. A skull carved of white jade sits behind its delicate guard that is shaped a Coin. (Ghostly Yin Qi/ Ghost Artifact. It whispers)

>It changes shape in your hand, turning from a single blade to five. Like the Steel Tiger Claw Feiqing wields, but the handle has a guard like a cat's paw pad, made out of some kind of pink metal and its blades are more curved and it is backed with fur that matches your own. (Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers)

>A piece of something like blood red glass, wrapped with what looks like rabbit's fur. It is coated with warm blood and dusted with lunar sand. You didn't find this knife. It was formed from where your blood met moonlight and the coldness of Xuebai's corpse! (Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new)

>Something else (Write in)

And what do you do about the hiding Xue Laohue, Huanlixue

>Fuck it, chase Xue Laohue into the darkness! You aren't done beating his ass yet (Perception + martial trial. DC 140)

>Stand at the edge of the moonlight and gaze into the gloom, waiting for Xue's ambush (Perception + Martial Trial. DC 140)

>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120)

>Collapse the cavern, using the knife as a pick with Ghost Empress Melody to strike an earthshaking cord (Magic Trial. DC and effect dependent on the form of the knife)

>Write in

>>5854706
Depends. I do have a list, but sometimes they are spontaneous because I go "Oh that would be worthy of one" when it happens.

This one is one of the former, though I adjusted its unlock from (Roll two 88's in one trial) to (roll two 88s in one roll), once you reached golden core

>>5854767
>It changes shape in your hand, turning from a single blade to five. Like the Steel Tiger Claw Feiqing wields, but the handle has a guard like a cat's paw pad, made out of some kind of pink metal and its blades are more curved and it is backed with fur that matches your own. (Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers)
Stand at the edge of the moonlight and gaze into the gloom, waiting for Xue's ambush (Perception + Martial Trial. DC 140)

I wonder if we can mess with him by creating qi balls

>>5854767
>It changes shape in hand, it remembers.

In keeping with our bestial fighting style.

>try out the new tool
Im not followijg you in there, dumb shit.

>>5854763
>"Do you truly think that would blind me to your presence? That without eyes, I would be unable to predict your location? Your cultivation aura is as bright as a star!
He sees us. But when you stare at the sun you won't see the candle behind you. He's going to forget about Monu. And all the puppets making all that noise once they arrive will certainly deafen his senses enough to miss her approach.

His fate is sealed. Also hell yeah free super good alchemy ingredient, get.

>>5854767
I am currently suffering from choice paralysis. All of the daggers are cool. I cannot pick.

>write in
>taunt him, tell him all of his failings as a cultivator, his inability to ascend, unworthy to be welcomed into even these unjust and corrupted heavens, of his blackened soul, of the truth that our heresy is benevolent, that even the wise and kind and resplendent Five Colors himself has seen our measure and found it satisfactory upon our meeting
Honestly, spit entirely on him, his orthodoxy, and his worthless life. He's going to do some magic this time. Because his physical assault has been an utter disaster for him. Or he'll get so enraged that he won't be able to control himself. He's mad enough we have a human form, but to tell him that the greatest hero and legend of the orthodoxy condones Huan's existence? Oh yeah, that's spicy for him.

>>5854779
Oh if what I want to get out of it is unclear because I kind of forgot to put it in
>the goal is to counter him or bide our time for monu to rejoin the fight
We can even start to put down our own arrays to cast spells into the darkness, or let our grudge miasma seep out into the fugue to fill the cavern.

Sorry for not being specific, I was overeager.

>>5854767
>It changes shape in your hand, turning from a single blade to five. Like the Steel Tiger Claw Feiqing wields, but the handle has a guard like a cat's paw pad, made out of some kind of pink metal and its blades are more curved and it is backed with fur that matches your own. (Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers)
>Collapse the cavern, using the knife as a pick with Ghost Empress Melody to strike an earthshaking cord (Magic Trial. DC and effect dependent on the form of the knife)
Use some of that Human Sense and put these tools to good use!

>>5854767

>A piece of something like blood red glass, wrapped with what looks like rabbit's fur. It is coated with warm blood and dusted with lunar sand. You didn't find this knife. It was formed from where your blood met moonlight and the coldness of Xuebai's corpse! (Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new)

> Write in

Activate your Yang Eclipse and fill the tunnels with enough flame to collapse them to molten rock.

>>5854767
>It has a wavy blade, white and grey like incense smoke. It has a hilt of gold, speckled with tarnish. A skull carved of white jade sits behind its delicate guard that is shaped a Coin. (Ghostly Yin Qi/ Ghost Artifact. It whispers)

>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120)

Also, I kinda wanna put on a blindfold just to show off a bit

>>5854767

>It changes shape in your hand, turning from a single blade to five. Like the Steel Tiger Claw Feiqing wields, but the handle has a guard like a cat's paw pad, made out of some kind of pink metal and its blades are more curved and it is backed with fur that matches your own. (Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers)

Something fun I had an idea for
>Write-in
This land is bountiful in Primordial QI it enhances your senses. He thinks he can hide in the darkness on your home turf. Ha!

Wait for Xue Laohue and sense him using primordial qi. And counter attack the ambush using your new weapon.

Or

A less fun way would be to flush him out using the massive amount of blood above turning the water in the ground around him and flooding the tunnels. Using it to sense his every move.

>>5854831
If I had to choose it would be the top one.

>>5854767
>A piece of something like blood red glass, wrapped with what looks like rabbit's fur. It is coated with warm blood and dusted with lunar sand. You didn't find this knife. It was formed from where your blood met moonlight and the coldness of Xuebai's corpse! (Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new)

>Write in
>Now since that frozen cod of a cad is trying to hide you should figure a way to turn the blood soaking his clothes into yang fire. (Magic trial?)

Wanna hide in the dark like the lone chicken nugget that escaped his box in the freezer?
Get fried instead!

>>5854767
>It has a wavy blade, white and grey like incense smoke. It has a hilt of gold, speckled with tarnish. A skull carved of white jade sits behind its delicate guard that is shaped a Coin. (Ghostly Yin Qi/ Ghost Artifact. It whispers)
They all seems cool, so I'm gonna go with my gut.
>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120)
If our luck is so absurd that we just find a random ass artefact just from falling into a hole, we might as well abuse that fact, no?

He claims he can sense us just fine, and I have no doubt he can, but loosing his vision is bound to cripple him somewhat. He will likely no longer pick up on any fine, subtle movements we make. Not too sure how to abuse that, beyond communicating with Monu via sign language, as he likely will not be able to pick up on something that subtle. Assuming anyone here knows sign language of course, though writing on paper and showing that would work too, I doubt he can really read anymore
And it is just as this anon >>5854779 says, he may miss Monu entirely. We will likely have to actively distract him for that, but it is a very real possibility. Just make sure he gets out of the hole first.

>>5854767
>It changes shape in your hand, turning from a single blade to five. Like the Steel Tiger Claw Feiqing wields, but the handle has a guard like a cat's paw pad, made out of some kind of pink metal and its blades are more curved and it is backed with fur that matches your own. (Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers)

>Use the cavern as a resonator to hit Xue with maddening and excruciating cacophony from Ghost Empress Melody

>>5854872
I like your underground concert idea but it may be a little too indiscriminate since Monu is still around too.

And she has a good chance to surprise him since her puppets probably don't have qi for him to sense.

>>5854885
Monu is up there, only her puppets are in the cave, so she'll be alright.

>>5854778
Actually, another anon had a good idea.

Adding
>Unleash a grudge cloud to the field
To my vote. Look bitch either you come and make a move or we keep debuffing you.

>>5854767
>It changes shape in your hand, turning from a single blade to five. Like the Steel Tiger Claw Feiqing wields, but the handle has a guard like a cat's paw pad, made out of some kind of pink metal and its blades are more curved and it is backed with fur that matches your own. (Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers)

>Write in
Transform our eyes back to cat like eyes to allow us to see in the dark better and then
>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120)

>>5854767
>A piece of something like blood red glass, wrapped with what looks like rabbit's fur. It is coated with warm blood and dusted with lunar sand. You didn't find this knife. It was formed from where your blood met moonlight and the coldness of Xuebai's corpse! (Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new)
>Collapse the cavern, using the knife as a pick with Ghost Empress Melody to strike an earthshaking cord (Magic Trial. DC and effect dependent on the form of the knife)
>Write in
>"Sorry Tie-Tie. Your tunnel has a blind little mole!"

>>5854767
The bit about the knives thirsting or remembering has me curious if they’re living weapons or not.
>A piece of something like blood red glass, wrapped with what looks like rabbit's fur. It is coated with warm blood and dusted with lunar sand. You didn't find this knife. It was formed from where your blood met moonlight and the coldness of Xuebai's corpse! (Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new)
>Collapse the cavern, using the knife as a pick with Ghost Empress Melody to strike an earthshaking cord (Magic Trial. DC and effect dependent on the form of the knife)

Seeing as voting periods have been shorter recently
>votes:13
4rqJMRoH
CtYksz/Q
WcTQ/oRH
1mfExxKX
neTxgegu
4LkQq4hi
8i8jncQn
WLai/5bN
BiqkQoos
UP9c4PL2
+Q/Qgoga
PHTaawm4
W6HQZEsJ
>(Ghostly Yin Qi/ Ghost Artifact. It whispers):2
4LkQq4hi
BiqkQoos
>(Primordial Beast Essence/ Magical Beast artifact. It remembers):5
4rqJMRoH
1mfExxKX
8i8jncQn
UP9c4PL2
+Q/Qgoga
>(Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new):4
neTxgegu
WLai/5bN
PHTaawm4
W6HQZEsJ
>Stand at the edge of the moonlight and gaze into the gloom, waiting for Xue's ambush (Perception + Martial Trial. DC 140):1
4rqJMRoH
>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120):4
CtYksz/Q
4LkQq4hi
BiqkQoos
+Q/Qgoga
>Collapse the cavern, using the knife as a pick with Ghost Empress Melody to strike an earthshaking cord (Magic Trial. DC and effect dependent on the form of the knife):3
1mfExxKX
PHTaawm4
W6HQZEsJ
>taunt Xue Laohue:1
WcTQ/oRH
>Activate your Yang Eclipse and fill the tunnels with enough flame to collapse them to molten rock.:1
>Wait for Xue Laohue and sense him using primordial qi. And counter attack the ambush using your new weapon.:1
8i8jncQn
>Now since that frozen cod of a cad is trying to hide you should figure a way to turn the blood soaking his clothes into yang fire. (Magic trial?):1
WLai/5bN
>Use the cavern as a resonator to hit Xue with maddening and excruciating cacophony from Ghost Empress Melody:1
UP9c4PL2
>Unleash a grudge cloud to the field:1
CtYksz/Q
>Transform our eyes back to cat like eyes to allow us to see in the dark better
+Q/Qgoga
Also calling out >>5854779 for not picking a knife yet.

File: 8146128465.png (292 KB, 680x383)

292 KB PNG

>>5857018
>Also calling out >>5854779 (You) for not picking a knife yet.

>>5857018

I will switch from

>Activate your Yang Eclipse and fill the tunnels with enough flame to collapse them to molten rock

To
>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120)

>>5854767
>A piece of something like blood red glass, wrapped with what looks like rabbit's fur. It is coated with warm blood and dusted with lunar sand. You didn't find this knife. It was formed from where your blood met moonlight and the coldness of Xuebai's corpse! (Cosmic Qi/ Bloodmoon artifact. It is new)
>Test out your new tool and use it against Xue to flush him out (Trial type and effect dependent on the artifact chosen. DC 120)

File: 1701370702636009.jpg (70 KB, 920x534)

70 KB JPG

Not ending the vote yet, but I will be soon don't fret juniors.
Instead I come bearing news, a new sect has revealed itself from the mists of /qst/

Stronghold master, found here >>5857337

It has just emerged, but I feel I'd be failing as a daoist if I didn't give my fellow patriarch a shoutout and encourage my talented juniors to participate in his quest

File: g6z5yky8rww91.jpg (36 KB, 228x445)

36 KB JPG

Forgive me juniors, I got a bit sidetracked last night. I'll try to end the vote and get the updates out in a couple hours from now, after I run a couple of errands.

>>5858108
>after I run a couple of errands.
He must brave the wilds and defeat countless rivals in his journey to

T H E S U P E R M A R K E T

>>5857356
Seems to have elements of Post Apocalypse, is that common to the genre?

Rolled 2 (1d2)

Alright, finally back, ending vote and tallying now. Errands took longer than I anticipated them to

>>5857018
Mount Tai lies forever in your eyes, glorious tally anon, your dutiful nature humbles all men

>>5857062
>>5857260
And with these additional votes using the random chance artifact with GEM wins

however, the second one makes it a tie between Primordial and Lunar so, I'll tie break for fairness sake

1: Primordial claw
2: Moon glass


>>5858163
Some cultivation stories do take places during/ after or include cataclysmic events, but are not what we'd consider post apocalypse, which why Stronghold master intrigues me (Besides it being another cultivation quest that I can partake in as an Anon), since post apoc cultivation is a pretty cool concept

>>5858145
Yes, it was a most perilous journey, but I stopped by a manual repository on my way and acquired numerous sacred texts I'd been searching for

>>5858457
Oh, well that might be the most interesting combo with GEM, in this old ghost's humble opinon
Exciting'

Update will arrive shortly

>>5858457
Looking at our own antics (or just Laohue's), it's not hard to see the bad times an irresponsible cultivator leaves in their wake. The clean up of this battle will be a pain.

>>5858457
Ah, sorry, misread the final tally, forgive me juniors, luckily I caught my mistake before finishing

So you'll test the moon glass dagger and use it to flush out Xue,

Need to adjust the update to fit the actual result of the vote, but that won't take me long. I would've been devastated if I hadn't caught my mistake here

>>5858466
Yes, especially with later stage cultivators

And looking down at what's fallen into your hand, you aren't certain what to make of it at a glance. It is made of a substance unlike any other material you've seen before in life, there isn't anything like it in the underworld or the nine heavens at least as far as you've seen and are aware of. It is closest to glass in looks but that is only because it is translucent, but it is clearer than even the finest work of the most trained, informed and well supplied glass makers. It is so see through that at first you weren't entirely certain that it was even solid at all. But how else would it have clashed with the scythe's blade fiercely enough to spit out a shower of sparks? Pressing the pad of your thumb on its rippled body, confirms that it is indeed not ethereal as it looks and is in fact denser than ordinary steel. More unusual and spiritual metals might be heavier or more durable than it, but this crimson "Glass" could easily blunt or slice through the finest armors mortal men can manufacture in their forges of mundane fires. It is tough, whatever it is and sharp to. Sharp enough to cut your palm through your armor, judging from the thick blood weeping down it side and gather in fat globules along its ragged edge. One edge is serrated, the other isn't and is so thin and sharp it is difficult to find its exact location in the gloom underground.

It is like a chunk of broken glass, or obsidian chipped into into a blade. Its shape is petal like, leaf shaped, almost like a spear head, nearly round at the middle but with a fine point that could easily slip past gaps in the plates and rings of armor, or pierce through an eye or artery in a more graceful hand. It glitters with silver moon dust, suspended in your thickened blood, and lifting up your palm you can see that its "handle" that is just as sharp as its blade judging from the bit of a ring shaped pommel sticking out beneath its wrapping of what appears to white hare's fur. Like the moon rabbit. Odd

Especially since, as you turn it over in the palm of the hand that found it, you realize that this thing came from you. Or rather, it bubbled out from where the blood of your hand met the light of the blood moon, and mingled with the excessive amounts of Yin Qi and Ice Magic Xue Laohue spat out when you stomped his pathetic ass through the ground like a wooden fence post

So if it was born from your split palm and the light of the carmine moon, than where the hell did the rabbit's fur come from?

'A question for later' you decide as you flip it around and catch it, grasping it as you waltz back to the center of the sinkhole you created by stomping an old buzzard nearly flat as a tin plate. Lifting up the arm that holds it above your head, it catches the light of the bleeding moon and begins to glow

You have Absolutely no idea what this glass like dagger is capable of

"But the present is the best time to find out!" You boisterously declare

Magic trial, effect ???. DC 120. Bo5 2d100

Rolled 33, 85 = 118 (2d100)

>>5858510

Rolled 98, 85 = 183 (2d100)

>>5858510

Rolled 8, 23 = 31 (2d100)

>>5858510
>>5858520
What is this god roll? What fortune is this?

Rolled 93, 62 = 155 (2d100)

>>5858510

>>5858520
Get fucked Ice Cube lmao

>>5858520
>>5858525
>>5858526
Xue Laohue will not have a good time.

Rolled 94, 55 = 149 (2d100)

>>5858510

>>5858520
>>5858526
>>5858545
The dice really want to kill Xue Laohue dead, huh

>>5858520
But at 60 over DC, that is an amazing success, and will reveal a couple more abilities of your new toy than a base success would

update will arrive shortly

And the moment that boast escapes your mouth, the darkness of the cavern outside of your pool of scarlet light yawns outwards, washing over and swallowing up the moon's light until all that remains is a small ring just large enough for you to stand in, the last bastion of visibility in an ocean of lightless black. So Xue Laohue was using the darkness aspect of Yin to try and blind you, as if the loss of your sight would somehow cripple you more than it crippled him. As if you were not a beast and used to relying on all of your senses just to keep alive. And have been since that meant avoiding predators and keeping your stomach full, before you gained the ability to sense Qi. Sure the abundance of Yin energy in the air makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly where Xue Laohue is in the abyss surrounding your pinprick of moonlight, but you've spent enough time juggling different kinds of Yin aligned Qi to recognize the difference between a darkness spell and a giant chunk of ice overflowing with spiritual energy. Come to think of it, that half of his corpse would make for a wonderful cultivation resource, if you can stop Monu from defiling it or using it for something petty like cooling her bathwater.

As you consider how best to use your opponent's mortal remains, the darkness stalks closer, encroaching on your ring of moonlight before consuming it utterly and swallowing you up as well. Dragged into a world where light cannot exist, you stand blind, hands steady and head held up high. And it is in this darkness where you realize that the knife in your hand wasn't glowing because it was reflecting the light of the mystical moonlight. It was glowing with light of its own. Moonlight. Blood moonlight! Blinking, eyes adjusting to the rapidly brightening sphere of light as the knife glows like a fallen star in your hand, creating a blood tinged world in the otherwise impenetrable darkness. You were so surprised by your new knife turning into a lantern that could rival the moon at its brightest and fullest that you drop it.

But it doesn't drop. It hangs, held aloft by the light it is releasing from within its crystalline ripples and waves. Tilting your head, you reshape the moonlight from an amorphous, shapeless mote of light like fragments of Qi, Dust in the sunlight or fireflies in the air and turn it into ribbons and streams of condensed and partially solidified lunar radiance.

And the knife begins to move along them.

So it can capture moonlight, in great quantities, and can travel through moonlight itself. That already makes it a wonderful combination with your Blood Moon abilities and makes the nameless dagger one of your favorite and most valuable treasures already, since your cosmic evolution's specialized powers and unique attributes could only really awaken at night and that will only become more helpful the more spells and techniques you invent that utilize moonlight.
Cont

>>5858586

And even if it can only capture and not produce moonlight of its own, there really isn't a limit too how much light it can hold, so if you plan properly you can bathe in the moon's cold glow whenever you desire.

But your intuition tells you this dagger is hiding more than just that incredible power within its see through edge. So, you decide to test to see just what else it can to by extending the moonlight ribbons out from you in a web of somber light, to reveal where Xue Laohue is, and he is closer than he was before, stalking around you and waiting for you panic or lash out blindly, unaware that you can see him clearly again after his attempt to drag you into the same darkness you condemned him to failed hilariously.

And then you send your new toy zipping along the interconnected beams of moonlight. Once his guard lowers and his back is exposed, you'll have the glass like dagger stab him in the back. Or that was what you were planning to do. But the moment the magical weapon begins its flight, the sensation of controlling it and the moonlight it swims through changes. It isn't like you're holding and controlling the movements of a single mass, but rather holding together several, like grains of sands.

So you open your hand, envisioning the grains flowing between your fingers. Immediate, the blade fractures and fragments in a maddeningly orderly fashion that leaves each part of it perfectly equal to the rest. And with a clench, the blade rejoins, as flawless and whole as it was before.

Xue Laohue sensed that pulse of Qi, and stabs the blade of his scythe in the ground. Seems he's going to try and chase you towards him now, just as you were planning to force him to run back within your reach. You'll have to act fast.

Well, it doesn't seem to matter which part of the fractured blade is used as the foundation to reform it and if any of them can work as a conduit for the rest, than sinking the whole knife in his back got a lot easy. First, spreading your fingers as far apart and opening your hand as wide as you can, you turn the dagger into a cloud of glass dust, and it glints in the blood red moonlight, looking like nothing else besides flakes of vermilion snow. How ironic. And its good to know you can reduce the dagger so finely.

But, it becomes a bit difficult to control every flake of it, and you use track of them as they drift on the moonlight, with some specks of it still hanging around your head as you try to hastily wrangle them all back together the stab Xue Laohue with a flying knife. And in the process of controlling all of them through the ripples of moonlight, you discover another feature of this strangely forged blade.

It carries a poison within it. The madness of a full moon. Lunacy. Because Xue Laohue is scratched by one of the larger shards, enough to draw blood on his cheek and he slumps forward.
Cont

>>5858587

His spell dying as its casting is interrupted, before his stern expression cracks, first into a smirk and then into a truly manically deranged grin as he howls with shrill laughter

"Your mother will weep frozen tears when I toss your mangled corpse at her feet!" He cackles, sneering as he lifts up his scythe, madness trembling through his whole body as his tone and posture change completely "Your name shall become prophetic this night, beast, and I shall relish as I guzzle down your foul blood! GYAHAHAHAH"

And he flies towards you, swinging his scythe crazily and without direction or purpose as you adapt and summon the dagger back together in the palm of his hands as he recklessly throws himself towards you. Stomping one foot down, he lifts up his scythe and pulls it back far over his head, before the manic look on his face freezes and relaxes back to an expression approaching sanity as you crouch down and step under the range of his swing.

"Wait! Why did I do this?!" He asked in bafflement and terror, as his usual self realized immediately the depths of the danger his momentary hysteria had plunged him into. It takes every ounce of willpower you have to not sneer something like 'you were caught in my spell, old man' as you lunge to bury the tip of your blade into him

Xue Laohue is momentarily defenseless. +60 to next attack roll

How do you strike the exposed master, Huanliuxue!

>Slam into him and bury the dagger as deep as you can into him, slashing and stabbing him as many times as you possibly can, like you were raking him with your claws (Martial+haste trial. DC 150)

>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

>Change forms as quickly as you can and pounce on him to maul him (Strength trial. DC 130)

>Kick him flat in the chest, and throw him directly onto the blade of one of Monu's puppets, who have finally entered the sinkhole (Strength trial trial. DC 170)

>Write in

>>5858589
>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

Wombo combo!

Hmm what should we name the badass knife?
I put forth the name Blood Dust
Or Red Dust

>>5858589
>Slash him and hit him with the knife from behind.

Epic

File: UU40dom8T8yAg.gif (3.65 MB, 700x306)

3.65 MB GIF

>>5858589
>Xue Laohue is momentarily defenseless. +60 to next attack roll
Oh word?

>Change forms as quickly as you can and pounce on him to maul him (Strength trial. DC 130)
I thought you were here to kill a beast, you fossil. Well here it is. What are you gonna do about it?

>>5858595
What was the name of the moon goddess again? I was thinking calling it [her name]'s crimson kiss/touch. Or we could just name it after Luna itself rather than the goddess who "owns" it. Or skip it entire and call it Crimson Embrace or something. Like laying in a bed of warm sand. Except it's fiberglass and it's sawing you in half. I'm not good with names.

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Dammit. Felt like something was wrong so I re-counted the prior vote and realized immediately what it was

Tally anon missed >>5854778. Which means The primordial beast essence/ magical beast artifact should've won instead of their being a tie, as it would have 6 total votes instead of 5 like the cosmic Qi one.

So since retconning my fuck up entirely would be a real pain in the ass at the point and Its past the point I can delete the update to re-write it with it and its abilities in minds

I will instead make the Primordial Beast artifact PLOT RELEVANT instead of it just being random drop in the vein of finding a bum selling a manual for the buddha's palm technique (kung fu hustle is a great movie)

And I can't say anything further about this, since it'd spoil the surprise, but I think it will more than make up for my blunder

If it is not enough, I shall kowtow, break my arm and destroy my cultivation and burn part, but not all, of my current supply of tea.

>>5858623
You will be forgiven without all the fanfare except you must drink a glass of tea with half-and-half in it.

>(kung fu hustle is a great movie)
Axe Gang, kill the dance floor.

>>5858589
>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

>>5858589
>Slam into him and bury the dagger as deep as you can into him, slashing and stabbing him as many times as you possibly can, like you were raking him with your claws (Martial+haste trial. DC 150)

Welcome to Stab Town, population: you!

Sorry again for my mistake, my blood is flowing in reverse because of it and I feel awful, juniors

>>5858589
>Kick him flat in the chest, and throw him directly onto the blade of one of Monu's puppets, who have finally entered the sinkhole (Strength trial trial. DC 170)
Let mom have her fun

>>5858589
>Kick him flat in the chest, and throw him directly onto the blade of one of Monu's puppets, who have finally entered the sinkhole (Strength trial trial. DC 170)
+60 is making me act the Young Master. Fucking showboat time.

>>5858623
I have failed in my task and lead you down a wrong path. This is the folly of counting on a phone.
>>5858589
>Slam into him and bury the dagger as deep as you can into him, slashing and stabbing him as many times as you possibly can, like you were raking him with your claws (Martial+haste trial. DC 150)

>>5858710
All good gramps, it's a sweet knife!

>>5858623
Oof
Let this be a lesson to all of us to double check the tally.
>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

>>5858589
>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

Part of me really wants to just go cat form and maul him like a tiger, but more of me wants him to die knowing we're a human than he ever could be.

>>5858589
>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

>>5858589
>Kick him flat in the chest, and throw him directly onto the blade of one of Monu's puppets, who have finally entered the sinkhole (Strength trial trial. DC 170)
We poisoned his mind, now mother dearest can poison his body. His defensive style has not had much success so far, but poisoning him will put a much welcome timer on his life. Assuming Monu's puppet's blades are poisoned. And that he does not have an antidote, which thinking about it is quite likely given their history. But hey, an antidote uses is an antidote he no longer has.

Man, I almost feel bad for Xue, he is getting his ass handed to him really hard. It's not enough that around 80% of our techniques are completely unknown to him, we also just pulled a random, OP dagger out of nowhere mid-fight. If there was an "Asspull" category in the Olympics, Huanliuxue would have won gold medal 3 times in a row by now.

>>5858623
A tragic mistake, admittedly, but nobody is perfect. Personally, I can safely say that I do not mind whatsoever, especially if the other dagger pops up too. Hell, in that case this was a net plus!
Though, that might not mean much from me since I voted for the Ghost dagger so I have no real horse in this race either way.

Wait a minute guys... Would this not be a perfect opportunity to hit him with weeping scar curse? Should fuck a guy like him up pretty good...

Changing to
>weeping scar curse

>>5859020
Ah, sorry, I'm this >>5858691
Anon

>>5858589
>Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 160)

File: 1647731491067.png (4.68 MB, 1770x1296)

4.68 MB PNG

Didn't mean to take this long to end the vote, but I was so distraught by my earlier folly that I was afflicted with heart demons temporarily, but they've been best, so I'm tallying the result now

Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path:6

Slash him and hit him with the knife from behind:1

Change forms as quickly as you can and pounce on him to maul him :1

Slam into him and bury the dagger as deep as you can into him, slashing and stabbing him as many times as you possibly can, like you were raking him with your claws:1

Kick him flat in the chest, and throw him directly onto the blade of one of Monu's puppets, who have finally entered the sinkhole:3

Use the wheeping scar curse:1

So you'll send the lunar blade flying through the moonlight, and use it as a second combatant to double team Xue with, catching him between your paw like strikes and its path

Update will arrive shortly

>>5858814
You are forgiven

>>5858815
>>5858962
and I am overwhelmed with feelings of joy to also receive the forgiveness of my juniors

>>5858636
I'd prefer being reduced to a human stick to that most inhumane of punishments

>>5858962
And yet it is nothing compared to the luck of the standard cultivation protag, lol

Your eyes must've flashed the moment they saw the opening in the strong, but by no means impenetrable, defenses of Xue Laohue. What was it that those who advised you on his fighting style's flaws and habits so fretful over? Sure he was harder to hit than most, but the only blood you've shed in this fight was from stumbling back and cutting yourself! Is this supposed to be one of the greatest slayers of demonic beasts in this era? Sure there's only half of him left and what is left is old and rickety, but from how cowed Shidi and Xia were, how bruised and beaten they were from just a few brief clashes with this cold hearted man, you were expecting more. Much more. Caution struggles against optimism and the thrill of seeing your prey bare his throat to you so wonderfully and completely. Arrogance answers that of course this master's defenses are breaking underneath your assault, even if he is the best the orthodoxy has to offer, because you are Huanliuxue and even without your matchless golden care, you are simply better than everyone through grit, training and natural proficiency. But Wariness warns that a cornered animal is the most dangerous and from all you have been told of this old monster is how cunning of a brute he truly is. He may never have met a beast like you, or a heretic like you, or be able to grasp the extent of your powers or form of your techniques and law, but he is crafty and even though his guard was tossed away in his brief flirt with madness, he is a man you must be cautious around.

He can defend himself from every angle, so will quickly recover from being attacked from one. But luckily you've found a partner down here in the dark, one that escaped from your veins. A little hitch-hiker from the stars and moon.

Opening your had, you spin the dagger of lunar-glass in your palm and send it flying as you lift up your hands and ball them into loose fists, to mimic the shape of your adorable paws.

You'll batter this icicle around to keep him from recovering and regaining his footing, while your new knife carves him up like the over ambitious piece of frozen meat he is!

roll 2d100+60. DC 160. Best of five

Rolled 73, 16 = 89 (2d100)

>>5860735

Rolled 96, 21 = 117 (2d100)

>>5860735

Rolled 6, 81 = 87 (2d100)

>>5860735
Rest in piss old man.

>>5860739
He gets hit with the heat action: Essence of double team

Rolled 89, 66 = 155 (2d100)

>>5860735

>>5860761
5 dos to filletminigion this old ice cube.

If its it over now, thats a lot of damage.

>>5860761
> Bleed you monster! A thousand cuts for every beast you cut down who was your better! Bleed! I am the empress of beasts, the queen of blood, master of grudge and ghost and I condemn you to bleed for your crimes!

Rolled 58, 9 = 67 (2d100)

>>5860735

>>5860761
Amazing success. 50 over DC and over 200!

Update will arrive shortly

While we have everyone here for the rolls, Im thinking the knife can use a simple name like "white fang" or "moon shard".something nice and simple for an unassuming knife.

>>5860771
Moon River could be a good name. Refers to its ability to split and flow as well as it's reserve of moonlight that it flows along.

A shuffle step forward, your raise one of your hands, ready no matter how he reacts to your flickering approach. Still stunned by his own flight of insanity, Xue unwisely lifts up your sister's corpse to hide behind, holding it in front of his halved chest to shield himself from a full frontal assault. Which is exactly what you're going to do. But with a whistling sound, the knife flies across his back, carving through ice, flesh and bone. His focused expression cracks, a manic cackle escaping his clenched teeth before he regains control of himself, somehow expelling and tossing off the madness freshly injected into his frosted over veins. No matter, you don't need him to be in the throws of lunacy to kick his ass!. A swat to the jaw as he steps forward reflexively to avoid the dagger spinning back around to hit him again. And with your moon boosted strength, his forward momentum is sent spiraling back. The sharpened piece of moonlight flenses his arm of flesh and blood, before ricocheting off of his shoulder of ice. His dour grimace struggles to maintain itself as the corners of his lips tug and a look of murderous mania is forcefully imposed upon the half of his face that can still move. He roars. Actually, wordlessly roars, unable to buck off this newest strain of lunacy and instead choosing to embrace it to allow it to burn itself out.

A wide, sloppy swing of his scythe. The space it passes through freezes, hairline fractures of ice magic splintering through the air as you duck beneath his berserk strike, side step around, and prod him in his side with two fingers, hitting his kidney with them before stepping back, still crouched and as low to the ground as your human body will allow you to go. He coughs, saliva flecked yellow with bile spilling out and freezing to his beer as stands firm, swallowing the pain of having his side pierced by the claws of your gauntlets and the sheer piercing power of your poke. He arches his back, tracking you and lifting up his hand of ice.

The dagger comes back around, burying its jagged edge into and slicing through the back of his heel. He grunts, and lowers, but refuses to fall to even a single knee in front of you. You surge up to him, leaping into the air and smacking him on the crown of his head. He bites his tongue, as you strike him with just enough for to stop him from chanting to empower the spell gathering in his palm of ice. The knife sings through the air, gouging his frozen cheek and opening up his throat. He just growls and lashes out, turning from you as he aims his scythe for a horizontal cut. That would've split your guts open, if you handn't pushed it aside and turned his own strength against him, before adding your own.
Cont

>>5860793

The arm of ice cracks and breaks at its elbow. And as he reaches out to grab it to turn the swing into a plunging stab, you shuffle up to him, sliding side to side before striking him twice in the jaw. He goes flying back, you flop onto your side lazily as his frozen arm flips into the air and with the accursed scythe still in its grip, flings itself towards your back. Xue Laohue gasps in pain, as he falls back first on four fragments of the lunar knife as he looses his footing completely and slips to the ground. You stand on your hands and feet, amber eyes aglow as he sighs and turns to powdered snow.

If you hadn't known of this movement technique of his, you might've thought he had just breathed his last. Instead, you're on guard, eyes flickering through the carmine lit carven before you hear a roar of frustration and look up to see him, with both arms attached again, getting battered by Monu's puppets.

And Monu herself! However, even though you adore you mother and love her dearly, you can't claim or pretend to think she's doing anything besides pissing Xue Laohue off. Even though her puppet's daggers and sickle blades are dripping with poison and acid, he doesn't so much as flinch as they scrape and shallowly cut his flesh. And certainly, Monu's viper like hand strikes aren't doing anything to him. When the body has lost half of its acupoints, hitting those that remain won't do much.

Growling in your throat, you raise two of your fingers and control the moonlit blade's flight directly rather than unconsciously.

Limbs, heads and splinters of puppets rain around you, and Monu is sent crashing to the ground after unleashing a flurry of palm strikes and finger jabs on her former lover, spilling the poisons she contains inside of herself all of her face and chest....well that's the most elegant way of describing what happened and certainly the least shameful.

"Enough!" he cries out, a subtler madness effecting him now, that of frustration. And before he can say anything else, he flies down at you, scythe left behind to cut down the remaining puppets like dried grass and rotten logs, since with Monu, er emptying her internal poison reserves, they've stopped moving and are posing even less of a threat than they did before. Is he breaking them just to prove a point or out of simple pragmatism to keep from being overwhelmed from too many foes, however weak they may be, coming at him all at once.

However, you were hoping he'd do that. There is a reason you've only been pawing and jabbing him. It was to train him to think your feline form of martial arts only comprised of hand strikes. So, subconsciously, he is only focused on your upper half and your blades that have freshly ripped themselves out of his back.
Cont

>>5860795

Which means he leaves himself open to your lower half. Namely your beautiful legs. Twisting on your heel, you turn with your whole body to generate as much force as possible behind your angled kick, pumping as much blood Qi and moonlight in the muscles of your leg, causing your veins to actually glow crimson as you lean over to the side to lift your leg as high into air as you swing it at, and hit Xue in the frozen side of his empty head. There is a whip's snap as the air bursts between your flesh and his ice, which cracks and collapses inwards, reverberating to hit the remaining half of his brain as he is slammed to the ground. But before you can finishing cracking that ice, he puffs into snow again.

"Hnnn...Hnn" He grunts and groans, appearing twelve steps away from you, crouched over and with blood spilling from his nose, mouth, arm, back and side, he fumbles his fleshy hand in the air, searching for his scythe, which comes when its called, still with half of a twitching puppet stuck on its blade. Coldly, you stride up to him, hands at your side and blades of lunar glass flying and circling around in groups of four, ready to pin him to the ground as you approach him wordlessly. How disappointing you were expecting..

He doesn't stand, and instead takes a moment to dig through a pouch tied to his waist. You tilt your head, you cool but totally murderous expression turning into a small, confused frown as you wonder what exactly he thinks is in there that he thinks could save his life or is so important he wants to grope around for it while his death coldly approaches him.

Fire. Sun. Morning.

LING!

You eyes widen as the moment his hand picks out a small jade slip, the color of which you cannot see. It smells like sunlight and reeks of Ling. You bare your teeth, hissing reflexively as he smiles smugly as you sprint up to him and. Pause. That isn't him in front of you. Its a reflection, an illusion made from a combination of spiritual energy and ordinary ice crystals in the air. The presence of the slip was just so omnipresent, you couldn't tell where it was, and he used a bit of his precious Qi that you could pin point to create a double of himself in the mirage he made in the snow. Not enough to fool you for longer than a second, but he only need that one second to break the slip between his fingers.

"Crafty bastard" You admit, though you loath to do so as you turn around and see him, behind him, rising to his feet. He used your own desire to beat him to death to his advantage, knowing that you had lowered your guard with how easy of a time you were having hitting him and beating him around!

A golden pillar of light erupts from him.

"Now, I just need to delay until my new allies arrive" He sneers, wiping blood from his mouth, stumbling forward as he trusts his trembling leg a little too much
Cont

>>5860798

"I suppose one shouldn't except worms to have any dignity or class" You scoff, adopting your stance again and condensing your dagger into a single blade again "I'll just kill them to"

Insects begin to crawl from the ground, sparkling with Qi. Monu must've summoned them once she...recomposed herself.

"If you can finish me" He laughs proudly, frozen arm splitting apart and expanding into a shield of ice, as he ignores the vermin crawling up his legs as he sways in place

"Big talk for a man who was already a walking corpse before I was even born~!" You snicker, shouting as you rush to close the distance before he can pull any other tricks out of his limp sleeve.

How do you attack him now, Huanliuxue?

>Your current strategy is working well, no reason to change it Send the lunar blade flying through the air on rivers of moonlight, and double team Xue with it, using the paw like strikes of your feline martial art to batter and push him into its path (Martial+ Magic+ Coordination trial. DC 180)

>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust (Trickery + martial Trial. DC 150)

>Use the dagger fragments as a screen and launch a barrage of destructive Yin Spheres towards him (Magic trial. DC 160)

>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>Write in

>>5860800
>>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust (Trickery + martial Trial. DC 150)

>>5860800
>>5860800
>Coat the field in Grudge cloud.

>When he swings, take a step back and weeping scar curse.

We need to destablize his core. Either mass cold or mass heat.

>>5860795
>train him to think your feline form of martial arts only comprised of hand strikes
Didn't we hit him with kicks before?

>>5860800
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>>5860829
Yeah. Well twice, but those kicks were followed by stomps and an eye rip, which makes that assault seem less like martial arts and more of a mauling/ simple brawling, that and the fact he then bounced back and forth from madness and sanity (several times) made Huan confident she could trick him into thinking she'd continue to throw punches rather than kicks

>>5860800
>Using yang now? You eclipse Yang! Turn the spell's force and burn him with his protecting Yang Energy!
>Empower it with the blood qi in the area and turn up the heat.
>Fuck it we ball, since he turned himself into a willing oven to refine the old man into a cultivation pill(If we can't forget this)

Grandfather is he using yang energy right now? I mean if he is he's basically turned himself into an oven. Laugh. Laugh at this man's foolishness.
Can the above be done?

>>5860800
>>5860840
Actually, cross this out I have a better plan

>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>But also add onto this We place the weeping scar curse onto our new blade and use it as a spell focus.

>To use Using Xuèjīngliàn! To pull massive amounts of blood in the area here and make a blood arena and create tens of thousands of blood slashes. Each hit means a new wound and worsens older wounds.

Will need to name this new move. Then If that goes well we burn the blood I plan on suggesting next we refine the old man turning blood to fire, yin to yang. Turning him into a cultivation pill.

>>5860866
Massive amount of blood + Blood Moon Boost + Pure Blood Qi + Ecplised Yang + Spell Focus + Tricking him and him being currently half insane and him going deeper defensive for reinforcements means it is the perfect time to finish this.

>>5860800
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>>5860800
>>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust (Trickery + martial Trial. DC 150)

>>5860800
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>>5860800
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>"Now, I just need to delay until my new allies arrive"
Wait, so you are telling me that the two major orthodox sects that have both been fighting each other for around a year have allied against a common foe?
They are being... reasonable? And not complete imbeciles?
We might be in deeper shit than we thought.

>>5860800
>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust (Trickery + martial Trial. DC 150)

>>5860800
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)

>>5861100
Nah we just get rid of all these bitches in one swipe, casually becoming undisputed lord of Chuang and Ling and making good on our promise to the golden collar gang.

>>5860800
>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust (Trickery + martial Trial. DC 150)
>Write in: Signal to Tie-Tie that enemy Reinforcements are on the way
If anyone has any ideas how as to HOW to do the write in, I'm all ears. It's still a bit early for Weeping Scar, I wanna do just a bit more damage.
>>5861100
We probably helped a lot with that. Price of flamboyance, Ling and WB will join hands until Krazy Kat's in the ground then it's on to you regularly scheduled sect conflict.

>>5861100
I mean we already knew that? When his drunk kid and that chick we made into an almost-pire fought us?

>>5861358
(Not a vote)

Could have Monu handle it personally or dispatch a puppet messenger.

Part of me wonders if we'd be better off just jumping out of the cavern and forcing ice man to follow us or let his army get fucking wrecked.

>>5860800

>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse.

Personally I'd like to go Yang Eclipse and melt his ass, but this is good too. Be interesting to see how Cat's Court would react here too.

>>5861358
>>5861454
We could also try using our ghost balls to form words, though the enemy would know we know about them in that case

>>5861454
>Part of me wonders if we'd be better off just jumping out of the cavern and forcing ice man to follow us or let his army get fucking wrecked.
Given the signal, it's very likely "his" army is going to be making a beeline for his position and coming after Us.

>>5861993
I'm not sure he still has an army, though if the Ling do come it will make this a little bit more difficult.

>>5860800
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)
Well that's bad news, especially since we don't have the most info on how Big Ling fight. If it's a group fight Blood Rain and what I assume using our new knife as a pick with GEM would do should cut down on the number of Adds.

This is to regain my honor, it must be done
>Votes:13
mA8gHV4L
Pva8t7lO
UP9c4PL2
8i8jncQn
bd0Rwxk0
iwD5/P73
+Q/Qgoga
BiqkQoos
1mfExxKX
4rqJMRoH
PHTaawm4
neTxgegu
W6HQZEsJ
>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust:4
mA8gHV4L
iwD5/P73
1mfExxKX
PHTaawm4
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse:9
Pva8t7lO
UP9c4PL2
8i8jncQn
bd0Rwxk0
+Q/Qgoga
BiqkQoos
4rqJMRoH4
neTxgegu
W6HQZEsJ
>Coat the field in Grudge cloud.:1
Pva8t7lO
>Place WSC on new blade and use as a spell focus for Blood Refinement (Xuejinglian):1
8i8jncQn
>Signal to Tie-Tie that enemy Reinforcements are on the way:1
PHTaawm4
Slightly unsure if >>5861919 is supporting the warning write-in or simply making a suggestion

>>5863458
To judge you properly, I shall do a second count to ensure you have attained the Dao of Counting.

Total Vote Count:

4 Votes
>Lead him towards Monu, fighting more defensively to lure him into fighting more aggressively himself, he might be controlling it, but your new toy has afflicted him with potent bloodlust (Trickery + martial Trial. DC 150)
mA8gHV4L
iwD5/P73
1mfExxKX
>Signal to Tie-Tie that enemy Reinforcements are on the way
PHTaawm4 (includes signaling monu)

9 Votes
>Step back the moment he swings, and hit him with the weeping scar curse (Magic: Curse Trial. DC 130)
UP9c4PL2
bd0Rwxk0
+Q/Qgoga
BiqkQoos
4rqJMRoH
neTxgegu
W6HQZEsJ

>Coat the field in Grudge cloud then weeping scar curse
Pva8t7lO (includes weeping scar curse usage)
>use weeping scar curse on him and our blade
8i8jncQn

You have counted well Anon, but the road to redemption is not so light that only one proper count can allow you to ascend to the heavens.

Ending the vote now, didn't mean to take this long but I was otherwise occupied playing armored core.

>>5863458
>>5863482
Thank you both for tallying in my stead juniors,

So you'll step back and hit the bastard with the weeping scar curse!

Always fun when this curse rears its head

Update will arrive shortly

The blood falling like rain gathers in puddles and thickens beneath the unrelenting chill of Xue Laohue's breath. Splashing through the red pools, droplets fly around you as you rush to close the distance between you and the half frozen, half dead master of the winter blossoming wisdom sect. He lifts up his arm turned into a shield, his spiritual senses giving him a full range of vision, he's on his toes now, and will not make the same mistake that allowed you to batter him this close to death and if you give him even a moment to catch his breath, he pull some trick out of his sleeve. Would whatever technique or sorcery he'd unleash in a moment of desperation be enough to turn the tide of the battle and switch your places, make you the one teetering towards their next life? Probably not, but it might just slow you enough for whoever will respond to the beacon of light he sent up to get lucky, or extend this fight long enough that people who wouldn't have died otherwise join him in hell. And neither of those possibilities are something you can accept. Call it greed, call it selfishness, call it pride, but you cannot stomach the thought of losing those close to you even if it was their choice to put their lives on the line and join the fighting today.

So you just have to kill Xue Laohue quickly, to save as much as you can and be close enough to peak performances to put down whoever he just cried out to just as swiftly.

He lunges forward, thrusting his arm turned into a shield outwards, turning his defense into a spear. He's trying to slam it into your chest and upset your balance. But has he ever tried to push over a cat that didn't want to fall? You step back, but he doesn't lower his guard. So that was why he turned his arm into a crude shield, to keep from lowering his defenses again no matter how recklessly he attacked. Clever but pointless. That hunk of ice that's taken over half of his body doesn't seem to be especially magical, at least not enough to offer him any real resistance to daoist sorcery. And if he's spent his life hunting beasts and those who strayed from the well worn path, then he probably has no defense against the enmity of ghosts? Sure the Winter blossoming wisdom Sect raises exorcists, but how many hungry or demonic ghosts has he encountered or sealed that knew any good or just worthwhile hexes? How long has it been since he's exorcised a vengeful soul, if he has ever done so at all?

Smirking wickedly, your tongue curls as you begin to chant the spiteful mantra of the The Weeping scar curse (哭泣疤痕魔咒 , Kūqìbāhénmózhòu).

He recognizes what it is immediately, a curse. Which is to be expected. Monu is a master at weaving hexes, a fitting hobby for any witch worthy of the title.

However, he expects you to be your mother's daughter, so he'll be preparing his magical and mental defenses for one of her curses rather than the vengeful mutterings of hateful spirits!

roll 2d100. DC 130. Best of five

Rolled 57, 11 = 68 (2d100)

>>5863713

Rolled 22, 90 = 112 (2d100)

>>5863713
Frozen't

Rolled 74, 12 = 86 (2d100)

>>5863713

Whew, the tension is up up up

Rolled 48, 58 = 106 (2d100)

>>5863713
Next time we teleport. We have two different ways of doing it after all. Why is he so stubborn? Why can't he just roll over and die like he is supposed to? Give up you geezer, you're already well past your expiry date.

>>5863738

Could go for carmine mystic spell using his eye as a focus. Between the boost from the blood moon and all of our general awesomeness we might be able to crack the glacier.

Rolled 32, 24 = 56 (2d100)

>>5863713
Can we perform his last rites right here and now?

>>5863746
I'm surprised Monu hasn't changed gears yet to go full spell casting. She kept trying to get in close and poison him and stab him. Huan can hold his attention well enough on her own so Monu can take the time to cast something substantial since so far her tactics have been ineffectual.

Though that makes me wonder, when we broke his ice arm off, was his original hand still in it encased in ice? I was under the impression his entire body was transmuting wholesale into ice rather than being frozen over. But it might be something to use if there's any flesh still in there at absolute zero.

Alternatively we do go full eclipsed yang and turn this place into a sauna.

>>5863765
Man, the dice are ANGRY tonight. Wow. What are the odds?

>>5863723
10 under DC, nearly twenty. Failure. Update will arrive shortly

I'd laugh if the only significant injuries he's ever sustained have been in our fight with him tonight. And they honestly don't seem like they even phase him at all. We absolutely mauled him over and over and he just seems a bit tired more than anything. What a pain this guy is.

It begins as a whisper, low and guttural, like the last breath escaping a condemned man's lips after the executioner's blade lops of their head. The curse speaks itself, spilling out from your lips in a steady, constant stream of resentment, urging the enmity within scars long faded to rouse and bleed fresh and anew. Eyes darkening, your moonlit aura turns from gentle crimson to a darkness deeper than the shadows Xue summoned. Slouching forward, your eyes alight with violent malevolence as the curse you were taught takes hold of your entire being to speak itself. Eyes half closed, hair falling loosely over your face like a funerary veil, you chant, not missing a word or tangling your tongue as the hex mutters out of your mouth at a serene pace, belying its true nature of a thing of undying enmity and ceaseless resentment. Grudge miasma pours from your mouth and flows down your front, catching and flowing like waterfalls of ink.

The curse crawls up your throat with claws and hooks as the still breath of old ghosts weighs down on your shoulder, making your slouch further until your back is as crooked and bent as an old crone's. It is the purest form of enmity, the rawest essence of grudges and it is screaming to escape to fulfill the will of scars long vanished! Curse spat with last breaths, cooling blood, the wrath of shattered swords and broken armor! It can barely be recognized as Chinese, the words you're speaking with how fueled and drenched they are in hate and spite. And the grudges inside your belly and lungs whisper with you, repeating their own grievances as mantra alongside the curse you utter.

Sparks fly when your tongue touches your teeth, grudge miasma oozing down your chin and clinging to your throat and chest. Xue Laohue's eyes flicker with bottomless rage as the words you speak become familiar to him, known to him, as the chant begins to include the many, many dying curses that have been spat in his face or wailed in his passing. Oaths of vengeance, insults and declarations of animosity and vengeance. Whimpers, bleats, and the cries of dying animals. But unlike his grandson, his expression isn't one stricken with horror or shame.

Its a beaming smile of pride. He isn't intimidated at all that you're speaking the words of those long dead, if anything he is amused.

Snarling, enraged by his lack of respect, infuriated by how he laughs at the lives he has snuffed out, you begin to channel your own grudge against him and the dog heavens he serves into the curses, mustering and calling upon all of the resentment that is yours and yours alone to hammer it into a single word, one command that embodies all of your feelings towards him and all of his ilk who smile as they hunt down children who don't even know they've done anything wrong

"Die"
Cont

>>5863824

But something's wrong. The command stays bottled in your throat, ripping and tearing and making your hurt! Only then do you realize you had become so furious as to be blinded, momentarily to what was going on around you beyond wallowing in the enmity of his victims and your own grudges.

Xue Laohue had turned to powder snow in the time it took you to call up the burning hatred you feel towards him and all like him, and he reformed himself behind you, Frozen hand stuck to your face over your mouth and flesh hand gripping your beautiful red hair, winding its fingers through it and coiling it around them! The piece of shit moves fast for an old fossil!

And he's wrenching and pulling your head in two different directions! Trying to break your neck or tear it right off your shoulders!

"I wonder, will there be anyone to speak your final words as a curse, Huanliuxue?" He questions weakly, blood dripping from the hand on your scalp.

How do you try to break from his grip, Huanliuxue?!

>Use enmity incarnation: Devil of Grudges, and wear the mask of Xiongji and beat your way out of his hold! (Strength/ Martial Trial. DC 95)

>....Wait why would you care about a broken neck? You can still puppet your body until it heals, just by stepping out of it and controlling it as a ghost would (Trickery/ Puppeteering trial. DC 110)

>Tear the space between him and you asunder, revealing your Cosmic Qi (Magic trial DC 100)

>Reverse the hold and throw him to the ground with your feline martial arts (Martial trial DC 150)

>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ???)

>Write in

>>5863826
>Tear the space between him and you asunder, revealing your Cosmic Qi (Magic trial DC 100)

>>5863826
Can't we just turn back into a cat? He very foolishly let go of his weapon to try and play the assassin instead of just beheading us. Once we're huge and feline our strength should absolutely overwhelm him. To say nothing of the fact he's behind us and our hind legs would be primed to disembowel him.

Or does that take too long?

>>5863826
>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ???)

You are nothing, and I am the light.

>>5863826
>Reverse the hold and throw him to the ground with your feline martial arts (Martial trial DC 150)

>>5863826
>Trust the blood moon.

I think we can afford this.

>>5863862

I believe Xue Laohue is about to kill himself and all we have to do is let it happen with the power of the Blood Moon.

Trust the Blood Moon.

>>5863886
I think that's a little silly. Why would trusting the blood moon amount to "do nothing and let the guy die" instead of something like "turn into a moonbeam and fly away" or something? Either way, I just don't like mystery boxes.

>>5863826
>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ???)

Are we going to become blood?

>>5863837
Sure you can that's what the write in is for.

>>5863826
>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ???)

>>5863893
I just wanted to make sure it was a viable option and not just something technically possible first. Many thanks, Grandfather. Even though I know it's doomed against the blood moon option.

>>5863826
>>Write in
>Turn back into a cat, using our true form's increased strength and flexibility to twist his strategy against him

>>5863889
The power of the blood moon is misfortune, and I believe Xue is about to do something very unfortunate for himself.

I could be wildly misinterpreting the situation, but I really so believe that Trusting the Moon will turn Xue into a cherry slushy.

>>5863903
Well yeah he's making a huge gaffe right now but I don't think snapping our neck is gonna make us explode into steaming blood and reform, blasting him into slurpee in the process. I just don't think that whatever trusting the moon does is going to be "passive". I'm sure it will work out for us, but I'd rather just kick his good arm off with our digging paws instead.

Finding new abilities is great, but I've also a mind that he's recording this or something. Even if he's not it's only a matter of time before some Ling prick comes screaming in atop a flaming comet to interrupt or something. I'd prefer rapidity to anything else at this point.

>>5863826
>Turn back into a cat.

>>5863826
>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ???)
*sigh*
I can't resist

Man, we just HAD to fail this roll, huh?
I was really looking forward to seeing this curse used again...

>>5863826
>>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ??

>>5863826
Oh snap he leaked blood on us.

>>5863826
>Use enmity incarnation: Devil of Grudges, and wear the mask of Xiongji and beat your way out of his hold! (Strength/ Martial Trial. DC 95)


Call me contrarian but I wanna go Xiongji on his ass. Let's not forget Xiong is a fire expert and we're fighting an icicle.

>>5863826
>Trust the blood moon (Instinct trial. DC ???)

>>5863826
>Turn back into a cat

I'm almost sure the ling will just watch him die and study any techniques we use to kick his ass.

>>5863826
>Turn back into a cat
for once I'm resisting the mystery box

Ending the vote, tallying the result now.

Tear the space between him and you asunder, revealing your Cosmic Qi:1

Trust the blood moon:7

Reverse the hold and throw him to the ground with your feline martial arts:1

Turn back into a cat, using our true form's increased strength and flexibility to twist his strategy against him:4

Use enmity incarnation: Devil of Grudges, and wear the mask of Xiongji and beat your way out of his hold!:1

So You'll trust the blood moon and...

Update will arrive shortly

The blood flowing from the few scars your curse was able to open fresh and new spills over your scalp, soaking deep and warm into the roots of your hair. Would any even be able to tell that there was blood in your hair? Why is your mind wandering at a time like this, while you can feel your spine being twisted and each vertebrae bending before it cracks. Yet the warmth of fresh blood washing down your face is so comforting as to be like a tranquilizer. Even though a broken neck isn't something someone like you should fret too much over, it will still be incredibly painful and crippling, even if only temporarily until you can put it back in its proper place, patch it up and heal the wound. Fu could survive having his head torn off and after mending the injury with just his internal energy, be left with only a new scar ringing his neck, so it isn't like you should be stricken with mortal terror at the mere threat of having your neck snapped and your spine broken, leaving you to collapse like a puppets with its strings cut. But shouldn't you be more concerned about it? Even for you this kind of tranquility is out of the ordinary, out right abnormal, and as much as the scent and warmth of fresh blood soothes and relaxes you, it isn't so comforting a drought to make you this placid while some brute is pulling, tugging and ripping at your hair and has one of his filthy hands stuck firm to your mouth.

A flicker of rage, is quickly subdued by the strange sense of serenity that seems to be spreading from Xue Laohue's open wounds down to the top of your head, spreading over your temple and soaking into your face as you stand there, struggling against his attempts to misalign your spine and break your neck like it was a twig. But the mystery surrounding this odd feeling of calm keeps you from putting your all into fighting back. Your minder wanders further away from the pressing matter at hand and the hands tearing at your head and pulling your face, the icy chill and the vein born warmth washing over it. Closing your eyes, you take as deep as a breath as you can with a hunk of ice covering your mouth and nose, and contemplate the feeling, all but meditating on this misplace sense of composure and relaxation as your head gets pushed this way and pulled that way, each strand of hair pulled out of your scalp sending a twinge of pain and shiver down your back as Xue Laohue increases the ferocity of his efforts and begins to jostle your entire body in his attempts to break a spine more flexible than others.

Not like you need to concern yourself with his pitiful attempts to snap your neck. Monu should be recovering from her fall soon, once she has nothing left inside her stomach to throw up, so even if you don't put in too much effort in freeing yourself, you aren't exactly dooming yourself because of it. And the question burning on your tongue needs is much more interesting than the wheezing old man struggling to break your bones.
Cont

>>5865890

And meditating on the sensation of comfort, you realize it isn't coming from the blood oozing and spurting from Xue Laohue's palm. The blood spilling from him is merely a vessel, a conduit of sorts, like oil for flame. The actual sense of tranquility that's strong and tranquilizing enough to make you not really care about being mangled by his hands, is coming from the blood moon's light the two of you are standing in, a beam of carmine light that is warm in the way of already cooling blood is, chill but with lingering heat beneath the coolness of it. Your eyes shoot open and you lift your head to stare intensely at the moon, your amber, silver ringed eyes reflecting its fullness and beauty as by Xue's rough handling, your head is forcefully tilted to the side as you gaze upon the moon and wonder.

Has it always looks so much like an eye? Has it always looked so sad and lonely? And that sound, beneath the cracking of bone, dripping of blood and grunts of effort, that isn't the murmuring of a breeze traveling down into a hole in the earth. Is that? Whispering? But it sounds so close, like it is coming from within you, between your ears, inside of the blood surging through the miniscule veins inside of them.

Its a call. A beckon from within, trying to rouse a power you have not yet wielded of a kind you scarcely understand. Your body adapts to the light of the blood moon in more ways than simply growing stronger and more robust. It is whispering to the carmine mysticism and baser blood sorceries caged within every drop of you thickened and refined noble blood.

Despite perfecting carmine mysticism, and creating two "Descendants" with it, you haven't really had the time or the enthusiasm to explore that new aspect of yourself and the bounties it brings. All you and your two disciples of the practice have learned, is how to sustain yourselves with blood and breath, and how to heal injuries with those same substances.

But the moon of this bloody night and its rain, tempt you to indulge and delve into this mysterious mystical art that had once been an affliction and disease. The moon dust in your blood is murmuring you, trying to incite you to act on instincts never before awoken, to make use of powers kept sealed within your imperial blood.

And feeling your neck twist in a direction it shouldn't, you decide to trust the blood moon, or more accurately, trust the slumbering instincts the sight of it and the falling rain of blood have partially awoken, to see what exactly made Carmine mystics of the old breed so feared and abhorred.

To really let loose and have some fun~

roll 2d100. DC 108. Best out of five

Rolled 55, 38 = 93 (2d100)

>>5865891
Oh, that's cool.

Rolled 37, 35 = 72 (2d100)

>>5865891

Rolled 18, 33 = 51 (2d100)

>>5865891
The dice gods are starting to look down on us after all the success

>>5865892
>>5865893
>>5865896
ha, ha, ha. Very funny guys, but really. Really it's time to be serious now. .

Rolled 59, 80 = 139 (2d100)

>>5865891

>>5865896
Clearly the dice are just tired of us masquerading as the inferior lifeform that is a human. This roll will prove it.

>>5865898
oh praise be, 3 dos.

Whew, misfortune really did scare us.

File: 1681414149347580.gif (1.37 MB, 500x281)

1.37 MB GIF

>>5865910
Catposting always works.

Rolled 85, 15 = 100 (2d100)

>>5865891
Cat

>>5865912>>5865918

You lied sir. Still 8 below dc

>>5865898
Great success, 30 over DC, update will arrive shortly.

>>5865922
Grandfather, check my ID.

I have rolled twice, the second time to check a superstition

>>5865927
It isn't the first time I've allowed someone to roll twice to expedite the process, and it has been a little over an hour since the roll was called for, and I'm impatient today

>>5865929
Ah, fantastic.

I just wished to ensure I had not decieved you.

<https://youtu.be/_Hdi2yuYoU0>

The blood in your veins is screaming, lit aflame by the moonlight and stardust trapped alongside it. It runs so hot it feels like its boiling inside of you, roasting you alive from inside out as the moon meets your gaze with your own and the cuts you made when you offered your lifeforce to it to paint its blank surface like an unmarred canvas feel as fresh and ragged as that day as when you laid in a pool of your own blood, with starlight and moonlight infusing into your veins, seeping into the marrow of your bones through your jadelike skin. Its scream rattles through you, echoing in your heart as it claws and gnaws at the walls of the veins keeping it locked up inside of you. Like a thousand evil spirits sealed with prayers and talismans, the enchanted blood you've carefully cultivated, refined, transfused and alchemically altered with the strange energies of the cosmos struggles to escape you, to flee burning into the night to escape the celestial fire that is not contained within it.

It is a good pain. And you feel your concerned frown stretched and pull into the same crooked lunatic grin you wore when you cut open your wrists and throat on the lunar surface, sickle shaped like a crescent moon. How sharp your teeth are this night, almost as sharp as your natural fangs. Flicking your frozen tongue over them, you draw blood and swallow it down.

Your heart is racing. Beating and pulsing with the breath of ghosts and the breath of life. The blood flowing down your face stills and bristles as you beseech the carmine mysticality within your furnace of a heart to awaken, activating the pure form of the occult art that lead an entire sect down the road of ruin and path of monstrosity, unaffected by the filth and scum within the blood they guzzled. Untainted. The moonlight and blood rain falls over you like a blush bride's veil. Blushing, blood carrying the emotions of shame, rage, and passion! Feverish, you throw your head back, feeling how loose your neck has become from old Xue tugging and pulling on it so harshly, and though he is eyeless, in the tears of blood shedding from his empty eye socket , you can see a look of fear reflected in the crimson rivers weeping from that hollow space. And you can see yourself, a predatory sort of madness glinting in your eyes as you throw out your arms and lift them towards the sky in euphoria as Xue struggles to rip your head off as the blood he squeezed into your hair falls in line with your will and obeys you command, stretching down in coagulated ropes, securing your head and neck and reinforcing them as you allow the moondust inside of you and the moonlight washing over you to both flow into your heart turned blood cauldron.

It begins a cycle of empowering. Blood and moonlight mingle and in revelry, devour each other.
Cont

Yin and Yang, cold moonlight and burning blood married together, growing stronger as the screaming in your veins stops and quiets to purring whispers. Extraterrestrial spiritual essence fuses together with the Qi of ghosts and the Qi of Blood, altering itself and transfiguring the blood that plays host to it. An natural alchemical process, a new form of blood refinement, an unsealed secret of carmine mysticism born again in the fertile ground of your veins!

And you can track the progress of this bloodborne conflagration lit by moonlight, as it makes your veins flicker between black and brilliant crimson, glowing as they crawling up from your chest to your neck, reaching out like tiny fingers towards face as Xue Laohue starts trying to turn you into as much of an icicle as he is by channeling mass amounts of ice magic directly into your skull.

Even with your physiques and blessings, that would've normally been enough to snap freeze you and turn your head into solid ice. But he's dancing in your palm, the night is young, the moon is full and red, and blood is falling from the sky like a grisly storm.

You're absolutely in your element!

Your heart beats again, burning like a red star in your chest, visible even through your spider demon silk armor, your veins crawl and reach your eyes. Its like a hot needle has been shoved through them. The night lights up, as if it were day, as if you had your cat eyes in your human head.

Xue roars, and stubbornly refuses to concede, pushing another ocean of water Qi against your skull. And then he yells out in pain as your veins break through your skin, lined with needles like rose thorns or brambles. Something happened to your eyes, you can feel blood sloshing in them. Xue Laohue lets go, flash freezing the palm of his hands as he reels back for reasons you don't really get. Glancing down, you see your mother looking up at you big, adoring eyes as she watches in awe as every drop of blood on the ground and in the air flows and crawls up to your feet, oozing up your legs and as if driven by an alien will, soaking into your veins through tiny pin prick holes filled in them

Your thorned veins wrap the outside of your armor, winding themselves most tightly around your hands as the thorns there grow large enough to piece through a stubborn skull like Xue's

"A red eyed Jiangshi!" Xue yelps, sounding for the first time in the fight actually frightened "But your heart is beating, and your karma is bountiful despite your abominable nature! Cur! Explain!"

"It takes a prodigy to turn worthless demonic cultivation into something elegant and beautiful" You muse with a silken voice as you admire your rose thorns, seeing that the whites of your eyes have indeed turn shockingly blood red from the reflection cast by your armor "You should be honored, you're the first orthodox cultivator to bear witness to the perfected, pure form of Carmine mysticism"

"Ccarmine mysticism" Xue Laohue stammers choking on his tongue
Cont

>>5865958

"Oh, so you know the term? I thought for sure your ancestors did all they could to bury this particular tradition and its tragic legacy" You snicker and titter, suddenly feeling really fired up and energetic, is this blood doping? it feels like you've swallowed a dozen stamina enhancing drugs and washed them down with an heady elixir of divine blood honey medicines! Like the blood torrent rush! (衁急流奔,Huāngjíliúbēn) Exactly like when you pushed your body to its limits by taking as many pills and elixirs as it could handle before you fought Baoli-Wuyawang (暴力-乌鸦王, Violent Crow King), but even better and more energized! You feel like a walking natural disaster! A living massacre, waiting to be unleashed, every fiber of your being coiled and ready to explode!

"Even one as proud as I at time's feel the need to shed tears for the folly of simpletons like then" You poetically ponder, before cackling as you wipe a hand down over your face, your crowned helmet absolutely drenched in blood as your veins continue to crawl and shift as more and more blood flows into you, in such quantities as to make your steel tough veins bulge and creak

"It...it is supposed to be a myth" He shouts, as if yelling at you will make you stop being a carmine mystic "A cautionary tale to warn of the dangers of unrestrained and reckless cultivation"

"Eh, Fought one of the originals in hell, I wasn't impressed" You off handedly remark as you realize the creaking you heard was in your neck and not your veins and press against the side of your head to check and see just how badly he fractured your spine. Its already healing, but something feels off inside your throat. And you can immediately tell what that unpleasant feeling is, it is your veins, wrapped around your spine like a parasitic plant, piercing into it to give your brain a direct, moon fueled boost of Qi enriched blood directly from your heart.

Giving your enough clarity and swiftness of thought to realize what your instincts were luring you to do, and what was going on. The carmine mystic you met didn't look human at all, he didn't even look like Jiangshi should. And that Ling brat also started to change when you forced to transform into one as well, her teeth and ears.

Hmm. This is probably a glimpse at the sort of techniques you could achieve and master if you put in any effort to growing as carmine mystic, brought out by the light of the blood moon. A transformation technique, that isn't nearly as permanent as the changes wrought by the demonic influence of the original form of carmine mysticism, and just from feeling alone you can tell it has given you an even more of a boost than just bathing in the light of the bleeding moon already has. But why the thorns?
Cont

>>5865960

AH! The primordial beast essence! radiating both from within and from the titanic ancient tree you grew in the center of Suiqi! it must've influenced the instinctually changes your body underwent to free itself and quickly heal the damages done to your flesh, bones and nervous system by Xue Laohue wrenching your head and neck around like a dog with a toy! And Jionghuagege's flowers must've increased the presence and potency of the primordial air.

A wood aligned carmine mystic transformation magic. Intriguing! Most intriguing!

"But what does that make me at the moment? a blood sucking cat flower?" You titter thoughtlessly as you rock from your toes to your heels, relishing in the high of the unexpected change "A fairy of the Sanguine Divine Spirit Peach?

"What are you babbling about!? Give me a clear answer, you damn monster!" Xue Laohue, who is of course not privilege to be witness to your genius thought process, blurts out in a panic as you stop rocking in place and lift your foot, seeing some of your veins have rooted into the ground, sucking up the life force within the soil and spreading out, just like the vines that crawled all through the ancient sect of the Peerless Sanguine Jade Shrine. Or the roots of the man devouring flower Fu lead the subjugation off.

"Huan~, are you feeling alright?" Monu asked cautiously as she approached you. Now why would she be concerned, it had to be clear you were feeling well over the moon! You grinned, meaning to smile delicately at her as she tapped your shoulder

"Hmm?" You chirp, confused as to why she's fretting over you when you're overjoyed and lively, and clearly winning the fight "Oh I'm in full bloom can't you see? I am after all, as much of a flower as you are, Mama"

"Rrrright" She says through her teeth, as she gently pries open one of your eye lids "I think you might be a bit er, blood drunk, my sweet kitten"

"Of course I am, its in the name isn't it!" You bark with laughter, making her leap back as if she were scared of you, but that can't be it, she has absolutely no reason to fear you, she's your honored and beloved mother!

Thorns. thorns. You certainly have sprouted a lot of thorns. You might be mistaken for a flower demon instead of a cat demon looking like this, with how your mane of scarlet hair is sticking out like petals and leaves out from under the crown like helmet of your armor.

"You! Speak! What has Huanliuxue done!" Xue Laohue demands of your mother, who seems to have forgotten you were both in the middle of a life or death battle, as she blinks ponderously as glances between you and him as you hop in place, bouncing from one foot to the other, waiting for the first opportunity to lunge at Xue Laohue and start beating him up some more, the place in his palm where you pricked him seems to discoloring, for some reason.
Cont

>>5865961

"I dunno? And if I did why would I tell you! You killed her elder sister and are trying to kill both of us as well!" Monu shouts, remembering that this is a fight suddenly

Hah. why is she acting so weird!

"Huanliuxuuue, why are you dancing?" She asks, as you realize you were indeed moving in a way that might seem like dancing, but you just felt like swaying and frolicking in the moonlight and falling blood. That much should be obvious to anyone.

A shard of ice launches from Xue Laohue's fist as he stands his ground, surrounding himself with air cold enough to freeze fire.

"I just trusted the moon is all" You giggle, hiding your face behind your hands, peering out between your fingers with glowing eyes, watching as Xue casts at least a dozen delayed spells, preparing himself for your assault.

"Don't look at me, I don't even know half of what she is capable of when backed into a corner" Monu snorts, as she lifts up her arms and sits down, closing her eyes to focus as she begins chanting a truly vicious curse as spiders crawl out from the collar and sleeves of her robes.

"Tch, no matter, if you were the guise of a ghost story monster makes no difference, even if I can't slay you myself, I can weaken you still, so the next man to take up my sword can put you down!" Xue Laouhue declares, summoning Xuebai's corpse back to his hand, sprouting several additions arms of ice to keep up with all the spells he's casting

How troublesome. A fish that doesn't know when to stop flopping about.

How do you punish his Hubris, Huanliuxue?

>See just how much you can blossom and make use of the veins that are rooted in the ground (Carmine Mysticism: Verdant. Trial. DC 75)

>You really have an itch to beat the absolute crap out of him! So combine this transformation technique with Emnity incarnation: Devil of grudges, and embody Xiongji's grudge against the world as you wail on him (Martial: Ferocity trial DC 80)

>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

>Make use of all the blood that you're doing nothing with besides absorbing, and launch a barrage of carmine mystic spells at Xue (Carmine mysticism/ Magic Trial. DC 100)

>Get distracted and try to explain exactly what is going on to Monu and Xue, rambling as the sheer adrenaline and blood drunkenness makes you act a little flighty (Agility/ Dodge trial. DC 60)

>Write in

>>5865962
>Make the plant grow.

Oh, is this permenant?

>>5865966
>A transformation technique, that isn't nearly as permanent as the changes wrought by the demonic influence of the original form of carmine mysticism

No

>>5865962
>>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

>>5865962
>>You really have an itch to beat the absolute crap out of him! So combine this transformation technique with Emnity incarnation: Devil of grudges, and embody Xiongji's grudge against the world as you wail on him (Martial: Ferocity trial DC 80)

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

Wonderful song selection Grandfather, I could really feel it while reading this scene.

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)
Time to play with one of our new toys.

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

>>5865962
>>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)
Dang it. Now we've sat here and delayed a bunch.

>>5865962
>Make use of all the blood that you're doing nothing with besides absorbing, and launch a barrage of carmine mystic spells at Xue (Carmine mysticism/ Magic Trial. DC 100)

We're a blood dryad. Fun.

Burst his heart!

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

I kinda wanna vote for rambling but I can control myself and so can Huan

>>5866247
We can't be a 3rd bit antagonist doing a 4th bit speech of power. Sadly.

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)

>Blood Plant Moon Cat Vampire Ghost
Man... I was just talking about how impressed I was by Huan's ability to Asspull and she just keeps on going. I'm starting to think this is just what happens when you jump straight to golden core without giving yourself any time to learn new techniques that match your power level.
I am not surprised Monu and Xue both had to take a moment to process this shit.

>>5865962
>See just how much you can blossom and make use of the veins that are rooted in the ground (Carmine Mysticism: Verdant. Trial. DC 75)

Look and see how blooming life trumps death and spring supplants winter.

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)
>"Qi of the Sun, defused and reflected off the Moon stained with blood-mine-and then fed into the Earth along with the Primordial Qi, also mine. But something's missing.. Ah of course. "
>" Water. "

>>5865962
>OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grown (Carmine mysticism: Verdant trial. DC 90)
He might not last too much longer, but I'm curious how us wearing Monu's grudge against the greatest target of her hatred would play out. Would it get a boost, or would it fall flat against someone who intimately knew her?

>>5866870
With the real Monu literally fighting by our side, copying her style and mannerisms would be a super weird move

Ending the vote now, tallying the result.

OH! His palm is changing colors because that little prick planted a sapping seed in his flesh. Make it grow:11
-Qi of the Sun, defused and reflected off the Moon stained with blood-mine-and then fed into the Earth along with the Primordial Qi, also mine. But something's missing.. Ah of course...etc: 1

You really have an itch to beat the absolute crap out of him! So combine this transformation technique with Emnity incarnation: Devil of grudges, and embody Xiongji's grudge against the world as you wail on him:1

Make use of all the blood that you're doing nothing with besides absorbing, and launch a barrage of carmine mystic spells at Xue :1

See just how much you can blossom and make use of the veins that are rooted in the ground:1

Land slide victory for sprouting and encouraging the growth of the "Sapping seed" inside of Xue's palm, whatever that is.

Update will arrive shortly

>>5866495
Precisely!

That and Huan follows an unusual dao in the dao of ghosts and the dao of grudges, and she also went out of her way to obtain rare/ unique spiritual energy and attained a hitherto unknown magical beast evolution

Fighting her blind isn't fun, especially when she starts experimenting with her new toys, like the blood moon alterations to carmine mysticism

She really isn't like anything other cultivator have fought or are expected to fight

>>5867134
It'd also probably give Xue an aneurysm

Yet before you can think how best to mete out his punishment for the high crime of daring to struggle before your overwhelming and majestic lunar and bloodborne powers, you feel a twinge. A ghost of a sensation, similar to the description you've heard some amputees describe the "Feeling" of their lost limbs. Even though you've had your arms sliced off before, you've never felt anything quite like this before. And you can feel it, as tangibly as you can any other part of yourself. The sensation is real but what gives you pause is that is is totally separate from your body, yet you're still experiencing it and feel as if the source of the physical awareness is completely cut from you.

And it is beneath the icy skin of Xue Laohue, nestled and buried like a thorn in the meat of his palm, directly in the center of the odd discoloration of his flesh. Emerald, plum, bile yellow. What is it? What is it? You ponder the question, brow furrowed as you reach out to the ripple of feeling coming from the palm of its hand, the orphaned piece of your own essence sending out a steady but slow pulse of Qi, that you don't sense through your "ordinary" spiritual senses or any of your sharpened but still mundane senses. You're feeling it through another, unknown sense. It is crying out to through blood itself, through carmine mysticism through some mystical means that is entirely separate from normal daoist magics. Like a low vibration rumbling through the air soundlessly, like a child calling out to its mother.

Is is as you knew instinctively, a piece of you severed from the whole. A fruiting body branching off, a polyp broken away, a meteorite fragmented. But what is it? A piece of coagulated blood transmuted into a seed, an actual seed rather than an imitation made of your flesh and blood. The seed of a leech plant, a vampiric vine or the like. The kind you've seen before in the distant past. How the hell did you accidentally make something like that? It must've been formed in your heart, like making a pill in an alchemical furnace. The knowledge of what it was came from it, like a whisper in your ear. The seed doesn't have a mind of its, own, but its "Cry" gave insight to its nature. And its purpose.

It is a seed that will sap the blood and life force of whatever it is planted into. You aren't certain if it is a peach seed or simply a blood-sucking weed of some sort, but you are certain, if you respond to its cry and reach out to it, like a mother to her wailing child, that tiny bit of affection and acknowledgement will make it sprout and grow and begin to suck Xue Laohue dry!

Though that is putting it somewhat poetically. Really, all you will do is command it to awaken and grow via the resonance of blood between you and it. Something you could accomplish even without the blood moon and this blossoming transformation technique, with how refined the base level of your natural blood control is on its own.
Cont

>>5867829

The method to make the seed sprout and grow is the same as the one you used to make cause the alchemist turned carmine mystic who was foolish enough to think they could take your gift and run explode into a mess of core. It contains your blood within it, and whether its through blood manipulation or sorcery, no matter the vessel it is in, your blood obeys your will no matter how much it has changed or how far it has been taken from your veins!

You lift up a single hand, the vine like veins crawling from the center of your palm to your fingers glowing with a dim carmine light as you, with the power of blood, the frequency of life itself, reach out to the seed within your enemy's palm, and bid it to grow as he frantically casts his spells, unaware of the danger lurking within his own flesh!

Roll 2d100. DC 90. Best out of five

Rolled 44, 33 = 77 (2d100)

>>5867830

>>5867836
Heaven is having, a go.