The setting sun shimmered against the lake; a man, a woman, and a dog stood at its basin.
The base of Vera's halberd pressed into the lake's muddy shore.
"Buddy, leave the forest for now. I'll find you after we are done." His tone was low, his sharpened gaze never wavering from Mei.
The sound of his pulse was clear even through the crackling of the campfire.
Sword Dog whimpered frantically at Vera, but his words stood resolute.
"I'll be alright. Go sleep for a few hours." As he spoke, his grip over the halberd tightened; his calloused palms ground against the cold iron shaft.
The sound of whimpers trailed in the air as Sword Dog glanced back at Vera hesitantly.
He knew that right now, Vera felt as he did when he was to fight a strong opponent.
Though hesitance was still present, Sword Dog acknowledged Vera's emotions, not as a companion, but as a warrior.
Sword Dog dashed out of the battlefield.
Only Mei and Vera remained in the vicinity; their eyes locked.
"Where has your playfulness gone?" The corners of his eyes crinkled as the smile stretched his lips.
"It wouldn't be a fun battle if I took it easy," Mei spoke with a blank expression. "Don't worry though, I will try not to kill you."
The quiet crackling of the campfire died out; the dim light of dusk left only their silhouettes visible.
"It seems buddy has left the forest; should we start?"
"Hm... Let us begin."
Mei spoke as she stared at Vera; her qi flowed rampantly through her meridians as she prepared for an attack.
However, her steady breaths hitched, and her qi wavered; the man who was standing merely thirty paces away from her was nowhere to be seen.
The air roared as it filled the emptiness where Vera was.
From the corner of her eyes, Mei saw a blurred arc hurtling towards her neck.
Its ferocious cold iron exterior resembled a dark crescent.
With extreme speed, Mei raised her palm to meet the blade's arc.
"Wooden wall!" She shouted; veins pressed through her skin as she accelerated the flow of her qi to meet Vera's blow.
Roots ripped through the muddy earth, forming a wall between her and the dark crescent.
Mei's palm pressed into the wooden wall. "Spike!" Tendrils of the roots coiled into multiple sharp spears that shot out of the wall.
But there was no sensation... Nothing had been cut through.
A palm pressed against Mei's back. The sheer heat it exuded burnt her skin.
How?
Mei's gaze widened.
"Why are you attacking the air?" Vera muttered, his voice a low rasp.
Mei's body froze; a moment turned to an eternity.
The palm pressed against her back was that of someone who had approached the peak of human martial arts.
The mark of the Bixie ignited on his flesh.
"Incinerate."
For what was an instant, a second sun rose in the evergreens.
The winds roared and the forest wept.
All things within thirty paces of Vera turned to ash. The vapours of the lake turned to a heavy mist that obscured his surroundings.
The smell of wet ash rode the wind's rampant currents.
In front of Vera was a wooden cocoon planted into the earth; its outer shell was charred into coal.
"Damn, I was too slow."
Qi drifted on the currents of the air; each tendril was an extension of Vera, looking for Mei.
Vera pressed against the cocoon; its charred walls gave way the moment Vera touched it.
A coiled root pointed at him from inside the barrier.
"Fuck—" Vera swivelled his head to the left as the sharpened root shot past his face; its edges sliced through the skin of his cheek.
The attack had caught him by surprise, but he knew it wasn't over.
The root held too much qi for the attack that passed.
Vera's neck strained as he spun back to face the passing attack.
Hundreds of root fragments pointed at him. Mei stood behind the fragments; tufts of ash layered her back.
Qi seared through veins in his legs; the ground burst into a screen of ashen earth as Vera retreated.
"Explode!"
The pressure in the atmosphere rose exponentially; the air turned viscous. Qi-filled fragments shot out multiple pellets of wood at Vera.
The mark of the Baize shone on Vera's back. A mound of hardened earth burst through the ground and shielded Vera from the pellets.
"Grow!" Mei shouted; her lacklustre expression had long morphed into the sharp gaze of a warrior in battle.
Cracks formed through the wall, and boundless fauna grew through its crevices.
Vera's halberd pressed into the wall's centre; the mark of the Baize shone on his back again.
"Disperse!"
As the wall turned to dust in the air, the roots that grew within it lost their grounding and shot into the air.
Vera's breaths ran short and ragged, but there was no time to rest. The grip on his halberd grew tighter; his calloused palms screeched against its shaft.
I can't detect her presence for some reason. I need to attack when she is still within my line of sight.
The tip of Vera's halberd shifted to Mei's skull.
Qi blade.
An invisible energy cut through the air as it hurtled towards Mei.
A wooden wall rose through the ground again, blocking the blade's path to her. However, Vera's qi blade couldn't be stopped by just this.
The qi blade split the wall in half and cut into Mei's arms; golden blood spurted through her forearms.
Their divine presence marred by the lake's charred basin.
Her teeth gritted as she started to staunch the wound.
Vines burst through her skin to sew her flesh back into place.
Roots grew through the earth to form a cocoon around Mei, but innumerable qi blades cut through the incomplete cocoon; the remnants of each blade left shallow cuts on Mei's skin.
Qi engulfed Mei's skin as she gave up on creating the cocoon.
Vera ran towards Mei while continuing the barrage of blades.
"Core!"
An orb with a vibrant green lustre apparated in Mei's palm.
A viridescent blue lustre permeated through Vera's skin as he noticed the qi orb.
Burst.
The orb shattered into thousands of spores that engulfed the distance between Vera and Mei.
The hairs on Vera's nape turned stiff.
Vera's gaze sharpened; his teeth gritted.
"Converge!"
"Incinerate!"
A sun ensconced in a green halo.
The pressure alone caused the two to bleed from their eyes and ears.
Even sound trailed away as the wind in the battlefield fled.
Scorched earth can't burn any further, but the human body can always bleed.
At the very moment Vera tried to burn away the spores in the air, Mei called for their convergence.
Hundreds of spores intertwined to form thick branches.
With less than a second to react, Vera managed to activate his technique. If charged to its fullest, the spores would've had no effect.
But 'ifs' don't change outcomes.
Vitrified branches dug into Vera's flesh; their scorched surface immolated Vera's skin to the extent that even bleeding was soon staunched.
Vera's face contorted into a grimace.
The setting sun had finally sunk below the ground. In the dark of night Vera faced the Qingqiao.
Red embers wafted off Vera's body; the charred wood turned to ash.
The winner of the first exchange was the Qingqiao.