Cult of the Sacred Runes

Chapter 124 – Black Flare

The messy Qi flow within Qi Xiu calmed down and he quickly made a few hand seals in front of his chest and a few runes appeared.

“Is this Qi Xiu’s secret weapon?” The students from different schools could feel his Qi increasing as each rune appeared.

Up on the cloud platforms, the stance was starting to make the audience wary.

“Your Lordship, make sure none of them get hurt! Especially that kid from South Star!”

“Of course! The judges are there for a reason!” The City Lord answered. “Ha this Qi Xiu is extraordinary. Polaris Academy is lucky to find a student that is suitable to learn all their best stances!”

“It’s that stance! I don’t even remember the last time I saw this stance from a Polaris student!”

“We should thank this nameless kid for the entertainment! It’s quite an achievement pushing Qi Xiu this far! He will become famous just from this.”

“Oh well, looks like this is the end. I don’t see how Qi Xiu’s stance could possibly be stopped by this kid.”

Previously, Ye Wei, while being the aggressor, learned most of the Star Shifter formula’s secrets from feeling the energy flow in Qi Xiu’s body with his fist. Just from that, Ye Wei was greatly rewarded from this fight.

Feeling the fearsome Qi disturbance in the air, Ye Wei was becoming increasingly cautious; he was positive that the stance he was about to see would be on a different level than Qi Xiu’s previous stances.

Ye Wei was like a lone leaf on a wavy ocean of primal energy, but he was not scared. His eyes shone with a fighting spirit as oppose to the similar aged audience’s fear.

“This is what I’ve been looking forward to! Fight with your heart! Let me earn the victory and move on to the God’s Seven then to Qing state’s finals, and eventually I will challenge the cultivators at the summit in the capital!” Ye Wei’s body was fueled with immense energy.

“I am surprised you’ve pushed me this far boy. It’s my honor to beat you with this stance! I will dominate!” Qi Xiu finished making the last hand seal as the last runes of the sequence were drawn; drops of sweat slid down his pale face and he was now panting as he spoke slowly.

As Qi Xiu’s voice was heard, the runes in the air vibrated violently forming rippling black waves pressure waves around him.

“Zoom! Zoom!”

The background primal energy around the platform began to resonate with the rune sequence and quickly condensed into growing dark globes above Qi Xiu’s head.

All whole audience gasped in shock seeing that Qi Xiu was able to use the wild unpurified primal energy by guiding it with his own Qi. They were all impressed and scared by the scale of the stance Qi Xiu was using.

‘Seven Dark Flare!’

Vice-principal Xu He stared at the growing energy globes warily. He watched it as it grew and began to burn like the sun. ‘His master allows him to use a forbidden low-level Myst stance?!’

Under the platform, Jian Chen of Zhoutian Sword school, Shi Yuntian of Tri-Solar School, and a few Galaxy Academy students were the only ones who could look past how scary the stance was and appreciate how the stance worked.

“Ha!” The dark skinned Seven Star school cultivator, who had a brief exchange of look with Ye Wei, grunted. He stared at Qi Xiu with an evil smile and did not seemed impressed by the stance.

Meanwhile the speculation did not stop from above on the cloud platform.

“This has been the highlight of my day!”

“Yea, me too! Interesting development from a seemingly one-sided matchup.”

“Haha! If the kid from South Star were a condensed prime Warrior this fight would have been even more interesting!”

The pressure of Seven Dark Flare thickened in the air.

“A forbidden stance?” Ye Wei rose his head and carefully observed the black sun above Qi Xiu as a golden flash appeared through his eyes.

Ye Wei watched as the globe’s energy intensified. He could feel the heavy pressure ramping up pressing towards him like a great mountain. He could also feel the weak spots of the stance. Ye Wei stretched out his fingers which had shining runes in-between them while looking forward to fighting the flaring black sun.

“You should be proud of yourself for losing to this stance you know?” Qi Xiu looked at Ye Wei with aggression completely ignore the fact that he would have to rest for at least half a month after using this stance. It would be unsettling not to make Ye Wei pay for the humiliation he caused.

“Zoom!”

When the stance’s energy reached its peak, Qi Xiu slowly extended his palm and guided the heavy energy globe at Ye Wei. He ground his teeth as drops of sweat ran down his cheeks, and his shaky hands indicated just how hard it was to control the stance.

‘Get scotched by the flames!’ Qi Xiu’s face became hideous as the veins on his neck and head bulged when he quickly threw his hand down. The black suns glowed brighter than before and the blinding rays made the sun above look dim.

“Bang!”

The wild force within the black runic sun was finally unleashed, and it felt as if the sky itself was falling onto Ye Wei. The cracks on the platform kept on growing as the stance descended.

The fearsome momentum began to affect the audience nearby, and the City Lord casually waved his hand. The runes he drew flew down from the cloud platform and expanded to become an invisible shield which contained the impact of Qi Xiu’s stance within the platform.

All the cultivators started running away from the platform when they felt Qi Xiu’s stance expanding and if the City Lord did not interfere there was a chance that a lot of the audience would just be crushed and die from the stance.

“God... And Qi Xiu has still not cast the stance onto Ye Wei.” Ning Yang was admiring Qi Xiu as he looked at Ye Wei with a pernicious gaze imagining Ye Wei crumbling to the Seven Dark Flare stance.

“Wei, just let this go!”

“It’s too dangerous! Just surrender Wei!”

Cao Ning, Joe Yin, and the other South Star cultivators couldn’t help but worry for Ye Wei’s life.

A powerful gush of wind was fluttering Ye Wei’s robe as he flicked all five of his fingers and a sequence of mysterious runes appeared on his fingertips. They then quickly turned into cyan-hued sparks of fire.

“These are...”

The whole audience, most of the schools’ team leaders and students watching the fight, was sure Ye Wei would lose; however, up on the cloud platform the Runemasters, City Lord, and the Green Army cultivators widened their eyes staring at the shapes in front of Ye Wei.

“Those are Specialized Runes!” There was fire in their eyes.

They knew Ye Wei was not giving his all but they never could have guessed that Ye Wei hid such frightening potential. These special runes were very difficult to learn and had power that matched their difficulty.

One, two, three...

More and more strange, brilliant patterns shone all around Ye Wei’s body.

There were twelve in total when they started flowing around his body. They covered his body in a golden light, but they were also at work inside his body. Inside there were even more of these specialized runes fluidly circulated over his bones.

‘Supernova stance!’

The energy on Ye Wei grew three times stronger and now the pressure he gave off was no weaker than a one-star condensed prime Warrior. Ye Wei put this power behind his fist as he leaped towards the black sun.

“Eh?” Qi Xiu could feel Ye Wei’s power had suddenly increased multiple times, ‘I don’t care if you are still hiding anything there is no way you can live through this!’

“First solar flare!” All seven energy globes brightened and then started to suck light from the surrounding space creating a vacuum behind the energy waves.

“What kind of stance is this?”

“Bloody hell. Is this really a fight between two Warriors? This looks more like a clash of condensed prime Warriors to me...”

Most of the student cultivators were getting discouraged by the mightiness of the two students in front of them.

The Goldenwood school sent their students to the tournament like they always did, and a curious teenager in a red robe with gold stitches walked closer to confirm a theory that was growing in his head. “Is it him?” He was not talking about Qi Xiu, a known competitor of his, he was talking the kid Qi Xiu was fighting.

‘Three years ago... This kid was next to that terrifying girl with purple hair; I will never forget what happened in Bloodmist Valley!’ Luo Wu Xue could not believe that helpless looking kid was now fighting his rival to a length he himself never could.

The suns approached Ye Wei and he could feel the fearsome energy from how much pressure was on his body; it was a horrifying amount of energy he could not just ignore.