Mystique Soul: A Cultivator's Flame
Chapter 121: The bloom of the Black Rose

Chapter 121: The bloom of the Black Rose

The room seemed to freeze with her presence. Not from ice, no, not like the scholar’s spells but something far more visceral. A deep, soul-numbing cold that sank into bone. The cavernous underground trembled in eerie silence as if the earth itself feared her next move.

The scholar was the first to speak. He chuckled, raising a glowing orb of violet flame in his palm. "You-! Just who are you?!."

Feng Jiao Xue simply eerily stood still, incredibly still.

"Jsut who are you?!" The scholar asked again, this time more agitated as he staggered backward wanting to distance himself from her.

She’s clearly weaker than her! He can sense her Qi, too weak but somehow... his heart palpated as he itched his staff even more.

There’s no way a mid rank magic practitioner like him can be scared off by a stupid Qi-gathering brat!

A flash of silver sliced through the dim air, glinting like a star. Feng Jiao Xue had already moved.

The whip snapped forward with a crack sharp enough to split stone. It coiled like a serpent, lashing toward his wrist. He jerked back, flame dissipating in a hiss of raw magic.

"Annoying." His eyes narrowed, and his hands weaved into a spell sigil, ancient words flickering into life.

But she didn’t wait.

She never did.

With her sword in hand, razor-sharp and elegantly cruel, she closed the distance, each step silent as falling ash. Her qi spiraled around her body like ghostly fire, invisible to most, but palpable to him. A hum in the air. A prickle on the skin. A warning too late to heed.

"Zarnath shanvrae tharavīn vīth koran!"

"Darkness rise wherein my enemy lies!"

His incantation was nearly done when he gasped, staggering.

Tiny pinpricks bloomed along his chest. Blood. Several. Too fast to dodge. Needles.

His hand trembled. "Poison...?"

She tilted her head slightly, like a predator observing prey too dumb to run.

He choked on a laugh. "You poisoned me?"

She answered by moving again, gliding, not walking, almost drifting through the shadows. Her whip flicked, catching the edge of his spell-circle, shattering it into sparks with a violent snap. Her sword followed in a blur, slicing toward his neck.

He barely blocked with a conjured shield of flame.

Barely.

The impact sent him reeling, his feet skidding across the blood-slick floor.

Stone groaned beneath their feet. Above, the underground torches flickered wildly, struggling to decide which side of death to favor.

Feng Jiao Xue moved first.

She was a blur, qi burning silently in her limbs. Her sword cut through the stagnant air, aiming straight for the mage’s heart. But flame met steel, his hands erupted in fire, a vertical wave of heat forcing her back.

Her feet slid, boots grinding across loose gravel, but she twisted her wrist with a flick of control. The thorned whip lashed out, curling midair to catch his shoulder.

It bit in.

Blood splashed.

He shouted, countering with a pulse of magic that sent the air trembling. His fire turned blue. Hotter. Denser.

She ducked low, the edge of his spell scorching a line across her shoulder, smoke rising where fabric melted into skin. Her mouth barely twitched.

Pain didn’t slow her.

She spun, whip snapping out again, this time from below. He jumped, caught off guard, and she was already leaping up to meet him. Her sword met his flaming arm, metal sizzling as she parried the glowing heat around his limbs. Sparks burst between them, showering the floor in fire and steel.

She struck three times in quick succession, high, low, side, testing his rhythm.

He blocked two.

The third drew blood.

He hissed, eyes glowing with rage. "You’re just a blade in the dark," he spat. "Do you think you can cut the sun?"

Her answer was silence. But her movements, deadly poetry in motion, spoke for her.

He threw a fireball the size of a boulder. It tore through the air, roaring toward her like a comet.

She didn’t flinch.

Instead, her whip sang.

It cracked against the cavern wall, pulling her body sharply to the left as the fireball grazed her former position. She landed lightly on one knee, qi coiling around her like wind.

From her sleeve, more needles burst forward, an elegant arc of glinting death.

He cursed, throwing up a heat barrier. Most melted on contact, but one lodged into his thigh.

She was already dashing again.

Their battle narrowed. No wasted movements. No clumsy anger. Just cold precision and burning power colliding again and again.

Her sword clanged against his arm-blade of conjured fire. He ducked under her whip, countering with a wind blast that sent dust into her eyes.

She closed them mid-motion, fighting by instinct.

The whip lashed out again, catching his ribs. He retaliated by summoning a ring of razor-thin flames that circled his body and then burst outward.

She raised her qi like a shield, barely in time.

The force sent her skidding backwards, boots dragging furrows into the blood-slick stone.

He grinned, emboldened. "You can’t block forever."

"I don’t need to," she replied, breathing evenly.

He blinked. "What?"

The whip caught his foot again.

She hadn’t aimed to block. She’d aimed to set a trap.

He fell but before he could hit the ground, she was there. A knee drove into his chest. He gasped, magic flaring wildly around him.

She was too close.

His flame ignited in a sphere, point-blank.

It exploded.

The impact hurled both of them in opposite directions.

Feng Jiao Xue smashed into a pillar, cracking it from the force. She slumped, smoke curling from her limbs, part of her sleeve burned away to reveal raw, blistered flesh.

But she stood.

Always.

He groaned on the far side, crumpled on one knee. The poisoned needle was still embedded in his leg. His skin glistened with sweat, magic draining faster than expected.

"How are you still standing?!" he growled.

She approached slowly now. Her gait unsteady, but her eyes, sharp and glassy, remained locked on his.

He laughed, bitter. "You think that whip scares me?"

"Not the whip," she said coldly. "What comes after."

He fired again, this time twin fireballs arcing from both hands.

She rolled under the first, whipped the second back toward him, redirecting its path using her qi and emerged from the smoke with her sword gleaming red-hot.

He blocked with a desperate wall of flame, but she punched through, her sword cutting the heat in two.

Steel kissed his shoulder.

His cry echoed through the cavern.

He clutched the wound, eyes wild. "You’re insane. You’re a monster." ’Just who did they provoke this time?’

She didn’t reply.

Instead, her whip extended behind her like a tail, dragging across the floor with a sinister slither. Her expression was still, blank, terrifyingly calm.

He tried to conjure a teleportation circle but her whip snapped it apart.

"You won’t leave" she said. "Not until I’m done."

She’s not one to let a threat escape her net.

He snarled, sending a storm of flame daggers toward her.

She moved through them.

Left.

Right.

Under.

Her body wove between the blaze, qi reinforcing her steps as she advanced, unrelenting. Smoke streaked across her skin, but her focus didn’t falter.

Then she was there.

Too close again.

She jammed her palm into his chest, releasing a burst of raw qi into his body. His muscles seized, mouth parting in shock as pain tore through his core.

"What did you-!"

"Qi disruption," she said coolly. "You can’t cast. Not without your access to the magic particles"

Honestly, this was just Feng Jiao Xue’s theory. Like how signals are transmitted back in her old world, the transmission can still be blocked by a barrier. If this was a crowd fight, she might not be able to do it. Or if her opponent was any stronger because the more powerful a magician, the more intended they are to magic.

His hands trembled. His magic fizzled.

His power, gone.

She stepped back.

Letting him drop.

She could’ve ended it then. Sword to throat. Needle to heart.

But she turned her back.

"Get up," she said without looking.

He blinked through the sweat. "What?"

"I said, get up."

He laughed, coughing. "You want me to keep fighting?"

"No," she said. "I want you to feel how powerless you are without magic. Like the rest of us do. Every time people like you think you’re untouchable."

He stared, the fire in his soul reduced to cinders.

Then she turned again, whip crackling with qi, sword humming softly.

"Pick it back up," she said, gesturing to his staff with her blade. "Or I will break it."

"You..."

"Fight or surrender."

He grabbed the staff.

And screamed as she met him with steel and fury.

The final clash was vicious.

He swung in desperation, she dodged low and swept his legs. He conjured a pulse of unstable flame, blasting her back a few feet. She coughed blood, but whipped around, catching his wrist mid-cast.

Her sword drove forward.

Not to kill but to pin him in place.

It lodged into the wall behind him, through the edge of his robe and sleeve. A warning.

"You... you’re just a cultivator," he spat, eyes wide. "Just a d@mn brat!!!"

"I don’t need magic," she murmured, stepping through the gloom like a shadow incarnate, black eyes empty. "Qi is enough to kill."

Her voice was quiet but it struck like a dagger, cold and clean.

He tried to buy time. "You’re wounded. You won’t last long."

The thorned tip of her whip caught his cheek, blood blooming from a shallow tear. His smirk vanished.

"Then don’t drag this out," she whispered.

And the next second, the room exploded.

She launched forward, sword flashing downward. He responded with a burst of wind magic, blasting her back but her whip hooked the ceiling, anchoring her mid-air. She twisted like a dancer, swinging in an arc, landing behind him with a soft thud. Before he could turn, she drove a poisoned needle into the back of his neck.

He shrieked.

"Your magic’s fading," she whispered in his ear, breath colder than death.

He whirled, a ring of flame expanding from his body. She raised her sword, absorbing the hit with qi as her feet dragged across the stone. Burns sizzled against her arm, but her grip didn’t falter.

He raised his staff. "Don’t come closer!"

She took a step.

"I said don’t!"

She took another.

And another.

Her silhouette moved through fire and smoke, a figure carved from nightmare. Her expression didn’t change. Not once. Her gaze was void, unshaken, uncaring, unforgiving.

"You don’t understand," he said, panicking. "You’re outclassed!"

Feng Jiao Xue stopped. "No," she said softly. "You’re out of time."

And then, she vanished.

A heartbeat later, her whip curled around his ankle, yanking him off his feet.

He hit the ground hard.

His hand scrambled to finish a teleportation spell but her blade stabbed through it, pinning it to the floor.

He screamed.

She crouched beside him, her bloodied face inches from his. She was still, composed, even with blood staining her lips.

"You should have aimed to kill," she whispered.

And then, her poisoned needle pressed against his throat.

Darkness began to claim him.

Not just unconsciousness.

Something worse.

As his vision faded, he saw her, standing tall, surrounded by broken spells and scorched stone. The wind had blown her hair across her face, but she didn’t bother to fix it. She turned away from him like he was nothing.

Because to her, he was.

Feng Jiao Xue didn’t kill him but he didn’t even notice, when he took back his staff, the more he forced himself to reach out to the magic in the air, the more he strained his soul. Feng Jiao Xue didn’t make him continue to fight out of amusement or mercy, but to break him, fully.

She thought of this when she remembered her first day of this world, when she just arrived and forced herself to cultivate.

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