‘I suppose this isn’t a bad time to try out the third form of Silk Song.’
Yousti of course wasn’t planning on attacking the Smiling Man.
He was going to use it to dig a big hole.
He grabbed the end of a string and stiffened it to the extreme with his gang qi.
And then he flicked the needle-like end into the ground next the the Smiling Man pulling string along with it.
So now with the string reaching into the ground from his hand Yousti performed the third form of Silk Song.
Third Form: Center Torque
The essence of this technique was within the interaction of silk to silk.
As the name suggested it twisted the silk and compressed it into having extreme tension and stored rotational energy within it too.
As for the purpose of this tension.
BOOM
It’s purpose was to transfer waves of energy.
The ground the string was imbedded in exploded as rotational energy and immense shockwaves travelled through the string and directly transferred into the ground.
A cloud of dust and a spray of mud and rock fell between both of them as Yousti immediately began wrapping up the Smiling Man again to throw him into the newly dug hole.
But the man flexed his muscles against the silk bindings and this time managed to tear them apart with sheer strength.
‘He’s stronger now too?
That must also mean he’s faster.
Looks like I’m going to have to bring out the big guns.’
Yousti grabbed his scarf and pulled it from his neck.
If one strand of silk wasn’t enough a full weave of silk would do.
One end of the scarf was held by Yousti’s hand, it had straightened out and extended from his hand like a sword.
The other end was still wrapped around his neck and shoulders.
With the third form using a silk sword had become a completely viable option.
But calling it a sword might be a stretch, it would be more accurate to call it a silk bat in practicality.
But silk sword sounded much cooler.
Center Torque
Yousti extended his scarf to stay out of reach with a longer Silk Sword.
The Silk Sword struck the Smiling Man’s head to the side, as it hit it applied rotational force and an immense impact.
The scalp had skin and hair torn off as the rotation jerked the man’s head downward.
Flipping his body upside down too.
Strings wrapped around him as Yousti with his other hand swung downward launching the man into the hole.
He infused his foot with gang qi and firmly stomped down.
The ground shook and the sides of the hole began collapsing onto the Smiling Man.
‘I didn’t think this through.’
The hole was still mostly empty.
Yousti’s strike had spread out everything he dug up and now he had nothing to cover up the hole again.
Yousti watched as the Smiling Man began climbing back up the side of the hole.
This was displeasing to him.
‘Lets take some inspiration from earth bending.’
He pressed his foot even harder into the ground, sinking it into the dirt.
He then moved his body back and then firmly pressed on his sunken foot.
He was trying to push the ground together to seal up the hole he dug.
Of course realistically speaking the ground doesn’t have the structural stability for something as nonsensical as that.
So Yousti also inserted super long silk needles into the ground to reinforce it.
Rumble
The Smiling Man was buried as the crack in the ground sealed.
Yousti looked down pressing his hands on the ground feeling the vibrations the man would create if he was trying to dig up.
After a few moments of waiting Yousti felt no vibrations, so that meant he was immobilized.
Along with that he continuosly observed the fading intent within the ground.
‘Let’s see if he reappears if I do this.’
Yousti turned around and waited for the intent he was sensing to fully dissapear.
And just as it completely faded away.
“Ha ha ha ha”
Yousti looked behind him.
The Smiling Man was right there.
Yousti just smiled too.
“Looks like I’ll have to go all out.”
With this kind of bizarre quantum restoration ability even Yousti wasn’t sure how he would win.
But he was going to try anyway.
He winded his internal energy and performed Center Cut downwards.
The man touched the string and made it explode knocking it away.
Yousti spun around attacking again with the string.
The man jumped crossing the distance between them.
Yousti wrapped his fist in silk and punched him back.
But his arm was grazed causing the skin he touched to burst apart.
‘Contact duration matters too.’ Yousti noted
Center Winding!
Center Cut!
Yousti began chaining together the second and first forms barraging the man with sharp attacks.
Yousti blinked and the smiling man disappeared.
‘Teleportation’ Yousti commented for himself.
Yousti looked behind him as the Smiling Man fell from above.
Yousti dashed to the side and threw a ball of silk.
The rotating gang qi within the ball made it explode.
Th Smiling Man leaped after the ball and used the explosion to knock himself towards Yousti.
Yousti grabbed his scarf and smacked him downwards.
Center Torque!
The ground cracked with force.
The Smiling Man reached forward trying to touch Yousti’s feet but he had already read his intent and performed an upwards cut knocking back the Smiling Man into the air.
‘Batter up!’
He swung his silk sword like a bat and launched the flying man into the sky like a baseball.
Yousti blinked once again as he saw a gathering of intent that right in front of him.
The Smiling Man reappeared right there, completely restored as Yousti drop kicked him again.
Then the Smiling Man teleported below Yousti as he was still suspended from the ground from his drop kick jand touched his shoulder in that brief instant.
Blood bursted from his shoulder as he grappled away with a strand of silk.
~
Gao Luen massaged his sore hand as he walked away from where his hand was tied and sword was tied up.
It had finally loosened up after he had repeatedly pried his sword and hand apart with his other hand.
‘As expected of the Silk Spirit, even as a peak martial artist I can barely pry apart his bindings.’
He looked away from his hands and viewed the intent around him.
‘Why is everything red?
It gives me a sensation of ominousness.’
He just stood there, mesmerized as he watched as the red intent swirled around in the sky as it flowed away from him in large currents.
It felt incredibly dreadful to his core for some reason but the visuals were beautiful.
He reached up and wiped away blood coming from his nose.
His brain had reached its limit at constantly viewing intent.
As a new peak martial artist he couldn’t view intent for long periods of time.
‘The red intent was swirling around where I last saw the Silk Spirit.’
He began walking back to where he had been dragged away from.
Letting his brain recover from viewing intent for too long as we walked back.
Eventually stopped in a clearing.
Everything was destroyed countless slices and gashes were left in the surrounding trees along with.
Some trees and rocks even had completely missing chunks.
‘That monster and the Silk Spirit fought like this!?’
He continued tracing where the fighting had passed through.
There were deep fissures in the ground and leftover strands of silk all over.
Red intent was densely swirling the whole area causing his heart to feel a kind of pressure he never had before.
In the distance he heard the thundering of some kind.
So Gao began running towards where he heard the distant sounds of wind and impacts.
‘Impossible…’
Gao Luen was in awe by what he saw.
Two blurs were rapidly moving around a newer but equally destroyed battleground.
He watched as thousands of strands of intent emerged from the Silk Spirits glowing body and how quickly they changed as they rapidly repositioned.
It was the Silk Spirit wearing glowing bright white robes.
He swung countless sweeping glowing strands of silk and a long glowing scarf too.
The other bluer was probably that smiling monster from earlier.
It was keeping up with the Silk Spirit and deflecting attacks with its own body.
Every time it the Silk Spirit dodged its attack the next thing it touched would explode and splinter apart.
It wasn’t like any fight he had ever seen before.
They were move incredibly fast as they exchanged attacks.
Like a child wildly swinging their toys around with their arms to portray fast action.
But in this case it was across a wide area that was continually being scarred by the destruction wrought by their attacks.
He stared at the fight between the fight between both of them making sure not to miss a single moment as he observed the intent of the Silk Spirit.
He also made sure to keep a long distance to avoid getting in the way.
This was a level of combat that not even he, as a peak martial artist could keep up with or afford to even be near.
But Gao Luen had to learn everything he could.
If it was the legendary Divine Silk Spirit, he was absolutely sure that he could have incredible insights.