Chapter 448: Heartstrings (1/2)

Chapter 448: Heartstrings

The Driver was blindingly fast. Before Lan Jue learned the secrets of martial arts, he couldn’t have kept up with the Driver’s speed. In a flash, the Avenue delegate appeared behind Cao Shuiqin with his hands reaching for her neck.

In this instant, the Driver didn’t pay much head to the Accountant’s concerns. He felt that encountering Cao Shuiqin in the first match was a good thing. Her Discipline was music, based in sound. Sound was a great deal slower than light – the speed he was almost capable of achieving. He wasn’t worried his powers would be insufficient.

As if to prove the point, his hands clapped down on Cao Shuiqin’s shoulders, and she didn’t even move. He poured electricity through his hands and in to his foe, though even the audience could tell he was taking it easy because he was fighting a woman.

However, over the din of the crackling electricity, he could make out a crystal-clear buzz.

The sound seemed to be coming from Cao Shuiqin herself. The Driver’s hands were suddenly and forceful knocked away, while his heart began to race without reason. He could feel it buzz, too, just like his foe.

The electricity numbed her, and caused her to stumble forward a step. However, the playful smile on her face showed that the Driver had had little effect. Her fingers danced along the strings again.

In that instant his enemy vanished, and the Driver inexplicably found himself in a vast and empty abyss.

This… dreamland?

The arena began to thud rhythmically from unseen war drums. Then, without warning, a cadre of troops clad head to toe in armor appeared from nothing like the armies of heaven. Meanwhile, the metal floor had become a sucking bog that attempted to swallow him up.

The Driver growled. There was a pulse of silver light and then, with a thunderous crash, bolts of lightning erupted from him in all directions.

Boom—!

Lightning roared from beneath the Driver’s feet in attempts to send him catapulting in to the air above Cao Shuiqin’s power. There was a flash, and he changed direction in mid-air to plummet into a swath of bristling soldiers. It was the area he last remembered Cao Shuiqin standing. He was still lost in a world of her making.

Silver light enveloped the ring, followed by a staggering explosion.

In the use of their powers, the Driver and Lan Jue were quite different. Thunderbolt was thunderbolt, and lightning was lightning – he could use them together or apart. The Driver, though, only employed them joined together. This was one important factor in his comparative weakness to Lan Jue, and his troubles moving forward.

Thunderbolt especially, being an aspect of righteous qi, was stronger in its yang form than in its yin.

The Driver jumped back to his feet after the charge, then swung around to envelope another hoard of enemies in fatal lightning. He knew for certain that the things he witnessed weren’t real – they were a trick of Cao Shuiqin’s power – except that somewhere she was in the darkness. And if he didn’t know where his target was, then the plan was simple. Direct, all-pervasive force!

Explosiveness was an undeniable benefit of thunderbolt Disciplines. Its blast-force was strong enough to destroy most illusions outright. Like Lan Jue had the first time he met the Beautician.

But no matter how strong the Driver’s attacks were, Cao Shuiqin always remade the dreamland when he destroyed it. At least his strikes were having an effect. However, the more serious problem was the music itself. No matter how much strength he put behind a strike, the music continued. He could fill the whole field with lightning and it wouldn’t put an end to the constant echo of that stern music in his brain. It was worming its way through him, tugging at his heart.

What is this?! The Driver was at a loss.

It was evident that she’d chosen this tactic to combat his specialty, but while effective it must also be draining to maintain. This couldn’t continue for long. If the Driver was anything, he was sturdy, and once his mind was made up his resolve was unshakeable.

A beam of powerful light launched from the Driver, followed quickly by a thunderous blast. Like a terrible firecracker, it blasted through the remaining soldiers nearby.

While the illusory bodies writhed, he pressed his hands together in front of his chest, wasting no time. His fingers danced and curled around each other in odd arrangements, while silvery runes appeared and vanished inexplicably.