47 Inten (1/2)

Father relaxed into his stance, baiting me with a mocking expression, ”Come on then, dinner's ready.”

I leaned on my back foot and started spinning. The onus was on him to attack.

”Fine, I'll come to you.”

Father trundled forwards menacingly. As soon as his foot touched the ten-foot mark, I attacked, shooting a tether of qi at his trunk, then slicing it down into the ground.

I overextended on purpose and leaned forwards, off balance. Father latched onto the window of opportunity, rocketing forwards and sending out an uppercut.

His delivery was relaxed and slow, anticipating my surrender, but I caught myself with a strong foot and shot backwards with a blast of qi.

Father stayed stuck in his motion, and I bounced off my back foot into an Extending Slice, arched my back, strained my arm, then cleaved the air with a sizzling slice.

Shocked out of the regular pattern, Father put his arm, blocking the strike. Qi tendrils writhed and ripped across his skin, scrambling to grab onto his forearm.

One tendril hooked on and the rest surged to envelop his arm. I had caught him!

I stopped the slice as my whip drew taught, gleefully looking at Father. But Father's face was motionless, his eyes a whirlpool of destruction.

A cold sweat flashed across my skin, and Father grabbed onto my whip. I ordered my qi to swallow his arm, but it was too late. With a simple bicep curl, father yanked the whip.

The world flipped and I flew towards him. Two massive hands grabbed my hair and pulled me down, just in time to see a knee shoot towards my head. A knee that would implode my skull.

I recognised my impending death and instinctively rammed both hands into father's torso, ripping my head away.

My hair was torn out in lumps, but I didn't miss a beat, ”Father, it's me!”

”I know.”

I had always found Father's gravelly voice soothing, but this was bone chilling. I had to run. I pivoted and channelled a qi blast, but he caught my ankle and I slammed down onto my face.

Running wasn't an option anymore. I had to fight. Flipping over, I let nearly every drop of qi in my body loose in one wave of destruction.

A monstrous swarm of tentacles burst out of my chest, striking Father head on. He stumbled back, qi constricting every limb, and this time I didn't hesitate.

Fuelled by fear and panic, I commanded all my qi to consume Father's body. It tunnelled into every surface, sending his body into spasms.

With a smile, Father tensed his muscles and activated the Spirit Burning Technique. My qi evaporated, draping his body in steam.

The backlash was tremendous, nearly crushing my soul, but I had to run. I picked myself up and channelled what remained of my qi into a final forceful step.

But Father had activated his techniques, and his speed was incomparable to before. He appeared in front of me before I could even move my leg. His giant hand enveloped the side of my head, but there was no force in his grasp.

”Stop now. It's over.” His voice was softer, and the fury was gone from his eyes.

Tension slipped off my chest, and I fell to the floor. How the hell had Father convinced me I would die… This was my father… of course he wasn't going to kill me.

”What you experienced there was killing intent. I'm sorry that I was so harsh on you, but I needed to teach you that lesson,” he ruffled my hair with a gentle smile, ”I'm proud of you. You reacted better than I could have hoped.”

”I… What… I did?”

”Yes. If someone stronger than you emits killing intent, you should run immediately. If you can't run, you should fight back with your very strongest attack. What you did was perfect.”

I wanted to feel happy, being praised by Father. But my heartbeat still hammered in my ears and my stomach felt like it was being flushed down a toilet.

”However,” Father continued, ”the instant you touched me you should have gone for the kill. Like you did just now when you were trying to overpower me.”

Between frantic breaths I managed to eke out a few words, ”But… we were… sparring.”

”Never drop your guard, even when you're sparring. You can never trust your opponent.”

I took his words to heart, before he dragged me to my feet.