The fifty-fifth strike took the sound out of the air. Pei Jing could see the wind moving ash over the crater. He could see bubbles break in the glass. He could hear neither of them.
The old books called these strikes the Scythe of Heaven. A cultivator who let a bare soul out to meet them could lose the memory of a parent or a first teacher before the third blow. By the end, the soul might have no name left to answer to.
Pei Jing kept his arms crossed over his ribs and his feet in the glass.
The first wave reached him through his skull. The hardened bone turned most of it back. What passed through went down his spine and struck the small warrior in his Dantian.
The soul set the point of its blade against the floor. The wave broke on the armor like hail on an iron roof. Wood took up the vibration, Earth held the soul in place and Metal sent much of the force back. Fire and Water kept it from leaving anything behind.
Pei Jing waited for the feeling that something was missing. He could still remember his own name and the name of the town where he had learned to read the grain accounts. His eyes ached. He drew one more breath and waited for the next strike.
