Fatherly Asura

The [Dao of Suffocation] burst out against Fu’s foe to no effect, marking how depleted his mental energy had become in the last stretch of hours.

Marking progress against him.

This thing did not speak. It did not gloat in the face of his impotence. Only move. Measured paces, a tireless stalk. A march that swallowed Fu’s best efforts to flee.

[Half Cloud Step] drove the fisherman over the nearest wall, clearing the cavern’s surface with a single evocation of cloud to have him land safely. Where he collapsed once more, wiping the blood from his upper lip.

A half-smirk now revealed.

“We almost have it, Hushi,” he breathed, leaping to his feet. The octopus impressed his own mirth, and detached from Fu’s neck to fall into the slackened douli. Here, he worked his arms into rhythmic motion, helping his cultivator’s breath to descend into a less frantic gush.

Over the course of thirteen breaths, Fu calmed to neutrality. A tranquillity perhaps, of shared kinship with biding time by his nets.

And then he mounted the far-side wall, bearing himself on all fours. What came next was a steady inhalation, where [Air Qi] breezed through his lungs to settle his [Inner Qi]. An initial reminder of quietude, and a now-practised circulation that had it fade into a sort of sleep.

Allowing him to stalk the cavern’s surface unimpeded.

From here the formation of stone pushed towards the lantern-lit wall at an incline, and this is where he made towards. A purposeful breath was taken each step. A reinforcement of this technique, and reminder that this was well tended.

Not at all what the Clouded Court Squads had tasked him with achieving.

But close, if his [Ink] were to be believed.