Chapter Twenty-One: Deeper Power
A wide, gold band appeared around Tigress's neck. It wasn't even a second before she grabbed her neck and gasped for air. The soothsayers grew as frightened as anyone could be and turned to see Wang. He was standing and holding his hand out, ever so slowly closing his hand.
"Kill him!" Tian shrieked. "If he closes his hand, Tigress will die!"
The others had already begun to send projectiles in Wang's direction. Whenever any would get close enough to cause harm, Wang would dodge it without altering his spell.
Tigress fell to her knees. She felt her life escaping her. Time seemed to slow down drastically. She looked at everyone fighting for her. They were all frantic. Shifu was especially panicked. His own daughter's life was slipping away, and he couldn't do a thing about it.
Then Tigress realized something else that troubled her even more. Dianli was frantic. She's never frantic.
Tigress felt very close to collapsing. The lack of air clouded her mind and she thought she saw two extra figures. No, she did see them. They were the pale figures of Li and Shijue, looking down on their daughter with faces of sorrow.
It wasn't supposed to end this way.
Tigress turned as much as she could to see Wang with her failing sight. She wished that, if she really were to die, she could take him down with her. After all, that would always be her last wish: to drag her killer out of this life, kicking and screaming if necessary.
Tigress felt as if she were drifting away from her dying body.
This must be it, she thought to herself.
But for some reason, she found herself flying toward Wang, whose fist was almost closed. Tigress didn't slow down. When she made contact with Wang, everything whited out.
Tigress fell to the ground, taking deep breaths of air. The others looked at either her or Wang in shock. Wang had just fallen backward without being hit by any material object.
Tian knelt by Tigress and checked her.
"She's only fainted," she said. "She'll be fine."
"She killed him," Zhanshi marveled, his gaze still on his fallen master.
The Masters remained silent in awe.
Ting picked up a large, broken piece of wood.
"How proud Wang must be," she said, examining the wood, "to have been the first to be killed by Tigress's ability."
She set the wood on fire.
"Think on that while your ashes sink to the lakebed, Master."
She shot the flaming debris at the dead marten. The projectile landed next to the body and caught the sleeve on fire. After mere seconds of burning, Wang's body slipped into the water, sinking deep into his watery grave.
After watching this, Shifu turned wearily to the others.
"Let's go home."
I just realized that I'm making these chapters smaller and smaller! I'm sorry! Hopefully, next chapter will be longer!