Outside, the clash of fighting carried on the wind to the open windows of the bamboo house as the training hours began in the Temple of Chen-Li below.
A few minutes passed, then Chen-Li’s body started glowing with a soft, white light. As he became even brighter, his body levitated off the ground until it hovered five feet from the floor.
Chen-Li could always feel a little pressure on the top of his head, just before his spirit would split from his body with an audible pop! The prisoner watched in fascination as Chen-Li’s spiritual body ascended above his physical form in dull colors, floating to the ceiling as if treading water in an unseen ocean of air.
The Li looked down upon his body still in meditation. Then[1] his spirit leaped toward the prisoner like a bolt of lightning. It slammed into the prisoner’s chest with a pounding thump! The prisoner now had two spirits inside his body, and a battle ensued while Li wrestled for control of the prisoner’s body.
The spy watched in wonder as Chen-Li’s body remained floating above the floor, but the prisoner’s body trembled. The prisoner opened his eyes, and the pupils were rolled up in their eye sockets, a sign that the spiritual combat between the two spirits had begun. Chen-Li had long perfected combat in his Li form, and the untrained prisoner was no match for him. It took mere seconds until the prisoner’s eyes rolled back into their place.
“Can you hear me?” Chen-Li called out to his spy from the body of the prisoner.
“Yes, I am ready to begin,” the spy answered.
“Then” indicates a sense of suddenness already, so it is not necessary to say “suddenly”. Generally avoid using “suddenly” if you can; it is overused in fiction.