Chapter 127: KILL AND KISS

CHAPTER

127

KILL AND KISS

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Jieyuan almost shouted it out—but then he caught himself, swallowing down the words. Keeping half his attention on the fight, he jumped from one thought to the next, trying to decide on his next move, on the best course of action.

There was an opportunity here. He was sure of it. He just needed to find it. Find it and grasp it.

He had to be smart about it.

The thing was, the mimic’s weakness was no big mystery. It was obvious, really, in light of the facts. Jieyuan wouldn’t be surprised at all if Meiyao and Daojue had already figured it out. Chances were that they just hadn’t acted on it yet because they hadn’t had the opportunity to do something about it.

He watched as Meiyao and Daojue kept up their relentless offensive. The mimic stood in the center, between them, moving frantically as it fended off both the attacks coming at it from opposite directions.

Meiyao had already stopped kicking and punching altogether. Daojue being there opened up other possibilities, and she clearly knew it. Now her efforts went toward trying to restrain her impostor, to grab onto it and hold it in place for Daojue to attack.

So far Meiyao hadn’t had much success with her new approach. But while the mimic could ignore Meiyao’s direct attacks, it certainly didn’t seem keen on letting her get her hands on it. Which meant that with Meiyao’s change in tactics, it was forced to react to both Meiyao’s and Daojue’s moves, not just Daojue’s.

Jieyuan nodded to himself. Now that he knew just what the winning condition was, his assessment of the fight had changed again. The mimic was holding on, but only barely.

All it’d take was for Daojue or Meiyao—or, more specifically, Daojue, because a blade would be needed to pull it off—to get the right sort of hit in, and that’d be the end of it.

But there was no guarantee that Daojue—or Meiyao, if Jieyuan got a dagger to her—would land that killing blow any time soon. And time was the name of the game here, because their odds were getting only lower by the second, with how the mimic was improving.

The more he watched, though, the less certain Jieyuan became that Meiyao and Daojue had figured out the mimic’s weakness. Unlike him, the two of them were in the thick of it, living from instant to instant. They didn’t have the outsider’s perspective like he did, or the luxury of time to consider the facts. The slightest mistake could be fatal.

So Jieyuan did need to tell them, even if only to be sure.

And he would. But he’d do it in his own time.

Because a plan was already coming together in his head, and it’d all come down to timing.

Whether Meiyao and Daojue already knew or not what they had to do, they’d need an opening.

Jieyuan would see one delivered to them on a golden platter.

He spent a few moments more ironing out the details in his head. Those were moments the mimic spent improving, closing the skill gap between itself and Meiyao and Daojue, but Jieyuan would only get one chance, so he’d need to make it count.

And then he had it. The full sequence of events he needed to make a reality, sorted out in his head.

It wasn’t perfect. Far from it. It’d depend on not just Meiyao and Daojue playing along, but also the mimic acting as planned. But Jieyuan felt like he had a good enough read on the situation, and he didn’t think he’d be coming up with anything better.

So now all that was left to do was put it into practice.

“See Maeva,” Jieyuan commanded.

Maeva appeared right by his side in a flash of white and yellow. And then she was moving behind him, pulling chroma from his soul to reform her gauntlets, before drawing the same pair of throwing blades she’d been using earlier.

You know what to do? Jieyuan thought at her.

“Leave it to me,” she said, before rushing off to the other end of the clearing.  In the meantime, Jieyuan put away one of the throwing blades he was holding, replacing it with one of the heftier, longer daggers.

Reaching Meiyao, Daojue, and the mimic, Maeva didn’t join in, but instead kept on running, only coming to a stop once she was past them, at the edge of the pocket.

She was there as a precaution. If he got it right—if he got lucky—then he wouldn’t even need her.

But just because Jieyuan liked to gamble didn’t mean he liked to leave things up to chance. In fact, it was precisely because he liked to gamble that he knew better than that.

After all, a good gambler made their own luck.

Just as Daojue and Meiyao launched their coordinated attack—Meiyao reaching for the beast from behind while Daojue charged from the front with Gleaming End—Jieyuan made his move.

Gripping the throwing blade in one hand and the dagger in the other, Jieyuan shouted, “YOU NEED TO CUT OFF ITS HEAD!”

Neither Daojue nor Meiyao seemed to hear his shout. They didn’t pause for even a moment.

The mimic, though—just as Meiyao was about to reach it, the creature twisted to the side. And then, from across the clearing, Jieyuan felt its gaze flick to him.

Their eyes locked. It was Meiyao’s face, beneath that green aura. Meiyao’s green eyes, staring straight into his own, wide and feral.

And despite everything, even knowing full well that it wasn’t really Meiyao he was looking at, Jieyuan felt a touch of… something. Something sharp and sour and sad. Guilt or maybe pity or maybe even something else altogether.

But he pushed it down, crushed it without mercy.

He’d readily admit he was a fool for Meiyao.

That did not extend to creatures wearing Meiyao’s face.

Daojue came in the next moment, sweeping Gleaming End out in front of him—targeting the mimic’s neck. Jieyuan wasn’t sure if Daojue had intended that from the start, or if his words had made him change course.

The mimic looked away from him and back at Daojue before whipping its head back at the last moment. Gleaming End passed just inches off its face, cutting empty air.

But that moment of distraction gave Meiyao the opportunity she needed, and for the first time she managed to grab onto its arm. Daojue capitalized on it, breaking off his previous attack to swing Gleaming End down at the mimic again.

All of Jieyuan’s attention, at that very moment, was on the mimic—and what it’d do next. His arms were drawn back, ready for the throw.

This could be it, but if it wasn’t…

Held in place by Meiyao, the mimic tried to pull away, but then Daojue was coming at it again with Gleaming End. So it did the only thing it could in that moment. It kicked at Meiyao, throwing off her balance, and then threw itself to the side, putting its arm in the way of Daojue’s attack.

Gleaming End cleanly sliced through the limb.

Freed up, the mimic immediately disengaged—and as Meiyao let go of the dismembered arm and made for it again, and Daojue reoriented his spear for a third follow-up strike, the mimic turned around and broke into a run. Dashing away.

Toward the edge of the pocket.

Which was exactly what Jieyuan had been hoping it would do.

Counting on it, even.

So even though he hadn’t been sure it’d work, he’d been ready for it.

The mimic had been running from Meiyao, before. Meiyao had been hunting it down.  Jieyuan wasn’t sure of the specifics, but that much had been clear. And what he took from that was that the mimic knew how to run—that sometimes you just had to cut your losses and get out of there.

Jieyuan also knew it was intelligent enough to speak. To speak, and to understand words. So now that it knew that they knew the way to kill it, Jieyuan had bet it wouldn’t stick around.

His shout had been meant for the mimic as much as for Meiyao and Daojue.

Jieyuan threw both weapons in his hands. “CATCH!”

Maeva, who’d been waiting for the mimic to make a break for it, moved in. And she came at it from the front.

Jieyuan saw Maeva rush to meet it, swinging both her blades at its neck. What it saw should be two flying blades trying to behead it.

It ducked under the attack—but at that moment the blade Jieyuan had thrown came close, flying toward not its leg or even its upper body, but toward its feet.

Jieyuan’s aim hadn’t been perfect—it’d have been impossible to predict its moves and calculate the throw without Fatebloom Intuition—but it didn’t matter. The mimic swerved to the side to avoid the blade—only to align with Gleaming End’s trajectory as Daojue reached it, stabbing the spear at its neck.

Again it only just managed to react, ducking low.

That was three attacks—Maeva’s, his, and Daojue’s—all dodged back-to-back.

And then Meiyao surged from behind Daojue, in her hand the dagger Jieyuan had launched together with the blade the mimic had just avoided.

He’d thrown both weapons at the same time, but at different targets. One at the fake Meiyao. And the other at the real one.

Two blades, two throws, two targets—and two very different purposes.

Both of which had just been served.

The mimic managed to avoid the first three attacks.

The fourth found its mark.

Meiyao swung the dagger at the mimic’s crouched form.

Gleaming End was still cutting through the air where the mimic’s head had just been when Meiyao’s dagger swept through where its neck actually was.

The dagger’s blade burrowed into the fake Meiyao’s neck. It didn’t go all the way, but it cut in deep. The mimic froze, hands reaching for its throat.

And then Meiyao moved back while Daojue swept Gleaming End down and from the side, cleaving the mimic’s head from its body.

There was a burst of red, a shower of blood splattering Meiyao and Daojue, while the head was thrown into the air, carried off by the impact.

The severed head—not Meiyao's head, Jieyuan reminded himself—was still spinning through the air when it began to shimmer and warp. By the time it hit the ground and disappeared into the undergrowth, Jieyuan caught a final glimpse of an angular, canine face covered in dark green fur.

The body transformed simultaneously, its human shape collapsing into something furred and inhuman as it crumpled to the earth.

Meiyao stood tall over the creature's body, her back to him. The green aura around her pulsed once, then faded completely. Dark, viscous green blood—no longer red since the mimic's transformation had come undone—splattered her shoulders and arms.

She stood motionless for a long moment, staring down at what remained of the thing that had worn her face. Then she straightened and turned around.

Their eyes met.

Jieyuan's fire blazed inside him, singing sweet and loud with the thrill of victory. But as he looked into Meiyao's eyes—his black against her green—another fire surged, stronger and richer than the first.

It consumed him like wildfire, burning away every thought, every worry, every sensation until nothing remained but him and Meiyao and the flame that burned for her.

He was moving before he realized it, the distance between them vanishing in heartbeats. Meiyao rushed forward at the same moment.

They met halfway. And in the brief instant before they reached each other, inches apart, Jieyuan saw it. The fire burning in her eyes, more than a match for his own. Though she didn’t have her aura anymore, she was still radiant, her green eyes brighter than the stars.

And then his arms were wrapping around her, pulling her in. And hers were wrapping around him, pulling him in.

And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him.