Chapter 70: OF TRUMP CARDS

CHAPTER

70

OF TRUMP CARDS

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Jieyuan had only ever seen Daojue bleed once before. In the Gleamstone Valley, fighting Dajinzhi Qingshi.

Now he’d made Daojue bleed—something no one else had managed since Qingshi. He couldn’t see the wound, couldn’t see blood on the blade—but he’d felt it, felt the impact through his soulsense, felt the blade tear into flesh.

If Jieyuan needed any proof he’d made the right call, this was it.

Trump cards weren’t something you’d normally use right at the get-go of a fight—they were your best shot at winning, so you saved them for the perfect moment. The moment they were most likely to work, the moment they’d have the greatest effect.

The thing about trump cards, though, is that most people only really had one of them. So after you pulled out something as major as wielding your weapon with soulforce, which should’ve been impossible for a fourth-sign redsoul, then nobody really expected you to have something else up your sleeve.

But fighting Daojue wasn’t like fighting anyone else. In a normal fight, once you managed to gain the upper hand, your advantage only grew bigger, the gap between you and your opponent only widening. But against Daojue, it was the opposite—given enough time, Daojue would whittle down whatever lead Jieyuan had on him, sure as chisel on crystal. Jieyuan had learned his lesson from Xianjun’s duel yesterday.

The idea to summon Maeva and have her take control of his soulforce had come first—the idea Maeva had opened with, in fact. It was later that Jieyuan had decided he wanted to make the most of it, stack his odds as high as possible and really catch Daojue by surprise. That was when he’d come up with the idea to use a limited version of soulforce weapon-fighting to lull Daojue into a false sense of security.

It had worked like a dream. And now Jieyuan meant to take it all the way.

Daojue’s reaction came in a blur of movement. He disengaged, jumping back—away from both Jieyuan and Maeva. Or rather, from Jieyuan and the floating Shifting Feather, in Daojue’s perspective.

Jieyuan wasn’t about to allow Daojue any respite, though. The less time he gave Daojue to adapt, the better.

He flexed his legs, making to give chase, already counting on Huaxin’s follow-up sequence—

DANGER.

Huaxin’s warning came immediately, blaring. There was no specific image accompanying, no outlined future of what would happen if he charged at Daojue now—just an overwhelmingly ominous feeling, a chill so cold it might as well have skipped the warning and just stopped his heart outright.

Jieyuan forced himself to stay put, lunge wholly aborted. Blood thumped in his ears, his heart hammering in his chest—and not because of the sudden fright, but despite it. A Firesoul’s fire was something fierce—even now it still edged him forward, to give chase. It’d gotten a taste of bloodshed and now it wanted the full course, never mind warnings of certain death.

Jieyuan took a deep breath. He reached out to Huaxin again. What’s going—

UP, Huaxin immediately sent back.

Jieyuan blinked—then whipped his neck up.

Hovering on empty air, above the stage, was Envoy Guodan.

Oh. Jieyuan swallowed. The sight of her failed where Huaxin’s warning couldn’t. It got through to the fire in him, dampening it, sure as a shock of ice-cold water. A vague even if urgent warning was one thing—an orangesoul on the prow was another. That… That’d do it.

It’d never struck him as clearly as it struck him now just what it meant to be near an orangesoul. Being in the presence of someone who could kill you with a look wasn’t much different from being in their mercy. Just by being there, they had full control over your life and death, and there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

The envoy said nothing, just stood in mid-air, looking down at him and Daojue.

“Leave.”

It’d been so long since he’d last heard Daojue speak Jieyuan almost didn’t recognize his voice.

He looked back down, and saw that Daojue was looking up, gaze fixed on the envoy. Daojue’s eyes were slightly narrowed, his brow just the tiniest bit furrowed. That, Jieyuan knew, was about as close as Daojue came to frowning.

Jieyuan couldn’t clearly see Envoy Guodan’s expression—neither the distance nor the overhead brightgold lighting helped—but he had the impression she was frowning too. “Daojue…” she began. Her tone almost gave Jieyuan whiplash. Gentle, borderline entreating.

“Leave,” Daojue said again, cold and sharp as steel, cutting off the woman powerful enough to kill everyone in the room in the blink of an eye.

This was Jieyuan’s first time hearing Daojue repeating himself. Usually, after saying something, Daojue would just stare you down until you got the message.

Daojue sure had picked the moment to break the pattern.

The envoy fell silent again. There was a pause that seemed to last an eternity.

Then Envoy Guodan softly shook her head, before slowly floating back to the viewing platform. She settled back into her usual position on the Radiant Gold Sect’s side of the floor. But the woman’s eyes never left the stage.

Heavens be good.

It was the woman’s clear desire for Daojue that had made her intervene—and it was that same desire that let Daojue talk back to her and get her to back off. Talk about a double-edged dagger. Jieyuan could’ve laughed.

He turned back to Daojue—and saw that the man hadn’t even been looking at the envoy anymore, and was instead straight back at him, dark violet eyes boring into his own.

Jieyuan took another deep breath, steadying, releasing the tension in his muscles—then drawing on his fire, rousing him, letting it fill him again. Envoy Guodan’s interruption had wrecked his momentum, sure, but there wasn’t any use crying over dropped gold. He’d just have to do his best to recoup his losses.

Though let’s keep the wounds to a minimum, maybe. Daojue might have managed to make Envoy Guodan fall back, but Jieyuan wasn’t taking his chances. Just to be on the safe side, he fully lowered the chromal weight of his gauntlets, greaves, and both the Shifting Feathers. He didn’t want to so much as risk another interruption.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jieyuan saw Maeva shoot him an uncertain look, head cocked. He made sure not to look back, keeping his eyes fixed on Daojue. She seemed to get the message, and reoriented to face Daojue, the Shifting Feather in her hands held in front of her, ready.

There was no point pressing an advantage he didn’t have anymore, so Jieyuan took the brief respite for what it was worth, centering himself. Daojue kept on watching him back, unmoving. Jieyuan had no way of telling what was going on in Daojue’s head—but he had something of an idea of what it might be.

The cut Maeva had landed now didn’t go much further than skin deep—this was a duel, not a fight to the death, no matter what Envoy Guodan might think. Even a mundane could’ve soldiered through it, let alone a cultivator.

Back when Qingshi stabbed Daojue, Daojue had immediately put some distance between them. He’d then spent a while just staring warily at Qingshi, clearly reassessing the situation. Not a long while—and immediately afterward he’d shot back at Qingshi fiercer than ever.

The stab wound then hadn’t been any worse than the cut now. That meant that the wound, then and now, wasn’t the issue. The problem was probably that Daojue had been wounded, period. That probably had him rethinking his approach. Daojue was an aggressive, relentless fighter—but Jieyuan had an inkling he was also the analytical type.

Though the circumstances were very different from those back in the Gleamstone Valley, Jieyuan reckoned that the situation should play out much the same. Daojue was all about offense—once he had his thoughts back in order, he’d jump straight back into the fray.

Just as Jieyuan was about to check in with Huaxin, Daojue’s posture shifted. Dropping lower, leaning forward.

Jieyuan immediately followed suit, tension coiling in his muscles.

Daojue gave him a sharp nod.

There was a beat—in which, in a moment of odd clarity, it occurred to Jieyuan that he’d never really seen Daojue nod before.

Then Daojue launched himself at him, and all other thoughts except for the here and now vanished from Jieyuan’s head.

Daojue had barely moved when Huaxin hit Jieyuan with the next sequence.

In the instant it took Jieyuan to absorb that glimpse into the future, he noticed that though the sequence didn’t cover any more ground than the earlier ones did, it was way more complex.

Because it wasn’t just himself and Daojue that were factored in now.

But that was just one of two things Jieyuan had noticed.

The second was that he still had a shot at winning, after all.

He threw himself into Daojue’s charge—but Maeva was even faster, sweeping past him, her Shifting Feather in hand. His soulforce could accelerate things faster than he could run, and Maeva’s own speed—or the illusion of it, at any rate—had been adjusted to match that.

She arrived at Daojue first, her Shifting Feather striking in a hard swing. Daojue parried the attack—just when Jieyuan drew close enough to deliver a strike of his own, and drove his Shifting Feather into Daojue’s unprotected side.

Daojue whirled on his feet, turning his body and Gleaming End to block his attack—and Maeva struck at Daojue again.

Daojue pushed hard enough against Jieyuan to make him stagger back, and moved to defend against Maeva’s new strike—but Jieyuan had known the push was coming and braced himself, only pretending to stumble, and as Daojue turned around he dropped low and delivered a sweeping kick at Daojue’s legs.

Daojue got his feet out of the way just at the last moment in a short, quick jump.

And that was when Maeva slammed her Shifting Feather into Gleaming End.

Still in the air, Daojue took the blow and got launched back. But even then he leaned his body forward, adjusting his weight to preempt his landing. He drove Gleaming End down, as if to use it an anchor.

Jieyuan didn’t let him, rising to his feet and using the movement to bring Shifting Feather up with him in an upswing.

Gleaming End had just hit the floor, Daojue still mid-air, when the attack reached him.

In an inhuman show of agility, Daojue leaned his weight against Gleaming End—momentum still carrying him backward, and kicked out at Jieyuan’s Shifting Feather.

Jieyuan staggered back. But Maeva took over.

And she was merciless. Huaxin had included, in the sequence, a brief moment in which he just stood there, watching—which was fair enough, because Jieyuan could hardly imagine a future where that didn’t happen.

It was surreal, seeing Maeva—his sister, Amyas’s sister—take on Daojue. They didn’t even look like they belonged to the same world—and they in fact didn’t. And there she was, though only he could see it—coming at Daojue with a flurry of attack.

Maeva didn’t know the first thing about martial arts. She probably didn’t even know how to throw a proper punch. But this wasn’t the real Maeva—just his subconscious, wearing Maeva’s face and clothes. And so she could tap into his own combat experience, and put into action.

She’d been the one who insisted on helping him in his match against Daojue, rather than having him call up a copy of himself. He’d simulated a few fights with her yesterday, to be safe—and as it turned out, when she tapped into his own abilities, she managed to be better than him.

Jieyuan didn’t really follow a specific martial arts. He’d started off with an assortment of moves and techniques he’d cobbled together from all the combat tutors his old man had gotten from him. Then, since becoming a cultivator he kept building upon it, taking for himself any moves or tricks he found interesting when he saw somebody else fight. He’d gotten much from Meiyao, Daojue, and Yongyi—and plenty from all the other competitors so far.

But even so, he had a hard time seeing himself in Maeva, as she moved. She’d explained it away that she had the full breadth of his memories, could replicate virtually any style he’d seen since she didn’t have a real body and had just picked the moves that would suit her best and put together a style of her own.

But he didn’t see it. Honestly, he was tempted to ask her for some lessons. Because she didn’t just seem better than him—she could give Daojue a run for his gold. So much so she was practically driving him back on her own.

She did have some advantages Jieyuan didn’t—she moved at soulforce speed, and Daojue couldn’t see her because she wasn’t actually there, so couldn’t properly react to her like he would against a human opponent. But still. Jieyuan didn’t think he’d have done as good a job in her place, and she was supposed to be a part of him. Apparently, all he needed to do to make Daojue sweat was link up his hallucination of his sister to his soulforce, then stand back and watch the show.

This wasn’t the kind of show that’d last long, though. Both keeping Maeva up and using the Shifting Feathers’ gear-skill to reduce their weight required chroma. Individually, neither used up much, but together, over time? The numbers added up. And though Maeva was driving Daojue back, she wasn’t getting any closer to winning on her own. She was getting further, in fact, as Daojue improved.

He needed to act.

Huaxin sent him another sequence then.

Jieyuan paused. The pause was part of the sequence. Like with everything else, Huaxin had accounted for it. Because there was no way he wouldn’t have paused.

Not when he saw himself winning the duel at the end of it.

Huh.

Jieyuan didn’t let himself think on it further, didn’t let himself dawdle. Victory was on the line. He still had to make it real.

He moved, lunging at Daojue, joining up with Maeva on her assault. And he started translating the future into the present.

Daojue immediately struck at him. He dodged. Maeva struck. Daojue blocked. Jieyuan swung. Daojue dodged. Maeva went for an overhead swing—

Huaxin gave a pained wince.