Chapter 68: STRIKE BEHIND

CHAPTER

68

STRIKE BEHIND

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Facing Daojue on a big stage wasn’t some recent idea, some new whim. Jieyuan had been dreaming of a rematch for half a year now—ever since the very first time he met Daojue, on another dueling stage, at the Gleaming Stone Sect’s entrance trials.

Months had passed since then, and that wish had faded into something vaguer. To a simpler, more straightforward desire to surpass Daojue. But the Radiant Gold Summit had dragged the original dream back to the forefront of his mind, made it tangible again.

And now the time had finally come.

Finally.

Jieyuan and Daojue stood on opposite ends of the center stage. Brightgold blazed all around them—glowing, radiant, stupidly splendorous.

The proctor stood between the two of them, going over the rules. It wasn’t the usual Radiant Gold Sect elder this time, though. It was Sovereign Aoxin herself. Maybe it was tradition for her to oversee the last match of the tournament, but Jieyuan reckoned it had more to do with yesterday’s mess.

This time around, Jieyuan paid a bit more attention to the word being said, just in case they’d changed some of the rules too—given, again, the utter fiasco with Xianjun yesterday. But as the sovereign protector reached the part about victory conditions, he realized there hadn’t been any changes.

Fair enough. The rules had worked just fine before Xianjun, and after his little stunt and the way it ended, it was unlikely anybody would try to get clever like that again.

Jieyuan glanced up at the viewing floor. All eyes were on the stage, on him and Daojue. But he could tell most people weren’t really focused. Xianjun’s death yesterday was still weighing heavily on everyone’s mind. And he’d bet that almost everyone had already written this duel off, anyway.

Sure, Jieyuan had pulled off upset after upset—against Caoluan, against Yongyi, even against Meiyao. But what Daojue had done yesterday was on another level entirely.

Jieyuan wouldn’t have bet on himself either, if it weren’t for what he and Maeva had cooked up yesterday. Even now, with a trump card up his sleeve, he didn’t rate his odds too highly.

He already had the Shifting Feathers drawn, split up, one in each hand. He gave each a small shake, focusing on their trusty, reassuring weight.

Weight. That’d be very important, in a little while.

Across from him, Daojue looked the same as ever—clothes- and face-wise. He stood ramrod-straight, one hand holding up Gleaming End where it stood on the floor beside him. The resemblance to a statue was really uncanny—Daojue didn’t seem to move at all.

As Sovereign Aoxin neared the end of her speech, Daojue got into position. Slowly, unhurriedly, perfectly at ease. He lifted Gleaming End off the ground, spun it across his chest, grabbed the shaft near the blade with one hand while sliding the other further down. His knees bent slightly, body leaning forward.

Jieyuan took a deep breath and followed suit. He dropped into a half-crouch, adjusted his grip on the Shifting Feathers, holding their blades up, level with his chest. He braced himself.

Daojue’s approach to fights was simple. Offense. All the offense.

In all of his duels so far, Daojue had shot forward the moment the match started. Jieyuan doubted today would be any different. Straight-on, unrelenting, rigid offense—that was what Daojue was all about.

Jieyuan was partial to offense himself, but not with Daojue’s dogged, bullheaded determination. He didn’t have that luxury. He had to spice things up, tailor his approach to whoever he was up against. He couldn’t just brute-force a win with strength, speed, and skill—he had to be smart about it, to adapt.

In that, at least, he had something of an edge. Though this was technically only his second real duel against Daojue, it wasn’t his second encounter in a broader sense. He’d been using Absolute Mind Command to simulate combat for well over a month now, and he couldn’t count anymore the number of times he’d faced Daojue in his head over the past few weeks. Tens of thousands of matches—most of them short and brutal.

Jieyuan licked his lips, his heart speeding up until it was hammering against his ribcage.

His mental model of Daojue wasn’t perfect—he didn’t know Daojue’s realmskill yet, and Daojue had a knack for defying expectations. But given what Jieyuan had to work with, it was close as it could get.

He breathed out, slowly, clearing his mind.

In the grand scheme of things, this duel didn’t matter. Not in the least. Not when it wouldn’t bring him any tangible benefit. Not with the Xiyunfeng Clan, the Gleaming Nobles, and their schemes looming ahead.

But Jieyuan wasn’t living in the future. He was living in the here and now.

And right now? Nothing else mattered.

Victory was its own reward.

Get ready, Huaxin.

Jieyuan felt his heart skip.

AFFIRMATION.

It was a good thing Jieyuan could always count on his heart. Literally.

“BEGIN!”

Sovereign Aoxin flashed off the stage in an instant.

Jieyuan stilled his soul. Time crawled.

He didn’t move.

Seven times now, Jieyuan had seen Daojue rush across at the stage at his opponent. From above it was quite the impressive sight, a fourth-sign redsoul gliding so fast across the brightgold stage he seemed to fly.

Being on the receiving end of it?

Forget impressive. Try terrifying.

Daojue closed the distance in a snap, Gleaming End leading the charge, footsteps a sharp drone on the stage.

Good thing Jieyuan had practiced for this.

One, two, three—four.

Daojue was in range.

Jieyuan leaned to the side at the exact instant Daojue thrust Gleaming End forward. The spearhead disappeared past his head, brushing against his hair.

Jieyuan dropped lower and slashed at Daojue’s side with his left-hand Shifting Feather. Daojue pivoted, batting the attack aside with Gleaming End’s shaft.

At the same time, Jieyuan struck with the other blade—and again Daojue managed to snap Gleaming End into position in time.

Daojue’s counter was a downward sweep at Jieyuan’s shoulder. Jieyuan moved at the exact right moment, slipping out of the way.

Timing was important in any fight—and against Daojue, nothing was more important.

The problem with Daojue was that he reacted too fast. Even if you knew his next move, if you tried to dodge it too early, Daojue would see and change it in time. On the other hand, if you took too long to dodge, you’d get hit. So you only had the narrowest window of opportunity to react.

This wasn’t much of a problem to most people—because most people couldn’t react to Daojue’s attacks to begin with. Daojue had no tells whatsoever, virtually no build-up to an attack—he could go from total stillness to striking with nothing in between.

To react on time, you either had to be as fast as him—or know his moves ahead of time.

Jieyuan attacked, and Daojue blocked. Daojue attacked, and Jieyuan dodged. Soon they’d tallied a few dozen strikes each, all in the span of a few seconds. Neither of them got a clean hit in.

And then it began.

Daojue’s expression didn’t change at all, the same stony mask he always wore. His stance didn’t change either. But he sped up. Gradually, each strike just a hair faster than the last. Jieyuan dodged the first, the second—but soon they were getting too fast, even knowing what the next move would be. And in a short while, he wouldn’t even have the foreknowledge from his simulations on his side. He’d managed to get the beginning of their duel down, but further down the line things got iffy.

This gradual ramp-up was something Daojue always did. He started each duel fighting at a specific baseline—it changed for each opponent—before ramping up when that didn’t prove enough. Jieyuan wasn’t sure what that was about—why Daojue didn’t just go all-out from the start and lay his opponent out. That’d certainly fit better with his obsession with offense.

Maybe it was some weird notion of conserving effort—only doing the necessary to beat his opponent, or something along the lines. Or maybe it was some even weirder sense of honor, like Daojue was trying to give his opponent a chance to prove himself.

Whatever it was, Jieyuan planned for it—and around it.

HUAXIN! he called.

UPSHIFTKICKSIDEBREAKOFFLUNGESLASH.

It all came to him in an instant, and Jieyuan moved.

He didn’t need to worry about the timing. He didn’t need to worry about anything besides acting out the sequence. Huaxin had already taken care of it all.

He brought both Shifting Feathers up, crossed, and caught Gleaming End between their blades. At the same time, he shifted his left foot forward in a feint, baiting Daojue to edge sideways instinctively—

And whipped his other leg out, kicking at Daojue’s waist.

Daojue withdrew, breaking off—and Jieyuan lunged forward, bringing the Shifting Feathers down at Daojue’s chest.

Daojue parried, and—

DODGESWINGTURNCUT

Another sequence.

Jieyuan leaned to the side as Daojue swung Gleaming End at him, and answered by swinging one of the half-glaives at Daojue.

Mid-swing, he twisted his body to avoid a blazingly fast counter-thrust from Daojue. Inhumanly swift, Daojue pulled back his thrust and reoriented Gleaming End’s shaft just in time to block Jieyuan’s ongoing swing, but Jieyuan was already lashing at him with the other Shifting Feather.

Again Daojue reacted quicker than should’ve been possible, blocking the second attack. This time, Daojue was left in a better position than before, Gleaming End at the ready, while Jieyuan was still readjusting his stance, getting the Shifting Feathers back in front of him.

The next sequence Huaxin sent Jieyuan had him on the defensive, focused on dodging, lest he lose the duel then and there.

What Huaxin and Fatebloom Intuition did was show Jieyuan the near future, compressed into a single instant. More specifically, Huaxin showed him the future with the best outcome for him. As far as Jieyuan could tell, there was not even the risk of him not being able to follow the sequence Huaxin sent, because whether he’d be able to pull it off was already factored in. But this power had one key limitation—though Huaxin did his best, it couldn’t make the impossible happen.

That meant Huaxin couldn’t show Jieyuan a future where he won, or disarmed Daojue, or anything like that—because such a future didn’t exist. Even with Huaxin’s predictive powers factored in, there was nothing Jieyuan could possibly do in the short-term that could result in Daojue’s defeat.

Maybe if Huaxin could accurately predict more than the next couple of seconds, it’d be able to figure something out. Give it at least a few minutes of future-sight, and it might manage to piece together a long and perfect enough sequence that would do the trick and lead him to victory.

But it couldn’t, so all Jieyuan could do was go from moment to moment as he held on, stretching the match out into a battle of attrition. And Jieyuan wasn’t winning one of those. Daojue was better than him in every aspect, stamina included.

Good thing, then, that Jieyuan had been counting on more than just Fatebloom Intuition to win.

He reckoned he’d drawn it out long enough.

NOW! he called, and Huaxin promptly sent him another sequence.

Jieyuan let Gleaming End slide across one of the Shifting Feathers, his arm straining with the effort to keep the spear at bay, and struck at Daojue with the other blade. Daojue broke the deadlock and thrust Gleaming End upward to meet the attack.

Gleaming End struck Jieyuan’s right-hand Shifting Feather in an upward swing and continued on up—sending the half-glaive flying from Jieyuan’s hand.

Daojue didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, as he reoriented Gleaming End and swung it back down at Jieyuan.

His face tightening with concentration, Jieyuan grabbed his remaining Shifting Feather with his right hand and charged at Daojue in a two-handed swing of his own, making no move to defend himself.

Mid-strike, though, Daojue pulled back and snapped Gleaming End behind him—to intercept the other Shifting Feather, the one he’d just knocked into the air and that was now coming down at his back in a downward swing.

Swung by the invisible hand of Jieyuan’s soulforce.