Chapter 64: DARE TO KILL

CHAPTER

64

DARE TO KILL

JIEYUAN

—∞—

Or it should have been.

Daojue was quick. He had hardly finished the swing that knocked off Xianjun’s halberd, before he redirected Gleaming End and charged at the now-unarmed Xianjun.

But Xianjun was faster. He didn’t retreat—he advanced, weaving out of the way of Gleaming End, letting it stab the empty air next to his head, as he closed in on Daojue, arms folded in front of him. He made as if to punch, shifting his body to the side like he was preparing for it. Daojue of course saw it, and reacted, pulling back even as his body tipped forward from the earlier lunge.

And that was when Xianjun spun on the spot, and his leg lashed out at Daojue’s side in a roundhouse kick.

There was a blur of movement from Daojue, and then the dull clang of metal meeting metal, followed by another, softer ring. Daojue staggered to the side, his position awkward—and Jieyuan realized Daojue had let go of Gleaming End, turning his body and bringing his arms down to his side in time to block Xianjun’s kick.

Jieyuan took a sharp breath. Daojue could’ve very well died just now. Xianjun wore a gauntlets and greaves like all cultivators, and his were definitely tenth-sign. Xianjun’s kick would’ve gone through Daojue’s body as easy as sin if Xianjun didn’t limit their chromal weight.

Beside Jieyuan, Yuyan whistled softly. He risked a quick glance up.

Envoy Guodan was practically bent-over the railing, eyes wide.

He looked back down just in time to see Xianjun surge at Daojue in one, fluid stride and drive his feet at Daojue’s head. Again Daojue blocked, but Xianjun gave him no quarter as his other fist came on up.

Another block, another clang, and another instance of Daojue being pushed back.

The turnabout was absolute.

Xianjun was overwhelming Daojue, straight and simple. He kept stuck close to Daojue, barely an arm’s length, and came upon him with vengeance. Punches flowed into kicks, kicks into punches, each strike chaining seamlessly into the next.

Daojue endured, blocking each and every blow. But if he let even one attack through, he’d be dead unless Xianjun managed to pull back in time or didn’t blunt his halberd in time.

Normally this wouldn’t have been an issue—it hadn’t been so far—but Jieyuan couldn’t shrug off the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. That whatever Xianjun had in mind, nonlethal wasn’t it.

Soon the two of them were a good distance from where Gleaming End and Xianjun’s halberd lay on the stage floor. Which meant that the weapons were as good as out of play. If Daojue and Xianjun hadn’t been in the middle of a fight, they could’ve probably summoned their weapons to their hands using soulforce—Gleaming End was light enough, and even if Xianjun’s halberd was made of inscribed gold like the Shifting Feathers, his soulforce should be strong enough to lift it, given his soulsign.

But using soulforce required concentration—and from the look of things, neither Daojue nor Xianjun had any to spare right now.

As Xianjun lashed out with another kick, Daojue managed to step around it, and struck at Xianjun with a punch of his own. But Xianjun just weaved around the attack, his rhythm not upset in the slightest, and followed up with an uppercut. It was Daojue who ended up worse off, having to once again make an awkward retreat, this time to avoid his jaw being blown off.

It’d never occurred to Jieyuan before, but he’d never really seen Daojue fight with anything other than his spear. It wasn’t that Daojue was poor at unarmed martial arts—he was a fourth-sign against a sixth-sign, and he was still weathering the storm of Xianjun’s attacks.

If they’d been at the same soulsign, Jieyuan doubted Daojue would be Xianjun’s inferior. But that was just the thing. They weren’t. Daojue, it turned out, was merely exceptional at unarmed combat—and exceptional wasn’t enough to bridge a gap in soulsigns, not when your opponent was exceptional too. Even more so when the shimmer of Sibilant Wind Blessing still covered Xianjun, boosting his agility.

Jieyuan could hardly believe it—but it looked like Daojue might very well lose.

That thought had barely crossed his mind when it began. Subtly, at first.

Jieyuan couldn’t really pinpoint when, but Daojue’s responses began to improve. He didn’t get any faster, but his blocks grew more solid, his balance more stable.

If Jieyuan hadn’t been fully concentrated on the fight, and if he hadn’t known Daojue so well, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. But even then, it’d have become obvious over the next few seconds.

With each exchange, each punch and kick blocked or avoided, Daojue took fewer and fewer steps back—until he stopped retreating altogether.

The shift was glaring. The stop wasn’t sudden, not when the build-up had been so clear, but it seemed abrupt all the same, as Daojue just stood there, solid and firm as a rock, his feet shifting and turning constantly but without moving from the spot.

Despite the change in Daojue, Xianjun kept at it, going for an overhand strike—and Daojue moved out of it at the last moment, tilting his head to the side with minimum movement, and jabbed at Xianjun’s stomach.

Xianjun pulled back, avoiding the attack. But though no damage was done, Xianjun had just had his rhythm broken.

He might as well have taken the blow, really.

Before Xianjun could make an attempt at regaining his momentum, Daojue’s kick came at him from the side. Again, Xianjun weaved out of it, moving as smoothly as the breeze.

But now it was Daojue advancing on him.

To his credit, Xianjun put up a good struggle, managing to hold position for a while. Xianjun’s style wasn’t much for blocking—definitely no direct, hard blocks like what Daojue went for—but it was a smooth, fluid thing, all parries and dodges. Xianjun was good—in a straight fight, Jieyuan knew he wouldn’t have stood a chance.

But as the clash went on, Xianjun was forced to defend more and more often, to give up more and more attacks, until he was completely on the defensive.

Not long after that, Daojue started pushing him back. Daojue’s style was almost Xianjun’s direct opposite. Hard, rigid, solid. Full blocks, power strikes. But at the same time it was practical, efficient, all movements precise.

It wasn’t that Daojue had gotten any faster, or stronger—rather, Daojue had gotten better. More skilled, plain and simple. He’d gone from exceptional to a level not far from his monstrous, impossible skill with a spear. The rate of his improvement was literally visible.

And now that Daojue’s unarmed technique was good enough to bridge the soulsign gap, he was able to properly tap into his style—use it the way it was meant for. Which translated into a pure, merciless, brutal offense. Not a single mistake forgiven. Not a single weakness unpunished.

Daojue kept on pushing Xianjun back, further and further, in the exact same way Xianjun had pushed him before.

And then they were near where Xianjun’s counter-offensive began, where Daojue had disarmed him and Xianjun had disarmed him in turn, within just a foot or so of where their weapons lay.

Each and every inch Xianjun had taken from Daojue, Daojue had taken back—Jieyuan didn’t doubt it was intentional.

They’d barely returned to their original positions when Daojue snapped a knee up and made to thrust his foot into Xianjun’s midsection. Xianjun pulled back, of course.

And that was when Daojue slammed that same foot down on the end of Gleaming End’s shaft as if that had been his idea all along, and the spear snapped up into the air, into his grip—and Daojue lunged forward with it, stabbing at Xianjun’s throat.

It all came too fast—Xianjun was still busy setting his footing after his abrupt dodge when the tip of Gleaming End came to a sudden stop not even an inch off his throat.

Daojue said nothing. Neither he nor Xianjun moved, both of them statue-still.

A second passed. Then two, then three.

Xianjun said nothing. Not the slightest sound came from him. All that happened was the hazy outline of Sibilant Wind Blessing vanishing from around Xianjun.

Jieyuan could only see Daojue’s back, but Xianjun’s face was in full view from his position, and perfectly visible now that he’d stopped using his realmskill. Behind a sheen of sweat, glimmering in the glow of the brightgold, Xianjun had on a stony, complete lack of expression worthy of Daojue.

In fact, Daojue was probably wearing that same look right now.

The seconds went by with heavy, pregnant slowness.

There was movement to the side of the stage. The proctor, looking up to the lower floor, to where Sovereign Aoxin stood beside Envoy Guodan.

Sovereign Aoxin, for her part, turned to Envoy Guodan. But the orangesoul said nothing. She didn’t even seem to notice the sovereign protector as she stared fixedly down at the stage.

The envoy didn’t look nearly as tense as she had seemed when Jieyuan had sneaked a quick glance at her, back when Xianjun had had the advantage, but there was still a dangerous intensity to the way she held herself.

Much like Xianjun, she said nothing at all.

And the standstill stretched on.

Suddenly the rules that the proctor read before every match, the rules Jieyuan always glossed over, became very important.

The proctor couldn’t call the match on their own judgment. The duel would only end when one of the contestants fell unconscious or was too grievously wounded to continue fighting, or gave up.

This assumed that in situations, when one of the contestants had obviously won, the other would have the grace to admit defeat.

Up until this very point, this system had worked just fine. There’d already been over a hundred duels, and not a single one had stalemated on a technicality.

Envoy Guodan was just about the only one that could intercede—she superseded all the rules—but she didn’t look like she had any interest in doing so.

The seconds soon added up to a full minute. Both Daojue and Xianjun remained entirely unmoving, Gleaming End still pressed to Xianjun’s throat.

Jieyuan didn’t consider himself the curious sort, but he’d have given good, solid gold to learn what exactly the two on the stage were thinking there and then. Xianjun in particular.

The two-minute mark was coming up when Xianjun smiled. Though calling it a smile wasn’t all that true to the spirit of the word. His lips parted, his teeth bared, the skin of his face stretched, crinkling around his eyes.

It didn’t look natural—the change in his expression came like cracks spreading throughout a pane of glass. And when it was done, smile fully formed, there was something about it that looked wrong. There was a desperate, broken quality to it, like a jagged shard of glass—fatally sharp but also terribly fragile.

“I’m not conceding.” Xianjun spoke softly, steadily, clearly. It didn’t match at all his expression. And though he didn’t shout—if anything, he was quiet—it filled the entire venue.

A pause followed. Probably Xianjun waiting for a reply. If Xianjun had known Daojue any, he wouldn’t have bothered.

To Jieyuan’s total lack of surprise, Daojue said nothing in response. His posture remained unchanged, Gleaming End still held firmly, blade against Xianjun’s throat. And Jieyuan didn’t need to be looking at Daojue’s face to know that Daojue’s expression hadn’t changed, either.

Faced with Daojue’s silence, Xianjun only smiled wider. “I’m not conceding,” he repeated, softly still. “Not while there’s breath left in my lungs. Not while my heart still beats. Not while blood runs through my veins.”

Jieyuan tried to make sense of what was going on, but the numbers just weren’t adding up.

What could Xianjun possibly stand to gain from this?

He cast a quick look around the upper floor. Just about everyone else seemed to share in his confusion.

The Xiyunfeng, though. They looked grave. And Sovereign Zhihao—Xianjun’s father—looked pale, grave. It took Jieyuan a moment to realize that the man was trembling.

Back down on the stage, nothing changed. If Jieyuan were in Daojue’s place, he’d have just knocked Xianjun out. It wouldn’t keep Xianjun out for long—normal concussions didn’t really stick past fourth-sign—but it’d have been enough grounds for the proctor to call the match.

Barring that, he could’ve also just maimed Xianjun and called it a day. It wasn’t like Xianjun wasn’t asking for it. Literally so, even.

“I’m not conceding,” Xianjun said, for the third time now. “I’m not—”

There was a flash of green. A blur of movement, as Daojue turned around—and struck down the wind blade that had just come at him from the side, barely a moment before it reached his neck and cleaved his head off.

Xianjun’s halberd was half-lifted into the air—by soulforce, Jieyuan dimly recognized even as he took in the scene—angled, oriented towards Daojue. It glowed green again, and Daojue struck down the newly formed wind blade with Gleaming End just as it left the weapon. Then he gave the halberd a hard kick.

It was sent flying, spinning in the air.

Daojue then whipped back around and drove his spear back at Xianjun.

Xianjun, who’d just begun to move, fists half-raised, body leaning forward.

Once again, Daojue stopped Gleaming End just an inch from Xianjun’s throat.

Daojue’s and Xianjun’s position—the entire situation—was practically the same as before. It was as if the last second—second, that was how fast Daojue had acted—hadn’t even happened.

But the proctor, who’d been standing beside the stage, was now halfway across it to where Xianjun and Meiyao were. But she’d been too late to stop Xianjun’s sneak attack, and now that it’d already happened the woman had completely frozen in place.

Xianjun’s halberd crashed down on the floor just outside the stage, skidding a few inches to an unsteady halt. The sound of its landing—already a loud ring—was made all that much more thunderous by the situation at hand, echoing shrilly throughout the venue, bouncing off the brightgold walls.

Envoy Guodan’s expression turned ugly. Sovereign Zhihao’s was worse.

Beside Jieyuan, Protector Yuyan cursed under her breath. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hand move closer to the hilt of her saber, held sheathed by her waist.

Down on the stage, Xianjun was still smiling. Even though he’d just tried to kill Daojue—in plain sight of everyone, in plain sight of Envoy Guodan, after he’d all but lost the duel. Not just tried, but failed—failed so badly Jieyuan could’ve hardly imagined a worse result.

And then Xianjun’s expression changed. But his smile didn’t disappear—no, it grew bigger, stretching about as much as human biology allowed.

And he said, “Go on, then. I’ve already said my piece, played my hand. It doesn’t get any clearer than this. You want your win? Take it from my cooling corpse.”

Daojue said nothing. Did nothing.

That, it seemed, finally got through to Xianjun. His smile—that horrible smile—slipped. And what took over his face was a red, wide-eyed look of insane rage.

“ARE YOU DEAF? KILL ME, YOU COWA—”

Jieyuan caught a flurry of movement out of the corners of his vision, but he didn’t take his eyes off the stage.

Didn’t look away, as Daojue snapped Gleaming End forward.

Through Xianjun’s neck.