Chapter 513: Karma Drips Along the Thread of Life and Death (15)

Joint attacks aren’t easy.

Same reason stray arrows are feared on a battlefield: a comrade’s blade can come from an angle you don’t understand at a time you don’t expect.

That’s why the many-against-few method is drilled as a formation—why bother rolling around together unless you have to learn it as a unit?

It isn’t easy.

So the three avengers’ “joint attack,” strictly speaking, is more a sequence than a true combine. Dan Huacheol strikes first and binds the blade; the swordsman follows; the spearman aims for the narrow openings where the three have tangled together.

Whether they coordinated in advance, or simply fell into a rhythm by realm and rank—who knows.

As ever, Dan Huacheol’s sword hounds Qing’s path without letup. He forces the target blade along chosen lines and blocks; the skilled keep that flow unbroken, clinging like a leech.

In the manuals this is the “Absorb” character method.

Then the swordsman comes wide from the right, hunting Qing.

Qing still has a free hand besides her weapon, and that so-called “Lesser Demonic Art’s” clear skin is tough enough to meet a blade bare-handed without coming up short.

Except now—no hands left, are there?

And the spearman still remains.

But a spear is a straight line meant to punch a point, pierce a part.

A flexible body can slip it.

Up to here the script is the same, but who takes the same trick the same way twice?

No good.

Don’t just be busy dodging the spearhead—shift posture together into the favorable detail.

Qing’s head spins fast.

When the spearman commits, let the bound sword sling her by dropping strength completely.

Her left can slant and shrug the edge off toward the wrist, probably.

Slip out like that and all three weapons will cut air, and the opening should follow as a matter of course.

So—reading with Clarifying Heart at full burn—the spearman: three steps, two, one, and—swish!

Where—where do you want it!

Right—the thigh!

The instant Qing’s eyes flash—

She takes a half step back; her torso, which had leaned in, whips back with all she has; she relaxes the bind and cants her left hand up.

Her point, suddenly lifeless, pops to the sky; the swordsman’s edge skims above, flowing past her brow.

Now just roll back like a swallow and slip out—

That’s when it happens.

The spearhead whips like a lash.

A hand yanks mid-shaft; the straight line bows and withdraws; instead the butt sweeps—whick!—tearing the air in a fan-arc.

Ah. You can club with the shaft, too.

Qing achieves great enlightenment.

And pays for it—thwack!

Pain like her shin just dropped off.

Power at full from an Absolute: her knee buckles, the foot is folded under, heel flicking the back of her thigh and bouncing off.

Foot off the ground; the earth rushes up—of course she reels.

In that split-second she feels mass through the air’s flow.

Foot-shaped, perfect.

Qing clenches her teeth and wrenches her head back on pure survival.

The rough kick scythes her cheek.

She flies like a ball that’s been punted.

Sky and ground wheel; she sails a body-length and land-hammers on the back of her head.

The three avengers chase tight behind.

Three weapons drop like lightning.

Eyes go wide and mouths fall open all around—Qing’s figure splits to eight again.

The avengers’ weapons plow only the innocent dirt.

Qing, now behind them, wipes her cheek with a sleeve.

You sons of—kicking a woman’s face?

Even in a life-and-death duel there’s a line.

For reference, Qing practices soccer with heads whenever she gets the chance.

Reaping what was sown, you could say.

Her cheek throbs dully, hot and sour.

This one’s going to puff up.

The tender inner cheek has rasped on teeth and torn; a heavy metallic stink like rust billows; a sticky brine spreads on her tongue.

She clicks her teeth together.

Fine. Nothing serious.

Thanks to jerking her head back, her eyes didn’t burst and her ears didn’t blow; aside from the inner cheek being split, nothing’s gone wrong.

Kicks aren’t a martial’s method except for a tiny cadre of kicking specialists.

That was just a dumb, full-power boot.

And a body with bones and tendons this stout—a monster at the human peak—doesn’t break that way.

If she hadn’t thrown her head and it had sunk into the temple, the pressure would have wrecked an eye and the drum with it—but tough for them; Qing slipped it.

She already learned long ago what happens when a boot catches the eye-rim.

“Hang in there!” “Woooo!” “Boooo!”

Cheers, shouts, jeers—everything pours down at once.

But the three avengers aren’t thinking about “demonic arts” anymore.

They stepped up even seeing the troops laid out; they’re here for one thing—kill the enemy and ease a grudge. Pure venom.

No time to spit the blood pooling in her mouth; Qing just gulps it and sets her blade.

Still—she learned one more thing.

Do not assume the opponent’s line on your own!

Qing gives herself a hard scolding.

At some point she got drunk on strength and on winning and started thinking every foe was a dimwit.

So maybe she’d started taking an Absolute “or so” as easy meat.

Any martial worth the name keeps one life-saving trump to pull himself out, and one mutual-destruction trick to take you with him if need be.

Qing crashes in with them again.

Anyway, there are three weapons; the rest is just fists. She can tank it.

As long as she keeps the must-not-get-hit points clean, it’ll hurt like death, but a body like wrought iron and Guardian Qi can muddle through.

Qing rolls. Qing gets blasted.

She keeps stamping Wave-Skimming Steps; she shaves off that many visits to the brink.

So in a life-and-death match it looks like Qing is constantly on the back foot—hit, rolling, shattering, flying.

But is she, really?

The avengers’ insides ache colder and colder.

The longer it goes, the more their sloppy “combine” actually starts to find its mesh and refine—and yet the Heavenly Flower Sword is lasting longer and longer.

Despite there being fewer untouched spots left on her than touched, she doesn’t even look inconvenienced.

So the sense of crisis spikes.

She’s turning into a monster in front of us.

This isn’t a dojo spar where face, chest, and groin are strictly off limits—it’s a life-and-death where you salt each other with kill-shots.

If she lives through this, it will feed her monstrously. If we lose, we’ll go down in the next Queen of the Martial World’s legends as “those three idiots.”

So she has to die.

Lose, and it won’t just be the grief of an unpaid blood debt—our deaths will be a laughingstock for ages.

So the avengers jettison even the minimum dignity a martial should keep.

A fist comes in; Qing, as ever, sets the upper arm—what her homeland calls the biceps—hard and drives it out to meet the blow.

Then, suddenly, the thrusting fist opens wide. What? Hands? Why hands now?

R-rip—cloth tears.

A cool gust licks under the shoulder blade.

Qing gets what the bastard’s up to.

Ah. Strip me?

There are opponents that works on, and opponents it doesn’t.

With your life on the line, what’s a little skin.

Still—hm—insolent.

Her cheek is already swelling blue, and she’s rolled across the ground like it’s her own bed; her uniform is rags in all but name.

Now one shoulder’s cleanly bared; unlike below the elbow, where the Lesser Demonic Art’s function flows, above that the mottled bruises have risen.

Mm. Time to finish and take the next ones.

But Qing’s confidence only swells.

She’s been holding that absurd brute strength back, and she hasn’t touched Tathāgata Divine Palm—she’s been meeting them with pure sword.

The foes who flung dirt and yanked and tore clothes wear faces of absolute desperation.

Next exchange:

Qing catches Dan Huacheol’s sword in her left hand.

Shock blooms on his face.

Why? I’ve been blocking sword-qi with the back of my hand all match, and it never occurred to you I could grab with the thicker skin of my palm?

The swordsman rushing on the right panics and flurries forms.

Three keen crescents bite in from tight tips like a thin new moon; Moonlight Sword draws three after-images to meet; jrang!—three impacts harmonize to one sound.

Right hand to right, left hand to left.

Right foot right, left foot left.

A martial only puts out proper power when the four limbs are where they belong.

In that gap the spearman stabs for the opening.

Qing angles the point she’s pinched in her left right at him; the single-saber wretch strains forward-back to rip his blade free, and the instant he shoves hard—

Now.

Her freed sword lunges for the spear man; while those two tangle, Qing stamps Advance-True and crashes the swordsman.

Dan Huacheol and the spearman snatch their weapons back in a panic, but their bodies don’t—so they collide, tangle, go down—

And Qing’s figure vanishes.

No—doesn’t vanish.

It’s simply that there’s only a sword shaped like a person.

Qing’s hands close over the hilt, and the sword pole vaults for the noonday sun.

Seo Mun Surin’s Moon Maiden Sword, third move.

The Celestial Lady Is a True Great Person.

By origin, the Moon Maiden Sword’s stroke is a straight vertical cut—hair falling like silk.

Master loaded its interpretation with the Hegemon’s path—women too can be great persons, great enough to touch the sky.

But is the world truly like that?

She crowned herself Queen of the Martial World and still the world was not—so rather than the intent, the move must have been a scream at an absurd reality, hoarse with rage.

A woman’s howl is in the stroke as it splits the world on the vertical.

It knifes in at the shoulder, rakes the ribs straight down; bites the shaft; takes the opposite wrist; slants through flank and hip; parts the thigh; and, still not spent, jams deep into the earth.

A few old martials there overlay the Heavenly Flower Sword with the silhouette of someone who once stood in that same place and pose and shiver bodily.

Right—that girl’s her disciple.

Master and pupil both wear the mask of beauty and are just as vicious. She raised one just like herself.

The swordsman splits in half and falls.

Qing blows a long, slow breath.

Mm. Master. I’ve tried both, and I can’t say being a woman ever made me suffer in particular.

What—men with brains in their balls always telling you to strip, or to give alms of your body, or to bear children?

It’s disgusting and it gives you chills—but it’s also a huge advantage.

Even in the Green Forest, in the end, I lived because I was a woman.

Why were you so angry?

Same for that “Lesser Demonic Art” that grabbed the sword just now.

It whispers, icy, that all males should be killed.

Step into Entering Demon and become a demon and you’ll end up lending it your ear.

Ah. So that’s why “demonic arts” are demonic. If you get enthralled, you’re public enemy of the martial world—gone in one go.

Another reason not to Enter Demon.

Qing flicks the blood off her blade and looks back.

The remaining pair of avengers balk and hesitate.

Qing hesitates a heartbeat, too.

Damn it, I was right on the edge of getting something.

The heart-image of the art—that sense of the technique—was turning clear.

But did I end up bulldozing it with strength?

Like a sneeze right there and not—something a little, just a little, left.

She decides.

We’re doing one more.

Qing sets Seo Mun Surin-Style Beauty’s Bearing, stands straight, lips mild.

“I said I’d take three at once. There are only two of you now. So—if anyone here has a grudge to ask of me, you’re welcome to make it three.”