Chapter 514: Karma Drips Along the Thread of Life and Death (16)

For a while it’s only wind and the wing-beat cries of birds circling the arena.

The long silence freezes the faces of Dan Huacheol and the swordsman.

If three couldn’t beat one, two have no business trading more steel.

But they’ve already stepped into a life-and-death.

To withdraw now, they’d have to beg for their lives before this whole crowd.

For a Central Plains martial, begging life from the one you hate is a shame worse than death.

Dan Huacheol and the swordsman trade a look.

Dan Huacheol grits his teeth and sets himself to die.

The swordsman’s wavering eyes seem to argue for pleading for life.

But this isn’t about closing a match whose outcome is set; the Heavenly Flower Sword told them to make it three again. She already showed mercy—beg now and you crown the world’s greatest idiot.

Three against a youngster and you still lose.

A woman at that—using anything, even means counted as taboo—and still lose?

Only ending in death lets an avenger avoid becoming a joke.

And if they beg, will she spare them?

In the Central Plains, revenge scales to the humiliation you swallowed; the greater the shame, the greater the honor of repayment.

It’s the logic by which King Goujian, who ate his enemy’s dung, is praised as the highest avenger: swallow this much disgrace and fail to repay, and history will stamp you an imbecile.

So if she spares them, she knows she’s breeding trouble—only a fool would let that live.

So the swordsman’s gaze takes on a desolate cast and steadies.

He accepts the dead-end he’s in.

If no one comes, the two of them must try anyway.

That’s when a martial steps out and shoulders in beside them.

“I am Instructor Yu Seungchan of Nine-Dragon Hall. It’s a pity you’re not at your prime, but I, too, need a head to lay on my disciples’ memorial table.”

“If you can.”

With the number back to four, the ring fills with the clamor of colliding weapons.

Qing tumbles and tumbles across the ground.

Deng—Buddha’s bell.

The swordsman who took Internal Body Water Method right and true geysers blood from his mouth and drops.

What was melted to slurry inside his trunk keeps pouring out with the blood.

At least he went without pain.

Call it a Buddhist heart-image—one strike sent him to sit by the Buddha.

Hm? Is that what the Buddha said? Is it?

Qing tilts her head at the heart-image of Tathāgata Divine Palm.

With the swordsman gone, the one who fills the spot is called Myeong Junsa, a master of the willow-leaf saber.

That flittering blade throws changes unfitting for a saber, and it’s devilishly hard to meet it with weapon-on-weapon.

Gritting through and tanking with body alone, even Guardian Qi can’t keep the skin from ripping in long rents; her uniform soaks red.

A flash—feral light sparks in Qing’s eyes.

Her sword spins; her grip flips to reverse; it snakes like a serpent and slides for Yu Seungchan’s nape.

One-Hundred-Eight Asura Sword, fifth move—

Poison Fang.

Not a “demonic art” she set out to use.

It just opened by itself.

The insight right before her whispered to Qing in the heart-image of a demonic art.

Have you watched beasts fight?

Savage beasts care nothing for their bodies in a fight because every fight in nature is a life-and-death—kill or be killed.

So even mortally torn and gnawed, the beast doesn’t cower from pain; it enrages, explodes with wild nature.

The whole body battered, cracked, and throbbing; muscles tight and cramping; stinging cuts where the skin’s been shaved—turning, perversely, into a sweet ache that spirals the body.

Strength surges, and a smile creeps to the lips.

A person is an animal, too.

Fight like an asura; walk the road washed in blood; take the throne of the hundred beasts.

On any ridge there is only one lord. Cut every predator, feed on the corpses, and declare the world your range.

Qing’s pupils show a savage wildness—

pale vertical slits of predation.

Killing intent seethes up her trunk like a great beast about to burst.

“Huuuu.”

Qing exhales long instead of roaring.

Right. This is one of the Ten Supreme Demonic Arts.

Not one of them is tame.

The urge to bite the throats of every martial here boils up right now—

but being dragged by it at this point would be a bad look, wouldn’t it?

If Master found out, she’d carpet-bomb my skull with flicks: “You wench, what are you doing rampaging like a wild thing?”

Her will stirs the Refined Heart Classic of Zhouyang—the Divine Lady’s Gate art—and blurs the head.

Emperor Shennong is an old emperor of the Central Plains; the older they are, the crankier the conservative codger.

A classic Shennong made for his daughter would, of course, settle the mind and wake it sober.

Qing’s gaze washes back toward Daoist clarity, though a single streak of bestial sheen refuses to go.

Turn pain into power. Like a beast.

That much is exactly what I need right now.

Qing declares, arrogant:

“Next.”

The one who answers is Jang Balsan of Ganghwa in Hunan Province, a giant who works a vicious iron cudgel studded with spikes at both ends.

And Qing breaks and rolls again.

And then—another moment, and another—

A sword lances for her heart.

At the same time the spiked cudgel scythes for her shoulder, and the willow-leaf saber spills a dazzling surf of slashes.

Qing’s eyes flash.

She steps in on the diagonal—riding the blade flat into her flank—and rams in Moonlight Sword’s heavy edge.

Moonlight Sword digs by the enemy’s navel and exits the close-side flank.

Gugh—air crushed in the throat—and while she clears that one away, the delayed weapons crash over Qing.

Her shoulder folds at a weird angle, as if the shoulder were carved off, and slips forward.

Flexibility like a creature with almost no bones.

The aura-soaked cudgel whistles through empty air.

But her back—?

A wall of fire seems to erupt on her back; pain blasts in.

Across her back the character for “pent-up” might as well be carved—densely crosshatched stab-wounds, a ruin.

Hff—hurts—yes, it hurts. But bearable.

Back muscles—mm. Seem intact.

Against three Absolutes, this counts as holding my own, I suppose.

More than the wounds, what needles her is that hateful sneeze of insight—up to the palate and then gone—the glimpse of Harmony.

Damn it, I almost had it.

A razor’s width—just one razor’s width.

She’s all rags and blood, yet the beautiful woman lets her sword hang.

“Next.”

Dan Huacheol, was it?

Qing thrusts a palm for his face.

Her thumb spears the cheekbone; she wrenches his skull by that purchase and rams it into the oncoming saber-qi.

Shashak—holes punched through the cheekbone, the agony so blinding he can’t launch Guardian Qi—

and the willow-leaf saber’s gorgeous wreaths fillet him to ribbons.

“Next.”

None of the original three remain, but there are still three foes in the field.

When did the head crack?

Ah. The bastard with the cudgel—what was his name, Balsan, Jang Balsan? Jang... it fits the tongue.

He lost a leg with his cudgel.

There’s a big artery in the thigh and there’s no physician in the arena; he sketched a red lake on the floor and cooled by degrees.

Next.

Walak—she hawks up a bowl of blood.

Some thick-witted fellow rushed her barehanded. Looked down on him; turned out he wasn’t a martial but a deep internalist.

Playing dirty, pretending to be a striker.

No—smart.

Who in the world doesn’t relax a hair at a “mere” striker?

But Qing’s internal strength left Absolutes behind long ago.

He tried Internal Body Water Method on someone whose inner power exceeded his by miles; perhaps he guessed her qi was drained by the long fight—but—

the gulf was so huge his qi and blood reversed, and Qing, on the beat, shoved true qi back into him instead.

Skin and muscle burst at once; half-stripped arm-bone glared white.

The internalist stopped polluting the air with screams only after his head came off.

Next.

A rare female adept of the Evil Path.

She vowed to repay her husband’s blood and, spite tight as frost in June, poured hidden weapons into gaps even when her partners failed to mesh.

She set a record—survived through five partner changes.

But as is always the case with throwers, three of those times she hit her own side and cut the life-and-death short, so—no, we’re not recognizing the mark.

Next.

The next avenger lied about his realm.

Not an Absolute—just peak-tier trash.

And as the fight began he ambushed the Evil Path woman and planted a blade in her—so he didn’t come for Qing at all but to avenge his senior who’d died in the previous match to her poison throwing-knife.

Then he discovered that same poison knife in his own belly, coughed blood, and collapsed.

Left alone, the last was decapitated in a single stroke.

Three must face one—but the other two brawled each other.

And so Qing stands alone.

Twelve corpses, pitiful beyond words.

Below the bared shoulder there’s not a sound patch left on the upper arm.

Her blood-misted eyes are red; her lips, split again and again, show scabs; her swollen cheek lies under a bruise.

Her hair is wild; there isn’t a sound spot left on the uniform; it isn’t worn, it’s pasted to her body, soaked through with blood.

Yet even seeing a woman martial in such a wreck, the looks that fall on her are lined with respect.

From spectators only, of course; among them, the vile Evil Path types licking their lips—time to step in—and others shaking their heads, cowed.

Those who roared with cheers, commentary, and bets at every pass have fallen quiet at some point.

Maybe because even in this appalling state her beauty hasn’t dimmed and still throws light.

Maybe because they’re in awe of a martial who faced three of the same realm, ran the gauntlet of a savage life-and-death, and, in the end, won.

Or maybe it’s fear of the hand that split a man vertically, rib to groin—but fear is a form of respect, too.

“Next—”

“Enough! Enough!”

A shout cuts Qing’s call for the next.

“I know it’s improper, as a mere officer of the army, to crowd into an affair of the martial heroes! But even if I weren’t a martial, I would know this much—continuing these life-and-death matches is wrong! Is this truly the law of you martials!”

It’s Provincial Commander Wang Ssangryong.

Why did he only watch till now? Because Qing hadn’t sent the stop-signal.

Which is to say—she just did.

I mean, if I say “let’s stop, I’m tired,” that’s a bad look.

And say I show I’m truly exhausted—some rat will seize the chance and rush in.

So they’d agreed in advance: when Qing taps the grip with her forefinger—tok-tok-tok—that’s the sign; the Provincial Commander steps in and halts the duel.

“Revenge, if it is revenge, must be set on a clear intent and taken in the open before the world! Look—blood already fouls the ground; there’s not a sound patch left on her body; in front of the world she’s barely standing in a ghastly state!”

And yet she did not turn away from any who would ask a grudge.

She stood proud before all—that is what the world’s great men should imitate.

Therefore—withdraw!

The ground you stand on is a garrison granted by His Majesty; as master of the Provincial Commander’s Office, I will permit no further trespass!

“Commander, I’m fine.”

Qing staggers by design and tries to dissuade him.

Wang Ssangryong raises his voice even more.

“Fine? What could possibly be fine!”

“A tangle you make yourself must be undone by yourself. A knotted grudge is not something you put off for personal safety.”

At that, gasps pop here and there.

Eyes glint—everyone itching to spread the tale they saw and heard with their own senses: the astounding spirit of one woman martial.

More exactly, their mouths and legs burn to run this immortal exploit to every alley as fast as possible.

“Humph. Revenge is rightly achieved by one’s own strength. You have weakened from fighting match on match—was it not because brave men stepped up first to take their chance at revenge?”

How cheap and pitiful it is to borrow another’s strength to pay a blood debt.

So—out of respect for the martial world—I will not allow you martials to grow more cowardly!

Wow. This general not only keeps discipline—his tongue is a Grand Commander’s, too.

Ability plus ability—this is the kind of name that goes in the histories, isn’t it?

Even Qing has to admire that miraculous tongue.