Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

The arena was ringed with tall spindles of stone, smooth-carved and weather-scored, like petrified trees. Only minutes had passed since the challenge had been issued, yet word had already spread.

Xin Zi had gone ahead of them, and the clerk abandoned his station to escort Fushuai and his companions to the site. They waited at the arena's near edge. Opposite them, a knot of cultivators from the Emerald Adder Sect had gathered in silence, some with arms crossed, others resting casual hands on the hilts of their weapons.

Xin Zi stood alone at the center of the circle. His robes were now tightened by a silk sash to match their trim. His long hair had been gathered into a high topknot, and he held a slender sword in his right hand. A bright ribbon trailed from its pommel, fluttering without a breeze.

"First blood?" Fushuai asked. "Or first to yield?"

"No," Xin Zi replied. "You are a stranger here, and you do not set the terms. I am Xin Zi of the Emerald Adder Sect. In our discipline, your words are your bond. And you gave yours before a witness."

He gestured to the watching crowd with the tip of his sword.

"This man has refused my generosity three times," he said. "So three times, I have been offended." His eyes swept back. "Only one of us will leave this arena."

He should have expected something like this, but Fushuai had spent too much time apart from common cultivators. "I understand your anger," he said evenly, "but I don't see how that suits our agreement."

"You mean your little bargain?" Xin Zi scoffed. "Very well. Listen here."

He turned to the assembled members of his sect.

"If I die on his blade, then mine will go to pay for their entrance token. Let them enter the ruins and take what fate allows, before going on their way. The rest of my possessions will be returned to my clan. And when I win? That fox will be mine. As for his friends, their honor rides on this duel with his. They are strangers to our sect, and they claim to belong to another, but I doubt them. I say they should be conscripted as prospective disciples if they are worthy, and if not, killed for false words."

Around the arena, more weapons slid from their scabbards. Silent figures emerged from doorways, alleys, and above, cultivators flitted lightly across rooftops, cutting off any possible escape.

Fushuai stepped up to the stone circle. Glancing back, he knew that an apology would be pointless. His overconfidence may have just cost all of them their lives. But he saw no reproach there.

Ao Lao was angry, fearful too, but those emotions were no fresher than the sweat in his robes. His circumstances would not change much, whether they stayed or fled. At least here, they did not know the full list of his crimes.

Lin met his gaze with quiet resolve, chin lifted, as determined as if she were the one entering the challenge in his place. He felt pride for her. She deserved a better end than this. Bai Tu loomed close to her side, his fur bristling, nose twitching. He looked everywhere at once, alert to the hostility coiling in the air around them.

Zhang Sha merely shrugged. His gaze was narrowed against the sunlight, the corner of his mouth quirked in dry amusement.

Fushuai still did not summon the gu-en. They hadn't marked him as the fugitive disciple of Xiao Sheng, and he wouldn't give them any reason to unless there was no other path to victory. Instead, he held the flying dao. It was a low-grade treasure, simple but serviceable. Aside from the minor formation that allowed it to float as an extension of will, it was sharp, sturdy, and responsive. A reliable blade.

He inclined his head toward Xin Zi.

"As you say, we are strangers here. I issued the challenge, and if this is your will for the shape of it, I cannot deny you." His voice was not loud, but each word carried. The observers seemed interested in what he had to say. Even if they believed he was about to die, the ritual was a part of their entertainment. Argument would have been pointless. They were in the house of an enemy and had to accept his conditions. Besides, the nephew of the sect elder had now publicly stated that if Fushuai won, they were to be allowed to leave with an entrance token in hand. If his sect brothers and sisters did not honor that, they had no honor at all. Still, this was not what he wanted.

"However, know that I have no desire to kill you."

A grin in answer. "You need not worry about that."

So the duel began.

With a single sweep of the jian, a ribbon of yellow flame leapt through the air in a bright crescent. The color marked the flame aura as being heavily influenced by Yang, and Fushuai felt a twinge of guilt at how quickly his worry for his friends fell away in favor of excitement. This, then, would be the first true test of his new technique.

He slipped forward, ducking beneath the arc even as his opponent leapt high overhead, turning upside down as he went. Their blades clashed, steel on steel, and sparks leapt into the dry light of afternoon. The first moments were nothing more than testing. Probes, feints, and swift, restrained strikes, each seeking the measure of the other. To know an opponent's reach, their rhythm, their flaws. To feel the limits of their killing intent.

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Fushuai was surprised to find he recognized the method.

Writhing Serpent Style. An aggressive school of swordplay, unpredictable by design. Or at least meant to appear so, bloated with decorative flourishes and curves. His mind flicked back to long nights under a cold moon, sparring with Goshung's legion of dancing blades. At least, today, there was only one blade flying for his throat.

Xin Zi redoubled his offense, drawing upon whatever Perfection Technique lay inscribed in his dantian. His movements grew sharper, faster, more certain, but not more forceful. Almost certainly a flame-aspected technique. Fushuai responded with Moonstep. But under the full eye of the sun, it was only half its strength. Worse, the city beneath them thrummed with formations rooted in the bluff, where Yang was predominant.

So be it.

He spent a thread of Yin, letting it burn with bright darkness in his dantian as it touched the formation he had reimagined. Around him, the air shifted. Invisible currents curled into being, lanes of absence. A hunger, coiled tight, demanding to be filled.

Hunger's Lure. That will be its name.

Xin Zi's next strike arced for his face, and he turned it aside. The dao was heavier than his opponent's jian, but the contact left behind a chip in its edge. They were not equal weapons, but it would not be the quality of their blades that decided this.

Circle of Mist had been a means of meeting Yang with Yin, extending a domain by sheer force. If Fushuai had been more advanced, possessed of a bottomless core, perhaps that would have been a sufficient solution. If Goshung had shared his limitations, it would certainly have suited him to overcome them by means of overwhelming power. When one shone brighter than the sun, why fear its rays? But Fushuai was not Goshung.

Instead of meeting force for force, he had trapped the adversarial aura in an orbit. Eventually, its course would lead it to his center. Until then, there was an envelope of space surrounding his body that was free of Yang. A place where darkness could flourish.

Moon Step surged.

He became a creature of mist and cold wind, scarcely visible apart from the blur of his blade, and the sparks of their clashing weapons died as soon as they were born. A look of alarm crossed Xin Zi's face, soon replaced with fury.

"Devouring death? Devour my sword!"

His blade rippled with a pulse of qi, shedding sparks like scales. Its grip lengthened, and its edge bled gold flame as the ribbon at its edge came alive, thickening into a fanged serpent. Blade and beast struck too fast for the eye to follow, a rhythm without pause. A piece of his sleeve ripped away. A line of fire cut across his ribs. New chips appeared along the curve of his dao. He felt the opportunity arise, a gap in the other man's intent, a weakness in the pattern. Writhing Serpent Style fought so hard to be chaotic that when one viewed it from a distance, it appeared as steady order.

Fushuai snapped out a fist and nearly lost it to the living end of the jian. The blows were coming too fast for plans; the captured Yang was coming too close to his skin. He struck out in instinct, letting the flying dao be knocked from his hand, only to spin and drive itself into his opponent's back, guided by his will. Xin Zi kept coming, and Fushuai slipped just out of his reach. With a twitch of intent, he caused the dao to shift, burying itself deeper, and the other cultivator dropped to his knees, spitting blood.

"Kill him."

Half a dozen sect members leapt into the arena, swords, spears, and knives leveled against him. Their killing intent was like a fire prickling his skin. He prepared to summon the gu-en.

"STOP." Spiritual pressure crossed the arena like a tidal wave, taking cultivators from their feet. Fushuai lost control of Hunger's Lure, and a whirlwind of golden energy burst into existence around him, spiraling up and away. The flow of his qi staggered, and Moon Step flickered out. There was still power in his meridians, but he could not call it out. The best he could do was remain standing, and when the pressure pulsed again, he could not do even that. His knees hit the stone.

From the far end of the street, where the tall spindles of stone cast long and unmoving silhouettes, a man stepped into the light.

He wore robes of forest green and black, each fold embroidered with winding coils that shimmered faintly with scale-like patterning. A thick sash of silk bound the garment closed, knotted at the side. His silver hair fell unbound across his shoulders, and at his throat, a clasp of worked jade shaped like an adder's open mouth. The pupils of his amber eyes were slitted, and they passed slowly over the gathered disciples, Xin Zi's collapsed form, and finally settled on Fushuai.

"Withdraw," said the man, and the disciples retreated without protest.

"Do you know my name, boy?"

Fushuai's mouth had gone as dry as the badlands surrounding the fortress. There was no one else this could be. "Honorable Huashe Tianzu, Sect Leader of the Emerald Adders."

The clerk from the pagoda stood some ways behind him, head bowed, hands clasped in his sleeves.

"Correct." The pressure did not ease. "I'm told you belong to a distant sect. Do you carry their sign?"

"I do." He produced the emblem, knowing how little good it would do. Their execution had been delayed, but they would not be spared. There was no safety to be found in an order without reputation, even if this core cultivator chose to believe it really existed. The wooden circle floated out of his hand, drawn at a gesture from the sect leader. Amber eyes narrowed in examination, then widened.

Huashe Tianzu's aura withdrew. "I see. You may stand."

He rose uncertainly to his feet. Then wavered, dumbfounded, as the emblem was placed back in his hand.

"You came here to visit the ruins? You have my leave to do so, along with my apologies for the behavior of my nephew. As long as you do not extend your stay beyond three days, I will ask nothing else of you other than that you tell your master you were treated fairly by the Emerald Adder Sect."

"A thousand thanks, Elder." Fushuai's mouth moved of its own accord.

"Is that your sword?" The sect leader ripped it out of Xin Zi's back, flipped it over, and presented it to him hilt first. The wounded cultivator spasmed on the ground.

"A thousand thanks." His mind was blank. Any thought that dared to form was crushed under the weight of his confusion.

Sect Leader Huashe walked away, calling out instructions as he went. "Collect my nephew. This duel was unsanctioned, and its terms are void. The members of Devouring Death are not to be touched. Back to your duties, all of you."

Fushuai watched him disappear into the shadows of the city, then looked down at the emblem in his hands. When he had examined it before, it had held no aura, been marked by no script or infusion. Now, there was a faint trace of qi bound within the wood, threads so fine they would be invisible to anyone with senses below foundation stage. A sign beneath the sign, but to him, the pattern held no more answers than the strokes carved into its surface.

What did it mean?