Stone Mountain Ox kept his pace slow, not just because of the unruly treads carved into the cliff, but also to maintain his focus. The technique taught to him by Guo Lin was not yet stable.
It’s just the two of us now, he thought. All that was left of twelve siblings, the rest dead as a result of gang rivalries, skirmishes with the law, or accidents while working at the insatiable quarries.
Guo Lin had been the wisest of them, his younger sister had left Ruby Swift City as soon as she’d been able. And she’d returned so powerful that even he, Stone Mountain Ox, must call her Senior Sister.
She’d left the low city behind and found a way to break her fate. Stone Mountain Ox had thought he’d also broken his own fate—and that of his brothers Big Ox and Little Ox—only for the House of Yu to prove him differently. Those damned nobles would never be satisfied with what they already had. They’d continue to take and take from the people of the low city until nothing was left but blood drying on marble.
The stone-aligned qi moving through Stone Mountain Ox’s meridians weighed down his thoughts, it kept the hot anger burning in his chest in check.
The so-called dūtóu of the Yu family poked his head through door of the Slopping Bucket Drinkery. Stone Mountain Ox threw a fist-size block of marble at him, only to miss and have it shatter farther down the cliffside.
Guo Lin had told him that his aim would improve with practice. Eventually, he’d never miss once the range of his control expanded.
I will have my revenge, Stone Mountain Ox thought. That devil of a dūtóu was trapped, and he was without his Qi-Blossoming allies. Senior Sister Lin will finish the rest once she’s back from the south. When she learns about what happened at the Dreaming Ox, the House of Yu will truly fall. No amount of good fortune will be enough to ward her anger.
Unlike his sister, Stone Mountain Ox had raised himself to the Qi-Blossoming realm. He didn’t have martial arts or spells, like the scions and retainers of the noble houses. What he knew was what he’d learned in the quarries and in the streets of the low city, step by step growing in ruthless power, taking what was needed from the mountains and the people.
Poverty was a curse, and he had done everything—would do anything—to break its hold on him.
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Hong Fei paced as he waited. The blue-steel sword was already in hand, and his meridians tingled from the mixture of warm essence and cool qi flowing through them. Thoughts flitted through his mind, but none settled. It was if they flew at a great elevation; there was nowhere for them to land.
After the blood priest had retreated into the Void, Hong Fei had let himself linger in the clarity he’d found. The moment of enlightenment wouldn’t last—they never did—but he could extend its duration by not holding onto it.
That was the thing about the Dao: Grasp too hard and it slipped through your fingers.
“Become as dust and just be,” his mother had often used to say. Them and: “Don’t think I won’t spank you for…” With the rest of the sentence completed by a description of whatever mischief he’d gotten into that day.
The ground tremors had been growing steadily and steadily stronger, yet they suddenly went still. Hong Fei felt the Mountain Man waiting outside. The Rock Knife had brought with him a pressure; it felt like being buried under a landslide.
Hong Fei focused on his breath. He loosened his muscles and joints, then took his stance—right foot behind the left, weight on the balls of his feet, and sword forward to strike or intercept as necessary.
“This time you can’t run,” a voice rumbled from outside.
A river of white flowed across the open doorway to block the entrance. More of the marble then covered the windows, dimming the already dark tavern. The only light now came from a pair of lanterns hanging in the corridor behind Hong Fei.
The swordsman pooled essence in his eyes, and his view of the common room brightened. A breath’s worth of time passed, then another. The steps outside resumed, and a stool in the corner fell over from being shaken.
Hong Fei heard a door behind him unlatching and opening. The owner peeking through perhaps?
“Not yet, friend,” the swordsman said. “Find a corner at the farthest part of the residence instead. Put several walls between you and us.”
The door closed with a thud, followed by the sound of feet scrambling away. The distraction was minimal, yet the Mountain Man seized it. The marble blocking the doorway split, and the Rock Knife gangster hurtled through it, his hand reaching out to grab Hong Fei by the throat.
Hong Fei’s breath quickened, and he slipped aside. With the same motion he also drew his blade across the Mountain Man’s arm, yet only a thin line of blood resulted. The sword hadn’t carved into the flesh like he’d intended. The Mountain Man had suffused his body with qi, and it was earth-aligned qi at that, especially potent at resisting damage.
At the Qi-Gathering realm, Hong Fei wasn’t able to project his own qi outward, neither into a weapon nor into a spell. As a result, he wouldn’t have an easy time injuring this foe. That was the advantage spirit beasts had over humans—claws and beaks counted as parts of their bodies.
For Hong Fei, without those natural advantages, the most straightforward strategy when facing a proficient enemy at his own level was to target the weak points at the throat, joints, and eyes, or to outlast them by fighting until the opponent was out of qi and no longer able to defend themselves. That wasn’t something he could do against a Qi-Blossoming fighter, however. The amount of qi in the Mountain Man’s cauldrons far surpassed Hong Fei’s, even with the recent infusion from the moment of enlightenment.
The Mountain Man landed with a crack, the stone under him shattering. A handful more of the tavern’s stools clattered to the ground. Hong Fei saw his foe’s feet shifting; the body would have to turn with them, and the most likely attack would therefore be… A palm strike came at the swordsman, yet he’d already ducked back. His sword licked out once more to attack the Mountain Man’s arm, drawing another bloody line upon it.
Hong Fei’s eyes took in the whole of his opponent. He saw the Mountain Man’s eyes flick to the left, with a kick following immediately afterward. Yet the swordsman was a canny fighter and knew that the eyes could lie. He watched instead for shifts in weight and stance, for the minute signs of muscles tensing. Without these warnings, the speed of a Qi-Blossoming warrior would overwhelm him.
The kick was a feint, so Hong Fei struck at the hand performing a palm strike, scoring another hit upon his opponent.
The Mountain Man stepped back, outside of the space that had unconsciously become the dueling ring for the two men, and he shook the hand that had been struck. “You’re good.”
Hong Fei nodded. Usually, he’d taunt his opponents to disrupt their thinking, but there was a purity to this fight he didn’t want to disturb. And besides, he needed all his focus simply to avoid being hit.
I am the sword, and the sword is everything, he thought.
The Mountain Man considered Hong Fei for a time, then he drew a stone club from his belt, five chi long and as thick as a fist. The weapon didn’t appear comfortable in the Rock Knife’s grip, yet it didn’t need to be for a test swing to cause the air to whir. The hairs along the back of Hong Fei’s neck rose. Getting hit would crush muscles and shatter bones, even with essence reinforcing them.
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Hong Fei gulped despite himself. Fear prickled his skin and rose like a swamp from his belly into his mind. Yet, he continued to fly above the turmoil. He thought, The blade’s edge approaches.
The swordsman lunged taking the initiative from his foe. The Mountain Man had swung the club again in another test, and the blue-steel blade slipped in afterward to penetrate the Rock Knife’s belly. A splotch of blood appeared on the man’s shirt. Then, Hong Fei leapt back to avoid an overhead strike that smashed the floor and sent rock shards flying. The swordsman felt their sting on his face and along his arms.
The fear pulled at Hong Fei, yet he continued to fly along the path established by decades of practice with the sword.
“I’m done playing,” the Mountain Man said. “Death is death. I’ll just smash you into paste and be done with you.” Qi began to radiate from him in a torrent, coating him like a second skin.
Hong Fei dodged a strike too fast to see; he’d only known it was coming from the way it originated—his foe’s foot rising, the hip turning, and the waist twisting.
The club fluttered the swordsman’s robes in passing. A hair slower, and the weapon would’ve crushed his chest.
The duel was on in earnest now, and Hong Fei clung to his opponent like a creeping vine, forcing the Mountain Man into awkward stances and even more awkward attacks, ones totally unsuited to the club’s length. That was the only way for him to survive the Rock Knife’s onslaught.
The Mountain Man swung his club over and over and over again. Tables collapsed or were sent flying into the walls. The stools were crushed underfoot, as were the jugs and cups left behind. The floor itself turned into rubble.
And yet, the Rock Knife never lost patience—he truly was as solid as a mountain—because he knew that eventually Hong Fei would run out of essence. The Mountain Man’s martial arts were inferior to Hong Fei’s but his cultivation would let him win anyway.
“I will be forever,” the Mountain Man whispered to himself, seemingly coming to his own epiphany in the middle of the duel.
A truly gallant fighter might’ve let his opponent comprehend the insight forming, but Hong Fei’s survival required a denial of that grace. He struck to distract his foe, then again when the Mountain Man defended himself.
The tide turned, and a witness just arriving at the tavern might reasonably assume it was Hong Fei with the higher level of cultivation. Cuts accrued on the Rock Knife’s face, arms, torso, and legs. Nothing deep, but those wounds should’ve infuriated the gangster.
They didn’t. “No one will keep me from what is mine,” the Mountain Man said. Then, with a deeper ferocity: “What’s mine is mine!” And his club shot toward Hong Fei.
The swordsman barely got his blade into position in time, not to block or even deflect, but to create a point of contact which he used to push himself out of the way. The metal rang in complaint, though it didn’t break.
The qi surrounding the Mountain Man withdrew into his body. It emerged again through his club, seemingly extending its length by another three chi. When the gangster swung the weapon, it should’ve caught on the ceiling, yet the club drove through the stone instead, breaking apart everything in its way.
A swung weapon was most powerful at its tip and weakest at the point closest to the body. With this change in the fight’s dynamic, however, Hong Fei didn’t dare risk entering inside the club’s reach like he had before. If he was struck by any part of the club now, it’d cripple him, losing him the duel and his life.
The Mountain Man grinned ferociously, since Hong Fei’s plight was evident. A light sheen of sweat shone on the gangster’s brow, while sweat poured down the swordsman’s. Then Hong Fei seemingly made a mistake, picking the wrong direction to dodge and finding himself within the corridor leading to the owner’s residence.
The massive club swung quickly, less for power and more to bar Hong Fei from escaping back out into the common room. The Mountain Man’s face showed his eagerness.
Hong Fei leapt back to distance himself from the duel. He seemingly glanced from side to side, but the curtained rooms led to even smaller spaces. And the door behind him was locked when he tried it. There was apparently nowhere to go and no escape possible.
The swordsman sighed as if coming to terms with his end. “Let me thank you for this fight,” he said, then saluted the Mountain Man.
“I’m still going to kill you,” was the reply, “and I’ll throw your head into the Tistkil so that you lose your way in the underworld.”
Hong Fei steadied his breathing. “Then you’re an ungrateful wretch. If that’s the case, I’ll break my family’s taboo and reveal our secret Blood-Soaked Heaven sword technique.” His blade began to weave an intricate pattern, surely the beginning of an esoteric martial art.
The Mountain Man gripped his club tightly and watched Hong Fei with eyes narrowed in concentration. A breath later, when the swordsman did nothing but continue to swing his sword, he edged closer, step by step. That caution was a testament to his respect for the skills his opponent had already demonstrated.
Hong Fei’s gaze was steady on his foe’s face. His lying eyes told the Mountain Man that the gangster was the sole focus of the swordman’s attention. Meanwhile, the Ilchit blood priest was drawn into existence at the other end of the corridor. The summoned ally landed quietly upon a section of the floor still intact.
“Yes,” Hong Fei said, seemingly directing the word at the Mountain Man.
His foe paused in confusion. There’d yet to be any kind of magic from the dancing sword. “Is this a game to you? Some kind of foolery?”
Behind the Mountain Man, the blood priest heard the command hidden within Hong Fei’s utterance. He noted the gangster with disdain, and the gaze he sent Fate’s Attendant wasn’t much different.
For a moment, Hong Fei wondered if his ally might simply watch events as they unfolded. Then the enlightenment he’d been experiencing popped like a bubble. The sense of elevation he’d felt vanished, and he was left to plunge into the swamp of his fear.
Only his training kept the swordsman from panicking. His mind darted from thought to thought in search of a way to survive. A different kind of clarity took hold, this one imposed by him upon himself.
Still at the other end of the corridor, the blood priest sighed silently. With a gesture, a pair of moss-green eyes appeared above his head. Hong Fei didn’t recognize the creature they belonged to, but from the eyes’ spacing and how they angled slightly away from each other, it couldn’t be human.
Those eyes judged Hong Fei; he felt it. Then they shifted their attention down to the blood priest, and a look of pity passed over them.
A red mist arose from the man’s body, like an offering to the eyes above him. The fine droplets disappeared like water evaporating, and the blood priest suddenly distorted, his lines and colors smearing. He started as human, then in the blink of an eye became a giant badger.
That was Auntie Ling—it could be no one other—yet there was a presence in her posture that was not the badger’s alone. Too much wisdom was hidden in the depths of her eyes.
The Mountain Man shook his head at Hong Fei. Not once had he turned his attention away from the dancing sword in his attempt to uncover the mystery it presented. “Whatever you intend, it’s meaningless. Your death is here.” The Rock Knife cautiously took a step. The club shifted forward, a prelude to testing the supposed secret art.
Meanwhile, Auntie Ling raised a paw, and qi extended from her claws until they were over three chi long. Without a sound, she leapt at the Mountain Man to drive her claws through the back of his knee. A swipe followed to the side to cut the lower part of his leg loose from his body.
The Mountain Man tilted, his face twisting in anger; he swung his club behind him as he fell, and the weapon smashed through the walls of the rooms for rent. Auntie Ling ducked under the blow, yet it still clipped her across one shoulder.
Hong Fei lunged, and his sword bit into the Mountain Man’s other knee. With a cry, he harnessed his essence and qi both to drive the tip deeper into the joint. The club swung back around toward him, and the swordsman was forced to let go of his weapon and dive out of the way or else lose his head.
On his back now, the Mountain Man had had to let one hand go in order to swing at Hong Fei. That left the other open, and Auntie Ling’s jaws clamped on to it. Her headshake sent the Rock Knife smashing into the corridor’s walls.
The gangster let go of the club fully. He pummeled at Auntie Ling’s head with his fist, rocking her with blow after blow, but she wouldn’t release him. So, the Mountain Man clawed at her eyes instead. In answer, she dragged him out into the common room and flung him up into the ceiling. On the way down, she leapt onto him, attempting to bite his neck.
The fight turned chaotic, as the badger and the Rock Knife scrambled against each other. There was no art or grace in their actions, just the will to end the other. Hong Fei had followed the other combatants into the common room, but there was no room for him in such a disorganized melee. A stray blow would send him flying.
The Mountain Man should’ve won the fight. Near the top of his realm, he was stronger and faster. And yet, spirit beasts were known to be potent fighters. Even though she’d been previously injured, Auntie Ling possessed sharper instincts, denser muscles, and thicker bones. Not to mention, the Rock Knife had lost a leg to her at the start of their fight.
Hong Fei circled the room, watching carefully for how he might help. In the end, he didn’t need to. Auntie Ling eventually did catch hold of the Mountain Man’s throat and rip it from his body. Blood sprayed, and the Rock Knife’s chest heaved, causing even more blood to pump into the air. Meanwhile, she continued to ravage him to keep his qi from closing the wound.
This is what it’s like at the end, Hong Fei thought. The beauty of the sword’s dance and the ugliness of meat fighting for survival… which is the more real truth?
He didn’t have an answer to that question. Neither of the two types of clarity the swordsman had experienced had provided it.
Eventually, the Mountain Man stilled, and Hong Fei felt a cool energy flowing into him. The black 2 that had hovered above the gangster’s head was gone. Ostensibly, a little more of the curse on Yu Ning had been wiped away.
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Auntie Ling, Uncommon Badger 3 | 3. Tough: resists damage, especially bludgeoning. Free: no upkeep cost.
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Ilchit Blood Priest 2* | 2*. Shapechanger: change appearance, within 20% mass of target. Substitute: calls forth a spirit from the deck and empowers it with a +1 | +1 for one hour; afterward both the blood priest and the called spirit enter a twenty-four hour cooldown period.
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Guo Lin, sister to the ox trio of gangsters, the leader of the Conclave in Ruby Swift City.
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Stone Mountain Ox, the leader of the Rock Knife Gang, BLACK 2.