Chương 10

Links of chain coiled around Elder Lau's fist and spilled down to the stone at his feet. The chain connected to a pair of spiked spheres, each the size of a melon, their surfaces studded with finger-length spines. A meteor hammer, soulsteel from heads to chain, and the metal caught the lantern light and scattered it back in cold flashes. Lau had stripped to the waist, and the glow of the lanterns above carved shadows between the plates of muscle that armored his chest and shoulders.

He stood at the center of the inner disciple's main yard, a square of pale stone worn smooth by generations of foot traffic. Paper lanterns hung from posts along the perimeter, amber points of warmth against the dark. Beyond the yard, the lights of Dragon's Rest spread toward the harbor, and beyond that, the black expanse of the sea met a sky scattered with stars. Lau was Stream Entry, which meant he would have some spatial tricks up his sleeve. Lodin knew as much from Master Yan's explanation of the mortal realms.

When a Cultivator's consciousness enters the Stream, they begin to perceive the higher elements, space, time and so forth, and gain the power to crudely influence them. The inner disciples had turned out in force. It was right after dinner, so Lodin imagined they wouldn't have had much else to do but watch one of their own smash some upstart outlander. There were perhaps a hundred of them along the edges of the yard, three and four rows deep, and plenty more sat along the stone staircases and up on the walls.

The senior disciples claimed the spaces closer to the center, their blue and black robes finer in cut, their postures straighter. Chao Wei stood among those in the back, arms folded, his expression unreadable. Yi Dian had taken a position near the main hall's entrance, hands clasped behind his back, his calm gaze fixed on Lodin. Lodin felt the weight of their hard stares as he stepped into the yard. The System prompt appeared before his eyes.

– FORMAL CHALLENGE Tong Lau (Divine Gale Sect) challenges Lodin Lundgren (Unaffiliated) to sanctioned combat. Victory Conditions: Submission, Incapacity, Death Special Wager: None Accept? [Y/N] – Lodin's gaze stopped on the blank field beside Special Wager.

"How about we make this interesting," he said. Lau's lip curled back in a sneer.

"Very well. When you lose, you will kneel before the Divine Gale Sect. You will kiss my feet, the feet of Oren Shen, and the feet of Wen Heung, and beg forgiveness for the insults you have given, to include the mere sight of your disgusting barbarian face. Then you will crawl on your belly to the docks and board the first ship that will take you, and you will never again return to Dragon's Rest." Lodin chuckled.

"Damn. All that, just for me? You're so thoughtful." The grin on his face remained, but the humor left his eyes.

"There's a guy named Chen who runs a food stall in the Saltside market. If I win, you invest in his business. Say five hundred gold taels." The System prompt flickered and changed. – FORMAL CHALLENGE Tong Lau (Divine Gale Sect) challenges Lodin Lundgren (Unaffiliated) to sanctioned combat.

Victory Conditions: Submission, Incapacity, Death Special Wager: Lodin Lundgren victory: Tong Lau must invest five hundred gold taels into the business of Chen the food merchant of Saltside Tong Lau victory: Lodin Lundgren must kowtow before the Divine Gale Sect main hall, kiss the feet of Tong Lau, Oren Shen, and Wen Heung, beg forgiveness, then crawl to the docks and depart Dragon's Rest permanently Accept? [Y/N] – The instant Lodin selected yes, Lau kicked a spiked sphere of soulsteel at him.

The head of the meteor hammer blurred as it streaked toward Lodin's head, fast as a bolt from a cannon. Lodin's head moved two inches to the left. The sphere screamed past his ear and its chain trailed behind it, hissing through the space right next to his ear. There was a moment, sometime earlier, where Lodin considered whether or not to make Tong Lau look like a complete fool in front of his comrades. He was ambivalent about it, even after that enthusiastic insult of a special wager.

That instant attack, and the absolute condescension behind it, made Lodin's mind up for him. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Tong Lau was going to have a bad night tonight. Lau yanked the chain and the sphere snapped back to his grip. He caught it without a glance and sent both heads into motion. The chains crossed and uncrossed, wove patterns in the air that left afterimages against the lantern light.

One head swept low at Lodin's ankles while the other arced high toward his temple. Lodin stepped off the low sweep, ducked the high arc and felt the weight of the hammer's head as it whistled over his scalp. Lau pressed forward. His arms moved in tight circles and the heads traced figure-eights around his body. He fed chain through his fingers, extended his range, collapsed it again. The rhythm shifted between long wide arcs and short vicious thrusts.

Lodin gave ground for a while, the better to observe his opponent, get to know him. His feet traced lateral cuts across the stone, quiet shifts of weight that kept him a comfortable step ahead of the soulsteel. His eyes tracked the heads, the chains, those faint shoulder movements. The kill zone stretched and contracted and stretched again, and he let it, content to map its edges. Patterns were patterns, and Lau had plenty of them.

Lau swept the left head in a wide horizontal arc and Lodin stepped back to let it pass. The chain whipped around behind his calves in an attempt to to tangle his legs and yank him off balance. Lodin hopped the chain and its links scraped across stone beneath his feet. He landed light, reset his stance before Lau could capitalize on it and casually stepped off the next swing. Lau gritted his teeth. Lodin grinned at him.

"I'm right here man. Come rearrange this disgusting barbarian face already." Lau vented a breath out his nostrils like a bull, shot the right head of his meteor hammer straight at Lodin's chest, a thrust rather than a swing, fast as a striking cobra. At the same time he swung the other head around in an arc, timed to catch him if he dodged sideways. Lodin stepped forward, inside the arc of the left. The thrust passed over his shoulder, so close he felt the wind of it against his neck.

The chain grazed his back as the left head whipped past and buried itself in the stone with a crack that split it. Lau ripped it free and came again. Both heads traced spirals now, wild orbits that shifted plane and speed without pause. The chains sang as they cut the air. Soulsteel blurred around Lau in a cage that moved with him as he pressed forward step by step, drove Lodin back toward the disciples at the perimeter. Lodin slipped one head by no more than the width of a finger.

He ducked another that would have caved in a lesser man's skull. He stepped off the line of a thrust that meant to punch through his sternum. His breath came easy, his heartbeat slow and even, and the stone felt familiar under his boots, polished to glass by a hundred years of footwork. The crowd had gone silent. Disciples pressed back from the perimeter. A vein pulsed at Lau's temple. His lips peeled back from his teeth.

The spirals collapsed tighter, faster, a storm of steel that left neither gaps nor angles nor room to breathe. And still Lodin slipped through. Lau's nostrils flared. He whipped both heads around in a double horizontal sweep, one high, one low. Lodin shot forward, into the gap between the arcs, where the chains crossed and the heads had not yet arrived. His left hook sank into Lau's ribs before the Elder could pull back. Knuckles met muscle.

The impact thudded through Lodin's arm and he felt the meat compress beneath his fist. Lau's eyes went wide as the punch doubled him over. But Lodin was gone before he could retort. He pivoted off his lead foot and slipped back outside the range of the chains and reset his stance, hands near the chin. Lau pressed a hand to his ribs. The breath that left him came tight, and his face was twisted into a grimace of pain and embarrassment. Lodin bounced on his toes, rolled his shoulder.

"Wanna check on that? I can wait." Lau's grimace deepened. He reset his stance and kept more distance now, fed out extra chain and let the heads of his meteor hammer swing in wider arcs that kept Lodin at bay. Lau circled left and Lodin mirrored him. The spiked spheres traced lazy orbits between them, a boundary of soulsteel that promised punishment to any attempt to close the gap. He feinted high but the real attack came low, a sweep that skipped off the stone and shot toward his ankles.

Lodin hopped it, landed, and Lau was already there with the follow-up. Both heads streaked down at his skull from opposite angles, making Lodin step backward as their heads cratered the stone, spraying shrapnel in his face. Lau pressed. The soulsteel snaked toward Lodin's ankles, his wrists, his throat. Each arc of the weapon forced a choice: step left or step right, duck or jump, retreat or advance into the gleaming soulsteel teeth of the meteor hammer's spiked heads.

When Lodin stepped left, the chain swept left to meet him. When he ducked a high swing, the other head came around low. The Elder herded him across the stone, cut off angles, collapsed his options one by one. Lodin let the chain graze his forearm on the next pass. The soulsteel kissed his skin and skipped off as if it had struck a boulder, rattled the links of the chain and made Lau's arm jerk from the rebound. A murmur rippled through the crowd. Lau appeared to stifle a snarl of frustration.

Tong Lau stood at the still center of a soulsteel storm, but Lodin read the tension at the corners of his eyes, the rigid set of his jaw, the cost it took to hold that grimace in place. The Divine Gale disciple twisted, brought his arms into sync, and both heads of the meteor hammer swung around his body together and then shot forth. One aimed for Lodin's head, the other for his sternum. Lodin chose not to evade. He pivoted, angled his body to the attack, and punched both heads as they came. One high, one low.

The clang rang like the toll of an immense bell, and a shockwave rolled across the yard. Disciples in the front row flinched and pressed their hands to their ears. Lau's face strained, just for a fraction of a heartbeat. Lodin shot in and struck Lau in the jaw with a crisp right cross. The speed of it made a statement to any observer competent enough to notice. He could have done this at any time. The impact snapped Lau's head to the side. Blood and spit flew from his lips.

His feet left the stone, and for an instant he hung in the air, suspended by the force of the blow. Lau hit the stone and rolled, came up in a crouch, one hand pressed to his jaw, the other already on the chain, ready to recall both heads. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it with the back of his hand and stared at the red smear. Then he looked at Lodin. The rage was there, plain on his face, but something colder flickered behind it now, calculation.

"I'll keep holding back as long as you do," said Lodin. Lau closed his eyes, took a deep breath, expelled it through his mouth. He rose to his feet, rolled his neck. The meteor hammer began to spin again, slow at first but building speed with each rotation.

"Fine." said Lau. Lightning crackled to life along the chains. Blue-white arcs of it jumped from link to link, wreathed the spiked heads of the meteor hammer in coronas of energy that snapped and spat. The air filled with the smell of ozone. The hair on Lodin's arms stood on end. Lau spun his weapon faster still, and the chains blurred into circles of light, making the displaced air begin to spiral around him. Dust lifted from the stone. Loose robes in the crowd rippled and snapped.

The spiral tightened, accelerated, became a vortex that grew stronger, faster, wider by the second. Then Lau whipped his chain, and the tornado of lightning and steel screamed toward Lodin.