Chương 20: Death Spiral, I

You have been killed by a Sky-tier Dagger Art for the sixth time. No reward. Wu Hao stared up at the blue box and thought, as loudly as he could: Shit. He'd spent his last few lives trying to kill the cultist, and he'd made a bit of progress, but for every step forward he took a step backward in other ways. Never far enough that he'd actually succeed, but close enough that he still felt it was possible, still knew that he could do it if everything aligned just right.

For his fourth death at the cultist's hands, he'd learned the Raking Sting, a technique that was meant to be used in combination with the Long Hook. It looked like a simple stab, but it was deeper than that - specific targets he was supposed to aim for, ways in which he was supposed to put his feet just so, and a specific application of qi that'd give the tip of the knife extreme piercing power. For his fifth death at the cultist's hands, he'd learned the Rippling Net.

It was a variation on the Twisting Edge, which instead of trying to slash the opponent's throat or limbs focused instead on forming a tight net of qi-enhanced slashes that would form a net in which opponent's weapons would be caught. The idea was that it'd slow the opponent down, if not force him to stop his technique entirely. Both were useful, and they were part of why Wu Hao was getting closer and closer.

He'd held out hope that whatever the sixth move was would be something that could give him even better odds of killing the cultist. That hope was dashed, now. He'd have to make do with what he had. Wu Hao muffled the reflexive cursing, though he had to nearly bite his lips to prevent it from getting out. If he stomped up the mountain for the first parts of the march to let his emotions run their course, no one said anything, even if they had probably noted it. Calm down, Wu Hao told himself. It makes sense.

Rewards couldn't continue forever. It helped a little bit, as did telling himself that there was no way that the Rending Dagger Art would continue to have more fragments. It was an art that consisted of five strong moves, and those should be enough for him as far as daggers went for now. There were other arts, other ways in which he could still profit from his deaths. Still, though, the sight of the announcement that he'd run through the rewards for dying to the cultist stung.

Unless he could incite the other man to use something other than his dagger? No, that wasn't very realistic. And probably not all that useful, either. There was the option of trying to get them a different mission, but after a while of marching he shook his head and dismissed that as not being practical. He had no guarantee that even if he did manage to manipulate Uncle in sending them elsewhere, that he'd face something that would actually give him something useful.

Besides, he'd started to get a handle on the cultist's movements, the way he thought. How he picked his targets, and what the sequence of the moves that he used was. He was getting closer. Did he need more moves to finally cross that line? No, he decided. Having the five parts of the Rending Dagger Art would be enough. It was a fully-fledged sky-tier martial art, the same as what the cultist had.

They weren't matched in experience, or the qi that they had at their disposal, or even raw physical ability, but their martial arts were equal, and the cultist hadn't fought Wu Hao as many times as Wu Hao had fought him. His pace, which had slowed a little after he'd finished his little outburst, picked up again. But that did raise another question, though. He now knew every part of the Rending Dagger Art, as far as he could tell. He'd executed every move now, but there was something he figured he was missing.

Why were they part of the same art to begin with? The Void Rip was useful and the Long Hook were useful, but one let him attack at a distance with a short-range weapon and the other let him extend his short-range weapon to the range of a sword or even a spear, if he had the qi. The Raking Sting followed from the Long Hook and the Rippling Net followed from the Twisting Edge. That was so obvious that it'd just been included in the knowledge that he'd received. What connected those two loose parts, though?

And then realization hit so hard that he nearly tripped and broke his ankle. He stumbled away from the wide crack in the ground, receiving a few questioning glances from others. The Long Hook and the Void Rip are connected, he thought, face going absently slack as he thought. He'd finally understood. That's what the Long Hook and the Void Rip mean. They're both techniques meant to extend the knife! Of course everything was connected. How could it not be?

It seemed so obvious now, and he wondered how he'd never seen it before. The cultist had been able to chain several of his moves after another and that had seemed natural, but Wu Hao had thought that'd just been a consequence of the other man having had more experience and training. He probably did, but Wu Hao had also just not understood each part of the Rending Dagger Art as one whole instead of a sequence of moves.

Now that he knew that they were all connected, he could chain the moves together, too: he could lead with a Raking Sting if he was close enough, or maybe he could start by blocking an attack with the Rippling Net and then change that into a Twisting Edge as a counter attack. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. The possibilities for the Rending Dagger Art weren't endless, but they felt broader than they ever had.

Detecting something moving in the sides of his vision, Wu Hao's instincts immediately drew all the qi he had and sent it towards his right arm, which snapped up and executed one of the moves from the Rippling Net. Even with no knife and with his core locked away behind the filter, he easily caught whatever'd just been thrown at him and prepared his next move. An attempt to stab him from this distance was usually followed by - It was only 726.

Wu Hao stared at the other boy, whose arm he'd apparently just caught in the middle of trying to slap him awake.

"Brother?" Wu Hao asked calmly, saying nothing more. He didn't let go of 726's wrist, but he did let his qi bleed away back to his core. He let it trickle through his limbs before, though, banishing the sense of numb coldness that'd pervaded his body when he'd summoned up all his qi and found it lacking. 726 yanked back his hand, but Wu Hao'd managed to get a good grip and the other boy couldn't manage to free himself.

"Are you defective?" 726 asked, his hand still extended. If reactions hadn't been beaten out of them, the other boy would have been fuming.

"You have been grinning, like - like an idiotic child."

"Apologies, Brother," Wu Hao said, letting go. Red fingermarks were visible around the other boy's wrist, where Wu Hao's qi-enhanced fingers had held him in place.

"I won't do it again." 726 gave him a long, searching glance.

"See to it," he said.

"Otherwise I'll execute you myself." This time it was his turn to stomp off, before 732 had even had the chance to announce that it was their turn to leave. 729 stopped next to Wu Hao as they set out, though. The scar had still pulled his lips into that cruel grin, but Wu Hao thought that there was a little more to it, this time.

"Didn't think you had it in you," 729 said. Maybe Wu Hao was imagining it, but there seemed almost to have been something like approval in his tone. And then he marched on, leaving Wu Hao with brows furrowed as he tried to understand what'd just happened. The rest of the day passed like the last one had. He marched, he worked, he stole, and then he cultivated. He'd already begun to grow somewhat numb to the thrill of stealing from Uncle Liu, who'd only ever reacted the first time that Wu Hao had stolen from him.

Wu Hao had gotten slightly better at it since then, though - had gotten the timing down better, had figured out which of the knives lay in a way that he could nab it without making sound. Now he was back at the battlefield, wondering what to do next. It was becoming clear that though he was making progress, that progress was getting slower and slower now that he didn't have new techniques to try out every time he fought the cultist. The men from the Jin clan stood there, as they always did.

Wu Hao wondered at their mission, or whatever else had brought them to the battlefield. Was it just that they'd followed their leader? But in that case, why had their leader come? He didn't know all that much about the Jin clan, but even a child knew that they were a clan of saber wielders and that they were one of the unorthodox factions. Not quite as unorthodox as the Peng clan, but still, they were a clan that had a reputation for mercenary work of the more brutal sort.

Wu Hao had distant memories of being told that a member of the Jin clan wasn't considered an adult unless he'd bathed his saber in a vat of blood from his victims. Looking at the two men standing the most relaxed guard that Wu Hao had ever seen, it was easy to put that last one down as being an old wives' tale. The man in purple yawned very obviously as the column of deathsworn passed. His name was Zunxin, though Wu Hao hadn't caught his last name.

The man in red lay on the ground again, with his saber laying on his belly. They didn't seem like remorseless killers. Nonetheless, they probably were. Especially the man in red. The last time that they'd talked, Wu Hao had been the focus of the man's unrestrained aura, which had reminded him of standing face-to-face with a giant sword. He'd found small cuts on his arms later and seen the edges of his rags cut into ribbons, so the other man possessed enough power to turn his qi into physical steel on a whim.

But regardless of them being stronger than him or not, or even if they could crush him like an ant, that didn't matter. What was the worst they could do, kill him? Others had tried, and it hadn't stuck yet. Wu Hao broke away from the rest of the deathsworn and walked over to the two men. Their usual conversation had finished, with Zunxin pointing them out and the man in red explaining that they were deathsworn. Wu Hao had managed to draw them into a conversation once, so hopefully he could do it again.

Zunxin cocked an eyebrow. He lifted himself slightly from the tent, as if reminding Wu Hao that he wasn't allowed to step inside. That was a little interesting, and Wu Hao made a note of it, but on the other hand Zunxin also didn't bother actually drawing his saber.

"What, kid?" he asked, as Wu Hao stopped in front of them.

"I have a question," Wu Hao stated.

"Yeah?" Zunxin said.

"Hell, kid, who doesn't?" But Wu Hao wasn't really looking at Zunxin. He'd caught the eye of the red-headed man, who had lifted his head slightly to study Wu Hao.

"What is it?" the other man asked.

"How do I defeat someone stronger than me?" Wu Hao demanded.