Chapter 8 - Azure-Scaled Dragon (Final)

Several days later, a disciple barged into Mao Zixin's room.

"Teacher! She has been sighted!"

"Already?" He leaped to his feet. "Continue your studies. I will handle this."

When the man volunteered to assist, he had been sternly told off. "She may be weak now, but she's still dangerous. The only way she could be a threat to anyone now would be with her poisons. You'd learn nothing of the sword from this battle. Stay here and resume your studies. This obligation is purely my own."

On the way to the place of her last sighting, Mao Zixin pondered her sudden reemergence. "She came out much sooner than I expected. Actually, I should have been able to anticipate this. Even if she could survive the wound I gave her, her internal energy would be in tatters, and she would not be able to sustain herself for as long as usual. This is very fortunate for me - I won't be squandering as much time on this affair as I initially thought."

Behind a distant treeline he spotted a trail of white smoke stretching into the blue sky. His eyebrow curved with astonishment.

He soon arrived by a fireplace, a skewered rabbit roasting upon it. Mao Zixin spun the skewer and found a a small incision into where the rabbit's heart would have been. The animal must have been killed with that single strike.

Considering the circumstances, he found that to be strange. Was she really in a state to be chasing rabbits and making such precise strikes?

The bounty was still raw, so the hunter couldn't have gotten far. Mao Zixin ventured deeper into the forest.

There, he soon found his mark.

That tall figure, her white robe stained crimson, faced him with her back. She was preoccupied with picking blue colored berries off a bush and funneling them into her mouth.

He sighed. Considering her capabilities, she must have been well aware that he was here, so he made no efforts to conceal himself.

Mao Zixin approached, his black sword bare. As he got closer, he could hear her speak.

"Oh, even the mountain's simple bounty tastes heavenly to me now." She rambled. "After all that time I spent in that hole, even these sour berries taste like honey. Oh, I hope this feeling never wears off! I feel so gleeful, everything feels so vibrant, so beautiful! Wonderful! I feel so fantastic, I just know this can't be good for me..."

But then she finally turned towards him. Mao Zixin halted. Her lengthy figure curved to throw him a narrow-eyed sideways glance past her disheveled golden hair. As if unable to pry herself away from the mountain's fruits for even a moment, she snapped off a little branch and kept nibbling on the berries like grapes off the vine. Her yellow eyes stared at him.

Mao Zixin had no desire to exchange any words with her. He resumed his approach.

"Did you not hear me? I'm enjoying myself right now. You've got a lot of nerve, boy, to try and get in the way of that. Disrespecting your elders?" She flicked her great white sleeve, revealing a rusty blade. She extended her endlessly long arm and pointed it at him.

Mao Zixin stopped. "Youtwo are like peas in a pod. Both posturing to the very end, no matter how meaningless. Well, let me indulge you just a little bit. I'll let you tell me just who it is that I'm about to kill. You might as well part with the mystery of your identity now."

"You wanna know my name?" She gazed up at the heavens, a finger poking into her chin. "Ah, I don't know, kid. Right now, that's a more complicated question than you might think."

"Have it your way." Mao Zixin cut her off. He shortened the distance and thrust his sword into her eye.

A loud clang split the air. The woman had shifted from her initial position; how, exactly, she had repelled the attack, Mao Zixin didn't see.

"Ohh, I recognize that cruddy form... You must be... little Tian's disciple!"

Mao Zixin found himself balking at what he had just seen and heard. "...So Tao Geming went into that much detail about our sect's affairs, did he?"

He darted back in and they exchanged another clash with their swords. Once again the woman slipped away unscathed.

"You really can't be human..." Mao Zixin shook his head in disbelief. "To think that you would heal this much in just a few days, from such a lethal injury, enough to clash swords with me again...!"

"Oh, it's certainly amazing, but you're overselling it just a little bit, junior. Actually, that wound you left me with has barely gotten any better. I can barely use any internal energy at all. But even this much is more than I've ever had..."

He already grew tired of her strange attitude. But she continued to chatter on.

"And actually, kid, you're getting in the way of my healing process. But you know what? Believe it or not, there's no grudge against you. If you just leave now, I might spare you. Or better yet, bring me something to eat."

Mao Zixin lunged into the fray once more, slashing at her elusive figure again and again. But his attacks were unable to stop her from running her mouth.

"Anyways, to steer the conversation back a bit... There's one thing the two of us can agree on - names are not that important." She said, discarding the now empty branch, nibbled clean. "But I get it - it's inconvenient, yeah? Well, kid, just call me the Sword Ghost."

The Azure-Scaled Dragon furrowed his brow. Their repeated clases took them beyond the forest. They briefly split, their battle pausing yet again.

"It appears that her miraculous recovery was not without consequence." Mao Zixin thought. "I suppose it's no surprise; that grandiose internal energy of hers, running rampant through her destroyed meridians, must have wreaked havoc upon her mind. It's probably for the best. If she were sober, desperate, and decided to fight like Tao Geming, it might have been problematic, but since she still insists on using the sword, this should be a simple matter. And yet... something's not quite right."

Mao Zixin took a deep breath.

"Oh, look at him." The Sword Ghost gloated. "The little boy is about to get serious. Well... It's about time I shook off some rust, too. Come on."

She beckoned him over.

Infuriated, the Sword Sage stepped forth to accept the challenge. He performed an exploratory jab with his black blade.

The rusty sword touched his. In that moment, Mao Zixin felt as though a mountain had suddenly nested at the end of his weapon. His eyes wide, he felt his footwork crumbling, his entire body reeled in by an invisible force.

With a flick of the wrist, Mao Zixin released his blade from captivity and brought it up to parry the slash coming down for his neck.

The Sword Ghost shook her head.

"You know, I gotta say, your cultivation is pretty solid! I don't think I could have handled you in my prime. It's too bad, huh, kid? Life's just so unfair sometimes. Well, I know exactly how you feel!"

She briefly chuckled. But then her features grew cold. "Your sword skills, though? Well, there's not much to write home about there."

Mao Zixin gnashed his teeth in rage. "She's not just throwing her internal energy around like last time. This is no mere luck, fluke, or coincidence. These skills are legitimate! But how can this be? You're telling me that she... achieved some kind of enlightenment from her derangement?! I cannot believe this! A fit of lunacy is all it took for her to go head to head with me in the sword?!"

"Come on over, kid. See if you can't learn a thing or two."

Their blades flashed, and the air thundered with the clash of steel. They darted to and fro, swift as wind, dipping in and out of the reach of each other's swords.

No terrain could impede them. They weaved around trees, slid down steep paths, ascended with great leaps. As they vied for an opening, their prodigious footwork carried them all around the mountain.

Their chaotic battle soon brought them before a pond. The intensity of their combat allowed no room for such trifles. They stepped foot onto the lake and skirted along its surface as though it were solid ground.

Like a pair of dragons, they danced atop the water. White and blue, yellow and black, all blurred together in ceaseless motion.The slightest misstep would send one plunging into the depths, spelling certain doom at the sword of the other. Their feet sent only the lightest of ripples along the surface of the lake; but the collisions of their blades stirred the calm waters to life, turning their battleground into a roiling sea.

When they returned to solid ground, they violently crossed their swords. Mao Zixin's scholar hat had been sliced off his head, falling in two pieces. His long black hair flowed freely in the wind.

The fighters separated, their rhythm finally interrupted.

Mao Zixin glared at the Sword Ghost with immeasurable vitriol. Though his expression retained most of its composure, he was white-knuckling his sword, rendering his true disposition laughably obvious, his attempts to conceal it almost comical.

And he couldn't bear it in silence.

"Wipe that ugly smirk off your face."

"Smirk?" The Sword Ghost gaped at his accusation, her fingers reaching out to grasp her face. Indeed, her cheeks were taut, her lips contorted into a strange smile. The expression froze on her face; slowly, the grin waned.

"Sorry about that." She said, an unusual inflection tinting her speech. Her eyes widened as if in surprise at her own words. The Sword Ghost blinked rapidly like she was trying to dispel a bout of confusion. The Sword Sage observed her mystifying behavior without a word.

"...Kid, let's wrap this up." She announced. "Mediocre as you are, I gotta admit, given an infinite number of tries, you might still get lucky! Let me show you what I can really do. Actually, this is going to be a learning experience for us both. Are you ready?"

In that moment, Mao Zixin felt a strange, chilling wind. It swept up her golden hair, billowed through her robe of white and red. It felt as if the cold edge of her sword was already brushing against his skin. His instincts screamed out, and he braced himself.

She approached with a deft step, her sword at her bottom left.

The first sound that reached his ears was not the scraping of metal. It was a frightening noise unlike anything he had ever heard. Something resembling a wolf's shrill howl rent the air asunder. When the old sword reached his black steel, there was no clang. Her motion never ceased, as if there was nothing at all impeding the path of her blade.

The brittle sword in her hands splintered into two pieces.

The detached tip had been pulverized into dust by the collision of their internal energies. Those shards spread out and flew like falling stars, biting into his flesh, cleaving an enormous wound across his body. And then they continued along their path. They cut the leaves, the branches, the trees, dug into the mountain peak beyond, carving out a thin, long scar along its length...

And then continued ever further past.

Mao Zixin heard the carnage unfolding behind him; he felt the attack with his own body.

He knew that it was over.

And then his black sword snapped in two.

The pain assailed him long after she had completed her motion.

A wound stretched across his body, a thin red line running from hip to shoulder. He remained in one piece, hanging on by an inch of flesh where their had weapons intersected.

Blood erupted like a great geyser.

The Sword Ghost twirled away from her opponent's ruined form.

"Though I remain unimpressed, this body still swells with warmth over your valiant display." She said. "So take pride in your sword, boy. Though it may be a little subpar, you shall not be dying unappreciated."

As Mao Zixin crumbled to the floor, the anguish that raged on within his heart far surpassed the agony of his wounds.

"All that cryptic talk... so this is what you were trying to tell me all along...! Tao Geming!" The Sword Sage gritted his teeth. "I... I admit my defeat!"

The Sword Ghost paid little heed to Mao Zixin's final moments. The exertion had opened her wound, but she cared little for the pain.

She gazed up at the blue sky, enjoyed the cool mountain air on her skin.

Long after Mao Zixin had passed, she finally spoke.

"You're still there, aren't you? Speak your mind while you still can."

Her words were addressed to nobody. She lifted up the remains of the rusty sword. Then, she turned back, and picked up a piece of that beautiful black sword.

"Not even this heavenly steel could withstand our strike. If not even the greatest sword can endure our true power, what use is there in pursuing these techniques? Any sword we use will just crumble in our hand."

"When the arm grows stronger, do you set out in search for harder steel? Of course not. The answer, as always, lies in technique."

"Then... is there really an end to it? As strength grows, so must technique, but..."

It made her skin crawl with indescribable excitement. But there was a fear in her, too, like she had suddenly found herself stuck in quicksand.

"That's for you to find out."

The words washed over her excitement like cold water. In her conversation with herself, there was a sudden and lengthy lull.

"I'm sorry... You showed me something so wonderful. But I... I can't even uphold my end. I'm sorry. If only I could, I'd let you have me until you've had your fill. But I just can't stretch out what's left of you for much longer."

The Sword Ghost chuckled.

"For god knows how many years I've been desperately thrashing about, thinking I was just a hair away from the answer, and yet it turns out I was just a frog in a well. All my struggling has been in vain. I was never even close to the end of the path. It was never in my sight. So, in truth, neither of us got what we were looking for. But we made gains elsewhere, didn't we? In a way, it's almost consoling to know just how far off I had been. So the way I see it, there's no room for grudges between us."

"At least let me know how I can honor you. You know that no request will be beyond me soon. Monuments? Palaces? Just tell me, and no matter what it is, it shall be done."

"You need to stop speaking this nonsense. You can see into my heart, and I into yours. If you want to honor me, do it with the thing you have in your hand. Obtain that which I could not. Make the world fear our Nine Swords."

Slowly, her mind cleared of thoughts that weren't her own.

She took a deep breath.

She wandered the mountain, trotting down the same paths she had seen many times over.

But this time, her trek hadn't been aimless.

She soon found Tao Geming's remains. The Sword Sage left him where he had slain him.

The Golden Witch buried him. She thrust her rusty blade into the earth where he had been laid to rest.

She stared at his grave, wondering what to say.

"You were right." She sighed. "I can only imagine how smug you must be out there, hearing me say this."

"You took your reasons for hounding me to the grave, but I think I know... Ever since we visited that old friend of yours, I've always had a feeling. I thought perhaps you were just scared of growing old. With all the enemies you've earned over the years, you'd never be left alone. You just wanted to secure your future. That's it, isn't it? As simple as that... Something so materialistic fits you perfectly, doesn't it?"

"And despite everything, you never let your fear of the future lower your head. Even though you didn't need to, you were desperate to remain my equal. How can I scorn you for that? But I wish you would have just told me. I wouldn't have laughed. Perhaps I would have even liked you a bit more. If you had been more open with me from the start, maybe we could have prevented this..."

A sad chuckle slipped past her lips. "...I know. It wouldn't have made any difference. I would have never taken your side over his..."

Her golden eyes trembled as she looked out at the horizon.

"What should I do with him now?"

...