Chapter 381 — The Spear That Cracked a Bone

CHAPTER 381

The Spear That Cracked a Bone

The first thrust came from nowhere.

Shi Feng didn't see the spear leave Gu Zhan's hands. He saw the point already at his chest, and his Sword was up before his mind had finished the thought. Steel met steel with a flat clang. The shock ran up his arm, and he slid back two paces on the black stone.

“Two!” Sima Lan called.

“Good! You remember it!” Gu Zhan said, grinning as he advanced.

“I remember,” Shi Feng said.

He remembered it very well. This was the thrust from the final. At the tournament it had gone through his guard and cracked a golden bone, and he had won only by letting it hit him. Gu Zhan was mid Golden Core now, and the thrust was not the same thrust. It was heavier. The qi behind it came in a straight, dense line, like a battlefield spear aimed to go through a shield wall.

Three. Four. Five.

The spear moved without stopping. Thrust, thrust, thrust, then a turn of the shaft that swept the point low at his knees. Shi Feng jumped, landed and was already backing away from the return. Gu Zhan followed at exactly his speed. The scarred side of his face was turned toward Shi Feng, and the good eye never blinked.

“Eleven!” Sima Lan called. She kept her voice level so both fighters could hear.

The Martial Palace disciples shouted at every backward step. Several pointed at Shi Feng's feet, urging Gu Zhan to drive him off the shelf.

“That's a Foundation Establishment shuffle!” Hou Ping yelled.

He wasn't entirely wrong. Shi Feng's footwork was still at Entry, and he knew it. Lin Langtian had told him so forty times on the Pagoda stairs. Against a spear that long, and a man who had spent his whole life learning exactly how far it reached, a bad step cost a rib.

So he gave ground.

Twenty. Twenty-one. The spear rang off his Sword again and again, and each time a little force bled out of the blow and into his arm.

[Devoured: Gu Zhan's thrust | Gain: small | Note: dense]

Shi Feng didn't read it. He was busy reading something else.

Thrust, thrust, thrust, turn. Thrust, thrust, thrust, turn.

Gu Zhan's spear had a rhythm. It was nearly invisible, because the rhythm was hidden inside speed. But it was there. Three straight, one sweeping. Then a shift of the rear foot, and three straight again, from the other side.

“Thirty!” Sima Lan called.

The crowd was growing louder. Valley disciples whispered. The inner-court seniors had gone silent, their copper coins forgotten in their fists. Gongsun Ce stood at the edge of the stone with his brush forgotten in his hand, and he looked genuinely worried.

Ling Qingzhu's thumb was pressed hard against her sleeve.

Shi Feng didn't look at her. He looked at the spear.

“Thirty-eight!” Sima Lan called.

He was near the edge of the stone now. The cracks were closer, and the ash drifted between them. Gu Zhan's good eye shone.

“You're holding back!” Gu Zhan shouted. “Stop it! I came all this way!”

“I'm not,” Shi Feng said.

“Then why aren't you hitting me?” Gu Zhan demanded, bringing the shaft around.

“I'm counting,” Shi Feng said, watching Gu Zhan's rear foot.

Gu Zhan blinked, and his thrust nearly missed.

“Counting what?” Gu Zhan asked, recovering his line at once.

“Your turns,” Shi Feng said.

Gu Zhan let out a loud, happy laugh. He didn't slow down. If anything, he went faster.

“Forty-four!” Sima Lan called. “Forty-five!”

The spear struck the Sword at the guard, and for the first time Shi Feng's heel skidded on loose stone. A line of pain opened across his ribs, and a thin wound parted his robe. Gu Zhan's point had slid under his guard by the width of a finger.

“First blood!” Hou Ping shouted. “First blood! A mantis trying to stop a cart! Four to one!”

A disciple in Hou Ping's own line told him to shut up; the spear was still moving.

“Fifty,” Sima Lan said, a little too quietly.

Shi Feng backed a step. Then another. His left foot touched the very edge of the black shelf, and below it there was a long drop into a valley full of falling ash.

The Martial Palace line started to cheer.

“Fifty-eight!” Sima Lan called, stepping sideways to keep both weapons in sight.

“Fifty-nine!” Sima Lan called again. Her chalk hovered over the stone.

Gongsun Ce closed his notebook, then opened it again, as though he couldn't decide which was worse.

Gu Zhan pulled the spear back for the sixtieth thrust. It was the longest windup of the whole fight. It was also the one that had cracked the golden bone, and everyone who had been at the tournament knew it. Valley disciples held their breath, and a few of the Martial Palace juniors actually looked away.

The spear came forward.

“Sixty,” Sima Lan said.

Shi Feng stopped retreating.

He didn't move forward. He simply stood on the edge of the stone and let the point come, and at the last breath he turned his Sword a hand's width. The thrust slid down the blade and past his shoulder. It went into the empty air behind him.

For the first time in the whole fight, Gu Zhan's good eye went wide.

“Sixty-one,” Shi Feng said.