Chapter 763 — The Iron Banner

CHAPTER 763

The Iron Banner

At first bell there was still mist on the lake, and the Lake Stage stood out of it like an island.

Gu Yanxing’s second was already on the step at the end of the bridge, a grey-haired officer with one eye and a plain white towel folded over his arm. The step on Shi Feng’s side was empty. The galleries noticed. Up in the third tier, between Auntie Niu and a Gu army clerk, Ji Yuanhe sat with his hands folded on his knees.

“Bout four!” Ke Lianshu called. “Master Shi Feng, against Young General Gu Yanxing!”

They walked out from opposite ends of the stage and stopped fifteen paces apart.

Gu Yanxing took the spear off his shoulder. Up close it was longer than he was, black iron from butt to head, and just under the blade hung a thick tassel of red and black horsehair, the colours of the Gu army. The soldiers called it the banner. He lowered the point until it was level with Shi Feng’s chest, and he stood very still.

Shi Feng drew the grey Sword from his ring. As he readied it, his late Deity Transformation qi became clear to the people watching. He’d concealed the breakthrough until now.

“Late Deity Transformation,” somebody said on the shore. “Against peak.”

“Eighty-sixth on the Tianxing. He’s never lost a bout in the capital.”

“Look at him stand. That’s how they stand on the walls in the north.”

Gu Yanxing thrust.

He didn’t step first or shift his weight. The spear simply went forward, and the force arrived before the point did. It came as one straight line, and Shi Feng felt the force press steadily against him. It didn’t weaken as the spear crossed the distance. The Iron Banner Spear didn’t have tricks. It had a direction, and everything in it went that way.

Shi Feng met the spear head with the flat of the grey Sword.

Iron River Sword Art at Perfection didn’t stop force. It moved it somewhere else. He laid the blade against the side of the spear and turned his wrist, the way he’d turned knives and hooks and a hundred palms before.

The spear didn’t turn.

Gu Yanxing kept feeding force straight through the haft. Shi Feng’s turn couldn’t divert it fast enough, and Shi Feng’s boots ground backward across the stone. One pace, three, eight. Sparks jumped where his heels scraped. Then there was no more stone behind him.

He stopped with his heels at the very edge of the stage and the lake a man’s height below.

Gu Yanxing drew the spear back at once and walked back to the centre.

“He let him go!”

“He had him! Why didn’t he push?”

“That’s the Gu. They don’t push a man into the water from behind a spear. They’ll do it from the front.”

Shi Feng shook out his right hand. His fingers were numb to the second knuckle, and the grey Sword was humming in his grip.

So that was the difference, Shi Feng thought. Iron River could turn a single impact. Gu Yanxing kept driving forward after contact, giving him no pause to redirect the force. He needed to get beside the spear instead.

He walked back to fifteen paces. Gu Yanxing waited for him, the point level again.

This time Shi Feng went first.

The Quiet Sleeve Art had reached Major Success outside a burning bun stall. Now it closed around him, and his qi and intent went quiet. To a man feeling for where he would strike, there was nothing to feel. Shi Feng came in low and to the left, and he meant to change sides at the last step.

Gu Yanxing didn’t try to feel for him.

He thrust three times, so fast the three thrusts sounded like one. The first line went left, the second went straight and the third went right. They covered every place a man could be standing in front of that spear. He didn’t need to know where Shi Feng was going. The three thrusts blocked his change of direction. Concealing his intent didn’t help when the spear covered every approach.

The grey Sword caught the first. The second went past Shi Feng’s ear close enough to cut hair. The third took him in the left shoulder.

It wasn’t deep. He’d turned in time for that. But the spear’s weight came with it, and it threw him backward across the stage again, spinning, until his heels struck the edge for the second time and his arms flew out for balance over the water.

Blood ran down inside his sleeve and dripped off his fingertips onto the stone.

The galleries roared.

“Twice! Twice to the edge!”

“I told you! He’s a turtle in a jar now!”

“He’s still standing…”

“Not for long. Look at the Gu boy’s face. He hasn’t even started to sweat.”

Up on the third tier, Auntie Niu grabbed Ji Yuanhe’s sleeve. Ji Yuanhe didn’t seem to notice. His lips were moving. He was counting Shi Feng’s breaths.

Gu Yanxing walked to the centre again and waited. He didn’t gloat. He didn’t even speak to the galleries.

“Your arts are clever,” Gu Yanxing said to Shi Feng. It was the longest thing he’d said in the whole contest. “A line isn’t clever. It just arrives.”

“I noticed,” Shi Feng said, and pressed his right hand against his left shoulder for a moment. It came away red.

A small wave slapped against the stage pillars under him. The lake was choppy this morning, and every few breaths, water washed up over the lip of the stone and ran back. His heels were standing in a thin sheet of it.

Shi Feng looked down at the wet stone. It was cold, and it was moving.

“Third time,” Gu Yanxing said, and lowered the spear. “You go in the lake. Yield now, and you can keep your other shoulder.”

On the step, the one-eyed officer folded his white towel smaller. He didn’t expect to need it.

Shi Feng didn’t step forward. He stayed exactly where he was, at the very edge, with the lake behind him and water running over his boots.

Shi Feng smiled. The water gave Riverless Step what the dry stone hadn’t. Gu Yanxing had driven him to the edge, but now Shi Feng could choose how to move from it.