Chapter 980 — Night-Folding Blade

CHAPTER 980

Night-Folding Blade

Thirty-six lamps hung around the duel yard on iron posts, and by lamp-lighting every roof around the circuit court was full.

The walled yard was sixty paces square, paved in grey stone. Qin Wuyan stood at the east white line. Across from him stood Linghu Zhongshu and eleven mourning Linghu. The grey-furred Yelü occupied the north wall’s front rows.

Long Zhenlei sat on top of the south wall with his legs hanging over the edge. Xie Yuejian stood on the wall beside him. Lei Wanjun stood below them, with his arms folded.

Linghu Que walked to the centre with a long, dark blade in his hand. The steel didn’t shine. Lamplight touched it and went dull.

“My brother was fourteenth on the Tianxing,” Linghu Que said, stopping ten paces away. His voice was hoarse. “He taught me this blade for nine years. I’m going to show you what he taught me.”

“I’ve seen what he taught you,” Shi Feng said, and drew the grey Sword. “At Grey Goose Pass. Go ahead.”

Linghu Que’s face twisted. He raised the dark blade and swept it once around his body in a wide, flat circle.

“Night-Folding Blade,” Linghu Que said.

Every lamp in the yard went out.

They didn’t flicker first. Thirty-six flames vanished in the same instant, and darkness dropped over the yard so thickly that even the stars above it were gone. The crowd on the roofs shouted. Shi Feng pushed out his Spirit Sense and felt it fold back on itself a pace from his face. The Linghu art didn’t just put out light. It folded the dark over and over until it covered the senses too.

The first cut came from his left, out of nothing.

Shi Feng turned his shoulder as the blade arrived. It cut his sleeve and scored his upper arm. Blood ran to his elbow. He was alert now. The darkness had hidden both the step and the qi, so he needed to break it.

“He’s cut! Did you hear it? Did he cut him?”

“I can’t see a thing!”

So Shi Feng gave the yard some light.

He laid his left palm along the grey Sword and struck the Second Anvil Fire.

Clang!

The blade went red from guard to tip. On the second beat it went white. The Second Anvil Fire ran in its fixed count, nine beats and a rest, and every beat threw a ring of hot light out across the stones. The folded dark couldn’t fold light that was being struck again every heartbeat. By the fourth beat the folds had nothing left to fold, and the yard came back, lit red from wall to wall.

Linghu Que stood six paces to his right, in the middle of a second cut. He was caught out in the open, with the dark gone from around him.

“He lit it up! He lit the whole yard!”

“With a sword? What kind of sword art is that?”

Linghu Que snarled and tore space.

One black rift opened on Shi Feng’s left. A second opened on his right. A third opened behind him. It was the same family art his brother had used, three doors at once, and the dark blade came out of all three.

This time Shi Feng didn’t go up.

Torn space had edges, and the edges ran. Where two rifts stood close together, the seam between them pulled and flowed, a narrow strip a hand wide. Riverless Step walked on anything that flowed. He put his foot on that seam and slid along it, between the left door and the rear one, and both cuts crossed behind him in the empty air.

He came off the seam two paces from Linghu Que, inside his guard.

Linghu Que pulled the dark blade back out of his rifts to block. Nine years of drilling brought the block up exactly where it should.

Shi Feng cut the Sunset-Splitting Sword straight down onto it.

At Perfection the Sunset-Splitting Sword didn’t need to go around a guard. It cut through what was in front of it. The grey Sword hit the dark blade at its exact centre, where the steel was thickest.

Clang!

The dark blade broke in two. The upper half spun away and rang off the stones by the north wall, and the Yelü in the front row jerked back their feet.

The rifts closed. The grey Sword stopped one finger’s width from Linghu Que’s throat, still glowing.

The yard went silent. Nobody on the roofs spoke.

Linghu Que stood panting, half a blade in hand. His red eyes moved from the sword at his throat to Shi Feng.

“Then do it,” Linghu Que said hoarsely. “Do it.”

“No,” Shi Feng said quietly. He waited until Linghu Que looked at him. “You’re grieving for the wrong reason. Listen to me instead. When your brother left Grey Goose Pass, his face was stitched and he was riding home alive. He rode four days to Tianjing. Then he went into the palace canal.” He held the young man’s eyes. “Men don’t fall into palace water by themselves.”

Linghu Que stared at him. His hand shook, and the broken blade fell out of it onto the stones.

Shi Feng lowered his sword.

On the south wall, someone started clapping.

It was Long Zhenlei, alone, with his legs still swinging over the edge. He clapped slowly and loudly, and nobody else in the yard dared to join him.

Then the roofs found their voices.

“The blade’s in two pieces!”

“Linghu Que’s late Shattering Void, the same as him! The same stage!”

“The same stage, and he still couldn’t stop that sword!”

“There’s always a higher mountain beyond the mountain. The Linghu just found theirs.”

“…”

Linghu Zhongshu’s face had gone as white as his robe.

Shi Feng sheathed the grey Sword and pressed his sleeve over the cut on his arm.

“Elder Linghu,” Shi Feng said, turning to the west line. “The leave papers. Tonight is fine.”