John stood on the dry sand of the duel arena waiting for Ye to arrive. It had been difficult to hide his shock when he discovered there was a location in the sect that wasn't constantly bombarded by rainfall. Apparently it gave too much of an advantage to the orthodox cultivators in the sect. Rarely, other sects would visit as well, and having the dueling location be so obviously biased would lose the sect face. Either way, John didn't mind.

He'd spent all of his short preparatory time working with his allies. Benjamin and John had worked together to create as many pills as possible. Their selection was a little limited though, so it was mostly a pile of stamina recovery pills, qi recovery pills, and a handful of Weird healing pills. They hadn't tested the last variety since there were so few, but Ben was pretty sure it would accelerate healing.

John visited Kai to invite him to watch the duel of course, and Kai gifted him a set of profoundly sharp claws to use in the duel. They were three prongs of stout, angled, spirit steel that sat just above his first knuckle, and they were refined to the middle of Golden Core tier. John had protested about that bit of advantage until he was assured that Ye would undoubtedly be getting a weapon just as strong if not stronger from the Songs.

Lastly, John visited the Weird compound to say one last hello to all the others. Conrad had offered to heal him up to peak condition, but he was pretty much there already, he still accepted the offer. Chloe wanted to have sex, of course, but John declined as tactfully as he could. The rest of the middling performers and worse wished him luck but there was nothing unusual there. He even patted Mark's statue before heading off.

It's not like John needed the luck, or that he expected to die in this competition, quite the opposite really. When he thought about it deeply, and analyzed the real sources of his current feelings, John realized that he felt like Ye had challenged the whole Weird faction with this duel. Sure, John was the proximal target, but the Garden was the foundation of all the Weird kids in the end. He was just the first to use it for the direct gains. Even Benjamin was using it secondarily, but that was the quirk of his cultivation. John was sick of getting pushed around and that extended to the cultivators under his influence as well. It was time to put an end to Ye's constant harassments.

There was a large array of viewing seats, of course. No sanctioned duel could complete without a sufficiently obnoxious audience. At least John's side seemed relatively tame. Kai and his friends were seated on one side, along with basically all of the Weird kids--minus Mark and anyone who was actively cultivating at the moment. Kai's father, the Sect Leader, and a handful of other Elders including Catherine were seated a politically neutral distance away, seeming just happy to observe. They hadn't made any official announcement or otherwise interfered, so John thought they must be out here just to enjoy the show. It was odd how many of the Elders were smiling at him though, that was unusual...

Disciple Ye, who had yet to show up, had his own supporters. Lady Song, Elder Song, and a handful of other disciples that John didn't recognize--except he actually DID recognize one of them.

'Is that Sarah?'

It seemed that Sarah was indeed seated among Ye's support group, which was really strange given how enamored she had seemed with him, and how Ye had nearly managed to kill her. John didn't care about competing for women's attention, but Ye certainly did. He had not missed how jealous the man looked when Sarah showed him so much attention. John's eyes narrowed... How exactly did Ye and Lady Song become acquainted again? He would need to ask Chloe a favor when this was over...

There was an absolute gaggle of other, random cultivators too, but John basically ignored them. It was kind of annoying to be the afternoon's entertainment, but the political influence he would win today would be well worth it in the end. Speaking of, Ye was still not here. Technically he was not late yet, but he was cutting it close. If he was late, it could very well mean a forfeit. Elder Song didn't look nervous though, so it was probably fine.

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It came down to the very last seconds, but Ye made his appearance finally. He practically looked like he had already competed in a duel, already sweaty and disheveled, a long jian unsheathed in his hand. When he came into the arena, John summoned his own weapons. The long haft of his two-pointed spear was comfortable in his palms. He wore the claws at the same time, using qi to quickly wrap and tie the braces to his forearms. Wielding both at the same time would be a little awkward but the claws didn't interfere too much with his spear attacks. The Lethal Bite style was mostly about quick ambush or rush attacks as well, if he didn't win in the first moments with the spear, he would switch to the much more nimble claws.

Ye's sword was a bland pick, John thought. Tons of cultivators used swords because they made decent qi transmitters, but most people developed strong qi-techniques in Golden Core, at the foundation establishment stage it was going to be less important. It was possible Ye was a pure sword cultivator, but that seemed unlikely. John had never seen Ye actually fight, but he wasn't in the business of underestimating his opponents. The guy really did advance to Foundation Establishment while in total qi isolation, after all.

It was almost time.

"Cultivators! Are you ready?!" An Elder John didn't recognize was acting as the fight judge. John tensed up.

"Begin!"

John leapt forward at the same time as Ye charged straight at him, the met in the middle with a huge clash. John's spear tips slashing across Ye's chest as he parried the spear away, giving John the first blood. It also confirmed to John that Ye had enhanced his skin at least, as the shallow cuts rapidly stopped bleeding, closing up with angry red lines.

John disengaged fast and jumped to a new position, beginning a rapid assault from different angles on Ye, always trying to get to his blind spots. Ye defended valiantly for several strikes, blocking of parrying when possible, but he rarely escaped a wound in turn--Johns momentum was just too much. Several more scratches and a few deep punctures caused increasing damage. Ye could heal his skin easily but John noticed a marked decrease in his agility when the deeper strikes hit muscle groups. Sadly, he lacked the venom that a snake or spider could use to take down an opponent on such a clean hit.

Ye finally wised up and took a temporary retreat to break the momentum. All sword fighters against a spear wanted to close in the distance to shift the disadvantage, but to do so you actually needed to break through the spear's offensive. John didn't let up. Ye started backing out of the very edge of John's range, kiting away and batting at the spear, looking for openings. The fight dragged into a slog, but John was fine to keep it here for now as he kept scoring hits while remaining untouched, even if he was no longer dealing relevant damage.

Eventually, Ye backed into a corner. John once again pressed the attack but after a few nice blocks, he overcommit on a thrust that was a hair too high. Ye capitalized on it and parried the attack up, ducking at the same time and dashing toward John with his sword behind him, ready for a huge slash to John's midsection. Recognizing the mistake, John simply dropped his spear and gripped his claws, ready to take the fight to close quarters.

"Nice, that wont be enough to win though." John gave a compliment and a taunt.

Ye literally growled back and said, "Unlike you, I actually had to earn my skills with a sword..."

"You think I didn't work hard to learn the spear? You have issues with Kai, seriously... Speaking of, what are you doing with his fiancé?" John was relying on his superior instincts with claws to keep Ye at bay while talking, but he was also genuinely curious.

"She's not his fiancé!!" He shouted angrily, it was affecting his technique, getting sloppier and more aggressive. Easier to predict.

"Oh but she really is. Seems like you want her for yourself though?"

Ye really didn't like that. He screamed fury at John and lunged into a series of ever-more aggressive attacks, which John defeated easily. John side-stepped a stab and raked three long furrows into Ye's side, shredding muscles and nearly snapping delicate rib bones along his side in the process.

"Unfortunately, fury alone is not enough to defeat me."

Ye's eyes flared with even greater fire, before taking out two talismans, quickly slapping one onto his sword and the other unto his chest. Unfortunately, they immediately turned invisible and it didn't seem like the judge was in position to see it. Or if he did, he didn't care.

John grimaced.

'I just had to say something...'

It looks like they were up to something after all. Whatever it was, John wouldn't be holding back any more. Several pairs of qi claws wove themselves into existence in the air beside him, ready to leap out and tear Ye to pieces if necessary.