"You broke out of Avici?" Wujiu wrinkled up her face. "It's supposed to eternally cut the target off from all external sensation. You shouldn't have been able to break out."

And so it did! Only by Natsuki's grace, by her immeasurable power, was I able to free myself!

But I could not say that. There was no air in my lungs. I could not summon any breath with which to speak.

I tried to breathe, to protest. But I could not breathe. My lungs would not move.

"Honestly, your cultivation base is... just as bad as I had heard. I thought I'd be able to use it to restore my arm, but it seems like I'll still have to go the long way around."

She crushed my dantian in her hand, leaving behind only a tiny golden core.

Had there been poison in her hand? Poison that had frozen my muscles? No, no, that couldn't be. I would be able to tell. With the residual qi yet flowing through my veins, I could tell quite clearly what was wrong with my body. My stomach had been annihilated, my intestines were ruptured and loose, and— my diaphragm! She had torn my diaphragm with her sword! It is not the lungs that breathe, but the diaphragm! I needed to repair it, or else—!

"Oh, this is surprising. You actually do have a golden core, though it's pretty small." In her one remaining hand, she held up my core over her head. "Everyone, take a good look at this. It does certainly seem to be real."

I pulled my arm up towards the gaping hole in my stomach, but I had only moved it some five inches when it collapsed back to the ground. I was losing too much blood, too quickly. No blood, no oxygen. I had only moments left. I needed to think of... some... thing...

"I wonder if I could use this to— ——— —"

My vision darkened. My sensation dulled. My hearing quieted. A soft darkness envelopped me. It was a peaceful sort of darkness, one I had felt once before, likewise at Wujiu's hands. It was the darkness that precedes imminent death. This time, I feared my death. I did not want to die. But I did not see how I could stop it. I could not breathe. All my blood had pooled out through the two massive holes in my abdomen, freezing over under the gaze of the utpala that yet watched over the arena. It was not a matter of applying some healing salves or poison antidotes. I had already lost more blood than was physically sustainable. Not even a miracle would save me now.

Thus, though I yet feared my death, I had no choice but to come to terms with it.

I would die.

—"No."

A sound, at once grating and smooth, like the sound of a dull blade cutting through flesh and bone, screeched against the darkened walls of my mind.

—"Our contract is not yet complete. I do not permit you death."

In my darkened vision I saw two white halos, like the glowing halos around twinned black-holes, growing brighter and brighter, so bright I wished to shut my eyes and turn away, if only my eyes had been open.

The contract... yes. My revenge. I had promised Natsuki... that I would live and take revenge. How could I... break that promise? The weight of a promise is proportional to the regard you have for the other party, and thus, the weight of my promise to her was heavier than even my own life and death. How could I have forgotten that? How could I let myself die without carrying out that promise?!

My muscles would not function without oxygen. So what?! I summoned the power of Natsuki's qi to raise my hand to my diaphragm, and then to reconstitute it. Only a few moments later, I coughed up blood, then breathed in oxygen! I was alive! Of course! How could I permit myself to die when my promise, my duty remained undone?!

I felt my body revive. I struggled to my feet, gasping for breath. I did not have enough blood in my body, but I did not need it. With an accelerated heartbeat and with Natsuki's power pushing my blood even more quickly through my veins, I would be able to survive long enough to carry out my promise. That was all I needed to do.

Wujiu turned a horrified glare to me. "You... I just crushed your dantian, how are you using qi?..."

"—By the rakshasa's grace," I answered her.

Her face contorted with fury.

"Bai Chunxue, if even destroying your cultivation will not stop you from fighting, then I have no choice but to sever your head from your body. Don't blame me for this."

I summoned my sword-hilt to my left hand, my sword hand, and lit it aflame with the twin earths of black and purple. She picked up her sword from the ground in her left hand, her off-hand, since she had sacrificed her own right arm.

I did not know how long I had to live. So I had no choice but to end this battle with one strike. In one strike, I would break through her defense and cut through the back of her throat.

Her defense was stronger than my attack. It was impossible.

To an impossible question, then, all I had to do was provide an impossible proof.

What did I have to fear? With Natsuki's power, I could summon as many impossibilities as I needed.

I held my sword up in a short mist stance on my right side, its hilt by my forehead and its tip pointing forward. I wrapped all four of my limbs in golden qi. Even if my bones shattered from the force, it did not matter. As long as I fulfilled out my oath, it did not matter.

"Swallow Reversal!"

I flashed forward, spinning my blade over my head to perform a descending diagonal slash towards Wujiu's torso. She effortlessly blocked it, even though she only had her left arm.

That diagonal slash alone might be called a technique. In some schools it is called the monk's robe cut. But Swallow Reversal is not a technique. It is a ma'ken! It is an impossible proof to an impossible question! And here is the difference!—

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At the same time that I performed a descending diagonal slash by spinning my blade over my head, I also spun my blade around my right side and performed an ascending diagonal slash, aiming for the wrist of her left hand. My sword cut into her wrist, slicing almost the entire way through, disabling her defense. My golden core, a tiny nugget, dropped from her hand, and I caught it in mine.

At the same time that I performed these two slashes, I also thrust my blade forward, aiming for her neck. She had raised her sword to block my descending slash, and I had disabled her defense with my ascending slash. Here was the final statement, the quod erat demonstrandum, of my impossible proof. I would thrust my sword through her neck and kill her.

There was no hesitation in my mind. After all, I was only carrying out my promise. My promise weighed more than my death, more than Wujiu's life. Thus I had no reason to feel guilt for my actions. No reason to feel doubt. No reason to look into her eyes.

My sword advanced forward, unencumbered, unopposed. It pierced into her neck, advancing, advancing, advancing. I pushed it further, towards her spine. I felt the resistance of her cervical vertebrae, and I gave it one more thrust!—

—my sword stopped.

I did not stop it, no, how dare I?; no, it was being... held in place?

I looked to my left, and saw a figure standing there, holding my blade between his fingers.

He pressed on the blade, and it snapped. Its upper half, the part that had pierced Wujiu's throat, dissolved into thin air.

Feeling the qi in my body twist in reflux, I leaped back. Wujiu collapsed to her knees, coughing up black burning blood, bleeding death from her throat, unable to even hold her sword in her one broken wrist. My ma'ken had been interrupted. I had failed to kill her, though she could certainly no longer fight.

I turned my gaze to the figure who had intervened, and oddly, I found myself unable to comprehend just who I was looking at. I knew the face. I recognized it. But my brain refused to link the face to the memory. And yet a chill still ran down my arms when I looked at his decrepit and withered face, because somewhere deep inside, I knew very well that I did not want to know who that really was. I feared that face. My bones knew the reason, but for this one blissful moment of ignorance, my mind did not.

"Grand Elder..." Wujiu spat, every word of hers accompanied by burning spittle, "this is not your fight...!"

"Wang Wujiu. This is an internal matter of the Bai family. The Wang clan has not held any real power in the west since the era of the old Han dynasty, and yet you wish to compare yourself to the guardians of the Great Plains? It is you who does not have the right to stand here. Your ambition may be great, but your stature is less than nothing!"

As those words creaked against the rotten flesh of his throat like steel against steel, I felt a terrifying familiarity in their tone, an archaic familiarity, like the fear a child experiences the first time they hear the screams of thunder rending open the sky. And yet I could not identify, for this one moment, just who he was! I could not— or rather, I did not want to! For even one more moment, I did not wish to come to terms with his presence!

Qian Fugui jumped into the space between us, and bowed to the elder.

"Grand Elder Jing. The council has authorized this duel. What is the reason for your intervention?"

Jing—

Jing Ke.

A flood of bloody memories crashed against my mind all at once, overwhelming me with pain, regret, and— hatred.

If there was one person, one name that I could identify as the source of all my pain, it would be Jing Ke. He was simultaneously an advisor to the Bai family and an elder of the Phantom Orchid Sect who had orchestrated my imprisonment in the sect. If it had not been for him, perhaps I would have been able to become a scholar. He was the one person who, more than anyone else, was responsible for my situation, for the failure of my dream! No, that was inaccurate. Certainly there were elders in the Bai family who were more responsible. But Jing Ke did not carry the surname Bai, so that alone permitted me to pin all the blame on him, to let my blood boil with murderous fury! All the hatred I bore for the Bai family— I would direct it all at Jing Ke, and I would kill him!

"First Disciple, remove yourself. You do not have the authority to question my actions."

Qian Fugui nodded slowly and jumped away.

—If it had not been for Jing Ke, perhaps I would have been able to become a scholar! That was all I could think! My teeth ground against each other with seething hatred. From the start, my revenge had been misguided. Sure, I had good reason to kill Guoqiang and Wujiu. But most of all, most of all, I needed to kill Jing Ke, the person I hated most in the world! If I did not kill him, how could I say that I had gotten revenge?! If I did not kill him, how could I become a scholar without constantly looking over my shoulder, fearing that he would once again drag me down to hell?!

"Bai Chunxue, you bastard, what is this behavior?!" Jing Ke shouted, his voice rattling the earth and sky, but not moving me, for I was fixed in place by my hatred. "Wherever you go, you cast dirt on the face of the Bai family, like mud upon a horse's hooves! Do you even know what you are?!"

I am the one who is going to kill you— I wanted to say this, but anger so contorted my jaw that I could not open my mouth wide enough to speak!

"You are insurance, Bai Chunxue! The heir of the Bai family is talented, but she is too brash. One day she will offend someone she cannot afford to offend, and on that day, we will offer your head as an apology. That is the only reason we keep you alive! You may carry the name Bai, but this is mere decoration. Your only purpose is to lay half-dead under the sect's surveillance until we have need of your head!"

I could feel every blood vessel in my body burning with hatred! Pure, unfettered hatred! I would kill him! For my revenge, for my promise, for Natsuki, for myself! I would kill him! He was my mortal enemy. He was the source of it all, of all my pain, of all my suffering! And for that, I would kill him!

I held my sword out to the side and let it roar ablaze! The black flames of my hatred burned, they grew, they reached for the sky! The shriveled utpala yet hanging over the arena came in tangential contact with my hatred, and in a moment, it was reduced to ash, cast back into undifferentiated nothingness!

For a moment the flames grew so large that they seemed to me they might consume the world entire, and then they disappeared. All that was left behind was a blade, an invisible black blade with no extension in space. I knew its presence instinctively, the way you understand the presence of your own limbs. You do not need to have your eyes open to know where your arm is, and likewise, I did not need to see my blade to know where it was.

It was nowhere, and yet it was here, just where it needed to be.

I wrapped my left leg in golden qi. I could feel it blistering, burning, breaking under the force. But it did not matter. I had to kill Jing Ke. Whether I lived or died did not matter! As long as I could settle this hatred, nothing else mattered!

I took one step, one step twenty meters in stride, and there I was, right in front of Jing Ke.

Where was my blade? My blade of zero length, my blade that could rend open even the endless sky, my blade formed of Natsuki's power and my will, was at my side.

"Heaven and Earth, Returned to the Void."

I swung my sword, and the moment the blade came into contact with Jing Ke's torso, everything went white.