And with those hopelessly cheesy words uttered, the cultivator charged Hong. Mu went to intercept, but the other two cultivators cut him off, circling him with blades drawn. They chuckled thinly. “Heh heh heh. You don't stand a chance at defeating us, boy.”
Mu knew they were correct. He had thought himself, if not quite a master, at least a proficient, but his time spent in the company of Hong had convinced him that he was sorely mistaken. He knew now that he had not even placed his first step onto the Path.
Now, to be completely fair to Mu, on their own neither of the cultivators were a match for him; together, however, he was completely doomed, and they knew this as well as he.
“Why don't you just surrender now? It'll go worse for you if you try to resist us,” one of the cultivators snarled, in a strangely unkind and unloving way. He gestured to his colleague. “He's the finest swordsman in all the southern districts; I am the fastest in all the southern districts. Together, we are more than a match for any man.”
Mu Ba thought this over, and reached a conclusion. He sighed. "You leave me no choice then… it's time to use my ultimate move."
And with that, he chucked his sword onto the ground. The two cultivators from the Love and Kindness Sect froze.
"Surrendering already?" One of them laughed, only to pause in confusion as the dropped sword started hovering in the air. The sword assumed a fighting stance.
"No. Quite far from it. Gentlemen, let me introduce you to my friend, Stabby. He's a cultivator of the Flying Sword Sect, and has attained the Fourth Orbit of the Fifth Circuit."
Both men looked at the cultivating sword, their faces utterly flabbergasted. "The Fifth Circuit? But that means your blade is an entire circuit higher than you are! Why would you ever carry around such a ridiculously deadly weapon? And why not use it first? You'd win so many more fights."
Mu waved their arguments away with a "tsk." "That would be true, if my purpose in fighting was to win. But only a loser fights to win."
The cultivating sword waved about in the air impatiently, then made a feint at the two Love and Kindness Sect cultivators. The bigger of the two raised his sword to block.
"Enough - I don't care if you are a Fifth Circuit cultivator; no one in the southern districts is a finer swordsman than I am. You stand no chance."
And then he went flying as the sword punched him in the face.
'You may be the finest swordsman, but this one is the finest master of baguazhang. In a fistfight, none can stand against this blade.' Stabby hummed, dancing on the balls of its proverbial feet.
The cultivator pulled himself off the ground, spitting blood. "But how?! You're a sword. You don't even have hands!"
'So? You don't even have wings, but that doesn't stop you from zippity-doo-dah-daying all over Mr. Blue Sky, now does it? And at any rate, I learned my Zhangless Zhang Technique from a secret cultivating tomato in the San Fernando Valley; and he didn't have any problems with it, now did he?'
The cultivator was forced to concede that the sword had a point, and then the latter beat him to a pulp. His colleague, terrified, tried to flee, but it turned out that the 'fastest in all the southern districts' was the chief of a set whose members didn't include nonhuman cultivators, and he was shortly beaten out of the sky.
“Now,” said Mu, once the last of the cultivators was sword-boxed into annihilation, “to help Hong with his- holy crap, you can do THAT with a lampshade?”
“Hmmm?” Hong asked, idly disposing of a spare foot he had left over. “Of course you can. Shall we continue on our way? We have business to which we must attend.”
Mu looked at the two pounded cultivators behind him, and at the bits of… something before him, then back at the still twitching, occasionally groaning, cultivators. “You didn’t want to clean up the mess?”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
It was a question he immediately regretted, no sooner had it come out of his mouth, but fortunately Hong didn’t take it in the direction he might have. It was still, nonetheless, a fairly traumatic experience - especially when he pulled out the shipping container - but one which finally, blissfully passed, allowing them to go on their way.
Mu carefully stepped over the bloodied shoe on the ground and the pieces of spaghetti in the tree as he followed along behind Hong, his sword coming with him.
“By the by,” Hong inquired, “why the flying sword?”
“Oh, it’s a long story…”
***
Many, many years ago, when Mu was but a wee little Young Master, his father and he went to the Jarnvidr Eastern Branch sect blacksmith for Mu to pick out his first sword. The blacksmith showed them about the shop, pointing out the different blades and letting wee Mu hold them. It was a heartwarming story, such as might be found in the opening chapters of any martial arts novel. Until…
“Mister, what’s that sword over there?” Mu asked, pointing to a plain grey-black sword leaning against the wall. The blade sat there like any other blade, but seemed to quiver slightly, as if pulsing with an inner and mysterious life.
“Oh, that’s… Strange, I never made that sword.” And then the blacksmith and Mu’s dad, Mu Kao, drew their swords, pointing them at the unresisting blade. Mu gave a small shout at this sudden action, but his dad held his sword steady.
“Careful, son. That blade was never made by the blacksmith, which means it probably made its way into the store on its own accord - in other words, it’s a member of the Flying Sword Sect.”
“Aye,” swore the blacksmith, “nasty bastards - a bunch of sentient sword artefacts that learned the Flying Sword Technique, and decided to use their resemblance to inanimate objects to surreptitiously act as information salesblades. Nearly drove the Hao Clan and the Beggar Sect out of business.”
“Woaahhhhh,” Mu declared, “you’re telling me that that sword is alive? Cool.”
The young boy’s eyes shone. He tugged on his dad’s sleeve. “Dad, can I have that one?”
His father gazed at him in concern. “Son, that sword is a dangerous weapon, in more ways than one - not only can it destroy you physically, it can destroy you mentally, annihilate your goals and cripple your cultivation.”
“Nah,” Mu replied, “that’s only if we hate each other. If we become friends then we can go on epic adventures together and support each other through thick and thin. It will be just like one of those martial arts novels!”
The sword buzzed hopefully.
“Son, those novels are all works of fiction - real life is more like a series of interrelated vignettes, only the characters are all inconsistent and the plot doesn’t make any sense,” Mu’s father carefully remonstrated.
The sword buzzed sadly.
“Awwww. But dad, please? Please please please please please. I promise I’ll take good care of it - I’ll be super extra careful when cleaning it to make sure it’s happy, and, and, I’ll make sure it gets lots of exercise - fighting as well as walking - and it can help me train, and I promise it will be awesome!”
The sword buzzed hopefully.
Mu Kao looked from the sword to the boy and back again. The one had the light of hope burning fiercely in his eyes; the other had no eyes, but there was something about its frame which implied it was equally hopeful. The older cultivator sighed.
“Fine. You can take the blade. But only if you agree to train with it outside the sect, so it can’t get any information from us.”
“Yes!” Mu cried, pumping his fist in victory. “We’ll sleep in the treehouse halfway down the mountain. It, will, be, amazing!”
The sword shifted once or twice in joy, and the boy and his blade departed from the blacksmith’s shop, leaving a very confused pair of adults behind them.
***
“And that’s the story of how the two of us became friends,” Mu finished. “And also the story of how I got a sweet 80% off deal on all information requests filed with the Flying Sword Sect.”
Uh huh, buzzed Stabby the flying sword in agreement.
“I kept all my promises to my father - I stayed outside of the sect while training; was meticulous in taking care of the blade; made sure Stabby got as much exercise as myself; and trained with it on the regular. I’m happy to say we’ve had nothing but good times since - eventually, father even waived the external training requirement, and inducted the sword as an Outer Disciple of Jarnvidr Eastern Branch.”
“Fascinating,” Hong observed as they finally reached town, and would have said more had he not at that moment seen a very familiar, and in many respects very unwelcome, face.
The Noodle Shop Repair Demon tipped his hat to the pair. He’d been sitting on a rock just outside of town and reading a small volume of poetry, but as the two reached him he stood up and pocketed the book.
“So, for what reason have you contacted me this time,” Hong started, but before he could go any further the Noodle Shop Repair Demon drew his hand back out of his coat… holding a sealed docket.
Hong’s face lit up in a luminous grin.