"I concede." Wan Qiushou replied, cupping his fists.

He wore a deadpan expression, as if he felt maligned. Despite knowing that Wan Qiushou always looked like that, Wuxian felt a little guilty regardless. He hadn't won the fight 'fairly', but then again, it wasn't like they had agreed to only compete through martial prowess.

Wuxian had even put aside the Northern Dark Edge. He'd truly made many concessions.

"Want to go again- fists only?" Wuxian asked.

Wan Qiushou shook his head, rubbing his left ear at the same time.

"No need. It would be unfair for me to bully you with my martial capabilities, while you would have the complete advantage using your mystic arts."

Wuxian cupped his hands with a smile.

"In that case, I suppose we can call this a tie." He chuckled, picking up the Northern Dark Edge and tying the sash over his back.

"Sounds good."

They both walked over to the side where Shui Qianyue was seated on top of a wooden bench.

"Good fight you two, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!" She congratulated, clapping in applause.

Wan Qiushou nodded in silence, sitting down and taking deep breaths to calm himself. Wuxian sat down too, loosening his robes a little to let the airflow cool his body down.

Not only had he shed lots of sweat throughout the duration of the first two bouts, but the heat from Zhurong's Breath made him uncomfortably hot too. Despite being the caster, he was not immune to its fire. A single slip and it would be he who would end up drenched in flames instead of the target.

Wuxian took in deep breaths of air. The only two techniques he used during that fight were Effortless Flow and Zhurong's Breath. The former did not use much qi since he made sure to only employ it in short bursts. The latter, on the other hand, was costly to use- ten seconds of fire cost him half of his total refined fire qi.

"Sihai Wuxian?" Wan Qiushou asked, surprisingly taking the initiative to speak.

Wuxian raised an eyebrow.

"Mn?"

"That fire breathing technique you used, is that what you spent the last week learning?" Wan Qiushou asked carefully, knowing that asking about a cultivator's techniques was a taboo.

However, Wuxian was not familiar with modern cultivator tradition.

'Though, giving away details on one's moves isn't the smartest thing to do, immortal moves or not, a little can't hurt.'

"Yes. I just finished learning it this morning, actually." He admitted.

Wan Qiushou's eyes seemed to sparkle. He nodded twice, seemingly satisfied with Wuxian's answer. Seeing this unusual behaviour from Wan Qiushou, Wuxian couldn't help but return the question.

"Why do you ask?"

Wan Qiushou wore a solemn expression.

"If you could have used this mystic art against the white robed man, we wouldn't have had to have sustained such injuries. Next time we see him, he'll be in for a nasty surprise."

Wuxian blinked a few times before shaking his head with a grin.

"There's no way it'd be that easy. As a Qi Condenser, he'd ought to have other tricks up his sleeve. We barely managed to scrape a win because he underestimated us- next time, he won't be so forgiving. It's not like my fire breathing spell is unbeatable either; it has its fair share of limitations." He explained, pinching his chin.

Turning his gaze to the right, Wuxian found that Wan Qiushou and Shui Qianyue were looking at him with burning curiosity.

"Go on, I didn't say stop." Shui Qianyue jested, smiling cheekily.

"…You'll have to figure them out yourself." Wuxian replied, closing his eyes and recuperating.

They spent about half an hour recovering before Shui Qianyue got impatient, grabbing Wan Qiushou by the collar and dragging him into the arena. By the side, Wuxian continued to replenish and refine qi, though his eyes were open.

Then, they bulged in shock as she began to take off her clothes. Fortunately, his reaction proved to be over the top as she had only shed her loose-fitting outer robe. Wuxian felt the urge to hit himself over the head.

'Calm down and focus. It makes sense that she'd remove that- it's billowy and baggy and will get in the way of the fight.'

But he ended up having trouble concentrating after seeing her figure. Unlike the housemaids and wives back in the state of Liang, Xi county, Shui Qianyue had an astounding body.

She was already tall amongst both men and women, with long legs too. Her actual figure resembled that of a tigress in human form, layered in proportionate and rippling muscles that not only retained her usual feminine grace, but added a layer of ferocity to it too.

'In two words… graceful and deadly.' He mused.

Of course, it wasn't like muscles and a good figure were that rare, just that he'd never seen them on a woman before.

But more interestingly than that were a pair of slightly curved scabbards attached to Shui Qianyue's back. Though they lacked much detail, similar to her clothes, their sleek and glossy black exteriors possessed a sort of mysterious and deadly beauty.

The handles were wrapped in some sort of black cloth with red tassels hanging from circular metal rings attached to their ends.

The scabbard that was positioned higher up her back was smaller than the lower one, looking roughly 20 inches in length and only a few inches wide. The one lower down her back was slightly larger, be it in length or width. It also had a slightly more pronounced degree of curvature.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Wuxian watched with curiosity. Not only because gathering information would be useful for his next spar against Shui Qianyue, but also because his interest had been genuinely aroused.

'Dual wielded weapons were never used in the army because of several reasons. They require a high degree of individual skill and training that conscripts like me did not have and also do not perform well in units. Crack troops would often prefer sword and shield, since an additional sword wouldn't help much in offence and would cost one's protection against arrows and other weapons too.'

'And in that vein, the spear is called the king of weapons for a reason. Anything shorter than a metre would almost always suffer the fate of being an auxiliary weapon. Dual swords or sabres would forever be resigned to the bottom of the pecking order.'

'But I suppose for a cultivator, it wouldn't be too surprising for dual swords to be used. They could use mystic arts to protect themselves at both long and short range, negating the need for a shield and perhaps with access to techniques like weapon imbuement, having two swords might really boost one's offensive capabilities dramatically.'

'But most interestingly is that Shui Qianyue's swords are unequal in size and length. I wonder what purpose that serves. Surely, having two swords of equal length would be better? Otherwise, with one sword being longer than the other, it is obviously telegraphed which one will assume the primary offensive role.'

As Wuxian was busy multitasking recovering and wondering, Wan Qiushou had moved over to the weapon rack.

He walked over to a bundle of thick wooden pillars roughly a quarter of a metre in diameter each. Scooping them up in what appeared to be an effortless movement, he steadied himself. He span around twice to generate momentum before loosing them.

The logs twisted and span through the air and as they landed one-by-one, they each created puffs of dust and loud thuds- there was also the occasional sound of glass shattering too. He repeated this a few more times until the entire field was littered with the pillars, changing from flat terrain to something more akin to that of a forested area instead.

All without breaking a single sweat, too.

He then took a pair of strange looking curved weapons from the rack, rotating them back and forth within his hands. Each one consisted of two static metal components, a pair of thin metal curves that each faced in opposite directions. Wan Qiushou's hands were placed in the gap created in between the metal curves.

They had little reach- barely any better than fighting unarmed in that regard, though his punches would be imbued with slashing and stabbing properties owing to the weapon's gleaming points and sharp edges.

Furthermore, due to the protruding horn-like bits on either end of the blades, it could potentially be used to disarm the opponent as well.

Shui Qianyue looked at Wan Qiushou with a wry smile.

"Deer horn knives against my mother-child matched swords? Since when did you become proficient enough with those to challenge me like this?" She asked humorously.

"I've been practising." Qiushou replied as he familiarised himself with the weapons. "In secret."

A big floating question mark seemed to appear above Shui Qianyue's head, as she tilted slightly to the side in confusion.

"Why in secret?"

"Because I can."

"…"

"Enough nonsense. Let's begin."

Now, the arena was peppered with tall wooden poles here and there, changing the originally flat area to one which gave shorter-ranged weapons better odds.

Wan Qiushou held the two deer horn knives in front of him, giving a martial weapon salute before he began moving forwards at break-neck speed. He navigated the artificial forest with ease, flitting about like a raven between a hail of falling arrows.

Shui Qianyue's smile faded as she focused her mind. She shifted her upper body slightly at the waist, causing the scabbards to hang to the left. Then, she reached to the left with both hands, taking a hold of the upper sword with her left hand in reverse grip and the lower sword with her right hand normally, unsheathing them simultaneously.

She then shifted her left sword out of reverse grip into normal, placing it in front of her, while the longer sword was raised up from behind.

'That's cool.' Wuxian couldn't help but praise in his mind.

Unlike Wuxian, who was comfortable with sitting still and waiting for the opponent to come to him, Shui Qianyue opted to fight for the initiative. With a light kick of her heels, she accelerated, weaving here and there like a swan in flight. As she shifted her body mid-movement, the hanging scabbards dropped off her body, clattering onto the floor- no doubt a deliberate action made to reduce weight and prevent them from getting in the way.

And first contact came soon after.

With her superior reach, Shui Qianyue attacked first with her larger sword, the mother sword. It soundlessly cut through the air in a stabbing motion, menacing light gleaming from its edge.

Wan Qiushou was unperturbed, crouching into horse stance and pushing forwards with both deer horn knives. As he did so, he twisted them slightly, hoping to catch the mother sword and twist it out of Shui Qianyue's grip.

Clang!

The mother sword was withdrawn, its place taken by the child sword instead. The shorter weapon appeared like a leaf in the wind, gliding diagonally downwards through the air.

Wan Qiushou took a step back, raising one knife to block. Then, he moved to the side, using the erect wooden log for cover.

Preserving her momentum, Shui Qianyue moved forwards too, weapons raised at the ready. After circling the log twice with no sign of Wan Qiushou, she tutted and circulated her qi.

Within half a second, the mother-child swords became covered in an opaque silvery-grey coating that extended half an inch off from their edges.

"Hiya!"

With a curt shout, she delivered a cross-slice to the wooden pole blocking her vision at the mid-section. After a second of delay, it toppled over in two evenly-cut pieces.

Behind it stood Wan Qiushou, a large bead of sweat wobbling on his forehead.

Shui Qianyue wore a gentle smile as she kicked off the ground, swords brandished, leaping over the severed pole. Wan Qiushou took advantage of her destabilised centre of gravity, stepping up and punching forward, aiming at her thigh.

His deer horn knife was met with the mother sword, which poked through the gap, seemingly intent on slicing at his fingers. The angle was unfavourable and Qiushou was forced to withdraw, concealing himself again behind another pole.

With a click of her tongue, Shui Qianyue raised her swords again and sliced forwards, cutting lower this time. Once again, another log of wood was chopped, with Wan Qiushou's fleeing figure already metres away.

"Little Wan~ stop running! Come to big sister…"

"No." He replied, taking position behind another log.

Wuxian stifled a laugh from the sidelines. From his side-on position, he could see what Wan Qiushou was up to. It turned out that the blunt and straightforward Qiushou was capable of playing dirty too.

With an annoyed look and an eye roll, Shui Qianyue strode forward and cleft the log in twain, preparing to step over it again.

But things were different this time.

Wan Qiushou rotated the deer horn knives so that their sharp edge pointed off to the sides.

"Ha!"

With a shout, he executed a powerful synchronised double-punch to the severed log, causing it to fall downwards with immense force. Since he'd shifted the knives, they didn't stab into the log and get stuck. At the same time, he used the recoil to jump backwards and twist through the air.

With his arms shooting out like the unfurling wings of a roc, the pair of deer horn knives were propelled forwards, spinning so fast that they appeared to be blurred grey discs.

One flew towards the right of the log while the other flew to the left at roughly head-height.

Shui Qianyue, who'd just stepped out of the way of the log, had a startled look as she raised her mother-child swords reflexively. With a loud clash, the spinning deer horn knife was deflected, embedding itself deep into a nearby log.

She huffed angrily, pointing the mother sword at Wan Qiushou.

"You crazy kid, are you actually trying to kill me?" She yelled, infuriated.

Wan Qiushou replied wordlessly, throwing a large flying log instead. Shui Qianyue imbued her weapons with more qi, slicing the incoming log cleanly in half. Unsurprised, Wan Qiushou picked up another log and tossed it forward before running over to the next one and doing the same.

As such, a strange scene ensued. A large log was thrown and subsequently cut down, followed by another and another… until there were no more logs left on the south side of the stadium.

Shui Qianyue placed the mother sword on Wan Qiushou's shoulder, close to his neck, as she breathed heavily, her face dark and cloudy.

"Are you trying to get out of your debt by killing me?" She asked. Despite everything, she was still in the mood to joke.

"What debt?" Wan Qiushou asked blankly.

"The thousand taels of silver from our bet."

"Bet? Never heard of it."