With Su Xiang's confusing demonstration along with the revelation of her sect affiliation, those attendees who had yet to place a bet rushed to do so. The announcer gave a slow, steady countdown of thirty breaths for people to place their bets before the duel would begin. Finally, after positioning Su Xiang and San at a distance of ten meters apart, the announcer retreated to a shielded space on the arena floor.
"Both fighters have agreed that the match does not end until one or both of them are dead," the announcer called, ensuring that everyone understood that this was a feud that was irreconcilable until death. In the stands, dozens of voices cheered, eager to see the Fairy from the Shining Blade Hall torn to death by the physically imposing bandit from the Mountain's Bones Gang.
"There will be no interference and no mercy," the announcer called, drawing even more cheers from the bloodthirsty crowd. "Fighters, BEGIN!"
Normally, Su Xiang would have launched herself toward an opponent as soon as the word was given. Seizing the initiative and using her speed as an advantage had formed a core of her fighting style for years, and the instinct to seize the initiative had been drilled into her in countless sparring sessions and lessons from her seniors at the Shining Blade Hall.
Now, however, she used the time granted by the distance between them to gather her strength, imbuing her nameless blade with brilliant silvery sword energy and preparing to strike. Her sapphire eyes glowed brightly, tracking San's every movement as the towering man thundered toward her.
Unlike Su Xiang, San didn't hesitate at all. Like a dog let slip from a leash, he charged directly at the young sworswoman, murder glowing in his eyes. The red stripes of energy glowed even brighter and his entire body grew under the stimulation of his energy.
With every step he took, he gained several centimeters of height and more than a stone of muscle mass. By the time he was within striking distance of the young swordswoman, he'd grown to almost two and a half meters tall!
Su Xiang's eyes narrowed as the towering man rushed toward her. She kept her focus soft, seeing all of San's body without focusing on any singular part of it. Whether he'd come from the right or left, above or below, she pushed her senses to the limit for the slightest indication of how San would attack. It was a passive, defensive response that gave the impression that she was intimidated by his aggressive charge but reality couldn't be any more different.
Finally, at the last moment, she saw San's knees bend the slightest bit further than they had in his previous strides as he coiled himself like a spring, pushing off his back foot and lashing out at an angle to rake across her stomach with his claws as he passed. Or at least, that was his intention.
While San's clawed hand made contact with the young swordswoman's blade, as soon as it did, Su Xiang's sword spun in her hands, using the force of San's claw strike to accelerate it in a sharp arc toward the towering man's muscular shoulder. For a moment, San nearly avoided the blade of Su Xiang's longsword only for her sword energy to surge forward, extending the reach of her blade and biting deeply into the flesh of San's upper arm.
"First blood is mine," Su Xiang taunted, finally unleashing her speed to dance backward out of San's reach. "If all you have is anger and strength, you'll never measure up to Sister Qianhu," she added. "You'd be a puppet dancing on strings for her," she taunted as she kept moving backward, staying just out of the taller man's reach.
"Silence. Slut!" San shouted, regathering his energy and charging back into the fray. As he did, the flow of blood from the wound on his shoulder slowed before stopping entirely. From the way he acted, the wound didn't trouble him at all!
"Is Sister Xiang taunting him?" Wu Ling asked, blinking several times as he watched his sworn sister seeming to toy with the larger man. She maintained her distance, striking out only when it suited her, each time leaving another bloody wound on San's arms, and legs, even grazing his ribs.
He'd been so busy working on his carving that he hadn't had very much time to practice with his sworn sister, but as he watched her now, taunting her opponent seemed to be the least of the changes in her previously straightforward fighting style.
"She learned this from Brother Xiong," Zhang Buyan said helplessly. "He likes to provoke people."
"I also like to bleed them," Xiong Dahuo added without denying the other man's words. "She's fighting him like I'd fight a great beast. Very cautiously, bleeding him enough to weaken him before she commits to a real counterattack."
"She's changed," Wu Ling said, watching the way Su Xiang was fighting. For as long as he'd known her, she'd valued straightforward 'honest' combat. Now, however, she didn't hesitate to bait, goad, or disengage from her enemy. "She's fighting more with her head than she used to."
"I think she's been trying to emulate Sister Hua," Yu Jinqi added. "She's been playing chess with brother Fang and me. It might take both of us together to lose to you, Sister Hua, but Sister Su has been very earnest in her desire to develop her ability to think multiple steps ahead."
"She's been doing all of this while I've been cultivating," Wu Ling said softly, his eyes fixed on Su Xiang's nimble figure as she all but danced with her opponent like a matador playing with a bull. "I thought she was just working on changing her manual."
"According to Sister Su," Jin Wuya said, coming to stand next to Wu Ling. "This is the result of changing her manual. She said that she couldn't close herself off from other ways of fighting because her loved ones' lives were more important than the purity of her methods. She's asked to practice with all of us, not just with her new sword, but learning a little bit from each of us to better hone herself."
In the stands, Wu Ling stood rooted to his spot, his eyes tracking Su Xiang's every move as she danced around the man they'd once fled from in Silver Sword City. It had been just a quarter of a year since Wu Ling and Su Xiang used desparate deception to escape from this man and his sect brothers when they were forced to 'entertain' them in a resteraunt in Silver Sword City.
Now, despite what looked like tremendous advancements in San's own cultivation, power and aggression, Su Xiang was toying with him, taunting and bleeding him to further enrage the mountan of muscle and anger. She'd given up some of the things that she'd once considered dear to do it, but when Wu Ling looked at her, all he saw were the best parts of Su Xiang, with fewer of the Shining Blade Hall's shackles holding her back.
This was his sworn sister, and despite the anxiety he felt, he also felt tremendous pride, feeling that he was finally seeing her true self shine.