In the stands, several people in the audience whispered, wondering who this woman was and what she'd done to Nalan Jiang. It didn't take long for one of the more informed members of the audience to recall the rumors that had circulated when Gao and his men arrived in Bufa City, that a woman had killed one of the Little Bosses of the Mountain's Bones gang and slaughtered all of his men in a single evening. This woman was the one who had done the deed? No wonder the gang hated her so much!
"Ya tink ma men are as weak as 'is? Mao, git 'er!"
"Fairy Hua," the announcer interrupted. "Brawler Mao's challenge is within the rules. If you wish to refuse his challenge then you must formally declare it."
"Big Brother," Wu Ling purred at the announcer. "Give this sister an opportunity. Maybe we can spare the audience a boring show. You made my sister demonstrate her skill so the audience could wager, didn't you? How about this sister gives a little demonstration and then Brawler Mao can decide if he still wants to challenge this little sister."
"Since you'd have to do it anyway, I'll allow it," the announcer said. "What do you need for your demonstration?"
"Big Brother San used a dummy with a heavy iron shield," Wu Ling said, placing a finger against his painted lips as though considering. "Could you get me a dummy like that, wearing heavy armor and carrying a heavy shield? It should be as tough as Big Brother San," he added, dismissive glance to the corpse that mortal employees of the Pit were dragging away. "Or stronger since Big Brother San wasn't as strong as my Sister Xiang."
While the servants hauled an armored dummy into position, Wu Ling put on a show of writing out a talisman. As much as he acted like a flirting tart, inside, his heart seethed with a fire he could barely contain. Su Xiang's blood was still wet on the stones at his feet. San's body hadn't even grown cold yet and here were more men, jumping out to make trouble for them.
Worse, it was his fault. If he had only killed Nalan Jiang, it would have offended the Mountain's Bones gang to be sure, but it wouldn't have turned into this kind of feud where only one side could live. Now that Su Xiang had killed San, there was even more blood between them and the debts would only keep growing if he killed Mao. After Mao, he was certain to face Gao the Glutton and then who knew who else would jump out at him.
Rather than hide from the turmoil in his heart, Wu Ling let it all out as his brush danced across the paper talisman. Since this wouldn't end without complete annihilation, since blood demanded blood without end, he poured all of his feelings into his calligraphy. As an Aesthete, he had been restricted to writing a single word, but as an Understudy, not only had the number of strokes he could use increased, but he could form two characters to create a better-defined, more powerful talisman.
Once the target was in place, Wu Ling placed the talisman between two delicate fingers and held it up high in the air, showing the two words 'Fire Saber' to the audience on all sides of the arena. His master had taught him that combining elemental forces with specific types of weapons could result in even greater power, whether it was a Light Sword, a Lightning Spear, or a Fire Saber, each combination offered something specific as long as he could feed the right feelings into his talisman. Today, he wanted to cleave through the hatred that kept building between the two groups, and nothing suited cleaving more than a saber like the one wielded by Xiong Dahuo.
"Watch carefully, Big Brother Mao," Wu Ling purred. "This is just a single strike from me. Could you withstand it?"
With a trickle of energy, Wu Ling ignited the talisman, summoning a towering nine-ringed saber made of solid flame. The saber's hilt alone was a meter long, extending straight up from Wu Ling's outstretched hand before turning into a two-meter-long blade of solid red-orange flame.
With the lightest of movements, as though he were reaching out to tap the target dummy on the head, Wu Ling struck the target with the flaming saber. While the movement was light and elegant, the force the saber struck with cleaved directly through the shield held by the target before embedding itself into the armor covering the dummy. Heat surged, enveloping the arena in a blast of heat like the doors of a furnace had been opened right next to each member of the audience.
The metal of the armor glowed, first a dull red, then, a breath later, a brilliant yellow before turning brilliantly white hot. The dummy burst into flames as the armor melted into it, filling the arena with a dark cloud of black woodsmoke. Within ten breaths, the dummy had burned to nothing more than a pile of ash and molten metal.
All across the arena, the mouths of the audience gaped at the display of power. They had seen terrifying artists before, stone carvers who commanded mighty golems or painters who could trap a person in a world of illusions, but all of those terrifying artists needed to bring their greatest works of art with them to the arena if they wanted to pose any kind of threat to a martial cultivator. This woman, however, had written two words on a slip of paper and destroyed a target that was as sturdy as a late-stage Brawler!
"Big Brother Mao," Wu Ling purred, turning to face the bandit whose complexion had gone ashen. "Do you still think you're worthy of being my opponent?"
"Lit-little Boss Gao," Bullheaded Mao said, turning to the rotund man only to find that even Gao was shocked by the demonstration. So shocked, in fact, that food had fallen from his mouth to stain his tunic. "Little Boss Gao, perhaps you should be the one to challenge this… woman," he finally said, not wanting to call her a witch or anything worse lest he make her angry with him personally. She'd given him a way out, he just had to grab hold of it!
"Little Boss Gao," Wu Ling said gently from the arena floor. "How about this? I only ever had business with Nalan Jiang. Everyone else was unrelated to my business. Even San, our business can be said to be old, from long before he joined your gang. In seven days, you'll go to the auction and sell your Seven Colored Serpent egg, and then you can return to your boss and say that things should end between us. That way, I don't have to kill you and all your men in Bufa City," he said, his voice becoming cold.
"This is a good deal for you, Little Boss Gao. Your men all live, you get your money for your egg, and you go home alive," Wu Ling explained. "If you don't think this is a good deal, then you can face me. Or you can run away and try to deal with us outside of the city, but if you do that, then you'll have to face off against a group with an Understudy, a Soldier, and a Novice Scholar, plus the rest of our group. Do you really think the odds favor you?"
"How about," Wu Ling offered. "How about we call a truce?"