Deng Hong observed the entire fight in shock. When the woman turned her head towards him, when the reality of the situation had struck the sect master in its entirety, fury briefly flashed across his face. He regained his composure in but a moment.
With his nose upturned, Deng Hong threw back his long black hair, and began to tie it up with a hairpin. As he was doing so, he asked, "Am I to presume that the disciples guarding my palace had met the same fate?"
"No, they're alive." The woman answered. "I just got a little angry just now."
Deng Hong wrinkled his nose at that reply. With his hair done, he stepped down from his throne, and, short sword in hand, began to walk towards her.
The woman asked, "Is it common for the master to be younger than the student?"
Deng Hong's face twitched, as though he was recoiling from the question. "What are we, making small talk now?" Even so, after a pause, he continued. "It isn't rare. No matter your age, nothing but raw talent dictates how far you can go. But though I was their superior in martial arts at almost half their age, I was no match to Liao Cai and Wei Qing when it came to worldly experience."
His voice carried a hint of wistfulness. The masked woman picked up the sword that lied in the blood pooling up around Liao Cai's corpse. She swung the blade to her side, cleaning some of the blood off the blade.
Deng Hong was enraged by her actions. His face contorted with such fury that he resembled a snarling beast. "This kind of mockery will cost you your life! Pray that you die in this fight, because if you survive, I'll make you live through a fate worse than ten thousand deaths!"
Deng Hong darted forward. The woman, too, had moved. Their figures flickered out of sight. When they appeared again, their swords had clashed at some point, and the only evidence of such taking place was the clatter of steel.
Deng Hong's hawkish features regained their composure during that fleeting moment. Even infuriated as he was, he would not allow his emotions to guide his sword.
He charged back in, performing several more exploratory strikes. Deng Hong learned from his disciple's mistakes, and kept wary of the woman's long limbs. But even so, her reach advantage meant that it was not easy to approach, and all his attacks ended up parried or avoided.
With no good opportunity presenting itself, Deng Hong had decided to create his own. He assumed a stance and dashed in again, the steel in his hand flickering left and right. The woman finally bit on one of the feints and moved her short sword to defend against it.
Deng Hong suddenly thrust towards her neck with unprecedented speed from an unexpected angle. A clap resounded through the room as the air was torn apart by the swiftness of this strike.
The woman waved her unoccupied arm, placing her long blue sleeve in the path of the lethal edge.
The sword could not pierce through it. Upon coming in contact with the fabric, the strike gradually, yet swiftly, and at the same time as gently as though it had landed onto a soft pillow, lost all momentum, like an arrow shot into the blue sky that reached its highest point.
It was a method commonly used to brush away miniscule throwing weapons like needles and caltrops, but it was the first time Deng Hong had ever seen it used on a melee strike performed backed up by the full weight of one's arms and body.
He tried to draw his sword back, but found it stuck firmly in place. The masked woman's hand had moved underneath her robe to grip it with her fingers. Somewhat amused, Deng Hong pulled back again with his entire might. The woman twisted her wrist slightly. With a reverberating crack, their mutual struggle snapped the blade in two.
Deng Hong made some distance and spoke. "Looks like our internal energies are evenly matched." He cast aside the broken short sword. The woman had neither said anything nor pursued him. It gave Deng Hong a moment to consider his situation.
A thought struck him that he would never dare mention aloud.
"Evenly matched? If that was the case, wouldn't the sword get somewhat bent at most? If it was made of a brittle or inflexible material like wood I can maybe understand, but how can high quality steel that carried my internal energy just snap like a matchstick? Not to mention that she stifled my sect's Iron Butterfly Flicker technique with just her sleeve... Maybe I could do that to a novice, but no one in the entire world can use this technique better than me!"
He realized that the words he had spoken moments before were just his instinct affecting his emotions; he was unsettled before he could even wrap his head around the reason, and spoke up impulsively.
His thoughts rushed on, "The more she evaded me, the more recklessly I attacked. During that time, I find it unlikely that I presented no openings, yet she never capitalized on any of them. What is she planning? In any case, I need to be more careful from now on."
The golden haired woman had suddenly interrupted his train of thought with a question. "Was the technique you used just now your strongest move?"
Deng Hong's mind went blank. He once again found himself enraged. He could neither think up a response nor continue to strategize.
The woman tossed aside her own sword. The act of mutual disarmament had infuriated him even more. Deng Hong was so mad he couldn't even hear it clang against the stone floor. But he heard her voice. "Or do you perhaps mean to tell me that mere hours after your last fight you had developed a hint of common sense?"
Deng Hong was instantly struck with a sense of ill foreboding. "What are you saying?"
"Do you really think I can't tell how little of your internal energy you were using?" She asked. Deng Hong could almost feel her sneering underneath her mask. "Have you suddenly attained enlightenment and decided to scorn your lousy foundation? But what a bad time you've picked to change your evil ways."
As the woman chuckled, the things she was alluding to unnerved Deng Hong deeply. Cold sweat ran down his back.
The masked woman tilted her head and continued, "Or perhaps you drained so much from the Desolator of Life that you can't handle even another drop?"
Deng Hong began to shout her down. "Just who are you?! Show me your face! Enough with this masquerade! Take off your mask!"
The woman shook her head. "I'm not someone you'd recognize even if I did take it off."
Deng Hong did not believe her, and his emotional state was in such disarray that he could not stop himself from prattling on. "So then why wear it? Do you find yourself to be so clever, representing my victims, that you can't resist wallowing in your own smugness? You're a woman yourself, aren't you?! If you claim to be unknown to me, your own face would represent them all the same!"
The woman tapped her wooden visage. "This mask has nothing to do with your insecurities." She did not elaborate past that.
"...If you're not seeking justice, if we have no personal connection, then why in the world have you come here?" Deng Hong managed to force a question past his gritted teeth.
The masked woman paused, as though she needed a moment to think. "Test of skill."
"You've made an enemy of my entire sect just to measure your skills? Are you mocking me, you..."
"Moron." The woman interrupted him. "The skills being tested here are yours."
"Impudent!" Deng Hong's voice erupted like a thunderclap. He could not endure a single more breath of mockery.
Suddenly, the temperature plummeted. The full extent of Deng Hong's internal energy was so vast that it even affected the surroundings. As he took up a stance, the masked woman observed him, unmoving, her arms at her sides, hidden beneath her long sleeves.
"All of your guesses were mistaken!" He bellowed out.
Deng Hong struck out with two of his fingers. The cold air shifted along with him, a bone-chilling wind trailing the path of his attack; but the strike carried such speed that the frost would not have the chance to settle onto the woman's skin before the attack had concluded.
The woman thrust out her chest towards his fingers. Deng Hong had no time to bask in his shock over such a response. Even a master such as himself would struggle to redirect his attack at this point, and Deng Hong, with his mind clouded by unprecedented rage, had no intention of even attempting such a thing.
His fingers connected with her solar plexus, hitting a vital acupuncture point.
The two martial artists remained still for a single heartbeat.
Suddenly, the masked woman retched, black blood dripping past the bottom of her mask and onto her blue robe.
Deng Hong sneered. He began to laugh, but instead what came out of his throat was a wet cough. His eyes widened as black ichor gushed out of his mouth. His fingers left the woman's chest as he staggered backwards, coughing. A horrible pain began to wrack his insides.
"What the...?!" Deng Hong sputtered, unconsciously clutching his chest. His heart beat erratically, and each beat intensified the pain. The flow of his blood worsened the damage to his organs. A thought came to mind. "Is this poison?!"
The masked woman's shoulders began to shudder. Her golden locks shook. A soft chuckle emerged from beneath her mask.
"It's not poison." She said. "This technique of yours absorbs yin energy. To do that, it naturally entails creating a pathway between your meridians and those of your target. I gave you my energy, just a bit more roughly than you're used to getting it. And I directed it right towards your dantian, to disturb the hodgepodge of foreign energies there. The energies you took from your previous victims."
Deng Hong continued to back away, his features contorting in agony. His body felt cold like ice, yet the blizzard raging within did not numb him to the pain.
The woman put her hand over her mask. "You know, if I knew you would be so eager to kill yourself, I wouldn't have bothered with this."
Her little finger dug underneath the mask, and with her nail, she severed the strap keeping it secure. The crying woman's face fell into her palm. Slowly, she shifted it aside. A golden eye peered down on the dying man. Black blood dripped down her lips, spilling from her chin. The bloodied lips were contorted into an unsettling smile.
Deng Hong fell to one knee. Her previous words were true; he didn't recognize her. As he looked into the woman's eye, fear began to wrack his heart.
It was not the look of one taking begrudging satisfaction from having delivered justice; neither was it the vicious glare of a ruthless and ambitious killer so prevalent to this era.
She was leering down at him with the peculiar bashfulness of a child mischievously peeping in on something she knew was forbidden, but simply couldn't help herself but look regardless. The sight of it disturbed him to no end.
Deng Hong began to shout and protest with whatever came to mind, trying to deny her with all his might. "Nonsense... None of that is possible! I tamed their qi! You poisoned me!"
The woman lowered the mask in her hand. The top of it covered only her blood stained lips.
"The thought that this was possible earnestly never even crossed your mind, did it?" She asked. "On the other hand, I had a hunch all along about your stupid little technique. My mind can only think of things in terms of martial arts, you see. The first thought that came to mind when I happened upon the scene of one your slaughters was, what purpose could killing the men and kidnapping the women serve for one's martial arts? In other words, why get rid of those strong in the yang and keep those strong in the yin?"
Deng Hong coughed; more blood spilled onto the floor. He could not force his knee off the ground. The woman's voice grew increasingly louder as she continued.
"So I assumed there was some technique I didn't know about that let someone make use of it. And therefore there's a reason you had to take the women away instead of just killing them on the spot. I always had a hunch, but your little skirmish with the Desolator of Life made me all but certain. You couldn't handle all that foreign yin energy entering your body all at once, so you had to pace yourself. And with the amount that you ended up with, it would take decades even for me to tame it all. And you didn't even have the wisdom to recognize that you weren't truly making it yours. You were alleviating the symptoms while letting the disease fester. It's true that you had more internal energy than me, but not only couldn't you use most of it, you couldn't even stop it from hurting you!"
"Why... Why did the Soul Plundering Finger not work on you?"
"It did work to an extent. But you don't know how to control even your own qi, so how could you presume to control mine? I just stopped you from taking more than I wanted you to have. But even so, it hurts quite a bit even with this much missing... So I shall now be taking it back."
The woman dropped the mask and took up the stance Deng Hong demonstrated at the apex of their battle.
"You couldn't possibly be..." Deng Hong edged back. His knee still wouldn't rise, so he fell completely and began to crawl backwards. "You... you just said you didn't know...! That you were merely guessing that it existed!"
"It's not like I'll ever get another chance to use a technique as flawed as this." She said.
The woman dashed forward, her fingers thrusting out. Deng Hong tried to defend himself with an outstretched hand, and the fingers struck a pressure point on his wrist, but The Yin Plundering Finger cared little for which acupuncture point it struck.
The energy that had been drained out was relatively miniscule, but it worsened the unstable whirlwind raging through Deng Hong's meridians. He crumpled to the ground, his body twitching in pain, his face seething with hatred.
The golden haired woman continued to stare at him with a smile on her face. She said nothing as she watched him suffer.
A thought had suddenly crossed her mind, briefly knocking her out of her twisted reverie. "Ah, right. Where are the women you've captured?"
It was nothing more than an afterthought.
"They're all dead. You were too late." Deng Hong spat out, depriving a drop of satisfaction out of sheer spite.
As Deng Hong was lying in agony, his veins and arteries had finally ruptured, and the black ichor of his inhumane technique leaked out of every pore, granting him bitter and permanent relief. He died under the gaze of those yellow eyes, twinkling with wicked joy.
"I didn't think I'd guess it all in one try. The jianghu is such a wonderful place."
She stared for a while longer, but voices from outside knocked her out of her reverie, and she took her leave under the cover of darkness.
...