In a single stride, Jiang Chen mounted the timeworn Sword Dueling Platform. Ten points of Merit were deducted at once, and the platform abruptly rose, straight up into the star river!
This was the first time he had set foot on a dueling platform outside of a Blessed Land challenge — the first time, in the strictest sense, in this Ethereal Realm that he had gone seeking an opponent of his own accord.
That familiar, gentle voice resounded: "The journey of the Sword Dueling Platform begins. Write down your name to open your dueling ranking."
A sheet of white paper appeared out of thin air, suspended before him, and with it a writing brush — thin and light, yet when he tapped it, it did not stir in the least.
For the Ethereal Realm, so steeped in its mysteries, to learn his own name would have been the easiest thing in the world. Yet the voice did not simply use his name — it required that Jiang Chen write it down himself. And when he recalled that Zhuo Lie was already dead, and that the master of the Jade Altar, still cowed by the man even then, had delayed for a long while before challenging him — it followed that, in the Ethereal Realm, Zhuo Lie must have held yet another identity.
At that thought, Jiang Chen lifted the brush and wrote — Single Invincible.
It was not, of course, his own style. Were it Huang Azhan or Du Hu, both were plausible — the former forever blowing his own horn, the latter born fierce and blood-thirsty. But such a name, he reflected, would kindle an opponent's fighting spirit all the more; and why had he spent his Merit here, if not to court a fight?
"Single Invincible has not yet entered the top hundred of the Roaming Meridian realm, and shows no ranking. Conceal your appearance?"
Without a second thought Jiang Chen chose yes — what point in taking a false name, if not to conceal himself? Then he realized another ten points of Merit had been docked... at least, he hoped, not a single-use charge.
"Matched on the ninth-rank Sword Dueling Platform..."
"Match found!"
Jiang Chen came to his senses to find himself in a foursquare room — ceiling overhead, walls on every side, neither door nor window, the floor smooth, the view open, all laid bare at a glance. Across from him, a Daoist whose face and frame were both round as a ball was slowly opening his eyes.
"Single Invincible?" He frowned, and the whole upper half of his plump face seemed to sag. "A name so arrogant, and yet looks so plain — you must be a master indeed."
The Ethereal Realm's disguising had adjusted Jiang Chen's face to be positively handsome, nearly fit to rival Zhao Yan; and all he earned was a verdict of "plain."
He got, too, a look at his very first matched opponent's name — True Invincible! It set his eyelid twitching; he felt baited. What did it mean — did it suggest that he, Single Invincible, was the false one?
Jiang Chen's magic sword cast its projection into his hand, though it lacked the power to loose the Golden Light Arrow of the waking world — fully manifesting external objects cost Merit, which at his present standing would gain less than it lost.
"Then come, then!"
True Invincible was still delivering his lines when Jiang Chen's sword-light moved, and his person shot forth like an arrow.
His swordsmanship had been forged, from the very first, in slaughter — he always seized the initiative, held the center line, and had never any patience for dawdling. From ranking first in the outward martial arts, to standing as champion of his year in the Three-City Trial, to barring the gate of Riverview City with a single sword, all of it had granted him an enormous confidence, and the aura that belonged to him had slowly come into being.
This sword came like a wandering dragon rousing the heavens, twisting and turning like lightning.
"Good villain!" True Invincible, in his extremity, still found breath for an imprecation, and with one hand pressed before him a round shield of rippling water took shape, blocking the sword's point full on! "Attacking me by stealth!" he cried again.
His fat hand slashed across, and a blade of fire cut out sharp and savage; at the same instant, climbing vines burst up from below, reaching to entangle Jiang Chen.
A cultivator of the Roaming Meridian realm could not engrave instantaneous techniques; to loose so many attacks at nearly one and the same moment could only mean that this chubby fellow had long since been forming his seals — yet there he was, howling that Jiang Chen had attacked him by ambush. Still, to be fair, his grasp of the Dao arts was nothing short of precise.
Jiang Chen felt a thrill of excitement. At Maple City's Dao Academy he never met an opponent like this — they were either too strong, bursting upward across whole ranks, or too weak, falling apart at the first blow. He could hardly feel the pleasure of battle at all.
His heart surged within him, yet his hand was steady as cast iron, and with consummate control he tapped his sword against the water shield and drew it back at once, rather than let the swirling waters catch it fast. He vaulted high, dodging the blade of fire, and turned his sword about to cut the binding vines away.
But in a flash he sensed that something was wrong — his sword was too heavy!
A single drop of water clung to the sword's point, and yet that drop seemed to weigh a thousand jin, dragging him straight downward.
The fat Daoist burst out laughing: "You thought it a water shield? It's a heavy-water shield, little thief!"
By then the binding vine had already touched Jiang Chen. True Invincible whipped out two blades of fire besides, crossed and blasting forward, both to put Jiang Chen to death and to offer him no chance of counterattack. Those ten plump fingers flew through seals like a blur, mockery enough of the name "Invincible."
Jiang Chen put his strength into a shudder, and the sword's point snapped clean off, flying away with that drop of heavy water. Mid-fall he rolled his body into a wrapping of violet qi, howling and surging, sweeping up those two blades of fire in a single motion to fling himself straight at True Invincible! It was the deadliest stroke of the Violet Dawn Sword Art.
Bang!
The violet qi scattered — yet where it had been stood only Jiang Chen, holding his sword. What he had pierced with his Violet Dawn was nothing but an illusion!
And already nine vine serpents were winding in, interweaving into a makeshift cage that trapped him fast.
Jiang Chen stretched out a hand, pressed the hastily-completed Flame Pellet against the vine cage, and blasted open a breach. Caught inside with no room to dodge, his left hand, too, was shredded and streaming blood. But his face did not change; he simply spread his sword and meant to dart out through the gap.
And then...
Through that very gap he could make out, plain as day, beyond the cage — dense ranks of wind blades, suspended in empty air.
True Invincible stood outside the cage, keeping ample distance, and wiped his brow even as he said: "A close call. You nearly turned the tables on me." Even as he spoke, he waved his hand.
Countless wind blades sliced Jiang Chen to pieces on the spot.
…
He had lost!
Jiang Chen returned to his Blessed Land, still not fully in his wits. His opponent had been too strong! The heavy-water shield, the blades of fire, the binding vines, the illusion art, the vine serpents, the wind blades — and those nine vine serpents, bunched into a cage besides. The illusion art was rare enough; the heavy-water shield, a Dao art he had never even heard of.
The man had mastered such a host of arts and wielded them with aim and subtlety. Unlike Sun Xiaoyan's simple honesty, True Invincible — this fat Daoist — seemed a fool on the surface, yet had in truth been governing the tide of battle all along; in that fight just past, every step of Jiang Chen's had fallen within his reckoning. Retracing the whole bout, he could not find a single point of gain.
On his sundial, his Merit read three thousand, three hundred and sixty points. Starting the dueling platform had cost ten; concealing his face, ten; and losing, ten — thirty points gone in a single battle. And the East Sea Mountain Blessed Land, the lowliest of all, yielded but a hundred points a month; in his present strength, Jiang Chen doubted he could have taken it in any case.
Just then, a plump paper crane burst in from no one knew where, wobbling to Jiang Chen and settling before him. On instinct he caught it, and the crane unfolded itself in his hand into a letter:
"Brother Single, as you see: that bout just now I shall not soon forget. Your strength I admire as from the foot of a mountain, and to have won by sheer luck leaves me quite ill at ease. Do grant me a rematch, to restore your proper prestige."
What on earth was all this rot? Jiang Chen glanced down to the signature, and there it was in large characters: True Invincible. Even this fellow's paper crane came fatter than another's.
But this whole manner of speech looked, for all the world, like a scheme to farm Jiang Chen for Merit. The cost of the platform fell on the loser, so in that bout just past Jiang Chen had hemorrhaged Merit while True Invincible pocketed ten. Jiang Chen could only wish he were Huang Azhan — his own stock of oaths was thin, and the cursing had not been satisfying in the least.
At that, another fat paper crane came wobbling over.
Jiang Chen took it, and sure enough it was that very True Invincible again, though he had changed his tack once more —
"To be frank, Brother Single. I seldom meet so evenly-matched an opponent, and I have profited richly, richly indeed! No time today — but let us fight again another day. Do send word back by my flying crane, so we may keep in touch!"
Whatever follows "to be frank" is seldom frank in the least...
Jiang Chen's face twitched. He took up paper and brush and answered: "I'll be in touch."
Then, feeling the Silver Moon mark on his palm, he left the Ethereal Realm.
Damn you, you fat good-for-nothing. Just you wait.