Book 2 Chapter 65

Willow did a duelist’s bow to Li Xiangyin, and his opponent followed suit. The two combatants then began to circle each other in the sand.

Willow was willing to wait and bait out the first move from his opponent. His style was on the defensive side anyways so it would only benefit him if Xiangyin tried to bash against his shield in vain. Afterwards he’d be able to launch his counter attack.

He smiled to himself as he realized that his style of fighting was vaguely reminiscent of how his father fought in his stories.

Willow saw a frown form on Xiangyin’s face and annoyance spiked in her core.

“What’s so amusing, and why haven’t you brought out your spirit? Do you think you’re that much better than me?”

WIllow chuckled. “My spirit is already out, and I have no idea how I compare to you. It’s part of why I agreed to this fight in the first place. As for why I’m laughing, it’s kind of personal, but I assure you that I don’t mean any offense.”

Xandra was currently hiding in the reflection of his shield, a nifty trick that they’d discovered together during practice. It allowed his reflection spirit to use the shield as a medium for some of their techniques. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but both him and his teachers thought it’d be a good way to confuse his opponent on the nature of his spirit.

He’d hold off on harmonizing with his metal spirit’s bond until it was advantageous for him to do so.

Xiangyin didn’t seem particularly soothed by the answers he gave to her questions. He knew that dialogue in fights were often done to throw your opponents mentally off balance so he understood why she didn’t take his words at face value, but he didn’t want to stoop to such tactics for this fight.

He could feel the crowd growing impatient as the two of them continued circling and looking for an opening, but he was still content to wait.

A trait that his opponent didn’t seem to share.

Xiangyin and Man Yue separated, with the moon spirit hovering above the arena, and the girl charging directly towards him. As she moved her form began to flicker with moonlight and her movements became more erratic and harder to read.

Oh that’s a neat application of qi!

Willow also felt Man Yue gathering qi for what was likely to be an attack of some kind, but he had to deal with the threat immediately in front of him first.

Xiangyin tried to juke past his shield using her erratic movement technique, but he was able to intercept her with it at the last moment. The initial blow was weaker than he’d expected, but the follow up burst of qi more than made up for that.

He wanted to be surprised about the gentle feeling moonlight qi being used for such an explosive purpose, but he’d long since learned that even the most benign concept could be steered towards violence so it didn’t shock him as much as it probably should’ve.

Xandra took in the energy directed towards them and blasted it right back at the attacker in a much more diluted form causing Xiangyin to step back in surprise. Allowing him to bash her away with his shield with a clang.

Thankfully his friend seemed to be completely unharmed from the blast of energy. They’d done some minor testing on the matter, but it wasn’t conclusive. Xandra’s intervention also likely prevented the shield itself from being damaged in that attack. It was a sturdily constructed piece of protection, but at the end of the day it was still mostly mundane metal even if it was made by a master smith.

Before Willow could press his advantage, Man Yue launched the attack that they’d been preparing. A lance of shifting moonlight cut through the air eerily silent in its passing.

Not wanting to overwhelm Xandra, Willow harmonized with their bond and made a now familiar gesture with his left hand sending a wedge of metal qi to intercept the attack. It didn’t fully stop it, but that was never gonna be an option. Instead the wedge redirected the moonlight enough for him to evade it with a few steps.

When the lance of light impacted the sandy floor of the arena the qi of the attack was absorbed by the fractals of qi under the surface.

So that’s what those were for.

He spent a moment staring at Man Yue, memories of waking up and seeing Li Wanyu’s face in that same moonlight, or when he carried him across the treetops of his home flashed through his mind.

It really was a shame that he had to fight the spirit of his once saviour.

After he dropped the harmonization he noticed that Xiangyin was staring at him rather intensely.

“What was that?” She asked, likely not expecting any kind of answer from him.

He gave her a smile. “What was what?” It was best for him to try and play off whatever she’d seen or sensed as nothing.

She continued to give him an inscrutable look. The emotions swirling around in her core painted a picture of equal parts curiosity, fear, and excitement.

Xiangyin closed the distance between them, but Willow could tell that their fight was the furthest thing on her mind.

Still, he kept his guard up. For all he knew this was some sort of ploy.

“When and where did you meet my brother?” She asked, her voice low.

Willow froze. Right, in his metal form memories occasionally projected on his metallic skin. The clearer the memory the clearer the image. He should’ve been more careful with his thoughts while he was like that.

He wanted to deny ever meeting Li Wanyu, but he could feel the desperation for answers in the girl in front of him.

Willow sighed. He was going into hiding soon anyway.

What could be the harm?

“If you mean the guy who had a similar moon spirit to yours then I think it was around five years ago? He saved my life. Haven’t seen him since. Did something happen to him?” That last question slipped out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

Xiangyin seemed frustrated by what he said, likely upset that it wasn’t a more recent lead. “He’s currently missing. The rest is clan business.”

Willow wanted to pester her more about the matter, but could feel the growing unrest in the crowd.

“We should get back to fighting. The elders are starting to get cranky.”

She scowled but nodded and the fight continued after they reset their positions. Something that Willow appreciated since she could’ve just blindsided him right then and there.

After several exchanges much like their initial one, with both sides unable to get a proper hit on each other, Willow came to the unfortunate conclusion that he was unlikely to win this fight.

He just didn’t have the stamina.

Physically he was perfectly fine to keep going, but the qi reserves of both him and Xandra were quickly depleting from deflecting so many attacks and he could feel the power still brimming in the core of his opponents.

Man Yue in particular had barely even used a fifth of their reserves if Willow was sensing things right.

If he felt more comfortable using one of his more offense oriented techniques without risk of lasting harm then he might be able to eke out a win, but the risk was too great in his mind. He didn’t want to hurt the girl in front of him or her spirit.

So he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. Replicating a moment from a story, though the circumstances were undeniably different.

He smiled, dropped his guard, and loudly declared.

“I forfeit!”