Wu Hao tried to collect the little he knew about the Qingcheng Sect. They were situated near Sichuan, he thought, though where in Sichuan he wouldn't have been able to say.
But the girl standing across from him now was interesting, at least. She had short blue hair cut into a bob that framed her face, from root to the very end in that same color. It was the color of what men said the deep sea looked like, though Wu Hao had only seen a lake once in his life.
The rest of her followed the same theme. Her eyes were crystal blue, her uniform was a light blue. Her bob made her look younger but all the same he estimated her age at about fifteen - two years older than him. Didn't matter, but he noted it all the same.
Even her qi was like the sea. Wu Hao tasted salt on his tongue just from watching her qi shake itself awake from her core, already pulling itself into thin rivers and tributaries which formed her meridians. She might not have had as much qi as he did - two-thirds or so, by his count - but her control over it was at least twice as fine.
That might be a problem.
Although maybe it wouldn't be. His qi purred in his ear like a tiger, and tigers swam, he figured. He repeated to himself: it might be fine.
Su Biao wielded a spear, he also noted. It was a longer spear than his own, and it was a prettier spear than his own, too. The waves that had been forged into the spear's head were works of art, as well as probably being deadly sharp.
Compared to the one he had, which he couldn't even be bothered to recall the name of, this looked like it'd cost a fortune. That much was evident in the fact that its spearhead was custom made and well-polished, its shaft being made of a metal that caught the light oddly, and the deep grooves that had been forged to allow for a better grip.
The cost of that spear alone, Wu Hao figured, could have paid for several spears like his own and left enough to pay for entry to the tournament besides.
But then again, that seemed to be the case for many of the other entrants. Their clothes were all far higher in quality than anything he'd had the fortune of owning, so how could the weapons which they used day in and day out be any less so? Mo Ritian's sword which had just ended Ao Ying's dreams of making it to the final match was equally exquisite, after all.
That, too, might be a problem. Wu Hao's confidence began to wane, replaced with the feeling that he'd made a mistake, but then he told himself to shut the fuck up. There was no reason to doubt himself. He could do so after the fight was over, regardless of who had ended it.
As he was inspecting her, though, Su Biao was inspecting him in turn. He felt her gaze linger most of all on his hands, though he had no clue why.
Tai Buzhou looked at both of them.
"Ready?" he asked, raising his hand high.
Wu Hao nodded, but Su Biao shook her head.
"I have a question for you," she said instead.
Tai Buzhou lowered his hand awkwardly.
"What?" Wu Hao asked.
"Why are you here?" she asked, her tone reproachful. "You won't win. You saw what happened to that other man."
Wu Hao exhaled, gripping his spear tight.
"Ao Ying," he said. "Ao Ying is Ao Ying. I'm me. Who cares why I'm here? All I need to do is beat you. There's nothing else."
"Surrender," she told him, unperturbed. "That way, you'll be spared a long, painful recovery."
That struck a chord in him, and he snapped back.
"I don't need your mercy," Wu Hao said. He lifted the spear in his hands, preparing his qi. Pity him, would she? He grew angrier and angrier the more he thought about it, before he reached a sort of cold fury.
It was his first fight, but he was already growing sick of this. The belief that he couldn't do it, the mocking, the feeling of not belonging.
He would end it here or be ended here.
"This is not -" she began, but Wu Hao interrupted her with a shout.
"Begin already!"
Tai Buzhou gave him a cross look, but he obliged by raising his hand and swinging it down.
"Begin!" he roared, and then with a flicker of qi he was gone. Wu Hao could have tracked his qi down to the side of the arena where he wouldn't be in the way, but he didn't bother.
All of his focus was on Su Biao, who stood across from him. Her spear was still down, but now that the fight had finally started and she hadn't been able to convince him to give up, she raised it and settled into a proper fighting stance for the first time.
Wu Hao cocked his arm back, letting the qi build up along his spear as he shifted on his feet. When enough of it had been stored to activate the One-Shot Spear Art, he charged.
His feet flew across the rough stone. Su Biao didn't seem surprised by his charge, but her lips thinned and qi blasted outwards from her. That same sense of the sea - a salty sense of wetness - roiled to life across the arena as she whirled her spear around in a motion.
Erupting into a blur, her arm that had been pulled back shot forward as she combined a movement technique with her own art seamlessly.
He dodged abruptly, skidding to the side of where he'd just felt a deep pulse of qi announce itself next to him, spear moving in a quick block as Su Biao's own spear came rushing through where he'd just stood. A wave of qi blasted outwards, the ripples pushing into Wu Hao's body. He felt the faint sting of a shallow bite and grimaced as he felt tiny cuts open up where the ripples had hit him.
Right. He couldn't block the attacks because the ripples emanated outwards. That was good to know, at least.
Wu Hao danced back, ignoring the wounds, and when those sky-blue eyes followed him with evident disdain Wu Hao pushed the qi he'd been building into his spear and activated his technique. He shouted, pushing himself forward, into the wavering ripples that still hung into the air.
The spear flew at her, pulling him along, and even as the waves around him ripped at his clothing and his exposed skin he carried on with the attack.
Until, with a loud crack of metal meeting wood and judging it inferior, his thrust was parried. Her spear whirled around again, bobbing on the sea emanating from her core like a living thing, before it struck, sliding just past Wu Hao's face as he contorted to dodge.
Qi still in a messy tangle from that first strike, he pulled back, accepting several more thin slashes across his arms as he stepped back as quickly as he could. She could have made it more difficult for him to escape, but she just watched him go.
"You barely even know the spear," she said, her voice disdainful. "You have no concept of the underlying concepts. Your art is a ramshackle creation that is obviously incomplete -"
Wu Hao stabbed out, but she snaked around it easily, her spear somehow in the right place to block his thrust. That same thrust could have killed a man, but she made it look clumsy and childish.
"This was a mistake," she continued. "Observe, and perhaps you can still gain by learning -"
"Shut the fuck up," Wu Hao shouted back at her, making her eyes widen with surprise. It was probably the first time she'd ever been cursed at.
In response, a wave blasted across her qi, frothing with anger, and Wu Hao smiled despite himself. So she wasn't some automaton, then.
Good. He'd had enough of facing that kind of creepy fuck already.
Wu Hao had managed to untangle himself sufficiently that he could force qi into his feet, detonating it to fling himself into the air, high above. Her spear passed through where he'd just been, her sea of qi roiling with anger.
He flew and flipped head over tail, but her eyes unhesitatingly tracked his flight. There was a faint measure of surprise in her qi before it was drowned out by the anger again, and her spear's tip rose to track him as he fell back down to earth.
Arrows of qi ripped from her spear's tip, coalescing into thin darts that launched at Wu Hao while he was still mid-air. Qi crackled along his spear's haft as he forced it to become heavier again, dodging the blasts of qi but crashing into the ground with enough force that jolts of pain ran up his shins and straight into his spine.
He'd gathered enough qi by pulling that stunt that he could attack again, though, and he dashed forward, spear already extending as he spun its tip like a drill.
She'd blocked his last shot. He wouldn't make that same mistake again. His qi clicked into the loop of the Lung Collapser.
His spear crashed into hers and pushed it aside, her block faltering as he threw everything he had left at her in a single strike, the way the One-Shot Spear Art demanded he do. She grit her teeth and, despite that Wu Hao had knocked her spear away, the back end of the shaft rose up to block his strike.
Which was why he'd chosen the Lung Collapser, not the Heart Seeker again. Its function was to break past all guards, after all, and his spear bobbed up on one of the waves of her qi and tore at her face.
Wu Hao felt it connect, heard her hiss of pain as he struck home, but then the sheer force of the qi pushed him back. Her spear whirled around and around, thrashing like a sea serpent's tail, and he felt it crack into his upper arm as he retreated.
Shit.
That had not gone as planned.
Su Biao panted. A thin but definite line had been scratched on her right cheek, already beginning to bleed. That was all he'd achieved.
She stared at him. Even the announcer held his breath, for all that Wu Hao wasn't paying attention to his nonsense.
Unfortunately, two breaths later, she went on the offensive.
Suddenly she was in front of him, and his qi was still in a hopeless tangle. There was a deep, burning pain in his arms as he tried in vain to block out the blows that she landed on him, the tip of her spear lancing out and ripping open wounds that hadn't even had time to bleed yet.
She was killing him with a thousand stings. He stepped back the moment he was able, trying to catch his breath and staring at her when she disappeared again into a shimmering haze of qi, and he spun around, but then she stepped again and he lost track of her qi for just an instant.
Then she suddenly stood in front of him, her face set into a grimace. She stood close enough that he could reach out a finger and touch her, closer enough that he couldn't use his spear. Hers, too, was lifted up high, the spearhead pointing dramatically at the sky.
It came slashing down, faster than Wu Hao could even begin to block at the best of times. It tore through him - from the top of his shoulder down to the side of his hip, the spearhead ripped a long line of agony down his body, dipping just lightly more shallowly back when it came to his heart.
Another long quiet fell as she stepped back. The edge of her spearhead was suddenly tinged with red, and Wu Hao felt the first of many pains come crashing into his mind.
He fell to one knee, unable to support standing up after she'd cut through his hip.
"That's enough," she said, breathing heavily. That technique had taken a lot out of her: of the qi with which she'd begun the match, most of it had been used. Wu Hao had used even more, leaving him with only dregs.
Not that it mattered. He could recognize when he'd been beaten. She even sounded like she took pity on him.
Wu Hao's hand felt at the edges of the ragged wound that ran across his torso. Su Biao hadn't held back, but she hadn't wanted to kill him on the spot, either. Her spear had missed all his vital spots, even though it had carved a long furrow through his body. He felt the blood flow freely.
Nonetheless, some of his qi was still there, and he wasn't dead yet.
That was a problem, considering he preferred death to defeat. Gripping his spear once more, forcing his qi into deadening muscles and ignoring the cheers around him as Tai Buzhou began to proclaim Su Biao's victory, Wu Hao stepped forward, using the spear's butt as a crutch for one step before readying it at hip level with the next.
"It's not over," he rasped.
No one paid attention, though. There were a few gasps as he kept moving, a few dismissive glances - they must have thought he was simply stupid enough not to have realized the match was over, thought him a sore loser. They were right, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
Tai Buzhou's voice boomed, and his qi reflected a certain self-satisfaction. Wu Hao imagined that he thought it was good that the scum had been able to be cleared out this early. It was time, now, for the real matches to begin.
But a desperate burst of qi crashed into a rough loop and Wu Hao sent himself launching forward. His clothes flapped on the breeze, his grip on his spear was tenuous at best as his fingers struggled not to let go, and his vision was growing dark at the edges.
Several intense qi signatures locked onto his. The masters didn't act, though, and he imagined that was because they thought that he wasn't a threat.
He landed, stumbling as he did, and thrust his spear with reckless abandon, not even using a technique. Something with all the pressure of the sea crashed down on him, robbing him of all his breath, but the attack had served its purpose.
Su Biao's spear rose almost automatically, the way she must have been trained to do, and qi roared to life in her core and flooded her spear, wrapping it in a thick blue cloak of power.
"Misty Sea Art," she cried out reflexively. "Surging Whirlpool!"
Then she stabbed Wu Hao straight in the chest. This, at least, wasn't one of those nonlethal attacks she'd used earlier: this was pure instinct, a technique that she'd used without even thinking about it. Lashing out against something that had frightened her with more power than was strictly necessary, just to make it go away.
After all, that was how she'd reacted earlier as well. She had become predictable.
Blood flecked across Su Biao's shocked face as she realized what she'd done. The spearhead had been buried straight into Wu Hao's heart, aimed there as if by a divine guidance. Her wide eyes focused on Wu Hao's, still that annoyingly bright shade of blue. The wound on her cheek bled, its deeper red a contrast to the duller shade of his own.
"Why?" she whispered. Her lip trembled, which together with the blood that had spattered across her face made her look like she was the one who had lost the match. A look at the spearhead sticking out the back of his chest would have made it clear who'd really won, though.
Wu Hao grinned, blood spilling from his lips, and pulled himself deeper onto the spear. He was dead already, anyway. Might as well make her remember him.
"See you next time."
And then, with the final dregs of his qi extinguished, he died.
You have been killed by a Sky-tier Spear Art for the fourth time. Obtained Sky-Tier Spear Art Fragment IV as a reward.