Bai Ning glared at Duan Cheng across the expanse of white.
Once again, her sword had missed his neck by the slimmest margin. Once again, every face of his Thousand-Faced Die had settled, as if in quiet mockery, on a single number: one.
What an infuriating opponent.
He wasn’t merely manipulating chance; he was bludgeoning it into submission. His attacks landed with absolute certainty, while hers were doomed to fail. Every strike she made slipped just short, as though fate itself bent away from him. Even targeting the die had proved useless. It possessed a peculiar ability to divide without limit; her first cut had cleaved it cleanly in two, only to reveal two smaller dice spinning in its place. She had tried three more times before abandoning the effort entirely, especially once he had arranged the scattered fragments into a shifting wall, their faces contorting into taunting expressions.
A truly infuriating opponent.
All her sword techniques were rendered meaningless. She couldn’t land a hit, and even when she did, it accomplished nothing. The only reason Duan Cheng hadn’t already won was because, for all their spectacle, his attacks lacked the force to truly harm her. Once she understood the trick, they became far easier to handle.
Since his strikes were guaranteed to connect no matter what she did, she adapted. A thin, deliberately fragile barrier formed her outermost defense, concealing a second, far denser layer beneath it. The die would shatter the outer shell at negligible cost to her qi, and then she would deflect the remainder with her own strength. It was working, for now. But it had also turned the contest into something she hadn't anticipated: a battle of attrition.
Should I summon Miantiao?
The thought surfaced, as it had several times already. Like each time, she forced it back down.
Duan Cheng knew about the dragon bound as her artifact spirit. For him to remain this calm, he had to have a counter prepared. That crimson breastplate he wore hadn’t been used even once, and she would wager her newly earned spirit stones it was a defensive artifact of considerable strength, likely a gift from Wei Shentong himself. Besides… calling Miantiao wasn’t how she wanted to win.
She exhaled slowly, forcing her irritation into stillness. I can cut through anything, she reminded herself. Even this.
"Fellow Daoist," she called, her voice carrying cleanly through the silence. "You seem rather accustomed to fighting. I wouldn't have expected so much experience from someone who runs a gambling hall."
Duan Cheng paused mid-motion, his die hovering for a fraction of a breath before resuming its advance. At this distance, hidden behind his barrier, she couldn’t see his expression, but she imagined surprise flickering across it. Neither of them had bothered with words before this; they had simply begun.
The surroundings hardly encouraged conversation. The world remained a featureless stretch of polished white, extending endlessly in every direction. Above, the sky was the same bleached, off-white void, devoid of even a single cloud. Only the scars of their battle broke the monotony, craters and pockmarks gouged into the ground where attacks had struck or been deflected, carving great chunks from the pristine surface.
Below and off to the sides, two presences observed in silence. One was Mo Jian, his qi barrier steady and immovable as a mountain, sheltering both himself and the unfortunate arena manager. The other was Wei Shentong, reclining upon a jade chair he had summoned from nothing, posture straight despite the ease of his position, his expression as cold as ever. His spiritual sense draped over the battlefield like a shroud. If not for Mo Jian’s presence, Bai Ning might have worried he would intervene.
Duan Cheng finally replied, his tone carrying a faint air of well, why not. “I traveled extensively in my youth,” he said. “During a journey to the northern territories, I volunteered at the Great Wall, when the remnants of Batu Khan’s shattered horde were pressing against the Empire’s borders. I wouldn’t call myself a warrior, but every cultivator understands the value of strength. Fairy, underestimate a gambling hall owner at your own peril.”
I wasn't looking for a lecture, she thought, a flicker of irritation crossing her face.
Still, he wasn't wrong. She recognized something uncomfortable in his words, as though a shallow assumption she hadn't consciously acknowledged was being named and discarded for her. What would he know of fighting? Just a lapdog for Wei Shentong. That earlier thought now felt thin and poorly considered.
She let it go. Bai Ning centered herself, drawing her focus inward and letting every stray thought dissolve; her frustration at underperforming, her earlier boasts of easy victory, Wei Shentong’s looming presence, her master Mo Jian’s upcoming duel, the weight of what this battle meant. All of it fell away.
Then she moved.
Within her barrier, she brought her hands together in a single sharp clap and parted them slowly. Between her palms, a sword took shape, a miniature replica of the Green Destiny Sword, no longer than an inch, formed of condensed emerald light, delicate as a pressed leaf. She regarded it for a moment. Then she released it.
The tiny blade shot forward. Leaf became dagger, dagger became sword, and the sword did not stop growing. It swelled past human scale and kept expanding, a towering construct of radiant green energy that tore across the white expanse like a comet falling at an angle, its passage splitting the air with a sound like tearing silk. Emerald brilliance scorched the colorless sky as the blade stretched toward the horizon.
Duan Cheng reacted smoothly, flicking a finger. The Thousand-Faced Die spun, and once again, every face resolved to one.
Bai Ning’s lips curved.
The massive sword reached him in a heartbeat, and missed. It veered exactly one inch to the side, a screaming wall of green force shrieking past his barrier, its passage whipping up gale-force winds that sent shockwaves rolling across the scarred ground. A deliberate miss.
Bai Ning smiled. A roar of exhilaration answered her.
As the Green Destiny Sword tore past, something erupted from its length: Miantiao, vast as the weapon that had carried him, ghostly scales blazing pale against the void. He coiled through the air in a single fluid motion, looping around Duan Cheng's cubical barrier and tightening, his immense body locking into place. Duan Cheng reacted at once, his die spinning frantically to a new number, but he was too late. Miantiao constricted with the full weight of mountains suddenly moving. The barrier groaned. Fractures spiderwebbed across its surface in the same instant, spreading outward from each point of pressure, and then, with a crack like a frozen lake giving way, it shattered in every direction at once.
The dragon lunged.
His throat swelled with light, jaws yawning wide to reveal rows of fangs the color of old bone. Heat poured off him in visible waves, searing radiance gathering in the hollow of his chest and building toward something violent and inevitable.
Duan Cheng still did not panic. The Thousand-Faced Die spun at speed, its faces beginning to shift-
And then Bai Ning dropped from above.
She descended like a falling star, grinning, one hand resting against the pommel of an enormous Green Destiny Sword. The blade itself dwarfed her, far too large to wield physically; she guided it with pure will, its edge screaming down in a telekinetic arc. It cleaved straight through the die. As expected, the halves split cleanly, only to become two separate dice, each spinning independently. Bai Ning didn’t hesitate.
She pivoted midair and swung again. The blade swept horizontally, splitting the pair into four. Fragments multiplied, scattering outward, yet she pressed on relentlessly, her strikes flowing one into the next without pause. Four became eight, eight became sixteen, and the sky filled with dice. Still, she attacked. The pips on their surfaces blurred into chaos, spinning faster and faster as a rising glow bled from them, light intensifying with every passing instant. The air hummed with gathering power, as if probability itself strained under the pressure.
Let’s see you roll now, she thought coldly.
She drove the assault harder, refusing to yield even a heartbeat. If the die couldn't complete a roll, it couldn't enforce its outcome. And behind that relentless storm of cuts, Miantiao pressed his own assault against the opening she had carved.
The dragon exhaled.
Lava poured from his jaws in a searing deluge, liquid stone crashing down in sheets that engulfed Duan Cheng and the remnants of his shattered barrier, spreading outward across the white ground like a burning tide. Where it struck the pristine surface, it hissed and fractured, cooling to black at its edges while the interior still pulsed an angry, furnace red. Jagged clouds of steam billowed upward in churning columns, swallowing the battlefield in a dense, choking haze. Miantiao did not relent. He continued the torrent, an unbroken stream of molten fury connecting sky to earth, until even his own vast spectral form blurred behind heat shimmer and rising vapour, visible only as a pale shape against the white void above.
Below, two streaks of light shot away from the devastation, retreating to a safe distance. Wei Shentong watched on, his expression as cold and unreadable as ever, though now, a flicker of anticipation gleamed in his eyes. Beside him, Mo Jian cast a sidelong glance at the arena manager, who looked as though he had brushed against death itself and barely escaped. His lips were bloodless, his body trembling uncontrollably.
But it wasn’t over. Where the lava pooled and thickened, still glowing a dull, furious red, a new light began to shine. At first, it blended with the molten glow. Then it intensified, sharpening into something distinct. In the next instant, the hardened crust of lava exploded outward in a rain of black shards. Duan Cheng emerged from within. He was sweating, his body trembling, his skin flushed from the heat, but he stood largely unharmed. The crimson breastplate across his chest burned with a vivid, pulsing light, and that light began to take form.
It swelled outward, coiling into shape: a long, sinuous body sheathed in gleaming scarlet scales. A serpentine form that flowed with lethal grace, fanged maw parting beneath curling whiskers, four clawed limbs flexing as arcing horns crowned its crowned head. Another dragon. It tore free from Duan Cheng’s chest, tethered only by a thread of light trailing from its tail. With a thunderous roar that shook the steam apart, it shot skyward and lunged straight for Miantiao.
Miantiao cut off his breath, the last threads of lava spilling from his jaws like dying embers. Then he roared, a sound that didn't just fill the air but pressurized it, and dove to meet the challenger. They collided. The impact detonated the sky. Coils met coils with the sound of continents shifting; scales shrieked against fangs and talons, and a shockwave ripped outward in a perfect, violent ring, blasting the choking steam apart in every direction. For one suspended instant, the two dragons hung locked together, irresistible force meeting something that refused to yield. Then they twisted, surged, and began to tear at each other with savage and absolute fury.
They vanished into what remained of the smoke and burst out again, first as a flash of pale, ghostly white; then as a streak of burning crimson. Their bodies carved through the sky in blinding arcs, diving and rising, crashing through drifting vapor and reappearing in explosive eruptions of motion. Each clash sent shockwaves rippling across the scarred arena below. Each roar rolled like distant thunder across the battlefield.
Miantiao held the advantage from the very first exchange. For every strike the crimson dragon landed, he answered with two. His claws raked deep, tearing loose shimmering red scales that spun downward through the air like shed embers. His coils tightened with crushing, methodical force, locking the other dragon in place, and then his jaws closed. They clamped around the crimson dragon's throat and did not release. The red dragon thrashed, claws gouging, tail convulsing in desperate resistance, but Miantiao held fast and simply pulled, dragging it through the sky like prey that had never really had a chance.
And yet, for the moment, he was held in check.
Below, Duan Cheng moved. He raised a hand and pointed toward the sky, toward the thousands upon thousands of dice still suspended where Bai Ning had driven them. At his command, their glow vanished all at once. They fell, plummeting from the sky in a deafening cascade, striking the ground, the cooling lava, each other; clattering, bouncing, and scattering in every direction. The spiritual power within them dimmed to the brink of extinction, their presence flickering like dying embers.
High above, Bai Ning stilled. Her sword hovered at her side as she watched, wary.
The last echoes of clattering dice had barely faded when the world shifted. What had once been a scorched, broken battlefield flickered and dissolved, as though wiped clean by an unseen hand. In its place, a vast expanse of gold and white unfolded beneath them, stretching endlessly in every direction. Perfect squares of polished white and burnished gold interlocked with flawless precision, forming a colossal board that replaced the very ground itself. A game board.
Bai Ning’s breath hitched, and then she felt it. A force seized her, holding her suspended in place, tight and absolute. Her body refused to move. Even her thoughts seemed to slow, not dulled but structured, as though the world had imposed a grammar upon itself that she was expected to follow. Understanding arrived unbidden, like rules engraved directly upon her mind: only one person could move at a time; Duan Cheng had the first move; each turn required a roll of the die, the number dictating the scope of the action. A six would magnify any move tenfold. A one would reduce it to near insignificance. They would alternate turns… until only one remained.
Her gaze snapped to Duan Cheng at once. He hovered calmly above his square, the earlier strain gone from his posture. Above him, the Thousand Faced Die hovered once more, whole and pristine, as if it had never been shattered into countless fragments. She understood at once. He would roll flawless sixes for himself, and when her turn came, condemn her to ones. Her movements would be stifled, her attacks rendered insignificant, her efforts reduced to gestures that could never threaten him.
A flawless system of control.
For a moment, despite herself, Bai Ning felt a flicker of grudging admiration.
However, she suspected, this ability – impressive as it was – was better suited for suppressing large numbers of weaker cultivators than for a true contest between equals. Her qi was still her own. If she forced the issue, she might yet break free of its constraints. And more than that… neither Miantiao nor the red dragon seemed affected. So, did it apply only to people? Or had Duan Cheng deliberately limited the participants? Either way, the strain had to be immense. Maintaining the red dragon alone would be costly (and if that red breastplate wasn’t a Nascent Soul level artifact gifted by Wei Shentong, she would eat her boots). Add to that this vast game board…
In a battle of attrition, she would win. However… Bai Ning exhaled slowly, her eyes sharpening as resolve settled in.
Very well. I’ll play your game.
She transmitted her qi along her sword, projecting her voice to the artifact spirit bound within. Deal with that dragon quickly, and come shield me.
Miantiao’s roar answered like thunder swallowed by the void, muffled only by the way his fangs were sunk deep into the smaller red dragon’s neck. For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath. Then he tore back, ghostly muscles coiling and straining beneath translucent scales, the motion sudden and brutal. The red dragon shrieked, high and piercing, a sound sharp enough to fracture stone, its body writhing in desperate, futile resistance. Claws raked at nothing. Its tail convulsed against the air. Miantiao did not relent. With a final, brutal wrench, he ripped the dragon’s head clean from its neck.
The scream cut off. The body collapsed mid-thrash, unraveling instantly into a storm of crimson light that scattered outward like embers thrown from a dying fire, before reversing, drawn back like water receding on a tide, flowing back into the blood-red breastplate on Duan Cheng's chest, leaving silence in their wake.
Even Duan Cheng stood frozen for a moment. Shock moved across his face before he could prevent it, not at the loss itself, but at the sheer, unhesitating speed of it.
Miantiao descended without a sound, his immense, spectral form coiling around Bai Ning. Loop upon loop, he wrapped her in tightening spirals, his form weaving into a lattice of ghostly light, a living shield of hooked claws and adamantine scales, each curve bristling with quiet, lethal promise.
Duan Cheng exhaled, seemingly shaking off the momentary shock. With a sharp gesture, he summoned the floating die above his head. It rattled in place, a dry, ominous clatter, before settling, each face displaying the same number: six. As expected.
The die began to glow. The etched numerals twisted. Lines stretched and folded into layered inscriptions that resembled compressed formations, the golden aura around it shifting and deepening until it splintered into a prismatic blaze of five interwoven colors. Silver bled into red; red ran into blue; blue dissolved into green; green flared into something nameless, all fused into a radiant, shifting brilliance that hurt the eye to behold.
Then it moved.
Like Nezha’s Divine Brick from legend, it shot forward, an unstoppable force tearing through the air, a comet of crushing intent aimed straight for Bai Ning.
She watched it for a single breath, faintly surprised that Duan Cheng would use his natal artifact – already anchoring the battlefield itself – as a weapon. Then she let the thought go. She let everything go. Her eyes closed, and her defenses fell away. She entrusted everything to her dragon, letting the Green Destiny Sword settle quietly into her grasp, its brilliance fading and condensing, becoming nothing more than a simple, unadorned blade of green. Yet her senses did not dim. Instead, they sharpened, expanding outward like ink dropped in still water.
She felt it all: the die hurtling toward her, tearing through space; Miantiao’s fierce exhilaration as he spun around her, exulting even in the face of destruction; the vast pressure of the gameboard beneath her, its unseen rules pressing in from every direction; the distant presence of onlookers at the edge of perception. And beyond it all, Duan Cheng, faint, distant… but absolute. Like a mark etched into the world itself. A target she could see, but could not yet reach.
Except-
It’s all armor.
The realization came like a quiet echo.
I just have to ignore it… and cut him anyway.
A memory surfaced: the nameless swordsman, his blade passing cleanly through both armor and flesh, yet choosing to cut only the man within. This was no different. The die, the gameboard, the distance; every layer between her sword and her opponent was just his armor. More elaborate than most, but no less a barrier for the elaboration.
Ignore it, she told herself. Cut only what matters.
A swordswoman could cut anything, even the sunrise. But the greatest could cut nothing at all.
Her eyes opened. The die was already upon her. It moved with terrifying speed, and there had never been much distance to begin with. Miantiao surged to meet it, hurling his massive form forward in a desperate collision. For one instant the world seemed to splinter at its seams. Miantiao's ghostly scales shattered on contact like blown glass, pulverized into drifting fragments of pale light. The prismatic die did not slow by even a fraction. Miantiao screamed, a molten, liquid sound, like stone grinding and flowing simultaneously. His body convulsed, coils breaking, light unraveling as the force tore through him, dismantling him piece by piece.
He had already been wounded from the earlier clash with the red dragon. Now, he was breaking anew. And it was painfully, unmistakably clear, that he would not be able to stop it.
He’ll need a lot of treats after this, Bai Ning thought, calm and absurd against the ruin unfolding before her. I’ll have to make Master Mo Jian cough them up. It’s only fair.
The thought passed as easily as it came. She let it go. Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her sword. She swung. One stroke; a single, clean, downward cut. Far away, several li distant, Duan Cheng’s body jerked. A line appeared across his chest. Then it opened. Blood burst forth in a violent arc as the strike carved through him from shoulder to hip, in a perfect, merciless division. His eyes widened, shock overtaking whatever triumph had been there before, as his body gave way beneath the weight of a wound he had never seen coming.
At the same instant, the die faltered. Its overwhelming radiance guttered out as if snuffed by an unseen hand. The prismatic brilliance collapsed inward, colors draining, inscriptions dissolving, until it shrank, smaller and smaller, becoming nothing more than an ordinary die that fell from the sky. Below, the vast checkered gameboard flickered once, then vanished entirely, its oppressive presence dissolving like a dream at dawn. In its place remained only the ruined land, bleached white earth scarred with craters. Rivers of once-molten stone now cooled into jagged veins of charcoal black, threading through the battlefield like scars that would never close.
Duan Cheng's wounded body struck the ground a moment later, tumbling briefly before coming to rest amid the dust and shattered stone.
For a long moment, there was only silence.
Then Mo Jian’s qi cut through it, sharp, clear, and undeniable, and the arena manager seemed to jolt awake as if surfacing from a dream.
“F-first blood…” he managed, voice cracking. “Winner… Senior Bai Ning.”
……………………………………………………………………
Half an hour later, a much-recovered, though still visibly wounded, Duan Cheng stood before Wei Shentong.
He bowed as deeply as his condition allowed, carefully masking the sharp protest of pain even that simple motion drew from his body. It did not matter. Today’s loss was far more than merely physical.
“My deepest apologies, senior,” he said evenly. “It was my defeat.”
Wei Shentong did not respond at once. He rose instead. His qi settled over the space like a vast, motionless weight: still, suffocating, and inhumanly controlled. The air itself seemed to hesitate. Duan Cheng’s composure cracked for an instant; a reflexive flinch betrayed him before he could stop it. He corrected himself immediately.
Too late.
Wei Shentong’s gaze sharpened. “Useless fool,” he said, each word ground out like stone dragged across iron. His hand lifted slightly, as if violence might follow. Duan Cheng braced. Fear flickered, quick and unwelcome, followed by something sharper and more dangerous: resentment. He forced it down with effort that hurt more than the injury in his ribs.
But the blow never came.
Wei Shentong’s attention had already moved on.
Across the arena, Mo Jian stood speaking with Bai Ning. The arena manager – Wang Ping, his meticulously catalogued mind supplied – hovered nearby. For a man who had seemed so painfully aware of the gulf between himself and those present, he was, at the moment, disconcertingly, almost smiling.
Bai Ning had her dragon cradled in both hands. What had once been a vast spectral terror of coils and fangs was now no larger than a garden snake, reduced to a compact and deeply aggrieved bundle in her palms. It was making the most of the situation. It whined. It twisted. It issued a steady stream of piteous hisses; what appeared to be an ongoing dramatic account of its grievous injuries and unreasonable suffering, rendered with theatrical commitment of the highest order. Its mistress, for her part, was celebrating her victory with an air of equally exaggerated solemn grandeur, as though the outcome had never been in any doubt, as though she had always known exactly how this would end, as though the entire exercise had simply been a formality that the universe had needed to complete before acknowledging the inevitable.
In any other match, against any other opponent, Duan Cheng might have felt irritation rise at the spectacle. Now, it did not quite find purchase.
Wei Shentong’s glare deepened as he watched. “Fools,” he repeated coldly. “Looks like I will have to do everything myself.”
He rose into the air without ceremony, his presence cutting upward through the still atmosphere like a blade being drawn from a sheath.
Only then did Duan Cheng allow himself the smallest release of breath. Something close to relief, though relief wasn't quite the word for it.
Fools, he thought.
He watched Bai Ning making a performance of consoling her suffering dragon. He watched Mo Jian observing this with an expression of tremendous patience. He was quiet for a long moment, and then honest with himself in a way he rarely allowed himself to be; the kind that injured men sometimes briefly allow, before the walls come back up.
He would rather stand among those fools right now than remain exactly where he was.
.................................................................................
AN: And that’s over - and now for the main course: Mo Jian vs. Wei Shentong.
Fun fact (?): originally, there was only going to be one fight between Mo Jian and Wei Shentong, but leaving Bai Ning out started to feel a little strange, especially since we haven’t seen her fight since the tournament in Book 1. That’s how Duan Cheng and this whole sequence ended up happening.
The next fight should be more fun… or at least, I had more fun writing it than this one. Mostly because I had a much more vivid mental image while planning it, so the scene felt clearer in my head.
Fun fact #2 (??): Writing Xiang Muxue has turned out to be very different from what I expected. I originally planned for her to be this mastermind-type character: quiet, composed, always waiting for the perfect moment to strike, but somehow she ended up being more… tomboyish. Not what I had in mind at all, but it works. Honestly, I think it gives her a much stronger personality, so that’s the direction I’m sticking with.
Not that any of this matters right now, but… fun fact. (Probably more for me than for you?)