This Boss Cannot Be Defeated

"Huuuh......"

I let out a long, deep breath, and the inner energy of the Pure Heart Glazed Art rose in answer, resonating with my junior sister until we were two and yet one. We didn't even need to count. We simply sprang for Ugly Sword in the same instant.

Ten zhang. Thirty meters, by a modern measure. Not so far in ordinary terms, and in a fight neither exactly close—but to a martial artist calling on his art, it was a gap you could cross in the blink of an eye. To warriors whose reflexes left any ordinary human reaction in the dust, though, that same distance could feel as far away as the horizon.

"Splendid! Matching one another step for step—truly a pair fated by heaven! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Talent almost too fine to kill!"

Even as he said it, Ugly Sword drew the blade from his back.

It was a sword left deliberately untended, caked thick with blood and flesh, the sort of weapon that seemed ready to breathe out the stench of a rotting corpse the moment it left the scabbard. That was the Ugly Sword in truth—the repulsive blade. Even with an edge so ragged the steel itself was hard to see, he had shown swordwork vicious enough to shear stone and lop the lip off a sheer cliff, sealing every path of retreat. Such was a master of the Transcendent Peak Realm. At that height, a single leaf was enough to split the sea and raise a storm.

"Receive it!"

"Glazed Lantern Sword."

She had chosen the Glazed Lantern Sword because finesse would not save us. What she needed was force enough to stop Ugly Sword's blow outright, and so she threw everything she had into meeting it.

A clang rang out, bright and violent as a crystal cup smashed to pieces. The form she had swung was broken—but the slash he had thrown out only to check me never reached my body. She stopped it clean.

Blood burst from her grip and spattered the planks. The blue-steel sword, unable to bear the rebound of her own energy colliding with his, shattered. She folded to her knees behind me, and I did not look back. I kept running straight at him.

If she pulled it off, then it's my turn!

The truth was, the Pure Heart Glazed Art had no fist forms of its own. Master had been a swordsman, and he had set my junior sister to learning the Pure Heart Glazed Sword Art. But his head disciple, Yeon Cheongha, had never cared much for the sword, and with long limbs and a tall, solid frame better suited to fists and kicks, all he had been given was the Pure Heart Glazed Fist Art—a rough conversion of the sword art's principles into empty-hand work.

It was not an art Master had spent long years forging, and even a genius of the age could not remake his own martial art into something greater in a moment. The fist and foot work was bound to come up short.

So I had kept the Pure Heart Glazed Art as it was, and onto its movement I had roughly grafted what I knew of modern fighting—shapes and first principles, half-remembered—and I had sweated to reproduce the logic of techniques I had only ever read about in other novels. If any of that actually worked—

Before his measure could close on me, I slipped inside it. He might have let me into the range of fists and feet on purpose, curious to watch the little show.

A soft tap.

"Hm?"

I didn't stop at punching distance. I stuck closer still, seized him by the collar, hooked his leg, and turned his whole body over.

He hit the planks with a splintering crash and a choked grunt.

Of course, this was a wuxia world. If the gap in internal energy was overwhelming, no amount of cheap trickery on my part would have mattered. But Ugly Sword had said he wanted to see what his juniors could do, and he had deliberately dropped his qi to a hair's breadth of ours. In that state, a sudden trip was possible.

A normal man would be concussed or finished from a throw like that alone...!

The instant he went down he unfolded his protective Gang Qi and swallowed the impact. He could be startled. He could burn with the humiliation of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠having been thrown. He was not hurt in the slightest.

My attack was not finished.

"A laughable little trick..."

Then my fists came down on the face still sheathed in that Gang Qi—one blow, then a drumroll, then a relentless storm of them.

Wing Chun, the art they said Ip Man had used. Punch after punch with no space to breathe between them, an assault that never offered a gap for a counter, and I poured it without pause into Ugly Sword's face. Inner energy magnified every impact and drove the speed to something monstrous, until it was like a power tool driving nails in a continuous line. His head began to sink through the wooden floor.

Dozens of strikes a second.

I was hammering Gang Qi harder than stone with my bare hands. Blood welled from both of them on the second blow. Past several dozen, I heard the bones in my hands start to slip out of place—but I was circulating the Pure Heart Glazed Art at full force, and I kept driving his head into the planks.

The harbor boards he was buried in began to cave. The Face-Stealing Ghost, thrown by the sight, hesitated over whether to strike at my defenseless junior sister or attack me and aid his lord. While he wavered, I kept forcing Ugly Sword down.

At last the protective Gang Qi started to shiver apart under the pounding. A gap opened. I saw his face twist in shock, and I brought my right fist straight down into it.

"Pure Heart Straight Fist!"

A sickening crack. It landed.

My fist was already bent out of true, but the blow carrying my inner energy punched through the Gang Qi and smashed Ugly Sword's face. Hot blood welled and spattered up into mine. The pain of a hand coming apart hit me in the same instant I felt the protective Gang Qi under my weight begin to die.

I won...!

I had beaten Ugly Sword. A Transcendent Peak master—

Something huge closed around my throat. I didn't even have time to think of dodging before I was caught.

"Ghk—!"

Ugly Sword hauled his head up out of the collapsed planks. Blood ran freely from his nose. He confirmed that the once-straight bridge of it had been crushed, then laughed as if he could hardly believe it.

"Puh... puhaha...! Impressive, in its own way! At first I thought you a fool, starting a common brawl out of nowhere—but it was a meticulous chain, wasn't it? Not a breath of room to strike back!"

"Kgh... khek...!"

He lifted me with a single hand, and even with blood streaming from his nose his face broke into a brilliant, delighted smile.

"My lord! Are you all ri—"

"I am not. Which only makes me gladder! A boy who has not even reached thirty—the age when a man is said to stand firm—and he landed a blow on me! Had this fellow's inner energy been a little deeper, or his fist still sound so the line of the strike didn't warp, I might very well have died."

"Th-this wretch dares...!"

"Hush."

The Face-Stealing Ghost had been ready to rage in his lord's place. At that single word he swallowed whatever else he meant to say.

"I like you. Come and be one of us."

Nothing like this had happened when Ugly Sword and Yeon Cheongha met in the novel. Back then he had only gnashed his teeth and thrown himself at the man, intent on killing him.

"Kgh...?"

"Cooperate here, and I will spare you and take you as my head disciple. If not as my own disciple, then I will see that a colleague who walks the path of fist and foot accepts you."

"My lord!"

"Come over to us, and I will release that woman—the one you find so unbearable to lose—right before your eyes. Well? What will you do?"

Even now he had me by the throat with one hand, and that was enough to hold me down. I tried to coil my legs and break his arm, but his inner energy was already flooding through my neck and pinning my body by force. I couldn't resist. I was simply being strangled, breath failing, dying in his grip.

You call that a choice...!

I would have taken help from anyone. There was no one.

By the novel's course, if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Sagacious Strategist arrived, Ugly Sword would have to withdraw rather than let the organization be exposed. But the moon of the month's last night was only just beginning to thin. Dawn was still at least one double-hour off. Two hours, at the least.

Die like this... or join them?

I did not want to die. If I had to, I would rather it be clean. I knew how this organization broke people, how it manufactured loyalty, what work it set in motion—even most of what it kept hidden. Better my neck snapped here.

"Rebellious eyes. Good. Then you die, and I take the woman over there as my disciple in your place. Mind you... that pretty face will have to be given to the Face-Stealing Ghost. Call it his consolation."

You son of a...!

Rage flooded my eyes until they were shot with blood, and I started forcing my body to move. Hauling inner energy up by brute will against the vast power he was pouring into me sent pain through me as if my whole body were about to burst.

But how was I supposed to endure it—hearing, right in front of me, that he meant to destroy my junior sister?

"Then die. That woman will simply have to work in your stead..."

His fingers began, slowly, to sink into my throat.

"Kgh...!"

Even as I was strangled toward death, I kept my bloodshot eyes on him to the last and glared.

If I were only... just a little stronger...

"My lord... my lord!"

"Do not interfere. Not unless you wish your neck cut in his place."

"This is grave! The Sagacious Strategist is coming this way!"

Word had reached the Face-Stealing Ghost from the other subordinates. At that, Ugly Sword's hand loosened.

"What did you say?"

"The Sagacious Strategist has arrived in the area."

"The woman herself?"

"We have her portrait. It is certain! Another might be one thing, but the Sagacious Strategist is a bitch whose tail we cannot afford to let her step on. Kill someone here and scrub the traces all we like—if it is that woman, she will surely—"

"The travel time doesn't match. Even if she arrived early, I had it as this morning."

"She is looking the place over alone, with no party. Whether that is bait, or she has charged in here by herself, I cannot say. But the Hall Master ordered us not to so much as think of becoming entangled with that woman..."

"I see. In that case..."

Ugly Sword's other hand closed on the Face-Stealing Ghost's head.

"Nothing for it. The order was that if the Sagacious Strategist closed inside a certain distance, we were to cut the tail loose ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and muddy the investigation."

"M-my lord? My lord! I have a special art—I can craft human-skin masks—"

"If that woman has come this far, she already knows her own information network has been gutted, and she will be furious. Am I wrong?"

"Kgh... kuhk!"

He let go of my throat without warning, and I dropped to the planks. Then he seized my hand and drew it in against his other one—the Face-Stealing Ghost's head, and my fingers, brought together.

"My lord, my lord, my lord!!"

And he drove my fingers straight through the Face-Stealing Ghost's skull.

"Ghk... kuhk...!"

"There. With this, the ruffians gathered here were brought down by you."

"Cough... You're letting me live?"

"Yes. I mean to give the Sagacious Strategist a toy. After all, you know nothing but my epithet, do you? Kill you, and she comes after me at once. Leave you alive, and she wastes her time looking into you first."

I knew his former epithet. I knew his background. Ugly Sword, who had no idea I had possessed this body, only grinned as if he were toying with me, and set the bridge of the nose I had broken back into place.

And even knowing who he was, I could not expose him. Speak now, before the Wulin Alliance had even taken shape, and the whole board would overturn. The damage would be worse than if the truth came out later, in its proper time.

"And listen. You're a dead man anyway, so don't trouble yourself."

"......"

"Should the Face-Stealing Ghost die and the operation fail, the contingency is already set to proceed."

The plan to throw Soul-Lost Humans in by the mass and ignite the Great Blood Calamity in Sichuan...!

The very incident that, in the original, the Sagacious Strategist's scheme brought about—the one Ban Gyuseong and Han Soso were meant to hold, and Yeon Cheongha to come crashing into.

A wet stab.

"Ghk!"

His fingers drove into my dantian, three joints deep. After that, my inner energy simply stopped. I felt it cut off, clean.

"And just in case, I have taken your martial arts for now. Erasing them forever would be difficult, but... heh... I wonder. Will you survive what comes next?"

I collapsed.

"Then struggle all you like. Heh... heheheh...!"

A single sword-stroke sheared through the harbor around us. The assassins who had been waiting nearby became one streak of blood-wind and were cut apart. The pier where my junior sister and I lay gave way and began to slide into the Yangtze.

Ugly Sword ran out across the water without so much as wetting a toe, cleared the river, and fled.

The water closed over me, bubbling.

Ugly Sword... next time, without fail...

With even my inner energy temporarily sealed, I was about to drown where I lay—when a celestial maiden in splendid robes showed herself above the surface.

But this... what is this...?

A splash.

I never saw an event like this...

The maiden fell into the water, and with that sound I lost consciousness.