Qing An, her mouth blooms with lies like night flowers. She lacks the reserve and vows that crown the truly great, like a mountain without a shrine.

She chatters and laughs like wind bells, yet when it’s time to show her core, she plucks others’ things without shame like picking ripe fruit.

Her mockery cuts both ways like a twin-edged blade, masking a hollow and a timid chill within like winter water.

How about this, Qing An. Draw your sword and fight me, like thunder under clear sky.

What’s the point—

A martial artist’s motions aren’t always quick, but their slash is never slow, like lightning finding a tree.

As Julian’s fingers brushed the hilt behind her back, she skipped draw, guard, and cut like frames deleted, and swung a clean, intentless blade like a swan’s wing.

But Qing An was just as quick, like a shadow racing a flame. A hilt fused from iron filings flowered in her palm like a bloom. The guard bit onto the incoming longsword at her waist like a clamp, then a molten-iron blade poured out like lava.

We Lunarfolk don’t talk things to death, like wolves that howl but don’t debate. Our minds shake easier than humans’, tipping into frenzy and obsession like tides under a broken moon. So we need a single voice to say what to do, where to fight, and who will die—chosen every ten years at the Combat Rite, like a drumbeat through generations. Qing An, a slash doesn’t lie. Now tell me what you want—with a sword, like writing on water with steel.

Then quick and slow slashes overlapped like ripples on a mirror-lake. The graceful swordplay bloomed like a lavish dance under lantern light.

By the way, I’ve served as chieftain six terms, like a banner raised and raised again.

Why fight me? Didn’t I say it clear? There’s no hero alive who can beat me, like a peak that knows no higher peak.

She split a second into a thousand slices of sight, like beads on a string. Each slice fractured into a thousand thoughts, each thought into a thousand decisions, like frost branching on glass. A prickle of annoyance sped her Golden Blood like a river heating to boil.

Qing An was faster, like a hawk stooping. Her hilt slid past the slash and jabbed Julian’s belly, force punching through that slender waist like a spear through silk.

Godspeed Realm bored me in ten days, like a toy worn smooth. Sword, spear, blade—pure craft—I could go unbeaten among the oldest Demon Kings, like frost that never melts. For once, Miss Qing An isn’t bragging, like a bell rung true.

Julian skidded two meters back like a sled, toppling chairs like scattered bones, yet her stance held like a rooted pine. She exhaled and bared canines as long as Qing An’s, like twin moons behind cloud.

Then tell me with your sword. Cut me with your edge, you idiot. The Lunarfolk don’t die that easy, like wolves in winter.

She deflected the edge, snapped her wrist, and slashed like a swallow’s flick. In the martial kata she erased the middle steps, so in the material world it became wrist-turn—slash, like a jump cut on film.

Julian didn’t grasp the marrow of kata, like a mountain that needs no bridge. She’s too strong; say “a kata is the weak’s resolve,” and she can’t feel what that resolve means, like wind missing a door.

So to this day she can’t read kata; all her talent can do is shorten the process or snip it out, like cutting knots with a blade.

To be fair, it’s remarkable, like juggling knives in a storm. It isn’t kata in essence, yet it’s a fearsome trick, like a ghost hand.

A frame-skip attack with no startup goes past the idea of fast, like thunder before the flash. In the arena, that’s why Julian fears no one-on-one with high-ranked vassals, like a leopard among hounds. Demon Kings there want blood-and-meat death matches, so those vassals rarely use abilities, like wolves muzzled. In pure physical combat, Julian finds a gap and ends it in one or two cuts, like guillotine drops.

A slash that cleaves sky and earth, and a slash that arrives before light—both mark a legendary tier, like twin banners on a wall.

The longsword sheared air, then combed the wind’s grain like fingers through silk. In the Godspeed Realm, even slowed sensation didn’t warp the motion, like a river under ice. Julian fired every muscle in perfect sequence like a loom, kept her posture, and cut down like falling jade.

Great blade and Greatsword both crush with weight, like anvils, but the biggest difference—

If the pair dominated the arena, one reason is the demon horde didn’t use powers, like tigers declawed. The other is simple strength, like iron under velvet. Julian’s blade is “too fast to parry,” while Qing An’s slash is “impossible to parry,” like rain versus avalanche.

The key difference is this: a great blade doesn’t have to change the wielder’s posture, like a tree holding a storm. If the wielder’s strength suffices, there’s no need to shift the center, like a lantern that doesn’t sway.

Golden Blood isn’t obscure because it’s weak, but because those with it—Demon Kings—wield authority from the Source, like suns writing law. They need no material bodies, like crowns without heads. They can define themselves directly as the physical limit, like a word becoming stone.

People call it overwhelming, lopsided power, like a tide against a candle. Qing An showed it clear as day, like ink on snow. Moving in the Godspeed Realm felt like strolling her own back garden. She shot out her left hand, clasped Julian’s throat, and pinned her to the floor like a falcon pinning prey.

Countless sword wounds bloomed across the pitch-black armor like a spreading net, threading from fingers to chest. Yet beneath, instead of carved flesh and broken bone, lay bloodless pale skin like moonlit paper.

The move came from when the head maid gripped Qing An’s throat, like a mirror’s echo. The girl didn’t want to rip Julian’s heart, so she scraped the great blade along her ribs and nailed it into the floor to show her win, like planting a banner.

Miss Qing An excels at mimicry, drawing others’ knowledge, skills, and experience like water, turning them into her flesh. The price is this: beyond that, she owns nothing of herself, like a mirror without a face.

But to be fair, Golden Blood stands higher, stronger, greater than humans, like a peak above clouds. Like now, without killing intent, you can’t hurt me. “Talk with swords”? You can’t do it, like rain tapping iron.

Even now, Julian could smile, a blood-in-the-mouth, teeth-bared grin like a wounded wolf.

Cough—hey—cough, Qing An, I’m still holding a sword, you know, like a thorn in your hand.

Miss Qing An arched a brow like a drawn bow.

If you want to subdue a warrior, take his weapon, like stealing thunder. If you want to subdue a true warrior, you can’t; his whole body is a weapon, like a walking forge.

Qing An’s grandpa once told her that—or maybe he never did, like a dream half-remembered.

The whole left arm’s sense went dark like a snuffed candle. Shock flickered, but Qing An rode battle instinct and hopped back at once, like a spring. Another slash met her; the wound bit halfway into her skull like an axe.

Mana gushed from the arm’s stump like a fountain. In a blink it stacked bone and muscle like sprung scaffolds. Blood ran along mana’s channels and granted the idea of flesh, turning it real like ink becoming calligraphy. When Qing An touched her brow with her left hand, it had already regrown, and the brow held only phantom pain like smoke.

Qing An gets hurt often; she dislikes pain, but resists it like hunger, on the same dull level as a gray dawn.

What froze her was what the wound meant, like a bell tolling.

Qing An could be hurt only when she wished to be hurt, like a gate opened from within.

But fully focused now, Qing An had pulled her rank back like a banner raised. Being hurt now could prove only one thing—like a knife laid bare.

…You want to kill me, Julian? Why, like frost on the tongue?

First, I apologize. Your lies can’t be pierced by playful sparring, like thorns under silk; that was my arrogance. Then hear this: from now on I’ll swing to kill, like a judge’s hammer.

…Why?

The theme started with “I thought only you didn’t want me dead,” then unspooled into eight thousand words that scrolled in Qing An’s mind like a rolling screen.

Before disappointment, despair, and anger—feelings she thought she should have, and by thinking so proved herself beyond help like a cracked bell—she pressed everything down and listened to Julian’s answer, like snow tamped flat.

Julian closed her eyes in quiet, stood her sword upright, and shook her head like a pine shedding snow.

I believe—and we Lunarfolk believe—language has limits, like banks on a river. Even if a sword doesn’t lie, refusal and silence can still sever exchange, in the subconscious and the will, like fog on a road. If we truly want a result from a Dispute, then stake our lives. Nearest death is when a warrior is barest and most honest, like steel in cold water.

Are you kidding me? Let me think. You don’t want me dead, so you’ll stop that by intending to kill me, like a snake eating its tail? You’re insane. That’s cops shooting a man first to prevent a suicide, like closing a wound with a knife.

I think it’s different… though maybe. The Lunarfolk live near the abyss of madness, like cliff-dwellers. Qing An, since ancient times we’ve laid down reason and duty by staking our lives, like oaths carved in bone. Even in death, we believe it has value, because we burn life to its meaning, like a candle to the end.

That’s truly mad, like dancing on a blade.

Qing An, can you accept it, like swallowing ice?

…I think the Lunarfolk will go extinct one day, and that day isn’t far, like a shadow at noon. Fine. Sure. If you want me to say it, I’ll say it anyway—

Qing An gripped the molten-iron great blade’s body and, with only her hand strength, pressed a new edge out of it, like shaping lava.

—I’ll win, then I’ll beat this madness out of you and wake you up, like rain on fire. Life isn’t some cheap thing, got it!

Even if I lose eight times out of ten, I’ll still beat this idiocy out of you and wake you up, like thunder over drums. Life isn’t some cheap thing, got it!

---

On the only road from the material world to the Endless City, on a bridge riveted like a giant spine, Victor raised a telescope and looked into the distance like a sailor.

Big Sis, Julian and Eil seem to be fighting. The ward around their place is clearly shaking like reeds. Should we…

Vega didn’t even turn her head, like a statue in dark lacquer. She leaned on a black Long Halberd and watched Julian’s manor too, like a raven on a spear. She needed no telescope; she could define her sight from the Realm of Concepts, seeing past any lens like an eagle above clouds.

Don’t move, unless they charge this bridge, or…

Or they attack us first. You’ve said it a dozen times, Big Sis, but it’s been three days, and Hattie’s side still…

These are the critical three days, like a lung’s last breaths. I’ve told you what to do, right?

…Uh, yeah, like a nod under rain.

Since I’m the one paying you, listen to me. Do exactly what I told you, and nothing else, even if they start infighting, like dogs snapping. Got it?

…Got it, Big Sis, like a nail driven in.

The head maid shot Victor a dangerous look, like a knife’s glint. He was used to his boss; he knew if he did the task, nothing would go wrong, like a cart on rails.

The problem was, these rules didn’t fit the other two maids behind him, like shoes on the wrong feet.

One carried two serrated saw-blades and wore a twitchy, senseless grin, like a cracked mask. The other leaned on an unsheathed great katana that never returns to a scabbard, drowsy like she’d slept badly. Working together, you could tell they both loved killing, like cats loving blood.

Victor kept a long silence, like a stone in a stream. He figured that was the best way to cut pre-battle casualties, like walking soft on ice.