Yun's chaotic energy intensified, coiling around him like a second, furious skin. The dark veins on his neck and jaw grew denser, blacker, pulsing with a sickly light. He glanced over at Lorel and Chubbs. The other cultivators had finally understood—in a formal fight, they could not win against her Supremacy Swords and Chubbs's unpredictable shifts. So they had settled into a harrying stalemate, darting in from safe distances, wearing her down, waiting for her focus to slip or for one lucky strike to land on the wounded Chubbs.
Ning saw it too. The outcome would be decided here, between him and Yun. Although he had not stepped in for them, the truth in his heart was simpler: he *wanted* to face Yun. With Lorel and the others they had been to the Tower of Wonder together. He had fought Lorel's brother, Baili, and though he had lost that duel, he had learned from it, grown from it. This was the next step.
Yun appeared from above without a sound, dropping like a shard of night, his dark blade a line of condensed void aimed to split Ning from crown to hip. "Do not get distracted," Yun's flat voice cut through the air, "or you might lose your arm."
Ning did not look up. He lifted the sword of solid light—the true **Silent Departure**—and parried.
***SCRAANNGG!***
This time, the sound was a deep, resonant clang, not a shatter. A violent bloom of conflicting energy—pure white light and devouring grey—exploded outward, scorching the air. This time, Ning's blade held. It did not fracture.
A satisfied smile touched Ning's lips. *Master Suki, I did it. I forged the real Silent Departure.* The thought was a flash of pride, instantly buried. His focus snapped back to his opponent.
Yun moved sideways, unleashing a series of wide, obliterating swings meant to cleave through any guard. Ning parried left, shifted his weight right, and flipped backward over a scything dark blade as he created distance. *He said swordsmanship was not his strongest point,* Ning thought, his body already flowing into the next evasion. *But the way he moves, the angles he strikes… he is far above many.*
Yun's face darkened when he saw Ning completely evade the barrage. It was as if Ning was always faster, leaving no sound, no disturbance in the thick air. He didn't seem to move; he seemed to *float* from one position to the next.
With an angered groan, Yun planted his feet. "Now face this one."
His Qi poured out, dangerous and wild, churning into a chaotic storm around him. The air grew heavy and cold, the silvery light dimming as if being drained.
On the observing side, Lorel's breath hitched. She wanted to call out a warning, but she held her tongue. She knew how good Ning was. Yet a bad feeling coiled in her stomach. She remembered this dark, chaotic Qi clearly. This was the same thing Yuan had used back then, to face all three of them—Gen, Liang, and Madame Su. He had been so powerful that Madame Su had been heavily wounded by Kirin. What she did not understand was how they could make such monstrous improvements this fast.
She was not the only one asking. Some cultivators in the crowd watched Yun with open dismay. At his age, the level of power he wielded was beyond belief. They had studied the Wheels of Destiny for seven years, perhaps more. Yet they were only at this level. Looking at Yun, something ugly was born in their hearts—greed, envy, a desperate desire. They wanted that power, too.
On the battlefield, Ning stopped moving. He took a guard, the sword of light held low and steady before him. He could feel the dark Qi rising, a pressure that threatened to crack his calm. He waited.
Yun and Ning entered another direct clash.
***BOOM-CRACK!***
The shockwave sent Ning's hands trembling. Ripples of the devouring dark energy snaked up the blade, attacking his spirit, seeking to nullify the light. A coppery taste filled Ning's mouth. He bit down, swallowing the blood, and let himself be forced back a step, as if yielding.
Yun's eyes flashed, seeing the retreat, the tremor. He assumed it was over. He lunged, committing to a piercing strike aimed at Ning's heart.
However, Ning's body was like a drawn bowstring rebounding. He left no sound, no blur. The **Silent Departure** showed its full might. It was as if he had never stepped back and was already moving forward once more. He slid his blade past the piercing dark strike, stepped inside Yun's guard, and brought his sword up in a clean, rising arc aimed to sever Yun's sword arm at the elbow.
Yun's face flashed with panicked understanding. *How can he move like this?* He cursed, letting go of his dark blade. He unleashed all his Qi in a violent, crude burst of **Shidow** and **Jingdao**, propelling himself upward in a wild, backward flip over Ning's head. He landed heavily five paces away, skidding on the moss, clutching his now-bleeding forearm where the light had grazed him.
Ning flicked the Silent Departure, the blade becoming an extension of his will, settling comfortably between his fingers. "Your reflexes are simply absurd. At such close range, you still managed to evade that."
Yun smiled bitterly, letting the dark blood well between his fingers. With his other hand, he materialized another chaotic blade. This time, his expression shifted, becoming extremely serious. If he wanted to win, he would have to go all out. No more holding back.
Ning was extremely cautious. He didn't move immediately, simply circling his opponent from a safe distance. The **Rebounding Finality** was a spell that allowed him to bait an adversary in close combat, using a mixture of **Shidow** to manipulate his own momentum and **Jingdao** to reinforce the tendons of his legs for explosive, silent redirections. It was his masterpiece.
From a distance, Yun raised his chaotic blade, pointing it at Ning. Then he shifted his stance, leaning back slightly.
Finally, he flashed a decisive smile.
The smile was grotesque, stretching his pained expression, but there was a sharpness to it that made Ning's blood run cold.
*What is that?*
Ning's heart skipped a beat as he understood. Where had he seen this kind of stance? His mind raced through memories of scrolls, of observed battles, until it clicked.
It looked similar to the **Smiling Edge** of Master Suki.
"It looks like the Smiling Edge," Ning said aloud, unaware he was thinking out loud.
It was a mistake.
The moment the words left his lips, Yun's blade had already struck. Not from the front, but from the *side*—a ghost of an attack Ning hadn't seen him telegraph.
Ning's attention snapped back to the combat. He shot forward, evading the main cut, but a line of searing cold opened on his ribcage. As he repositioned himself, another attack came from above his shoulder, forcing him to lift his blade to parry.
But that was wrong. The real strike came from below, a upward thrust aimed for his gut.
Ning's face darkened. *What skill is this ?*
All he could hear was Yun flashing past him, the smile still on his lips as he muttered, "The Smiling Lethality."
A clean, dark blade-arc *exploded* from the point of the thrust. It wasn't a cut; it was an eruption of devouring, chaotic energy that engulfed Ning's body. The force was so immense, so violently nullifying, that it blasted outwards in a sphere.
The shockwave hit like a physical wall. It forced every cultivator in the clearing back a step, including Chubbs and Lorel, tearing at their robes and hair.
Amidst her fluttering sleeves and stinging eyes, Lorel called out, her voice sharp with alarm, "Ning! Are you okay?"
In the center of the clearing, within the dissipating cloud of grey smoke and dying light, there was only silence.
Ning stood up. His movements were slow, deliberate. He held a hand to his chest, where a grotesque wound ran upward, not bleeding red but oozing a dark, sluggish grey fluid. Blood flowed continuously from the gash on his side, staining his robes. He ignored the pain, his gaze locked on Yun.
That sword strike was too familiar.
He himself had developed the **Silent Departure** from the principles of his master Suki's **Smiling Edge**. The feint, the angle, the explosion of force from a deceptive position… there was too much familiarity between that skill and what Yun had just shown.
Could it be…?
Yun, observing the now-silent Ning, laughed—a short, dry sound. "Master Xian indeed spoke once of his master," he said, his voice carrying across the clearing. "I guess something like… Suki."
Ning's head lifted. Shock stripped the calm from his face.
On the observing side, the cultivators who knew the name took a sharp, collective gasp for air. For swordsmen, that name was a living legend. The cultivator with the greatest achievements in the field of swordsmanship within the Wheel of Destiny system. Legends spoke of his signature skill, the **Smiling Edge**, a technique always performed with a serene, knowing smile. However, after losing a single, famed duel in his later years, he had vanished and never reappeared. His skills were said to be forgotten, lost to the dust of time.
Yun landed the point of his chaotic blade on his own shoulder, a casual, mocking gesture. "Frankly speaking, from what my master taught me, the **Smiling Lethality** is far better than the original skill." He tilted his head. "Where the smile in the past was the failure… here, it is the salvation."
Few in the crowd understood his meaning.
Ning understood. Clearly.
*This was why his Silent Departure was so different.* It used **Jingdao** and **Shidow** to recreate the feeling of *departing from silence*—a sword strike so precise and fast that even silence had to wait for it to finish before resuming. It wasn't born by accident. It was a direct solution to the main flaw of the original skill: **the smile**. The moment of overconfidence, the tell, the opening.
Ning's face darkened as he straightened his posture, forcing his trembling legs to hold. "I can accept you being superior in our past clashes," he said, his voice low and hard, cutting through the heavy air. "But I dare you not to mock my master's skill."
Yun smirked, playing with the dark blade on his shoulder. "He was weak. That is why he vanished, crying like a baby after his first loss."
In Yun's mind, the trap was set. For a swordsman like Ning, honor was everything. For Yun, he didn't care about such futilities—only victory remained. Baiting Ning into making a mistake was the safest, most efficient path to victory.
And he was right.
Ning's expression became so serious it seemed carved from stone. The earlier enjoyment of facing a skilled swordsman was gone, burned away by a cold, protective fury. "I will not allow you to mock my master."
He took his stance once more. But it was different. The flowing, effortless grace was gone. It was rigid, rooted, a posture of absolute defense and impending, furious counter-attack. The **Silent Departure** in his hand hummed with a higher, sharper pitch, the light so condensed it looked like solid white jite.
He was no longer testing his edge. He was defending a legacy. And in the shift, Yun saw the opening he had created—a heart ruled by anger, not by the silent, perfect calm of the departing blade.