"Your sword spared me, so I concede."
"I don't want to die by the sword of someone like you. I'm not worthy of it, either."
She drew both claws back to her sides. The laws of shadow surrounding her receded, revealing her full form, clad in fiery-red scales.
Her tail drooped to the ground and stopped swaying. The predatory gleam in her slit pupils slowly gave way to a calm, appraising gaze.
There was far less sharpness in that gaze now, and something closer to equality: one person looking at another.
Mu Yunyao slid his peachwood sword back into the sheath at his waist, unfastened his wine flask, and took another drink.
His face was a few shades paler than before.
That single sword stroke had looked effortless, but it had consumed much of the last trace of feeling left in his heart.
Every petal of that blooming peach blossom was a fragment peeled from a warm stretch of years buried deep in his memory.
Each time it bloomed, a little less remained, like a pool in the desert whose bed sank lower with every measure of water that evaporated.
He lowered the flask and nodded to Phantom Shadow.
"Go back and tell your people that I won this time."
"But if I meet you again, I won't hold back."
"Next time we meet, I won't remember whether you bear the mark of a flower."
Phantom Shadow looked at him. A faint hint of a smile flickered through her slit pupils.
There was no hostility in that smile. If anything, it held a gratitude she could not put into words.
She did not answer. She merely turned and walked toward the edge of the Arena.
After three steps, she paused. Without looking back, she left a few words, light as