Breaking the Spear

The next day, the biting cold wind was even fiercer than it had been in the previous days.

The sand on the arena had been scraped away in a thin layer, exposing the bluestone slabs beneath.

The Heavenly Peak Martial Arts Hall flag was blown taut like a drawn bow, its pole bending in an arc in the wind.

Four grand chairs stood on the viewing platform. Magistrate Meng sat in the center, dressed in a blue official robe, the wings of his hat trembling slightly in the wind as he turned to speak with Yue Wuyuan. It was Magistrate Meng's first time attending the Martial Meet. Since the yamen had provided prize money and medicinal pills, he had to show his face.

He casually asked, "That one in gray—is he the Heavenly Peak Martial Arts Hall disciple who fought his way here?"

Yue Wuyuan smiled and nodded.

Xue Zhenshan sat at the far right, his gray cotton robe worn old from washing, a teacup resting on his knee.

Bai Lingfeng sat at the far left, leisurely blowing on his hot tea.

Luo Chengyuan stepped onto the arena first. Dressed in a blue fitted outfit and holding a long spear, his cuffs tightly bound, he planted himself and slammed the butt of his spear against the stone slabs. Sand flew up and scattered outward in an instant, while his gaze crossed half the arena toward Mountain-Suppressing Martial Hall.

Before Zhou Yan stepped onto the arena, Liu Tiehe grabbed him from behind.

"Luo Chengyuan's spear is fast. Don't try to match his speed. When he thrusts at you, take it. Wait until he runs out of strength, then go in."

Zhou Yan did not turn around. "He won't run out of strength. The Breaking Wind Spear follows the internal qi path. Someone at Qi Gathering Greater Achievement can last an entire match."

"Then how do you plan to fight?"

"Just watch."

Zhou Yan patted his shoulder and turned to walk onto the arena.

Once he planted his feet, he looked like a nail driven into the stone slabs.

An old instructor from White Cloud Martial Hall narrowed his eyes. He exclaimed, "That Stake Stance..." but said no more.

The next instant, the bronze gong rang.

Luo Chengyuan's spearpoint shot straight at Zhou Yan's face. The whistle of it cutting through the air was sharp and thin. Zhou Yan twisted aside to evade it, but the spear shaft swept horizontally and had already reached his waist.

His right palm slapped downward along the motion and struck the spear shaft. With a dull thud, the shaft was knocked off course. Borrowing the force of that strike, he pressed forward a step, his Mountain-Suppressing Fist emerging from his hip—yet the spearpoint swept upward from below, forcing him to withdraw his fist and retreat.

Luo Chengyuan gave him no chance to catch his breath. The Breaking Wind Spear chased after him, its point waiting exactly where Zhou Yan would land after pulling back.

The moment Zhou Yan planted his foot, the spearpoint was already at his chest.

He raised an arm to block, but the spearpoint carved a cut across his forearm. Blood ran down his arm.

The second spear thrust followed immediately, stabbing in from another angle.

Zhou Yan twisted at the waist and turned aside. The spearpoint grazed past his ribs, punching a hole through his clothes.

He pressed forward two steps during the instant the spearpoint withdrew and threw a punch. Luo Chengyuan held his spear horizontally, blocking the punch with the shaft.

Fist struck shaft with a dull thud, and both men retreated half a step.

For a time, the two traded blows evenly.

But Luo Chengyuan's footing remained steady during that half-step retreat. His spearpoint had already changed direction, stabbing toward Zhou Yan's knee from the side.

Zhou Yan raised his knee to evade it. When he landed, his foot stamped a deep mark into the sand.

He tried to close in again, but the spear shaft spun in Luo Chengyuan's hands, and the butt swept around to strike his shoulder.

It disrupted his rhythm for closing the distance.

Luo Chengyuan's thrusts, lifts, sweeps, and upward strikes flowed together without a gap. As the spearpoint stabbed toward Zhou Yan's chest, the spear butt was already sweeping toward his knee.

Zhou Yan evaded several times and tried twice more to circle in from the side. Each time he was about to turn in, the spearpoint followed and sealed off his path.

Zhou Yan knew clearly that if his footwork slipped even once, the spearpoint would exploit the opening.

But the Limit-Breaking Mountain-Settling Stance kept every one of his steps firm.

He retreated several steps in a row, but every step remained within the bounds of the arena.

The wind howled, and sand trickled down from the edge of the arena.

Seeing this, Yue Wuyuan's lips curled up. He calmly took a sip from his teacup.

Luo Chengyuan quickened his pace. The seventh form of the Breaking Wind Spear: Linked Pearls.

The spearpoint became a blur. Seven spear shadows descended at once from seven directions.

Zhou Yan heard the spearpoints tear through the air, seven piercing whistles joining into one line. Gritting his teeth, he planted his feet another inch deeper. Luo Chengyuan unleashed all seven strikes of Linked Pearls. Zhou Yan took five of them and dodged two.

But what Luo Chengyuan had not noticed was that from the beginning of the match until now, Zhou Yan had not taken a single unsteady step.

It was as though everything had been within Zhou Yan's calculations.

The rhythm of Linked Pearls could not be broken. Once it broke, it gave the opponent room to breathe.

Luo Chengyuan took a deep breath, and his spearpoint pressed forward again.

He saw more and more blood seeping from Zhou Yan's body. The wound across his lower back had already stained half his hem red.

A few more thrusts, and even if this man did not fall, he would not last much longer.

He thrust three times, aiming respectively for the throat, chest, and lower abdomen—three vital points from three directions.

Zhou Yan leaned back to avoid the thrust at his throat, blocked the one at his chest with his left arm, and twisted aside from the one at his lower abdomen. The spearpoint grazed past, cutting a slit across his cloth shoe. He retreated to the edge of the arena, his left foot on the boundary line and a drop of more than twenty feet behind him.

Luo Chengyuan's spear chased after him, stabbing straight at his chest. Zhou Yan dodged, and the spearpoint plunged into the arena post behind him.

The foundation of the Mountain-Settling Stance sank into the ground, pinning his entire body to the edge of the arena.

Luo Chengyuan thrust several more times. Strangely, not one strike hit Zhou Yan.

The old instructor from White Cloud Martial Hall suddenly sat upright. "His Stake Stance is more than Perfection!"

Yue Wuyuan frowned tightly, the calmness on his face gone. "Could this be the legendary Ultimate Realm?"

Another thrust came.

The spearpoint shot straight at his face. The instant Zhou Yan sidestepped, he found the opening and seized the spear shaft with his backhand.

His right hand clamped down two feet behind the spearhead, his five fingers digging into the wood grain.

Using the force of gripping the spear, Zhou Yan rammed his entire body forward.

All three stages of the Mountain-Suppressing Fist erupted. His fist moved with his body, power flowing through his waist and hips, strength rising from the ground.

After all three stages had been connected, the perfected Mountain-Suppressing Fist combined with the Limit-Breaking Stake Stance gave this punch several times the force of any he had thrown before.

His fist blasted out and smashed into the spear shaft.

The iron pearwood shaft bent into an arc, then snapped in two with a crack.

Wood chips flew everywhere. Half the spear shaft struck the arena post, bounced back, and rolled twice.

Luo Chengyuan clutched the remaining half in his hand. He lowered his head to stare at the broken end, and his expression finally changed.

In the blink of an eye, Zhou Yan's fist had already smashed into Luo Chengyuan's chest. The blue fitted outfit dented under the force of the punch. It felt as if Luo Chengyuan's organs had all shifted out of place, and he dropped to his knees, coughing up blood.

Luo Chengyuan knelt on the ground, staring at the half-broken spear shaft.

He remembered what his master had once said: the Breaking Wind Spear was certainly important, but before becoming a Martial Adept, the Stake Stance was the foundation.

He had never taken it seriously. As long as his spear was fast enough, that was all that mattered. Now that his spear had broken, the gap in their Stake Stances had smashed him in the face with a single punch.

The referee raised his hand.

The Heavenly Peak Martial Arts Hall stands were silent as death. Yue Wuyuan's teacup hung in midair, the curve of his lips gone. Bai Lingfeng stopped blowing on his tea, while Xue Zhenshan slowly lifted his own teacup and took a sip.

An old martial instructor below the stage slapped his thigh. "An iron pearwood spear shaft, broken by one punch? This kid has some serious strength!"

Zhou Yan stood in the center of the arena, breathing heavily. He had four or five cuts across his body from the spear, and the longest one on his left arm was still bleeding.

But they were all minor wounds, nothing fatal.

Luo Chengyuan was helped away. As he passed the broken half of his spear, he lowered his head and looked at it once.

When Zhou Yan walked off the arena, Liu Tiehe was the first to rush over. He circled Zhou Yan once and bared his teeth at the sight of those spear wounds.

The people from the other martial halls all had their own reactions.

Shi Meng sat among the White Cloud Martial Hall group, bandages wrapped around his shoulder. He was silent for a long while before saying to the junior beside him, "I never thought the Stake Stance could be this important. Looks like when we return, I need to start practicing it properly again."

Chen Fangyuan leaned against a locust tree, his conical hat pulled low. After thinking for a long time, he said, "This man's strength is unfathomable. If I had faced him yesterday, I probably would have lost as well."

Xu Changqing stood behind his master and nudged his senior brother with an elbow. "I ran into him in the first round and took three punches."

A half-grown boy crouching at the highest point of the locust tree shouted, "Mountain-Suppressing Martial Hall won!"

That shout jolted the entire crowd awake.

Magistrate Meng descended from the viewing platform, followed by two yamen runners.

He walked beneath the arena and looked Zhou Yan over from head to toe.

"Little brother, is your surname Zhou?"

"Reporting to the magistrate, I am Zhou Yan." Zhou Yan cupped his fists in salute.

"Excellent skill." Magistrate Meng nodded. "Qingyun County has not produced a Qi-Gathering Realm fighter with a perfected Stake Stance in many years."

After sighing with feeling, Magistrate Meng turned and left, the two yamen runners hurrying after him.

Xue Zhenshan stood nearby. Only after Magistrate Meng had gone far away did he hand over the blue porcelain bottle in his hand. It contained the Qi-Condensing Pill.

"Thank you, Hall Master." Zhou Yan accepted it with a smile.

"It is your own ability." Xue Zhenshan looked at the wounds on him. "Go back and apply medicine. Recover quickly."

Zhou Hong stood among the Heavenly Peak Martial Arts Hall crowd, his expression complicated. The junior beside him nudged him, but he only gave a vague sound and did not move.

Zhou Tiezhu squeezed through the crowd.

He stood before Zhou Yan for a long time, his face flushed red. His mouth opened several times before he finally forced out, "That Stake Stance of yours... how did you train it?"

"Stand the stance. Every day. Stand until roots grow beneath your feet."

"It's that simple?"

"Doing simple things consistently is not simple." Zhou Yan glanced at him.

Zhou Tiezhu nodded hard.

The training ground emptied out. One of the hemp ropes holding the Heavenly Peak flag had snapped, leaving the flag hanging crookedly in midair, and no one bothered to take it down.

Zhou Yan returned to his room behind the tea stall and shut the door.

He first rinsed his wounds with clean water, applied medicine, then wrapped strips of cloth around his left arm and lower back several times.

Only after finishing did he take the porcelain bottle from his clothes, pull out the red cloth stopper, and pour out the Qi-Condensing Pill.

The pill was the size of a pinky fingernail, perfectly round, its surface gleaming with a faint blue-green sheen.

When he brought it close and smelled it, a crisp medicinal fragrance entered his nose.

He sat on the edge of the bed, placed the pill in his palm, and examined it for several breaths.

He had taken more than ten spear thrusts from Luo Chengyuan for this tiny thing.

From Qi Gathering Greater Achievement to Qi Gathering Perfection, he would cross that final step.

After Perfection, the dantian would expand to its limit and internal qi would begin to transform qualitatively. Then one could touch the threshold of becoming a Martial Adept.

That threshold was what the Martial Examination in spring would be fought over.

He tilted back his head and tossed the pill into his mouth.

The Qi-Condensing Pill melted upon entering his mouth. A warm medicinal force slid down his throat and exploded into a ball of fire in his chest.

The internal qi in his dantian was stirred by the medicinal force and began to surge violently.

He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and sank the foundation of the Mountain-Settling Stance, guiding the medicinal force toward his dantian.

Internal qi surged faster through his meridians, and the bottleneck of Qi Gathering Greater Achievement gradually loosened under the impact of the medicinal force.