Pei Ye's lips were ice-cold. He struggled to watch the man slowly advancing again and merely tightened his grip on his sword once more.
Three times already, he had sought or created opportunities to escape this battlefield and return to the surface. Yet even without considering the enormous ship bearing down overhead, he could not break through the assault of the man before him.
So Pei Ye decided to stop trying.
When two met on a narrow road, the brave prevailed; to seek life, one first had to forget retreat. Pei Ye had long known this truth.
In fact, persisting with his sword despite knowing he was all clumsiness and openings was precisely his way of facing difficulty head-on. Often, his enemy was not merely the man before him, but the disturbances assailing him from every direction.
Pei Ye did not know when Black Chi would return. Only eleven exchanges had passed since he fell into this predicament, and he knew perfectly well that unless he grasped some sort of pattern, he would never last until the twentieth.
Chen Renzhong's relentless assault came again. Pei Ye could only answer with another stroke of Snow Sword to hold it off, then turn his sword across to block the next instant, only to be hurled more than thirty feet through the water.
In truth, Pei Ye had already adapted to this state as quickly as possible. Most of his injuries came from the first five exchanges. After just those five, he had gained control over most of his limbs, and with the help of True Qi Art and Chi Flame, he could manage some strained maneuvering. Only this thing called the "sword" had truly defeated him.
Amid this feeling of being stretched beyond his ability to cope, Pei Ye recalled another, similar