Chapter 406

The kris was an interesting weapon to use. It's way forward blade allowed for easy stabbing, its sharp point allowing one to slip the dagger within and tear a wider hole than a straight blade, especially when one was fighting. It also allowed for certain kinds of blocks, as blades glanced off one another and skipped along the waves rather than sliding down.

Which was good, because most kris's didn't really have much of a guard. Some had none at all, others only a small circular guard.

Blocking then was more a case of parrying and beating, slicing against a blade as it came in to push it aside or, more importantly, cutting or stabbing the arm that came in close. There was as much a battle of positioning, of shifting the body and using open arm blocks against the flat or the hand that held the other weapon as it was direct strikes.

Add in a flurry of quick strikes with fist, palm, elbow or foot to disrupt balance or positioning, to open up new lines of attack and the pair were a blur of moving limbs. Arthur had no time to think, his body reacting to the attacks, grateful that he had spent months now using the kris, had trained with it relentlessly in that time.

Otherwise, he might have been cut even more, as his own reactions – and majority of his training – had been to use hilted weapons. He preferred them, himself, but there was reason his tsifu had taught them to fight with or without guards, kris, parangs, katanas, wakazashis, small swords and more. Everything they could get their hands on, were trained.

You never knew what the Tower would offer, what you might need and beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers. They were too poor to specialize or even hope to acquire a storied weapon, something passed on from one family member to another.

All they had was their training.

Back, and back again, Arthur was pushed away. Till a good kick sent his opponent backwards, the push -snap kick sending the somewhat lighter than normal ghost body flowing back. For a brief moment, they paused, staring at one another.

Then, they began to circle, searching for the opening needed.

Most people who never dueled before, especially not with weapons, didn’t realise how dangerous that first step was. The moment one entered measure – that crossing of distance where one party or the other could hurt them. Full lunge or just a quick passing step, either way; that moment of transition when ones momentum was captured, when there was no choice but to commit.

So the pair circled. In that moment, while looking for a mistake, for the other person’s attention to wander, Arthur also felt along his techniques, judged the way they were working. Heavenly Sage’s Mischief was running well, only requiring a few more tweaks to make it flood into his body even more efficiently, further enhancing his strength and speed.

Nothing to be improved there. As it stood, Arthur realized he was faster than his opponent, if a little weaker. Tun Rahman had size and strength, and would likely have had more if he had his full body. Right now though, each strike was only just a little stronger.

In a battle with kris, that marginal difference in strength meant little.

More importantly, after that first flurry of attacks; after time for his Yin Aura to wrap around his opponent and interact with their own aura and techniques, Arthur was coming to the conclusion that it didn’t effect Tun Rahman. It wasn’t entirely surprising, what with the creature being a ghost of some form.

Yin energy probably was something they resisted automatically, just like Arthur resisted poisons. He might even be empowering his opponent…

Knowing that, he let the Yin Aura die off. Imbued Strike wouldn’t work either, so that left him with two options. Steel Skin or Focused Strike.

Before he could start up either technique, Tun Rahman was on him again. He missed that moment of weakness as his opponent snuck into range, slipping a foot an inch in with each step, such that now he was right in.

A swing by of the kris, a block. Passing blades, glittering in the moonlight and slow rising dawn. The pair struck and blocked and parried, blood running down one edge and ghostly light escaping from the other, as blows that didn’t manage to be blocked snuck past defences.

There was a joke about knife fights.

At the end of a knife fight, the loser dies on the spot. The winner dies a few hours later, bled out.

It wasn’t, of course, true – but it held a grain of honesty in it. There was no way, when both parties were so close, so trained, to walk away without wounds. You accumulated them on the arms, on the outer edges which you used to block, sometimes on the inner sides or along the wrist or arms or shoulders as you turned away. You picked them up as quick jabs opened up holes in the body, and tore through muscles.

Long slices along the face, quick stabs upwards into the body, retreating cuts along the legs as you backed away. Bleeding your opponent out, one cut after the other. Taking out tendons, muscles, blood vessels.

Looking for that fatal blow, the crippling one.

A dozen more exchanges, and Arthur fell back, clutching his arm. Pain, coursing through him, grateful that Steel Skin had managed to keep the attack from piercing all the way through his arm and forcing it to come out nearly at the same angle rather than turning and tearing.

It still left a wide wound, but his own attack had been just as damaging, if not more.

The ghost drifted back, a hand to its chest. Arthur hadn't managed to get the blade far up enough, not to its heart, not to slice or cut something important around that region or even pierce a spine. But the blade had still gone in where it's right lung would have been, turned and tore apart the structure of the organ itself and then ripped outward, snagging a little only on the rib as it came out.

In a normal person, that would have been a fatal blow. On the ghost...

"Why?" Arthur panted, his arm hanging uselessly, his other hand with the kris keeping his opponent back. He kept it floating in front of him, both of them backed off. "Why kill us?"

"You... all of you..." the voice was unharmed, speaking just as strongly, just as faintly and eerily, as before. No more passion, as though the man was speaking from lines it had no choice but to intone. "Betrayed me, in my own home. You let my enemies into my house, let them kill my family, kill my servants. Traitors, all but one..." Grief now, a touch of it as it broke through the enforced carelessness. "And you killed him too, didn't you?"

"Tiu. You're replaying an event aren't you?" Arthur wondered if it was a historic one, or if it was a conjured event. Both had been found to happen at other times. Quests based off historical events, many of them little known. Traitorous moments or replesendent moments of courage, battles that had been fought to the last man and quests that showcased moments of quiet heroism. Or events that had never happened - could never happen.

Some Climbers studied history, researched such events, hoping to get an edge. There were information packets available all over the world for different towers, companies that were willing to offer detailed breakdowns or guesses, sheafs of paper and books. All of it too much reading and research for Arthur's liking, not when there were other things to train.

Now, here he was, caught in one of those and grumpy and bleeding.

"I will kill you..." The hand holding the wound moved away, ghostly blood stopped escaping into the air. For a moment, he seemed to glow, then the brightness concentrated, focusing around the chest. The rest of it grew more vague, less solid. Intuitively, Arthur knew his opponent had just triggered an ability.

Before he could wander what, it was on him. No more time to think, to guess as they clashed once more.