“You seem surprised… Yi Zen.” The macabre assassin chuckled to himself, walking towards the kneeling, injured Xinyi. “Did you think I would really target you not knowing your ability?”

“Bastard, stay away from her!” I flew into a rage and grabbed the clasp on my cloak. The majority of the blood he spilled before had landed on the cloak, and not my combat gear. I would probably take some of his attack, but I could avoid the majority of his ability by taking off my bloodstained cloak.

The cloak discarded, I rushed at him, my sword slicing through the air at his neck. His blade parried mine before it could reach, and he twisted his wrist, forcing my sword point to the ground.

“Did I make you mad, boy? This girl must mean a lot to you to elicit such an... enjoyable reaction from you.” As he spoke, the blood spilling from Xinyi’s body floated up and formed into a sphere in his outstretched hand. “I wonder what kind of face you’ll make if I kill you with your lover’s own blood?”

“Has anyone ever told you you have a disgusting personality?” I snarled at him, but the Assassin just laughed.

“Quite often, yes.” he smiled, but there was nothing but bloodlust in his eyes. I had never seen a Demon, but if you told me this man was one, I would believe you in an instant.

I shifted my body weight, and with ease, my sword was freed. I slashed up, but he disappeared from my view. The sound of his wooden sandals gave away his movements to me however, and I twisted around just in time to match his swing with my own. Our blades bounced off each other, but I recovered quicker and lunged at him.

The stolen blood of Xinyi in his hand reformed into a sword identical to his other blood crystal blade. Thin with a slight curve and very little in the way of a hand guard, it wasn’t the type of sword the mainland used. Catching my sword between two crossed blades, he avoided my attack again with ease.

He was clearly a master swordsman, on par with the greats from this country. His movements flowed like water, and he wasted no time or effort in any of his actions. It was almost beautiful, but my anger towards him prevented me from seeing him as anything but offensive to all of my senses.

He hadn’t triggered the blood on my clothing to injure me yet… perhaps he wanted to face me with the blade fairly? He was getting some perverse sense of enjoyment out of toying with us, so maybe he just wanted to prolong the fight as much as possible, knowing he could kill us at any time?

I didn’t know why he possessed the kind of ability a Skill would grant without being affected by my Zero, but even if I could disable it I doubt I could win. This man was dangerous, far too dangerous for me to be fighting alone… but nobody else was here. I couldn’t rely on my mother to save me, and by the time the guard’s shift changed Xinyi would have died of blood loss… no, she might already be dead, I can’t tell while locked in combat like this.

Our swords clashed again and again, and we traded places more than once. We spun around each other, trying to gain the advantage. After several clashes, I started to get a sense of his ability, he was obviously holding back, but not as much as I first expected.

He was a master, yes, but without the strange ability he had, he was still just a man. So as long as he continued to hold back his power… I had a chance.

My feet dug into the dirt as I slid back from the force of his last attack. Panting heavily, I was barely able to keep my blade poised defensively towards him, while he showed no signs of slowing.

I wasn’t sure how long we had been fighting, but I had to finish things quickly if I wanted to have any chance of saving Xinyi. The real probably was how exactly I was going to do that, since I hadn’t landed a single hit against the assassin yet.

“What do you want with the Crimson Dragon anyways, doesn’t seem like you need a sword?”

“I don’t want it, but… I’ve been paid handsomely to recover it for an… anonymous third party.” He replied, twirling his crystal blades in his fingers. “Be a good boy and hand it over, and I’ll kill you nice and quickly.”

“The only one dying here is you, freak.” I wiped the sweat from my face, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “I’m just getting started.”

So far, I had been copying my mother Xuan Yan’s sword techniques, as they were the ones I had seen and sparred with the most. But her style was made for a one handed longsword, which the Crimson Dragon Emperor was not. I placed my other hand on the handle of my father’s bastard sword and shifted my weight to favor my right side.

“Xie Jie, Raikou Yazama, whatever you want to call yourself… whatever sorcery you’re using to evade the power of my Zero Skill… I’ll take your head anyway!”

“I love it when my prey fights back! Come then, plunge your blade into my heart… I’ve love to see you try!”

We moved simultaneously, both aiming for the other’s head. He was faster than I was, less tired, but I pushed passed my fatigue. I poured all of my remaining strength into my legs, and ran as fast and as hard as I could.

The bits of scattered blood on my clothing shot into spikes, driving themselves into my body. The pain in my left leg was intense, but I was already ignoring my body’s signals, so it didn’t slow me down even a fraction of a second. He must have been serious about ending things, since he hadn’t used this ability in our fight until now. My ability to ignore the pain must have surprised him, as for a brief moment I had the upper hand.

“Crimson Dragon School, Roaring Cutter!” I slid to a stop in front of him and launched myself into of of the techniques taught to me by my mother, a killing blow from the school of swordsmanship my father’s family passed down for millenia.

In a world ruled by Skills, those without them are considered weak. And while I do possess a Skill, it wasn’t the flashy kind that got anyone’s attention. It was for this reason the Yi bloodline created these sword techniques. Practiced, refined and perfected over a thousand years, these sword forms echoed their user’s Chi.

And brought forth power similar to a Skill.

I wouldn’t have used this unless it was my last resort. If my basic ability couldn’t keep up with the assassin, it would do nothing but drain my stamina even faster. So I watched, and waited, testing his blade against my own. It wasn’t an insurmountable mountain, I could see the peak.

And so, I unleashed my inner chi, unleashing a force of energy that blew his guard wide open. His face twisted in both terror and rage, but it was too late for him. An aura like a black flame erupted from my blade as it sliced through the air.

He backstepped, bringing his neck out of my swing’s range, but this is fine, I anticipated that.

I wasn’t aiming for his head at all!

“That doesn’t belong to you!” my voice echoed and bounced off the walls of the palace as my sword cut cleanly through his right arm, severing it right below the shoulder. As his arm fell to the ground I caught it, the crystalline blade made of Xinyi’s blood still clutched in his hand.

My heart was racing so fast, it felt like it was going to explode. I had never put that technique to use in practice, and it was a lot more intense than I expected it to be. There was no way I could use it again, it took all of my remaining energy to stay standing.

“You, you… you you you cut off my ARM?!” Xie Jie’s face was the look of an enraged demon as the injured man clutched at his amputated limb, a torrent of blood dying his yellow robes red. But then his anguished face twisted into a smile. “You fool… Now you’ve sealed your fate!”

“What nonsense are you spouting, I’ve already won!” I flicked the blood off my sword, making sure to avoid it touching me, just in case.

“No, no you haven’t, Yi Zen! My Accursed Blood has free reign now!” he staggered towards me, every step drenching his body in more of his own blood. “Now… you can witness the true terror of Bloodstained Yazama! This curse, placed upon my family so many centuries ago, it brought my Predecessors nothing but despair and death… but I took its power for myself.”

He rambling grew more concerning, and after a few steps he was worryingly close to me. I threw his severed arm aside, and returned to my two handed combat stance.

The blood at his feet, on his body, moved unnaturally. It crawled up his body, crept along the grass… and joined together at the stump of his missing arm. For a moment, I thought his limo would somehow regrow, but that was childish of me, reality was much worse.

The half dead looking assassin charged me, a trail of blood flying behind him. He still held his first blade, which crashed into mine, sending me flying into the air. And then, the solid mass of blood where his right arm should be gained a mind of its own.

A serpentine creature formed from the assassin’s spilled lifeblood, with fangs of the same nearly unbreakable crystal his sword was formed from. It slithered through the sky like a nightmarish dragon, gaping maw ready to tear me in two.

“Crimson Dragon School…” It was a suicidal action, I was already at the end of my stamina, and launching these techniques improperly was extremely dangerous. This particular technique required my feet be firmly planted on the ground, yet I was falling through the air at this moment in time. “Crushing Wave!”

I threw my sword into the ancient technique from an awkward angle, and I could feel the force of the move in every inch of my body. My right arm shattered from the reverb of the ability mid swing, but I maintained the trajectory of the swing through to the end.

My Chi exploded against Xie Jie’s attack like a raging tsunami, blowing his cursed dragon of blood away along with him. His body cracked hard against the outer wall before landing face down on the ground. I was thrown back and rolled to a stop on the ground myself. I couldn’t feel my right arm at all, and the rest of my body was nothing but pain.

I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t work, I could barely move the tips of my fingers.I would be lucky if I got out of this only slightly crippled at this point.

Xie Jie was standing. My vision faded in and out, and somewhere during that time, the assassin from another land managed to get back to his feet. Was he a monster? He might actually be a demon, I thought then. But this was the end, I couldn’t move, Xinyi was in my field of view, and I could see rough, weak breathing… but she wasn’t in any condition to fight, and had lost consciousness.

“I’ll kill you, you bastard… I’ll kill you, I’ll KILL YOU!” Xie Jie, seemingly only moving out of sheer hatred for me at this point, quickly approached my helpless, broken body.

And then Xie Jie’s head was separated from his shoulders. A platinum sword held in a Platinum clad fist shining in the red setting evening sun. Not a single drop of blood existed on the sword, having cut too clean, too fast to even dirty itself.

The Legendary Royal Arm that could cut through anything, the Dividing Queen. The signature blade granted to one individual after she became the first woman to win the empire’s Tournament of Immortal Champions and claim the title of Sword God.

Xuan Yan’s sword, my mother’s sword.