Chapter 67: The River That Would Not Stand Still
The second duel began with none of the solemnity of the first.
There was no formal salute, no measured lowering of stances, and no silence stretched tight between two swordsmen waiting for the smallest twitch. Kaelor merely shifted his weight upon the curved board beneath his feet, letting it drift sideways across the rain-dappled river, while Yun Che stood several dozen metres away with his boots resting upon a thin layer of Ki. The Water Rider looked as relaxed as a man out for an afternoon sail. One clawed hand hung beside his knee, the other lightly touching the edge of his board. His long blue body bent naturally with every ripple, his balance so effortless that the river seemed to move beneath him out of courtesy.
"Kaelor," he said, tapping his chest. "Route scout of the Azure Tide Dominion. Water Rider, current mapper, storm guide, and occasional rescuer of captains who believe maps are suggestions."
A few sailors laughed from the docks.
Yun Che inclined his head. "Yun Che. Blacksmith and hunter."
Kaelor's narrow yellow-green eyes travelled over the white-and-gold armour, lingering on the reinforced plates, the sword at Yun Che's waist, and the rifle resting against his back. He did not look disappointed exactly, but his smile became a little less interested.
"A blacksmith?"
"Yes."
"That explains the armour." Kaelor scratched the side of one red horn. "Most blacksmith cultivators I meet are difficult to knock over and very easy to circle around."
"Most blacksmiths don't build boosters into their armour."
Kaelor's gaze dropped to the vents along Yun Che's back and legs. The smile returned.
"Well," he said, lowering his body slightly over the board, "I hope you are faster than you look."
"I usually am."
"Good."
The board moved.
There was no explosion of power. No violent burst of water. Kaelor simply leaned forward, and the curved platform slid away so smoothly that, for one strange moment, Yun Che thought the Water Rider had remained in place while the river shifted beneath him. Then Kaelor was already moving around his left side.
Yun Che turned to follow.
Kaelor passed behind him.
Yun Che pivoted again.
The rider had widened the circle without slowing, carving a long arc across the river. His board barely touched the surface, yet every pass left a narrow trail behind it. At first those trails looked like ordinary wakes. Then they began to overlap.
The water around Yun Che started to rotate.
Not quickly. Not yet.
Kaelor swept past again, closer this time, low enough that one webbed hand skimmed the river. The glowing markings along his arm brightened. The wake deepened. Yun Che felt the current tug at his boots.
He understood immediately.
Kaelor was not merely circling him.
He was building the battlefield.
Yun Che extended his awareness toward the six grenades floating invisibly around him. Mirage bent the rain and dim light around their shells, hiding them from sight, while his telekinesis kept them arranged in a loose defensive ring. They had worked well against Lei Zhenyu because Lei had been focused on Yun Che himself.
Kaelor was focused on the river.
He cut across the current, then leaned sharply into another turn. The board climbed the side of a rising swell before dropping back down. The water spun faster.
One of the grenades drifted half a metre out of position.
Yun Che corrected it.
A second slipped downward.
Then all six began pulling toward the same point.
He tried to hold them.
The current strengthened.
Kaelor's board flashed past again, and the river twisted beneath Yun Che with enough force to drag the explosives from his telekinetic grip. Mirage still hid them, but concealment meant little when the entire river was carrying them in circles.
Kaelor's head turned slightly.
He had heard the water moving around objects that should not have been there.
"Something floating beside you?" he called.
Yun Che sent the grenades outward before they could collide.
Kaelor stamped one foot against the board.
The rotating current folded inward.
The grenades slammed together beneath the surface.
The river erupted.
A chain of muffled explosions punched columns of water into the air. Steam rolled across the battlefield, hiding Yun Che for an instant, but the blasts had done nothing to Kaelor. He had already ridden the widening edge of the whirlpool beyond their range.
"So that was it," the Water Rider said. "Clever."
Yun Che did not answer.
The first exchange had lasted only a few breaths, and Kaelor had already destroyed one of his prepared advantages without ever directly attacking him.
The whirlpool widened.
Yun Che shifted his feet, trying to remain near the outer current where the pull was weaker. Kaelor noticed and cut across his path. The board skimmed past at an angle, throwing a sheet of water toward Yun Che's face.
It was not powerful enough to injure him.
It was meant to make him blink.
Three steel lances shot from behind Yun Che's shoulders.
Kaelor's board tilted onto one edge. He slipped between the first two so narrowly that their metal heads passed on either side of his horns. The third adjusted in mid-flight, following his chest.
Kaelor smiled.
A bubble formed around the lance.
Not a fragile sphere of floating water, but a spinning globe whose surface moved in several directions at once. The lance entered and immediately lost its line. Its nose jerked sideways. Its shaft began rotating with the bubble until the weapon was carried harmlessly around Kaelor.
Yun Che sent the remaining lances from different heights.
Kaelor did not stop to block them.
He kept riding.
Bubbles bloomed in their paths, catching one weapon after another. Some were dragged into the whirlpool. Others were sent spinning back toward Yun Che.
One lance came at his shoulder.
Yun Che twisted aside and caught it telekinetically before it passed, but that moment of divided attention was enough.
Kaelor crossed directly in front of him.
His tail end of the board kicked up a thick ridge of water.
It struck Yun Che across the knees.
His footing broke.
For half a heartbeat, his right boot sank below the surface.
The current seized it.
Yun Che fired the boosters in his left leg and tore himself free just as Kaelor swept past again. A clawed hand flashed toward his helmet. Yun Che leaned backward. The tips scraped over his faceplate with a sound like knives dragged across stone.
The crowd reacted with a sharp cry.
Kaelor was already gone.
He had not committed to the strike. He had merely checked whether Yun Che could react while off balance.
Yun Che steadied himself, turning slowly as Kaelor circled beyond sword range.
Too smooth.
Lei Zhenyu's movement had been faster. There was no doubt about that. Lei crossed distance with such explosive acceleration that most opponents could not even begin to respond.
Kaelor was different.
He never seemed to accelerate because he never seemed to lose speed. He was always moving at the correct angle, allowing the current, the board and his own body to carry him into the next position. There was no wasted step to read. No planted foot to punish. No brief moment of stillness between attacks.
Yun Che considered opening his Ki Zone.
Rain struck his armour in thousands of tiny impacts. Droplets burst against the river. Ripples crossed ripples. Water moved above him, below him and around him. Kaelor's wake curved through it all.
Yun Che opened the Zone for a fraction of a second.
The world crashed into his mind.
Every raindrop became a point of contact. Every splash returned a useless fragment of information. The river's shifting surface screamed with motion.
Kaelor disappeared beneath the noise.
Yun Che shut the Zone immediately.
A headache pulsed behind his eyes.
Kaelor swept in from the right.
Yun Che barely raised his forearm in time.
The Water Rider had created a short blade of compressed water along the edge of his hand. It struck the gauntlet, slid across the plate and snapped toward Yun Che's exposed side. Yun Che turned his hip, letting the armour take the second blow, then drew his sword in the same motion.
Kaelor dropped flat against his board.
The blade passed above his horns.
He twisted his shoulders, planted one palm on the board and kicked upward. His webbed foot struck Yun Che beneath the sword arm.
The impact was not especially heavy.
It did not need to be.
Yun Che's cut went wide, and Kaelor rode under it, passing so close that Yun Che saw his own reflection distorted across the Waterfolk's wet skin.
Yun Che slashed backward.
Kaelor was already beyond reach.
The rider turned in a broad curve, laughing once—not mockingly, but with genuine delight.
"You're quicker than most of them."
"You're harder to hit than you look."
"I look extremely hard to hit."
Yun Che could not argue with that.
The whirlpool had become large enough to pull floating debris from the edges of the harbor. Broken planks and scraps of rope began circling the battlefield. Yun Che used telekinesis to push them away before they could strike him, but each small correction took attention.
Kaelor was forcing him to spend thought as steadily as the river spent strength.
Yun Che drew his sword fully.
He stopped tracking Kaelor's body and watched the current instead.
Every time the board turned, it pressed one side deeper into the water. Every time Kaelor prepared to cut inward, the wake narrowed.
There.
Kaelor leaned.
Yun Che's blade flashed from its sheath.
The Sword Draw crossed the whirlpool in a thin, brilliant line.
The spinning water split.
For one astonishing instant, the river opened from Yun Che to the edge of the battlefield. The cut parted the current so cleanly that Kaelor's board dropped into the hollow left behind.
The Water Rider's eyes widened.
Then he bent his knees and dove with the falling water.
The sword light passed above him.
The divided whirlpool collapsed.
A wall of water rose in its place.
Kaelor emerged halfway up the wave, standing upright on his board as it climbed the near-vertical surface. He turned at the crest and came down toward Yun Che.
Yun Che pulled Mountain Piercer from his back.
The rifle settled against his shoulder.
He fired.
Lightning crossed the rain.
Kaelor shifted his front foot.
The board snapped sideways. The shot passed under his arm and vanished into the wave.
Yun Che fired again.
Kaelor carved down the face of the water, changing direction so sharply that the board seemed to fold around the wave itself. The second shot passed behind his spine.
The third should have hit.
Yun Che had aimed ahead of his movement.
Kaelor placed one hand against the wave.
The surface beneath him bulged.
His board rose half a metre.
The lightning round tore through the space where his chest had been.
Yun Che fired twice more while boosting backward.
Kaelor avoided one by leaning so far over the edge of his board that his horn touched the water. The final shot struck the wave beneath him and burst into a cloud of steam.
He came through it without slowing.
The wave rolled after Yun Che.
Yun Che fired his boosters again and skimmed backward across the river, but the moving wall continued to gain. Kaelor was not simply riding it. He was feeding it, drawing the surrounding current into the wave with every turn of his board.
Yun Che increased the output.
Water exploded behind his heels.
The distance widened slightly.
Kaelor crouched.
The wave accelerated.
Yun Che looked upward.
He had no solid ground, no cover and no space to plant anything. Remaining on the surface allowed Kaelor to dictate every angle.
So Yun Che launched himself into the sky.
The boosters flared, lifting him above the crest just as the wave broke beneath him. Water crashed outward hard enough to rock nearby boats.
For the first time, Yun Che held the higher position.
Kaelor looked up.
Then grinned.
He raised both hands.
Bubbles drifted from the wave.
Dozens at first.
Then hundreds.
They floated around Yun Che at different heights, each one trembling with contained current. Yun Che twisted between them, keeping the boosters low to avoid losing control.
Rain suddenly began striking sideways.
The droplets sharpened into needles.
They hammered his armour from every direction.
Yun Che raised a Ki barrier.
The water bullets burst against it in a constant hiss. None were powerful enough to penetrate, but their number forced him to reinforce the shield.
Kaelor was not trying to break it.
He was herding him.
Yun Che moved away from one cluster of bubbles and found another waiting. He rose and the rain thickened above him. He dropped and a bubble expanded beneath his boots.
By the time he understood the pattern, the clear spheres had formed a loose cage around him.
Kaelor stood at the top of the wave below, one hand extended.
The bubbles began closing in.
Yun Che fired a lance through the nearest.
The sphere swallowed it.
He struck another with telekinesis.
It distorted, drifted aside, then rolled back into place.
The rain bullets intensified.
Yun Che's barrier flickered.
This is wrong.
He was not being beaten through superior power.
He was being guided from one bad position into another.
Every answer he chose was one Kaelor had already accounted for.
He looked down at the Water Rider.
Kaelor remained relaxed, but his eyes were focused now. He had stopped treating the duel casually. The rider had recognized that Yun Che's equipment could be dangerous if given room, so he was refusing to give him any.
Yun Che's thoughts divided.
Parallel Thought activated.
One stream maintained the barrier and tracked the bubbles.
The other ignored the immediate pressure and began calculating.
Kaelor's path.
The wave's speed.
The distance between them.
The delay between a shift of Kaelor's shoulders and the board's response.
The maximum output of the boosters.
Yun Che had never used them fully in battle. The armour could move faster than his body could properly process. At maximum acceleration, a small error in angle could send him tumbling helplessly or break bones inside the suit.
His ordinary reactions were not enough.
But Parallel Thought was not ordinary.
One mind would act.
The other would predict.
It was still dangerous.
It was also his only chance to take back the battle.
Yun Che lowered his barrier.
The water bullets struck his armour.
The bubbles rushed inward.
Kaelor's eyes narrowed.
All the boosters ignited.
The blast tore the nearest bubbles apart.
Yun Che vanished from the sky.
He did not move like Lei Zhenyu. Lei became lightning because his body, cultivation and sword had been trained for speed from the beginning.
Yun Che became a falling weapon.
His armour screamed through the rain, leaving a trail of steam behind him. Lightning Piercer spread along his sword, sharpening the blade until the air split around its edge.
Kaelor's relaxed expression vanished.
He threw his weight sideways.
The board turned.
Too late.
Yun Che reached him.
Kaelor bent backward as the lightning blade passed across his chest. It missed the glowing core by the width of two fingers and cut through his left shoulder.
Water burst from the wound.
The arm separated.
The crowd shouted.
Yun Che struck the river like a meteor.
The impact opened a crater in the surface, throwing both fighters apart. His armour plunged beneath the water for an instant before the boosters forced him back upward.
Kaelor landed on one knee on his board, his severed arm already dissolving into a stream that curved back toward his body.
Yun Che did not give him time to reform.
Parallel Thought screamed warnings through his mind.
Too fast.
Turn six degrees.
Reduce left booster.
Raise sword.
Yun Che obeyed.
He came out of the spray in a spinning cut, using the momentum of his crash rather than fighting it. Kaelor lifted the board and rolled over the blade. The edge still caught his half-formed arm, scattering it again.
Yun Che released Frost Aura.
Cold spread outward.
The rain nearest him turned to sleet. A thin crust formed across the wave beneath Kaelor's board.
The Water Rider's movement slowed.
Not much.
A fraction.
It was enough for Yun Che to straighten his spin into a direct dash.
No complex turns.
No attempt to match Kaelor's flowing movement.
Just a line from sword point to core.
Kaelor brought the board up vertically.
The lightning blade struck it.
The translucent surface bent almost to breaking, water spraying from its edges. Yun Che drove forward with every booster he could control.
Kaelor slid backward.
For the first time in the duel, Yun Che was pushing him where he wanted him to go.
Kaelor's mouth opened in a fierce grin.
"There you are."
He let the board collapse.
Yun Che's sword surged through the space where the barrier had been.
Kaelor stepped inside the blade.
His remaining hand seized Yun Che's sword wrist and turned it aside while his knee struck the breastplate. The blow rocked Yun Che but did not break his advance.
Kaelor's tail swept behind Yun Che's ankle.
Yun Che fired a leg booster and avoided the trip.
Kaelor released the wrist and snapped a kick upward.
His heel struck the side of Yun Che's helmet.
The impact cracked Yun Che's head sideways.
For one heartbeat, Parallel Thought lost the calculation.
That was all Kaelor needed.
A second Kaelor rose from the water behind Yun Che.
The clone had no board, no glow in its eyes and no true core. It had formed beneath the spray while the real rider blocked the thrust.
Its arms wrapped around Yun Che's leg.
Yun Che looked down.
The clone dropped.
He fired every lower booster at once.
Water exploded beneath him.
He rose half a metre.
Then the river closed over his head.
The clone pulled him downward with both arms while Kaelor placed one claw against the surface above. The current folded inward.
Pressure struck Yun Che from all sides.
His armour protected him from the cold and the immediate crushing force, but it also made him heavy. The boosters screamed behind him, producing only churning white bubbles.
He drew his sword arm back.
The water resisted every movement.
He tried telekinesis.
It didn't have enough power to block the water pressure.
He released Frost Aura again, but Kaelor stirred the current faster, tearing the forming ice apart before it could spread.
The deeper he sank, the darker the river became.
The boosters could move him quickly through air.
Here, every plate of armour fought against the water. Every increase in speed multiplied the resistance. His own greatest defence had become an anchor.
Yun Che looked toward the pale shape of the surface.
The clone tightened its grip.
He could destroy it.
Perhaps.
But Kaelor was waiting above, controlling the water around him. Even if Yun Che broke free, the rider could simply pull him down again.
The outcome was clear.
Yun Che stopped struggling.
Almost immediately, the pressure eased.
The clone released his leg and dissolved.
A current rose beneath him, carrying him gently back toward the surface.
Yun Che emerged with a sharp breath. Water poured from the seams of his helmet and ran down his armour in sheets.
Kaelor waited nearby, seated casually on the edge of his board as if they had merely finished a race.
The harbor remained silent for a moment.
Then applause broke out.
It was not as thunderous as the cheering after Lei Zhenyu's duel, but it carried a different kind of excitement. The crowd had watched a battle completely change in an instant. They had seen Yun Che spend most of the fight being controlled, only to become dangerous enough in the final exchange that Kaelor could no longer afford a single mistake.
Kaelor looked down at his left arm. It had reformed, though the turquoise patterns along it flickered unevenly.
"You were right," he said.
Yun Che removed his helmet and pushed wet hair away from his forehead. "About what?"
"You are not slow."
Yun Che laughed tiredly. "Not for a few seconds."
"That was enough."
Kaelor stood. "I thought you were finished when the bubbles closed. Then you crossed the whole battlefield before I could complete one turn."
"I nearly lost control."
"I noticed."
"So did everyone else, I imagine."
Several members of the Wolf Brigade nodded vigorously from the shore.
Kaelor circled Yun Che once, studying the armour with open interest.
"Good construction. Heavy, but the force distribution is excellent. Most armour would have torn its wearer apart during that dive."
"I built it to survive my mistakes."
"That sounds like something a route scout would say."
Yun Che looked toward the current still rotating weakly around them. "I couldn't make you stand where I wanted even once."
"You did at the end."
"For half a breath."
"Half a breath is enough to kill someone."
Yun Che glanced at Kaelor's newly formed arm.
"That strike was mostly luck."
Kaelor gave him a flat look.
"You calculated a straight line through rain, bubbles, a moving wave and me. Then you committed before knowing whether your armour could stop."
"When you put it that way, it sounds worse."
"It was reckless," Kaelor agreed. "But it was not random."
He stretched his reformed fingers.
"Luck helped you. That does not mean the strike belonged to luck."
Yun Che considered that.
Kaelor looked toward the river and spoke more quietly.
"People like to pretend luck is shameful. Sailors know better. A storm changes direction. A beast chooses another ship. A damaged rope holds one breath longer than it should. Sometimes fortune saves you."
His eyes returned to Yun Che.
"But only fools wait for fortune to do all the work."
Yun Che smiled and extended his hand.
"I would like another attempt when I return to Rivergate."
Kaelor clasped it with his webbed hand.
"Gladly."
"Next time, I'll try not to spend most of the duel running away."
"Next time, I may not let you reach the sky."
"That sounds unfair."
"It is my river."
From the dock, Jin Wei cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Are you two finished discussing the next time Yun Che gets drowned?"
Yun Che turned.
"I did not drown."
"You sank wearing several tons of metal."
"That is not the same thing."
Bao Kun nodded solemnly. "It looked very similar from here."
Lin Xia was smiling, though her notebook was already open and half a page had been filled with hurried sketches of Kaelor's board, the water bubbles and Yun Che's final dive. Lei Zhenyu stood beside her with his arms folded, watching Yun Che with unmistakable satisfaction.
When Yun Che returned to the dock, Lei gave him a small nod.
"You understood."
"Understood what?"
"That sometimes you have to enter before the other person finishes controlling the battlefield."
Yun Che glanced back at the river.
"I also understood that copying your method nearly broke my neck."
Lei considered this.
"You need more practice."
"That was your conclusion?"
"Yes."
Yun Che sighed.
Behind them, Kaelor was already riding back toward the Azure Tide vessel, carving easy curves through the rain as though the duel had never disturbed him at all.
Yun Che watched until the rider disappeared among the ships.
He had lost.
Clearly.
Yet there was no bitterness in it.
Kaelor had shown him weaknesses that ordinary hunts and battles on land had never exposed. His Ki Zone could become a liability. His equipment depended too heavily upon terrain. His boosters possessed more power than he could safely use. His armour, so reliable on land, could become a prison beneath water.
More importantly, he had discovered something else.
For a few seconds, when Parallel Thought had taken over the calculations and he had abandoned every complicated option, his entire style had changed.
Straight movement.
Simple attacks.
Full commitment.
It had not been enough to win.
But it had been enough to make the river move out of his way.