Chương 59: A Fair Fight

There were murmurings from the crowd as the two challengers made their way down to stand in front of Paike. No one objected. He imagined that if he wanted to protest, he could back out without losing too much face. However, that wasn't his plan at all. Paike tuned out the distractions and focused on his opponents. They were vaguely familiar. He had never seen them before, but he either saw an image of them or perhaps their family members.

He couldn't recall, so it was likely they were minor members of some clan; he just couldn't place their features. He was pretty sure they weren't from the new Fang clan. He returned their bows as they gave their introductions.

"I am Ren Kai."

"And I am Ren Yan." That cleared things up. They were a little older, so he was pretty sure that they were from at least one year previous admissions. That the Ren clan had even one who failed to leave the outer sect must have rankled. They couldn't be like the Kong family and have a perfect record. No other family or clan he was aware of could match that. Even the royal family had their failures. Ran Kai appeared to be in Early Topaz, like Paike, while Ren Yan was still at Peak Ruby.

Likely, he was just searching for some inspiration to push him over the edge.

"You are cousins of Ren Shu?" Paike inquired. It didn't really matter, but he was unclear how close they were to the main branch of that clan. It might matter, while their families had their differences, he didn't know much about that. It might have been only a branch.

"Uncle, actually," Ran Kai corrected as Ren Yan nodded. He didn't look that old, but family relations could get odd with immortal cultivators still having children late into life. Paike could barely keep track of all his siblings himself.

"Do you also have a problem with my family?" Paike asked. They were certainly more polite than their nephew. And if they were here about family honor, they wouldn't fight him two to one while people were watching. Ambushing him and his sister in the forest was another thing thing apparently. Ren Kai shrugged, while Ren Yan nodded.

"I have no personal issue with you or your family," Ren Kai said.

"My parents were not part of the generation that came from."

"Well, I can't say I know what that was about. The story never reached me, but my family has many enemies." Paike said.

"I have no personal problem with you, so how about we have a nice bout?" He would have said his family had many rivals, as enemies might have been a bit too confrontational. Still, he truly didn't think his family had any rivals. In their field, they were the top. It was too good to be true. Ren Yan disrupted the amicable start of the bout, "My issue is with you and what you did to my little cousin."

"What did I do?" Paike asked, confused. He didn't remember doing anything. In fact, he couldn't recall even talking to Ren Shu since that time in the forest. Surely they weren't mad about that.

"When you left them beaten in the forest!" Ren Yan said, starting to turn red.

"Are you telling me you don't ever remember beating a group of people up and leaving them at the mercy of beasts? Just how many have you attacked?" No. This was just too much. Paike looked over to Ren Kai and found him still passive, as if he didn't really care. For the first time, Paike looked up to the audience. He found his little sister standing, fists balled. There were slight waves of qi radiating off her, making all those around back off.

For some reason, many of the girls appeared a lot more afraid than seemed reasonable. He knew there was something going on there, but he trusted her to handle it. She had made a few friends after all. In fact, he saw that Xin Yixin had joined her and Guan Li in the stands and was tugging on Liming's sleeve, trying to get her to sit down again. Paike looked back at his accuser and shrugged.

"I didn't attack first. The five of them didn't even have anything on them, so clearly they knew to expect a fight." Honestly, he couldn't care less about these accusations. The elders either knew what happened or didn't care. Likely both. The disciples would believe whatever they wanted.

"Anyways, let's get on with this," Paike said as he lowered his stance. The other two spread out and also readied themselves to fight. His family had lots of doctrine on fighting. Centuries of mercenary work had left them with lots of experience to pull from, and they had integrated it well into a standardized training program. The program prepared their families to be cultivators, and cultivators rarely fought a fair fight. Being outnumbered was to be expected.

There were tactics for being aggressive or merely surviving. They were also taught how to integrate whatever arts they learned into these approaches. However, that was a lot of theory. Paike had yet to fight multiple opponents with his arts. Though he had found two on one as a mortal many, many times. It was insanely hard. Far more than twice as hard as fighting a single opponent. Despite all that, he thought he could close that gap with his arts.

Acknowledgment of Worldly Matters had proven to be very versatile so far, and he had a plan. A plan that heavily depended on the Ren clan fighting with the martial arts they were known for. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. His hopes were dashed as Ren Kai hung back as Ren Yan charged. Paike prepared his qi. Right before Ren Yan reached him, an explosion of qi expanded from Ren Kai.

Paike felt the solidity around him, pulling him forward and disrupting his balance. Quickly, Paike shifted how he was moving his qi from Unstoppable in His Goals. He had been hoping to charge forward and quickly put one of them on the back foot. Instead, he activated Unmovable in His Convictions, and the qi around him seemed to slough off, allowing him to regain his stance right in time to count Ren Yan's first strike. The Ruby cultivator was caught off guard, but recovered quickly.

He had been expecting Paike to be a stride closer, which gave him just enough time to duck under the wild, looping strike. The boy had clearly put too much force into it. Ren Yan lowered his other arm into a low guard as Ren Kai dropped whatever working of qi he was doing. This didn't affect Paike. His blow hammered into Ren Yan's arm as he came up from his duck. The force of his cultivation and body fully behind it overwhelmed the defense. It didn't break Ren Yan's arm, but it did throw him off his feet.

Paike was already moving back to Unstoppable in His Goals. He shot forward with stunning speed that Ren Kai wasn't ready for. The Topaz cultivator was changing to a different technique and barely was able to produce a short staff from under his robes in time to redirect Paike's first blow. The appearance of the staff made Paike grimace on the inside. Li Feng did have a point in picking one weapon. Paike liked the idea of fighting with a staff. The reach alone was worth it.

However, it appeared that his actions didn't agree. He never seemed to remember to have his staff on hand, even when he knew he was going to get into a fight. Maybe he should get better at that. Ren Kai's staff slid along the inside of Paike's forearm, deflecting the straight punch up and to the side. This was within his expectations. At the same time, his foot wiped around to land a blow against the knee, Paike's arm came down trapping the staff against his body.

It had been clear that Ren Kai had been trying to pivot the redirection into a shoulder throw, with how he was trying to position Paike's arm after the strike. Paike didn't have the time to even think of all the reasons that wouldn't work in this situation. His instructors would have at least given him a lecture about trying to be fancy, if not a beating in the form of a sparring session where they insisted it would work if he just tried a little harder.

He continued the curving motion of his kick to launch off the ground, flip around, and twist, ripping the staff from Ren Kai's hands as the Topaz cultivator sprawled from the force of the kick. Paike landed on his feet facing the way he had just come. It was just in time to bring his newly acquired weapon up into a block. The sound of a fist hitting wood echoed out, but Ren Yan's face didn't show the pain that it must have caused. Instead, he launched into a flurry of strikes that Paike danced through.

Each was either avoided or blocked. He only took a couple of blows to the body, but he moved with them so the damage they left was minimal. Though they would still hurt tomorrow. He was just careful not to overextend his blocks, like Ren Kai had. Nothing fancy like trying to control a strike into a grapple or throw. Just solid fundamentals backed up with the power of his cultivation. The exchange ended with Paike tripping Ren Yan when he overextended his footwork.

It had taken Ren Kai a second to get back on his feet, but he hadn't charged in. Instead, he was preparing another technique. It was far more annoying to fight a ranged opponent when they had the support of a close combat fighter. It was what he was trying to do for his sister, no matter how hard she was making it for him. He didn't have time to think. A Transient Shield Formation materialized right in front of Paike in time to block a bolt formed with a type of qi he couldn't yet identify.

The shield held without even a crack, and Paike kept his connection with it so he could still position it. He shifted it to be between him and the fallen Ren Yan and then rotated it so that it was edge-on at knee level before letting go and closing in on Ren Kai. This time, he didn't hold back. Ren Kai was clearly a decent cultivator; anyone who reached Topaz while still young was. However, there was a reason he languished in the outer sect. It showed how easily Paike had stolen his weapon.

The boy wasn't good at fighting. At least not up close. Paike had him unconscious at his feet in a three strikes. A low thunk sound made him turn in time to see Ren Yan tumble over the Shield Formation he had left as a trap. In his rush to aid his family, he hadn't noticed it. It wouldn't have worked against a Topaz cultivator who could see qi, but did just fine against even a Peak Ruby. Lowing the staff to rest against Ren Yan's back, Paike declared victory. No one objected.

Paike helped the recovering Ren Kai off to the side before leaving his staff and walking back to his sister and friends. He was pretty sure this squabble wasn't over, but he was also certain that they knew they couldn't do much to him. Hopefully, they would just leave it alone, but they figured that they would just find someone else to fight him.

"Miss Xin," Paike greeted his sister's roommate.

"It has been some time. I see you have advanced. Congratulations."

"It has, Piake, and I believe I told you to call me Yixin." She said with a small smile.

"That was some fight. You made it look easy." Paike retook his seat next to Guan Li at the end of their group. As he lowered himself his ribs made him wince.

"It looked a lot easier than it was he said. Liming didn't miss his expression and moved over. She placed her hands on his torso, and he felt her qi try to enter him. She frowned, and Paike forced his qi away from that part. It had been dampening the pain from the at least bruised, if not cracked ribs. The second time her qi entered him, and he could feel some technique working to soothe the swelling.

"Thank you," Paike said. They watched as the others fought. Liming made three challenges. Only one was accepted by a boy. The two girls almost ran away, and no one wanted to fight her. She was making a good case to be moved up in the rankings from fourth. Yixin won one bout and lost a close one. Paike hadn't seen her opponent fight before, or would have warned her off. Her bow was massively hampered in this format. He helped Guan Li pick and then dismantle two disciples who were ranked higher than him.

It was only a matter of time before he was also in the top ten. With his momentum, it might be soon that he would challenge Paike. All this time, the crowd had only quieted down for a single bout when Paike had fought. The rest of the time, at least two fights were going on at a time. So when it got quiet again, everyone paid attention. Rank number one, Li Feng, stood in the center of the arena, passively scanning the crowd, waiting for someone to accept his challenge.

When his gaze fell on Paike, it was all Paike could do not to groan.