Li Gou stepped in and his sword drew a bright white arc through the fog He moved with the Three Rings Around the Moon technique The steel circled Mikes head and shoulders in three linked sweeps Every swing carried stone powder ready to paint a mark

  Mike lifted the rotten wooden sword It felt wrong in his hands Too light Too dead Like gripping a broken steering wheel

  He did not try to copy Li Gou He did not chase elegant angles He only took a wide stance and let his hips loosen He remembered every time a trailer tried to fishtail in hard wind

  He remembered how you do not fight the sway You guide it into a circle until it becomes stable

  Li Gou lunged and the white edge flashed for Mikes chest Mike swung the deadwood sword in a full round sweep The swing did not cut It did not need to It shoved air

  A short violent wind burst off the circle White powder lifted like smoke Li Gou thought it was nothing and drove in harder But the wind thickened as Mike kept the circle going

  Each rotation fed the next Like a fan building speed from a slow start

  The stone powder stopped falling It began to spiral It rose into a tight funnel between them

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  Li Gou blinked in confusion Then the funnel flipped The wind snapped back toward him like a slap All the white powder slammed into his face It packed his eyes and nose and mouth in one breath

  Li Gou choked and stumbled He swung blind and wild His sword carved empty air His balance scattered like gravel on ice

  Mike moved in He stepped into the blind space the way a driver slips into a gap in traffic His deadwood sword came down not as a cut but as a hammer

  It struck Li Gou knee from the side Bone gave with a dull crack Li Gou screamed and folded to the ground

  The crowd exploded with shocked noise No one expected the outsider to turn a cheap wooden sword into a storm No one expected the proud disciple to fall in one brutal beat

  Elder Xuanji rose from his seat His face turned colder than the mountain wind He flicked his fingers

  A thin invisible force snapped across the ring The rotten wooden sword in Mikes hands split in half The broken end spun away and clattered on stone

  Elder Xuanji spoke with final judgment in his voice He declared that Mike had used crooked tricks He declared the wager lost He declared the outsider would be beheaded

  Enforcement disciples stepped forward and raised their blades Their eyes showed relief They wanted this to end

  Mike looked at the broken sword in his hands He looked past the ring to the cliff edge behind the platform A narrow crack ran down the rock like a fault line

  His mind cleared Like shifting into the one gear that always finds grip

  He lunged backward in one hard step He drove the jagged broken blade into the rock crack with all his weight The blade bit deep and jammed The sound rang like metal on stone even though it was only dead wood

  Mike kept his hand on the hilt and held on His knuckles turned white His eyes stayed locked on Elder Xuanji

  He did not beg He did not plead He anchored himself to the mountain like a truck chaining down a load before a storm

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