Blood River

15. Group Hunt: Part Two

The Nie sect often hosted sparring competitions in the Qinghe area, all sects in the area would go to their home, the Unclean Realm, and hold a two day long sparring tournament amongst the disciples, which would end with a huge banquet and a trophy for the winning sect (which was more often than not their own).

This made Wangji not be as surprised as he was with the Wens when he saw how the Nie twins adapted to the sword styles of their opponents with a practiced ease.

He noticed how eager the Nie, especially the twins were to fight and win. Wangji wasn't fond of this character, but just like with the Jin sect, he'd observed, the Nie Sect was characterised by a fierce competitive spirit, however different the two sects were.

The sparring duals at the end of the afternoon physical practice was often ran as an eliminatory set, they would spar in duos, the winner would wait for an opponent to be available, and the loser would sit aside and observe with Wangji.

They initiated this system last week, the second week of the disciple's arrival, suggested by non other than the Nie sect cultivators. In those two weeks, today was ninth day they used this method to end the sword practice.

The Nie sect disciples use sabers which intimidated their opponents. The JiéZhi* and ChéngHé* sabers of the Nie twins were well known in their continent and especially feared during their yearly spars which were a highly anticipated event in the region.

During nighthunts the sabers often were spoken of long and far, as other disciples often backed out when they saw the two had come out, especially when together - which was rare unless they deemed the matter serious, and mind you being Língxiáng-Jun's and Chifengzun's children, whatever they deemed serious should be feared.

The two often ended up fighting each other for the final round for eight days straight as they were used to this continous fighting style, and there weren't half as many oponents here as there were when they fought all disciples from all the sects in their entire continent - so the two not only were strong, they didn't get tired, not even breathing heavy after the tournament ended.

Today was different, perhaps having adapted to the continous spars, or perhaps out of pure luck, Lan Sizhui, the hier of the Lan clan made it to the Final round with Nie Yuèrú, beating Nie YiFeng after a long fight.

Many were stunned when he managed, but the loser smiled gleefully almost as though excited at the idea of having lost a spar, almost like it was something that never happened and came as a pleasant surprise to him.

This terrified most of the disciples present, but no one commented as the boy laughed while skipping toward where they all sat, saber still unsheated, who would dare comment when ChéngHé gleamed at them?

The battle of Nie Yuèrú, the well known brute who held the hier title of the Nie sect, and Lan Sizhui, the well known optimist given the title of HéHuăn-Jūn* just earlier this year, was one everyone kept their eyes wide open for.

The two began by swiftly circling the court around each other. Yuèrú was significantly shorter than tbe latter, she always had her hair up with a golden head piece which held it in a simple pony tail, tightly tying it up high and mighty.

Her dark green robes wore two golden strips at the forearms down to the wrists which made her flowy robes come to a tight finish. She wore dark green jianxiu* robes that allowed her black pants and boots to be seen. With a smirk playing on her lips, she watched the Lan boy with a glint in her eyes that could only be described as glee.

The boy who felt like prey being watched by a predator - a feeling of imminent danger washing over him - couldn't help but gulp down his feelings of fear, not being able to surpess the thought, why am I afraid of someone smaller than me?