Chapter 12: Nine Mistakes

．

Wu Long parried his attack seemingly with no effort as he struck at specific point of the blade at a calculated angle and time, deviating the trajectory while adjusting his own position with graceful movement.

Having his attack’s power strike nothing threw Zhao Wuji off, as he did not expect such skillful technique from the opponent he looked down so much on, and staggered for a split second before adjusting his movement and stance.

“You should not have degraded the Dao of dual cultivation in principle, but you had the audacity to do it in front of me. Youngsters should not go over their means to try and judge something beyond their level of comprehension. That is your first mistake.” Wu Long, who did not press the advantage he created, just looked on at his efforts and said in a clear voice.

Zhou Wuji’s expression sank both from the embarrassment of his strike being casually countered by this weakling, him not using the advantage, and from the anger at being lectured in such a manner.

“You think you’ve won just by luckily receiving this casual strike?! You will regret being so arrogant and letting go of the chance to at least last a few more strikes from me!” he roared and went for a horizontal strike this time.

Wu Long took one step back and let Zhao Wuji’s ox-tailed sword slice the air in front of him, striking it with his own sword tip in the broader part as it was passing him, thus amplifying its speed and momentum. Zhao Wuji tried to skillfully change the movement of the sword by making a U-turn downwards and striking upwards in a diagonal trajectory. But it was an awkward change as the way the sword tip striked sent the sword in an inner and upward direction, so adjusting it required most of Zhao Wuji’s muscle strength and the time it took was enough for Wu Long to make at least two attacks on his completely unguarded torso.

“You have insulted and degraded with your words and attitude a beautiful woman. And again, you dared to do so in front of me. This is your second mistake.”

Wu Long did not take the opportunity though and just continued in the same tranquil voice.

“SHUT UP AND DIE!!!”

Zhao Wuji roared, fire of hatred and embarrassment burning in his eyes, and launched five consecutive strikes none of which touched even Wu Long’s quite fluttering attire as the cloak was freely hanging from his shoulders.

“You have disgusted me with the pathetic excuse of a way to court a woman. That is your third mistake.”

Wu Long narrated as he sent the fifth attack to another direction with a precise strike with the sword tip.

“Fuck, just DIEEE!!!”

Zhao Wuji completely went berserk, and started swinging his ox-tailed sword utilizing all of his fencing techniques and movement arts, but he was unable to do anything against Wu Long.

Meanwhile Wu Long continued on.

“You are arrogant, which is not in itself a crime when you have the right to, but you… ” Wu Long then took a second to look Zhao Wuji up and down, and continued with a sigh and “… that is your fourth mistake.”

Zhao Wuji felt like he was going crazy, there was never in his life when he was so disrespected, humiliated and powerless to stop it, and the worst thing was that it was done by someone two entire realms below him. He talked so much smack before that it turned a resounding slap in his own face as he currently looked like a mortal kid trying to fight an adult cultivator.

However, Wu Long’s monotonous narration of his mistakes suddenly stopped as he continued to evade and counter Zhao Wuji’s attacks. And then,

“… your face is … unpleasant to look at. That is your fifth mistake.”

He suddenly said in a slightly changed voice that sounded like someone struggling to find words.

“Y-You fart! What do you mean by unpleasant, I have always been called handsome!”

Zhao Wuji instinctively roared at the sudden insult.

“They lied”

But contrary to before when he ignored any words or curses from Zhao Wuji, Wu Long replied to him this time.

“Also, your breath stinks when you talk, sixth mistake.”

He then added in a straight tone, and a different talking pace that was faster and more suited to normal conversation than the tranquil and measured one he talked with before, thus completely losing the air of a wisened scholar scolding an impetuous youngster. By this time even Hua Ziyan’s expression started to look unnatural as a slight doubt crawled in the corner of her thoughts.

Zhao Wuji stopped attacking as he was beginning to run out of breath, and just stared at Wu Long with eyes full of uncontrollable rage, his breathing hard and veins popping on his forehead. The ox-tailed sword in his hands was slightly trembling as he was shaking with frustration.

“It stinks even when you are just breathing, seventh mistake.”

Wu Long said after some time, and at this point Hua Ziyan was completely sure that somewhere in the middle he could not come up with valid mistakes, but he couldn’t just stop as he had previously stated the nine mistakes and even poetically connected it to nine mortal transformations, so he tried to come up with some on the spot to fill up the numbers.

“Y-You! You are clearly just spouting nonsense!”

Of course Zhao Wuji noticed it too, so he shouted again, his voice already hoarse as he shouted plentily before, and it even broke a little at the end of his phrase making it sound strange.

“Your voice is unpleasant, eight mistakes”

However Wu Long ignored him and pushed through with another mistake. His forehead had a bit of sweat under his bamboo hat as he was beginning to regret not simply killing him, or at least not stating a lower number of mistakes as he just said that without thinking much under the momentum of being slightly angered at Zhou Wuji’s remarks.

“FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!”

Zhou Wuji roared and made a few more unsuccessful attacks.

Zhao Wuji understood that he had no way of exposing him as arguing with him about whether he was really pulling those ‘mistakes’ out of his ass was not something he was willing to do at this moment. He was also panicking because he was not oblivious enough to not notice the situation, he knew that his opponent was much higher in experience and technique, and was even strangely not that much apart in physical abilities despite being entire two major realms below.

He knew that if he had any semblance of a chance to win and come out of this alive he had to overwhelm him with his cultivation in a contest of pure strength.

“If you’re a man, fight me head on!” he roared as he prepared to unleash his most powerful strike yet.

And to his surprise, Wu Long raised his sword in a casual blocking stance.

“Hahaha, DIE!!!” Zhou Wuji was delighted and immediately made the move he prepared for earlier, assured of his victory.

Wu Long shifted his position and sword, then casually struck Zhao Wuji’s blade with his sword in the right hand at an angle while moving forward and left, effectively striking the blade’s left side and then when he was further to Zhou Wuji’s side just naturally flicking the sword downward to shift the sword’s position onto the back ridge and basically accelerate the movement of Zhao Wuji’s blade down. This happened so quickly that Zhao Wuji was not even sure how his opponent’s sword was not on the other side of his blade like he expected from his initial blocking movement, but on the side facing him. But even if he could understand, he did not have any time before Wu Long’s left palm striked his arm in a specific spot near his shoulder.

The muscles that were exerting their highest strength to unleash a thunderous strike and have yet to lose momentum were striked at a precise moment with shocking precision of force distribution and minute movements of the strike. The strike also accurately and specifically disrupted the flow of inner energy that flowed through the arm to enhance the speed and strength of the attack, as well as toughen the body to endure such burden. Last but not least the tendons that connected the arm bone to the shoulder were heated up from the movement and softened to allow for speed without impediment and the force and angle of the palm created a twisting movement that guaranteed a heavy burden on them.

The Spiritual Qi in his forearm and shoulder broke out in bubbles that were like tiny bombs which spread and then detonated through the already heavily damaged muscles, destroying them from the inside fiber by fiber and proceeding to cause a reaction in the entire shoulder area effectively severing the weakened tendon that was targeted and disconnecting the bone joint of his arm from the shoulder, while pushing the joint in a way that it collided with the bone in the shoulder that currently was reinforced by Spiritual Qi to withstand the burden, shattering the joint into pieces.

‘Aaaaargh!!!!!!’

A shrill and heart–wrenching scream resounded in the clearing but did not manage to travel far due to the intensifying downpour of the rain.

Hua Ziyan watched with round eyes, covering her mouth with her jade hand as Zhao Wuji let go of his ox-tailed sword and knelt on the ground. He first instinctively tried to hold his arm around his shoulder with his other hand, but when he experienced the excruciating pain intensifying by even slightly touching his arm, he screamed again and just hovered the hand over the shoulder area without touching it.

On the surface there actually did not seem like a lot of damage was done by the palm strike, but the amount of pain he was currently in was something he never experienced even though he had plenty of experience in being injured. His mind blanked as he could not think of anything else but the immense torturous pain that resulted from the weight of his arm pulling it down as there was no bone connection except for a few thin strands of what was left over from the tendons to support it anymore.

“Khu-khm, as I was saying, you would have been better off dying swiftly trying to attack me earlier. Your ninth mistake is overestimating yourself, as well as challenging me.” Wu Long cleared his throat and resumed the tone with which he was speaking in the beginning as he stood before Zhou Wuji in a dignified pose.

Zhao Wuji’s face was distorted from pain, hatred, rage and humiliation. But he was silent and the scene was filled with only the sound of a heavy rain pouring down.

Some time later, Zhao Wuji slowly looked up at Wu Long, and finally saw his face. An intense shock and maddening fury filled his bloodshot eyes when he saw how young he was, as well as his handsome appearance.

“You will pay for this!” he said in a low voice, spitting every word through his teeth.

“And this here is your final mistake, nothing will come to me because of what happened here today. And since you seem to think that this is over as you became brave enough to say something like this, I have to remind you of something. While I said that I will not kill you, you have to remember that I also said that you would wish you had died instead. And I don’t say meaningless words.” Wu Long said in a cold voice, finally returning to the solemn and heart-palpitating atmosphere in the beginning.

“Umm…”

Suddenly there was a voice from the side, and Wu Long shifted his profound gaze with a graceful motion to Hua Ziyan.

Seeing him look in her direction, she hesitantly decided to finally say in a slightly unnatural tone of voice “Umm… what you said earlier… you..you already listed nine mistakes… that was his final mistake…so this is the tenth…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

The three of them stayed motionless and silent like that for a good minute. Only the sound of falling rain filled the air, but even that sound for some reason felt mooted, as if the deathly silence that would otherwise be filling this space was absorbing the sound of the rain.