Read Chapter 16: — PEERLESS IN SERVICE

The final fight was ugly.

No one moved like a legend.

Tang was exhausted and barely trained. Lin had been fighting for hours. Yagyu was wounded and desperate.

That made every mistake dangerous.

Yagyu slashed Tang across the arm.

Lin cut Yagyu’s shoulder.

Yagyu reached for another poisoned dart.

Tang struck his wrist with the flat of the blade.

The dart fell.

Yagyu lunged at Lin.

Lin stepped aside and drove his palm into the pirate’s elbow.

Tang, remembering the lesson his father had once given Lin, resisted the urge to chase the opening too quickly.

He waited.

Yagyu turned toward him.

That was the opening.

Tang drove the sabre through Yagyu’s chest.

For a moment nobody moved.

Yagyu looked down at the blade.

The four engraved characters were dark with blood.

“You…”

Tang’s hands shook.

“My father’s son,” he said.

Yagyu collapsed.

Lin stood over the body and felt something unexpected.

Not triumph.

Not relief.

Only the quiet absence of a weight he had carried so long it had become part of his posture.

Tang tried to hand the sabre back.

Lin closed his fingers around the hilt and pushed it toward him.

“No.”

“It is yours.”

“It was your father’s.”

“And he gave it to you.”

Lin looked at the young man.

“Then I am giving it to his son.”

Tang stared at the inscription.

“This one is actually steel?”

Lin laughed.

Xiaoxi hit Tang on the shoulder.

He yelped.

“Too soon?” he asked.

“Far too soon.”