As the beggar weaved out of the path of Tao Geming's deadly fists, he continued to speak whenever he could muster up a spare breath. "We're of the same generation, so I know you a little better than you might think. I know you come from Mount Hua, and I know what its old master was like. He no doubt made you study the classics, taught you the wisdom of the sages. So tell me, with your education, with all your power, why do you stubbornly insist on making the world a worse place?"

  "You're right, he did teach me about that." Tao Geming replied. His breathing was steady, almost leisurely, not at all disturbed by the trials of combat. "And what a waste of time that was. Those sages haven't lived in our age; their principles didn't withstand the test of time. In our age, the truly wise don't study governance or philosophy. They don't write poetry. They dedicate themselves to martial arts!"

  "Surely you're smart enough to understand the folly here!" Ma Yi exclaimed. "Because so many people are of the same mind as you, it can't be much longer now until the old teachings are lost in their entirety!"

  The conclusion of yet another exchange parted them once more. Once again, neither party rushed to close the gap.

  "So what if they are?" Tao Geming asked.

  "Don't try to act so detached!" Ma Yi exclaimed. "This concerns everyone, including you! You're far more worldly of a person than I. All you do these days is partake in the fruits of civilization, so what will you do once it's all gone? When the greed of you would-be monarchs has driven the fields to exhaustion, when the agricultural methods to resuscitate them are lost, when the people are left to suffer and starve in masse, what exactly do you intend to do? When the cities are in ruins, where will you take shelter? When was the last time you had so much as cooked your own meal, Geming?"

  Tao Geming's gaze dwelled elsewhere as if he was bored with the conversation. An idle thought sprang to his mind, and he asked, "You said we were of the same generation, but if that's true, then how could I have missed you during my martial pilgrimage? You've really been pretending to be a beggar even before that? For over half your life? You're a lunatic."

  Ma Yi shook his head. "You keep calling me crazy, but can you really not see it? It used to be that military might, and by that same token, the autonomy of an empire, was directly linked to the prosperity of the common people. The weak supplemented the strong, and the strong supplemented the weak. They had no other choice. But now that our modern arts of war have severed that connection, our disregard for virtue has set us on the path towards an unprecedented disaster!"

  "Enough of this drivel." Tao Geming finally returned his eyes towards him. "I don't live in the past where the teachings of the sages still hold any merit. I don't live in your imagined future where your doomsaying has come to pass. I'm here now."

  Ma Yi snorted. "Maybe you're not that much longer for this world, but there are those who must live after you're gone."

  "How have I still not gotten through that thick skull of yours?" Tao Geming gritted his teeth. "I don't give a damn!"

  He charged the beggar once more. Ma Yi blocked one of his strikes and felt his arm grow numb; he was forced to retreat from the next one. The more Tao Geming's patience thinned, the stronger his attacks grew.

  As he pursued the fleeing beggar, he called out, "And let me tell you something! Even back during those times you're raving on about, it wasn't all peaches for the common man. Wars still left millions of people devastated; they starved and suffered all the same. They all lived and died at the whims of their masters! Dynasties rose and dynasties fell, and yet here we all still remain!"

  The unpredictable whirlwind of combat had made the two men lock hands, their battle suddenly reduced to a simple test of strength. Ma Yi's joints creaked as he was forced to confront Tao Geming's power in its purest form. But still he held his ground, unyielding.

  Tao Geming continued, "So if you ask me, things are even better now than they were before! Because for once, it is the individual that holds all the power! No longer are you beholden to the whims of the masses. Now everybody's free to carve out their own path, build their own future! With nothing more than by the strength of their own hands!"

  Ma Yi pried apart his gritted teeth to utter a response, "Don't you see just how foolish, how shortsighted such thinking is? What freedom can anyone claim to have, living at the whim of lunatics who are not beholden to any principle or to any people, solely because they were born a little stronger than you? If we let this unbridled idiocy continue, it won't be long before man is reduced to nothing more than mere beast! All of our culture, all of our knowledge, mankind's legacy will be reduced to naught!"

  Just when Tao Geming was about to muster a rebuke, Ma Yi leaned in and twisted his body. Tao Geming suddenly felt his feet taking off the ground.

  But the beggar didn't commit to the throw in earnest. Instead he had somehow wiggled his hands out of Geming's steely grip during the confusion, his fingers slipping out of his grasp like water.

  Though his body was inches off the ground, because Ma Yi reneged on his maneuver, it left more than enough space for someone of Tao Geming's superhuman agility to flip over and land cleanly on his feet.

  "Let me turn your earlier words against you." Tao Geming said. "With all the power that you have, couldn't it be said that you are the one making the world worse by sitting on your hands? You spend your worthless days just sitting there, wallowing in filth and pity, begging for scraps day in and out... and you dare come and whine about it to me?!"

  The more Tao Geming continued to speak, the more he thought about the matter, the hotter his temper ran. Struck by a sudden realization, his face contorted into a hideous grimace.

  "And back then you said... we're not so different?" His voice finally erupted like a volcano. "We're not so different?!"

  Soon Tao Geming was so twisted by his rage that he couldn't even stand upright. He ground his teeth and clenched his fists until they were white as bone. His internal energy ran wild, turning his surroundings into a scene of complete mayhem. Heavy winds buffeted the park, flattening the grasses, curling the trees, stirring up dust. The ground began to shake.

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  From the eye of the storm, Tao Geming's voice rang out across the entire city, carried forth by his boiling qi.

  "Now I'm really pissed off! I'm fucking livid! To think that I once let a spineless wretch like you mouth off to this king! Why, as long as I live, I'll remember it as my biggest humiliation! You piece of shit! You knew exactly what you were and yet you dared compare yourself to me?!"

  Even Ma Yi couldn't help but be taken aback by the display before him.

  "You think I'm stupid?!" Tao Geming called out. "I knew all along that you've just been stalling for time, abusing my promise to Fox by staying your hand! And I've been letting you get away with it! I could have killed you so many times by now! I don't know where she finds the patience to go through this crap every single time, but I've had it! Don't think that she can protect you for even a moment longer! Use your techniques or don't, I don't give a shit anymore! You're dead!"

  In the face of Tao Geming's boundless fury, Ma Yi steeled himself. He took up a stance, readying the palms that could subdue a dragon.

  This time, the beggar made the first move, and Tao Geming was forced to match his advance with his own. Fist collided with palm, and the clash sent a tremor through the air and had each fighter gliding back away from each other, only for them to boldly lunge back into the fray. No longer could they afford to exchange even a single word.

  Ma Yi had no more tricks to levy against his foe; it was a contest of raw power. For eighteen subsequent exchanges the beggar brought forth a new stance, demonstrated a brand new attack with his palms. But after the eighteenth, his sequence began anew.

  Tao Geming's inability to squash his foe drove him ever deeper into his wrath, and he flung himself at the beggar with increasingly more abandon. But there was no opening to be found from either side, and the battle continued for well over a hundred rounds.

  Finally, a gap revealed itself. It was Tao Geming who had tarried, his guard slacking for just a moment.

  Ma Yi was upon this opportunity without delay. His next palm slipped through his defenses and the full force of it came down upon Tao Geming's chest.

  The fighters grew still. The winds died down.

  The man whose title had held the word "Invincible" suddenly shuddered. Blood erupted from his mouth, slipping past his gritted teeth and dripping onto the beggar's sleeve.

  "The Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms." Tao Geming hissed. "So those old stories about the Beggar's Sect were real. What a load of rubbish! I despise you, and I despise your clown faction!"

  His exclamation carried more strength behind it than Ma Yi would ever expect from someone who had just taken one of his strikes. He drew back, but found himself unable to pry his hand away from Tao Geming's chest. The Invincible Blood Sea held it firmly in place, drawing back his free fist.

  The beggar met his strike with another one of his own. But Ma Yi could not muster the full strength of his Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms from such an awkward position.

  It felt like an entire mountain came down onto his arm. He could not impede its path. It glanced past his limb and rammed into his chest. The vicious internal energy within Tao Geming's hand spun and twisted like an invisible whirlwind, wreaking havoc upon Ma Yi body inside and out.

  The force of Tao Geming's blow sent the beggar flying back until he collided with the blossoming plum tree. The collision uprooted it outright, and the volatile energies shattered the thick trunk into pieces at the point of contact in a spray of wooden splinters. Ma Yi was left lying amongst the two separated parts of the tree.

  Tao Geming approached, standing over the beggar's broken and bleeding body. Though his face had remained contorted into a scowl, his anger had been pacified. And yet a hint of doubt flickered in his eyes.

  "You knew all this preaching would have been useless, didn't you?" He asked. "Was this all just an elaborate way to commit suicide? Or..."

  He suddenly grew conscious of the golden-eyed observer behind them.

  Ma Yi coughed up blood. He curled his stained lips into a smile. "You of all people should be familiar with the concept of a gamble."

  Tao Geming snorted. "If you've done your research, then you'd know that she usually spares the people she fights. And maybe you even figured out why. And yet I don't see her rushing to your aid. Maybe she knows to mind her own business. Or maybe... Or maybe after all your big speeches she realized that someone like you would never agree to help her anyway. What got you killed today weren't your martial arts, but your moralist bullshit."

  Ma Yi stared off into the bleak gray skies.

  Tao Geming shook his head. "Well, I'll give you at least some credit. You were right to assume that she would be more malleable than me. But you were wrong to think that her and I were all that different from each other fundamentally. Or maybe it's better to say that our differences aren't quite what you thought they would be. You get it now, right? She is..."

  When Tao Geming had suddenly paused, Ma Yi glanced back at him. The man was staring down on him with an insidious grin. "...So much worse. Maybe, just like you said, I don't pay the idea of chivalry as much heed as it deserves; but what the hell, no one does anymore, right? But what little respect I give, I do give. But to her... the entire concept is alien. I've been thinking... maybe it was left out of her upbringing on purpose. And there is no one left to teach her the proper ways. And maybe it's simply too late at her age."

  Ma Yi forced out, "You've really picked out a worthy successor..."

  Tao Geming clicked his tongue. "Don't call her that. It makes me sick. And just so you know, it wasn't a lack of courage that held me back all those years ago. Of all the mistakes you've made today, that was the biggest of them all."

  "Your gambit didn't pan out, old beggar." Tao Geming concluded, raising his hand.

  Ma Yi issued a wet chuckle. "You can't know that just yet. Only time will tell if my words truly fell on deaf ears."

  Tao Geming halted, pondering for just a moment. "Maybe that's true. There's really no telling what the future holds. Enjoy the show from the other side."

  He brought down two fingers upon a vital pressure point in the beggar's chest, ending his life.