“Oh, impressive!” Charles Morgan kept talking nonstop, but his body suddenly leapt backward. It didn’t look like he used much force, yet he floated back several steps in an instant. Edward Thompson’s punch missed, but his momentum didn’t fade; several more fist shadows flashed out in quick succession, but in the end, they all struck nothing but air.

“I can see it now—you had a follow-up move behind that punch. Luckily, my agility is pretty good. How about it? Not a bad dodge, right?” Charles Morgan actually started praising himself, even trying to get some recognition from his opponent.

“Yeah, not bad,” Edward Thompson said.

“Your agility isn’t great. Otherwise, maybe you would’ve hit me already. Looks like my biggest advantage is the difference in our agility, and I need to make good use of it. What about you? Why haven’t you used a weapon yet? Is your weapon just your fists?” Charles Morgan activated his agility, circling around Edward Thompson, relying on his quicker movements to try to catch Edward Thompson off guard.

“All right, be careful. I’m going to use a weapon now,” Edward Thompson said.

“Okay, bring it on! I want to see what weapon you’ll use. Is it a sword too?” Charles Morgan said.

“Yes, a sword!”

He spoke those four words and moved at the same time, but this time there was a pause between two of the words, so you could say it took the time of four and a half words. Edward Thompson swung his sword.

“Ah—” Charles Morgan cried out in surprise. He had already prepared to defend himself, but now...

Charles Morgan ended up lying back on that giant rock again. But this time, he hadn’t jumped or climbed up himself—he’d been sent flying by a single slash from Edward Thompson’s sword, landing right on top of it. His posture was nowhere near as relaxed and stylish as at the start; he stared blankly at Edward Thompson, at the sword in Edward Thompson’s hand.

Was this... supposed to be a sword?

Except this sword was ridiculously oversized. As tall as a person, as wide as a person, with no sword gleam at all, because it was almost completely covered in rust.

Could something like this even be called a sword? Charles Morgan tried hard to convince himself.

“I didn’t expect it to be something like this... This is a game, after all. Sigh, if it weren’t a game, how could you possibly hide something like that in your pocket? If you couldn’t keep it in your pocket and had to carry it from the start, I would’ve seen it and been on guard, and there’s no way I’d have been hit so easily. What a surprise, really, what a surprise—there’s actually a sword like this. You must have made it yourself, right?” Charles Morgan said.

“That’s right!” Edward Thompson nodded.

“You actually made a sword like this—what was your purpose? It must have some special function, right?” Charles Morgan said.

“Exactly. I made this weird thing for a quest, but later I found it was actually pretty useful,” Edward Thompson said.

“Well, that depends on how you use it. The way you used it, yeah, no one would expect you to pull out such a huge sword from your pocket, so it’s really hard to dodge. But if I’d known in advance, like I just said, I’d have been on guard and wouldn’t have been hit so easily. Besides, it has a big flaw,” Charles Morgan said, looking very serious.

“What is it?” Edward Thompson asked.

“It’s just way too ugly...” Charles Morgan said sincerely.

“Yeah, that’s why I keep it in my pocket,” Edward Thompson nodded.

“You made the right choice—keep it in your pocket, that way it’s not ugly, and you can catch people off guard,” Charles Morgan nodded as well.

“Now that I’ve caught you off guard, I’m leaving,” Edward Thompson smiled.

“Huh? You’re not going to kill me? I can’t move anymore, I can’t fight back, I’m seriously injured. Your sword isn’t a sharp weapon, it’s blunt—it didn’t break my bones, it shattered them. I can’t fight anymore, you can kill me.”

“Forget it. If you die, you’ll lose cultivation and equipment, that’d be a shame.” Edward Thompson smiled. He actually liked Charles Morgan and was willing to be friends, so he didn’t plan to kill Charles Morgan.

“That’s not good,” Charles Morgan shook his head. “Even if you don’t kill me, I’ll still try my best to complete the bounty. You let me go once, but I really can’t bear to let you go. The reward for this bounty must be pretty generous, so if you don’t kill me, I’ll be really conflicted when the time comes. You’d better just kill me!”

“All right...” Edward Thompson was helpless. He raised the giant sword, about to bring it down, but Charles Morgan, perhaps because he was shrouded in the shadow of the sword, suddenly called out, “Wait a second.”

“What is it?” Edward Thompson lowered the sword.

“I just thought of a way,” Charles Morgan said.

“Go ahead.”

“You keep that giant sword in your pocket. If I’d known about it beforehand, that move wouldn’t have worked on me, and maybe I’d have gained the upper hand with my agility. Now, I’ve decided not to reveal the secret of your giant sword. That way, you can still use this trick to save yourself at least once more. Wouldn’t that count as me saving you once, offsetting the favor you did by sparing me? This way, you don’t have to kill me, and next time I have a chance to succeed, I won’t be conflicted. Pretty good, right?” Charles Morgan said.

“Yeah, not bad. It’s a deal, then—don’t tell anyone the secret of my giant sword!” Edward Thompson tapped the giant sword in his hand.