The descent of the twin eighty-jin cleavers produced a sound phenomenon that shook the willow stone retaining walls. A low, shearing roar created by three square feet of dark hard steel compressing the frozen air.
Tie Le’s downward stroke carried thousands of pounds of crushing driving force. Enough brute force to split the bronze axle of a royal war carriage. The air between the dropping blades was high-pressure to two sea-weights. It drove a blast of freezing wind that blew the soot and dry pine shavings away from the wooden walkway planks.
The hall was barely seven feet wide, revetted on both flanks with eight-inch spruce logs anchored deep into the frozen ground. For an ordinary fighter, there was zero room to dodge laterally. The cleavers spanned four feet of width, effectively sealing the hall from wall to wall.
To an observer on the low roof walls, Pei Jing stood directly beneath the guillotine.
He didn’t raise the Cloud-Splitter in a level block. A level block against a four-hundred-pound giant swinging two cleavers would transmit thousands of pounds of violent shock directly through his radius and forearm bone. He drove his own blade into his skull regardless of bone thickness.
