Confidently the Master of Sinanju advanced, fists opening, fingernails splaying.
One blade against ten. A sword forged by man against the Knives of Eternity that grew from the deadliest fingers on earth.
It would be no contest.
The sword started forward. It turned to the right, the wrists twisting. A Wheel Stroke. Easily parried.
"Come meet your doom, Nihonjinwa," Chiun hissed.
The sword descended, and the Master of Sinanju stepped in to parry it.
The blade sliced down in a chopping stroke. Chiun's index nail rose to meet it. They clashed, metal encountering horn.
The big black blade was arrested.
His adversary, grunting in surprise and anger, exerted all his strength to force downward the fraillooking nail with its thin supporting finger.
Calmly Chiun lifted his finger as if toying with a great black feather, and the sword, clasped in trembling hands, was forced to relent.
An explosive curse came from the helmeted one.
"You may relinquish your blade when you wish, ronin," Chiun said without concern.
At that, the armored figure jerked back, reclaiming his sword. The blade lifted and swooped down again. It hummed in the air as a fine blade should. But midway though its fall, it went silent.
Chiun's keen ears detected this even as his fingernail rose to block the slicing thrust.
Blade met nail-and passed through!
Chiun recoiled from the contact. It was pure instinct. He feared no blade that he could see. The blade had not been forged that could not be deflected by Sinanju nail.
In that split second of contact, his senses told him this blade had sliced through his nail.
Recoiling, he spun, shifted left, then right, putting distance between his foe and himself.
And lifting his out-thrust finger to the moonlight, he saw that his nail was whole.
It was impossible.
With his own eyes he had seen the blade bite into his precious nail.
But it was whole. Lifting his eyes, Chiun saw that the opponent's blade, too, was whole.
Chiun made a tight face. "Who are you, ronin?"
The foe said nothing.
As he zeroed in on the apparition with all of his senses, the Master of Sinanju realized that his opponent's heart wasn't beating. There was no sound coming from him. No labor of lungs. No gurgle of blood.
Was this a phantom?
Chiun decided to find out.
Placing the toe of one black sandal behind him, he made as if to retreat.
The black plated warrior advanced, naturally assuming timidity on the part of the Master of Sinanju.
Then with a twist of his firmly planted ankle, Chiun sent his silken skirts spinning. His body whirled up in slow spirals whose speed was deceptive.
The retreating toe snapped forward, seeking the helmeted head.
And passed through!
Landing awkwardly because he had anticipated using the recoil of the death blow to land correctly, the Master of Sinanju ducked, feinted and neither felt nor heard the swish of the descending blade.
But the blade did descend.
He saw it as he spun around, hands coming up in a defensive posture. One hand made a fist. The other was crooked like a hawk's talons. He stood ready for anything.
The foe assumed another fighting stance. Chiun recognized that a disemboweling thrust was contemplated. But if the blade had no bite, how could it disembowel?
Chiun struck first.
Tucking his elbow in his ribs, he expelled a gusty breath of air and a perfect punch simultaneously.
The blow drove in true, landing on the chest of the ronin. The defending blade was too slow to parry it. The fist sank into the blackness of the breastplate, and Chiun followed it through, as if through a blackbeaded curtain and not a solid man.
Stepping around on the other side of his foe, the Master of Sinanju whirled to see him slashing empty air with furious strokes. He attacked the spot where his slow senses were telling him the Master of Sinanju should have stood-but where he stood no longer.
Chiun kicked high. His sandals touched but air. He aimed for the boots. They moved, oblivious to his blows. He struck for the backs of the knees to collapse the legs. First the right, then the left, so quickly the blows would land as one.
The foe felt those blows not, and a cold unease grew in the Master of Sinanju's determined breast.
Here was a foe unlike any other. He was a foe Sinanju couldn't vanquish.
Chiun retreated three steps.
The black figure hunkered down to peer all about. His movements were clumsy, for every inch of his body was armored. But he wasn't slow. The speed of his ghostly blade spoke that fact loudly.
"I am here, ronin, " Chiun taunted.
His foe turned, one foot following the other.
The head tilted back, and the face was exposed.
Chiun almost gasped. There was no face under the samurai helmet. Only a black void in which it seemed alien stars twinkled. The face was flat and featureless and gleamed like polished obsidian.