“Of course not. I’ll be seeing these two out shortly,” said an aged man with short-cropped hair. Many of the people in the group gasped audibly when they saw the figure. Few people dared to disturb the peace in this restaurant, as it was backed by a higher power than the Song Kingdom’s royal family.
“That’s quite all right. We were just leaving anyway. I’m not sure if this guest can afford it, so here is a little extra for the damages.”
A small bright crystal shot out from his hand, and the old man pocketed it before anyone could see it. Wang Jun was sure the man knew what exactly had transpired and didn’t want to leave a bad impression. Problems that money could solve weren’t real problems.
As Wang Jun and Xiao Li were leaving the establishment, Wang Jun turned around and looked Zhou Li straight in the eyes. “You have such a childish temper. You really need to learn to control it, or you’ll never be worthy to touch the hems of my robes. By the way, my name is Wang Jun. I’ll see you in court tomorrow, if you dare.”
Crash.
Zhou Li smashed a piece of furniture to vent his frustration at his failed divination. His divinations should yield information on anyone below core formation. Yet here he was, surrounded by broken chairs and shattered pottery. He could not help but think of the shadowy figure in the painting.
Is there really such a coincidence? The Wang family is reputed to be very rich and overbearing. However, they wouldn’t send anyone important to this backwater kingdom. No, they must have just supplied Wang Jun with a shielding treasure, one that can protect him from my immature seer’s eyes.
His red pupils glowed slightly as he changed his focus. He needed to monitor a key operation tonight, and it would begin any moment. He took out an ornate mirror from his bag of holding and muttered an incantation that caused it to darken. In that darkness, figures in white began to materialize, followed by the contours of a city. It soon revealed a perfect aerial picture of Fairweather City.
“Good,” he muttered. “At least some plans are going well. Mirror, please focus on my brother.” At his command, the mirror shimmered, revealing a hooded figure. Zhou Xian was currently busy painting an elaborate, blood-red rune on a stone floor. He wasn’t painting the full rune, of course. Such a rune was beyond him—he was simply performing some finishing touches on a product at 90% completion.
It was then that he noticed an inky substance seeping from the side of the mirror. Zhou Li frowned and tried to dispel it, but to no avail. “Mirror, show me the Merchant,” he said. By the time the image changed, half the mirror was covered by darkness, but he could barely make out the contours of a golden formation, which was almost complete. This was the last thing he saw in the mirror before it became completely coated in what seemed like black ink.
Zhou Li cautiously touched the surface of the mirror and pulled away his finger. It was coated in a thick, shadowy layer, which attempted to dive into his skin. He quickly burnt it away with his qi, and seeing that fire was effective on the ink covering his finger, he tried the same on the mirror without any results. He massaged his temples in frustration, taking a deep breath before realizing that he had another means of communication.
He picked up his black notebook to write a message. Magical treasures were very difficult to tamper with, after all. When he opened it, however, he saw that the pages were illegible. They were similarly coated in black. Seeing this, he tossed the small black book against a far wall, causing a precious painting to fall to the floor.
Could it really be him? Is Wang Jun the shadow? he pondered. Since he couldn’t scry and couldn’t communicate, he sat down in meditation. I’ll try again in an hour. Let’s see if whoever is blocking me is willing to do it all night.
Feng Ming arrived at Fairweather City just in time to see the sun setting beyond the horizon. His pace had been agonizingly slow, but he could hardly blame the horse. It was born and bred for the plow, and a full day’s trot had completely exhausted it. He shook his head as he realized that he could now walk faster than the horse could move, so he found a lone tree and tied it off. The horse didn’t eat the nearby grass or drink from the nearby puddle. Instead, it collapsed from fatigue.
Feng Ming wasted no time and ran toward Fairweather on foot. As he approached the city, he noticed that the gates were closed.
Strange, he thought, the gates don’t usually close until one hour after sundown. Fortunately, he hadn’t planned to waltz through the front gate in the first place. He approached the city from the river, which ran right through the city wall. The setting sun screened him as he darted out from the trees and plunged into the cold river near the wall. He swam underwater for twenty meters before surfacing just before the grate, where water passed into the city.
After observing the thick grate for a while, he retrieved his lucky spear from his back of holding. He used it to cut away at the pieces of metal holding the grate to the city wall. He replaced the grate after pulling himself through. The process was very loud, so he thanked his luck there were no guards on patrol nearby.
Quick as a viper, he snuck through the various alleyways, past beggars and orphans. He followed the winding alleys to the workshop district, where he had no choice but to run out in the open toward Bei Ling’s rundown shack. He was surprised to see that there was no one walking on the empty streets, and there were no guards patrolling either. This was uncharacteristic for such a busy town.
Regardless, he let himself into the shack, lest he be discovered. A pleasant smell made his mouth water as he walked through the door to the dimensional abode. After all, he hadn’t had a proper meal in two days. He walked into the dining room, where four dishes and two sets of cutlery had been laid out. Hong Lai and Bei Ling were just about to eat supper when Feng Ming appeared out of nowhere.
“Didn’t you set out toward Green Leaf City two days ago?” Bei Ling asked, frowning. The younger man nodded his head in response.
“Yes, I did. I didn’t make it, unfortunately. After a day’s travel, I was attacked from behind by the man the county lord sent to accompany me. The horses were all killed or escaped, so I came back as fast as I could with a farmer’s plow horse. Something fishy is going on with the county lord, and I had a hunch that I didn’t have time to ride for reinforcements.”
“Hong Lai, have you noticed anything unusual lately?” asked Bei Ling.
“Well,” Hong Lai replied, “the guards have been very active lately. However, everything calmed down today. For some reason, the gate closed early, and they called a curfew. I didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t seem like something worth fighting over. Maybe they just have something to do tonight, and they don’t want to deal with manning the gate for the extra hour or two.”
Bei Ling pondered for a moment before grabbing his coat off a rack. “I have a bad feeling. I’m going to go pay a visit to the county lord. You guys stay put.”
Hong Lai looked at the abandoned supper and back to Feng Ming, who seemed positively exhausted. “Well, are you hungry?” he asked.
“Starving,” Feng Ming replied.
A half hour later, a soldier and a blacksmith were sneaking through the alleys toward a nearby guard house. Because of the curfew, no one was walking on the open streets. Instead, the undesirables in the city had all huddled into the concealed alleys, where the guards wouldn’t cause them any grief.
“Master Bei said to stay out of trouble,” the blacksmith whispered angrily to his lightly armored companion.
Feng Ming chuckled and said, “I wanted to, but I got an itch. I want to go check out what those guards are so busy with. Don’t worry, we’ll be back in a jiffy. Besides, I can hardly cause trouble with you around, right?”
He ignored Hong Lai’s whining and darted into another alley. They arrived at a dead end. Ignoring Hong Lai’s puzzled expression, Feng Ming used his Burst Steps Technique to scale a small wall, propelling himself to the roof of a secluded shop. “Are you coming?” he whispered. Hong Lai sighed as he also executed a mov
ement technique and landed beside Feng Ming.
“Do you do this a lot where you come from?” Hong Lai whispered as they walked on the rooftops while crouching.
“Not really. Only when I go peek at the bathhouse. I’m a master at sneaking and hiding, you know. I never get caught,” Feng Ming replied, silencing the curious Hong Lai.
Soon they reached the other side of the rooftop adjacent to the guard shack. Feng Ming looked down and saw multiple guards stationed at the entrance, looking out at the street vigilantly. Of course, they never thought to look at the rooftops. Feng Ming took advantage of this blind spot and leapt across the gap. Hong Lai shook his head and followed, but his less than nimble movements caused a tile to fall from the roof and onto the street near the guard shack.
One of the guards walked to check the source of the ruckus, only to find a few broken tiles. “I told them to fix the roof last summer,” he muttered. He looked up, barely missing Feng Ming and Hong Lai’s shadows as they ducked into a half-open window.
“I really wonder who hired these guards,” Feng Ming whispered. “They left a window open in an empty room. It doesn’t get any more unprofessional than this.”
Hong Lai glared at him, but just as he was about to speak, Feng Ming held up his hand to silence him.
“What’s the lord thinking with this sudden curfew? And what’s with those people downstairs? They give me the creeps,” they heard a muffled voice say from behind the wooden wall.
“I heard that it’s some kind of auspicious ceremony. That’s why they’re painting runes down there,” another voice said.
“But those runes give me the creeps. And so do those people. I don’t trust them one bit,” a third voice said. He didn’t continue speaking, however, as a man with a heavy set of footsteps walked down the hallway and opened the door.
“Ceremony’s almost done,” a grating voice said. “This day will be a turning point for Fairweather City.” The voice then continued to elaborate in a loud voice. Feng Ming had heard enough. This distraction was a golden opportunity, and he signaled Hong Lai to follow him as he stepped out toward the hallway.
The wooden floor didn’t creak as they walked, despite its aged condition. And neither did the stairs as they walked to the halfway point, where they crouched down to observe what was happening on the first floor. There, a few robed figures were busy chanting in the center of the room. They were surrounded by blood-red runes, which pulsed with light as the chanting progressed. The chanting and the bloody runes gave Feng Ming the willies. It was like a voice inside his head was yelling at him to immediately charge down there and stop them, yet he held himself back and continued to observe.
Right beside the chanting figures, a glowing golden rune hovered in midair, and many golden lines intersected that same rune. The runic characters were all gibberish to Feng Ming, so he focused on the other figures in the room. There were no guards here, only five men. Three of them were large men, while the others were lanky. His eyes narrowed as he focused on one man whom he’d seen before. He’d caught a glimpse of his face just before he cut down his fellow soldier as they tried to escape Crystal Meadows.
Hong Lai tensed as he saw Feng Ming’s grip tighten on his spear. “Are you going to start a fight with those people?” he whispered.
“Those aren’t people,” Feng Ming replied, then he darted out with his spear and slashed the lanky man in half. He had avenged his friend, but it was far from enough. As this thought ran through his head, he felt a tingling sensation and decided to lean backward, causing a heavy blade to barely miss him. The blade came from one of the larger men, who had now doubled in girth.
“Complete the ceremony, quickly!” one of the lanky men with red eyes yelled angrily. In response, the hooded figure’s chanting sped up. Feng Ming tried to break away toward the hooded figures, only to be intercepted by yet another large figure, who tried to grab him with his meaty hands.
“Tch.” Feng Ming darted between them quickly and slashed at the large man’s stomach. It felt like he was cutting through mud, and he realized immediately that the abomination was unharmed. They surrounded him once again, attacking him from three sides. He deflected some blows with his spear, dodging others. He followed his heart as he slashed out at random, and his spear always seemed to hit its mark. Before long, he had decapitated another two of the creatures.
“Hong Lai, stop them!” Feng Ming bellowed. Hong Lai, who hadn’t moved since the fight started, suddenly pulled out his own weapon, an intricate longsword. He darted toward the three figures, two of which continued chanting as he hacked down one of them. Seeing that this hadn’t stopped them, Hong Lai decapitated a second hooded figure, then stabbed the last one through the heart. This last figure chuckled as blood oozed out of his mouth.
“You’re too late,” the figure said hoarsely as he coughed out blood. “This town is ours now.” With these words, he muttered one last syllable, and the red array lit up, concentrating its light into a glowing red rune that floated out from the floor.
The entire room was bathed in an eerie red light. Feng Ming, who had just decapitated the last creature, suddenly saw Hong Lai collapse to the floor. As he ran up to support him, he saw the strong man was resisting something with all his might. His eyes were bloodshot.
Just beneath Hong Lai, Feng Ming saw a slender red thread connecting him to the nearby rune. There were countless red threads leading out from blood red rune at the center of the room. With every breath that passed by, the rune pulsed. And with every pulse, it grew a little bit brighter.
Chapter 29: Blood and Gold
Several deer darted to the side, barely avoiding a group of six cultivators balancing themselves on flying swords. They flew a few feet off the ground, avoiding obstacles that mere mortals would have to bypass or trod through with great frustration. The six cultivators were clearly separated into two groups of three. They were each led by older men, whose intimidating presence had caused the deer to flee in the first place.
Three of the four other cultivators were trembling. Balancing on a flying sword was very tiring for a qi-condensation cultivator since the sword itself was controlled by the foundation establishment elders nearby. The lack of synchronization caused balancing on the sword to be taxing on both the mind and body.
Only Cha Ming seemed immune, as his strong body and spiritual force kept him perfectly balanced. There was no way to shield himself from the strong winds that buffeted their group, however. Therefore, he occasionally circulated his fire qi to fight the cold, bringing warmth to the tips of his fingers and toes. Spring had barely started, and the winter chill still hung thick in the air.
Their group had been traveling since well before sunrise, not wasting a single moment in the hopes of overtaking the masterminds from Jade Spring. Every time they felt tired, the fresh memories of what had transpired over the past few days forced them to press on despite their fatigue.
Cha Ming flexed his bicep and rotated his arm as he continued balancing on the flying sword. Master Zhang had passed him a strong healing medicine, which ensured that his arm had healed with few side effects. He thanked his lucky stars that he had trained both his body and mind. His body cultivation had increased his defense and regenerative abilities, while the Creation Qi Manipulation Technique had tempered his tolerance to pain. Compared to the searing pain required to establish new qi pathways, having one’s arm almost completely severed was nothing.
“We’re only a half hour away,” Zhang Yifeng mumbled. “I hope we’re not too late. Given what we’ve experienced thus far, there will definitely be formations in Fairweather. That means that the enemy could have been in Fairweather even before we departed.” Cha Ming nodded in response.
Soon enough, Fairweather City appeared on the horizon. Many lights were lit, hinting that things were not so bad as they imagined. Yet as they sighed in relief, an ominous red light appeared near the city gate. It was soon accompanied by three others, casting the entire city in an eerie red fo
g.
“What sorcery is this…” Master Zhang whispered. Yet the spectacle didn’t finish there. Soon, a golden spot lit up near the city gate and was accompanied by three others. A gold mist spread out over the whole city and melded with the red. It resembled an unholy medley of blood and gold.
“We’re a hair too late. Hold on, everyone, we need to speed up,” Han Jinlong said. Both masters circulated their cultivation bases, causing the swords that supported their group to speed up threefold. They dashed toward the city from the side while leaving behind a trail of stars.
They didn’t slow down as they approached the thick stone walls. Instead, Han Jinlong drew out a one-handed hammer, concentrating his qi onto its flat head. Meanwhile, Zhang Yifeng held a spear in both hands. A tricolored glow appeared on the tip of the spear. The blue, green, and red lights resonated with a runic pattern on the sphere, causing it to give off a dreadful pressure.
“Hang on, kids!” Han Jinlong shouted. Both his and Yifeng’s swords continued while the four other swords stopped abruptly midflight. The four cultivators landed fifty feet away from the wall, and the two foundation establishment elders flew forward, each striking the city wall with a vicious blow.
Their strikes instantly pierced two significant holes through five meters of stone. Cha Ming and company didn’t hesitate to jump through and join their two elders on the other side. The instant Cha Ming stepped through to the other side, he felt his blood reel, almost causing him to lose consciousness. After stabilizing his breathing, he realized that he was weakening; his blood vitality seeming to seep out into four different directions, the ones where the red lights had originated from.
“We need to head to the center of the city. Once we find out what kind of formation this is, we’ll act accordingly,” Master Zhang instructed. The others nodded and followed his lead.
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