He didn’t let up the attack and continued pressing on. He used priceless pills and reagents to continuously boost the temperature of his flame. It might be overkill, but he knew one thing for certain: The least he owed his friend was the best funeral pyre Fairweather had ever seen.
Earlier
Cha Ming focused his newfound strength, channeling it to temporarily strengthen his body. His qi techniques were lackluster compared to his physical strength and combat techniques, after all. To complement his fist strength of 1,080 jin, he increased the weight of his staff to 200 jin.
He used Burst Steps to charge at Zhou Xian while Huxian flanked him on two other sides. White Huxian’s purifying power was used at full force, negating Zhou Xian’s poisonous aura while forcing him to maintain it, lest the purifying aura suppress him. Black Huxian gave up his previous trick of attacking Zhou Xian’s body from the shadows. Instead, he turned his sights to Zhou Xian’s shadow. Thus, Zhou Xian was forced to defend on three fronts. Meanwhile, the Flame Manifestation grinded away at his armor of qi, depleting it bit by bit.
Cha Ming focused his weight by using Mountain Stance and struck out using combinations of Sword Staff and Quake Staff. Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal strikes combined into a seamless whole, while his weight control and Burst Steps combined into a whole new form of movement. He varied the weight and length of his staff in an unpredictable but aggressive fashion. With each passing moment, he became aware that he’d created the embryonic form of his third combat style—Hard Staff Art.
While he was hardly Zhou Xian’s match one-on-one, that didn’t matter. After all, he wasn’t alone. With Huxian’s help, they began beating Zhou Xian into submission. Yet Cha Ming knew that time was limited. He only had ten seconds left with this borrowed strength.
Huxian, lend me a hand and pin him down, Cha Ming sent mentally.
Huxian’s two clones ran around Zhou Xian with lightning speed. Everywhere they passed, they left a ribbon of light and darkness. These ribbons seemed like solidified light and shadow. Zhou Xian was unable to react before the two clones darted in opposite directions, tightening the ribbons around the dark-robed man. Although the ribbons didn’t make contact, Zhou Xian was immobile.
Cha Ming didn’t require a prompt. He swiftly increased the weight of his staff once more to 500 jin and rooted himself to the ground. He pounded at Zhou Xian’s head with one strike after another. Each strike threatened the integrity of his qi shield, yet nothing managed to damage the foundation-establishment cultivator. With every strike, he felt a vicious counter-force that made his blood roil.
Three seconds left. He hacked away with strike after strike, using his Hard Staff Art. After two more seconds, he was rewarded for his efforts when a trickle of blood appeared on Zhou Xian’s face. But blood was rushing out of Cha Ming’s mouth ten times as fast.
This is my last strike, Huxian! Cha Ming jumped back and pulled his staff all the way behind him. He used every last bit of his strength to both elongate the staff to triple its length, smashing downward at ten times the speed originally possible with a regular six-foot staff. In addition, he used Quake Staff, imbuing it with the power of vibration!
This last strike completely depleted Cha Ming’s energy. A look of horror appeared on Zhou Xian’s face as he realized he couldn’t defend against it. He tried once more to free himself, but to no avail. Finally, he let out an angry shriek as a frightening fluctuation emitted from his body, engulfing both Cha Ming and the two Huxians in a dreadful explosion. After the first explosion, Cha Ming heard a second explosion from a hundred feet away.
Who self-detonated? Are both Master Zhang and Master Han all right? This was the last thought that flashed through his mind before he lost consciousness.
Two consecutive blasts made the windows and doors of the auction house shudder. The auctioneer was breathing deeply, and he was bleeding from several deep cuts. His opponents weren’t faring any better. They were littered with cuts, and one of the men’s arms was hanging limp by his side.
“Would you care to find out who those people were?” he asked.
The three men and the auctioneer rushed out of the building in tacit agreement. Soon, they witnessed a horrifying sight. The crumbling remnants of what used to be opulent buildings littered the streets. Yet the buildings with the simplest construction remained untouched. It was a very bizarre sight.
Two large craters occupied a large area at the center of town. Three cultivators and a spirit beast were still standing, while one cultivator was passed out. It was clear who the two craters belonged to.
“Flee!” yelled the three cultivators. The auctioneer snorted and sent all three swords at one of the cultivators. He tumbled to the ground with three swords lodged in his back. The other two managed to escape. It wasn’t possible for all three of them to retreat against such a superior cultivator.
The auctioneer flew over to Zhang Yifeng, who stood near a puddle of gold, mourning. “Did Jinlong…” he started. Zhang Yifeng nodded his head in sorrow. The auctioneer shook his head and flew over to the three youngsters and the fox. Three of them were in bad condition, and one of them had already passed out. The auctioneer tossed two pellets to Gong Lan and Feng Ming, who swallowed them without hesitation. Their wounds began healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
He then tossed another bottle to Gong Lan. “Feed this to that kid. He’ll recover soon. I’m going to the county lord’s manor to investigate the situation,” he said before flying off.
When he arrived, he found a house full of fainted maids, two dead guards, one dead county lord, and Bei Ling.
“Oh, my dear old friend…” the auctioneer muttered softly. “At least you died with a smile on your face. Not many people in this city can say the same.” With these words, he flew off to find several trusted individuals, waking them one by one.
There was much work to be done.
Zhou Li suddenly awoke from his cultivation session. It was the middle of the night, and he hadn’t heard any word from Fairweather. Despite his multiple attempts, he had not managed to divine the situation. Therefore, he could only hope for the best and make the meddler pay the highest price possible for his actions.
“Protector Song, did you find the rat yet?” Zhou Li asked the empty room. A golden-armored figure appeared in front of him, kneeling.
“Young Master, my apologies for my incompetence. I still can’t find any trace of anyone. Are you sure this isn’t a long-distance curse?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Zhou Li responded. “It’s not possible for someone to interfere at a long range, not unless the one interfering is a Transcendent. However, the price a Transcendent would pay is much too large for this trifling matter. He must be nearby.”
The armored man nodded slowly.
Suddenly, Zhou Li grimaced as he realized a very important thread of karma had been severed. Another even more important thread was severed shortly after. There was only one explanation for this—both his brother and the Merchant had fallen.
“Who dares!” he yelled out. Seething with rage, he withdrew a small black pouch from his belt and took out six crystals. They emanated a sensation of pure evil, as though they were sin incarnate. Zhou Li slammed his chest with his fist and spat a mouthful of heart blood on the crystals, then immediately burned away the offering with obsidian flames. His aura surged as he yelled, “You will not hamper me. Not this time!”
The man in the golden armor stood by with a serious expression as Zhou Li took out a small mirror from his pouch. The mirror was covered with an inky film. He expanded it to ten times its size in the span of a few breaths. Then he flung out his hands, incinerating the black film with his obsidian flames. Unlike the previous times, the black film melted away with no resistance.
The mirror quickly portrayed a bird’s-eye view of Fairweather City. There, he saw several symbols. There were two bloodied sabers, a black armor with white runes, and an alchemist’s flame. Two other symbols w
ere there, but their symbols were blurred.
“You will show me!” he yelled fiercely, coughing up blood in the process. The fog obscuring one of the symbols was lifted, showing a coin engraved with a white circle and a black star, as well as five colored points. A golden tether connected it to the other blurred figure.
It’s you! he thought. He knew that this figure had killed his brother—they were connected by a blood-red thread of karma, a blood debt. A sinister grin appeared on Zhou Li’s face as he withdrew six more crystals.
Anything I do to you will affect the other. You’ve both been a thorn in my side—that will end today. All for the small price of twelve Sin Crystals.
He coughed up his heart blood once more, using his blood and the six crystals to fuel the obsidian flame again. The flame traveled along the blood-red karma thread at a slow pace. Once the last bit of black flame was sent down, he grasped the red thread and gathered a portion of it into a small pearl in his hand. He then flicked the pearl into a fengxue compass1, which immediately began pointing in Fairweather’s direction.
“Protector Song,” he said, “take this compass and hunt down the man named Du Cha Ming. Kill both him and the fox. This compass will point to him until he dies. I won’t be able to accompany you—I have a troublesome opponent to meet in court in a few hours. Return to me once the task is completed.”
The man bowed and immediately flew out of the room. He didn’t use a flying sword. No, he flew unassisted! He passed over the guards and the city’s people without being noticed. Except by one man. The man had been sitting cross-legged beneath the window Protector Song had just left from. He was wreathed in shadows and couldn’t be discovered by anyone.
A smile appeared on Wang Jun’s face as he saw the man fly off. He formed several dozen hand seals, which manifested a needle that flew out toward Protector Song. It completely avoided him but settled down on the Fengxue compass he was carrying. Wang Jun let out a sigh as he felt another ten years of his life flow out from between his fingers. Cha Ming was the biggest bet in his life, and his only friend.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
* * *
1 Also known as a Luo Pan, uses a moving needle and an external plate full of information that is adjusted manually.
Chapter 33: Calamity
Cha Ming awoke to the scent of jasmine and a soft pillow. It took him a few moments to realize that the “pillow” was a human one, and the jasmine he smelled was Gong Lan’s perfume. He looked up to see her smiling face. Yet he could see grief behind her imperfect façade. That was when he smelled ashes and molten metal.
He sat up quickly, only to discover that he was perfectly fine. The internal injuries he had sustained from the fight had healed, and the poison had subsided. “Did we win?” he asked.
“At a cost,” she explained while nodding. “Han Jinlong sacrificed himself, and the so-called Merchant was killed by Zhang Yifeng. The auction master was attacked by three foundation-establishment cultivators. He killed one, the other two escaped. Finally…”
She hesitated to finish.
“Who else died?” Cha Ming asked.
She sighed. “Bei Ling died while killing the county lord. It seems he was involved in the entire plot. Feng Ming and Hong Lai managed to destroy one of the formation eyes, so they were lucky to avoid the bulk of the effects. They are currently out searching for survivors and finding who needs immediate treatment. So many babies and children, so many elderly…” She burst into tears as she finished.
Cha Ming understood that the blood formation had drained vital energy from the whole city. Those with the least vitality, children and the elderly, would be the most heavily affected. Even if they hadn’t died, the effect of losing so much vitality would likely cripple their growth and greatly shorten their lifespan. Such was the cruelty of these devil cultivators.
I should go help them, he thought helplessly.
You will do no such thing! yelled an angry voice inside his head. It was the red-bearded man, and the tone of his voice was particularly grave. While you were asleep, someone cast a terrible curse on you from afar. Not only will it give you terrible luck, but it shows that whoever did this knew where you were at the time of casting. While I can no longer sense the thread of karma, someone is bound to come here soon. You need to flee as far as possible, lest you burden everyone around you with this curse.
In addition, you and your fox friend must undergo a Heavenly Tribulation in less than three days. We need to be far away from anyone, and we need ample time to prepare. Otherwise, both you and the fox will become piles of smoldering meat!
Just how bad is this tribulation? Cha Ming asked Huxian.
Brother, it’s worse than you could ever imagine. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem for me. However, I sense that the tribulation this time will be much worse than normal. You need to remember, you’re not even at half-step foundation establishment. You’re at best a seventh-level cultivator with a few fortunate encounters. Even foundation-establishment experts would need to be wary of this tribulation.
Although the fox didn’t say it directly, Cha Ming could tell from his body movements that he was eager to leave.
Cha Ming sighed. So much effort, so much fighting, just to run away. Cha Ming shook his head. “Gong Lan, I need to leave now.”
She looked confused and bewildered at his sudden change in demeanor. “What you do you mean leave?”
“I mean that me and Huxian need to go. A disaster is about to strike us, and if we stay, it will involve the whole city. Stay in Fairweather for a few days. We’re leaving now.” With these words, Cha Ming began running toward the hole in the city wall where they had entered. Huxian thought this was too slow, so he grew a few sizes larger, and Cha Ming jumped on his back.
The painter and the fox ran off toward the north. They did not turn back, so they never saw the beautiful girl with short-cropped hair crying as she stared out at the skyline.
Protector Song heaved a sigh of relief as he flew toward Fairweather. Accompanying the Young Master always gave him the creeps. Not that he had much of a choice in the matter. He had sold his life the moment he’d set foot in the castle. He’d soon found out that he was worth nothing to them. Someone to be trampled on and ridiculed. It wasn’t until he was accepted into the Old Master’s service that he gained great power. But was it worth it? The price was his soul.
Still, there was no arguing that he felt great satisfaction when he trampled all those who had put him down over the years. Sure, he had to follow orders. But when he was unoccupied, he could do whatever he liked. The young and old masters thought he was stupid, and he didn’t try to correct them, lest they get him to take on additional responsibilities. At least this way he could get a game or two in every week.
The breeze this morning was quite refreshing, and the dawn was one of the most beautiful he’d seen in many years. The feeling of flying without a sword was exhilarating, and he took advantage of it whenever he could.
Out in the distance, he saw what remained of Fairweather. Several ant-like figures scurried about, bringing people out of houses on stretchers. Healers were administrating medicine, and doctors were curing the more difficult cases. At the same time, he saw a much larger pile of corpses. They were being collected onto funeral pyres, as there were too many to bury outside the city.
He sat above the city, floating while meditating. His senses reached out, and he picked up pieces of information.
“Why did Cha Ming leave suddenly? That isn’t like him,” a young man said.
“I don’t know,” a sobbing voice replied. “All he said was that a disaster was about to strike him and Huxian, so they left. They rode off to the north.”
The man listened for a few more moments before heading north, toward the mountains. He wasn’t concerned with these small fries. He had things to do, people to kill. Unfortunately, the fengxue compass he had been given to track said people was defective. No matter how hard he tried, the needle ref
used to budge.
He sped off into the distance, passing by meadows, forests, and all sorts of wonderful land features. There were mountains up ahead. And beneath him, he saw the most beautiful lake he had ever laid eyes on. He tried to ignore it, yet he was attracted to a beautiful weeping willow.
The tree was covered in small buds, which was surprising given how spring had only just started. Despite his urgency, he felt compelled to walk beneath it and appreciate the scenery. The water beside the tree was calm, and the grass was emerald green. If he were a painter, he would have tried to capture the moment.
Suddenly he heard the familiar sound of shaking stones behind him. He was surprised to see that an old man with unruly short hair was sitting beneath a tree in meditation. The white-haired man was sitting down in front of an Angels and Devils board. He was holding a cat, who was sleeping on his lap, purring. Normally, he would have asked the man to play a game. He had a mission to complete, however, so he turned around to leave.
“Just where do you think you’re going, Song Qing Rou?”
Protector Song was startled. How does he know my name? he wondered. He turned around and noticed that the man was smiling. He didn’t sense a wisp of cultivation from him. That meant one of two things: Either the man was not a cultivator, or he was a supreme cultivator. However, it was very difficult for an ordinary man to appear so far out in the wilderness. He decided to play it safe and replied, “Does Senior require something?”
“Yes, I just happen to need your help with something,” the man replied. “I’ll be going away for a long time, and I’ve long wanted to challenge the regional Angels and Devils champion. I would be extremely honored to play a game with you before I leave.”
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