When Wu Hao burst out of the leaves at a dead run, Uncle had already stood up.

  "You're late!" he snapped.

  "They're here, Uncle," Wu Hao said, panting. He had to exaggerate his panting only a little, still tired from that morning. "One carriage. Two second-grade martial artists, I think, and a few porters -"

  Uncle's brow furrowed.

  "How do you know that?" he asked.

  "I - I sensed them," Wu Hao said, surprised that Uncle had thought to ask. It was a surprisingly reasonable question, but unable to think of a convincing lie, he just said the first thing that came to mind.

  "You're a sensor," Uncle said to himself. His eyes swivelled to Wu Hao's, narrowing. "Why didn't you tell Father?"

  "I don't know what you mean by sensor," Wu Hao protested.

  Uncle grunted, tapped his mace against his shoulder, but then he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Get ready."

  "Yes, Uncle."

  Wu Hao ran over to the bush where he'd hidden last time. 726 and 729 were already there, waiting, and as he jumped over the bush, rolled, and turned back around to hide behind the bush, they stared up at him.

  "Get ready," he repeated, at a quieter tone. "Uncle will expect us to distract the second martial artist. Be prepared to give your life."

  No nods, no acknowledgement other than a mass of mutters to the effect of "Yes, Brother."

  The advance party was first to arrive, stopping as they saw Uncle sitting in the middle of the road. Wu Hao had stopped paying attention to the porters as they arrived second, instead studying Uncle. His mace was still slung over his shoulder, his eyes lidded, and his wine-skin was probably empty now if it hadn't been already been empty when Wu Hao had returned.

  One of the men wheeled his horse around nervously, peering out at the road. Wu Hao had a moment to wonder why the mounted men hadn't been around the first time, but discarded that thought. They were here now.

  Wu Hao waited, beads of sweat running down his back and trying to regain his breath as quietly as he could. He still felt hungry, tired, and cold, but now excitement was beginning to burn its way through his clammy skin and his numb fingers. His right hand slipped into his sleeve, taking out his knife.

  And then the carriage itself arrived, and Ke Jiazhong soared through the air again. This time Wu Hao got a better look as he was flying, and this time he could see the sharp wind tear at Ke Jiazhong's clothes before his arc took him back down to earth, then form itself into a ring of pressure that built around Ke Jiazhong. It slowed his fall, at the same time as it was being readied to tear away their hiding spots.

  Before he could, Wu Hao pushed himself up. All of the porters were watching Ke Jiazhong, he'd thought, but a few turned to him with their mouths still open.

  Ke Jiazhong landed, the ring of contained wind blasting out and ripping the bushes back. Wu Hao stood his ground against it, feeling it slam into and over him in like a wave of heat and sunlight, and then it was gone again as Ke Jiazhong brandished his sword.

  "Ambush," he shouted. The porters, still wide-eyed, began to throw their packs down and grabbed their spears.

  But that was why Wu Hao had taken the effort to stand up before they'd thought to do so. He threw himself forward, vaulting over the bush and rushing forward as fast as he could.

  Now, he thought, it was time for the second phase of his plan, in so far as he had one.

  He rushed past the porters before Uncle had even had the time to issue his orders, and by the time that wine-heavy qi flared to accompany his orders, Wu Hao had already gotten halfway to the carriage.

  Then a rush of peach-scent qi threw him back, like a wall running into him and bouncing him back. Wu Hao slid back, feet on the ground and fighting not to topple back, and saw what had attacked him.

  Du Linglong stood in front of him, eyes wary and sword raised. The blade was coated in her qi, but she hadn't bothered to actually use any of her moves, or else Wu Hao wouldn't have survived that initial attack.

  She looked better than she had last time. Her hair wasn't as messy, though still somewhat of a busy scrawl with blonde tints. Her eyes weren't rimmed with faint tears, and her clothes were tidy, stained neither with peach juice nor blood.

  The sight of her stirred something inside him, but Wu Hao tried not to focus on that too much.

  "Who are you?" she demanded, sword shifting as she moved from one stance to another.

  Wu Hao coughed, exhaled, turned the knife in his hands.

  "Kill them all!" Uncle roared in Wu Hao's ear, the pungent blast of qi finally catching up with him. "Rescue the prisoner!"

  Eyes narrowing into slits, Wu Hao stared the female disciple down. Was she weaker on her left or her right? In their last fight she'd just bounced around the clearing until he'd died, and he hadn't had a single chance to retaliate that she hadn't easily countered.

  "I asked you a question!" Du Linglong said. "Either you answer, or -"

  Seizing his chance, Wu Hao clicked the qi loop that he'd been building into place.

  "Rending Dagger Art!" he called. "Void Rip!"

  A thin, scraggly line bled out of the tip of his knife and launched itself forward, Du Linglong raising her sword abruptly into a quick block and summoning up her qi to guard against his attack.

  His Void Rip smashed harmlessly against her shield, intricately woven at a moment's notice, and he followed it moments later, having started his sprint the moment he'd launched the Void Rip.

  Just before he barrelled into her, though, he jumped, forcing qi into his feet into a shallow approximation of how he'd fought against Xing Zhao. There was pathetically little qi in it but he pushed it out anyway, throwing himself higher into the air and over Du Linglong's head.

  She wheeled around, eyes wide at having been tricked, but he landed more steadily than he'd been hoping for and threw himself into another sprint, aiming for the second carriage.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  If he could free the prisoner, then they could fight Du Linglong in his stead. He hoped.

  "Nine Suns," her voice called. "Roaring Sun."

  A blur of steel and peaches swept out towards his back. Wu Hao's eyes widened and he tried to dodge to the side, but before he had made even a little bit of progress, the attack had already bitten into his back deeply.

  He grunted, feeling the qi ravage just to the side of his spine, nearly crashing to the ground as a giant swath of his back was carved into. Blood erupted from the wound and his arm flopped uncontrollably as he lost control over it, but he forced himself to keep going. His legs still worked.

  Wu Hao heard her bite back a curse, and then she shouted: "Stop him!"

  The porters stepped into Wu Hao's way. Once again, he was really hoping for a movement technique, but he had to make do with just throwing himself forward repeatedly, slamming men aside in a blind charge towards the second carriage. One of them tried to pile on him but Wu Hao forced more qi through his feet, pulling it from its attempts to knit the wound in his back together, and threw him down.

  "Wait -" Du Linglong cried. "You don't know what you're doing!"

  Wu Hao glanced back, seeing that she was already raising her sword again, and decided that she'd only spoken to distract him. His feet skidded to a stop and he turned, throwing himself behind the carriage.

  For the second time, he saw the cage but not the prisoner. This time his eyes took in the elaborate system of locks, trying to find which one was the key to actually getting out of here before the carriage was blasted off its feet again. He needed more time to study the system, but his hand reached out tentatively to the centermost lock, hoping that it'd be as easy as that.

  A blur of motion behind him, which he only caught in the side of his eyes.

  "Step away!" Du Linglong commanded. When he didn't, his sword raised as if by itself, lashing out in an attack.

  Gritting his teeth, Wu Hao took the last of the qi he had access to without breaking his filter, forced it into his hands, and ripped the innermost lock off with all of his force.

  Something clicked, cracked, tore - and broke. Qi rushed into the cage and began to build upon itself, force building as whoever was in the cage took a deep, deep breath.

  Wu Hao backed away, sweat stinging the large wound on his back, and bumped into Du Linglong, whose eyes were as wide as they'd ever been.

  "You've killed us all," she hissed.

  With a final squeal of shattering, twisting steel, the bars gave way, torn as easily as paper. The figure wrenched himself upright, long black hair falling over his shoulders as he broke apart the steel with pure force. The broken bars stabbed into his skin, blood running from the wounds, but the figure gave no sign that he'd noticed. The talismans that had decorated the cage flashed, once, twice - then began to burn, until nothing but ash remained.

  "Sir," Wu Hao said, wondering if maybe -

  The figure appeared in front of him. Wu Hao had not seen him take a step or even move, and he hadn't noticed how huge the man was. Black eyes with white pupils so constricted they were nearly invisible stared down at Wu Hao, fingers clenching randomly like he was still learning how his own hands worked. He looked like a young man, but scars marred his face, each looking like he'd tried ripping his skin off with his bare hands.

  "Shut up," the figure said, voice raspy like he'd spent hours screaming his lungs out, and then his qi unleashed itself and blanketed the entire carriage.

  Wu Hao had thought he'd felt bloodlust before, but he'd been wrong. That had been merely the desire to kill - sometimes to kill him, specifically, but nonetheless to kill.

  This was not that. He couldn't even begin to define it, but a pure primal fear ran through him.

  Wu Hao's blood froze in his veins. He swallowed, forgetting everything around him except the figure, who cracked his neck once with the sound of a bomb going off.

  "Nine Suns," a voice screamed. "Warring Sun!"

  More peach-scented qi than Wu Hao had thought Du Linglong had available to her slammed into the figure in a brilliant explosion of sunlight and power and anger.

  The prisoner didn't even budge.

  "Shush, junior sister," he said. "I'll take care of you soon."

  He made a half-turn, but then seemed to remember Wu Hao was there. He reached out, and Wu Hao forced himself to keep his eyes open, hoping that maybe there would be some sign of gratitude.

  "You're unworthy," the figure rasped again. Its voice was devoid of any warmth, and Wu Hao tried to step back only to find his feet bound by an unimaginably heavy nothing.

  An impact on Wu Hao's forehead, so small that Wu Hao almost didn't believe that it had happened, but then he felt something burrow around inside of him. Something deep, dark, moving, shooting into his lungs and nesting there.

  He coughed. Again, again, again, his lungs felt full with something that had to get out and just couldn't, that was cannibalizing his qi and his flesh to bring more of itself into existence faster than he could even think, sheer agony clawing at his insides.

  The last thing he saw was the prisoner's finger, which had prodded his forehead lightly and forced an unimaginable level of qi into his body.

  He hacked up a relentless flood of ashes onto the ground, having sunk to his knees at some point, and yet it wasn't enough. A spear formed of black ash had formed inside of him and drove upwards, harvesting his core utterly and blasting out of every pore until there was nothing left of Wu Hao but a dead husk.

  But he'd remained conscious throughout. It would have been more merciful simply to die.

  The ash continued to pour itself out of him, but Wu Hao's eyes couldn't see, his ears couldn't see, his lungs couldn't breath.

  And then he was gone into the merciful arms of death, even if only for a moment.