The City Lord watched with the expression of one who likes to watch as his Plum Blossoms attacked the Dreaming Blade. There was no way that anyone could escape such a coordinated attack.
The Dreaming Blade was not anyone.
Footwork evaded the thrusts of the two assassins aiming for his throat and heart. They were concealed, and shadows filled the air, but he never needed his senses to know the location of a blade. As he stepped between them, he raised his sword to deflect the slashes of sword intent shot down by the assassin leaping overhead.
The assassins he stood between changed their strategy, one slashing high while the other slashed low. The Dreaming Blade kicked off the low blade and shot himself into the air before the high blade could touch him.
His sword sliced through the airborne assassin's back even as she twisted mid air to face him. Her body hit the ground without grace as he lazily deflected some daggers thrown his way.
When he reached the zenith of his jump, he floated softly, drawing on the powerful core qi he had gathered to fight gravity’s pull. Four assassins waited below, their swords drawn like elaborate petals, but incomplete with their missing member. They reserved their energy rather than shoot sword intent up at him — one more calculation made silently behind their eyes.
He barely paid them any attention.
How exactly did light fall from the setting sun? Was it like this?
Drawing on his qi, he sent a slash of blazing sword intent down at angle. The waiting plum blossoms vanished with their elite movement techniques. The sword intent continued on its course.
Three assassins appeared in front of the City Lord in time to parry the crescent of razor sharp energy. One was too slow, and her head fell from her shoulders to roll at the City Lord’s feet.
The fat man’s face paled as he looked down at the head.
“How dare you attack me!” he shouted as the Dreaming Blade landed softly where he’d stood before.
The Dreaming Blade ignored the politician with a shrug, and directed his words to the three remaining Plum Blossoms.
“I wonder, are you better assassins, or guards?”
They didn’t answer, and so he drew once more on his qi to ask the question more directly.
###
In a room inside the Great Northern Mountain, demonic qi crawled up the walls and licked at the sigils painted in blood. Two cabbages lay in outlined circles, and between them stood a twitching madman.
At least, I felt like a madman with the light of glowing blood painting my features. The memories of the experiment that created me were hauntingly visceral, and I forced myself to keep moving, even just swaying, so that I could convince my body that I wasn’t paralyzed anymore.
Though painted with my blood, the ritual wasn’t for me. The rank old cabbage, and the fresh drunk cabbage were the targets, and even as I watched, the sigils burned against reality and drew the souls out of the cabbages. It wasn’t easy to adjust the ritual, but the knowledge existed within my grey shard. A few sigils altered here and there ensured that instead of ripping the bodies apart, I would simply swap the souls of my targets.
All I needed to do was remain where I was and wait for the ritual to commence. My stolen qi wasn’t anywhere near as deep a reservoir as the one exhibited by the masked master from my memory, but it was enough to activate the ritual sigils that would convert regular qi into demonic. Now, though the ritual would unfold slowly, it would unfold.
I smiled with pride.
Hours ago, there’s no way I wouldn’t have been able to commit to this, but ever since facing my past selves, I felt a new confidence surging through my veins, humming in my bones, and coursing through my flesh. Even my shard sat snugly in that space between soul and meat. This ritual was now something I could do, and that wasn’t the only thing.
Touching my weaponizing self, finally facing that aspect of my truth, had sorted out knowledge that had previously been jumbled. As I watched the soul transfer ritual unfold, I assessed myself.
My flesh, blood, and bones were all stronger from having eaten Jiang Jian. It would be fair to say I am comparable to the qi-strengthened body of a 5th Stage Qi Condensing Cultivator. My flesh, bones, and blood all came from different pasts, and while I’d intuitively understood my ability to control my blood and learned of my ability to control my bones, only now did I realize I could also control my flesh.
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When I’d fallen from the cliff and guided my intestines like ropes, that had been the living will of my merchant past asserting itself. What else could I do now that I knew that about myself?
The large stone jutting from my weaponized self contained all the other stones I’d touched and absorbed, including Ghost Fang’s. His memories lay within me, and at some point, I would need to revisit those, but more than that, I understood the gift he’d left lingering in my eyes. His burning gaze now haunted my own, and though it was underdeveloped compared to that gigantic demonic ape, I knew that with time it would grow stronger.
These facts clicked together in my mind like bones that healed wrong and were now rebroken and reshaped. I wasn’t my past, but I would carry it into the future.
The ritual continued, and though my blood reservoir was almost empty and my qi reservoir was utterly drained, I was overflowing with joy.
Throwing my head back, I laughed a deep, wild cackle that echoed off the blood-spattered walls and filled the hidden chamber with glee.
###
If it wasn’t for the guard helmet on her head, Shen Wanjun would be tearing out her hair in frustration. How could she have lost him? It made no sense at all!
As someone in the 2nd Stage of Foundation Establishment, she could move ridiculously fast. A single leap could clear buildings, and when she started running, she could zip her way across the city with ease. Her speed, combined with the authority of a City Guard, allowed her to navigate unimpinged.
The Talisman Master of the Shining Mountain Sect was her handler, and when he directed her to pass warnings onto the Shen candidates for the upcoming expedition, she did so as soon as she could retrieve her stone wood armor. Even though the Shen Clan Complex lay in Mountain Root City’s upper heights, it was easy enough for her to venture up before returning to the busier Merchant District.
She’d hit up her informants and quickly found the trail of the mysterious cultivator leading the expedition. It was strange that nobody knew his name, but not as strange as the fact that — somehow — he slipped away from her.
He’d led her all over the Merchant District, from market to merchant store, looking for incense and candles and a prayer mat. For whatever reason, his requirements were ridiculously specific, and she’d almost marched over to him and demanded to just buy something! But all he did was carry those cabbages, look at items, and head back out into the streets.
And, at some point in all of that, she lost him.
Now night had fallen, and she was wandering the streets between the Merchant District and the warehouses that supplied them. Though she had recovered almost half of her qi since that meeting, she walked instead of leaping from building to building. What would be the point? There was absolutely no way she could hope to —
A sweet, floral scent tickled her nostrils.
Five black garbed assassins stood in a ring around her. Though only one of the five was in the Foundation Establishment Realm, all of them possessed concealment techniques that had hidden them from Shen Wanjun’s spiritual sense. She didn’t draw her qi, or attack, and instead did her best to hide her surprise.
“Shen Wanjun of the Tiger Gate Guards greets the Plum Blossoms,” she said politely. “How can I help you?”
The leader looked the same as the rest of them, with her dark clothes concealing her body except for her eyes.
“You have been tracking the one leading the Howling Blossom Valley expedition.”
It was a statement that sounded like an accusation, and Shen Wanjun found herself bristling. The Plum Blossoms were infamous in Mountain Root City. The City Lord’s private killers and agents, and though they were one of the highest authorities, they did only the dirtiest of work. How dare these sanctimonious women speak to her like this when she was carrying out secret work for the good of the empire?!
Of course, none of those thoughts touched her face or tongue.
“I am,” she replied.
“Take us to him.”
“May I ask why?”
Cold eyes met hers.
The assassin leader was only in the 1st Stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm, but Shen Wanjun didn’t believe for a second that her higher-stage cultivation would let her win a fight between them.
“The City Lord put out a kill order for the expedition members,” said the assassin leader.
Shen Wanjun gasped despite herself.
“Members of my clan are in that expedition!”
“The kill order only extends to the out-of-town members,” the assassin leader said as though Shen Wanjun were an idiot. “The leader, his disciple, and the woman with the Ox Bloodline.”
“Of course,” Shen Wanjun said as she regained her composure. “Unfortunately, he evaded me. I cannot take you to him.”
The cold eyes glowed.
“Are you interfering with a —”
A slight rasping whistle came from a pouch on Shen Wanjun’s belt, and it drew the eyes of all present.
Glad that her gloves prevented her sweating palms from showing, Shen Wanjun opened the pouch on her belt and produced the small rectangular talisman. It was about the size of a pond turtle and fit easily in her palm. Her eyes widened, and her heart pounded.
None of the assassins drew their weapons or even moved, but Shen Wanjun felt herself tipping precariously close to death as they all stared at the mysterious item.
“What is that?” the assassin leader asked.
“I planted a tracking device on the cultivator I’ve been tailing,” Shen Wanjun lied as smoothly as possible. “He must have entered range.”
She didn’t understand the characters scrawled onto the talisman’s yellow paper, but she knew that the corner vibrating and whistling was pointing toward demonic qi. The target had finally revealed his true colors.
A fact she desperately needed to keep to herself.
“Lead us to the target,” the assassin leader said.
“Of course,” Shen Wanjun said with a polite dip of her head. “Follow me.”
Her movement technique surged, and she raced away through the warehouses. The assassins vanished, and even when she looked back, she couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there.
If anyone picked up on her thundering heartbeat, they would only assume that she was exerting herself. With a grin of pure excitement, Shen Wanjun raced forth as the vanguard of the hidden kill squad. Finally, she would fulfill her secret mission!
For the glory of the Empire!
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