The drop of blood fell onto the stone surface. It was neither absorbed nor did it stir any ripples of light. Chen Wuya stared at that drop of blood, then suddenly smiled.
He raised his hand. A thread of Misaligned Force slowly seeped from his fingertips—not toward the mechanism, but through the crack in his palm, flowing against the current into his own meridians. A familiar tearing sensation spread from his right arm to his shoulder blade, as if something were churning inside him. Yet he did not stop. Instead, he forced the Misaligned Force deeper into his channels.
"It doesn't recognize the rules," he said softly. "Then don't act like a person."
Before the words had faded, he stomped down. His steps lurched drunkenly, his left foot landing in his right footprint while his right foot retreated half a step. His whole body staggered as if invisible ropes were tugging him every which way. At the same time, Misaligned Force burst from his palm—not gathering into a stream or condensing into a point, but scattering into spiderweb-thin strands that sprayed wildly into the cracks in the ground.
Bai Zhi's pupils constricted.
That footwork had no pattern at all. It even violated the most basic opening stance of lightness kung fu—yet somehow, the rotation rhythm of the three crimson rings of light blades fell into an exceedingly brief disorder.
A beam of energy that should have struck the rocky corner where Mo Feng was hiding veered an inch off course instead. It grazed the stone wall and scorched a black mark into it.
"He's disrupting its judgment!" Mo Feng muttered through gritted teeth. Blood was still seeping from the wound in his left shoulder, but he forced himself to look up. "This mechanism runs by sensing a martial artist's aura—it