Chen Wuya gripped the wooden sword. The crack in its hilt was inching upward, as though something inside were slowly writhing. He neither loosened his hold nor threw it away. He simply held the sword horizontally before him, his steady gaze fixed on that fine line.
In the distance, dust and smoke churned as Blood Without Trace's figure was nearly swallowed by the edge of the woods. His steps staggered, his left shoulder caved in, and every breath came with a wet, rasping sound. When he reached Tuoba Lie's side, he abruptly stopped and turned to look at the unmoving figure in the center of the battlefield, fury in his eyes almost burning through the windblown sand.
"Didn't you say his system had already been suppressed?" Blood Without Trace's voice was hoarse, like gravel scraping across iron. "You said he was alone, without aid or backing. You said he had only lasted this long by relying on crooked tricks and unorthodox paths—but could some crooked trick produce that move just now?"
Tuoba Lie stood beside a broken blade, his right hand clenched around its hilt until his knuckles turned white. He did not look at Blood Without Trace, only toward Chen Wuya. After a long while, he said, "I underestimated the people around him."
"The children?" Blood Without Trace sneered. "A brat still reeking of mother's milk can become a variable?"
"Not the children." Tuoba Lie finally turned his head, his eyes cold as ice. "He turned 'wrong' into a rule. The three of them used the same move, yet it was like one person fighting in three different ways—this was not coordination. It was resonance."
Blood Without Trace's pupils contracted.
"Your intelligence never mentioned this." He gritted his teeth. "You said he depended on the system, that once its