Razor

Biodata

Power Progression

These ranks describe Razor’s documented personnel strength, rather than a cultivation realm belonging to the organization itself.

Organization and Personnel

Squad Structure

• Patrol units: Razor generally operates in teams of five. Guan Yutian’s early squad uses three ranged attackers, a frontline fighter, and a defensive fighter 6 7.
• Recruitment: Major families supply guards for Razor duty. Razor Hall normally expects Glimmering Realm martial artists, although Zhang Qing initially enters below that standard 5 11.
• Rotation: The City Lord Mansion periodically reshuffles squads to curb unchecked authority. A single family is not supposed to occupy every position in one squad, though the Tie Family circumvents this restriction 5 54.
• Hierarchy: Members may be held responsible for a captain’s death. Higher-ranking experts can rally the organization’s lower ranks 10 114 147.
• Support personnel: Razor maintains informants, lookouts, scene guards, and cleanup crews. Healing martial artists may attend the aftermath of a Specter kill but are not compelled to accompany missions 17 39 54.

Notable Personnel

Associated Halls

• Razor Hall — Patrol assembly point, meal provider, reward center, and administrative base in Zi City 6 18 51.
• Ghoul Blood Hall — Mobilizes alongside Razor Hall; its token allows Zhang Qing to identify himself to Tie Du’s squad 28 68.
• Dark Hall — Holds greater operational authority than a Starflash-level captain. Access through the Yu Family provides privileges unavailable to an ordinary Razor member, including an opportunity to commission Adamantine Weapons 75.

Duties and Methods

Specter Hunting

Razor’s original mandate is to locate and eliminate Specters concealed within the city 5.

• Patrols, informant reports, and investigations supply targets; a reported personality change is enough to prompt a visit 16 17.
• Suspects are subjected to a squad vote. If more than half agree that someone is a Specter, the squad can execute them immediately 5.
• Breaking a suspected Specter’s outer skin is intended to expose its true form. A mistaken execution offers the victim little protection or recourse 5 6.
• Trade-route operations use bait to draw out Specters. Razor avoids freely venturing into the more dangerous wilderness 11 19.
• Members who flee upon encountering a Specter face beheading, with consequences for their families as well 7.

Rewards and Resources

• Combat rewards: Specter kills supply a major portion of members’ income and determine military merits and advancement opportunities 17 21.
• Spirit pills: Military merits can be exchanged for pills at Razor Hall 51.
• Medicinal meals: Hall food contains traces of spirit medicine. Zhang Qing gains 0.5 Attribute Points from one early meal, though its benefit diminishes as his cultivation rises 6.
• Field allowances: Patrol duty carries an allowance. Guan Yutian withholds Zhang Qing’s first allowance under the stated pretext of compensating an innocent victim’s family 6.
• Equipment and identification: Razor provides uniforms and equipment; identity tokens establish access and authority 21 77 95.

Great Xia Oversight

Under Great Xia, Razor is charged with removing corruption and preventing powerful officials from monopolizing authority 398.

• Razor members accompany appointees to outside cities to supervise their rule alongside Great Xia officials and military forces 398.
• Its voting procedure is no longer used within Great Xia or against pure-blooded Great Xia people, but remains available against other races 398.
• In An City and Mountain City, authorized martial arts school and merchant-caravan affiliations exempt players from Razor’s identity checks 300.
• Members with Judgment Border Army posts use Razor credentials for investigations and military credentials for judgments and liaison with city guards. Border-army authority exceeds that of city guard forces 525.

History

Zi City Service

Zhang Qing joins Razor through a Chuan Family duty slot arranged by Chuan Fa. His real aim is to obtain Attribute Points from Specter kills. The assignment is considered dangerous enough that other guards pay for substitutes, while Zhang Qing pays ten silver coins to secure it 5.

The Chuan Family later inducts him into its First-Rank Hall and orders him to record what he sees and hears during Razor missions. It also promises to arrange Specter kills that will help him rise through Razor’s merit-based hierarchy 16 21.

Chuan and Shui Family Conflicts

Following the Chuan Family patriarch’s death, Razor joins the assault on the weakened family and overwhelms its defenders. Zhang Qing identifies Razor as a means for the Yu Family to seize the Chuan Family’s inheritance 36.

Razor subsequently investigates the Tiger Clan merchant shop over suspected Specter connections and Forbidden Items. During a later massacre investigation, Zhang Qing, Guan Yutian, and Tie Du accept the explanation of a Specter attack; Shui Qingquan pays Zhang Qing to let the Shui Family collect the bodies, and the captains leave 43 54.

Razor also fights beside the Shui Family against Specters, suffering extensive casualties among its lower-level squads. During the later battle at the Shui estate, some Razor personnel slip away from the fighting to loot the storeroom 45 46 51 70.

Revolt Against the Yu Family

A city-lord decree ordering an investigation into the Shui Family’s Ghoul Blood Warriors brings Razor to the family’s gates. When the Shui Family blocks its investigators, Razor calls in Dark Hall rather than sending its captains into a direct attack. Zhang Qing secretly fires an arrow bearing Dark Hall’s emblem into a Shui Family mediator, triggering a clash 107.

Razor’s upper ranks later suspect that the Yu Family has seized the city lord’s authority and is purging their Moon-Shattering Realm experts. They organize a revolt under the slogan of saving the city lord and destroying the Yu Family, intending eventually to seek refuge with the Tie Family 114 115.

That plan fails when the Tie Family joins the Yu Family instead. Chuan Hao’s Specters enter the battle and attack indiscriminately, leaving Razor caught between hostile forces. Its formations collapse, and its members are slaughtered in the resulting chaos 116.

Establishment in An City

Zhang Qing helps Guan Yutian and Pusan establish Razor again, transferring Sunrise Realm experts to give it the strength needed to operate. Support from Mo Li, Zuo Can, and Yuan Hong secures the two leaders’ authority, while Niu Qi helps reproduce the culture of Zi City’s original Razor 219.

Its patrols and executions soon leave An City’s streets nearly empty. Complaints fail because Guan Yutian himself occupies the government office’s seat of authority. Zhang Qing eventually orders Razor to take leave so Specters and arriving players can enter the city 252.

Guan Yutian’s Sunrise Realm experts later protect Li Liming’s soldiers during the purge of An City. When teleportation gates bring more than ten million players into the city, guilds and merchant groups explicitly warn newcomers not to provoke Razor 271 303.

Great Xia Department and External Enforcement

Great Xia establishes Razor under Guan Yutian as a direct check on corruption and concentrated political power. Its attachment to Zhang Qing makes newly appointed city rulers reluctant to challenge its supervisors 398.

During unrest in the outside cities, Guan Yutian responds with executions certified by Razor as punishment for collusion with Specters. Razor’s voting system reinforces the external cities’ coercive hierarchy despite the accompanying promises of technological and civilizational progress 470 471.

In War City, Bai Yuan obtains a Fate Stone through an approved application. His branch coordinates with the garrison and Dragonrise Guild, evacuates officials and pure-blooded Great Xia citizens from a district, and fills it with criminals and Specters for his advancement 472.

During Great Xia’s accelerated evacuation, Guan Yutian uses Razor’s authority to bring Cheng Qiping to An City ahead of the migration line. Pusan, Niu Qi, and other Razor members holding Judgment Border Army posts subsequently help organize the migration 518 525.

Reputation

Razor’s protection is inseparable from its arbitrary violence. Civilians avoid its patrols, innocent deaths are treated as routine, and squads can disguise negligence or corruption as Specter investigations. Nevertheless, its successful hunts prevent the city from being completely infiltrated, giving it a polarized reputation rather than a wholly ineffective one 5 6 18 54.

• Dangerous accuracy: In Zhang Qing’s previous life, a player who identified Specters too reliably was executed as a suspected Specter spy 6.
• Unsafe complaints: In An City, residents seeking official intervention find Guan Yutian in charge of the office receiving their reports 252.
• Unreliable bribery: As Great Xia’s director, Guan Yutian accepts gifts without fulfilling the giver’s expectations; the department remains difficult to bargain with or infiltrate 398.
• Selective legal treatment: Bai Yuan accepts discussion of evidence for pure-blooded Great Xia citizens, while his treatment of other races follows Razor’s harsher principles 472.

Relationships

• Zhang Qing — Early member, later patron and organizer. He rebuilds Razor’s strength in An City and establishes its Great Xia oversight role; its later loyalty centers on him 5 219 398.
• City Lord Mansion — Original supervising authority, responsible for patrol assignments and squad reorganization 5 6.
• Chuan Family — Supplies guards and attempts to use Zhang Qing as an observer within Razor. Razor later participates in the family’s destruction 5 16 36.
• Yu Family — Commands Razor during the city lord’s absence but encounters its evasive compliance. The relationship becomes openly hostile during Razor’s revolt 114 115 116.
• Tie Family — Places its members inside Razor and becomes the proposed refuge for the rebels, only to side with the Yu Family during the battle 28 54 115 116.
• Shui Family — Receives Razor’s military support against Specters, then blocks its investigators during the Ghoul Blood Warrior dispute 45 46 107.
• Judgment Border Army — Shares personnel with Razor, allowing members to combine investigative powers with military enforcement authority 525.

Notable Quotes

“The Yu Family has hollowed out the city lord’s authority!”

“Brothers of Razor, save the city lord and destroy the Yu Family!”
— Call launching Razor’s revolt 115

“Brother Qing has gone out, so it’s our responsibility to watch over An City for him.”
— Guan Yutian 252