Holding a Halberd Aloft to Accuse the Dragon, Blocking the Blade to Rebuke the Elders

"Who goes there!?"

A thunderous shout exploded through the air, brimming with fury.

The speaker was an old man. His hair was tied up with a mottled bamboo hairpin, and white strands fell in wisps around his temples.

His frame was as withered as bamboo after autumn, yet his back and shoulders remained straight. He looked as if a gust of wind might snap him in two, but his eyes shone astonishingly bright, like swordlight tempered in a frozen pool.

He was none other than Green Bamboo Sword Urn, an elder of the Sword Hut and Jianlongzi's master.

"You dare barge through the Sword Hut's mountain gate and beat one of my disciples into this state!

You're far too arrogant, far too ruthless!"

He had already been furious when he saw Jianlongzi wounded so badly.

But when he saw Zhao Cheng shatter the Sword Hut's mountain gate with his halberd, his veins bulged, and invisible Sword Qi erupted around him.

His drooping white hair sprang upright strand by strand, fluttering through the air like sharp threads of a sword.

The flagstones beneath his feet split instantly with a spiderweb of cracks. Sword Qi sent gravel flying, pelting the sword steles on either side of the mountain gate with sharp cracks.

As he spoke, several more old men in plain-colored sword robes appeared on the stone steps behind the gate.

Sword Qi seemed to wreathe each of them, faintly present yet nearly imperceptible, and their gazes fixed on Zhao Cheng.

They were the Sword Hut's other elders. Hearing the commotion, they had all gathered before the mountain gate, their eyes turning in unison toward Zhao Cheng in the sky, full of fury and sharp intent.

High above, Zhao Cheng hovered in the shadow cast by his spread dark-red cloak. When he