The Wonders of Qi

After kicking that disgraced performer away, Li Ke looked at the still-slow carriage and instinctively drew the sword Yone had given him. He eyed the horses' enormous hindquarters and began sizing them up, wondering where he could cut them to make it hurt enough without slowing them down.

The two horses instantly felt a chill down their backs. When they caught a glimpse of the fierce look on Li Ke's face and the glinting blade, the two slackers exchanged a glance and gave it everything they had.

The sudden burst of speed slammed Li Ke's back against the carriage wall, but the feeling of racing along at high speed also brought him a sense of peace.

As long as he could reach the town up ahead, as long as he could make it there, he could...

Just as he was thinking this, a shout rang out ahead.

"Help!!"

A woman who looked about eighty percent like Jing Tian was sprawled across the road, blocking their way completely. Beside her stood a burly man with a lecherous grin.

Li Ke didn't stop. He even kicked the horse.

The carriage rolled over her without mercy.

And, with no help from Li Ke, drifted around the bend up ahead.

The animals of Ionia weren't stupid, either. They'd sensed something ominous, so they picked up the pace to save their own lives.

Watching the two horses gallop with all their might, Li Ke felt positively delighted. He pulled the sword away from their necks and nodded in satisfaction.

"Those who know me best are my horse brothers! Run faster! I'll treat you to something delicious when we reach the next town!"

The shoddy carriage raced wildly along Ionia's rugged roads. If Li Ke hadn't known martial arts and clung tightly to one of the carriage posts, he would probably have been thrown off already.

But he still didn't dare slow down. Why, you ask...

The instant they passed a large tree, a woman dressed in white leaped onto Li Ke's carriage and pressed herself against him, revealing a smooth, pale expanse of cleavage.

"My lord! Could you give this humble woman a ride?"

Her face was a vision of irresistible charm, a peerless beauty. From above, she looked like Cecilia Cheung; from below, Liu Yifei; from the front, Fan Bingbing; from the right, Eun-jung... No, not Eun-jung. Even a champion couldn't compare to Eun-jung.

From the left, she looked like Sumire Uesaka; from the side, Natasha. She was a world-class beauty, a perfect blend of East and West.

But...

"Stay back!!"

Li Ke punched her. In an instant, her beautiful face looked like a dye shop had exploded across it, streaked with red, black, purple, and yellow. The beauty froze for a moment, about to speak, when Li Ke slammed a Haymaker into her left eye socket and kicked her in the stomach with Dragon's Tail.

She nearly went flying off the carriage. If she hadn't grabbed the leg Li Ke had kicked her with at the last second, she would have followed the fate of the beauties before her and been thrown off.

By now, she finally understood that she couldn't fool Li Ke. But she couldn't understand why he wouldn't fall for it!

She had tried so many beauties, and in the end, she'd even mashed together every beauty in Li Ke's memories to create a form that made even her heart flutter. So why was Li Ke still so decisive and merciless?

"Why?! How can you see through me?! I've never failed before!"

She roared. Her beautiful face began to turn a ghastly blue-green, and her little mouth, which had seemed capable of speech, grew long, sharp fangs.

Because I'm not an idiot, lady.

And how could those beauties possibly exist in this world?!

Of course, Li Ke didn't say that out loud. He didn't even want to waste words.

Without looking at the increasingly nightmare-inducing face, Li Ke gripped the sword. It hummed incessantly inside its sheath.

Though this would rapidly shorten the sword's lifespan, Li Ke was even less keen on shortening his own.

"Sorry, Yone! Your sword—your wife—might get damaged!"

Li Ke poured as much of his essence, energy, and spirit into the sword as he could. He gathered every bit of qi he could muster and channeled it into the blade. The "beauty," unable to sense any trace of magic on him, now stared at Li Ke with disheveled hair and a ghastly face.

She genuinely wanted to know how Li Ke had seen through her scheme and foiled her escape.

"Why?! Tell me! Or I'll eat you!"

Li Ke took a deep breath and spoke slowly.

"Of course, it's because..."

The monster leaned in to listen. But Li Ke had been waiting for this very moment, when her essence, energy, and spirit were distracted.

"...you're too ugly!"

A flash of black light streaked past as Li Ke released all the qi he had gathered. Iaijutsu was already a technique perfectly suited to a katana, and with such a fine blade in hand, it was far more powerful than when he had faced Yasuo!

At least seventy percent stronger!

The monster only had time to see a streak of black light. Her mask suddenly felt cold, then a fierce pain surged from her body straight into her soul.

"Aaaaaah!!!"

A huge gash opened down the middle of her body. Li Ke's carriage had also been sliced apart by the blow, losing most of its body. The entire carriage compartment was gone, and part of the undercarriage had been cut away. Only the section around the two wheels remained intact.

The intense pain made the monster release Li Ke's leg and tumble off the carriage.

But Li Ke hadn't had time to catch his breath when he saw the monster's body rapidly swell as it rolled along the ground, growing to the size of a truck in the blink of an eye.

No, it was even bigger than the coachman had become earlier!

"This is getting tricky."

Li Ke clenched his teeth and tightened his grip on the sword. He took a deep breath and quickly replenished the qi within him, trying to gather enough for another attack before the monster could strike.

But the monster recovered faster than he'd imagined.

Almost the moment he steadied himself on the remains of the carriage, the monster stood up, clutching her shattered mask.

"How is this possible?! You don't even have magic! How could you break my mask?! My mask!"

The mask was the source of her power. Normally, only the sword in the hands of the Eye of Twilight could break it, because that sword belonged to no world. But she couldn't understand how the man before her had broken her mask, too!

She could feel her power draining away without end. If she couldn't absorb negative emotions in time to repair it, she would soon return to her former, feeble self!

She absolutely couldn't allow that to happen!

And this man had to die!