Mountain-Leaning Strike landed cleanly, sending Temugin flying backward, limp and powerless. Xiang Qian pressed his advantage, pushing off the ground and darting forward like an arrow loosed from its string. In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of Temugin.
Temugin knew he was at the end of the line, with no chance of escape. That Mountain-Leaning Strike had landed with tremendous force, nearly snapping half his ribs. Now even the slightest breath brought searing pain—the telltale sign of a badly injured lung. He could feel the strength draining rapidly from his body; even lifting an arm was a struggle. He knew that once he fell, he would be at his enemies' mercy. So he clenched his teeth and summoned the last of his willpower to activate the ring on his hand.
"Let's die together!" Temugin roared in a frenzy.
The ring set with a fiery red gemstone suddenly flashed. A terrifying power gathered within it, then, in the next instant, burst from the gem as scorching flames. At the final moment, Temugin released his control over the flames and devoted all his mental strength to amplifying their power. This desperate method would unleash the flames' destructive force to the fullest, turning everything around them into a sea of fire—but the uncontrolled flames would consume Temugin himself as well.
Just as the Spear Bureau's psychological profiling team had predicted, when faced with defeat at the final moment, Temugin chose to go down in flames.
The instant the fire burst forth, Xiang Qian leaped forward. His left hand shot out like lightning, fingers splayed wide, and closed around Temugin's right hand, gathering the surging flames in his palm as well. As Vector cried out in alarm, a golden light brighter than the flames blossomed beneath the skin of Xiang Qian's left hand. The light shone through his skin, enveloping his entire hand in the blink of an eye.
The flames erupting from the ring were trapped within the golden light. Like a beast caught in a cage, they churned and slammed against their confinement, but could not break through.
What happened when something burned fiercely in a confined space? It was a basic high-school physics question. Almost in the very next instant, the light in Xiang Qian's left palm flared again, and a deafening boom erupted. Everyone nearby instinctively raised their hands to shield their faces, bracing for the imagined blast wave.
But, strangely, all they felt was a gust of wind. There was no shock wave, no scorching heat. It was as if the deafening boom had been nothing but a blank shot.
Vector cautiously lowered her arms and peeked. Xiang Qian was still standing right where he had been, his left hand extended straight out. A ball of fire churned in his palm. Its incandescent glow, born of extreme heat, was terrifying to behold, yet it could not break free of the golden light. As it lost strength, the flames gradually dimmed, shifting from white-hot to blue, then from blue to red. The fireball shrank as well. At last, its glow faded from sight, completely obscured by the golden light.
Beneath that golden radiance, Xiang Qian stood tall like a god.
A violent explosion had vanished without a trace, as if it had never happened. But Vector knew that was an illusion, because Temugin, sprawled a few steps away, was living proof. The front of his clothes had been blown into tattered strips, streaked with black and gray soot from the blast. Most of his hair and eyebrows were gone, and what remained had been charred by the flames. Worst of all was his right hand: the palm was gone, along with half his forearm. The stump had been burned black by the heat, which, by a cruel stroke of luck, had also sealed the wound and stopped the bleeding.
Though Xiang Qian had contained the explosion, the blast that had set off the flames had come from the ring on Temugin's hand. Its shock wave had struck Temugin's hand directly, while some of the force and heat had traveled up his arm, dealing another blow to the front of his body. If Xiang Qian's Mountain-Leaning Strike had only broken half of Temugin's ribs, after that explosion there were probably hardly any bones left in his body unbroken. But he was still alive.
Xiang Qian looked down at the sprawled Temugin with a cold smile as the golden light around his left hand slowly faded. He rubbed his fingers together, and puffs of black ash sifted from between them. It came from Temugin's vanished right hand; the flesh, bones, and other biological matter had been burned to charcoal by the intense heat, then scattered to dust by Xiang Qian's movements. In the end, only a strangely shaped ring remained, resting quietly in Xiang Qian's palm. The violent explosion had done nothing to it beyond leaving a few gray-black marks on its surface.
Xiang Qian lightly tossed the ring in his palm, then pinched it between his fingers and twirled it with ease. "As expected of the Ten Rings' greatest treasure. In your hands, it was a complete waste."
Xiang Qian's contemptuous gaze roused the nearly dying Temugin's fury once more. Hatred flashed in his previously vacant eyes, as if he wanted to tear Xiang Qian apart and devour him alive. But by now, Temugin had suffered extensive fractures all over his body. For the time being, he was little different from someone paralyzed from the neck down. Just as Xiang Qian had planned, he didn't even have the ability to kill himself.
Xiang Qian had no intention of letting Temugin off easily. He meant not only to rob him of the ability to fight back, but to shatter his will completely. Pinching the ring between his thumb and forefinger, Xiang Qian gave it the faintest mental nudge. Its gemstone obediently lit up, and flames burst forth again, swirling into a perfectly round fireball above the ring. It spun rapidly with a whooshing sound. The ring kept spewing flames into the fireball, but instead of growing larger as everyone expected, it gradually shrank.
Under the crowd's astonished gazes, the fireball spun smaller and smaller, growing brighter and brighter, until it had condensed into a white-hot point of light no bigger than a knuckle. Xiang Qian swept his gaze across the area, and the point of light shot in the direction he looked, striking an armored vehicle on the west side, where fighting with the defenders was still fierce.
The point of light flashed once at the front of the vehicle and vanished. Before anyone could wonder what had happened, they heard a loud boom. The armored vehicle exploded from the inside out, shattering into pieces, as violent flames burst from within and instantly turned it into a fireball. The burning wreckage radiated terrifying heat, and parts of the vehicle melted within seconds.
Xiang Qian's casual display made it clear to everyone that he had mastered the ring more completely than its former owner, Temugin. But he wasn't done. The ring continued to spit out flames. This time, however, Xiang Qian didn't condense them. He casually hurled fireballs at the armed men's defenses—not just one, but one after another, a seemingly endless barrage like a meteor shower raining down on their position.
Temugin's face went ashen. Compared to the effort it had taken him to use the ring, Xiang Qian wielded it with effortless ease. They were worlds apart, not only in fighting skill but in mental strength as well.
Xiang Qian paid no attention to the armed men's howls of pain, nor to his allies, who looked stunned but still took the opportunity to beat their retreating enemies. He strolled over to Temugin, crouched beside him, and dangled the ring in his hand, meeting his gaze with a faintly amused look.
"Mandarin handed over his most prized possession for you to use. Looks like you really are his son." Xiang Qian's tone was almost flippant, but his cold gaze held an irreconcilable hatred. "Come on, tell Uncle, where did your daddy go?"