A Hair's Breadth

At this critical moment, when both sides were about to be grievously wounded—or even perish together—Lin Heier suddenly raised the hand gripping the Red Soft Spear into a claw. Her five fingers twisted and flicked against the spear, instantly changing the rhythm of its spiraling thrust. The tip began swaying up and down, with increasing amplitude. Just as the two spearheads were about to strike each other, the front of the Red Soft Spear smashed into the wooden-shafted spear.

With that single smash, Yamadai felt a force like an electric current travel from the wooden spear into both his hands. It made him unable to hold even that light wooden shaft, and it nearly flew from his grasp in an instant.

But his willpower was extraordinary. Having undergone genetic correction and fought through countless battles, he forcibly endured the numbness in his hands and gripped the wooden spear tightly as he thrust forward with all his strength. Still, he had lost his aim. The spear stabbed into the side of Lin Heier's shoulder, tearing open her red sleeve and leaving only a red mark on her snow-white skin.

To dodge that thrust, Lin Heier could no longer strike Yamadai in the throat. Her spear instead passed along the side of his neck, nearly slicing open his carotid artery. A gash of blood and flesh appeared at the side of his neck.

Yet Yamadai did not even furrow his brow. With an angry roar, he tried to pull back the wooden spear and stab Lin Heier again.

Lin Heier's shoulder garment had been torn, exposing half her shoulder. She was both ashamed and furious, yet she also felt some admiration for Yamadai. The hidden force she had unleashed attacked the body's interior. Though Lin Heier knew nothing of bones, joints, nerves, and the like, she was still a martial arts master and naturally understood the paths of meridians and blood flow. An ordinary person struck like that would be lucky not to collapse limply to the ground, let alone continue gripping a spear and thrusting forward. She had not expected Yamadai to be so fierce.

Even if he was a foreign barbarian, Lin Heier found herself cherishing his talent.

She gave a soft snort. The sound was not loud, but to Yamadai it felt as though his entire body had been jolted. The strength in his hand weakened by thirty percent. Lin Heier flipped her palm and pressed it against the wooden spear, then shouted, "Let go!"

The soft force and hidden force in her hand erupted. Blood burst from Yamadai's fingers, and it was as though he were gripping an electrified rod—he could not hold the spear at all. He immediately released it, reached behind him with one hand, and drew his wooden triangular bayonet. Then, while Lin Heier held the wooden spear, he rolled along the ground and stabbed the bayonet toward her abdomen.

Their exchange had passed like a flash of rolling lightning, leaving everyone behind Lin Heier dizzy and dazzled.

They naturally believed that their senior sister Lin Heier was invincible beneath heaven. Even if she lost to those legendary grandmasters, it would only be because of her age.

Yet they had not expected that, in this desolate backwater, some random foreigner would be so fierce. If any one of them had gone up against him, she likely would not have been able to withstand even a single move. The women's expressions all darkened.

The core creed of the Red Lantern Society was to support the Qing and destroy the foreign powers. Supporting the Qing was still negotiable, but destroying the foreigners was its absolute core. Without that, they could not unite so many brothers and sisters. In particular, the Red Lantern Society's main body—the Boxer Movement—relied on this very principle to establish itself in both the martial world and the imperial court.

If all the foreigners—no, most of them—no, even one-tenth of them—were truly this fierce, then what the hell were they supposed to fight with?

Watching Yamadai roll forward and stab upward from below, Lin Heier had intended to simply smash the wooden spear down at him. If the blow landed solidly and her hidden force erupted, Yamadai's brains would burst and he would die on the spot.

But first, she had developed an appreciation for his talent. Second, she had heard her sisters mention the words of that Han grandmaster, as well as the fact that this foreigner seemed to be that grandmaster's subordinate. If that was true, perhaps this fierce warrior could be used by her.

So she could only step back several paces. Her Lotus Step flashed past, and the triangular bayonet could not touch her. At the same time, Lin Heier held the Red Soft Spear in one hand and the wooden spear in the other, then forcefully drove the wooden spear downward, pinning the triangular bayonet to the ground. She said coldly, "There won't be a fourth time. I've spared you twice already. Try again, and we'll settle life and death beneath my fists."

While Lin Heier and Yamadai were locked in a contest of strength, the red-clad women behind her suddenly took out talisman papers. Muttering incantations, they began performing spirit dances.

Lin Heier naturally did not care. As their leader, she actually knew that such things were more useful for boosting morale and gathering people's hearts. As a master of traditional martial arts, she did not believe in them. Still, there was no harm in letting her subordinates do as they wished at a time like this.

But Yamadai panicked. As he cursed loudly, the strength in both his arms exploded to its limit. Lin Heier's expression changed, and she adopted the stance of a Thousand-Pound Drop, pressing down hard on the triangular bayonet. The anger and killing intent in her heart rose at the same time.

Just then, a long howl came from afar, approaching rapidly. It was like thunder, like a tiger's roar. A figure raced toward them with incredible speed from nearby.

Lin Heier's expression changed. She actually released the triangular bayonet beneath her foot and retreated more than five meters in a single motion.

"So he truly is a grandmaster."

Lin Heier's expression turned grave.

When an expert made a move, one immediately knew whether they had the goods.

Lin Heier herself was a master of the martial world, a renowned figure throughout the northern regions. Though she was beautiful, she was already twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old and had been famous for at least five or six years. She had encountered more than a dozen masters of hidden force. Yet from that howl, she felt a pressure unlike anything she had ever experienced.

So strong!

That was Lin Heier's first thought when she saw the man rushing toward them.

To put it plainly, traditional martial arts were not magic, nor were they some internal cultivation method. It was not as if any random child or old man could emerge and become invincible beneath heaven.

Traditional martial arts were skills involving the explosive release of blood and vitality, control over one's body, and combat techniques. The prerequisite for all of it was... the physical body!

A petite woman like Lin Heier could, upon reaching the realm of hidden force, unleash enough power to kill a strong man with one punch. Even a Third War genetically corrected veteran like Yamadai fell short of her in explosive force.

But Lin Heier's overall physical condition was far inferior to Yamadai's. There was no question about that. The only reason she could suppress him was because her explosive power, control, and combat techniques were superior.

If the blood and vitality throughout a human body were measured as percentages, Yamadai could exert one hundred percent of his body's strength, distributing the strength of his hands, feet, wrists, internal organs, blood, and vitality throughout his entire body. Lin Heier, on the other hand, could in an instant transfer the blood and vitality from other areas, allowing her wrist to erupt with three hundred, four hundred, even five hundred percent of its usual power, thereby crushing her opponent through sheer force.

But the flesh was still the foundation.

And Wu Pifu... his physical condition was half a tier stronger than even Yamadai's!

Crossing several hundred meters in the blink of an eye, Wu Pifu stopped half a body length in front of Yamadai. He glanced sideways at him and saw that only the web between his thumb and forefinger and his fingers were bleeding. His complexion was still ruddy, and he did not seem to have suffered internal injuries. Wu Pifu sighed in relief. While running over, what he had feared most was that the other side had used hidden force to injure Yamadai's internal organs. Now that he saw Yamadai was unharmed, he turned toward Lin Heier and the women behind her, and his expression darkened into an ugly scowl.

What Wu Pifu and Yamadai saw was entirely different from what Lin Heier saw. As the many red-clad women burned talisman papers, chanted spells, and performed spirit dances, a hazy, distorted, gigantic humanoid shape floated in the air. Then, through a translucent little circle resembling glass or a bubble, threads descended toward the ground. Every thread connected to the tops of the heads of Lin Heier and the red-clad women below.

As Lin Heier watched Wu Pifu arrive, the red-clad women behind her had already begun transforming into paper figures one after another. Each had a different shape and different clothing, but all had the same bluish-white paper skin, rouge on their cheeks, and eyes, mouths, and ears outlined in black lines. The crucial part was that those black-lined features could actually move!?

The paper figures stood in eerie, terrifying poses. Their black-lined eyes stared fixedly at the three people ahead as they rotated and moved closer.

Lin Heier could also sense her sisters approaching from behind. She frowned, inexplicably feeling her thoughts grow sluggish, but she still waved a hand behind her. This was a battle between grandmasters, not something they could interfere in. Besides, if word got out that martial arts masters had resorted to ganging up on someone, she would no longer be able to hold her head high in the martial world.

But her sisters continued approaching step by step. Just then, Wu Pifu suddenly closed in. Lin Heier froze for a moment, then flew into a rage.

Without even a word of exchange, he was plainly insulting her. She had even shown restraint just now, yet now Wu Pifu reached one hand toward her. Lin Heier no longer held back. She crossed her legs and crouched down, assuming a posture like one seated upon a lotus dais. At the same time, one palm supported levelly while the other rose to meet Wu Pifu's reaching hand.

"Excellent skill!"

Wu Pifu's eyes lit up. This posture looked utterly nonsensical in a fight, but with his current insight, he could see that as Lin Heier sat and lifted her palm, the force throughout her body began gathering at her dantian before erupting upward from it. The strength in that one palm had increased by more than tenfold. It felt to him as though that palm could punch a hole through the sky itself.

This move was a killing technique from the Yellow Lotus Holy Mother Scripture, known as Lotus-Seated Force. It was a powerful internal martial art that allowed one in the realm of hidden force to temporarily imitate the strength of the Dan Force realm. Though it carried great risks and inflicted serious damage on the user, and though it had the power of only one strike, once unleashed, it was almost impossible to resist.

Yet though Wu Pifu looked as though he were attacking fiercely, he had not come to fight Lin Heier to the death. There was no attacking force in his palm. As Lin Heier raised her palm, he merely touched it. Hidden force erupted from Wu Pifu's palm, canceling out Lin Heier's enormous outburst of power. Then he staggered back five or six steps, his face shifting between green and red three times before he finally exhaled.

Lin Heier's blood and vitality also churned within her body, but the anticipated backlash never came. She smoothly withdrew from the Lotus-Seated Force posture and looked at Wu Pifu in confusion.

Wu Pifu said to her, "You should take a look behind you. Don't worry, I definitely won't launch a sneak attack."

In that brief exchange, the thread that had been connected to the top of Lin Heier's head abruptly snapped. The process of her body turning papery also began reversing. Her thoughts now regained their sharpness, and she sensed that something was wrong.

She turned to look behind her, and her limbs instantly went cold. A vast terror erupted from the depths of her heart.

Where were her sisters behind her? There were only sinister, horrifying paper figures, each wearing a blankly drawn smile and holding paper scissors, paper mallets, paper tridents...

They were less than three meters away from her!!