Demon Technique

Li Zhiyi looked at the people packed around him. There were well over a hundred.

He usually managed about that many people himself. The servants, guards, and medicine workers at World-Aiding Hall added up to roughly the same number.

But that meant assigning jobs, arranging shifts, and dealing with the petty business of bowing and scraping every day. It had never felt like this. It had never made him afraid.

They were guards from various shops, all martial artists of at least the Skin Tempering Realm. Dozens were in the Flesh-Nourishing Stage, and ten, like him, were in the Tendon-Vibrating Stage.

They stood in formation around a small house, wearing armor and carrying hand crossbows. The black iron plates gave off a dull gleam in the dusk. Short bolts sat neatly in their grooves, their three-edged iron heads coated in poison and faintly blue-black.

Everyone else nearby, whether genuine refugees or impostors, was keeping well away.

Men blocked the mouth of the alley, lay atop the walls, and crouched on the rooftops. Rank upon rank surrounded the half-collapsed mud house so tightly that not even water could have passed through.

Li Zhiyi glanced behind him.

Three Bone-Forging Stage experts stood ready as well. Leading them this time was a direct-line disciple.

Li Zhiyi could not help looking at him with envy. A direct-line disciple. This man was quite a figure.

He had reached the Bone Tempering Realm before thirty and was among the disciples the Lineage had poured its resources into. Li Zhiyi had heard his family talk about Li Chengzong since childhood: Skin Tempering Realm at fourteen, Flesh-Nourishing Realm at eighteen, Tendon Vibration at twenty-three, Bone Tempering Realm at twenty-eight.

At every step, he had enjoyed the finest resources the Li Family could offer: pills without limit, his choice of techniques, and renowned masters to teach him personally.

Li Zhiyi remembered a New Year's Eve family banquet. Li Chengzong had sat at the main table, trading toasts with the elders and chatting at ease. Li Zhiyi had sat in a corner of the side hall, listening to their laughter through a screen.

Now Li Chengzong stood behind the formation in a black fighting outfit, a long sword at his waist and a calm expression on his face.

Beside him stood the other two Bone Tempering Realm experts. One was Attendant Zhou, a man in his sixties retained by the Li Family, thin and dry as bamboo, with an iron staff in his hand;

the other was a man from the county office. He wore a blue official robe and a constable's badge at his waist. Square-faced and thick-browed, he was in his forties and was said to have been a formidable fighter in his younger days.

The three were chatting and laughing.

"Guanyong. Brave in name alone." A faint smile hung on Li Chengzong's lips as he watched the mud house. He sounded as though he were judging a dish. "The poisoned bolts will wear him down soon enough."

Attendant Zhou nodded and tapped his iron staff lightly on the ground. "Young Master Li is right. Over a hundred men and more than a dozen crossbows, firing in turns. However fierce he is, how long can one man in the Bone-Forging Stage last? He's been wounded for over a month and still hasn't fully recovered. Today is the day he dies."

The man from the county office smiled too. "The credit for this is already bound to be Young Master Li's. I'll be fortunate to share in it."

The three exchanged smiles, as though they could already see their success.

Then Wang Guanyong came out.

The mud house's door burst open under a kick. Its panel flew thirty feet and smashed against the alley wall, splintering into scraps of wood.

A tall figure stepped out of the darkness, dressed in a ragged coarse-cloth garment, his hair disheveled and his face wounded.

He held a broad-bladed saber whose edge gleamed dark red.

The hand crossbows sounded together. Bowstrings snapped in a rattle dense as rain, and more than a dozen short bolts shrieked through the air toward Wang Guanyong.

Wang Guanyong did not dodge.

The bolts struck him with a series of metallic clangs.

Armor? No. He wore nothing underneath. The bolts pierced his flesh but went no deeper.

His muscles tightened like iron plates, trapping the three-edged heads after they sank only a fraction of an inch. But the poison still seeped in.

Wang Guanyong looked down at the bolts in his chest, pulled one out, and tossed it to the ground. Black blood oozed from the wound.

Then he raised his head, bared his teeth, and laughed.

He charged.

He moved twice as fast as they had expected. What did it mean for a Bone-Forging Stage martial artist to unleash his full strength? Li Zhiyi saw only an afterimage streak from the mud house's doorway. The next instant, Wang Guanyong was at the mouth of the alley.

The crossbows fired a second volley. Bolts chased his figure, striking walls, ground, and door panels. But he was too fast, like a tiger charging into a flock of sheep.

His saber flashed.

Three guards were cut in half at the waist. Their armor split like paper. Their upper bodies flew away while their lower bodies remained standing, and blood sprayed across the faces of the men beside them.

"Surround him! Surround him!"

The third volley flew. More bolts struck Wang Guanyong in the back, but he did not even slow down.

His movements only grew faster and fiercer.

His saber flashed through the crowd, taking one or two lives with every stroke. Armor could not stop it. The hand crossbows could not be reloaded in time. Before him, a martial artist in the Tendon-Vibrating Stage was no different from one in the Skin Tempering Realm.

Then Li Zhiyi saw the red glow.

An uncanny red light rose from Wang Guanyong's body, like a blood-colored mist seeping from his skin. It curled and coiled around him, seeming to absorb something—the blood all around him.

Blood flowing across the ground, blood spraying through the air, blood pouring from the corpses' wounds: all of it gathered toward him.

The brighter the red glow grew, the fiercer his presence became.

His steps, once somewhat unsteady, grew firm. His saber, once somewhat sluggish, grew faster.

The bolt wounds in his chest were closing. Black, poisoned blood was forced out and dripped onto the ground, giving off wisps of blue smoke.

"Demon Technique!"

The three Bone Tempering Realm experts shouted as one.

"Run!"

Li Chengzong turned to flee, but Wang Guanyong was faster.

He abandoned the small fry around him and lunged straight for the three of them. His saber flashed like a bolt of white silk as he slashed at Li Chengzong.

Li Chengzong drew his sword to block—clang!

The long sword snapped in two.

The blow sent him flying into a wall. The armor over his chest caved in, and he spat a mouthful of blood.

Attendant Zhou swept his iron staff across. Wang Guanyong neither dodged nor blocked, taking the strike on his shoulder.

Bone cracked, but Wang Guanyong did not so much as furrow his brow. He slashed back, and Attendant Zhou's right arm flew away with the iron staff still in its hand.

The man from the county office drew his blade and rushed in. His saberwork was sharp, and he thrust straight at Wang Guanyong's throat.

Wang Guanyong tilted his head. The blade grazed his neck, leaving a shallow line of blood.

Then he seized the county officer's blade. His five fingers tightened, bending the steel out of shape.

With the Tyrant Blade in his other hand, he swept across, and the county officer's head flew into the air.

Li Chengzong crawled up from the foot of the wall and tried to run again. Wang Guanyong caught him and planted a foot on his back. The snap of his spine was crisp and loud.

Li Chengzong lay facedown, blood welling from his mouth. His fingers clawed at the ground as he tried to crawl forward. Wang Guanyong bent and drove his saber into his back, straight through his heart.

All three Bone Tempering Realm experts were dead within a few dozen breaths.

Then Wang Guanyong turned around. The red glow around him burned brighter, like a blood-colored flame.

Saber in hand, he walked toward the fleeing guards. One stroke, one man. One stroke, another.

Some dropped to their knees and begged for mercy. Some played dead. Others threw down their weapons and squeezed into the alleys.

But Wang Guanyong's saber never stopped. Like a beast run wild, he wove through the crowd, harvesting lives.

Li Zhiyi ran.

He did not know how long he had been running or how far he had gone. Screams, the whistle of the saber, and the crack of breaking bones filled his ears.

His legs were turning weak and his lungs were burning, but he did not dare stop.

He darted through an alley, climbed over a low wall, fell to the ground, got up, and kept running.

The sounds behind him grew farther and fainter until only dead silence remained.

He collapsed against a wall and gasped for air, trembling all over. He looked down at himself. His armor was covered in blood, none of it his. He had no idea where he had dropped his hand crossbow.

A streak of Sword Qi tore through the air.

Unmatched in its ferocity, it carried the force to rend heaven and earth as it cut through the dusk and struck toward the north of the city.

Wang Guanyong looked up. The Sword Qi was already upon him. He raised his saber to block.

Clang—!

The saber broke in two.

The Sword Qi hurled him away as well. He smashed through an alley wall, brought down half a house, and tumbled into the wreckage.

Then he sprang out on all fours like a beast. Faster than before, he left a blurred shadow in the dusk.

He passed through the alleys, vaulted over the city wall, and vanished into the night beyond the city.