The old man was shocked and furious. He drew his saber with a backhand motion to meet the attack, but his opponent was far faster.
Suddenly, fierce pain tore through his left arm. Something sharp ripped open his sleeve, leaving two wounds in his upper arm deep enough to expose bone.
He gave a muffled grunt, veins throbbing at his temples. His saber flashed and twisted through the air as he tried to force the figure back.
The brown-clad attacker advanced instead of retreating.
A cloud of white mist burst in his face. The old man whirled his saber like the wind to protect his vital points, its blade slicing through the mist with a rushing hiss.
The mist dispersed swiftly. By the time he could see again, he felt a chill in his chest.
A gleaming blade tip had pierced straight through the center of his chest, clean and decisive.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Like Jia Dewang, he toppled stiffly into the withered grass.
The youth finally came to his senses. In the flash of a spark, his companion had fallen beside the boulder, his normally imposing leader lay faceup in a pool of blood, and the brown-clad attacker was pulling a short blade from the corpse and slowly turning around.
The last sliver of evening light fell squarely across that face.
The youth's eyes widened, and his breath abruptly caught.
"S-Senior Sister Yun?"
Yun Ying's blade paused.
She recognized the youth before her. In those sunless days on Unknown Island, he had endured the trials of life and death alongside her, suffered lashes with her on the punishment platform, and listened with her to the tides deep in the night.
Back then, they had all believed they would never leave that hellish island