U-upper... upper two realms.
The thought sent ice through his heart and lungs. Before his body could react, a howling blur of a scabbard slammed into him. His body flew off the ground; amid a tremendous crash, the door shattered and pillars snapped. Agonizing pain, as though his back had broken, made his vision swim. Only after he collapsed limply onto the ground did he discover that his wrist had been broken.
The other man let out a roar that might have been terror or fury, but the next instant, the long saber taken from the first man pierced his abdomen, carrying him backward and pinning him to the wooden signpost.
Pei Ye withdrew his hand and kept walking forward.
In little more than ten breaths, a tumult of figures poured out along the entire street, cold light flashing in every hand: daggers, axes, hammers... but mostly sabers and swords. Pei Ye did not slow in the slightest. He merely drew his longsword in silence, its bright, lustrous blade passing through the rain as though forged from the rain itself.
"Whose young whelp are you, daring to stroke Taiping Canal's tiger whiskers?" A middle-aged swordsman rested a hand on his sword and lowered his eyes. The rain parted around him too. "The three Dragon Heads are right-"
The boy swept up to him. In an instant, the four gang members arrayed before him lost their weapons along with their hands. The middle-aged swordsman's pupils contracted as he drew his sword. A thrust, graceful as a startled swan, touched toward his throat from an inconceivable angle. He brought his longsword around, true qi circling into a vortex that disrupted the incoming stroke. But the next instant, dazzling fire seemed to scrape out of the air along that blade. His true qi