The shadows lengthened with the setting sun. Then they consumed the mercenary cultivators.

“You are only level six. You are doing something weird to your breath, but I can still tell. You are just a goddamn level six junior!” The spearman’s voice came slow but gathered momentum as he spoke.

Tian sighed silently behind the straw helmet. The old men had made their choice.

“True.”

“That wasn’t some divine art you used either. You distracted us and used a hidden weapon!” The spearman snarled, fear turning to fury.

“Also true.”

“Old White Fan killed with a hidden weapon. The gods must be laughing.” The sword and shield cultivator shook his head, but he had his shield up. He started shifting to the side, making ready to pincer Tian.

“This Monk wouldn’t know, Benefactor.”

“Tell you what, monk. I’ll give you a gift. A chance to meet the gods yourself!” The spearman roared and charged forward. The spearhead twisting and diving for him. Tian threw his staff at the old man, who batted it aside with contempt, not interrupting his rhythm of attacks.

“An art carrying aspects of Metal and Water. Not special, but well honed. He’s spent his life fighting.” Tian stepped into the spearman’s attack. His palms met the shaft of the spear and guided it away from his body. The spearman recovered and thrust again and again, but each time it was deflected.

The old man had lived through many calamities. Tian was sure of that. He had spent decades making his way in the brutal world of the rivers and lakes. Perhaps he had even made a name for himself.

Tian could read him like an open book. Decades of experience, and they wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Tian slapped the spearpoint down into the flagstones and stomped on the head. His palm flashed out and struck at the man’s chest. The old monster was quick enough to twist his body away, shedding some of the blow. He dropped the spear and staggered backwards coughing blood and desperately pouring a powder down his throat.

Tian felt a rush coming from behind him, forcing him to dodge and miss the finishing blow.

“OLD SPEAR!” The other mercenary came charging in, trying to slam Tian with his shield. The sword was low, ready to stab.

“Sin Breaking Palm! He knows the-” The rest was lost as the old man vomited more blood. Chunks of something sold came out with all the red.

The swordsman placed himself between Tian and the puking spearman. “Any more surprises, Monk? Any more little tricks? Come, show your grandfather all you’ve got!”

Tian looked coldly at the swordsman. Tian had one father and one grandfather. This… person… was not fit to join them. Tian moved in with an explosive lunge, then cut over towards the mercenary’s sword hand.

His brothers had trained him well. Shields were still powerful weapons at the Earthly Realm. How irresponsible would it be to not know how to manage a fight against a shielded enemy?

“Fool!” The mercenary stabbed at Tian, jabbing at his gut. It wasn’t an art. It didn’t have to be. Endlessly trained muscle coiled behind the blade which exploded forward in a tight, lighting quick line. The shield was up and extended away from the swordman’s body, blocking Tian’s vision while letting the man stab accurately.

The mercenary’s strike was seamless. Attack and defense perfectly combined. Better than that, it was what Tian’s sparring partners had taught him- at the highest levels of mastery, attack and defense were the same thing. This mercenary would have earned approving nods from them, Tian was sure of it.

Only nods, though. The swordsman might have a small name amongst wandering cultivators, but that was it.

The brothers who trained Tian were legends. The strike was perfect. And missed.

The arts flowed from Tian effortlessly. Light Body, for a single step to the side of the shield, and a light hop into the air. The shield was a large oval with an iron boss in the center. There was a luster to the wood that said it wasn’t some ordinary goods. That was fine. Even better, really.

Tian tightened his legs under him, and as he started falling, lashed out with a kick to the top edge of the shield. Leverage did its nasty work. The top edge of the shield smashed down on the swordman’s forehead, wrenching the shield hand in the process. Tian used the momentary contact with the shield to flip and drive a heel kick down on the head of the stunned swordsman.

The mercenary staggered back, not dead yet but feeling the damp of the Yellow Springs on his feet. Glassy eyes that struggled to focus quickly filled with blood as his forehead bled where the shield edge cut it.

“Old Sword, hang on!” The spearman was back in the fight, his eyes wide and his breath panting. Tian could smell drugs. Not some alchemist pill, but the refinement of an apothecary. Something to numb the pain and give him energy.

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The spearman was giving it his all, burning his chemical strength bright and hard. He came in a storm of stabs, trying to force Tian away from the swordsman. The spear attacked high and low. Everything was a target, and every lunge was followed by a lightning quick recovery. Tian dodged and circled around the swordman, who was desperately trying to wipe the blood from his eyes.

The spearman saw what he was doing. Tian was using the swordsman as a shield. He could wait for the chemical fires propelling the spearman to burn out.

“Evil Monk! Taste my supreme art- Whitewater Hell!” The spearman gathered the metal and water vital energy within him, infusing his body and empowering his art. The spear shot forward, seemingly everywhere in front of Tian, yet nowhere. Impossible to block. Impossible to dodge. A consuming rapid that would drown an enemy with a single spear. Theoretically.

“That qualifies as a supreme technique? Then what does that make this?” Tian switched back to Light Body Heavy Hands. Two flashing steps put him behind the swordsman again. One hard kick in the back drove the swordsman into the path of the spear.

The shield did its job. It blocked some of the blows. The man using the shield, however, didn’t block properly. There was a frozen moment. The spearman stared in horror at the point where his spear shaft vanished into his comrade’s heart. Then Tian shot out from the spearman’s blindspot and smashed a palm into the old man’s head.

A level nine mercenary is made of sterner stuff than a mortal. The old expert died with an intact corpse, joined even in death with his swordsman comrade.

The courtyard returned to silence. Tian could feel eyes on him. No matter. He wanted them to see.

The wandering monk was covered with gore. His steps left bloody footprints on the flagstones, refreshed by what spilled out of the swordman’s heart. Not a drop of it was his.

“Three months ago, I couldn’t have survived against even one of these ‘experts.’ But now? Now they move like sleepy birds. Their flow of vital energy is so obvious. Their use of the elements is so painfully crude. It’s like they hand me a polite note with their intentions before they make a move. Their cultivation counts for nothing if they can’t bring the force to bear. And… it had never occurred to me before, but it’s clear that different cultivation arts produce different densities and purities of vital energy in a body. My level six is clearly far, far different than what theirs was.”

He picked up his staff and walked over to the man with the fan. Tian had spotted a fellow hidden weapon user the second he appeared. It’s why Tian killed him first. Hidden weapons lost a lot of effectiveness in a head on fight, but supporting the other two mercenaries? This fight might have taken a very different turn.

Tian rested his palm on the dying man’s forehead. A short pulse of vital energy, and the brain was obliterated. He invisibly collected his dart into his ring at the same time. Anyone watching would have seen that he flung out his hand at the start of the battle and drawn the same conclusions as the spearman. They would be on guard against it. Which meant they would be more cautious and unwilling to press an attack too far.

Tian straightened his wretched robes, and pulled out the rosary. “On, Ran, Cho, Sa, Ni, Re, Hu, Vo, Ti, Lu, Xha…” He let his vital energy infuse the sounds, reaching for the elements they inspired in him. His stick sounded very loud as it tapped on the paving stones, as he walked towards the front door.

Fear makes people do stupid things. It makes them freeze and it makes them run. It weakens their muscles and causes them to hyperfocus, ironically making them miss things. He had been hunted often enough to know exactly what it was like. So he chanted, and walked on.

He wouldn’t have guessed that it wasn’t the chanting, the blood, the hidden weapon or his dreadful skills that twisted the guts of the watchers and choked the air from their lungs. It was the fact that he never once glanced at the exquisite weapons left scattered on the ground or collected a single storage ring.

Rags for robes. Shoes falling off his feet. A straw helmet that looked like it was fished out of a midden. A wooden staff that was plainly nothing more than a broken broom, and a rosary made from the white bones of the slain. He wasn’t an immortal cultivator in disguise. He simply couldn’t be. His words, his thoughts, his actions, all screamed that he was the most brutal and rigid of ascetic monks.

He would kill the heretic, and he would kill anyone that got in his way. Even if it killed him. Even if it started a war.

Someone threw a chair through a second story window and jumped out, slamming onto the flagstones on the side of the manor and scrambling away on broken feet and bruised hands. Others followed. Some lowered curtains and slid down them, praying their knots held. Others bolted for the back door, piling up, crushing each other as they desperately fought to escape what was coming. The liveried staff of the manor, the strictly trained guards, the merchants and accountants that had huddled together in the safest place they knew, all fled directly out the back. Into the waiting arms of Hong’s ambush.

Tian could feel Sister Liren race through the manor like a house fire. The front door opened with a touch. No one had seen any use in locking it. He found the stairs, and walked towards the last strange breath of qi he felt. The person was only level five. Sister Liren would handle him instantly.

But she didn’t. Tian frowned and kept walking. He reached the top floor, and found the door that had been kicked in.

It was a lavishly appointed study. There was a tiger on a mountain carved from green jade. A delicate screen of laughing wine immortals carved from some rare wood. Fine steel blades decorated with ivory handles and the horns of stranger beasts that could not be so easily named. The vases looked antique, though that word was a little meaningless for cultivators. The paintings hanging on the wall were so fine, even Tian’s uneducated eyes could appreciate the beauty and grace of the brushstrokes drawing out the charm of mountains and forests.

A beautiful room. Standing in the corner of the beautiful room was a haggard man. His robes were lustrous silk, embroidered with thousands of tiny stitches. Golden hairpins held his bun in place, catching the flickering lamplight with the rubies set in them. Yet he looked wretched.

The man was sweating. Droplets the size of beans tumbled down his face. His eyes rolled in their sockets, trying to see something, anything that would let him escape. Held before him was a little girl. Tian didn’t know how young she was. Young enough that the man could hold her in front of his chest like a shield. One hand gripped her robes so tightly, she struggled to breathe. The other pressed a long demon claw to her throat. The barest hint of pressure, and the cursed weapon would destroy the child.

Hong stood between the heretic and the door, her spear raised, ready to end the heretic once there was the slightest chance she could do so without killing the child.

“Ahah! There is a way out. There is always a way out! You! Monk! Madman! You want to save the world? You want to save the innocent? Kill the daoist! Kill her, and swear you will let me leave unharmed. NO! Escort me from the city. That’s right. Kill her, and take me to the nomad encampment. Then I will release this little beauty. You hear me? You hear me? Kill the daoist, or I rip her soul away and give the Heavenly Demon a last meal before I join him!”