by Tao Wong
Upstairs, Wu Ying scrambled through the slowly closing floor, feeling the edge of his shoes nearly get caught. He grunted, shaking his head. For the supposed leader of this group, he seemed to be constantly stuck hurrying up after all his people.
Maybe that said something about him. And his leadership skills.
And maybe it just said something about his companions. Probably the latter.
Chapter 22
“We have a plan?” Bao Cong called as they eyed the still-closed entrance door.
“How do we plan for what we don’t know to expect?” Li Yao retorted. “We just have to deal with it when the doors open.”
Yin Xue grimaced, opening his mouth to object, but Wu Ying cut them all off. “We know that they are likely waiting for us. To ask questions, at the very least. Yin Xue, try to bluff them. If that fails, or if they try to attack or detain us, we fight. We make a run for the walls. If we have to, we jump.”
The group nodded at the quick, curt orders. For their differences, they’d spent a long enough time together that these orders made sense. Except for…
“Tou Hei?” Li Yao asked.
Wu Ying hesitated, thinking of the ex–monk’s predicament, the way he had waved them on. “Probably safer than us right now. He’ll meet up with us if he can. We just have to trust in him.”
Saying that hurt, but in his own way, Tou Hei was probably the most suitable individual to travel alone. For one thing, his disguise was not really a disguise. So long as no one stuck any BBQ demon beast sticks before him, he should be fine.
As if he was tired of listening to them talk, Yin Xue strode forward and slapped his hands on the doors. Unlike before, when Wu Ying and the others had tentatively tested it and the door had refused to budge, the doors swung open as if they weighed nothing at all. Another security feature.
What greeted them was what Wu Ying had feared. Seven groundskeepers, all of them holding their weapons, stared at the team. But worse of all, there were four cultivators, two of them dressed in the robes of the Six Jade Gates sect, the other two in colorful, nobleman’s silks. They all stood before groundskeeper Han, glaring at Yin Xue as he walked out.
“Which branch member are you? How dare you defy the family’s hierarchy? Stealing the cultivation manual when you do not deserve it! We’ll kill you, your parents, and all your uncles and brothers for this affront. We will take your sisters and your female relatives and make them our slaves,” the leading cultivator, dressed in the robes of the Six Jade Gates sect, shouted at Yin Xue. “Now bow down and kowtow[13] for forgiveness. Or else we will make sure to torture them all before we kill them.”
Yin Xue took another step forward, eyebrows creasing as he eyed the group. When he didn’t drop to his knees, the cultivators drew their weapons. The subtle signal Yin Xue sent made sure that the team knew not to take action just yet. He wanted them to wait.
Even so, Wu Ying could see that Bao Cong had drawn his bow, even though it was held low to the ground and hidden behind his body.
“My family?” Yin Xue ducked his head then suddenly drew his weapon, sending a shot of sword intent at the cultivators. It was not a powerful attack, spread out in a wide arc as it was, and it caught none of the main cultivators from the Wen family by surprise. But to Wu Ying’s surprise, two of the groundskeepers were injured by the surprise attack. “It’s the third branch.”
Unlike the showboating Yin Xue, the others did not stop to speak. Not when they attacked. Wu Ying drew and struck out, pulling energy from the Brilliant Woo Petal Bracer into his sword strike. Except he kept his attack much tighter, focused on the Wen family member on the far left. Li Yao conjured her spear, sending her chi into the weapon as she thrust forward. The suddenly elongated weapon of conjured ice—formed from around its tip and body—caught her opponent by surprise, shattering against his chi aura and leaving him bloody as he fell back. Bao Cong, rather than targeting the cultivators from the Wen family, shot his arrows at the groundskeepers.
“Don’t stop,” Wu Ying growled, using quick steps to cover the ground between him and his opponents.
The Wind Steps that he used let him cross the ground at almost a full run, while his sword sent weak attacks of sword intent as he expended his stored chi. It was nowhere as strong as an Energy Stage cultivator’s attacks, especially since he was moving so fast, but that wasn’t the point. It was meant to keep their opponents on the back foot.
The rush of attacks put the Wen family cultivators on the defensive for a moment, but they weathered the onslaught with ease, falling back but keeping their formation, allowing Wu Ying’s team to emerge from the mausoleum. Wu Ying and Yin Xue managed to stay at the forefront of the attack, protected and aided by Li Yao’s longer weapon.
As Wu Ying was about to take a step farther, Yin Xue called out a warning. “Stop. Illusionary formation.”
When the entire group hesitated, Yin Xue twisted his left hand and thrust forward, talismans appearing and shooting through the space before them, entering the formation itself. The yellow paper talismans seemed to bend as they flew, twisted by the formation, before exploding into pink flames. The flames warped and twisted in space, contained within the formation and marking the outlines of the trap that had been set.
Not to be outdone, Li Yao bounded off, swinging her weapon at one of the unhurt groundskeepers. She cut through his defense, breaking his sword and leaving his torso torn open, ice forming around the edges of his wound and fast expanding across his body.
“This way,” she exclaimed, pointing with her spear.
The group rushed after her, taking the momentary lull in battle and the distraction of the failed formation to escape. As they ran, Bao Cong retreated backward, firing his arrows. Each arrow shimmered and replicated itself, making it difficult for the cultivators who had escaped the flames to chase them.
“I said bluff!!” Wu Ying grumbled as they ran.
As they ducked among the graves, alarm bells rang, alerting not just the family members of the Wen household, but the entire city.
Yin Xue muttered as they ran, “Already forgetting who dug the well[14].”
***
Ducking around a carved tombstone, Wu Ying slapped a talisman on the back of the stone. It was the last defensive talisman in the set, and as he glanced around, he saw nods from the remainder of the team. He’d distributed the talismans as they’d run, then the group had split, throwing attacks to slow down their pursuers. Placement confirmed, Wu Ying whispered the activation word and sent a surge of chi into his talisman to activate the formation. It was the same one he had bought to bring the village home safely, but storing seed for spring did no good if you starved in the winter.
As he turned to run, Wu Ying caught the flicker of power that wrapped around the tombstones and the talismans. A wall of power enclosed the area, blocking off the direct route to the group even as they ran. It was not a big diversion, barely fifty feet in length, but it would force the cultivators to choose to destroy the formation or run around it. And destroying the formation would do the one thing they had avoided thus far—destroy the gravestones that anchored the formation.
It was one reason the group had managed to make it so far. The other reason was that the cultivators left behind were of the lowest cultivation level. Most of them were, at best, low Energy Storage stage, with the vast majority in the middle Body Refinement stage.
Wu Ying hopped over the next tombstone, continuing his headlong sprint down the hill as his friends regrouped around him. He kept casting glances backward, mentally reviewing the map he had created of the city. He shouted as he ran, husbanding his breath as best he could.
“We’ve got three blocks of residential houses before we reach the walls,” Wu Ying said. “We should make sure to stay close and don’t split up. If you do get lost, we meet at the horses. Get over the walls as far as you can.”
Wu Ying felt the lurch in the thread that connected him and the talismans, informing him that their pursuers ha
d managed to break through. He grimaced, casting a glance back, and noticed that they’d managed to add another hundred yards to their lead. Rather than just smash through as he’d expected, their pursuers had somehow managed to disrupt the formation without destroying the tombstones. It was quite possible they had an actual formation master among them, able to discern the issues with the hastily constructed talisman wall. In either case, Wu Ying’s group had gained enough distance to put them at the edge of the graveyard. Except…
The ward that had triggered when Yin Xue had first walked onto the graveyard came to life once more. It glowed a deep red, a shimmering wall that enclosed the entire hilltop and surroundings. If they could fly, they’d probably be able to reach the top of the forty-foot formation wall, but even if they’d had good qinggong skills, this was no rough wall to run up. This was pure energy, meaning they’d have to jump directly up to reach the top. Only someone at the Core Cultivation level or maybe the late Energy Storage stage would be able to do that.
“Hun dan!” Li Yao swore as she spotted the impediment. She held her spear down at her side, infusing the spearhead with her chi as she got ready to pierce the formation.
“Bao Cong, keep them busy,” Wu Ying ordered, falling in line beside Li Yao. He held his sword down near his hip, sword pointed at the formation as he readied himself. “Yin Xue and I will hit the formation before Li Yao. We’ll weaken the formation first. On my mark.”
Yin Xue grunted, raising his sword to his forehead and placing a pair of fingers on the edge of the sword. In silence, the pair focused, drawing their power into their weapons before, at Wu Ying’s signal, letting out a shout in unison. The bolts of chi and sword intent flew forward as Wu Ying’s count bottomed out, striking the rippling wall of the formation and creating a burst of rainbow light. The explosion of energy rippled, making the wall vibrate, but it did not give way.
Li Yao was right behind them. Even as they struck, she planted her feet into the ground as she formed a single line with her weapon, putting all her intent, all her energy into a single focused point. The blade flew between the rapidly moving forms of the pair, so close that Wu Ying felt a deep chill along his back and side as the ice-coated weapon flew by him. The spearhead struck the formation, and for second, it seemed as if the wall would hold. But with a screaming screech, the tip pierced through.
It was enough.
Most formations could fail when too much energy was sent into them. The larger the formation, the weaker they were, as they had to spread their energy across the entire area. Overburdened, the formation was unable to keep its integrity, and lines of energy, freed from their constrained locations by the formation, rippled outward. Like the crumpling of the thinnest metal, the formation released a screeching wail that set hairs on end and teeth on edge. With a burst of light and energy, the formation shattered. Smaller displays of rainbow light and noise erupted from concentrated locations around the graveyard, the anchor points for the formation.
“I think we broke something,” Wu Ying said with a slight grin.
With a wave, he directed everyone to run again, calling out to Bao Cong as well. As Wu Ying looked back, he noticed that the area behind them was filled with arrows, their assailants hiding behind tombstones. All but one, his body skewered with a trio of arrows.
For all that, cowering or not, their assailants kept creeping forward, cutting down the distance between them. Once he knew Bao Cong was ready to leave, Wu Ying took off as well. Spotting Yin Xue ducking into an alley, he headed in that direction, only to have his attention drawn to the clatter of footsteps as a group of guards ran out from another street corner. They hesitated for moments, pointing their spears at the cultivators before charging.
“Gan[15]! More of them.”
***
Yin Xue cut his way through his opponent, his sword catching the man high in the throat and carrying body and head backward as Yin Xue rushed down the narrow alleyway that their opponents blocked. Another guard, hidden behind his shield, was blown back by Li Yao’s strike with the butt of her spear, crashing into his friends and knocking them all to the ground. Wu Ying followed her rushing figure, swinging his sword as he ran past the group of fallen enemies, cutting wrists, necks, and ankle tendons to cripple and kill them. Bao Cong, in the back, lurched over their fallen opponents, ducking to snatch up a crossbow that had fallen. He spun, triggered his chi, and released the bolt. The metal within the crossbow head replicated and filled the air behind them with sharp needles of energy.
Their pursuers ducked and covered behind shields. Some of them were too slow to hide, falling to the attack. The attack cost Bao Cong though, as the blacksmith staggered, his face pale as he drew upon his already overdrawn dantian. Wu Ying grabbed the back of Bao Cong’s robes, dragging him away from the recovering soldiers, not allowing him to fall.
As Bao Cong let the crossbow drop from his hands, Wu Ying snapped, “Rest. We will need you at the walls.”
“But the pursuers…”
“I’ll deal with them. Just run!” Wu Ying commanded.
As they ran across the busy street they’d exited into, Wu Ying grabbed at a nearby empty stall, pulling the wooden contraption to the ground behind them. It would offer little impediment to strong cultivators, but they were mostly being chased by the militia and a few soldiers from the army. One advantage of the large number of people chasing them and the narrow alleys they kept ducking into—their pursuers were getting in each other’s way.
The three blocks they had to cross turned into seven as they ducked in and out of alleys, backtracking at times rather than take on full platoons. Wu Ying swore more than once, but being at the back of the group, he could only trust that Yin Xue and Li Yao knew what they were doing.
As Wu Ying ran, he heard a shout, one that reached all the way across the blocks to his ears. At the voiceless shout, a chill of premonition ran through him. He turned, never stopping as he pulled Bao Cong along. On one end of the street, strolling forward, his giant sword over his arm, the armored form of the cultivator who had held the wall approached. Wu Ying’s eyes grew wide as the man lowered his hand and sword, pointing it straight at Wu Ying.
When he noticed that Wu Ying was looking, he spoke, his voice so loud that it rattled the windows and made the stones on the ground tremble. “You can run. But we’ll find you, you little rat.”
The loud, almost joyful and insane, voice rang through the streets, chasing Wu Ying and Bao Cong as they ducked into the next alleyway. They pushed through only to find that this one ended not in another street but in a dead-end.
Rather than stop, Li Yao focused her chi in the tip of the spear again and lunged forward. Her attack created a shell of ice around her, one that protected her body as she smashed into the wall and shattered it into pieces. Yin Xue followed her, bouncing past her still form as she recovered to keep running. Another crash, this time of a door being thrust open, echoed toward Wu Ying and Bao Cong. They entered the living room of a peasant house, the front door swinging on one broken hinge as Yin Xue clashed with unseen foes in the street ahead. Wu Ying noted a pair of mortals as he twisted around, intent on throwing another blade strike down the alleyway.
“Get out!” Wu Ying shouted at the civilians, the little girl and her brother screaming. A loud, distressing creak originated from above his head, making Wu Ying glance at the wobbling ceiling. “Now.”
Then he had no more time. The first of the guards came rushing in, thrusting with his polearm. Wu Ying blocked, gripped the edge of the weapon behind its sharp knife-head, and pulled, punching the guard of his jian into the man’s face. The attack laid out his opponent on the ground, blocking the entrance. The next few moments were a hectic battle as Wu Ying blocked and cut, doing his best to stall the attackers in the entranceway. All the while, dust from the compromised ceiling fell around him.
For all his skill, eventually Wu Ying fell back. One too many spears were shoved at him, forcing Wu Ying to back off. As he did so, he fli
cked his gaze at the corner where the children had been. Once he noted their absence, he struck upward. He only needed to use a little bit of his chi, focused through his sword intent. Lines of sharp power scored against the ceiling, weakening already compromised joints. His enemies spotted his intentions only seconds before the roof gave way.
Throwing himself backward, Wu Ying tapped the ground with his feet as he floated out the doorway even as the ceiling fell, blocking the entrance Li Yao had created. As the dust and smoke from the collapsed building exploded around him, cloaking his body in the remnants of the home, Wu Ying could only hope that the kids really were out of the house. He had no time to check.
He turned and ran, intent on catching up with his friends before he spotted the city wall. Finally.
There was about thirty feet of clear ground between him and the wall, an area that was fast filling with soldiers. As if they had known where the Green Waters Sect members had planned to go, the army of Wei had sent their men to line the wall. Wu Ying’s friends had stopped, resting for a second in an impromptu stand-off. Wu Ying hurried to them, and once they noted his presence, Li Yao offered him a nod.
Together, the group surged forward another ten feet, smashing into the wall of soldiers. They managed to gain a few feet, even against the wall of fighters, before they stalled. The cultivators pushed, inching closer to the staircase that led up the wall. But then the pressure between the attackers stymied their advance, forcing them to hold their ground as they fought desperately to move ahead. Spears lashed out from behind walls of shields, daos cut down and sideways at the cultivators as they fought.
“We can’t stay here,” Wu Ying snarled, catching another blade high on his own and responding.
His attack drew a line across his opponent’s forehead, splashing blood down on his eyes and blinding him. His opponent staggered back, yanked aside and replaced by another, creating a brief moment of respite.
