Deng Ming helped the only way he knew how; by using his brain. The crush of civilians were just running through the streets, now, and it was his job to, with a bird’s eye view, herd them towards the inner district without letting them run towards dead ends. The Monk was doing the same, leading those astray towards the right path, his teachings making him the ultimate hero.

The guards were being absolutely decimated. After all, none of the guards were Martial Warriors the same way the invading force were. For every ten guards, one combatant died, and the enemy had no shortage of combatants.

Then, he saw her. She stood on a rooftop, a bag on her backpack, running with a preternatural speed towards the horde of invading Jianghu combatants. “Wait!” Deng Ming yelled as she passed by. She did not halt, diving straight into the fray, without even lightening herself. Instead of breaking bones, however, she began to break others bones. She fought with an impossible ferocity, her movements compact and straight-to-the-point, but still punishing, shredding grown men to pieces.

She fought men with weapons, but she did not need one, as her body was already a weapon. Deng Ming did his best to tear his eyes away from the spectacle, as it wasted time where more people could be rescued. He focused back to the crowds. The Monk had picked up his slack, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once. The Scholar decided to relieve him.

000

Han Yu Jie had torn her way through the Wushu Woods, battling against the strongest Jianghu of the area. She knew that they weren’t the best that the whole faction had to offer, but it still elated her that she had come so far. The mental realization of letting go of the normal world had somehow made her progress through the Martial Path in a single month what regular people would have taken years to.

Mentor called it an Internal Demon, a major roadblock towards cultivation. To have one is highly disadvantageous, and most people would go their whole life not realizing that their lack of progress was not due to lack of talent, but due to an internal barrier in their mind preventing them from truly soaring, like a bird never flying because they are afraid of falling.

By letting go, she had exorcised her Internal Demon, and her progress had skyrocketed. The final guardian of the Wushu Woods had, after much battle, fallen before her, and now, she had been ready to take the world by storm, stopping at Jixing City.

Then, chaos broke loose.

She had not hesitated for even a single second to unwrap her spear and slash through the combatants with ease, cutting off heads, amputating limbs and spearing hearts like she was cutting grass, all the while banishing her emotions as she focused on the fight alone.

Three men arrived, of a modicum of skill, and she decided on an overhead strike, turning it into a feint in the last moment, spearing one through the heart. With a tug, she sliced through the man’s chest, and cut another man’s throat. The last man jumped back, saving his life, but the loss of balance had him tumbling on the ground.

Han Yu Jie ended his life before he could even stop rolling. Taking her eyes off the battle for just a moment, she noticed a huge Guan Dao swinging about, the spine of its blade adorned with nine rings. The chiming of each swing heralded new death. The bearer of the weapon did not display consummate skill, but fought like it was a war, speed and strength in spades, just doing his job.

There was something familiar about him, though, but there was no time to think too deeply about it, else risk coming out of her battle trance.

Having cleared the streets around her, she saw another young warrior, a beauty which almost made her heart throb. A warrior had managed to sneak up on her flank, and with three warriors at her front, her chances looked bleak.

Han Yu Jie arrived in a timely fashion, spearing the man through his neck. She dodged the spray of blood almost like second nature as the beauty finished up on ripping her assailants to shreds. She turned to face Han Yu Jie and gave a grateful nod before going back into the thick of it.

“Wait!” Han Yu Jie shouted. She did, turning around for only a moment, her intense, lustrous onyx eyes boring into her own. “I’ll cover your flank so you can cut loose.”

She nodded once more and turned back into the fray. Han Yu Jie made good on her promise, spearing any and all opportunistic bastard who dared hurt the valiant warrior.

000

I had no idea what her deal was. I hope I didn’t frighten her, what with my blood-covered everywhere. After all, she seemed like a good person. She did save my life. It was a good idea, wearing red and black. The blood-stains weren’t nearly as visible, except for on my still-painted pale skin.

I may really have looked the part of a demon, now. After all, I had completely let loose the library of anger. The fucking things that it did to my Chi was… no less than amazing. It wasn’t exactly the State of Wu, since hyper-clarity didn’t come, but it was like the world was suddenly reduced to a single tiny keyhole giving me the view of an enemy, and the overwhelming wish to strike that enemy down as soon as possible.

I faltered, of course, dodging debilitating strikes by mere margins, but I adapted, made my style less ‘brittle’ as Mentor would have called it, making it more flexible, and forcing myself to learn from my mistakes and increase the efficiency of my attacks.

I still had much to learn about Martial Arts, which I was still slowly realizing, and that meant the fucking basics. I couldn’t ask Mentor to teach me Chi skills before even mastering the basics. That was like trying to read the classics while only knowing one thousand symbols.

Again, I came to appreciate Mentor’s teachings more, trusting her with my future more and more. So far, she hadn’t led me astray once.

I heard the death throes of a combatant behind me, a spear poking through his heart as his saber stood raised above my head. I gave a nod to the helpful spearwoman and proceeded to cut completely loose like she had advised. It really was easier to fight without having to worry about combatants sneaking up behind you.

I vowed to thank her properly after it was all over. Maybe ten gold. Hell, a hundred would be more like it. She had saved my life twice already, and it wasn’t like I was short on money to throw around.

Then again… it was Mentor’s money.

Yeah… I should probably not spend that money beyond the bare necessities.

Again, the white-clad woman saved my life. I would honestly have heard most of these tryhards, but the buzzing in my ear made it difficult to plot my direction past the people directly in front of me.

My anger was working against me.

Dammit, this wasn’t working. I’ve lost count on all the idiots I’ve killed, but they keep coming, on and on and on, and I was beginning to get tired.

I turned to the girl covering me and gave her a grateful nod. “I’m going to find someone worth killing,” after all, this was an invasion force. Common sense dictated that there would be a commander somewhere, a commander whom I could challenge.

“Good idea,” she said. “I’ll find someone, too,” she turned to look at the guy a couple streets over waving his giant ringed saber pole arm. “Besides, that guy’s got us covered on the street-level.”

I scaled a house quickly and proceeded towards the outer wall of the city where most of the strike-force still stood. I scaled the wall easily and appeared on top. Behind the crenellations of the wall, two youths stood, analyzing the situation calmly, but their lack of armour led me to believe that they weren’t combatants.

They turned to me the moment I appeared. The thinner one looked at me flatly. “You’ve seen your share of battle,” he commented, no doubt noticing my blood-covered self.

“Where is the commander?” I asked, looking over the army.

“Big fat guy with red hair,” ironically, it was the fat one that said that. “What, you wanna take him on?”

The skies darkened, as if the Heavens sensed the anguish of the people beneath it. “Yes,” I said. “He’s breaking the rules, and it’s the only way to get all the idiots to scatter. The eighteenth of the thirty-six stratagems: Defeat the enemy by capturing their chief.”

They both nodded. Fat guy spoke first. “Well, we were thinking about doing that, you know, but he’s got two lieutenants. If you take out fatso, we’ll be on his lieutenants.”

The thinner one wasn’t convinced. “You think the army will just stand still and let us take out their command? Who’ll hold them off?”

“I will,” the spearwoman said, twirling the pole weapon rapidly. “You focus on cutting off the head of this invasion force. I will aid.” She turned to me. “You will take out the leader, right?”

I nodded. She smiled a little, prettily, distracting. Stop it. This is war. “I’m counting on you all to not fuck up.” With that, I jumped over the battlements and ran for dear life.

The bastard fatass red-head sat on his throne on a platform carried by four other warriors.

I would end him.

000

She was way too intense, Lin Leng thought as he jumped after her, lightening himself to avoid damaging himself. She had literally just jumped off the battlements without any hesitation, utilized minimal lightening before crashing into the earth, continuing her pursuit completely unimpeded, like she hadn’t just risked shattering every bone on her lower body.

He made his way to one of the commander’s lieutenants, dodging and weaving past ineffectual attack after attack before finally appearing before the first lieutenant, a youth with long, brown, hair styled in many thin braids, a black tang suit, conniving eyes and a staff strapped to his back.

He pulled out the staff and assumed a stance just as Lin Leng removed a pair of daggers strapped to his back. This would have to be quick, as his Chi stores were still for shit.

“Hey, buddy,” the staffman grinned. “Mind telling me your name?”

“Lin Leng,” he simply said.

“My name is-“ Before he could finish, he was forced to parry the two daggers that were aimed for his head with the middle of his staff. Despite the fact that he had Sharpened the edges with his Chi, and that the staff was made of wood, it still did not manage to even cut a shallow furrow across it. Hardening. And he was good at it.

Lin Leng dislodged from the guy and subtly reached for Enlightenment to refill his stores. It wasn’t as efficient as sitting down to meditate, but every single erg counted in a battle like this.

“Whohooohahahaha!” His opponent cackled. “Wow, you’re a rude one, aintcha?! You don’t wanna hear the name of the guy that’s gonna lay your ass out?”

“It wouldn’t matter if I did,” he replied. “It’s not like knowing the name of my killer gets me somewhere in the afterlife.”

“You know, I think I like you,” he grinned. “You don’t actually have to fight us. If you join us now, we’ll probably forget all about the guys you killed. Sounds fair?”

Leng sighed. “Man, I’m only here for a fight.” The prospect of testing his skills had, at first, seemed too much of a hassle, but now that the opportunity was right before him, he felt it a waste not to capitalize.

“Well said, asshole.”

They collided again in a clang of steel on wood.

000

Wei Chow planted his feet on the ground ten yards in front of the second lieutenant, a middle-aged man with a black set of armour, hair in a traditional pony-tail, and immaculately styled facial hair. The scowl on his face seemed like a permanent fixture, just the way he was.

“I am Wei Chow,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

The lieutenant, saber in hand, appeared before him in a swift spring, intent on lopping Chow’s head off. He blocked with his forearm, focused his intention, and the saber bounced back in a wave of force.

The lieutenant flipped backwards in case Chow had pressed the advantage, but he hadn’t, merely presenting a show of force. “Absolute Deflection?”

Chow scoffed. “If you want to fight, bust out your moves and we’ll fight, but don’t play around with me. I’m not a gentle playmate.” He stomped the ground once, and the earth around him erupted.

“Earth,” the lieutenant muttered. “Blessed by Earth. Any reason why you defend this backwater city, then, o’ Earth-blessed Warrior?”

“Do I need a reason to stop savage murderers from invading a city and killing its inhabitants?” He asked with contempt.

“It is the way of war,” the lieutenant said. “There is no avoiding it. You are, however, on the wrong side of history. If you wish to be immortalized, then simply join us.”

“Shut up and fight, you mongrel,” Wei Chow spat.

The lieutenant bristled. “My name is-“

“I don’t care,” Wei Chow said, walking towards the man slowly, but surely. “We will never agree. Fight me.”

The man shook his head contemptuously. “For the world to lose a young talent… it is, indeed, unfortunate, but talents are as plentiful as blades of grass in a field. You are not special. Prepare to die.”

The lieutenant ran towards him, saber in hand, before faltering minutely, but he still managed to reach Wei Chow. The saber he swung was now Sharpened and Hardened, capable of blowing through any old Deflection. Wei Chow stepped aside, deflecting it laterally instead of absolutely. He then directed a powerful, but telegraphed punch at the lieutenant, who avoided it easily by stepping back.

Then his chest almost caved in at an unseen force. He coughed blood, barely stopping himself from falling on his knee. “How did-“

“The Earth holds many mysteries that even the most accomplished scholar knows fuck-all about,” he explained, a devilish smirk on his face. “For example, what do you think drags you down to the ground? That unseen force that you have to lighten yourself to avoid? Moreover, where do you think it comes from?”

The lieutenant tried to keep upright, but was slowly beginning to buckle at his increasingly heavy body, going light-headed at the strain required to keep himself standing.

“It comes from the Earth,” Wei Chow revealed. “Now, why don’t you take a knee? You look tired, old lieutenant.” He reached the lieutenant, who had already dropped his saber, the weapon digging an inch-deep trench into the ground with its outline. He patted the lieutenant’s head gently, forcing it down. Unable to handle the strain, he fell on his knees. “What was it you said, again? Prepare to die?”

He patted both the man’s cheeks and leaned forward, looking straight into the eyes of the helpless man, though he could see no fear. A true warrior til the end. Wei Chow pressed his head together until he heard something break, and then let go.

The man fell on his back in a near-instant, the force causing his head to splatter against the earth.

Wei Chow turned towards the army that was still being held off by the spearwoman, only by the barest of margins. She could use some help.

000

“You’ve got grit, girl, I’ll give you that,” the tall man said. He was at least eight feet of pure muscle and fat, a brawler that I couldn’t see actually defeating with raw strength alone. “If you give up, now, I might just spare your life. If you don’t…” Suddenly, it started getting hot. “I won’t just kill you. I will literally let every single one of my men have a turn with you, and once that’s over, I’ll break your spirit utterly, smash it into pieces until you become my slave, and when I get tired of you, I’ll just toss you into a pit of dogs and let them rip you apart.”

The more he spoke, the more things he threatened me with, the more I knew that I was going to have fun killing this walking piece of shit.

I launched towards him, intent on ending it in one exchange.

I barely saw his hands moving. He just swatted me out of the air like killing a fly. I was sent rolling dozens of meters, before throwing myself into a standing position. My arm wasn’t fractured, but I was definitely sporting some nasty bruises.

“Is that all?” He asked. “You’ve run roughshod for long enough, little girl. It’s time somebody teaches you a lesson.”

There was a light trickle now as the big man strode towards me. “Know that it was the Dragon of the East that subjugated you.”

Yeah, right.

Then it came. Too fast to dodge, too powerful to stop a fist the size of my head came crashing into my stomach, breaking bones, and rupturing organs.

I rolled on the ground again, but did not get up, struggling to throw up all the blood in my mouth. The rain was beginning to intensify.

“I’ve changed my mind,” the man said. “I won’t humiliate you like that. After all, you are a capable warrior, the way you survived my Dragon Crush strike. I will just kill you right here, but not before I impress upon you why it is unwise to anger the dragon.”

“Fuck you,” I spat out, my vision swimming. He came closer and closer to me until he was right above me. I tried to get up, but found that I couldn’t. My whole body was screaming at me to just lay down, to accept my death.

I couldn’t accept that. I coul-

He stepped on my shin, crushing it underneath his prodigious weight. I grunted in pain. Shit.

“Oh? No screaming?” ‘Dragon’ was grinning. “You really are a special one. Actually, I’ve changed my mind again. Be my disciple.”

“Fuck no,” I said, chuckling lightly. “I already… have one… and she could… make you look… like a mole cricket.”

He stepped on my other leg, pulverizing bone and lacerating muscle. I bit my lip at the pain. I really was going to die, here. “You gonna… make me beg… for death?” I asked. I tried to laugh, but it came out ugly and harsh. “We could do this all… day.”

He went for my arms this time, the hateful bastard. I tried not to look at the mess of meat and bone, the forearm bones poking through my skin like a knife that penetrated its sheathe. Then, the other arm. All the while, I bit back my grunts and let the agony radiate through me, run its course, and divert the anger into the library.

“You bitch,” he swore, spittle flying out of his mouth, clearly not entertained by his ineffectual torturing method.

While he fumed, I looked around, just to see if anyone could save me. I couldn’t see the other three past the crush of combatants battling them, but they clearly did not have time for me.

I wasn’t bitter.

The rain began to fall even harder, now, almost drowning me as I made to spit the water out or drink it.

The Dragon, finally done with his tantrum, held his fist high, preparing to crush me underneath it.

This wasn’t the end. It absolutely could not be. My Mentor counted on me, after all. And so, I was not afraid.

The moment his fist came down, I charged up my broken arms and pushed myself off the ground as hard as I could, breaking more bones in the process. His fist missed me, but his lowered head was completely open. With the bone from my forearm, I shoved it into his eye. It squelched wetly into the eye, and he screamed.

I drove my head towards his other eye, biting through both lid and eye before he could throw me off, the clouds thundering as he stumbled around like a complete idiot, blind to the world. I wasn’t any more injured by the fall.

“You bitch!” He screamed as the very air ignited, steaming the area around him. “I’ll kill you!” I flopped on my stomach and tried to crawl away, inch by inch, using my head when my arms grew sufficiently useful.

All I had to do was survive, and everything else would follow.

The rain had slowly turned the tiny hill I had crawled on into mud, causing me to slide, flipping me over at the rampaging Dragon, materializing fire out of thin air.

All I could think, at that moment, was how nice it would be to have a power that could warm you when you were cold, like I was now.

I was really cold. Wow, I was cold.

Probably from the rain.

Cold…

And before my very eyes, the skies parted, turning into a vortex of white fire as a searing white-blue bolt of lightning the width of a large cedar tree struck the Dragon of the East.

The Dragon of the East fell, headless and body utterly scorched.

Then, a handsome prince came and scooped me up from the too-too cold mud. “Rest, Young Hero. I will have your wounds treated.” Wow, he was handsome. I could just lose myself in those electric purple eyes.

“Thank…” was all I could say before everything went black and I forgot what I was going to say.