Back in the hall, the ten attackers continued their vicious assault upon Ruanfu. Their fists smashed forward, a pair of biting mandibles and cutting blades leading the way. After a dozen exchanges Ruanfu leaned back to avoid a punch. She was caught off-guard when the centipede over the man’s fist suddenly lunged forward and crossed the gap, biting down on her shoulder. She let out a very warlike shriek and then smashed her hand down on the centipede, causing the man who wore it to spit out a mouthful of blood. The centipede fell limp, knocked dead from her retaliation. She also seemed slower and weaker, that strike carrying more than it looked like.

Seeing the opportunity, six of the other attackers reached back and they each threw something into the air. There was a loud buzzing and the objects shot off into the room, swerving rapidly in circles around the large hall. Then each of them flipped in mid-air and darted towards Ruanfu from six different directions. Flashing towards her, she could now see what they were. More centipedes. This time they were blue and small, the size of a finger, but with a pair of wings on each segment of their bodies. They zoomed toward her and she exerted more influence over the snow, sending out a swirling icy wind.

The flying weapon centipedes were slowed, but not stopped. She bit down on her lip and then summoned forth her Qi once more. She had to do it again. The same strenuous strike she used on the centipede that bit her, and it was going to be worse this time. She sent her Qi down to the toes of her left leg, twisting her foot and pushing with her ankle, knee and thighs. The wave of Qi shot back up from her left leg and traveled through her core and back down into her right leg. She hopped into the air and her right leg swept around her in a wide circle. At the tip of her toe, her Qi merged into the air and consumed the energy of the heavens and earth, combusting it violently.

In the wake of her spinning kick, the six finger sized centipede’s exploded in a shower of goo. The expenditure seemed to annoy her, and a symbol appeared on her forehead. Then she waved her hands and ten white lights flashed towards the enemies. Most of them didn’t attempt to dodge, instead lifting one leg to their chest and covering themselves with their arms. They used the many layers of centipede as armor, confident in its toughness. They weren’t expecting that her hasty attack could be so terribly powerful. White spears stabbed through the centipede carapace like it wasn’t even there, punching into their bodies and spreading a wave of cold through them.

Ruanfu used her largest primary feathers again, the quills were as large as spears and flew with immense speed and power. Four of them had died from the attack while two others were bleeding and heavily injured. That was when Ruanfu’s siblings came rushing into the room. They were eager to assist their sister in destroying the attackers, but they were denied. As soon as Ruanfu sensed them entering the room, she stopped holding back. Even if she were vastly outnumbered, her foes were just too weak in comparison to her. Of the six she’d just attacked only the two that were still living were at the peak of the fifth rank, the rest were at various levels, most in the mid-50s. Ruanfu was holding back this whole time to draw out their enemies. Just like Baozha was pretending to be so gravely injured by the poisonous bite of a centipede. She had indeed been poisoned, but it was far more mild than she made it seem.

When the others came into the room, Ruanfu stopped pretending and the temperature of the room dropped drastically. Like a sudden winter storm, cold permeated their bodies and snow blew at them from all directions. Six more giant white feathers flew out like spears, impaling the six enemies still standing. The two strongest foes had a pair of feather spears stabbed into them, but they were remarkably resilient. The other Tiankong children rushed to join the fight, but they stopped in their tracks as they realized it was already over. The enemies were all core formation cultivator’s so they weren’t technically dead, but they were so weakened that the Tiankong siblings simply strolled around and plucked out their cores and searched the bodies for treasure. A few of them still had a little fight left in them, but they couldn’t even stand up to Ruanfu alone, let alone with five helpers.

When Sage walked into the room behind them, the battle was already over. They happily brought him the spoils which he put away to sort later. The ten who had attacked them were already ‘dead’, in that their cores and bodies were separated. Before they were even passed over to Sage, the majority of them shattered and transformed into a pile of dust. The core of a cultivator was different from a Beast Core. Beast Cores were special in that they remained even after the death of the Demonic Beast, while most other types of cores were a package deal. If the soul or the core were destroyed, so was the other. When their core was taken a cultivator would usually choose to end their own life, destroying their soul and the core along with it. Otherwise, if they were to fall into the hands of someone like Hei Bai they could have their minds corrupted, destroyed, or even used to fuel dark magic.

One of the attackers was brave, or foolish, enough to not destroy his soul upon being captured. In this time, or at least in this Kingdom, there weren’t many Soul Cultivators. Those who could do things to a trapped soul were few and far between. If someone were to be killed and their core taken, in most cases the worst scenario would be to have their core destroyed. If someone started to refine their core into something, the cultivator could always choose to end his life right there, so this choice was a gamble. The man didn’t have much left to lose, so he chose to take the plunge.

Sage couldn’t be bothered with the lone remaining core at the moment as he had a more important task to take care of. He certainly wasn’t foolish enough to think that stopping an assassination would be end of things between himself and whatever organization arranged for the hit. It would likely only escalate from here. Sage had already suffered enough because of a few impactful mistakes. He wasn’t going to let the identity of the hit team go unexplored. Perhaps the Information Network would uncover their origin soon, but he didn’t fancy waiting that long.

He closed his eyes and when they opened the pupil of his left eye was now a doorway to a field of stars. The battle they’d just finished reappeared in front of him and he slowed down the rewinding of time to get a good view of the enemy and their methods. He’d been watching earlier, but only through his Twin Soul which was almost entirely submerged into the ground to keep it hidden. Now, he walked through the battle from multiple angles and examined the winged centipedes they’d thrown at Ruanfu and their strange choice of centipede as armor. After a few minutes of slowly watching the fight, he sped ‘Hindsight’ up and rewinded his view to back before the battle.

They leapt back up into the rafters of the main hall in reverse motion; creating quite the spectacle that only he could see. Sage studied their hiding places as time continued to rewind, amazed at their sheer skill at staying concealed. Eventually, he rewound time far enough to see the moment of their entry. They were like ghosts, or shadows. Sage called for the Tiankong to follow him, leaving the cleanup of the battle for later. They dashed outside, following the trail the enemy left as they entered the city.

It’s too bad there’s not much money in the detective game, I’d really be tops there.