Wang Lihou was an interesting specimen.

And it wasn’t because he was fat.

He was also highly talented in runes, arrays, and formations.

The distinction here was that several runes made an array, and several arrays formed for one grand effect, which was a formation. Formations could also be interlaced, but Yung didn’t know if a bigger term existed.

“I’m going to be the best formation master in the city, so I won’t join the sect recruitments.” With that, Wang Lihou left for the shop again.

"Literally no difference in qi cost or transmission clarity." Yung sighed. He'd wasted the entire morning fiddling with the new sound transmission tokens, but the results were subpar. He would have to test the range too, but average Imperfect Heaven 1st grade common class tokens could already cover the city, and he wasn't too keen on venturing deep into a monster-infested forest just to test some gadgets.

“Youjin Chao?” As he was about to head up, he saw a familiar silhouette through the corner of his eye. He remembered something Wang Lihou had told him.

“Brother Chao doesn’t have many friends. The few he had left when that sl—, I mean when Young Mistress Chun broke their engagement. The Baishui and the Duan clans keep making trouble for him too. Last night, their goons from the Malignant moon sword sect kicked him out of a weapon shop. ”

Youjin Chao was leaving the Dim gold auction house. He was being followed by three shady-looking men, all cleft lips and cut ears.

“Kii!”

“Eh? I don’t know. I know nothing of following people—oh shit! That’s a pretty dark alley Youjin Chao entered.”

Yung used total empathic isolation, cutting off all empathic links connecting him to nearby people.

***

Chao covered his face with his robe and approached the dusk-coloured canopy, the Warring twilight forest. He hastened his pace.

Chao caressed the rusted sword at his hip. He bought it with the last of his savings. People laughed when he outbid the previous bidder with two thousand lesser spirit stones.

But he trusted his innate vision, and now in his hands, Chao felt the weight of the sword's age. To the typical eye, the blade was coloured with an aged sheen of rust, and its surface was scratched and dented from years of wear and tear. Despite its worn appearance, the sword's tip was curved and sharpened, a testament to its long-forgotten craftsmanship. The hilt was knotted and dented, with ancient symbols carved into it, offering a comfortable grip. Most disregarded these symbols as intricate decorations, as they wafted no flavour of qi, neither arrays nor formations.

Yet under Chao’s crimson eyes, the sword glowed dark purple, as if the blade had gotten too close to the inky blackness of the night. It had castigation, vexation, and in its depth a hundred blades soughing like swarms of hungry, moaning ghosts, perhaps its past owners, or perhaps its past victims, the souls cast off within it, over and over.

Only epic class artefacts of the most mysterious origins reflected such peculiarities to Chao’s innate vision, as he had seen them at his mother’s clan. Trinkets simple to the eye, but each had the potential to evolve into mystical, self-cultivating artefacts with sentient spirits. This sword might only be an Imperfect Heaven 1st grade weapon now, but it would have no trouble cutting through fiends, or renyao, of far higher strength.

It had been barely a year since he awakened his innate physique, and it had already guided him to luck that defied the heavens. This sword, the Imperfect Heaven 3rd grade yangveined blood moss he had found under a random rock, which he then used to reawaken his damaged body, and finally, Su Nanya.

No, half-awakened. Chao thought ruefully. His navel palace dantian was crippled. He could not supply his body with the requisite Origin qi other than via pills. No wood for his fire. And until he healed the mutilation from the flower dog poison that wrecked his spirit root when he was a six-year-old boy, he could only enjoy the bare basics of the powers his unique physique brought him. He couldn’t even cultivate any dao insights, let alone dao aspect shards.

But it was enough to take care of weeds.

This should be far enough.

“Come out! I know you’ve been following me.” He yelled, ingesting a few pills. He was at a remote place, just outside the forest boundary. He’d found this meadow while accompanying Ziyou Ling’s fiendhunter friends on an excursion.

***

About fifty steps behind, Yung shuddered: No, Silky! He means the thugs, not us.

***

As if on cue, three men stepped out from behind the trees.

The lanky thug on the left said, “Look who’s a smarty pants. The cripple found us.”

“Oh no! We’re so afraid.” The fat one on the right pretended to cry.

"Be quiet," said the middle-aged man in the middle, the leader probably. "We need to settle this fast."

“What do you want?” Chao popped more pills. A radiant glow covered his arms as his defensive artefact materialised.

“Hand that artefact over, and we’ll make this painless.” The lanky thug brought out a dagger and licked it.

“You followed me all the way here to rob me? Has the Malignant moon sword sect fallen so low as to resort to banditry?” Chao said. Then pointed at the leader, “I know you. You are from the Baishui clan!”

“What can a mere cripple know?” The leader said, “If that’s an Imperfect Heaven 1st grade artefact, then I’m a nascent soul cultivator.” The two other goons laughed.

The leader continued, “A poor man’s sin is possessing a priceless jade. Give it to us, and we’ll make proper use of it.”

“And if I do, you will let me go?”

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“Hehehe. We said we’ll make it painless.” The fat thug laughed.

“Does Duan Louheng know of this? Or the Baishui patriarch?” Chao’s face darkened. He kept gathering the qi from the pills.

"Why'd we wanna share our loot with that stuck-up rich kid?" The fat thug picked his nose. He was holding a mallet. "And we two ain't the Baishui. Kinda rude of you to ignore us and only be scared of the big bad bully from the rich clan. I'll paste you down!"

“Shut it, fatty!” The lanky thug said. “Besides, that’s not something a dead man should ask. Ya should be asking fer mercy, fool!”

“Enough of this.” The leader unsheathed his sword. “We have to talk with the madlander kid the fox yao took an interest in after this. Kill him.”

“Heh, talk, sure boss.”

One second, the three sect cultivators stood twenty paces away; the next, they surrounded Chao with fangs bared.

The leader came from below, his sword pointing straight at Chao’s sternum. The lanky guy was to Chao’s left, his dagger about three inches from his throat. The fat one, who looked the slowest, was the fastest and had seemingly teleported behind him, a mallet swinging down.

Chao yelled a war cry. Qi radiated from his body like a miniature sun. Plates and scales of reflective metal covered his body in an instant.

The armour reflected all.

The light of the forest. The scenery of the meadow. The leader’s sword entering Chao’s body as though feeling no resistance. The dagger and the mallet with all their forceful malice.

Then, as the second passed, the shocked faces of the three sect members slowly distorted on the armour’s surface,

Chao shouted again, and the armour shattered.

“A one-off trick!” The leader yelled, “That’s at least an epic class mystical artefact! If not, maybe even Unfolding Heaven 1st—” His words were interrupted by a cry of anguish.

It came from his own mouth. A stream of blood gushed out of the leader’s chest. He jumped away, clutching his wound.

The lanky thug's head flew up from his body. It was severed from the exact place his own dagger had pierced Chao’s armour.

The fat thug's head burst like a watermelon, splashing gore in a crater. His monolithic corpse fell, raising clouds of twilight dust.

Pant! Pant!

Chao wheezed, then ran for the forest with all his might.

“Not so fast!” The leader threw his sword. It flew like an arrow towards Chao’s heart. Chao dodged at the last moment by spinning, but the sword suddenly dove down, pinning Chao’s leg to the ground.

With a pained scream, the boy collapsed.

Swoosh!

Five daggers flew out next.

Chao’s defensive artefact deflected three. But the other two pinned his other leg and one arm down like darts.

He threw up blood. His crimson eyes glared at the leader with defiance.

“A simple trick. Hehehe.” The leader’s face was twisted. Like a maniac, he snarled at his two fallen sect members. “Better. Made my job easier, or I would have to share that artefact with them. Now the dagger and mallet are mine too.”

The leader noticed the dagger still grasped in the lanky corpse’s hand. But the mallet was gone.

Fatty’s corpse must be lying on it. Bastard cripple!

He cursed, then deflected the rusty sword Chao had flicked at him with his one good arm.

The leader grinned, blood spilling down his lips. He frowned, then popped a few healing pills. “Got any tricks left, cripple?”

He was cautious this time. Approaching Chao with slow, astute steps.

“You!” Chao could only mutter. His gaze soon shifted to helplessness.

“I’m not going to make this quick.” The leader grinned. He took his time. “First, I’m going to pull out your nails. Then, I’ll cut off your tongue. Would you like some hot water to sizzle your eyes—”

Thud!

A dull noise rang out.

“Wh—!” The leader swivelled, dizzy from the blow. He had lost his balance and tried to break his fall with his left hand, while his right covered his vitals from the unknown assailant’s follow-up smash.

Chao’s eyes narrowed. The moment the leader’s attention slipped, he spat.

Zoom!

A deep green crystal vial broke against the leader’s head.

“Aaaarghghgh!”

Sizzle!

It was acid.

The leader fell down, thrashing like a madman. He clawed his head and throat, but the liquid dug through his flesh like ants.

***

Yung appeared to the fallen man’s right, holding the fat thug’s mallet. His timer had ended, and cooldown had begun. He’d much rather stay in stealth.

“Jesus… Moira… Buddha.”

Yung was shocked. His legs trembled like they had been kicked, and he sat down. Silky appeared and guarded him with an angry chirp.

“You killed them… You killed them….” Yung was in shock. “No, they would’ve killed you. Then me.” He swore, “Om— Shit. Shit, shit shit. He’s dead. Om out. Shit!”

The leader died a slow and agonising death.

Yung didn’t try to save him, even when he begged for mercy with his dissolving oesophagus. Yung then looked at Youjin Chao. The older boy was smiling, staring straight at him with that beast-like fixation.

“Thank you, Brother Yung.” With that, he fainted.

Yung looked at the three corpses and the one that was almost a-corpse-if-not-treated-soon.

“Shit.” One last curse.

Then he took out his newly crafted sound transmission token. Wang Lihou still had the other one. He was barely in the periphery of the Warring twilight forest, scarcely a few hundred meters from the city's walls. So the tokens should still work if their range was the same as a regular token's.

“Brother Lihou? Yeah, it’s me. Can you get a message over to the Youjin clan asap? Oh, that means as soon as bloody possible. Or your best friend is gonna die!”

***

With the amount of blood Youjin Chao lost, Yung had assumed he’d be a goner in ten minutes. Yung ransacked the corpses for healing pills but didn’t know which was which. He left the dead and their equipment.

Yung could only carry the boy on his back and head for the city's west gate, hoping to run by a fiendhunting team.

If not, he’d shove all the green and blue pills down Youjin Chao’s throat. Then the violet, white, and red ones that looked scary.

Om in, Om out.

If Yung did find a team, there was a good chance that it would be of madlanders. And he wouldn’t be mugged.

Time slowly passed. Yung hummed a tune. Silky sang along as they walked the lonely path.

The worse had not come to pass.

He had been wrong about Youjin Chao’s chances of survival.

Yung had already walked for fifteen minutes, following the empathic links he thought connected him to his acquaintances in the city. He could never be sure as he had not tested this before, but that was the direction most links led to.

In the meanwhile, Youjin Chao held on.

Still losing blood, but heart yet beating strong against Yung’s back. His defensive artefact had materialised, and Yung only found out because of Silky’s cry of alarm.

The artefact didn’t give off that mirror-like impression this time. Appearing like a thin, invisible cloth covering Chao’s body, it did something to stop the blood loss.

Yung carried on as fast as he could. He didn’t come across anyone, just as he hadn’t while he tailed the three thugs who tailed Youjin Chao.

Man! This guy really picked a secluded place to counter-attack.

“Kii!!!”

Yung felt the aura faster than he saw the source.

Crash!

Elder Gangkai came breaking through the canopy.

“Elder Brother Chao!” The elder was carrying Youjin Chun, her stoic face breaking when she looked at Chao’s bloody form.

Yung, on the other hand, sighed in relief.

He promptly let Elder Gangkai hold the comatose boy, then sat down.

“You must hang on, Elder Brother Chao!” Youjin Chun took out a vial. She uncorked the bottle and poured the contents down Youjin Chao’s throat.

A white glow radiated through the injured boy’s body.

In less than ten seconds, his wounds started to close up. The defensive artefact retreated.

Yung noticed something strange. An empathic link was connecting him and Youjin Chao’s worn-out vambrace.

Is that artefact alive?

Yung thought back on the attempted robbery. He believed those thugs. That artefact hid some serious secrets, and after this incident, Yung had a theory about it. About Youjin Chao, and this whole messed up world.

“Where are the bodies?”

After confirming that Youjin Chao was stable, Youjin Chun approached Yung with a freakishly steady face.

She was mad. Angry. Furious. Or so her empathic link said.

But why at me? Crazy landmine.

Yung raised an eyebrow. Youjin Chun took a deep breath, then ran in the direction Yung’s finger pointed.

Elder Gangkai gave Yung a subtle nod. He picked Youjin Chao up and followed the heiress to the meadow.

Yung thought for a while. Would he take the risk of walking back alone and with empathic isolation still on cooldown?

“Hey! Wait up!” Yung yelled. “I recorded the whole thing with sound and light capturing tokens!”