Waking up with a start, she rolled her body and twisted her neck, her instincts completely taking over. A poisoned dagger caught the side of her neck, plunging deep into flesh. It pulsed, colouring the flesh around it green.
“ASSASSIN!” She shouted, rolling to her side. Only her sixth sense had saved her from instant death.
Her brain tried to process what was going on, and Chen Hao gave her no respite. A violent lunge carried him onto the bed and above the blankets. He followed it with a series of frantic stabs towards her heart. Again and again, the dagger drew blood, yet missed any vitals.
“Enough!”
The woman fell onto the floor, taking a deep breath as she did. Like a furnace, her body began to emit a yellow glow, which morphed into red as the surroundings distorted. On a mere whim, both Jun and Chen Hao threw themselves out of the room.
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion rocked the foundations of the building, tearing down the inner walls and sending shards of stone in all directions. A wave of overwhelming heat spilt out of the room, searing Jun’s flesh. He saw how the outer walls lit up with countless interwoven runes, sending a beacon of light into the sky to alert the Hall of Formations. They were on a clock now.
From the ruins of a room emerged a behemoth, overwhelmed with rage. The woman’s body was covered in blood and numerous stab marks, each marking a region of poison struggling to get further into her flesh. Pure fire ran through her veins, stopping the bleeding and holding at bay the dagger’s influence.
When Chen Hao stepped forward, the wind followed his steps. It howled throughout the room, sweeping across every surface before tossing itself towards the woman. But, instead of moving, the boy opened his arms as if he was going for a hug.
“Calm down. Let’s talk it out,” he said, his words muffled by the mask. Jun held his breath.
“YOU! You ungrateful son of a whore. I taught you everything I knew! This is how you repay me!? I should have killed you when I first saw you,” she roared, gathering her qi to fuel her body’s flames.
“You worked me from dawn till dusk, and when I was done, you cast me into the streets again. For what? A bag of bones worth ten spirit stones?” His voice was calm, yet Jun could feel the venom dripping with every word. Anger had boiled to the point where it had now gone cold.
“Wretch! Anyone else would have killed you right then and there! I took car-” Her words were abruptly cut short as she took another breath. Then, she shrieked like nothing before, noticing the dust in the air. Chen Hao laughed.
Her flesh bubbled and melted as her breath turned the room into a whirlwind of flame. The boy leapt back and out of the stone door, bending his body mid-air to avoid a jet of fire. Now outside, he took a step forward, channelling the wind to block off the entrance.
“Good shit!” Jun barked, sticking by the boy’s heels. “We need to stall for time. She won’t survive the hour with the dagger’s poison and the dust.”
They turned to run, but as they did, the shadow beneath Chen Hao’s feet twisted and writhed. Numerous tendrils of darkness shot forward like arrows through the night sky. Jun’s scream caught in his throat as he watched the surroundings become engulfed in mist. With only a split second between each tendril, the boy’s body twisted at unnatural angles, weaving between each and every one. A thin film of water clung to his skin, deflecting any close call.
“She’s coming. Go!” Chen Hao yelled, still in the middle of his dance.
He jumped above a ray of fire and onto a nearby building, gesturing for Jun to follow. Glancing back, they saw the monster emerge from its lair, unrecognisable by any human standard. A bellow through the night announced her presence to the world, and when she began to run, explosions followed each step. Nearby, cultivators peered out their windows, clutching their magical artifacts. No one would be coming to stop the fight this far away from the lake.
Jun and Chen Hao ran above the sect, leaping from one rooftop to another. One was fleeing for his life, and the other desperately wished he had a way to help. Throwing his body at her right now was pure suicide. Behind them, the hag was gaining ground, her roars of rage growing louder and louder.
“Faster! Faster!” Jun yelled, urging the boy to run.
He yelped once again when he saw a massive ball of fire compress itself, reaching temperatures that could melt bones. A wave of her hand caused darkness to form a shell of a pig around the flames. Then, as if suddenly gaining sentience, it squealed like the crackles of a bonfire and charged towards Chen Hao. Like a meteor, it soared through the air.
With a grimace, he unfastened the fan on his belt and opened it, revealing light blue feathers. For a moment, the boy stopped in his tracks and circulated his qi. He paled, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and with one decisive motion, he waved the fan towards the pig, sending forth a frigid blast of yin wind. Without looking back, he used Typhoon Steps to conjure a gale behind him to aid with his escape.
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An earth-shattering explosion deafened Jun, making his mind spin and his ears bleed. Then, the shockwave knocked the wind out of him, sending him sprawling to the ground. In front of him, Chen Hao suffered completely different injuries. The film of water had protected him from the noise, but the fall badly mangled his arm.
Jun quickly pushed through the dizziness thanks to his training. The world was silent around him, and a strange high-pitched noise buzzed in his brain, but still, he desperately took hold of Chen Hao and started dragging him forward. A few seconds later, the boy was back on his feet, saying something Jun could barely hear. The dog’s regeneration was working overtime, mending the flesh in his ears.
And still, they ran, biding their time until the woman’s qi ran out. Now, they weaved between streets and alleys, barely catching glances of the butcher before they turned the corner. Half of her body was now green, but in her hands, she wielded two knives, one bright and the other dark. Interweaving waves of light and shadow rippled from the weapons, turning everything in front of them to dust. Turning another corner, they reached an alley they had seen a thousand times by now.
“---lo- -e!” the boy shouted, leaping over thin air. He pressed his body to the wall, ducking imaginary obstacles and weaving through nothing. Jun followed behind him very closely. They were halfway through when the woman barged into the narrow street, barreling toward them, driven by nothing more than adrenaline and rage.
The first tripwire launched a series of poison darts into her skin. The second triggered a crossbow trap. As she stumbled from the sudden pain, a formation beneath her feet began to menacingly glow, turning the air into a shower of lightning bolts. Yet she persisted, only to run head-first into thin steel wire, slicing her flesh until it found bone. Her momentum carried her onwards as she gritted her teeth, tearing through her obstacles with the twin knives.
Hundreds of wounds dotted her bleeding body, and three different poisons rampaged on the inside, yet she was stages above them, and she cultivated an art to resist it all. Until her qi ran out, her flesh would not give in. She incinerated the rest of the alley alongside any other traps with her breath, now oh so close to the two.
“Stay!” she shouted, swinging both her knives before Chen Hao could escape. The light that shot forward created shadows on the walls, which reached out to grasp the boy.
He weaved to dodge the light, only for his foot to be caught by a hand made of darkness. It yanked him to the ground, and in the blink of an eye, he was surrounded by thousands of hands, wrapping around his body like a cocoon.
“It’s the end of the road for you,” she grinned, twirling her knives. “Death would be too easy for you. No. I think you’ll go nicely together with some salt and ginger on the pan.”
Jun quietly backed away as the woman licked her lips, revealing her razor-sharp teeth. She thought the boy was caught in her trap. They still had one final trick to play.
“No! Kill me!” Chen Hao desperately shouted, yet his eyes watched her every step intently, counting the seconds. Not a trace of panic could be seen on his face.
“You’ll make for the greatest feast of my life,” she cackled.
Jun had backed up against the wall, eyeing the conversation in the distance. He had to trust Chen Hao. Not once did the thought of fleeing cross his mind.
‘I may not be the Human Emperor or the Stone Lion, but you are not a wall. I can break you.’
With those words in his mind, he gathered every ounce of power in his body. As he began to run, he felt the stone floor beneath him support his every step. A mysterious energy joined together with his qi, flowing to his head. At this moment, only he and the butcher existed. The surroundings once again turned into a blur, but the buildings around him guided his path, each adding a bit of themselves to his charge.
At the same time, the woman stepped beside Chen Hao and looked at him, and he couldn’t help but laugh. His eyes turned pitch black. In that darkness, a lake beckoned. Two knives fell out of her hands as her body suddenly relaxed. Her eyes glazed over, and she stepped closer and closer, reaching out for something only she could see. A moment later, she snapped back to reality, only to notice a streak of golden light charging towards her. There was no time for her to even channel her qi.
Just as he had practised before, Jun lowered his head, but his eyes saw only her. He soared through the air, and where her body met his, she broke. Every bone shattered, every organ ruptured. Her body was flung through the air until it reached the other end of the alley where it splattered against the stone building and became flat. Slowly, she collapsed under her own weight, leaving a bloody imprint behind her.
The witch was dead.
Chen Hao stared in awe at Jun, who was barely standing upright. The Arrogant Stone Ram had taken a lot out of him, and it took several moments to realise what he had even done. He would have nightmares in the future about how he completely shattered her, but for now, Jun only smiled. An invisible weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
He turned to look at the boy, only to find him collapsed against the wall. Jun immediately recognized it as qi overconsumption—the same thing that had happened months ago in their room. He quickly scanned the boy for any signs of major bleeding and let out a sigh when he saw none.
“Alright. People are going to be here any minute. Let’s get back to the inn,” Jun said, turning back to look at the horrid woman one last time. Then, he remembered the most important part of every post-battle protocol.
“Can’t forget about loot.”
He grabbed the two knives and put them in his pouch. Then, he quickly looked over the horrid scene of a murder, bitterly biting off the woman’s finger and spitting it back out. In his teeth, he held a black ring. Just as he was about to put that in the pouch as well, he remembered a lesson about two separate dimensional spaces and the violent explosion that would occur if one was put in the other.
And with that, he grabbed Chen Hao and started dragging him back to the inn. The boy had to be treated, and the storage ring needed to be inspected. As for the aftermath of the murder—surely someone else would sort that out.