Chapter 15 - Beggar King

Lu Na was finally getting her breath, but there was nowhere to go either way.

“Beggars shouldn’t get into the business of the Wintersweet Sect if they know what’s good for them,” the Wintersweet woman said. “Otherwise, we might come back and clean the streets for Jianye.”

“Little Wintersweet disciple, what is your name?” the large beggar asked.

“I’m senior disciple Wong Yoong.”

“Senior disciple Wong you say. You’re the Wintersweet Sect leader’s daughter. No wonder you’re so arrogant. But since I know your father, I’ll only give you one warning to leave this poor girl alone.”

“I can’t do that. She needs to die.” Wong Yoong raised her hand and a large burst of spirit essence shot up into the air. “I didn’t want to call my people over like this, but you give me no choice. We’re going to clean the streets today.”

The large beggar walked around Lu Na and sat down on his haunches in front of Wong Yoong. He crossed his arms and glared at Wong Yoong. All the other beggars backed away from him and Lu Na.

“Little one, stay behind me at all times and don’t go too far,” the large beggar said.

In a few minutes, the streets were filled with wintersweet disciples. They stood behind Wong Yoong.

“Kill that girl.” Wong Yoong pointed right at Lu Na. “The first person to bring me her head will receive personal tutelage from the Wintersweet leader.”

“But what if we capture her instead? Elder Hen will get upset if we killed when we could have—”

“Fine, fine, shut up about Elder Hen. Anyone mentioning his name is going to get my personal tutelage after this. If you can capture her instead of killing her, then fine. But don’t get in my way.”

Wong Yoong clenched her left fist, and a large rooster appeared beside her. All the other disciples assembled and summoned their spirits. At that sight, all the beggars fled from the large group.

Lu Na felt the strong spirit energy rolling off them all. It was suffocating to her, but seeing all the different spirit energy overwhelmed her need to breathe. She had always thought that there were only the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. But some of these summoners had a mixture between them, creating different effects. If she survived whatever this was, she was going to recruit as many summoners as possible to run experiments.

“Stay close, little one,” the large beggar said. He clenched his left fist and the entire street turned red. Even the sun’s rays couldn’t pierce the light.

The large beggar pointed his walking stick into the air and a gigantic red dragon coiled around it and his arm. The head of the dragon had large horns and its whiskers flowed freely. Its enormous claws stretched out in front of it, each claw glowing red. If all the Wintersweet spirits made the street suffocating, this dragon spirit alone took Lu Na’s breath away.

Being so close to the large dragon spirit gave Lu Na a whole new understanding of the world. All the spirits she’s seen so far have paled compared to this one.

“That’s the beggar’s dragon. Na Na, this man is dangerous. As soon as you can, you must get away from him otherwise he might go from protecting you to killing you. Your mother had many disagreements with him. If he finds out what you have, it will turn ugly,” Lu Na’s spirit said.

“The beggar king, Hung Rong?” Wong Yoong said. “I didn’t know you were in Jianye.”

“So little junior. Now that you know who I am and on account of your father’s relationship with me, why don’t you let this young woman go?” Hung Rong said.

“I’m sorry, but our sect leader demanded her. She either joins us willingly at our sect compound, or we’re ordered to kill her. Our sect leader has put the highest priority on this above everything else.” Wong Yoong took a step forward with her right hand clenched. “You might be stronger than me, but I doubt you could fight all my sect brothers and sisters gathered here.”

“Only one way to find out.” Hung Rong lifted both of his arms into the air, his hands pointed at Wong Yoong. His dragon spirit shot up, reaching to the sky. Hung Rong took one large stomp forward. His dragon spirit roared so loud that the surrounding buildings started rattling. “Last chance. Back away now and no one gets hurt.”

Wong Yoong raised her right fist high and opened her palm. All the Wintersweet disciples shouted alongside their spirits. The roar coming from so many spirits and summoners at once was almost as deafening as Hung Rong’s dragon.

Lu Na cowered behind the large beggar with her hands clasped over her ears. She couldn’t move anywhere with so much spirit energy pressing down on her. Yet, both sides didn’t attack.

In these precious seconds, she thought about what she had to get out of this situation. She made quite a few earth and spirit walls this morning in Gan Jiang’s home. She also had that wrapped piece of null metal.

Thinking about that piece of metal, she felt the warmth coming from it within her chest pocket. She took it out to see it glowing white and hot to the touch. Lu Na had to keep it wrapped with a cloth to hold it.

That’s when Lu Na saw the unbelievable. All the spirit energy that surrounded her was now rushing into the metal, increasing its intensity. Now. with it so full, what would happen if she combined her ward with it?

Lu Na took out one of her earth wards. She focused on how the earth ward’s technique worked. It pulled spirit essence when activated so would it simply pull the spirit essence from the null metal? She activated her ward against the metal and hoped for the best.

Nothing happened.

All the spirit energy the ward would normally absorb to work went into the null metal instead.

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“That’s not how it works. There is a small part of every ward you created that draws its energy from the spirit energy around it. Do you see it?” her spirit said.

Lu Na picked up the ward and flipped it on its edge. There was the part of the ward that usually touched the ground in order to pull the earth spirit essence up. On closer inspection, they looked like the teeth of a gear she once saw on a chariot.

“Yes.”

“Now look at the piece of metal. It’s not been properly refined, but that burly blacksmith had beaten it to shape it. It should have a few sides of it that should look like it can connect with your ward. Do you see it?”

Lu Na turned the metal bar in her hands. No matter how much she focused, she only saw glowing smooth metal. She tried to squint, but the glare was still too strong to see anything.

“It’s too bright. I can’t see anything.”

“Don’t worry little one. It’ll only be for a moment as I charge my attack against them,” Hung Rong said.

Lu Na couldn’t tell him she was talking with her spirit and not him. This new discovery made her forget that there were two large and powerful groups of summoners facing off against each other.

“Sorry, let me turn that down a little,” her spirit said.

Instantly, the brightness dimmed from the piece of metal. Along with it, everything else seemed to lose its color. Lu Na had always suspected that her spirit was providing her improved vision, but she never knew it was to this degree. Everything seemed to lose its luster.

“Can you see it now?”

Lu Na looked back at the piece of metal. The brightness did fade a little and she finally saw the piece of smooth metal for the first time. It wasn’t as smooth as she first thought. There were dents and other imperfections, probably from the smith’s hammering, and she couldn’t see before as it glowed so brightly. Yet there was nothing that looked like the teeth from her ward.

“I can’t see it.”

“It doesn’t have to be exact. It just has to be close enough to something that could fit your ward.”

Lu Na had a different thought. If she couldn’t find one that occurred naturally on the bar, why didn’t she just make one? She unsheathed Sun Ren’s dagger and started scoring strikes against the metal. With every strike, the metal changed. It took quite a few strikes upon the edge before something that resembled teeth showed up.

“That’s good enough. Combine them now!”

Lu Na picked up her ward and touched it to the metal. The moment they touched, the ward burned her hand, almost like when she made the firecracker ward. The only difference was this wasn’t the same burning pain, but something on a much more elemental level.

She dropped the ward, but held onto the metal. Lu Na only had the one piece. She wasn’t going to let that go no matter how much it burned, but oddly enough it felt cool to the touch now as it did before.

The earth wall ward dropped onto the ground and activated.

“Run. Run as fast and as far as you can. I’m not sure how much energy the ward absorbed, but it’s definitely going to make your brother’s wall look like a dirt mound,” her spirit said.

Lu Na got up and turned. Before she took one step, the ward exploded behind her. A large earthen wall sprouted from the ground and rose above all the nearby buildings. It didn’t just grow upwards, but outwards as well. The sides of the wall sprouted like wings and smashed right through the buildings that were unfortunately in its way.

For Lu Na, she got the unintended consequence of being pushed really hard and really fast by the growing wall. Before she knew it, she was already down the street as she rode the rising earth like a horse. The only bad thing was, she was coming dangerously close to a wall coming up in front of her. She closed her eyes and shielded her face as much as she could. Any second and she was going to smash against it with the same force the wall had as it cut through those buildings.

Except the wall stopped.

Lu Na didn’t, though. The momentum pushed her forward and she fell hard onto her face. Luckily, she was already covering that.

“Sorry. I might have pushed that one a little too hard. Are you okay?” her spirit asked.

Lu Na sat up and dusted herself as best as she could. Even though she was wearing a lower quality tunic than her usual silks, it kept better against the dirt.

“You did that? How? I thought once you’ve shaped it, it’s out of your control.”

“Little girl, you still have no idea what I do or help you do. I can control your ward’s technique until spirit energy runs out.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Lu Na peered back toward the way she came. The wall was still there, but it looked like an earthen chair instead of a wall that allowed her to sit comfortably over the vast distance.

“Now that you’ve gained a bit more experience, I might explain more of what I can do for you.”

“That would have been nice to know before all this.”

“That was by design. Your mother didn’t want to make you stand out too much. She wanted you to have a nice, normal life.”

“That didn’t work. The Wintersweet Sect still came after me.”

Lu Na heard her spirit laugh, an echoing laughter in her head.

“You think they’re here for you? These sects are so foolish with their mysticism. Of all my years around them, they’re right one time out of ten and even then it’s sheer luck. If diviners had actual power, all those dynasties wouldn’t have fallen. Besides, you’re not important. Your mother is.”

Lu Na didn’t agree. It was too much of a coincidence for her mother’s silver phoenix hairpin to be activating tonight just as this sect was also looking for her.

“Enough reminiscing. It’s time to get a move on before they catch up. But before you go, do me a favor and cover that null metal up again. It’s taxing me.”

Lu Na took the piece of metal and wrapped it back up in the cloth. She placed it back into her chest pocket.

A loud roar rose to the sky and the cawing of the chicken resounded throughout the city. A loud fight broke out and even from this far away, Lu Na saw Hung Rong’s dragon attack with such ferocity. While she was glad she got away from that mess, she was disappointed that she wasn’t able to see the techniques they used to fight each other. If she was closer, maybe she could create a new ward with their technique and she could protect herself in the future.

Or blow up the city as the dragon was doing with every strike.

“Time to move before the yamen runners come or the constables.”

Lu Na turned and walked southward, toward the Blossom Scent Parlor. At least that was where the eighth district was. That was the direction Sun Ren told her right?

“Hey spirit, do you remember where Sun Ren told me where Blossom Scent Parlor was?”

“No. I was probably not listening at that time. Your conversations can be so boring to me sometimes.”

“You’re not always listening to us talk? I thought that’s what you spirits lived for. You especially.”

“We have much more interesting lives than you could ever imagine. At least I do. I can’t always be listening in on your life. Just go south and ask someone.”

That was as good as any direction. If nothing else, maybe she’d get lucky and find her brother. Then Lu Na wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Her brother would know how to fix this. Maybe they could go visit her aunt and uncle in Lujiang and wait for this to calm down before coming back to find her father.

Things were looking up at least.