The Heavenly Wandering Sword
Chapter 17
Li Jian looked at him and drained his cup of wine before looking at Ling Xin. “I will be holding you to that.” He looked around for a suitable weapon before deciding on the drumstick leg of a duck. He quickly tore the meat off of it and placed it in front of Ling Xin. “Here, don’t let it go to waste. You’re too thin, what do you have, like dark assassin body image issues?” He then stood up with the duck leg bone in his right hand and looked at the Guild Leader.
“Why are you such a bastard to a nice girl like that?” Li Jian asked as he walked towards the guild leader. “Silence! I am the Assassin King!” Li Jian simply frowned at him. “Assassin King? You’re not the Assassin King.” He then frowned again when he realized that the Assassin King’s spirit was still at his home. He would turn and looked over at the slightly stunned woman still sitting at the table. “You don’t have a place to go right? I probably need to have a room set up for you?” She looked at him as if he was an idiot. He was facing a spiritual realm assassin, and he was distracted.
“Forget it, we’ll figure it out.” He looked back at the guild leader who was now utterly fuming. “Apologies, I have had a very busy day. You know how it is, suddenly new problems pop up. I should stop making decisions without thinking it thoroughly.”
“Silence you impudent nobody. You dare stand against the Assassin King with a duck bone? You are a joke of a swordsman!” The guild leader fumed out, drawing the long curved wicked looking blade at his side. Li Jian’s eyes narrowed as he glared at the guild leader. “What did you call me?”
“A joke of a swordsman!” The assassin repeated. “Master….” Kon Kon could be heard in his head, noting that his master was about to lose his temper again. “You dare call yourself Assassin King? Let me show you the moves of the Assassin King.” He threw the duck leg bone, killing the host standing behind the guild leader. The duck leg bone pierced his skull clean through, the host crumpling to the ground as the pool of blood underneath him rapidly expanded from the hole that went through his head.
Li Jian drew his sword, the pressure of the Voidbringer Sword instantly suppressing everyone in the room. The guild leader froze at the terrifying sword intent coming from Li Jian now. “First move of the Assassin King, Killer Sword Asura.” With a single swing, the left leg of the guild leader was chopped clean off from over fifty feet away. Without giving him a chance to scream, Li Jian quickly stabbed the sword forward. “Second move of the Assassin King, Silent Sword Kill.” The sword energy pierced through the guild leader’s chest, destroying all the parts of his throat that let him make a sound. He tried to scream but there was nothing intact in his larynx anymore. “Third move, Killer Sword Reaper.” With a single swing, the aura of a grim reaper erupted from edge of his sword.
The grim reaper pierced right through the guild leader, the guild leader falling to the ground stone cold dead. His soul itself was killed, the body itself now just a lump of meat. “Master, he’s dead…” Kon Wang said exasperated. Li Jian paused and sighed before sheathing his blade. He would look over at the woman, but she was pale in her face, her hands gripping the table hard as her soul which had been bound with the slave mark was about to be torn into shred as the one she was bound to was killed. Li Jian quickly held out a finger, a tiny beam of light shooting out from his fingertip, the beam of light instantly dissolving the slave mark. Ling Xin gasped for air as her lungs finally worked again, coughing out blood. Her soul had almost been shredded, and her spiritual energy was still pinned in place.
He quickly re-activated her meridians as he sat down back at the table. Her spiritual force flooded her body as she caught her breath, the slight damage to her soul quickly being repaired by her spiritual force. “Sorry.” Li Jian said sheepishly, looking around at the now mountain of bodies inside the inn. He set a spiritual pill on the table for her before getting up cutting off the head of the guild leader to be placed inside his storage ring. Ling Xin quickly got on one knee in front of him. “I keep my promise. I will devote my life in service to you.” Li Jian simply nodded and gestured for her to follow him.
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When they were outside, he looked back at the place and sighed. He really did not mean to kill the cook. Ling Xin looked at him. “Where to now Master?” Li Jian waved his hand at her. “Enough of this master business, just call me Senior brother or brother.” She bowed her head. “Understood brother.” He just sighed and flew up, the woman following him in flight as they made their way back towards Baiyang City.
Halfway through, he removed his mask and sighed. “Ling Xi, keep yourself silent about what happened. If anyone asks, you are a servant I hired for my house.” She nodded, and looked at his face carefully. He was a lot different than she had imagined underneath the mask but in truth, she did not know what to expect from someone who out classed the entire Assassins guild. She also didn’t quite understand why he did not want the fact to be known. He floated down and landed in an alleyway, before gesturing for her to follow and made his way around and walked the last few blocks to his manor house. “You’ll need this if you don’t want to be killed.” He handed her one of his Sword Manor tokens. “Put some of your blood on it.” She did so, and immediately felt the existence of a shared link of some sort. “It’s in case you need me to come save you or if you can’t find the right wine at the store.”
When they walked through the outer gates, she could only gasp as she saw the 13 Sword Spirits in the courtyard, each of them bowing down on one knee. “Welcome back your Sword Manor Master.” They greeted him respectfully, causing Ling Xin to once more question who exactly he was. “Damn, I really need servants.” He said to himself out loud and began walking through the courtyard. She followed him slightly in a rush as he peeked through various rooms and waved his hands around. “Pick any of these rooms for yourself.” She looked at him and bowed again. “Thank you benefactor. Where is your bedroom?” He looked at her as if she just bit him. “Still want to kill me even after I released the slave mark?”
She shook her head, her hands placed sincerely at her side. “Do you not wish for me to serve you in your bedroom?” He waved his hands at her and sighed. “Junior sister, not only do I have to watch out for my life but I also have to watch out for my virtues. You assassins are way too dark.” She couldn’t help but blush and giggled slightly at his words before coughing and bowing again. “Thank you Brother Li, for all your kindness.” She felt free for the first time in her life, and she was at the same time quite thankful that he did not seem the type of man to use his powers to take advantage of others.
“I will show you more in the morning but for now, go rest. Our day tomorrow will be quite busy.” He waved to her casually as he walked off. Ling Xin stepped inside the room and looked around. The only possessions she has ever had were in her storage ring and now she had an entire room to herself. Settling down onto the bed, she felt a bit strange lying on such a soft woven bed but she was soon asleep, the setting oddly comforting for her.
Li Jian sensed that she had settled down just fine and nodded to himself before settling down in meditation. For him to find an assassin as a servant, it was a good find. As well, he sensed that the woman had quite the potential and the Dao Seeking realm was not going to be the end for her.
In the morning, he started his routine as usual. He sat in the middle of the array center that protected his manor house, beside the array center that had the 13 swords impaled into the ground and closed his eyes, injecting Dao force into the array. In the cultivating realm, a classification for the type of array that this was did not yet exist. By injecting more Dao force into the array center, he was cultivating the power level of all 13 Sword Spirits that guarded his residence, and in fact most of them were already at the Grade A category of Sword Spirits.
Ling Xin wandered through the garden in the center, shocked to see the amount of spiritual herbs that were grown in the garden. While they would have normally taken hundreds of years to flourish, the amount of pure Dao force generated by Li Jian had in fact made them the equivalent to thousand year old herbs. Of course, as he was not truly an alchemist, it was just decoration. For Ling Xin however, this was the equivalent to walking into an herbal treasure trove.
“Greetings Brother Li.” She bowed towards him politely as he got up, having infused his daily morning dose of spiritual energy. He smiled at her as he beckoned her to follow. “I hope you slept well in your new room. It’s also nice to see you not dressed like a murderous angel.” She giggled, much more relaxed than she had been during their first meeting. “First things first though, we need breakfast. What do assassins eat for breakfast? Do you just boil skulls?”
After a few days when Ling Xin had gotten more settled in, Li Jian left her alone at the manor and went to the Sect to get his reward. He had gotten dagger glares from some of the sect members but he just assumed that they were in the faction that supported the Lan brothers. The Elder who was in charge of rewards looked at him suspiciously as he plopped the head of the assassin guild leader on the counter. “Greetings Elder, I am here to collect my reward.” The Elder glanced at the head, and checked to see that it was indeed the head of the Assassin guild leader. “How did you kill someone in the spiritual realm?”
Li Jian smiled at him awkwardly. “Oh well technically I didn’t kill him, I think he had a grudge with a real hidden tiger crouching dragon master. I mean, I still brought the head though so…” The Elder sighed and handed over another storage ring with the spirit stones in it. “You best try to stop risking death, money comes and goes, junior.” Li Jian bowed towards him. “Thank you Elder for your wisdom.”