Chapter 57

Chapter 57: Someone Stole My Stuff (Part 3)

The “thief” stared. The armored man stared.

A stranger with a sword had appeared out of nowhere—clean, fast, and deadly.

The “thief” had already been ready to throw everything he had into a dan palace stage martial gall breakthrough and make a last stand. Even if he died, he’d planned to drag a few of them down with him.

Now—this.

He tried to speak and immediately tore his wounds. His throat spasmed and he vomited a mouthful of foul blood.

He coughed hard, forced it down, and rasped, “Young friend… this is our business. Don’t step into this—”

The armored man cut him off with a sneer. “Trying to play hero?”

He pointed his saber at Shen Tang. “If you’ve got sense, get lost.”

Shen Tang’s face stayed blank, but the anger in her eyes climbed like a rising tide. “So you petty thieves really are up to no good.”

The armored man’s patience snapped. “Nonsense. Fine. If you want to die, then die.”

He barked an order. “Kill them both!”

Steel flashed.

The swordsman was suddenly in his face.

The armored man’s heart lurched. He hadn’t even seen her close the distance.

He roared and drove his martial gall outward in a violent shockwave, then swung his weapon across to catch the sword.

Clang!

Red saber-light exploded. The air buckled.

The armored man staggered back seven or eight steps before he stabilized. His weapon let out a faint crack, and thin fractures crawled across the metal.

Shen Tang didn’t flinch. She moved through the encirclement like water through cracks.

“Ten steps, kill one man.”

Her footwork shifted—like stepping on clouds, like riding wind—and her blade slid across a man’s throat in a single, smooth stroke.

Blood sprayed hotter than the flames.

Two breaths later, three bodies were on the ground.

The sword dripped. Drop, drop. Dark stains spread in the mud.

Shen Tang lifted her gaze to the armored man. “If you don’t want to die—get out.”

He laughed, furious.

At his waist, the martial gall tiger tally flared. Crimson qi surged over him and hardened into a savage set of beast-headed armor. His goose-feather saber twisted into a red-tasseled hook-sickle spear, and heat rolled off him like a furnace.

He took two steps—and a black horse wreathed in fire appeared beneath him. He shot forward like an arrow.

The spear-blade missed by inches, skimming Shen Tang’s brow and leaving a thin red line.

The next strike came instantly. The hook swept up, stabbing for her face.

A bowstring hummed.

“White Arrow!”

A black-feathered arrow screamed in and struck the hook dead-on. Metal shrieked against metal, the sound sharp enough to make teeth ache.

“Three-Linked!”

Another shot—one arrow splitting into three.

It looked light. It wasn’t.

The impact hit like a hammer, knocking the hook-sickle spear off its line and numbing the rider’s grip.

The arrows weren’t only for him.

One after another, they punched into foreheads, throats, hearts—clean kills. Some bodies got pinned to walls before they could even understand they were dead.

The armored man’s eyes snapped to the source.

A tall youth in black dropped from above, a red tie binding his hair. In his left hand was a pitch-black longbow—no quiver, no arrows.

He landed, drew to a full moon in one smooth motion, and called, “Well Ritual!”

Black qi condensed into four arrows at his fingertips. One forced the armored man’s spear aside again. The other three shredded the men trying to surround Shen Tang.

Three arrows. Three more dead.

The armored man wanted to curse someone’s mother.

Shen Tang swung to finish a target—only for an arrow to punch through the man’s head first.

She whirled on the archer.

Zhai Le didn’t even notice her glare. He danced across rooftops, using terrain like it was built for him, loosing arrows whenever he felt like it—each one a kill.

And he wouldn’t shut up.

“Brother Shen! Are we killing all of them?”

“Why are they all chasing me…?”

“Fire, fire, fire—my feet are burning!”

He vaulted from one roof to the next, grabbed an eave with one arm to redirect midair, and slipped out of a three-man pincer like it was nothing.

His mouth kept going. “This doesn’t feel like bandits. Too coordinated.”

He and his brother had traveled from southeast to northwest. He’d seen more than enough villains. Most were scattered rabble, each fighting for himself, easy to break apart.

These men moved like troops.

“I miss my brother,” Zhai Le complained, somehow still alive. “Without a literary heart backing me up, it feels weird.”

He yelled at Shen Tang, “Brother Shen, help me! Literary Heart! Literary Heart! Literary Heart!”

Shen Tang’s eye twitched. “Can you shut up?”

She flicked her wrist. Her sword left her hand, speared an attacker who’d been about to cut Zhai Le down from behind, then flew back into her grip like it was on a leash.

“I don’t play support,” she said flatly.

Zhai Le got splashed in the face with blood and froze. He didn’t know what “support” meant, but he knew what “help” meant.

He understood perfectly.

Brother Shen was looking down on him.

His grin faded. His focus sharpened.

The enemies weren’t thinning. They were multiplying. Zhai Le couldn’t tell where they kept coming from, only that it felt like they’d punched a hornet’s nest.

And the armored man—he wasn’t even showing his full hand.

That martial gall tiger tally at his waist could command four hundred soldiers. An eighth-rank gong cheng.

Those four hundred hadn’t even been deployed yet.

This wasn’t good.