..like that geezer.)
"Tch"
I closed my eyes, letting the room's silence settle around me. "Perhaps after they leave…"
Three days passed quietly. Chen Wu's group had already left for the expedition, which I learned through the system. There was nothing I could do to stop him. So during those days, I carefully read Elder Han's manuals.
The first covered healing methods and the second, combat applications. I studied both, but without real practice, reading them was useless.
"Big brother," Yue Lian called while I was sitting next to the window. The sun had already set, and the moon had begun to cast the stolen light.
"Dinner is ready. Let's eat and..leave… or did you.." She lowered her voice."Forget the promise?"
I smiled at this…" Yes, let's eat first."
After dinner, we waited until Aunt Mei completed her rounds with that same warm efficiency. Her door clicked softly shut at the end of it all.
We slipped downstairs. Through the passage, out into the cool night air.
After a while, we sat together on the grass. Yue Lian talked quietly but today there was a hint of excitement in her voice.
For a long moment we stayed there and again the conversation beside me slowed on its own. The spaces between Yue Lian's words grew longer and softer until they stopped entirely.
She had fallen asleep.
I held her without moving for a moment and looked out at the distant lights of the valley town below. Small and warm, entirely unaware of anything happening on the mountain above them.
I stood and lifted her against my chest turning back toward the pavilion.
Though my senses were already spread out, I felt the guards adjusting their positions as we moved.
Shortly after I reached the rear of the pavilion wall and stopped.
Right then—Yue Lian's eyes opened immediately. She looked up at me once and whatever she read in my expression was enough for her to slip from my arms, pressing herself flat against the wall. While I had already disappeared from where I stood.
The guards were returning to their positions as one of them made a small gesture to the one beside him. Confirming everything was alright.
The others also nodded slightly.
But suddenly…..
A guard grabbed his throat. "Ukkh."
For a moment no one understood what happened until the guard's head separated from his body and struck the stone wall behind him with a dull sound and fell to the ground.
His body remained standing for a brief second, as if it had not yet realized what was missing. Then it collapsed too.
In that same moment, another guard grabbed his throat and the same thing happened.
"NOOOOO." One guard cried.
"YOU FOOL, JUMP HIGH." another shouted as both guards reacted instantly. Abandoning the ground and launching themselves upward.
However, something flashed through the air as dark blades moved at rapid speed.
Both guards were still in the air when they saw this. Their eyes widened in shock.
Three blades struck the first guard's face almost at the same instant. Two buried deep into his eyes and the third drove straight into his forehead.
His body jerked once and went still.
The second guard wasn't as lucky, because instant death could sometimes be a kind of mercy.
The blades that reached him did not strike anything vital.
One punched through his arm and another tore through his thigh. A third cut deep into his shoulder.
He collapsed onto the roof slope with a cry, his limbs useless beneath him, sliding helplessly down the tiles.
On the ground he was breathing in short, sharp bursts. Blood soaked steadily through his black robes. One arm hung useless at his side.
He looked toward the bodies near the wall. Two were headless. Another lay beside him, blades buried deep in the eye sockets and forehead.
His face changed the way faces do when a person sees something truly horrifying.
Then, did I step forward in dark clothing. My whole face covered, leaving only my eyes visible.
I crouched down to the injured guard's eye level and laughed.
"Kekeke…"
"You.. haah… WHO are you…?" The guard asked, still catching for his breath.
"Crimson Sword Sect sends its regards to the Clouded cowards," I said in a sharp tone."We have already surrounded this place. Run along and deliver the message if you can, kekeke.."
The guard's eyes went wide with something beyond the fear that was already there. The horror of a man realizing that what he had just survived was not the full extent of what was coming, but only the very edge of it.
"WHAT, NO.. YOU COWARD crimson…"He moved without standing. Dragging himself forward on his working arm and leg.
I watched him drag himself through the blood-darkened dirt.
My eyes narrowed and a blade appeared in my hand, its edge coated in a grey liquid. "Keke… why are you crawling so fast? Let me slow you down." I drove the blade into his leg.
"Aaak—!" the guard cried, but he didn't stop crawling.
After I was satisfied with how he crawled I straightened and stepped back into the shadows between the buildings.
The black robe disappeared into my inventory and I was wearing my normal clothes again.
Yue Lian was exactly where I had left her, pressed against the wall. Her eyes were wide, but calm.
She didn't know what had just happened. Still, I lifted her. Her arms went around my neck as I broke into a run.
Being at the Qi Condensation Peak stage, my speed was fast enough to move from one area to another in seconds.
The inner guards' patrol routes were clear in my sense. I moved between them. Through the gaps. Using the angles of the buildings and the natural shadows of the mountain terrain.
Yue Lian pressed herself close. She stayed quiet with the instinctive understanding of someone who knew this was not the time.
The gateway rose ahead of us, its stone pillars massive in the darkness. Two lanterns hung on either side of the inner entrance, burning low and casting a small circle of light that left most of the gateway in darkness.
I knew that the gateway wasn't protected by any kind of formations because it was the only route in and out of the sect. But if I had a token like Zhang Kun, it would be a different story.
Not slowing down.
Spiritual essence surged and I launched upward, one hand snapping forward as we left the ground. From my fingers, Spectral Threads shot and caught the stone carving on the gateway's upper arch.
The threads pulled taut and we rose quickly. Cold air rushed past as we cleared the inner face of the gateway and landed without a sound on the wide, flat top of the gate.
Yue Lian's breath caught. Her grip tightened around my neck as she looked down at the drop on either side, then back at me with wide eyes.
I held one finger to my lips for her not to shout. She nodded, pressing her face against my shoulder.
I looked down over the outer edge.
Below, on the outer face of the gateway, four guards stood in a loose formation across the approach path. Their posture carried the ease of men who had done night watch many times before.
The formation that covered the outer walls ended at the gateway's edge. Exactly as I had observed. From up here, I was entirely outside.
I set Yue Lian down carefully on the arch, making sure she had stable footing on the flat stone. Then turned her face gently away from the outer edge, toward the mountain peak above us.
Slowly, four threads extended downward through the darkness.
They drifted with the cold air until each one settled around a guard's neck, loose and distant enough that none of them noticed.
Sweat slid down my temple while two blades appeared in my hand. I connected them to separate threads and lowered them quietly into the darkness below, positioning them in case anything went wrong like before.
I waited…. feeling the threads and slowly closing the distance.
Then I pulled, instantly the four threads tightened at the same time leaving the guards barely the time to react. Their heads separated in a single motion.
"Akk—!"
THUD
The bodies collapsed as blood spread across the stone path below.
"Hoh!" And I released a slow breath, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I turned back to find Yue Lian was still looking toward the mountain and the distant sect buildings. Without wasting a second, I picked her up again and she tucked her head down as I stepped off the arch's edge. Threads extending to slow our descent.
We landed on the outer path barely making a sound and I ran as fast as I could.
The mountain path sloped steeply downward toward the town. And behind us, the sect remained still and quiet on the mountain.
For a moment, Yue Lian lifted her head, her grip around my neck loosening slightly as she watched the town lights grow bright.
_________
Author : Do not get confused my readers, just go with the flow.
Don't ask why, wasn't this simple. Everything has a reason.