Morning mist clung to the southern slopes of the Heavenly Scribe Mountains. Below them, the Phantom Ink Basin cut a black gash through the rock. Mineral scum filmed its stagnant pools, and the air was so dense with Qi-dampening vapor that ordinary cultivators struggled to draw a full breath of spiritual energy.
Silver veins crossed the gorge walls, but the mineral swallowed daylight instead of reflecting it. Dark pools showed the cliffs without the sky above. A pebble sank without a splash. Above the waterline, Zi Fan noticed deep scratches slanting toward one narrow channel. Something heavy had climbed out here before. He marked its route in his mind.
The vapor could not obstruct Zi Fan's circulation. He had no Qi to circulate. The slick stone beneath his boots was another matter.
He kept one hand near the gorge wall as he followed its narrow ridge, a bamboo container in his other hand. Under the slick black surface, his awakened perception picked out intersecting seams of mineral, each one arranged with the legibility of characters in an old text:
[Target: Concentrated Moon-Crested Mineral]
[Density: High]
[Property: Structural Hardening / Kinetic Absorption]
“Enough for the Golden Page Body's second stage,” Zi Fan murmured.
The refinement called for density, not another vial of spirit medicine. If he could absorb the mineral's structure without disrupting his own bones, his body might endure the recoil of stronger Lexicon strokes.
He found a jagged outcrop threaded with silver and laid his palm against it. The stone was cold enough to numb his fingertips. Holding the mineral's pattern steady in his mind, he gave it a narrow instruction:
⟦Inscribe: Mineral Integration⟧
A crack ran through the outcrop. Metallic grains rose from the broken seam and sank into his palm, leaving a faint gold sheen beneath his skin. His wrist throbbed as the new density settled into bone; even a successful correction made his body bear the change.
He shook feeling back into his hand. Then the vapor around the ridge drew tight, and the hairs on his neck lifted.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
Three black talismans hissed out of the mist and buried themselves around his boots. Crimson vines burst from the soaked ground, tightening against his calves before he could clear the triangle they formed.
Footsteps scraped the surrounding ledges. Three figures had taken the paths he might have used to escape.
Liu Ruyan waited above him with a blood-red talisman poised between two painted nails. She was at the peak of Qi Gathering's ninth stage. On the right, Gu Feng planted his feet and drew the Stone-Bones Method over his arms until his skin took on the color of wet granite.
The third figure stepped onto the black pool itself. Its surface dimpled beneath his shoes but did not let him sink.
Mo Yunsheng, Elder Lu Cang's trusted inner disciple, had reached Early Foundation Establishment. Poison crawled down the edge of the black sword in his hand, gathering in a drop that would not fall.
“You are surprisingly composed for a library servant about to die, Zi Fan,” Mo Yunsheng said. He angled the sword so its poisoned edge caught the little daylight reaching the gorge. “Did you truly think Deacon Chen's protection could reach into the Phantom Basin?”
Zi Fan tested the vines around his legs. They tightened toward three waiting weapons. He had endured insults by keeping still; keeping still here would let Mo Yunsheng put the poisoned blade through his heart.
“Elder Lu Cang sent an Early Foundation Establishment disciple and two ninth-stage enforcers to murder a scholar without Qi.” Zi Fan looked from the talismans to the poisoned edge. “You came expecting an execution. You should have checked your own fate script first.”
“Die, arrogant waste!” Mo Yunsheng barked.
Mo Yunsheng pushed off the water. The surface buckled behind him as he drove his poisoned sword toward Zi Fan's heart, Foundation Establishment Qi gathering along its narrow edge.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Zi Fan kept his feet within the tightening vines. Pulling against them would only give Mo Yunsheng a stationary target and Liu Ruyan time to close the formation. He looked instead at the three talismans embedded in the mud.
The vines drew their strength through the talismans at his feet. Their written direction ran outward from Liu Ruyan’s ledge and closed around his ankles. Zi Fan could turn that direction back toward its source.
“Redirect,” Zi Fan whispered.
Gold flashed across the talismans. The vines released Zi Fan's legs and lashed backward along the paths Liu Ruyan had written for them, their sharpened ends cutting through the fog toward her ledge.
“What?!” Liu Ruyan gasped from the high ledge.
Liu Ruyan raised a hand too late. Her own vines struck her chest and drove her against the cliff. Blood reached the nearest rune; the formation drew at her Qi even as she sagged against the stone.
Mo Yunsheng saw her fall, but his sword was already within reach of Zi Fan's chest. He pushed harder. “It doesn't matter! My sword will still pierce you!”
Zi Fan stepped forward, meeting the incoming blade head-on. He raised his right hand, his skin flashing with a subtle golden luster as the ⟦Golden Page Body⟧ activated.
CLANG!
CLANG! The blow rang through Zi Fan's arm and sent a sharp ache into his shoulder.
The blade stopped between Zi Fan's fingers. Poison hissed where steel pressed against the gold-hardened skin, but it found no purchase. Mo Yunsheng pulled, then pulled harder, and discovered that the scholar's hand was not moving with him.
“You came to kill me,” Zi Fan said. Mo Yunsheng tried to wrench the blade free. Zi Fan tightened his grip before fear could make him loosen it.
Zi Fan closed his fist.
CRACK!
The sword split beneath Zi Fan's grip. He caught two fragments before they struck the stone and drove them forward into Mo Yunsheng's throat and Dantian. The movement was short and ugly; there was no room between them for a second strike.
Pfft!
Blood spilled between Mo Yunsheng's fingers. His shattered Dantian could no longer sustain the Qi beneath his feet, and the black pool took his weight. He struck the water on his side, turned once, and lay still.
The water closed around Mo Yunsheng. On the cliff, Liu Ruyan's talismans stopped glowing.
Gu Feng had been advancing with his stone fist raised. He halted with one foot still forward, staring first at Liu Ruyan against the cliff and then at the shape floating in the pool. Zi Fan's hand had already lost its golden sheen.
“Monster...” Gu Feng stammered, falling backward onto his hands and knees, shivering violently in sheer terror. “You... you killed them both in two breaths!”
Zi Fan stepped past Mo Yunsheng's body. His hand shook once before he tucked it into his sleeve.
“You came here to take my life as well, did you not?” Zi Fan asked quietly, raising his index finger toward Gu Feng’s forehead.
“No! Wait! I was only following orders! Spare me!” Gu Feng screamed, slamming his forehead repeatedly against the sharp rocks until blood flowed. “I will tell Elder Lu Cang whatever you want! I will leave the Law Enforcement faction!”
Zi Fan held his finger above Gu Feng's forehead. The young man was terrified, but terror alone would not stop someone from returning with orders and another blade.
“Your death would be convenient, but a living mouthpiece carries a sharper message,” Zi Fan said, his voice cold as ice. “I will spare your life today, Gu Feng. But leave a single mark of my Lexicon in your mind.”
Zi Fan pressed his thumb against Gu Feng’s forehead. A faint golden glyph burned into Gu Feng’s skin before vanishing into his skull.
⟦Mind Glyph: Compliance Anchor⟧
“If you ever harbor intent to harm me or Ye Xue again, that script will shatter your skull from the inside,” Zi Fan whispered softly. “Now crawl back to Lu Cang, and tell him that if he wants my life, he had better come down to the arena himself.”
Gu Feng had expected the scholar to kill him. He did not know what frightened him more: the bodies of his companions or the small golden mark that had entered his head.
Zi Fan crouched beside the broken sword, careful to avoid its poison. A purchasing inscription ran along the metal beneath the coating. The signature had been polished away, but the incised characters still left grooves he could trace.
“Who gave him the sword?” Zi Fan asked.
Gu Feng kept his eyes on the stone. “I don’t know.”
“That is not the same as saying you weren’t told.”
The man’s throat moved. “A steward brought it from Law Enforcement Peak. No name. We weren’t meant to return it.”
Zi Fan looked from the poison to Liu Ruyan’s talismans, now scattered where their formation had failed. Every object in the ambush had been prepared to erase witnesses as well as a target. If the three attackers died and the rootless servant disappeared, there would be nothing left for a tribunal to question.
He had survived. That did not make the encounter a victory he could enjoy.
“Send men to collect the bodies,” Zi Fan told Gu Feng. “Tell them who sent you. You may say I forced you to speak, if that makes it easier.”
Gu Feng nodded, but his knees could scarcely hold him. Zi Fan pulled Mo Yunsheng’s body out of the poison-slick water and left it above the flood line for the men Gu Feng would send. Then he stepped away, refusing to let the gesture become a claim of forgiveness.
He retrieved one torn talisman and one broken fragment of the sword. An accusation without an object could be dismissed as rumor. Two objects might survive long enough for a judge to ask where they had come from.
Gu Feng scrambled toward the lower path, stumbling through the slick stones without once turning his head. Zi Fan watched until the mist hid him.
Zi Fan retrieved his bamboo container. Blood had dried across one handle. He rubbed it with wet sand until his thumb hurt, but the stain remained in the grain. Liu Ruyan had tried to kill him. Mo Yunsheng had left him no safe opening. Those facts did not turn either body into a mistake he had corrected. And Gu Feng would carry a mark inside his head because Zi Fan had chosen to put it there. The tournament was fifteen days away. He would arrive with more than stronger bones.