"A hundred elite riders?! Led by Scarface Wolf himself?!"
The happy crunching of fried scorpions around the fire-pits stopped dead.
Old Man Liu's wooden bowl clattered to the ground, and even One-Eyed Jack jumped up so fast he kicked over his stool, his single eye wide with shock.
"Wait—is today already the night of the full moon?!" One-Eyed Jack slapped his own forehead with a loud smack. "I was so busy digging toilets and eating lamb-potatoes that I completely forgot what day it was! My Lord, Black-Mole is telling the truth! Before I left the Sand-Jackal Oasis three days ago, my big brother Scarface Wolf swore that if I wasn't back by moonrise tonight, he would lead the whole gang out at midnight and ride into Dry-Well Village at dawn!"
Pei Xuan stayed completely calm, wiping his hands with a clean cloth. "Tell me everything about Scarface Wolf and his hundred riders. What realms are they at, and what weapons do they carry?"
"My big brother isn't like me, my Lord!" One-Eyed Jack swallowed hard, his voice trembling as he remembered his older brother's temper. "I only trained my skin and muscles to Rank 1 Peak. Scarface Wolf broke through to Rank 2 Mid Martial—the Bone and Blood Tempering Realm—three years ago! His bones are as hard as wrought iron, his blood boils like hot oil, and his arms have one thousand five hundred pounds of brute strength! He swings a sixty-pound black-iron spear that can punch straight through a stone wall!"
"And he's not the only Rank 2 fighter," Black-Mole added quickly, sweating on his knees. "Our Second Boss, Blood-Axe Zhao, is a Rank 2 Early Martial killer who uses twin heavy battle-axes! Below them are fifteen Rank 1 Early and Mid Martial squad leaders, and eighty-five vicious horse bandits carrying leather shields and curved sabers!"
Around the square, the hundred original villagers and hundred and fifty new refugees felt their hearts sink into their boots.
Today at noon, watching the ten [Needle-Spitting Guard Cactuses] turn thirty bandits into screaming hedgehogs had made everyone feel invincible.
"Wait, Boss Jack!" Stone spoke up, gripping his new wooden tongs. "We have His Lordship's ten Guard Cactuses outside the West Gate, and fifteen of us just broke through to Rank 1 Early Martial tonight! Can't the Guard Cactuses shoot Scarface Wolf and his hundred riders off their horses just like they shot you?"
"It won't work on all a hundred of them!" One-Eyed Jack shook his head urgently. Noticeably, he wasn't even thinking about helping his brother escape—he was completely worried about protecting Dry-Well Village! "Those ten Guard Cactuses shoot six hundred needles in one blast, then they need three full minutes to suck up water and grow new needles! If a hundred riders charge at full gallop with thirty leather-shield riders in front, the front thirty riders will catch all the needles while the seventy riders behind them—along with Scarface Wolf and Blood-Axe Zhao—will trample right through the gate in three seconds!"
Old Wei's scarred face grew grave as he looked down at the chipped, eight-pound iron broadsword in his right hand.
"One-Eyed Jack is right, Young Master," Old Wei said quietly. "A Rank 2 Mid Martial fighter has iron bones and fifteen hundred pounds of strength. Even though my body feels ten years younger after drinking the Spirit Well water, my broadsword is just cheap Rank 0 pig-iron with three deep cracks in the blade. If I block Scarface Wolf's sixty-pound iron spear head-on, my sword will snap in half on the very first clash!"
Above One-Eyed Jack's head, Pei Xuan saw the bandit boss's status bar flashing green:
[ Loyal Debtor: One-Eyed Jack (Rank 1 Peak Martial) ] * Loyalty: 68 -> 82 / 100 [Devoted to the Village!] * Current Thought: "My big brother Scarface Wolf used to beat me with a whip whenever I ate an extra piece of mutton! If he breaks into Dry-Well Village, he'll destroy the Sweet-Spring Well, trample our Meat-Potato fields, and kill Fat Uncle Guo! We can't let him ruin our good life!"
Pei Xuan couldn't help smiling. When even the bandit chief's own younger brother was terrified that the bandits would ruin his potato farm and kitchen, how could Dry-Well Village possibly lose?
Just then, the clock in the top corner of Pei Xuan's RTS screen ticked over to 00:00:00!
DING!
==================================================================== [ MIDNIGHT TERRITORY SETTLEMENT — DAY 3 ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Territory: Dry-Well Village (Level 1) * Total Population: 284 (Loyal 60+: 284 / 284 — 100% Loyal!) * Realm Breakdown: - 21 Rank-1 Martial Fighters (x10 LP) = +210 LP - 263 Rank-0 Loyal Citizens (x1 LP) = +263 LP -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> DAILY INCOME EARNED: +473 LP! >> CURRENT BALANCE: 100 LP -> 573 LP! >> [NEW FUSION TIER AVAILABLE]: Rank 2 (Bone & Blood / Hundred-Point Tier — 100 LP per Fusion) is ready! ====================================================================
Five hundred and seventy-three Loyalty Points in the bank!
Pei Xuan stood up from his chair, his eyes calm and bright under the torchlight.
"So Scarface Wolf has a sixty-pound spear, and hundred riders are coming at dawn?" Pei Xuan laughed softly. "Good! That saves me the trouble of walking out into the desert to look for extra road-builders! Tonight, nobody panics. We have five hours before sunrise—more than enough time to forge Old Wei a proper weapon and dig Scarface Wolf a welcome bath!"
"Forge a weapon in five hours?!" Blacksmith Uncle Tie blinked his soot-stained eyes. "My Lord, even if I set up my bellows right now, forging a heavy saber strong enough to clash with a Rank 2 spear takes seven days of hammering and quenching!"
"Your hammer takes seven days. Mine takes ten seconds," Pei Xuan grinned. "Uncle Tie, Stone! Go to the storehouse right now! Bring me all thirty curved iron sabers we took from One-Eyed Jack's men, two kitchen cleavers, and that cracked two-hundred-pound Black-Iron Blacksmith Anvil from Uncle Tie's wagon!"
"Yes, my Lord!"
Three minutes later, Stone and Uncle Tie grunted and sweated as they carried a massive, cracked two-hundred-pound black-iron anvil into the center of the square and piled thirty-two rusty iron bandit sabers and knives on top of it.
Pei Xuan also had Old Guo scoop a small clay bowl of glowing red oil and crispy shell-ash from the bottom of the [Red-Hot Detox Chef Wok] and pour a ladle of midnight Morning Essence Water from the Spirit Well over the pile of iron.
"Old Wei, step forward and drop a single drop of blood from your finger onto the anvil," Pei Xuan instructed.
Old Wei didn't hesitate. He pricked his right thumb on the tip of a chipped saber, letting a bright red drop of his martial blood fall onto the black-iron anvil.
Pei Xuan placed both palms over the pile of thirty-two sabers and the two-hundred-pound anvil, opening the [Supreme Fusion Cube]!
==================================================================== [ SUPREME FUSION CUBE — RANK 2 MASTER WEAPON RECIPE ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- [Slot 1]: 32 Bandit Iron Sabers & Knives (160 lbs of Raw Blade Steel) [Slot 2]: 200-lb Black-Iron Blacksmith Anvil (Unbreakable Density) [Slot 3]: Morning Essence Water + Scorpion Yang-Ash + Old Wei's Blood -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Fusion Cost: 100 LP (Rank 2 Tier Fusion | Balance: 573 -> 473 LP) >> Result: Purges 100% of rust, air bubbles, and brittle iron flaws! Compresses 360 lbs of steel into a 120-lb Blood-Bound [Rank 2 Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber]! >> [CONFIRM FUSION? YES / NO] ====================================================================
Confirm Fusion!
BOOM—CLANG!
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
A pillar of blazing crimson and dark-gold forge fire erupted from Pei Xuan's hands, shooting ten feet into the night sky!
All two hundred and eighty-four villagers and bandit debtors gasped and shielded their eyes as a sound like a thousand invisible divine hammers striking an anvil rang through the square!
DING-DING-DING-CLANG!
Within the roaring golden fire, the thirty-two rusty iron sabers and the massive black-iron anvil melted into a swirling vortex of liquid black metal! Streams of black rust smoke hissed into the air and vanished, while the molten steel folded over itself a thousand times in five seconds, condensing smaller and denser until it formed a five-foot-long, four-inch-wide heavy broadsword!
SHING!
The golden fire vanished, and the new weapon stood upright with its tip embedded three inches deep in a granite paving stone!
The blade was five feet long from hilt to tip, pitch-black like midnight obsidian, with a thick, flat back etched with dark-gold mountain patterns and a razor edge that gleamed like cold lightning. Even though three hundred and sixty pounds of iron had gone into it, it had been compressed into a solid one-hundred-and-twenty-pound monster of a saber!
==================================================================== [ ARTIFACT WEAPON: HEAVY MOUNTAIN-CLEAVER SABER (Rank 2 Mid) ] ==================================================================== * Bound Wielder: Old Wei (Blood-Linked!) * True Weight: 120 Jin of Compressed Black-Anvil Steel! * Special Law 1 — [Blood-Feather Grip]: To anyone else, this saber weighs 120 lbs. In Old Wei's hand, it feels as light as an 8-lb wooden stick while hitting with its full 120-lb mass! * Special Law 2 — [One-Armed Mountain Crusher]: Perfectly balances a one-armed fighter's center of gravity! Every downward swing adds +600 Jin of Anvil Crushing Force and slices Rank 1–2 ordinary iron weapons clean in half! ====================================================================
"What a terrifying blade..." One-Eyed Jack gulped, backing away two steps just from the cold sharpness radiating off the black edge. "That thing looks heavier than a temple door! Who could swing a hundred-and-twenty-pound slab of black iron with one arm?"
"Old Wei," Pei Xuan smiled, gesturing toward the black hilt. "Pick up your new saber."
Old Wei's breathing was heavy as he stepped forward. With his calloused right hand, he wrapped his fingers around the textured black-iron hilt and pulled.
Shing!
The hundred-and-twenty-pound black saber slid out of the granite stone as smoothly as a feather!
Old Wei's single eye widened in shock. "Young Master! It... it feels no heavier than my old eight-pound broadsword in my hand! Wait—when I swing it—"
Old Wei stepped over to a four-foot-tall granite boulder sitting at the edge of the square, raised the [Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber] with his single right arm, and swung it down in a simple vertical chop!
WHOOSH—SHING!
There wasn't even a loud crash. The pitch-black blade passed through the four-foot solid granite boulder as if it were slicing a block of soft white tofu!
Two seconds later—THUD!
The left and right halves of the granite boulder slid apart and fell to the ground, their cut surfaces as smooth as polished mirrors!
Even more amazing, as Old Wei held the blood-bound Rank 2 saber, the hot Yang-Blood Vigor from the ten fried scorpions he had eaten earlier resonated with the blade's anvil energy, surging straight into his bones!
CRACK-POP!
Old Wei's spine and right arm bones let out a sound like ringing iron! His strength surged from 500 Jin straight past 1,100 Jin, breaking him through on the spot from Rank 1 Early Martial to Rank 2 Early Martial (Iron-Bone Realm)!
"I... I broke through to Rank 2 Iron-Bone?!" Old Wei stared at his gleaming black saber, tears welling in his scarred eye before he dropped to one knee in front of Pei Xuan. "With this Mountain-Cleaver Saber in my hand, Young Master, even if Scarface Wolf comes with ten spears, this old servant will chop him off his horse in one swing!"
[Follower: Old Wei | Realm: Rank 1 -> RANK 2 EARLY MARTIAL (+100 LP/day!)][Loyalty: 99 -> 100 / 100 (Die-Hard Eternal Guardian!)]
"Good! Now that Old Wei has his blade, let's build a little road surprise for Scarface Wolf's hundred horses!"
Pei Xuan turned to the crowd of two hundred and eighty-four fired-up villagers and bandit debtors.
"Scarface Wolf thinks his hundred warhorses can charge through our gate at full gallop," Pei Xuan said with a wicked grin. "Stone, Uncle Tie, One-Eyed Jack! Take two hundred men with shovels, pickaxes, and buckets out to the dip in the Canyon Road fifty feet in front of our Guard Cactuses!"
Pei Xuan drew a simple diagram in the sand with a stick:
"First, dig a shallow trench sixty feet wide, eighty feet long, and two feet deep right across the entire road just behind the gentle slope where riders can't see it until they are at full gallop! Second, haul all the yellow clay we dug out of the well ditches, mix it with fifty buckets of Sweet-Spring Water, twenty buckets of slimy boiled potato skins, and five buckets of leftover scorpion cooking grease! Puddle it until that eighty-foot trench is the slickest, slimiest Grease-Mud Pit in the world!"
One-Eyed Jack's single eye lit up with pure evil delight. "And then we cover the top of the grease-mud with thin reed mats and sprinkle half an inch of dry red sand over it so it looks just like flat, hard desert road!"
"Smart! Look who's using his brain!" Pei Xuan laughed and patted One-Eyed Jack's shoulder. "When a hundred galloping horses hit eighty feet of hidden potato-grease clay at thirty miles an hour, not even a winged horse can stay on its feet! And while they're sliding straight toward the gate on their butts, our ten [Needle-Spitting Guard Cactuses] will be waiting right at the finish line!"
"Hahaha! That's diabolical, my Lord! I love it!"
One-Eyed Jack waved his shovel high in the air. "Debtor Crew, on me! Let's dig Big Brother Scarface a nice, slippery mud bath so he can join our yellow-vest squad tomorrow!"
For the next four hours under the bright full moon, two hundred and fifty men and women worked like a well-oiled machine outside the West Gate.
With fifteen new Rank 1 Early Martial fighters like Stone and Uncle Tie swinging pickaxes, each strike dug up half a basket of earth. Within two hours, an eighty-foot-long, sixty-foot-wide shallow trench stretched all the way across the bottleneck of the Canyon Road right in front of the ten Guard Cactuses.
Then came the fun part!
Old Guo and the women dumped thirty barrels of slimy, boiled potato-peel starch, ten cartloads of fine yellow bottom-clay, and forty buckets of water into the trench. Twenty bare-legged young men jumped in and stomped it until the clay turned into a two-foot-deep pool of slippery, buttery yellow grease-mud!
It was so slick that when Rat-Whiskers accidentally stepped on the edge, both of his feet shot up into the air and he slid all the way from the west end of the pit to the east end on his backside like a greased turtle!
"Perfect! Not even an iron horseshoe can get traction on this!" Uncle Tie laughed as he and Widow Sun's weavers laid ultra-thin, brittle dry reed stalks over the top of the grease-mud and sifted a paper-thin layer of dry red desert sand over the reeds.
By the time the last scoop of dry sand was brushed smooth with brooms, the eighty-foot grease-mud trap looked completely identical to the rest of the Canyon Road!
At the same time, Pei Xuan drank that night's fresh bucket of midnight Morning Essence Water by the well, pushing his own cultivation from Rank 1 Mid Martial (900 Jin) straight into Rank 1 Peak Martial (1,000 Jin)!
Just as the first fiery red light of dawn broke over the eastern horizon, a deep, rolling thunder shook the sand dunes to the west.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
Pei Xuan stood on top of the newly built wooden watch-platform above the West Gate, with Old Wei standing beside him resting the five-foot [Rank 2 Heavy Mountain-Cleaver Saber] on his shoulder.
Half a mile away on the western ridge, a massive cloud of red dust boiled into the morning sky.
Out of the dust rode one hundred fierce desert cavalrymen in two wide ranks!
Riding at the very front on a huge, snorting black stallion was a seven-foot-tall brute wearing iron-studded wolf-skin armor. A hideous purple saber scar ran diagonally across his nose and cheek, and in his right hand he carried a sixty-pound Black-Iron Long Spear as thick as a baby's arm!
Beside him rode Second Boss Blood-Axe Zhao (Rank 2 Early Martial) waving two heavy crescent axes, followed by a hundred howling Sand-Jackal riders!
==================================================================== [ BOSS RAID ALERT: SCARFACE WOLF & THE SAND-JACKAL MAIN FORCE! ] -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Enemy Commander: Scarface Wolf (Chief of the Sand-Jackal Gang) * Realm: Rank 2 Mid Martial (Iron-Bone & Boiling-Blood — 1,500 Jin) * Deputy: Blood-Axe Zhao (Rank 2 Early Martial — 1,000 Jin) * Elite Force: 15 Rank-1 Martial Riders + 85 Rank-0 Mounted Bandits ====================================================================
"Little Brother Jack! Where are you?!"
Scarface Wolf reined in his black stallion three hundred yards outside the West Gate, his booming voice echoing like thunder off the clay cliffs.
When Scarface Wolf squinted toward the village gate, his eyes nearly popped out of his scarred face.
There, standing just inside the gate next to ten fat green cactuses, were One-Eyed Jack and all thirty of his bandits—dressed in bright-yellow sleeveless vests with [DEBTOR LABORER] written on their chests, each man holding a wooden toilet-digging shovel!
"Jack?!" Scarface Wolf's face twisted with fury as he pointed his sixty-pound iron spear at the gate. "What the hell are you wearing?! These mud-farmers stripped your armor and made you dig dirt with wooden shovels?! Don't worry, Little Brother! Watch Big Brother flatten their gate and skewer their Lord for you!"
Inside the gate, One-Eyed Jack panicked when he saw Scarface Wolf aiming his hundred horses straight at the village's precious wooden gate posts and drainage ditches!
One-Eyed Jack cupped both hands around his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs:
"BIG BROTHER! DON'T CHARGE THE ROAD! IF YOUR HORSES BREAK THE ROAD OR KNOCK OVER THE FENCE POSTS, YOU CAN'T AFFORD THE REPAIR BILL!"
Out on the ridge, Scarface Wolf sneered. He thought One-Eyed Jack was being forced at knifepoint to scare him off!
"Repair bill my ass! Wait till I burn this village to ashes!"
Scarface Wolf raised his sixty-pound iron spear high into the dawn sunlight and kicked his black stallion's belly with all his might:
"All one hundred brothers—FULL GALLOP! Trample Dry-Well Village flat!"