Kang Qiandeng, the Three-Absolutes Swordsman, walked at the very front. At the sound, his right hand merely flicked — a thread of silver light sprang from his waist, straightened by the flick of his wrist, and shot like lightning toward the laughter in the darkness.
The divine weapon Startled Swan Sword was, remarkably, a soft sword that could be worn coiled at the belt...
A muffled groan sounded. Kang Qiandeng withdrew the Startled Swan Sword, but there was no joy on his face, for out of the darkness a young man in the black shirt of a Four Seas Hall disciple came stumbling down, clutching his throat.
"Someone sealed his acupoints... I couldn't pull the sword back in time," Kang Qiandeng said heavily.
Even as he grieved, another dark figure lunged at him out of the blackness. He was just lifting his sword when he saw that this figure too wore Four Seas Hall black, and as he turned his thrust into an outstretched arm to catch the man, Qian Chen, who stood behind him, suddenly darted out and tapped the Heavenly Net Umbrella off his back against that dark figure.
The figure exploded into motion, a dagger springing out like a phantom.
Qian Chen opened the Heavenly Net Umbrella in his hand. No spiritual light shone from it, but the dagger struck the canopy as if striking a layer of tough cloth — it could not cut through that thin umbrella at all.
Qian Chen turned the handle, and the edge of the sweeping canopy brushed across the man's throat like a blade.
The dark figure dropped headlong, and Qian Chen folded the umbrella and slung it on his back again. Kang Qiandeng gave Qian Chen one long, deep look. "Thank you!" Qian Chen offered no explanation. By now, what need was there to explain so much?
Someone had already gone to examine the dead figure. Tearing off its face mask, the man returned looking sickened. "This is no human being at all... it's more like a ghost." Kang Qiandeng stepped up for a look. The enemy's face was mottled green-black — it truly did look more like a ghost.
He went on into the corridor, where the corpses of Four Seas Hall disciples leaned against the pillars on either side.
Half of each body was soaked in water, the other half showing above the surface, bloodless and deathly pale in the moonlight.
Their eyes were bulged wide, and terror was still frozen on many faces. And the wound on each neck had unmistakably been left by human teeth.
Every one of them had been drained of all the blood in his body...
"Corpse ghouls! These are corpse-ghoul death warriors raised by the Netherworld Palace. They temper their bodies with corpse poison and lost the feeling of pain long ago. They charge into death without fear!" Kang Qiandeng's face was grim.
"So one of the Twelve Yuan Chen is a man of the Netherworld Palace!"
"This is no time to talk it through," Qian Chen said evenly. "Someone is still waiting for us ahead."
The party crossed the corridor into the rear courtyard. From up ahead already came wild laughter that seized the soul. A figure drenched in blood brought his great hammer crashing down on a Four Seas Hall expert before him. Flesh and blood spattered; the expert flew outward like a rag doll. Then the figure raised its head like a demon, revealing an ugly, savage face.
Hammer in hand, he swept his gaze over the few men coming to the rescue...
The ground all around was pulped flesh; even his face was splattered with it. He actually stuck out his tongue and licked his lips, clearly not yet done savoring it. "More people coming to throw their lives away!"
Qian Chen took one sweeping look at the corpses around him, then at the eight-fluted copper hammer in the man's hand, and knew who had left Bi Tongtian with those wounds earlier that day. Around them lay not only the bodies of Four Seas Hall disciples but many innocent servants as well — cooks and kitchen maids among them. Qian Chen even saw a boy of about sixteen or seventeen clutching a broom, trembling as he hid in a corner of the kitchen, as if working up the courage to go out and fight for his life.
"Suo... San... Guan!" Kang Qiandeng ground out the name one syllable at a time.
"So you do know Grandpa's great name!" Suo Sanguan laughed savagely. "When Grandpa takes your head for a chamber pot, it'll soak you through nicely! Hahahaha..."
"Of course. Among that band of robbers, the Twelve Yuan Chen, how could a beast like you be missing? You were already the most vicious robber on the jianghu. Years ago your master, seeing your hard-tempered body of iron sinew, took you into his school — and you, coveting his heirloom divine weapon, the Armor-Breaking Hammer, smashed him to death by ambush, then raped and slaughtered your master's whole family, five lives in all.
"When the righteous path learned of it, several venerable seniors joined forces to hunt you down, but you escaped. You took to the hills as an outlaw, roamed the land plying your trade, and at every stroke smashed your victims into pulp.
"Plunder was only incidental — your real hunger was for killing. Even travelers who handed over all they carried were mostly tortured to death all the same! Fifteen years ago you vanished without a trace, and the jianghu believed some man of justice had finally killed you. Who could have imagined you had joined the Twelve Yuan Chen!"
"That's right — I am the Gladiatorial God-Lord of the Twelve Yuan Chen!" Suo Sanguan snarled. "Now let Grandpa send the lot of you to heaven!"
Kang Qiandeng's Startled Swan Sword cleared its sheath at his waist. His sword was already blindingly fast — but Suo Sanguan simply brought the Armor-Breaking Hammer smashing straight in. That divine weapon was made to shatter protective gang qi, and on this course, Kang Qiandeng's sword would pierce Suo Sanguan first, and then Suo Sanguan's hammer would batter Kang Qiandeng's skull to pieces.
The enormous eight-fluted copper hammer was wielded with extreme slowness, but it was solid to the core and vast in size.
Suo Sanguan, heedless of everything, simply smashed down; the giant hammer itself shielded most of the vital points of his upper body. To pierce his skull, throat, or chest, one would first have to break the momentum of that hammer.
A thrust that missed the vitals might not even seriously wound a hard-tempered body like Suo Sanguan's — but Suo Sanguan's hammer would unquestionably smash through Kang Qiandeng's protective gang qi.
Kang Qiandeng, of course, would not make so losing a trade. He turned his blade and wheeled aside — but though the copper hammer started slowly, once in motion its own weight carried it, and its speed was no longer any less than the sword's. Suo Sanguan's hammer traveled in a straight line, and with that turn of the blade Kang Qiandeng had already lost the initiative, left struggling merely to parry.
This roaming desperado had from the start put on a style of fighting that cared nothing for his own life — but in truth every bit of it came from long experience of killing.
He traded wounds for lives. First he forced Kang Qiandeng to draw back his sword, then pressed his advantage — and this time he left Kang Qiandeng without even the means to trade an injury with him. The slender light of the Startled Swan Sword was astonishingly fast and its edge extraordinary, but turned to blocking and parrying a hammer weighing several thousand jin, the gang qi Kang Qiandeng fed into his blade was smashed apart in an instant.
Then his whole body was flung violently away.
He had meant to borrow that vast force to wrench himself free and retreat.
But the force riding the hammer far exceeded anything he had imagined. At the very first touch it had torn his protective gang qi apart as easily as ripping rotten wood, and he spat a mouthful of blood as the blow hurled him into the air.
The great copper hammer, in Suo Sanguan's hands at this moment, was as deft as an embroidery needle, exquisite beyond measure. Kang Qiandeng's retreat had not shed its terrible force in the least — instead Suo Sanguan gave it another twist, turning the smash into a thrust, driving it at the man flying backward.
At this the young Three-Absolutes Swordsman was already filled with regret. Had he known, it would have been better to spend this life on a crippling wound — even shattering one of the man's legs would have bought a chance for those behind him...
Then his back met something soft and springing, a yielding curve — Qian Chen, spreading the Heavenly Net Umbrella wide to catch him.
Qian Chen leapt into the air. The umbrella swung Kang Qiandeng back toward safety, while he himself rose to meet that life-taking copper hammer...
Chapter 20