Brawl

"You!" Li Libo's eyes reddened with fury, and he took an involuntary step forward. Chen Jiechang grabbed his fellow townsman. "Hold back! Senior Brother Xiang and the others aren't here." Li Libo suddenly remembered that Xiang Changsong had left around noon. Right now, not a single one of Master Yang's direct disciples was in the martial hall! "Senior Brother Xiang? So that's who you're banking on, huh? You really think Senior Brother Xiang is going to help you?" Lu Tingcai's heart had actually skipped a beat. If the two really ran off to complain, it would be bad for him. But this wasn't his first time shaking people down, and he had his routine down pat. He sneered, spinning his rhetoric. "Just because Senior Brother Xiang spoke a few pleasant words to you, you think you're somebody? You think he'd punish the four of us for the sake of three mud-legged bumpkins? "Unless, of course, he's willing to kick all of us out just for you three." Li Libo and Chen Jiechang's hearts sank. Their station in life came rushing back to them. Fishermen. Would Senior Brother Xiang truly stand up for a few fishermen? Even if he helped them, he wouldn't outright expel Lu Tingcai. And if Lu Tingcai wasn't expelled... Having recently paid their autumn taxes, the two were all too familiar with how powerful figures operated. They believed most of Lu Tingcai's words on the spot, their faces darkening. Seeing their reaction, Lu Tingcai relaxed. Striking while the iron was hot, he added, "The two of you reek of foul fish, stinking up the place so bad nobody can focus on practicing. Isn't it only right for you to cough up some coin so everyone can have some curd drinks? "Right, there were three of you, wasn't there? Where's the other one? Did he know he wasn't cut out for this and scurry home early? Well, too bad—you'll have to cover his share too!" Chen Jiechang felt uncertain, but he remained furious. "Every time we train, we stay at least ten paces away from you all! Even if we smell like fish, there's no way you could smell us!" "Sorry, didn't you know martial training sharpens the five senses? Our noses are just that keen. We can smell you, so what are you going to do about it?" "And what if we don't pay?" "Don't pay?" Lu Tingcai raised an eyebrow. Slouching casually, he turned and cupped his hands. "Instructor Lu, would it be alright if I sparred with these two junior brothers?" Li Libo and Chen Jiechang were horrified. Lu Tingcai was an old-timer whose qi was already as thick as a little finger, on the verge of breaking through the skin gate. How could he have the nerve? And Lu Shaohui had disliked the two of them from the start. Wouldn't this play right into his hands? Not to mention that the martial hall didn't forbid sparring, and suffering minor injuries was commonplace. To their surprise, Lu Shaohui only frowned upon hearing the request. He had no love for the three fishermen from Yixing, and he hated their stench even more, but he had never intended to do anything about it. A martial practitioner who had broken through two gates, stooping to make trouble for three fishermen? He didn't care about them in the slightest; to him, their presence mattered less than the air he breathed. Lu Tingcai had picked the wrong man to use as a weapon. Lu Shaohui tossed aside his stone lock and walked straight out of the training ground as if he hadn't heard a word. The atmosphere turned thoroughly awkward. Lu Tingcai watched Lu Shaohui's departing back, his mouth twitching. Fortunately, he was naturally thick-skinned and couldn't care less. The plan was still under his control; in fact, it was better that Lu Shaohui stayed out of it. Turning back, he rolled up his sleeves, ready to "spar" with the two. "Since you two junior brothers won't listen, I'll just have to teach you on behalf of the instructors—" Chen Jiechang braced himself as if facing a mortal foe, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Li Libo dart forward. Li Libo snatched something from a flowerbed and smashed it violently against the back of Lu Tingcai's head. *Crack!* A dull, heavy thud echoed across the training ground. Everyone froze. Lu Tingcai's head spun, his vision blurring. He wobbled around, looking down to see the stone in Li Libo's hand. He reached up to touch the back of his head, then brought his hand before his eyes. It was dripping red. He wanted to curse, but his brain refused to work. His feet stumbled, and he slumped diagonally against the wall. Xue Dingyi and the others were dumbfounded. It took several beats before they snapped back to their senses and bellowed, "Get him!" *Wait, don't!* Slumped in the corner, Lu Tingcai was even more panicked. A one-on-one was a spar, but a brawl changed everything! *I only wanted to squeeze them for some silver, not get kicked out of the martial hall!* He opened his mouth to stop Xue Dingyi, but a throbbing agony racked his brain, and he couldn't force out a single word. He had never imagined Li Libo would be reckless enough to bash his head open right off the bat. Chaos erupted instantly. "Look out!" Chen Jiechang yanked Li Libo backward with all his might. Just then, another disciple drew a wooden staff from a weapon rack and brought it crashing down where Li Libo had stood only a moment before. *** Underwater. Liang Qu took a deep breath from his air-filled pig bladder float, tied off the neck, and hitched it to his waist. The "rock" remained motionless. With his shift in perspective, he had learned more about the creature, particularly the two protruding stalks atop the rock—plainly its eyestalks. *A clear weak spot,* Liang Qu thought. He crept forward step by step, using the scattered rocks for cover as he closed the distance. Just as he prepared to advance further, the crustacean monster resting on the riverbed suddenly moved. Liang Qu froze instantly, shrinking his presence as much as possible. He could not move. Most crustaceans possessed an extraordinary tactile sense, able to detect vibrations through their small legs to determine whether another creature was nearby. Moving now would only give him away. Two smaller stone masses suddenly split off from the original "boulder." The tips of these smaller masses parted into two pairs of pincer-like appendages, which pressed down against the ground to slowly heave the massive rock upward. Only then did Liang Qu realize that a portion of the rock had been buried beneath the silt! Once the creature stood fully upright, it formed a flared shape—broader at the top and narrower at the bottom—standing roughly 1.7 meters tall. Watching from the shadows, Liang Qu found it strangely familiar. *Why does this look so much like Urgot?* The spirit creature before him looked as if a crab's waist had been stretched out. Its upper body was an inverted triangle bearing two massive claws, while its lower body consisted of crab-like legs reminiscent of Urgot, the Dreadnought. Around its middle grew a ring of crab hair that looked remarkably like a belt. He hadn't expected a crab monster to look so bizarre, let alone be so much larger than anticipated. He had assumed it would be about a meter tall, but it was practically as tall as he was. With a width exceeding a meter, it appeared immensely burly. After standing, the crab monster remained motionless where it was. More than ten meters away in the shadows, Liang Qu stayed just as still. The two beasts pressed flat against the ground, burying themselves in the silt to blend completely with their surroundings—a near-perfect camouflage. For a time, the underwater situation had changed, yet remained the same. Both sides stood as unyielding as boulders, with only the water weeds swaying gently in the current. Liang Qu kept his eyes fixed on the crab monster. But suddenly, his line of sight cleared completely, his vision piercing through the water without obstruction toward the dark depths beyond. *Look out!* *Run!* Liang Qu roared through the mental link, kicking off the riverbed in a frantic retreat. The Sow Dragon and the Fat Catfish rolled and darted away at full speed. An instant later, an enormous silhouette appeared within his rough perception sphere, plummeting toward him from overhead. Heavy crab legs stabbed into the silt. The displaced current surged like a sudden underwater gale, kicking up a cloud of sediment that rose to Liang Qu's waist. A massive claw parted the water with a sound like ripping silk, wreathed in broken white trails of froth like trailing threads as it crashed down toward Liang Qu's head. The whistle of the monstrous limb tearing through the liquid was terrifying. Liang Qu twisted aside to dodge. Swallowing his dread, he seized control of the currents, acting like two invisible hands pushing in opposite directions—one shoving the claw away, the other thrusting himself clear. The two forces crossed paths. The claw struck the scattered stones, smashing down a rock half the height of a man. Driven by crushing force, it pushed the water aside and slammed into the riverbed with a boom. The underwater gale seemed to intensify at once, swirling sediment to more than the height of a person. What a ferocious strike! Liang Qu's pupils shrank. Almost the instant he dodged clear, the enormous claw swept horizontally through the brown haze of mud. Water currents erupted like striking pythons, churning the entire area. Liang Qu raised his spear shaft horizontally to block and commanded the water behind him to brace his back. The impact flung him backward, and he drifted down slowly. The crab monster tore its jointed legs from the silt, coiling its lower body like a prawn before springing forward, shooting out from the muddy fog like a projectile. The Sow Dragon and the Fat Catfish moved to intercept, but were far too slow. Thick sand and silt clung to the crab monster's numerous joints, stretching and scattering rapidly in the rushing current like countless fine gray hands reaching out to clutch and hold it back, to no avail. Yet in the very next second, an invisible force gathered those scattered gray hands, sweeping them directly toward the crab monster's eyes to blind its sight.