When the white light scattered, there remained a deep crater a full ten zhang across.
From within the pit, White Lotus slowly climbed to her feet.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Coughing, she looked up into the sky. "If not for this robe, this lady would have been finished."
The black robe upon her was plainly a rare dharma artifact, one that had shielded her from an attack like that. But it too was by now damaged in a dozen places, now and then revealing stretches of snow-white skin.
Into White Lotus's field of night vision, a figure clad in the Justice Enforcement Bureau's signature red-and-black robes came slowly descending from the night sky.
His features were lean and spare, a three-inch wisp of beard, and even his voice was gaunt and dry. And yet, overall, he radiated a sense of power solid as substance.
"To react in time before my Blazing Light Burst, you are truly something remarkable. I am rather curious... who was it that you just sent away."
His tone shifted abruptly, and with a snap of folding in on himself he sped off, charging in the very direction Jiang Chen had gone!
White flame blazed up sudden, and White Lotus shot skyward, blocking herself before this master of the Justice Enforcement Bureau at an inconceivable speed. Bloom after bloom of searing white flame flowered like lotuses, scorching the darkness of the night.
But then—
The Justice Enforcement Bureau master changed his shape for an instant and crossed the field of white flame, pressing close against White Lotus's front.
The two hung almost glued together in mid-air, half a body-length overlapping.
He reached out a hand, and pressed a ball of Blazing Light Burst against White Lotus's belly.
And shoved her whole body down toward the earth!
He had been ready all along! Or rather, that sudden turn to chase Jiang Chen had itself been but one move in his stratagem.
Boom!
The blazing sphere of light drove down atop White Lotus's soft frame, and smashed another great crater into the ground.
"Cough—cough!"
When the dust cleared, White Lotus rose again from within the pit.
The blood coughed from her mouth had already soaked through her masked black cloth.
"That son of a bitch Ji Xuan, forever pulling dirty tricks. Good and well he's doomed to be a running dog his whole life."
There was a wound clearly visible on her belly, slowly closing over as her white flame burned.
So the man who had appeared in the sky was none other than the figure ranked third within the entire Justice Enforcement Bureau, the Bureau chief of Clear River County, the pinnacle of the Inner Palace realm — Ji Xuan!
Hearing himself cursed out in a string, Ji Xuan was not offended. "You knew full well it was me, and still you dared to resist?"
White Lotus broke suddenly into a lovely, teasing laugh. "The Bureau Chief Ji may be strong, but he doesn't understand a woman's heart. The moment you come at me tearing off my clothes, what girl wouldn't fight back?"
Her voice was dreamlike and illusory, as though within a murmuring murmur she wove a beautiful dream that spread, quietly, toward Ji Xuan.
And almost at the same moment, centered upon White Lotus, streak after streak of searing white light crisscrossed and knit together, covering outright every position within three zhang of her all around!
Phantom sound entering dreams, blazing light for execution.
White Lotus had made her talk a lure; Ji Xuan had made his talk a preparation. Two Top-grade Class-A Dao arts had detonated almost simultaneously.
Though White Lotus shot out of the range of the blazing-light execution at the very first instant, the white flame around her body had thinned noticeably, and could no longer cover her whole form.
The gap in strength was plain enough, and all the more so since White Lotus carried her injury from before.
But the direction she charged... was toward Ji Xuan!
Phantom Sound Entering Dreams could not, of course, wipe out the spirit of a strong man such as Ji Xuan. But she needed only a single opening. If she could sink Ji Xuan into sleep for the space of three breaths, she would have a chance tonight to overturn the battle!
A blossom of white flame opened before her jade-white palm, pressed toward Ji Xuan's belly.
She was, of course, a woman who remembered her grudges.
Thud!
White Lotus slammed into something, struck dizzy and sprawling. Only then did she see, thread after thread of white light, interwoven like strands, forming a block of square-shaped prison cage, standing just before Ji Xuan and trapping White Lotus within it!
White light like walls. White light like a cage.
Plainly, for White Lotus's Phantom Sound Entering Dreams, Ji Xuan had likewise been ready. The time he was stunned might not even have reached a single breath, yet he waited until White Lotus drew near before his erupting burst.
Crushing.
Utterly, entirely crushing.
From start to finish, Ji Xuan held command of the entire battle.
He had never intended to kill White Lotus from the beginning; his aim was to take her alive.
Within the Cage of Prisoned Light, White Lotus gathered another bloom of white flame, yet she made no attempt to shatter the white light barrier. Instead she pressed it without a moment's hesitation against her own crown.
The instant she found herself trapped within the Cage of Prisoned Light, she had grasped Ji Xuan's purpose.
And so she likewise, in that very instant, gave her own answer!
This move was beyond a doubt outside Ji Xuan's expectations. He was deeply interested in White Lotus and in the whole organization that stood behind her; otherwise, holding the position he did, commanding the Justice Enforcement Bureau of the whole Clear River County, why would he have come out in person on this very night.
Should White Lotus die, it was naturally no loss to him. But it likewise meant that he would inevitably lose every gain thereafter.
Decisive as Ji Xuan was, in the first instant he dispersed the Cage of Prisoned Light, pressed close against White Lotus's side, wrapped his hand in white light, and reached to seize that white flower of flame.
The white flower of flame turned about, and blasted toward Ji Xuan's skull.
White Lotus's attack upon her own crown was, of course, a wholly genuine act — how else could she have fooled Ji Xuan? But the moment Ji Xuan sought to stop her suicide, she immediately reversed it into an attack.
She did not fear death, yet she did not wish to die.
Ji Xuan's white-wrapped hand barred across his forehead, catching precisely the white flower of flame. With the other hand he clenched a fist, and drove it hard into White Lotus's belly!
A man such as Ji Xuan, even wishing to take an opponent alive, would never for that reason grant the foe an opening. Taking alive was the aim, yes, but only one aim among many. To see to it as best he could. Not something that had to be done at all costs.
He had already grown angry, and this fist held nothing back.
White Lotus curled in mid-air like a shrimp, her whole body blasted away! The white flame about her guttered out sudden, just as that lamplight of her life flickered and swayed, threatening to fail.
Ji Xuan was about to tread the empty air in pursuit.
Then, suddenly, boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Billows of giant waves crashed against the sky, rumbling like a war drum.
The whole vast breadth of the river seemed to surge and run.
The Clear River shook!
A heaven-filling giant wave rushed up toward the high firmament, and atop that crest stood an old man robed in sumptuous ceremonial raiment.
"The Bureau Chief Ji of the Justice Enforcement Bureau, who handles all the transcendence-cases of the whole Clear River County — how is it he has the leisure to come wandering by the Clear River?"
He spoke almost at his last gasp, and yet his voice crushed the wave that beat the sky, crushed the roaring of the tide, and carried distinctly into Ji Xuan's ear.
This old man standing on the wave's crest had already grown noticeably stooped.
His face was scored with wrinkles, age-spots impossible to hide.
He looked very, very old.
But who would dare overlook him?
Who could overlook the master of these eight hundred li of Clear River — Song Hengjiang!
...
Ji Xuan almost instantly reined in his bearing, hovering in mid-air, eyes lowered slightly. "Lord Prefect, I, Ji Xuan, was making my night patrol of Clear River County when I inadvertently discovered that an inhuman sorcerer had bidden escape to this place. As the Chief of the Justice Enforcement Bureau, charged by the Sovereign, trusted with the lives of the people, I dare not take the matter lightly!
To keep this sorcerer from harming your lordship's subjects, I acted in haste. The situation was urgent, and I could not obtain your lordship's consent in advance. I beg your understanding."
These words of his were cast watertight.
They voiced humility even as they named his backing. And they handed Song Hengjiang a step by which to climb down.
As the figure ranked third in the Justice Enforcement Bureau, commanding the Bureau of the whole Clear River County, his standing was no lower than that of the Prefect of Clear River County.
Yet at this moment he, too, had to bow his head.
He understood full well. Since Song Hengjiang had chosen to appear in person this night, there must be some reckoning given for it.
He likewise felt that, with his standing of today, with the situation between the human and water races as it now stood, this step he offered ought to be enough.
But Song Hengjiang only cast a light, light sidelong glance at him from those cloudy eyes of his.
And then the corners of that old man's mouth drew gently apart, and a smile broke out.
At that one smile.
The twilight air of age departed, and arrogance and ferocity came roaring in!
"The seed of Zhuang Chengqian has grown more and more shameless. Killing and dying right before this lord's very eyes!"
He clasped his hands behind his back. "For the sake of Zhuang Chengqian, slap yourself ten times, and you may leave."