Now Wei Feng showed why he ranked second on Maple City's Merit Board. He charged into the ghost pack like a battering ram. Every specter he met shattered on contact. A cold light clung to him — metal essence packed to the point of visibility. His steps never slowed, as if nothing in the world could stop him.
His saber howled, cutting even the air.
The others followed in his wake, guarding the flanks, and their risk dropped sharply.
Jiang Chen and Zhao Yan took the wings, shielding Ling Chuan and Du Hu between them. Ling Chuan bore it well enough. Du Hu's face swelled red, but this was no time for pride — he buried his head and ran.
Time blurred in the closing fog; direction was guesswork. The ghosts they met were weak, a Nine-Rank cultivator's proper prey. But Nine-Rank and Eight-Rank cultivators carried little Dao essence in their Celestial Palaces. They could not fight forever. Push too long, and their Dao vortices would crack, their foundations would rot.
Wei Feng stopped.
By rough reckoning they had nearly reached the town's center. Jiang Chen remembered a market square there — on fair days, folk from every hamlet gathered to trade and laugh.
Wei Feng had not halted by choice. A wall of fog barred his path, and his saber had found it first.
It was nothing like the drifting white around them. This wall had presence, and it was tough. Wei Feng's blade could have hewn through iron — the fog wall did not budge. Blow after blow vanished into it like stones into a pond.
Wei Feng's jaw worked. He felt it, behind that wall: something terrible in motion. Not simple evil — something that could touch the rest of his life.
And his saber could not reach it.
"Anyone with a way through — try it!" Wei Feng called. "There's no time to waste. The blame is mine."
A disciple walked straight up to the wall and began unbuckling his belt.
"What are you doing?!" someone grabbed his arm.
"Don't stop me!" The man was earnest. "This place is thick with ghosts and heavy with yin. A virgin's urine drives off spirits! I've never spent my yang — this is my duty!"
His name was Huang Azhan, an Inner Academy disciple from the last intake, Du Hu's drinking buddy. A good sort. Just not bright.
Wei Feng watched stone-faced as the man relieved himself against the wall. The fog wall did not move. Only the pungent smell bore witness to what had happened.
"That's not right. Maybe I didn't give enough." The man turned, mustering himself: "Anyone else still a virgin? Come on, everyone! Not you, Zhao Yan — you're too yin-heavy. Du Hu, get over here! Don't be shy — with that face of yours you'll die a virgin, so your yang must be strong!"
One remark insulting two men at once. Had the situation been less dire, Du Hu would have punched his block off.
Zhao Yan bared his teeth in a grin: "Azhan, think again. Maybe it's not urine the wall wants — maybe it's a virgin's blood?"
Huang Azhan rubbed his chin and actually seemed to consider it.
Wang Hao, still weak from the whirlwind, spoke: "When the wind blew the fog clear, I watched the ghosts. They form a simple Nine Palace Array. I wasn't sure until we were blocked here, at the central palace."
"How do we break it?" Wei Feng was all business.
"The one who laid it wasn't careful. And that many ghosts can't be commanded like fingers on a hand. So the answer is simple." Wang Hao smiled ruefully. "Break the other eight palaces' anchors. The center falls on its own."
Wei Feng gave the orders on the spot: "Wang Hao stays to watch and direct. Four men answer to him, ready to reinforce any front. I'll take the Kan Palace myself. The rest split into seven groups, one palace each. We regroup here."
The heavenly numbers divide, yang rises from the Son, yin from the Noon — the Taiyi descends the nine palaces beginning at Kan. The Kan Palace stood due north, its element water — not the easiest assignment for Wei Feng. But his strength made such concerns irrelevant.
"One warning." Wang Hao added: "Every ghost we've cleared was common. But the anchors will be held by wrath ghosts, or worse. Don't overreach."
Zhao Lang, loyal to Wei Feng's word, spoke first: "The Kun Palace is mine."
Li Yun was already striding west, hand on sword. "I'll take the Zhen Palace. The rest of you divide the others."
The strong stepped forward and shouldered the weight. That was the backbone of a cultivator.
Jiang Chen exchanged glances with his brothers. "The four of us will take the Xun Palace."
It was no boast. Their strength had been shown along the way. He had not yet laid his foundation, but with the Violet Dawn Sword Art he stood above the common Nine-Rank. The Xun Palace's element was wood, and metal cuts wood — a right fit. The remaining wood-element palace, Zhen, was already Li Yun's.
There was a practical edge too: an incident this size would not be forgotten. Every contribution would be recorded. Ling Chuan, Du Hu, and Zhao Yan were all stockpiling merit for Meridian-Opening Pills. Clear a palace, and they would leap forward.
None objected to the four brothers taking Xun. Their swordwork had earned respect. The remaining twenty disciples split five to a group and chose the last four palaces.
Wang Hao's whirlwind had bought them something priceless: direction. It was the precondition for breaking the array at all.
The Xun Palace lay southeast. Jiang Chen advanced through the fog, blade drawn, until a tavern's shape emerged ahead. He relaxed a fraction. The town's only tavern sat to the southeast. They were on course.
"Careful." Ling Chuan's voice was low. "Something very dangerous lies ahead."
Ling Chuan's instincts had never lied. No one took it lightly.
Jiang Chen nodded. "That should be the wrath ghost Wang Hao mentioned — the Xun Palace's anchor. Zhao Yan, how many killing forms of the Violet Dawn have you mastered?"
"All of them," said Zhao Yan.
There was nothing to say about that talent. Jiang Chen gave the orders: "I strike first. You follow, hit with everything you have, kill it fast. Eldest brother and Second brother, guard our flanks. Don't let the common ghosts through — spend lifeblood if you must."
Before foundation, without a transcendent art like the Violet Dawn, lifeblood was the only weapon that hurt spirits. But lifeblood was the root of the body, and burning it drained terribly. Ling Chuan and Du Hu had been frugal all the way here.
They did not hesitate at the order. That was trust forged in a hundred battles.
The fog hid distances, but the brothers marked their target and closed in a spread circle.
A scream tore the air, close enough to bite.
A sword-light blazed before Jiang Chen. The first killing form of the Violet Dawn Sword Art — and a crimson claw met the blade.
The Xun Palace's wrath ghost stood revealed.
The common ghosts had looked almost human — pale, translucent, sad. This thing was another species. Green-faced, fangs bared, near four yards tall, muscle corded over bone. Its claws were red, wet, one still dripping.
Jiang Chen had known the ghost's senses would outmatch theirs in this fog. He had been waiting, sword coiled, and caught the first strike.
He had still underestimated it.
From a thousand ghosts, the array's maker had raised only eight wrath ghosts to sit the nine palaces. Whether bred or born of slaughter, such spirits did not come weak. The first claw he blocked, but a second raked his arm, peeling a strip of flesh. The blood dripping from the ghost's claw was his own. The wound was shallow, at least.
Jiang Chen struck back — and Zhao Yan's blade moved with him.
The first killing form prized speed: attack like thunder, guard like lightning. Zhao Yan's sword punched through the ghost's belly. He drove in with it, hanging from the great body like a monkey from a tree.
The ghost howled and snapped its head down.
Zhao Yan kicked off the reaching claw, flipped clear, and abandoned the sword. The ghost lunged after him — and Jiang Chen flickered past its face.
The second killing form. Its essence was precision.
He was already beyond the ghost when the sword-light crossed its eye. Black-green fluid burst like a split gourd. The spirit shrieked, a sound beyond agony. Mad thing though it was, it fixed its one remaining eye on Jiang Chen — and hatred burned in it.
It did not guard the wound. Let the fluid run. Its belly still carried Zhao Yan's sword, wobbling. It charged.
Ling Chuan, driving off common ghosts at the circle's edge, threw his own sword through the air. "Catch!"
Zhao Yan snatched it mid-leap and came down like a falling star behind the ghost. The blade punched through its nape, out under its chin, point against its chest.
The ghost twisted, reaching back — a slower strike by the angle. Zhao Yan braced his feet against its spine and hauled at the sword. The blade was gripped fast in the creature's muscle. One heartbeat's delay.
That heartbeat was enough. The huge claw swept across him and hurled him five yards into the fog. Gone, swallowed by the white — and the fog was full of hungry ghosts.
Jiang Chen was across the circle. Ling Chuan had given up his sword and was still wrestling specters. Only Du Hu stood close, and Du Hu had been burning to move since the fight began. He had come to this town to destroy evil, not to be sheltered for merit, not to be a burden.
A roar shook the street. Du Hu's lifeblood exploded — crimson light lanced from his crown, a column of living flame. A beacon of vital blood.
Only a martial artist whose blood was strong enough could raise such a beacon. Jiang Chen himself could not.
Du Hu's burst proved he had no peer.
Wrapped in blood that had become armor, he crossed the distance at a speed that seemed impossible and reached Zhao Yan's side.