The city armory stood at the northwest corner of Maple City.
Weapons piled inside by the thousand, waiting for the day the army marched. A full company of a hundred men rotated through its walls at all times, split into ten squads, each squad led by a cultivator. The garrison commander had deliberately stacked the garrison with elites — an armory meant that much.
The governor's own mansion had far fewer guards. Wei Lin himself was the city's deadliest weapon.
Guarding the armory was also a standing duty for academy disciples. Two students came each day. The merit was small, but the post was steady, and nothing ever happened. Everyone fought for the shift.
The armory had two rings. All that protection was not for the outer ring, stacked with common arms. The inner vault was small — one room at the building's heart. But every wall, floor, and ceiling panel was carved with arrays against brute force. If those failed, a self-destruct array would burn the vault down rather than surrender it.
One key, and one door, and one way in.
Two academy disciples and the strongest squad of the hundred stood before that door. They did not move from that post, save to rotate.
Today, of all days, no one sane would test that wall. The city swelled with garrison troops for the Three-City Trial.
So when two men in city-guard uniforms approached, and their key tokens verified, the squad leader opened the inner door without a second thought.
"Wait."
The academy disciple on the right-side mat spoke up. He had no real suspicion — he only wanted to see the token himself. That was duty.
The two men inside spun around.
One man's hair exploded outward, black needles filling the air. The other opened a jaw like a cave and spat a serpent of rotten blood.
The disciple who had spoken died with his face full of black needles. The guard captain — a cultivator — was caught by the blood-serpent and stripped to white bone in one breath.
One exchange. One cultivator left standing in the corridor, and nine guards who were only flesh and steel.
"I was just trying to slack off," the last academy disciple muttered, and slapped his own forehead.
Then he leaped. One finger drew a golden arrow of light through the air.
Golden Light Arrow. A low-grade Ding-rank art — and instant-cast, which meant he had completed a minor cycle. Eighth rank, at least.
"Scatter! Report! I'll hold them here!"
He had no real hope of beating two men mad enough to raid Maple City's armory. But the city's strength was overwhelming. One message, and every attacker died.
Soldiers obeyed. The nine scattered.
And across Maple City — everywhere but the Drill Ground, where the strong gathered — chaos broke. Fires. Street killings. Shouts and screams.
Inside the armory, the two raiders split. The hair-artist stayed to fight. The blood-spitter charged into the vault.
They came with a target. The disciple read it in their stride. He snapped his fingers again and again, turning Golden Light Arrow into a rain of arrows.
Golden arrows against black hair-arrows. Edge against poison.
A long blade swept in. The hair-artist fell, head parted from neck.
Wei Feng sheathed nothing. He stepped past the corpse, straight into the vault.
The blood-serpent lunged. He did not dodge. He split it lengthwise with one vertical cut, strode through the gap, and drove the blade through the spitter's heart.
The man smiled with his dying breath, throat raw with joy: "The Nether Candle is already gone!"
Behind Wei Feng, the severed serpent writhed. Half of it threw itself at the academy disciple, pinning him down. The other half slithered like a living thing and fled the vault.
The Nether Candle rode inside that half.
"Keep the Candle." Wei Feng pulled his blade from the dead man's chest, his voice cold as frost. "But everyone you sent today — I'm killing them all."
Across the city, hidden experts moved in concert. An arsonist died full of arrows before his fire caught. A blood-art struck a passerby and met a wall of waves and rolling logs. Art after art hammered the raiders into paste.
The city had been ready. The city had been waiting.
...
"Stay close."
At the Drill Ground, Jiang Chen scooped up Jiang An'an at the first scream.
Old Gui grabbed Qingzhi's hand.
"Nothing to fear." Wei Lin pressed a hand down from the platform. "The trial continues."
Outside the grounds, squads fanned out through the streets. The crowd was not afraid. If Wei Lin and Dean Dong could not protect them, nowhere was safe.
The armory. Wei Feng strode out, nearly shouting: "Shen Nanqi! Why didn't you stop that blood-serpent? Don't tell me you couldn't!"
A few handoffs, and a piece that small vanished without trace. The bait was eaten. Now they had to kill every fish.
Shen Nanqi, the academy disciple, roared back at full volume: "How was I supposed to know what the Nether Candle is? Who told me anything? You planned this, you prepared this — you could have warned us! My junior brother died. Died in front of me!"
Golden light flickered in his fist. In any other moment, he would have thrown Golden Light Arrow at Wei Feng's face.
"Our guards died too," Wei Feng said, stone-faced.
He did not owe an explanation. But before he left, he added: "We didn't know how deep they were planted. If we'd spread the word, they never would have shown."
Who? Shen Nanqi almost asked. He did not. He knew he would not get an answer.
And then he understood. His "lazy" posting today had been arranged. Among the academy disciples who had not competed, who were conveniently free, and who could actually hold off opponents of that grade — there was no one more suitable than him.
Shen Nanqi. Fifth on Maple City's merit list.
No favorite people. Least favorite person: Wei Feng.
Pity. He was good at metal arts too. But he was not Wei Feng's match.