The Fang ancestral hall had its own array for protection, but they hoarded it like treasure — it burned Dao Essence Stones, and the Fang clan had few to spare. Each one spent was one fewer in the vault.
But faced with the infamous Heart-Devouring Demon, the white-haired old man would not shut his eyes even in death.
He could not imagine how long the rest of the Fang family would hold if he had been killed in a single blow. Would the hired guardians actually risk their lives for the Fangs?
This hall held the tablets of the Fang ancestors. It was the clan's root.
So even dead, he would do something before he was fully dead.
He put his hope in the Crane Spirit Array that had guarded the Fang ancestral hall for years — that it would trap Xiong Wen.
Best of all: that it would last until the Dao Essence Stones ran dry.
By then, word would have reached the city lord's manor.
He believed Wei Lin, harsh as he was, would not hold back on a matter of right and wrong.
The Fang clan would be saved!
The white-haired old man died with his heart torn out, still staring straight at the night sky, eyes never closing.
Xiong Wen was furious — and shaken.
He had carried a bloody reputation through countless hunts. Randomly shifting his hiding place was his habit: if he himself did not know where he would hide next, his hunters had no pattern to chase.
He had never imagined that one routine relocation would go so badly wrong.
He memorized the sword-boy's face, then decided to leave. Inside Maple City, he could only swallow his murderous intent for now.
But the Crane Spirit Array did not care about his intentions. Within its field of effect, only Xiong Wen blazed with such killing aura. The crane phantom on the glow's crown beat its wings once and dove at him, shrieking.
Xiong Wen's body was instantly wrapped in a mist of blood.
He rose into the air. Flame kindled on his fist — blood flame.
Where the mist touched, the ground blackened and leaves rotted. Where the flame burned, the very air seemed to dissolve.
With that blood-wrapped fist he met the crane's beak — a violent, naked collision.
The crane phantom shattered in an instant. The clear glow over the ancestral hall scattered with it.
The noise drew a crowd.
First came two hired guardians of the Fang clan — both ninth-rank Roaming Meridian cultivators — then the family guards nearby.
They all stopped well back, frozen by the figure that had crushed the crane in midair. The one wreathed in blood mist, fist trailing blood flame, looked down at them once. The gaze was held in check, but it was savage.
By his nature, Xiong Wen would have killed everyone in sight. But he knew what mattered. The blood flame died, the blood mist thinned, and he dropped like a stone into a shadow — gone from view.
Silence swallowed the Fang ancestral hall. No one even dared shout in bravado.
Fang Zesheng and his son arrived too, and stood as still as statues.
The Fangs were one of Maple City's three great surnames, with face and prestige to protect. Against someone like Xiong Wen, it meant nothing.
He had broken into their compound, killed their keeper, shattered their guardian array — and they could only watch.
The night was so humiliating that great swaths of darkness seemed to soak into the sky, and everyone stood silent as scenery.
A spark of fire appeared.
Small, tiny — like a piece of kindling popping in a stove fire, a single ember bursting out.
But it put light into the night.
Then came a deafening roar.
Only then did they see: that spark was no spark. It was the tip of a spear.
The whole spear tore out of the darkness. Its butt rested in a long, powerful hand, attached to a man with ink-black hair streaming and a face so sharp it hurt to look at.
Whether the spear carried him or he drove the spear, man and weapon plunged into the earth like a blade splitting the night!
The shadow shattered.
The Heart-Devouring Demon Xiong Wen erupted from the broken shadow, blood mist flaring, voice grinding through his teeth: "Zhu Weiwo!"
It was him!
This spear was the Candle-Burning Spear, famous across Clear River County.
Xiong Wen gave a strange, shrill cry — and blood tears ran from his eyes.
From Three Mountain City to Maple City, he and Zhu Weiwo had clashed no fewer than ten times. From contempt at first, to wariness, to a fear he would never admit: this man climbed a full step with every battle.
Why else would the mighty Heart-Devouring Demon Xiong Wen be hiding and running?
Now that Zhu Weiwo had forced him out with one spear, Xiong Wen chose to fight for his life on the spot.
The blood tears fell. The flame that had covered only his fist surged, covering his whole body.
Zhu Weiwo only laughed, showy and bright: "Got you!"
He leaned forward, flicked his right hand, and the spear tip buried in the ground swept upward.
The earth split from the spear tip in a straight line — broken tiles and soil surging up like a dragon turning over.
Xiong Wen walked on air inside the blood flame, ignoring the earth-dragon roaring toward him. Every shard and clod dissolved on contact with the flame.
The Soul-Devouring Blood Flame of the Blood River Sect — that was how sinister and overbearing it was. Its most terrifying power was devouring souls. And now Xiong Wen had stacked on the desperate art Cuckoo Weeps Blood, adding seven parts to its might!
Facing Xiong Wen's full eruption, Zhu Weiwo did not dodge. Did not retreat.
He flicked his wrist. The spear tip pointed at Xiong Wen. He faced it head-on.
"Cuckoo Weeps Blood, and you call it by such an ugly name!"
He charged!
In that instant, flame exploded from the spear tip. A sea of fire was born under the night sky.
Zhu Weiwo charged with the fire sea at his back.
Blood flame met fire sea. Spear tip met fist.
Zhu Weiwo and Xiong Wen — full power, all in!
Xiong Wen had his back east, facing west. Zhu Weiwo had his back west, facing east.
Xiong Wen dove from above. Zhu Weiwo rose from below.
Edge against edge, and both of them before the deciding blow!
Victory turned in one instant.
The blood flame was "drowned" by the fire sea — and the whole fire sea was eaten away by the contact.
But the verdict had already been written. This fight had had its ending since the moment Xiong Wen first chose to flee.
The fire sea rolled forward. Xiong Wen fled backward.
Scorched by flame, his black robe burned away in strips, showing that shining bald head.
Blood ran from his eyes, ears, nose, mouth — seven orifices at once — making his already brutal face more hideous still.
He fled with everything he had, but kept his eyes on Zhu Weiwo.
He would not dare turn his back.
When he had wrecked Three Mountain City and shaken off the arrest bureau, he had been badly wounded. Then this man with one spear and no company had latched onto him.
A few exchanges and he knew it was wrong. He decided to break off and heal. But Zhu Weiwo clung like a leech. No shaking him off.
From Three Mountain City on, he had been running and running, with no time to heal. Old wounds piled under new ones, until he was this broken.
He swore: if he escaped this time, he would swallow his pride, forget freedom, and beg the eldest senior to save his life. Then he would wash Maple City in blood, exterminate Zhu Weiwo's whole line, and slaughter that cunning sword-boy's family to the last!
His mind churned with hate as he stared into Zhu Weiwo's eyes.
In those eyes, bright as spear-light, he saw a streak of violet.
The Violet Dawn!
The emperor rises and draws his sword — and the violet dawn comes east, while the lords of the land look west!