The pink dress and white legs clashed with the beast-hide shorts and thick legs. Junior Sister Qing's long, slender legs held shocking power, striking as if carved by blade and hewn by axe; Qin Mu's sturdier legs gave a feeling of light, floating grace, as though they carried little strength at all.
Thump, thump, thump—a string of bursting blows, and in a single instant Junior Sister Qing's legs took who knew how many kicks. Qin Mu's leg-work was simply too fast for her!
That astonishing strength of her legs was all in vain, struck by that dizzying chain, her power fled as if "eaten" by her opponent's legs.
"Not good…"
Her legs went weak. Qin Mu's kicked in endless succession, raining on her waist, her chest, her throat—and then one great bare foot after another slapped down hard upon her face.
Qin Mu's body whirled in mid-air, twisted, and lashed out a backward kick. Unlike his earlier leg-work of pure speed, this one carried a power that struck fear into one's heart.
Junior Sister Qing's face was kicked flat, her fine nose nearly flattened into the flesh, her jaw shattered, her mouth full of strange things. Head leading, feet trailing, she was kicked back into the ruins like an arrow loosed from its bow!
Qin Mu confirmed one thing: the Cripple's Heaven-Stealing Divine Leg was indeed first! Whether first under heaven he dared not claim, but within the village it was beyond all dispute.
That leg-work of hers had looked fierce and tyrannical, yet it had not touched him even once before he gravely wounded her. Qin Mu could call upon not the least scrap of vital qi, relying wholly on his body, while she poured her qi into her legs—and even so she was crippled in a single exchange!
No sooner had he kicked her flying than all his hairs stood on end, a mighty sense of danger flooding his heart. He did not turn but hurled himself forward.
Behind him, Senior Brother Qu had silently crept up and struck a killing blow, sure of its result; only, he had never counted on Qin Mu being so alert!
The two raced atop the beasts, leaping from back to back. Senior Brother Qu's steps were swift beyond measure, madly striking at Qin Mu's rear heart, while Qin Mu charged forward, his hands flying to block the onslaught.
The Eight Thunder Sounds, the Thousand-Handed Buddha!
Senior Brother Qu could not help a start of horror. Qin Mu, with his back to him, was yet able to turn aside every attack, as if he had grown countless arms. Such an art he had never even heard of!
Though it could not match Uncle Ma's every gesture sending thunder rolling, still it was swift as the wind. Even with his back to Senior Brother Qu, racing atop the beasts, he moved with ferocious might, not yielding his foe the least advantage.
Zheng—
Suddenly a sword-cry sang out, Qin Mu's scalp prickled, and his arm was at once wet with blood.
Qin Mu rolled off the beast and fled beneath the belly of a great creature. Senior Brother Qu came after him, hands empty—yet a silver sword whirled up and down about his body.
Qin Mu's pupils shrank. This Senior Brother Qu commanded his sword far better than Junior Sister Qing. She drove hers to fly out scores of zhang; his stayed but three feet from his body. To drive the sword in close combat, the least slip and one wounds oneself, demanding supreme skill and full confidence in one's own blade!
"Butcher Grandpa and the others never taught me how to drive my vital qi, nor how to wield the Overlord's qi. In such a pass, I fear I shall be at a disadvantage."
His foot touched a broken branch, snapped off by the trampling herd. His toe flicked and the branch fell into his hand—a willow bough six or seven feet long, thick as a thumb.
The boy gripped the branch, his gaze locked upon the point of Senior Brother Qu's sword, blind to his two hands.
He tried to surge his vital qi into the willow, yet at a point one foot three inches within the wood he lost all sense of it. One foot three inches was far too short; pitted against the other's flying sword, too perilous.
Senior Brother Qu came on with his kill, his treasured sword whirling—thrusting, shaving, probing, cleaving, trembling, slicing—as though an invisible swordsman came at Qin Mu.
Sshh—and the willow in Qin Mu's hand was pared to one foot three inches. The sword slashed down again, meeting the willow with a ting, as though it had struck steel.
Seeing his qi, poured into the willow, could turn aside the other's sword, Qin Mu's heart settled. His eyes held only the sword's point, and the foot-and-three-inches of willow he used as a butcher's cleaver, working upon it the knife-art the butcher had taught him.
Night Battle Over the City!
With a mind free of every distraction, Qin Mu unleashed the butcher's knife-art utterly through the small willow branch.
The butcher called his art the Butcher's Knife Art; it had but one secret—speed! So fast it was a fleeting shadow, so fast the hand rose and the pig's head fell!
Qin Mu threw his whole being into the wielding of his knife, and ring upon ring of bursting blows came. The two duelled beneath the running herd, cutting their way under one great belly to another. The creatures' massive legs stamped down like pillars pounded from the sky, and the least slip meant being crushed to powder!
Their steps looked wild, yet both followed a wondrous rhythm, slipping away just before a beast's foot fell.
Senior Brother Qu was startled and furious—he was being beaten! Beaten black and blue with a little stick by this "little demon whelp"!
The willow in Qin Mu's hand was a foot or so—was that not a little stick? And his own sword was five feet seven inches; he refined his qi into thread to drive it, an art from the Five Elders of Li River, masters who had broken the Heaven-Human Wall. The kungfu he set his hands to, the Li River Art, turned his vital qi into a roaring river—yet before the "little demon whelp's" little stick, both masterworks were riddled with flaws. The stick rained down upon his face, his neck, his collarbone, his elbows, his wrists, his ribs, his rear heart, his waist, his ankles!
In that brief span he was knocked full of lumps, his body mottled blue and purple. And in his heart was more terror than rage.
If what Qin Mu held were not a little stick but a knife… the consequences were beyond imagining! Terrible—this boy was at most eleven or twelve, his body not reaching the other's chest. Even trained since the womb, he could not have mastered such a terrifying art!
Senior Brother Qu soon discerned Qin Mu's weakness, and his heart settled: "His vital qi cultivation is very weak. Or rather, he is not a spirit-blessed body at all, merely an ordinary man…"
At last he hit upon the crux. Qin Mu was only an ordinary man, no spirit-blessed body, and must have cultivated some foundational art such as the Guidance Art, granting him a portion of vital qi. But a common man's qi bears no attribute and unleashes no power, so though his moves far excelled Senior Brother Qu's own, they carried no might and posed him little threat.
He could see the knife-art was a kind of combat art. Combat arts and divine arts like sword-commanding differed. Sword-commanding freed the hands, letting a blade fly through the air to slay, more versatile by far; combat arts walked the primeval road, needing one's own hands to wield the weapon, letting one's qi pour into the blade to the full, making one's moves mightier.
Centuries ago they had dwelled side by side until a genius of sword-commanding burst upon the world, slaying the masters of combat art. That genius was the State Preceptor of the Yan Kang Kingdom. To this day the finest combat-art arts had been lost, and only the lowly lingered.
Yet truly excellent combat arts remained formidable, and Senior Brother Qu was convinced that what this little demon whelp displayed was one of those superior arts!
"I must lay hands upon this combat art! By any means I will make him hand over its cultivation method!"
Qin Mu's little wooden stick beat madly on, and Senior Brother Qu, resisting with all his might, could never wholly block it, knocked several hundred times. His face and head swelled, his body ached, and confusion crept into his heart. The more flustered he grew, the more the little stick struck him.
"He means to beat me to death!" Senior Brother Qu's hairs stood on end.