Qin Mu's heart hammered as he drew the Butcher's knife from his back. Never had he faced a standoff like this. Mu Beifeng's very bearing weighed down on him; every move, every word of the old man since entering the village carried an unspoken pressure.
Fighting Senior Brother Qu of the Li River Five, he had been pushed to his breaking point and forced to strike; but this scene rattled him to the core.
"I've pissed on the stone idol at the village gate—what is there to fear? I've looked upon Grandma Wu and the demon of the Suppressing Calamity Palace without trembling. Can I tremble now? However strong Mu Beifeng is, he's no match for a divine demon!"
He steadied himself, and his fluttering nerves slowly calmed. He glanced around and frowned. The village was small, and with these people plus himself there were twenty-two figures, each planted like a wooden stake in a different spot, bodies staggered, filling the cramped village to the brim.
The Village Chief lay on a stretcher, the Herbalist at his side. The Butcher, naught but half a body, braced against a wooden post, Old Ma leaning back against it. Grandma Si carried a basket; the Mute stood at the blacksmith's door; the Deaf held a writing brush, ink dripping from its tip; the Cripple balanced on one leg on his cane.
Even the men Mu Beifeng had brought stood in studied positions, each angle queer, making it hard for anyone to dart about the village, let alone fight.
Such a showdown placed extreme demands on one's ability to drive a sword with primordial qi. To drive a sword with qi, one had to move with exquisite care, lest one's blade touch another or be swayed by another's presence; it demanded swordplay of the finest, most delicate sort. Qin Mu cultivated the Butcher's knife arts, a school of close-quarters martial arts that could never manage such finesse.
"Fight right here?" Qin Mu asked.
Qianqiu nodded. "Right here!"
Qin Mu slipped the knife back into the sheath on his back, leaving his hands free. At this, Keen light flashed through Qianqiu's eyes; that Qin Mu would rather fight bare-handed took him by surprise.
Before coming, Mu Beifeng had led his men to inspect the gorge, and from the skeleton of Senior Brother Qu, gnawed clean to bare bone, deduced that Qin Mu used the knife arts. Qin Mu had picked up a wooden stick and used it as a knife to strike at Senior Brother Qu, leaving a string of tiny dents and fine cracks upon his bones. From this one could infer his knife arts were exquisite—and his footwork swift beyond measure, for only a master of the legs could keep moving and strike every corner of a body.
Mu Beifeng's skill placed him among the loftiest masters under heaven, and by the traces left behind he judged the lad to be of the close-combat schools. Those schools excelled at fighting at arm's length but had little attainment in driving a sword with primordial qi.
From that moment, Mu Beifeng had settled on his plan to kill Qin Mu. As his men entered the village, each took a different position, laying the Li River Water Dragon Formation while deliberately leaving nine gaps at its eye-points, Mu Beifeng himself at the dragon's head.
Every man besides Qianqiu was a top master of the Li River Sect. To keep the Formation from unleashing its full combined might, the villagers had to seal those eye-points one by one: the Village Chief and the Herbalist the dragon's eyes, the Blind One its heart-eye, while the Cripple, Grandma Si, Old Ma, and the Butcher stood at the joints of the water-dragon's four limbs, the blacksmith pinning down its body and the Deaf its tail.
Thus the village's present state: everyone in a different spot, bodies staggered, so a man could scarce move about quickly, scarce drive a sword with primordial qi—unless his mastery of that art were exceedingly high.
Clearly, Qin Mu was not such a man. But his disciple Qianqiu was exactly that man. Though still a martial artist of the Spirit Womb realm, Qianqiu's mastery of sword-driving-by-qi was deep beyond compare. He had refined his threads of primordial qi to an incredible fineness, and his sword-control arts reached a staggering height. He had once, wielding a brush with primordial qi, painted a fair lady from thirty yards away, every strand of hair crisp and distinct.
So long as Qin Mu fought with his knife, defeat was certain.
But Qin Mu had returned his knife and chosen to fight empty-handed, catching Qianqiu by surprise. Yet any way one looked at it, bare hands against a treasure sword was a losing trade. And the swords he carried this time were no ordinary blades—they were spirit swords, born in the spiritual altars of divine-ability masters of the Sixfold Realm. In sharpness, suppleness, strength, and spirit alike, a spirit sword outperformed any common weapon.
Qin Mu bowed. "Senior Brother, after you."
Qianqiu returned the bow, and the treasure sword at his back chimed. "Junior Brother, after you."
Qin Mu lifted his foot—and in that instant the treasure sword rasped from its sheath. A thread of primordial qi drove the blade, its chill biting, its light a scatter of points stabbing toward Qin Mu!
That thread was so fine the naked eye could scarce make it out, yet with a gentle shudder it sent the sword carving bloom after bloom of sword-flowers, lunging at Qin Mu from a dozen cunning angles, swift enough to dazzle the eye!
For a martial artist, to have cultivated sword-driving-by-qi to such a level was a rare and admirable achievement.
Qin Mu's footwork flowed, nimble as anything, threading between the motionless figures, but Qianqiu's sword was swifter still, its swordplay so fine it made one gasp. To the others standing stock-still it carried no threat at all—but to Qin Mu, every move struck at his very life. Even the Cripple's Heaven-Thieving Leg Arts could not outrun it here, for the obstacles were too many, and every still figure hemmed in his speed.
Whoosh—
Qin Mu watched the flames, and his primordial qi abruptly turned raging and violent. A faint dragon-roar was heard, and a vague fire-dragon coiled itself about his arm. Indistinct, at one moment its head fusing with his fist, the next its claws merging with his fingers and palm, changing without cease.
The sword-light came stabbing, and Qin Mu met it with a punch. The instant his fist was about to clash with the spirit sword, he spread all five fingers wide, and the air in his palm burst with a thunderous boom, shaking the stabbing sword-tip into a reeling wobble!
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—
He flicked his five fingers in turn against sword-tip, sword-blade, and sword-hilt. With every flick came a great ringing clang, as though a massive iron mallet were striking the sword. By the fifth flick he sent the spirit sword flying, snapping Qianqiu's thread of primordial qi clean in two.
Qin Mu moved swiftly, weaving through the crowd and closing on Qianqiu. When barely a yard separated them, Qianqiu's face went wooden, and from his satchel came another chime as a second spirit sword flew toward Qin Mu. A shock ran through Qin Mu and he hurriedly pulled back. Then a third spirit sword darted from the satchel, then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh...
More than a dozen spirit swords at tip-to-tail, each strung through sword-tip and sword-hilt by a single thread of primordial qi, linked so that they stretched six or seven yards long, like a living silver dragon wheeling in the air, or like the thousand-turning waters of the Li River.
The Li River Sword Arts!
The first sword arts of the Southern Borderlands.
Qianqiu's first sword was lithe beyond measure, darting up and down and about, while the swords behind followed in flight, threading through the crowd without brushing anyone. And from Qin Mu's angle, he could just make out the first sword's tip—but not a glimpse of the swords behind.
A keen danger welled up in his heart. What he could not see was the unknown, and the unknown could neither be dodged nor predicted. The Li River Sword Arts were indeed treacherous and ferocious!
Just then, the first spirit sword shook out dozens of sword-blooms and stabbed toward Qin Mu, its light dazzling the eye. And behind all those blooms, the second spirit sword broke from the line, linked by its own separate thread of primordial qi, and came out of nowhere, slashing at Qin Mu's throat!