The hair on Qin Mu's skin stood on end, and without thinking he shot out a hand and grabbed the spirit sword. In the next instant a stab of pain ran through his palm.
"Mu-" Grandma Si could not help but cry out, but the Village Chief glared at her and she trailed off.
The spirit sword leaped and struggled in Qin Mu's palm, cutting fresh wounds until it was a bloody mess, but his vast primordial qi shielded the palm, keeping the sword from severing his hand clean through.
Yet the next moment a third spirit sword broke from the line, then a fourth, then a fifth!
A flicker moved behind Qianqiu's eyes. The victory was assured. Qin Mu was younger than him, and to have cultivated to this point was no mean feat, but in the end he had only two hands—how many swords could he catch?
Suddenly Qianqiu's pupils shrank. Qin Mu's hands grabbed again and again, and he seemed to grow dozens of arms, catching each spirit sword by the hilt before its blade could even stab out!
The Eighth Thunder Move, the Thousand-Hand Buddha!
A shadow crossed Qianqiu's face. His threads of primordial qi shuddered, and the spirit swords in Qin Mu's hands trembled violently, nearly wrenching free, while the remaining swords drove at Qin Mu's eyes and throat!
His two hands held the hilts of five swords; seven remained, and those seven converged, stabbing in, spinning like tops, bent on boring through his skull and throat!
Grandma Si could not bear to watch. Then Qin Mu gave an explosive roar, and primordial qi of monstrous thickness burst from his body, whipping the Butcher's knife from his back and chopping down once.
Clang—
The seven swords were broken off at once, dropping together to the ground!
"A thread of primordial qi this thick!" The chop had come out of nowhere, Qin Mu's thread defied all reason, and the strength in the knife was beyond all measure. That Butcher's knife itself proved sharper and tougher than a spirit weapon. Cutting down his seven spirit swords was a trifle!
Before his shock had faded, Qin Mu snapped his wrist and hurled the five spirit swords at him, piercing the air faster than the mind could grasp.
But a smile crept onto Qianqiu's face. He raised a hand, his threads howling out to coil toward the five swords, even as more flew from his small satchel—in which, impossibly, spirit sword after spirit sword had appeared. But no sooner had his threads wrapped about the incoming swords than his face turned stark. Qin Mu's terrifying primordial qi, hidden within their bodies, surged and billowed, beating them back before they could bind!
Quick to react, Qianqiu sent the swords from his satchel to intercept the five, even as he stabbed a finger behind himself, launching another spirit sword at the onrushing Qin Mu!
From Qin Mu's mouth came a strange, brief sound, gone in the blink of an eye, yet carrying an inexplicable, eerie, sinister rhythm. Along with it came the boy's seal-form, fingers pinched as though holding a flower, and from a yard away he slapped out a single seal!
"Samoye!"
A chill rested upon Qianqiu, yet the palm-wind carried no force. He was about to focus on parrying the five swords when, all of a sudden, his soul flew from his body and was drawn into Qin Mu's palm, fright draining the very spirit from his frame.
Dut! Dut! Dut! Dut! Dut!
Five soft reports rang out in quick succession. With no control left over them, the five spirit swords drove one after another into his body, lifting him high and bearing him backward.
Bang—
The pillar at the village's center bearing the butcher's flag swayed once, and Qianqiu's corpse hung thereupon, head lolling, motionless.
Qin Mu's palm still bled. Suddenly he clenched it tight, and the gore squelched as the soul in his palm was crushed to pieces. The Seal of Heavenly Demon Freedom—adept at destroying souls.
Qin Mu turned his head with a smile. "Grandma, I won."
Grandma Si's heart settled, then blazed: "You little wretch, you've torn your hand open! The moment we get home I'm beating you to death! And don't smear blood on your new clothes—if the stains won't wash out, I'll beat you to death for that too!"
The Village Chief's gaze turned dim, settling on the seated Mu Beifeng. "Brother Mu, your disciple has lost. Shall we take him down and dress him in his shroud and lay him in his coffin?"
Mu Beifeng looked at the corpse upon the pillar, then shook his head: "I shall carry his body back and give him a proper burial. As for this young friend—he plainly has profound cultivation, yet he used demonic arts and demonic tones, underhanded means I find beneath contempt."
He meant the move by which Qin Mu slew Qianqiu, the Seal of Heavenly Demon Freedom. Though he had never seen its like, the sound from Qin Mu's mouth had been demonic tone, so of course he used demonic arts. He could see Qin Mu's cultivation far exceeded Qianqiu's, yet the lad, untried by life and death, could not unleash his full strength. To win by demonic arts was, to him, mere scheming.
A flicker moved behind the Village Chief's eyes. He too did not know where Qin Mu had learned to drag a soul from a body to refine it to death. Of all the villagers only Grandma Si had come from the orthodox demonic path. Could she have taught him? "Mu'er," he said softly, "destroying a man's soul wounds heaven and earth. Use such means as little as you can." Qin Mu nodded hastily.
"There are eleven more coffins standing empty," the Village Chief said.
Mu Beifeng lowered his brows: "Since the coffins and the shrouds are made, it only fits that they be put to use."
"After you," said the Village Chief. Mu Beifeng rose: "After you."
The Li River Water Dragon Formation burst into motion with a roar, the ten masters of the Li River Sect behind Mu Beifeng erupting in aura, their qi linking into a single line with his!
Splash—
Onrushing river-waters, mist thick in the air, and in the cramped Village of Broken Elders there suddenly appeared a long river, waves towering to the sky! This flowing water was the very Li River of the southern reaches of the Great Ruins. Mu Beifeng and the ten masters stood upon it, countless flying swords darting within the flow like tiny silver fish.
The Sect's sword arts were the pinnacle of the Southern Borderlands. When Grandma Si fought the Five Elders, Qi Yanbing's sword pellet had held a terrifying six thousand eight hundred and forty-two swords; the Formation now set ten times that—tens of thousands forming a silver dragon within the waters, poised to raise wind and wave. Such a formation, once loosed, could surely lay waste to the village. Qin Mu could not even conceive of it.
The Village Chief lay still upon his stretcher, his expression scarcely changed. Softly he said: "Blind One."
The Blind One raised his head as though beholding the Formation's secret workings, but his eye-sockets were empty—how could he see?
The countless swords raised a shrill whistle, like an enraged dragon baring its cruel side, hurtling at the village against the very sky!
The Blind One lifted his bamboo staff in a single hand and stabbed at the sweeping sword-light, intoning softly: "I hold the art of dragon-slaying—today I break the Li River—"
Ting.
One crisp clash drowned out the whistling of every sword, and the silver dragon that a moment before seemed set on destroying all stiffened, and with a splash the countless rain of swords came tumbling down, dut, dut, dut, stabbing into the earth.
The Blind One gave a light upward flick, lifting that little Li River of water aloft in a single stroke, flinging it into collapse as swath after swath poured from heaven. His chant went on as he walked through the water, his soles never touching the surface, his staff stabbing here and there. One master had his brow burst open, the staff's tip passing out through the back of his skull; another, raising a hand to block, had it pass through his palm and thrust through his breast.
The Blind One walked from the Li River's head to its tail, corpses tumbling from the air behind him. Then he crossed past Mu Beifeng—Qin Mu could not begin to tell how many exchanges they made. Mu Beifeng landed, walked two paces forward, and the Blind One's phrase, "today I break the Li River," had barely left his tongue, its sound not yet fallen to the ground.
"Blind One, I know who you are. Who would have thought you'd hidden yourself here, and that even with your eyes destroyed you could still command such strength!"
Even as Mu Beifeng spoke, his face went pale, and he sat before the Village Chief, murmuring: "Our Li River Sword Sect lives off the river; our custom is water burial, and our bodies must not meet the earth. I ask but this one favor."
The Village Chief nodded gently: "Rest easy. The river lies just at the door."
To behold the God of the Spear, I die without regret! Mu Beifeng breathed out his last breath and died with a smile.
Qin Mu circled round behind him and started, for he saw the back of Mu Beifeng's head had been burst open, a great hole pierced clean through it.