Xue Lingfu and Zhou Yihang tightened their auras, binding Su Yan like rope.
"Magistrate Zhou wants him for his annotated Daoyin art," Xue Lingfu said. "Does the Underworld seek the same?"
Zhou Yihang's eyebrows rose. Stone cracked beneath his feet. "Your intelligence is sharp. The killings mean nothing. But his Daoyin annotations—my Zhou family must have them."
Crowds fled. Even the newly crowned God Huang Sanduo scrambled from his shrine and hid behind the temple.
"The Zhou family digs ancient caves," Xue Lingfu said. "The Underworld has gathered its own secrets. We need someone to decode them."
The bell's voice whispered to Su Yan: "Before my wound, one breath would end them. Now I cannot. But they both want you alive. Let them take you. In a few days, when I've sipped enough qi to move again, I'll erase them."
Su Yan felt a flicker of hope—and suspicion. "Borrow my qi to recover? So this senior is..."
Zhou Yihang's strange energy flowed against the City God's mounting pressure. "But my Zhou family does not share. If we cannot have Su Yan..."
He sighed. "Then Su Yan must become dead Su Yan. Soul scattered, spirit destroyed."
Xue Lingfu smiled. "The Underworld agrees. If I cannot take him today, I will kill him. He stays in neither world."
Su Yan's face went pale.
A bell tone rang in his skull. The bell itself seemed surprised by this turn.
"I have one advantage, Zhou." Xue Lingfu chuckled. "You must destroy his body and soul separately. I need only take his spirit."
Zhou Yihang's aura peaked. "One blow from me, and he ceases to exist entirely."
Su Yan stood alone in the cold wind, paper money swirling around him. "Yuan Qi is waiting for medicine..."
Xue Lingfu struck first.
His shrine of incense blazed with ten thousand voices, chanting madness into Su Yan's mind. Golden light erupted from his skin—five centuries of worship, forged into an unbreakable golden body.
The seal crashed down with thunder. Su Yan's soul tore from his flesh and floated above his own body.
From this spirit-view, he saw what mortal eyes could not—floating flames beneath Xue Lingfu's palm. Soul-destroying fire.
Yet the seal was not aimed at him. It targeted Zhou Yihang. Su Yan had merely heard the thunder and lost his soul.
A bell tone rang. Su Yan's body became a whirlpool, sucking his spirit back down.
He gasped, alive again.
Zhou Yihang still stood with hands clasped behind his back. Then two more arms sprouted from his armpits. He met the City God's seal head-on.
Golden body against flesh. Soul-fire against living meat.
Zhou Yihang's bones surged, muscles exploded. The frail old man grew into a giant matching Xue Lingfu himself. His flesh wove like coiling dragons.
Su Yan's eyes bulged. He had hoped to study Zhou Yihang's technique, compare it to the Mud Pill Hidden-Scenery Qi Refining Method he took from Ding Quan.
Nothing matched. Not even close.
Ding Quan had practiced a servant's manual. The true Zhou family cultivated something entirely different.
The collision shook the street. Blood poured from Su Yan's eyes and ears.
Xue Lingfu's golden body cracked. Zhou Yihang's soul nearly shattered.
"If I kill him, my golden body breaks," both thought simultaneously.
Their eyes met. Each understood.
"Since neither can claim him, neither shall."
They turned on Su Yan together.
Xue Lingfu's palm held soul-destroying yin-fire. Zhou Yihang's fist blazed with the Zhou clan's supreme nuo art—the Eastern Lord Heaven-Flattening Seal.
A massive bronze bell dropped over Su Yan. Both attacks slammed against it.
"DONG—"
Xue Lingfu's golden body spider-webbed with cracks. He flew backward, snapping an old willow.
Zhou Yihang's arm skin burst, muscle twisted to powder, bone shattered. He crashed through the temple wall.
The bell fell silent, rolled behind Su Yan's legs.
"I used my last strength," the voice croaked. "Good luck. I'm sleeping."
Su Yan stared at the bell. Even unconscious, it locked onto him, following every turn like a shadow.
"So if I run, it will clang and announce me to the world..."
Coughing came from the temple. Zhou Yihang, half his flesh hanging loose, dragged himself upright.
"A protective artifact. I underestimated you."
New flesh grew over his wounds even as old flesh sloughed off. The Mud Pill Secret's vitality was terrifying.
"That bell blocked our full power," Zhou Yihang wheezed. "Now it's spent. Useless."
He glanced at Xue Lingfu, still pinned under the willow. "My strength exceeds his after all."
He shambled toward Su Yan, hand outstretched. "You will be my Zhou family's treasure..."
Su Yan spun. The bell behind him swung in a massive arc, crashing into Zhou Yihang.
The old man soared through the air, smashed through the temple's other wall, and rolled fifty zhang before stopping against a stone fence.
"What happened?" he wondered, dazed.
Su Yan leaped after him. His kick—simple Titan-Ox Demon Fist—flew toward Zhou Yihang's face.
Accompanied by the bell, whistling like a meteor.
"DONG!"
Zhou Yihang's legs snapped. He crashed back into the temple.
Su Yan jumped, back to the old man, and sat. The bell crashed down again and again, hammering Zhou Yihang into a crater.
The old man still lived. Su Yan frowned. In the distance, Xue Lingfu coughed.
Su Yan charged out, bell trailing smoke from grinding against road stones.
"This criminal," Zhou Yihang crawled from the pit, watching Su Yan's retreating back, "flees with his rear smoking. He's provoking my Lingling government!"
* * *