The green-robed god's voice thundered through the hall. Su Yan knelt with the others, jaw tight. He had no incense, no fruit, nothing to give. His stomach growled. Let the god rage. Su Yan had long since stopped caring.
Jiang Lu, a man of forty who looked eighty, skin like crumpled paper, body bent double, trembled as he spoke. "Lord God, this old man hasn't eaten in days. Last night I chewed bark. The tax collectors came and took what little I had. How can I offer you anything..."
The god's eyes narrowed. "You feed the taxman but not me? Am I worth less than a clerk?"
Jiang Lu said nothing.
The god's gaze slid sideways. "Don't you have daughters? Give me one. I'll be your son-in-law, and you'll never hunger again."
Jiang Lu's legs buckled. He fell to his knees. "Lord God, the taxmen took my daughter last night. They said it would clear my debts..."
The god's fist, wide as a wine jar, smashed into him. Jiang Lu flew across the hall and struck the far wall. Ribs snapped. Bone pierced his chest. Blood bubbled from his lips.
The villagers shuddered, silent, neither daring anger nor words.
Su Yan's fists clenched until his nails cut his palms. He looked away.
This was a god. The weight of divine presence crushed ordinary men into submission. Even with seven years of the Grand Unity Daoyin Art, Su Yan felt only fear before this green-robed deity.
Besides, his father and grandfather had drilled one lesson into him: common folk do not fight officials, and they do not fight gods. Snake catchers risked their lives for one reason — to survive. Fighting the powerful was suicide.
Jiang Lu tried to rise. Could not.
The god roared. "Your other daughter! Bring her out. I take her tonight. Don't be ungrateful!"
Then a smooth voice cut in. Landlord Jiang, the richest man in the village, smiled from the doorway. "Lord God, you misunderstand. I heard you favored Jiang Lu's girl, so I bought her. I was about to present her to you. Bring the bride!"
The god's fury melted into delight. "Landlord Jiang understands the world."
He turned to the other villagers, cold again. "You bring me nothing and expect my protection? Those without offerings — three fingers of rain for your fields this year. Those without even incense — not a drop. You deserve to thirst, you dogs! And you!"
He pointed at Jiang Lu. "I was going to make you my father-in-law, give you favors. Now your daughter is Landlord Jiang's gift. You have nothing. Your fields get no rain this year."
Jiang Lu sat against the wall, hollow-eyed, bloodless.
No rain meant no crops.
"How do I live?" Despair swallowed him.
The god laughed, pulling the sobbing bride close. "No need to wait for an auspicious day. We marry now!"
Landlord Jiang bowed and simpered. "The hour is already propitious!"
Su Yan turned and followed the crowd toward the door. He had never seen a god take a wife, but he had heard the stories. Other villages did the same. They even said the River God of the Xiao had taken a hundred women, all offered by desperate folk.
Jiang Lu struggled to his feet. Su Yan went to help him. The old man had once given him a steamed bun when Su Yan first arrived in Jiangjia, pulled from a burning house by his grandfather. Su Yan still remembered.
"Uncle, let me walk you home..."
Jiang Lu lunged at the wall.
The crack echoed. Blood sprayed Su Yan's face.
Su Yan's vision blurred. Blood dripped into his eyes. Through the haze he saw the old man's skull smashed against the white plaster, the stain spreading like plum blossoms in winter snow.
His ears rang. His mind went white.
"Uncle..."
He reached out. Jiang Lu's broken head slid down the wall, painting a thick trunk, the body folding like a tree rooted in the earth before it.
Chaos erupted. Villagers screamed and fled.
The green-robed god held the sobbing bride and laughed. "Landlord Jiang, clean the mess. Repaint the wall. Don't spoil my mood."
Landlord Jiang hurried over, shoved Su Yan, and snapped, "A-Yan, move the body! The lord god wants his wedding night!"
Su Yan's head rang. His body shook. His fists were stone.
"Are you defying the god—"
Su Yan's fist moved.
Landlord Jiang's face caved inward. The back of his skull burst. The body swayed and fell.
"Murder! A-Yan killed him!" The landlord's servants scattered.
Su Yan stood trembling, mind blank. He didn't know why his fist had exploded Landlord Jiang's head. He didn't know why rage had swallowed him whole.
"I killed him... I didn't want to kill..."
His hands shook, blood still wet on his face. He looked up. It wasn't Landlord Jiang he had wanted to kill.
His eyes found the green-robed god.
"I don't know why... I can't stop my hands... I want to beat you to death!"
Su Yan panted like a beast, glaring at the dead landlord's body. "You're too loud! Stop talking! Stop rushing me... I told you to stop rushing me! I'll kill Him!"
Landlord Jiang's head was already pulp. He couldn't speak.
But the buzzing in Su Yan's skull roared on, driving him toward the deity.
The green-robed god's pupils shrank. In Su Yan's eyes he saw something unfamiliar.
Fear was gone. The look of a man facing a god had vanished — replaced by blasphemy. By murder.
He saw naked killing intent in this boy's eyes.
Worse — he felt his own fear answering it.
"You—!" The god roared, dropping the bride, raising a fist like a wine jar. "Wretch! What is that look?"
Su Yan crossed both forearms. The impact felt like a charging bull. He flew backward, crashed through the hall wall, and tumbled into the street.
The god strode through the breach, sneering. "Mortals accept the fate the gods decree. You do not rebel! Su Yan, I see blasphemy in your eyes! I will cleanse your sin!"
Su Yan landed, dug in his heels, and slid backward a full yard before stopping.
He shook out his hands and looked up, eyes strange. "You seem... not as strong as I imagined."
"What?"
The god lunged, leg sweeping like a pillar, wind screaming.
"Insignificant worm! You dare judge divine might? You belong in the hell of tongue-pulling!"
Su Yan drove his qi and blood to frenzy. The diagrams from the Titan-Ox Demon Fist scroll blazed through his mind — channels of blood, pathways of force. He moved without thought.
His blood roared through organs and muscles. A trumpet blast of elephant-song burst from his chest, shaking the village windows.
Power flooded his right arm. His fist swelled. Wind screamed around it.
Titan-Ox Demon Fist, First Form: Horn That Splits the Mountain.
He met the god's leg with his fist. Bone shattered. The divine limb burst.
Inside him, firecracker pops rang out — his blood breaking through barriers, one after another.
Seven years of Grand Unity Daoyin Art. Seven years of accumulated power. The martial art was the key that unlocked it all.
The Daoyin Art tempered his blood. The fist unleashed it.
Seven years sharpening one blade — and tonight, at last, he tested the edge.
Su Yan's home. The snake yao had finally popped every joint back into place and was slithering toward the village edge when the strange pops reached him. He froze, turned, and his jaw dropped.
"Second, third, fourth level — all at once? Is this brat human or yao? How does anyone cultivate this fast?"
Then another elephant-trumpet shook the village — deeper, heavier. Every window in all sixty-seven households rattled. Water shivered in basins and ponds.
The snake's mind went blank.
Fifth level.
Blood qi surged through Su Yan's pores, gathering behind him into a translucent phantom — an elephant-headed god-man, taller than Su Yan by nearly two feet, moving with his every strike.
Fifth level. The Elephant-Demon Manifestation.
The snake stared. "But he's clearly human..."
Su Yan didn't think. Second Form: White Elephant Whips Its Trunk.
He spun. His leg cut the air like an elephant's trunk, the phantom echoing his motion. The kick caught the god in the waist, bent him double, nearly drove him to the ground.
The god staggered back, ripped a wall from a nearby house, and raised it overhead to crush Su Yan like a fly.
Su Yan punched through the wall. Bricks sprayed into the god's face.
The god shielded his eyes and struck with his other fist. Their knuckles met. A clean snap — the god's wrist broke.
Terror flooded the deity's eyes. He tried to retreat, to dodge.
He couldn't. Su Yan's fist grew larger and larger in his vision.
"I am a god registered by the City God! My name is in the ledgers of the underworld court! Kill me and you offend heaven itself—"
The word died in his throat. Su Yan's fist punched through his face and out the back of his skull.
The god swayed. Fell. His essence scattered, and the body turned to wood.
"AAAAAAH—" The snake yao screamed, mouth gaping, from the alley nearby.