The arsenal at the north of the city.
More precisely, its direction lay at the northwestern corner of Fenglin City.
Great stores of weapons and armor lay sealed here, waiting only for the army to march out and put them to use.
Its defense was strict; at all times a full century of soldiers was permanently stationed here in rotation. That century was split into ten squads, and each squad was sure to have a cultivator at its head.
This was not to say that cultivators made up such a large share of the Fenglin City garrison — rather, the arsenal's significance was too great, and so the general assigned to rotate the guard had deliberately raised the proportion of elite warriors.
By comparison, the City Lord's Mansion itself had comparatively few cultivators on guard, for the City Lord Wei Quji himself was Fenglin City's most deterrent fighting power.
At the same time, serving rotation at the arsenal was among the Dao Academy disciples' routine duties. Every day two Dao Academy disciples stood guard here — the Dao Merit accrued was meager, but it was steady, and with practically nothing to do besides, it did not interrupt one's seated meditation practice. In truth, many fought over this duty; it could be called a prize snatched up by the swift, lost to the slow.
The arsenal was divided into outer and inner. A guard of such exalted grade was, of course, not merely for protecting the mountain of common weapons and armor piled up in the outer storehouse.
In terms of space, the inner storehouse was minuscule, occupying no more than a single small room at the very center of the entire arsenal.
But from its walls to its roof and even its floor, formation arrays had been deliberately engraved to prevent anyone from breaking in by force. If ever an attack came that those arrays could not withstand, the inner storehouse's self-destruct formation would trigger.
A host of measures bound it: no one might enter the inner storehouse from its front gate except with a dedicated command seal.
And the two Dao Academy disciples, together with the strongest of the century's ten-man squads, stood guard before that inner storehouse. Apart from their rotation, they never so much as moved a step.
Defense such as this was nearly watertight. Especially today, the great day of the Three-City Dao Debate, when a great number of the garrison had been posted within the city — no one would be so dim as to court death here.
And so when two men in garrison soldier's uniforms approached, and their command seals passed verification, the squad leader on duty gave it no further thought, and formed his seals to open the inner storehouse's gate.
"Wait." The City Dao Academy disciple, seated in meditation on a cushion before the gate's right side, suddenly spoke up.
It was not that he suspected these two — merely that he felt the command seals ought to pass before his own eyes as well, as was proper to his post.
But the two who had already stepped into the inner storehouse whirled around.
One's hair burst into terrible length, ranging through the air like black needles. The other gaped a bloody maw and spat out a serpessor of foul blood!
The academy disciple who had called them to a halt was, almost in that very instant, stabbed full in the face by the black hair, and fell dead to the ground. And the garrison squad leader, a cultivator, was swept up by the foul blood — in a blink he had become nothing but white bones!
In a single exchange, only one cultivator's fighting strength remained outside the inner storehouse gate; the other nine garrison soldiers, though elite, commanded only mortal martial force.
"I merely wished to slack off for once..." This lone remaining academy disciple pressed a hand to his forehead, and in the next moment sprang up, flicking his finger — a golden arrow of light split the wind, speeding at the enemy.
A D-Class high-grade Dao art — the Golden Light Arrow.
It was instantaneous, which meant this man had at the very least completed a minor circulation, his cultivation in the Eighth Rank or above.
Even as he attacked, he directed: "Scatter and carry word — I'll hold them here!"
Granted, he had no certainty of defeating these two who dared assail Fenglin City's arsenal, but at this moment, the realm's official forces within Fenglin City held an unquestionable advantage. So long as the message got out, no matter how many foes came, they could only end up hunted to death.
Soldiers obeying orders was a habit; of course they did not dawdle, and the nine soldiers at once scattered and fled in all directions.
Just then, throughout the whole of Fenglin City, except in places crowded with experts like the martial exercise ground, chaos broke out almost everywhere.
Some set fires, some broke out and killed — for a moment the clamor was immense.
Within the arsenal, the two assailants did not hesitate either: the attacker who used hair as a weapon stayed behind to fight, while the one who spat foul blood charged straight into the inner storehouse.
They have a most definite target! This thought flashed through the mind of the lone academy disciple still left in the field. He flicked his fingers again and again, his sharpness unbroken, and the Golden Light Arrow was worked by him into an effect of a curtain of arrow-rain sweeping the sky!
The Golden Light Arrow and the hair-arrow clashed tit for tat — one sharp, one sinister.
While the two were locked in struggle, suddenly a long saber swept across the field. The black-hair attacker crashed down to the ground, head severed from body.
Wei Yan, gripping the long saber, turned straight into the inner storehouse.
A serpessor of foul blood lunged at his face. He neither dodged nor avoided, driving the saber down vertically to split the bloody serpent into halves. He pressed forward right between the parted blood-serpent, coming almost face to face with the one who spat foul blood, and ran the saber straight through the man's chest!
But this attacker smiled eerily, and with a hoarse voice, spent his last strength in delight: "The Nether Candle has already been sent off by my hand!"
At Wei Yan's back, the foul-blood serpent, now in two sections, suddenly writhed — one half flung itself upon the academy disciple who had loosed the instantaneous golden arrow, blocking his movements; the other, serpent-like indeed, writhed off and fled the place!
Beyond all doubt, the treasure called the Nether Candle lay within that half of the blood-serpent.
"Keep your Nether Candle, if you will." Wei Yan drew the long saber from the man's chest, his voice as cold as frost: "But I will slaughter every one of you who came today!"
At that same moment, throughout Fenglin City, experts who had lain in ambush long ago appeared at every place.
A lone assailant had just set a fire when, in the next instant, he was shot full of arrows like a hedgehog, the flames extinguished almost the moment they rose.
On another side, a vicious blood Dao art had only just lunged at a passerby when churning waves flipped over and rolling logs thundered... a string of Dao arts blasted the assailant to pieces.
Fenglin City had long been prepared; nearly every expert had been sent out, and a great calamity was immediately suppressed.
...
"What has happened?" Hearing the few cries of agony from afar, Jiang Wang was the first to scoop up Jiang An'an.
That hunchbacked elder surnamed Gui also instantly caught Qingzhi's hand.
"No need for alarm." From the stand, Wei Quji pressed down with a hand. "The competition continues!"
Outside the martial exercise ground, apart from the soldiers keeping order, squad after squad of the garrison scattered in all directions.
The common folk gathered to watch the matches were not much alarmed; if they could come to harm with Wei Quji and Dong A on the scene, then nowhere would be safe.
Besides, these garrison troops were plainly on official duty, and they dared not leave to go disturb them.
...
Inside the arsenal, Wei Yan strode out, all but bellowing: "Shen Nanqi, why didn't you stop that section of the blood-serpent just now? Don't tell me it was beyond you!"
The blood-serpent fled carrying the Nether Candle; a few more relays, and that small, exquisite object would vanish without a trace.
That meant the "bait" Wei Quji had laid down had been swallowed. They would have to kill every single "fish."
The academy disciple named Shen Nanqi bellowed back with voice equally loud: "What do I know about the Nether Candle? Who ever told me? Since you had a plan all along, since you were prepared, why not let us in on it? My junior fellow disciple died — died before my very eyes!"
Golden light flickered in his hand; had it not been for such a moment, he would almost have been unable to resist hurling the Golden Light Arrow at Wei Yan's face.
"Our brothers of the garrison died in even greater number." Wei Yan's face was grim as water.
He perhaps did not wish to explain, but before turning to leave this place, he still added one line: "We had no way of knowing how those people lay hidden. Had the matter not been kept secret, they would not have shown their faces."
Which people? Shen Nanqi wanted to ask, but the question died on his lips. He knew he would receive no answer.
At this point he even realized he might have ended up here on rotation today, loafing, at Wei Yan's arrangement. Among the Dao Academy disciples who had not taken the field, who happened to be "free," and who could hold down an opponent of this grade, there was none more fitting than he, Shen Nanqi.
Fifth on the Fenglin City Dao Merit Roll, Shen Nanqi.
He had no one he most loved; the one he most loathed was Wei Yan.
A pity that, equally skilled in metal-element Dao arts as he was, he was no match for Wei Yan.