The fog could not swallow that crimson light. Zhao Yan had barely climbed to his feet when the tide of ghosts surged over him.
And Du Hu arrived.
He did not even need to move. The raw lifeblood rolling off him scattered the specters like chaff before a flame.
Du Hu grabbed Zhao Yan by the collar and hauled him toward Ling Chuan. All three elder brothers' hearts were in their throats after that terrible claw, but Zhao Yan himself looked nothing like a wounded man. He squawked in fury: "Hey! Hey! I can walk on my own!"
Du Hu ignored him. Halfway there, he flung the yammering Zhao Yan at Ling Chuan, spun, and drove a fist wrapped in lifeblood into the wrath ghost.
Set aside Ling Chuan catching Zhao Yan mid-air. Consider the fist.
Du Hu's boxing art was nothing special — it drew little respect even in the Outer Academy. But in his hands it became something else. Savage. This punch did not seek an opening. It met the ghost's great claw head-on, strength against strength, attack against attack. Iron.
The blood-wrapped fist met the black-green claw and held.
Jiang Chen flickered past again. A sword-flash, and the ghost's other eye burst.
"Pull back!"
Jiang Chen struck and fled. Du Hu bounded after him. Blind and raving, the ghost flailed its claws, churning the air around it.
When its fury ebbed, Jiang Chen darted in again. His sword traced a lazy arc, drifted down like a falling leaf, and touched the ghost's right claw — almost silent. The instant steel met black-green, it screamed.
The third killing form of the Violet Dawn Sword Art. Its essence was sharpness.
One stroke, and the claw fell.
Jiang Chen was already retreating as he struck. The blind ghost lunged at empty air — and Du Hu, burning like a torch, rose behind it. Left hand clasped over right, arms a sledge, he brought both down on the creature's skull.
The beacon of vital blood hated spirits by nature. This blow was something else again. The blood-wrapped fists exploded the ghost's head like a ripe melon.
Black-green filth splashed Du Hu before the lifeblood burned it off. The headless body toppled. The crimson light over Du Hu died, and his face went paper-white.
Jiang Chen was at his side in a bound, catching him. "Brother Hu—"
Lifeblood. The root of the body. Jiang Chen had gathered Dao essence from lifeblood himself. Everything Du Hu had just spent, every moment, had been burning himself alive. And he was not a true martial artist — he could not hold that much blood. This fight would cost him five years of recovery. Five years at the very start of the path, the most precious years of all, with old age's decline waiting at the end. One step slow, every step slow. He might never cross into the transcendent.
And Du Hu had not hesitated. Not for an instant. In the breath of a life-or-death decision there was no time for calculation — and the choices made without thinking were the truest proof of a man's heart.
"Small matter." Du Hu steadied his breath, mustered a little strength, and shoved Jiang Chen away. "I'm not so old I can't walk. Come on — the center's going to be worse."
Ling Chuan's worry was plain, but this was no time for words. He hoisted Zhao Yan onto his back, retrieved his sword from the corpse, and took his place at Du Hu's side, silent.
He had burned a little lifeblood too — not enough to wound his foundation. He still had strength to risk.
Jiang Chen was the only one in full condition. He stayed light on his feet, ready to strike at any moment, and walked ahead with his sword drawn. He did not offer to carry anyone.
Only Zhao Yan kept complaining: "Eldest brother is the thoughtful one. Du Hu, you clod, carrying me like a sack of grain — what a sight! If Miss Miao ever heard of this, my dashing reputation would be ruined!"
Miao Qing was the reigning beauty of Tri-Fragrance Tower, the most famous courtesan in Maple City. Zhao Yan had thrown over a thousand taels at her doorstep and never once gotten anywhere.
Du Hu said nothing. Not from any shortage of curses — he simply had no breath to spare.
"Enough," said Jiang Chen, annoyed. "There's nothing here but mindless ghosts and mad wrath ghosts. Who's left to see your 'reputation'?"
"Who can say?" Zhao Yan rallied, gesturing grandly from Ling Chuan's back. "What if a pretty ghost-girl is hiding somewhere, watching me? There goes a perfectly good romance — can Du Hu afford to compensate me for that?"
Du Hu nearly rose from his deathbed to smash the chatterbox. Ling Chuan beat him to it, jabbing upward with his sword hilt. Zhao Yan gasped and fell silent.
* * *
Behind the heavy wall of fog, at the center of Little Grove Town — the middle palace of the Nine Palace Array — a great vortex turned.
Whatever had stood here was gone. The silent whirlpool had consumed it all. Only the vortex remained, its heart a black so pure it seemed to drink the eyes of anyone who looked.
Beside the vortex stood four cultivators, long of breath and full of Dao essence. Black robes. Eyes straight ahead.
Before the vortex, where a house had been smashed to rubble, one wall of brick still stood.
A woman in red leaned against it, languid.
She was wrapped from neck to ankle, and yet the promise of her was maddening. In her hand an oval mirror showed — not her own face, but the Nine Palace Array, the cultivators fighting the wrath ghosts within it.
"The current crop of Maple City Academy disciples isn't much." The woman in red pouted. "Those few sword moves were decent, though."
She tucked the mirror away. "Well. Time's up. If I'd known it would be this easy, I'd have slept a little longer." Yawning, she drifted to the vortex. "So sleepy..."
Only before the vortex did her face grow serious. She stood straight and made a formal bow. "We await the Elder."
The four black-robed cultivators bowed with her.
Out of the fog came an old man, white-haired, face creased like bark, eyes milky and clouded, back hunched, steps shuffling.
With every step, his back straightened a degree. His presence swelled.
He paid the woman in red no heed. He stared at the vortex as a man stares at his one true love, devotion naked on his face.
When he reached the vortex, his presence had become an ocean. It pressed down like a mountain, hard to breathe.
The woman in red bowed lower.
The old man folded his ring and little fingers, thumb and forefinger and middle forming a triangle over his heart. He chanted: "At the bottom of the River of Oblivion, in the abyss of the Yellow Springs. The honored god returns to the world, lighting the land of men."
Then he drew a bone dagger, drove it cleanly into his own crown, and fell, still upright, into the vortex.