"My fourth-rank official seal!"
Qin Feiyue's face went white. He clawed at his waist — the seal was gone. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. Losing an official seal was a grave matter, but he was the State Preceptor's disciple; the incident could be buried. What truly terrified him was that he had not sensed the Cripple move at all. If the Cripple had not stolen the seal but driven a blade into his back instead…
He shuddered.
The Seventh Young Master's cheeks flushed crimson. The youth clutched his chest while the surrounding maids closed ranks, forming an impenetrable wall.
The Cripple had just filched several treasures from "him" — it was only when the sash binding "his" chest came away that the Cripple realized the Seventh Young Master was a girl. The Cripple's greatest taboo was touching a woman; the slip cost him his opening, and Qin Feiyue seized the chance. The Cripple could only flee.
"That Cripple — he is the divine thief who penetrated the imperial inner palace and stole the Emperor's Mandate. The thief who robs heaven itself!"
Qin Feiyue smothered his shock and, finding the Seventh Young Master unharmed, exhaled in relief. "You… your young lordship has been badly frightened. This general is incompetent…"
Inside the mystic ice, Gu Linuan was even more stunned. The Cripple had stolen the Shao Bao Sword's scabbard from right beside him!
Not only the scabbard — the black banner in his other hand had been taken as well!
He was frozen in mystic ice, so hard and so cold that even a great expert like himself could not break free. When Qin Mu had tricked him into giving up the sword, he had burned through every scrap of qi just to push the hilt out of the ice. Yet the Cripple had simply ignored the mystic ice, touched it lightly — those were the hands of a god — and plucked away both his banner and scabbard as though they were sitting on a table.
"Lord Gu, that Cripple once penetrated the imperial inner palace. Before countless elite guards he strolled into the national treasury, where innumerable traps and killing formations proved useless. He walked out with the Emperor's Mandate, and no one could stop him."
Qin Feiyue continued, "It was only when the State Preceptor intervened that a divine leg was severed. But even the State Preceptor could not hold him. He escaped with the Emperor's Mandate and vanished without a trace."
Gu Linuan was shaken. After a long silence he said, "He lost a leg — and still plucks things from the air? Is that a divine leg or a divine hand?"
Suddenly, ahead of the towered boat, a great beast's wail of agony split the air. Qin Feiyue dashed to the prow. His pupils contracted. A vast spider's web stretched across the river before them, locking more than a dozen li of waterway.
The chained beast that towed the boat had slammed into the web and was struggling to free itself. Then the water parted, and an enormous spider rose from the depths. It dragged the beast onto the web, sprayed silk to bind it, and plunged its fangs into its body.
Though the soldiers aboard drove their swords by qi and even deployed divine arts, they could not drive the giant spider back — they could not even sever a single strand of web.
Soon the great beast had shriveled to a single hide.
Qin Feiyue's body trembled; the hand gripping his sword trembled as well. He wanted to cleave the spider in two but dared not move.
He saw a figure on the riverbank — a herbalist carrying a medicine basket, dressed in plain green robes. The face was entirely gone, a mass of hideous scarring.
The herbalist waved a hand. The giant spider began to reel in its web, crawling along a silk strand toward the pharmacist. As it crawled it shrank, until finally a tiny spider crawled into the medicine basket.
With the web gone, the towered boat resumed its downstream drift. Qin Feiyue caught a faint voice: "Tell the State Preceptor — stop scheming about the Great Ruins, or you might provoke us old cripples…"
Inside the mystic ice, Gu Linuan whispered, trembling: "The Poison King…"
Qin Feiyue steadied himself and barked, "All soldiers — take up the oars and row! Back to Yankang!"
The boat had gone two or three li when a soldier stammered, "General Qin — someone is on the river!"
Qin Feiyue's jaw tightened, his face the color of iron. "What demon or ghost dares block my ship? Do you take me for clay? Ram them—"
He broke off. On the river stood a figure with only an upper body — the lower half had been severed at the waist.
The creature held a pair of strange, broad-bladed knives and stood upon a reef in midstream.
Then blade-light tore the sky, earth-shattering. Qin Feiyue looked up to see the clouds above split by that terrifying wave of blade-qi.
The light fell, hurtling toward the towered boat.
Whoooosh—
The waters of the Yong parted on either side. The entire river split in two, cleaved down the middle by a single stroke.
"Seven Stars Divine Treasury — open!"
Qin Feiyue roared. Inside his body, one divine treasury after another burst open with thunderous force. A torrent of qi erupted, taking the form of two great dragons that slammed into the hull, shoving the towered boat sideways by a hundred zhang.
The blade-light grazed the hull and continued upstream, splitting the river as it went — more than a dozen li of waterway torn open before closing again behind the reef where the half-man stood.
"Heh heh — beating the State Preceptor's disciples is dull. Beating the State Preceptor himself would be fun…"
The creature on the reef sheathed its knives, planted both arms against the rock, and launched itself skyward, vanishing.
Qin Feiyue swallowed the tremor in his legs and called, "Hold the ship steady — steady…"
His voice shook so badly even he could not hear it. He sat down to regulate his breathing, his mind a tangled storm.
Gu Linuan was more terrified still: "The Heaven Blade! The one who once defied the heavens with his blade and died at the hands of the gods — still alive…"
Qin Feiyue's face shifted between light and shadow. "This unremarkable little village in the Great Ruins — how has it gathered such a den of old monsters? The God of the Spear, the Heaven Blade, the Divine Thief, the Poison King… besides these, what other terrifying beings live in that village…"
He looked at the charts of the Yong River. The maps he had painstakingly charted were still aboard. Those fiends had not destroyed them, and he let out a breath of relief.
"No!"
He caught himself. The fiends had not destroyed the charts because they did not deign to. These old monsters were so confident that even if he carried the maps back, the State Preceptor would never dare invade the Great Ruins!
"Why didn't they kill us?" the female Seventh Young Master asked.
"They did not deign to," Qin Feiyue said bitterly. "They did not deign to kill us — presumably because our abilities are too insignificant…"
He felt the taste of ash in his mouth. As the State Preceptor's disciple, he had always rated himself highly, and his reputation in court was formidable. Yet a single visit to the Great Ruins had introduced him to one impossibly powerful being after another, and every scrap of his former pride had been stripped away.
When he first encountered the Blind One, some arrogance had remained — shaken, yes, but his pride was intact. Then came the Cripple's ghostlike appearance, the Herbalist's venomous cunning, and the Butcher's savage fury, one after another, until pride and poise alike were ground to dust, leaving only dread.
"Nothing can stop the State Preceptor. Nothing can frighten him!"
The image of his master, the State Preceptor of Yankang, rose in his mind, and the unease within him scattered. His gaze hardened. "These old fogies of the Great Ruins want to block a chariot with a mantis's arm — they will be ground to dust."
The towered boat swept on downstream. Qin Mu suddenly noticed something. Ahead, there had once been an oasis with an ancient temple upon it. Now the oasis was gone without a trace.
He had thought the temple held some mysterious power and had not entered to investigate, but he had marked the location on the river charts. Now both the temple and the island had vanished completely.
"Open my eyes!"
He activated the Nine-Layer Heaven Eye Art and peered beneath the surface. What he saw shook him: the oasis was still there, but some vast force had leveled it. The ancient temple now lay on the riverbed.
"The Great Ruins…"
He steadied himself and ordered the soldiers to row with everything they had, fleeing the place as quickly as possible.
Hardly had the towered boat departed when the water split again. A bronze Buddha trailed in chains, rising from the depths with measured dignity. Though immensely heavy, it seemed weightless, its feet resting on the surface.
"The old monsters of the Village of Broken Elders are stronger than expected — not easy to deal with…"
The bronze Buddha gazed toward the village, then planted its feet and surged onto the bank, sprinting away at great speed.
"You stole my merit — this matter cannot end so easily. But the State Preceptor of Yankang is stirring, preparing to enter the Great Ruins. I shall sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. When they have battered each other to ruin, my Thunderclap Monastery will reap the spoils!"
Outside the Village of Broken Elders, Qin Mu encountered the Cripple walking toward him. The old man flicked something through the air. Qin Mu caught it — a scabbard, a perfect match for the Shao Bao Sword.
Qin Mu was stunned. He was about to ask where the Cripple had gotten it when the old man stuffed something else into his shirt.
Qin Mu pulled it out: a milky-white cloth embroidered with pink peonies, about a foot wide, long like a sash, carrying a delicate fragrance.
"Grandpa Cripple — what is this?" Qin Mu asked, puzzled.
The Cripple's smile froze. He said irritably, "A sweat cloth. Keep it for wiping sweat. Bad luck — terrible luck. Why did I touch that thing? Touch it and you'll have three years of bad fortune…"