The Third Cut - Chapter 26 preview (Patreon)

Minh Trac immediately started extracting formation flags from his ring, casting his gaze around the square and muttering to himself. The ground in the square had been crushed down, few weeds growing from the ground in-between cracked paving stones, a testament of a better time for the city and square itself. Moonlight from a waning moon shone down on the group, it’s angle low and occasionally clouded, even as the ever increasing number of flames stoked from awakening demons offered another form of illumination.

Phuong Vy was the first to object though, stating simply. “That’s not our objective.”

“No, it isn’t. You said you have a containment method?” At her nod, Bich Trang continued. “Take the wind cultivator and his companion with you. They’ll help you break in and take the splinter.”

She nodded, turning towards Wu Ying. Yang Mu moved closer to the exit that Wu Ying was poised at the command, knowing this was no time to object.

“I’d like to go with them,” Tou He said.

“No. You’re the bait for this trap,” Bich Trang said. “You angered him, you stay here. Your job is to last until the formation is ready, we’ll finish it.”

“And myself?” Be Long asked, the captain looking a little mystified.

“Keep Minh Trac safe. The rest of us will support the monk.”

“Ex-monk.”

Bich Trang ignored the man, frowning at Wu Ying and his group who had yet to leave. “Go! Before he arrives.”

Wu Ying nodded and took off down the road, closely followed by the other two. He lashed out with his sword, cutting down a trio of demons that stepped outside and clearing the way but made it only two crossings before he turned to a road that ran parallel to them that started twisting away from the temple.

Phuong Vy hurried to catch up with Wu Ying. “Where are you going? The temple is that way!”

“As is the demon. Best not to rush straight at him, or the roadblocks that are forming,” Wu Ying replied.

Yang Mu nodded, trailing after the two, her fans held by her side, one half-open the other closed. Occasionally, she’d throw one, blocking off an alleyway with the enchantment to stop demons from approaching in that direction, the fan flying through the air as they’d turn the corner; recalled as though following a string to her hands.

“How far do you intend to run?” Phuong Vy said, after a few minutes of the group battling.

Rather than answer, Wu Ying stepped towards a ramshackle door, striking it with the edge of his hand formed into a straight line. His dao-imbued knife strike cut into the side of the door, causing it to swing open as he shouldered inside. An older demon, struggling to his feet was struck with the backend of a pommel, causing him to crumple to the ground senseless. Then, as the pair followed him in, he shoved the wobbly table in the way of the door, blocking it off and keeping it closed.

“Why are we here?” Phuong Vy snapped.

Again, Wu Ying held his hand up. His head cocked to the side, he listened to the winds, listened to their declarations of animosity, their shrieks of bloodlust and hunger, their descriptions of threats lurking in the trees above. He listened and waited, until the impact of the flying Nascent Soul demon landing in the square they had left finally revibrated through the room, throwing plates and feet into the air.

“That.”

“What?”

“We were waiting for that,” Wu Ying reiterated before he ducked through the hallway and headed for the front door. He ignored the child demon, lurking in the stairs clutching a doll made of bones and dried skin, ignored the mother who held a knife pointed at them whilst she blocked the way upwards. Ignored even the shadow beetle that might or might not be upstairs, feasting on the corpse of its latest prey.

Instead, he exited the front door and leapt upwards, almost stumbling as the foothold of air he had expected to appear never did so until he had begun to fall. He righted himself and sprung onto the roof, ignoring the curious and worried look Yang Mu sent him as she joined him on the roof.

“Now we go to the temple. Straight and fast as we can,” he said.

“Finally!” The scholar was easily caught by Wu Ying even if she had started running first, the wind cultivator taking the lead. In the gloom, the group was hard to spot, as were the archers that had taken to the roofs. More than once, Wu Ying found the wind was too slow to inform him of a crouching watcher, their arrows and javelins thrown at them and blocked only by Yang Mu’s fans or the occasional floating talisman.

Those he did spot though, he utilized the wind to blow off the roofs, sending them crashing to the ground below. There were more than sufficient targets, for as their enemies realised their location, they began to take to the crumbling roofs too, chasing after the trio.

Yet, this was where the well trained cultivators began to shine. Qinggong methods allowed them to lighten their bodies, allowed them to step on precarious footing and not send crumbling mortar breaking or rotting roofs crashing. No such luck for the heavy footed demons, who raced across the ancient city only to collapse through roofs or fall, as they leapt massive gaps between streets, only to find footing too slick.

It did not, of course, help that the wind had picked up in the strangest ways. Tugging at hair, sending dislodged clay tiles spinning through the air at incredible – and deadly – speeds or pulling demons and cultivators aside at the slightest provocation.

“Control your winds, false dragon!” Phuong Vy snarled as she was sent stumbling by a sudden gust that caught her just before she fell, only Yang Mu’s sudden grip on her elbow keeping her aloft. Of the three, it was she that was struggling the hardest in their race across the moonlit rooftops. It was she that the wind seemed to target the most.

“I cannot. Like I told your Colonel, the corruption has infected the air here. The wind is but a portion of the air, and with the corruption, my own control has lessened. I can only stir it awake, and let it dance through the night,” Wu Ying said. “I assume we are better able to handle some chaos than our enemies.”

And chaos there was. He could sense it already, as the twisting in the adjusted Never Empty Wine Pot method formed a nexus point further south of them, on the other side of the city. A whirlwind was forming there, in its initial stages. None of the others might sense it, but given time, it would come roaring through the city bringing with it danger and destruction in equal measure.

“Idiotic, chaotic fool…” Phuong Vy cursed but she did not ask again, instead lowering her head to concentrate on running. She did deploy another half-dozen yellow talisman papers around her, each of them floating about her body as she ran, working to intercept attacks that might reach them. Most of those were in the form of thrown weapons or arrows, few enough coming close to injuring them all.

Each moment, they got closer to the temple. They were nearly at the temple grounds themselves, the massive pyramid having a clear space all around the steps leading up to it when they noticed the pair of figures awaiting them, standing under the rotting corpses of the previous expedition. Without verbal signal, the trio slowed down in their approach. Neither of their opponents were attempting to hide their own auras, unlike the trio and it was clear that they were waiting for them.

“Trouble,” Yang Mu muttered. “They look strong. Stronger than the ones we fought.”

“They do,” Wu Ying said, eyeing the massive hammer that the creature on the left wielded. It’s long fingers were entirely wrapped around the massive shaft, the head itself nearly twice as big as its already elongated head.

The other Ma Than Vong held a pair of serrated blades low to its body, the weapon curved backwards over the guard of its hilt, offering a crescent shapped, jagged moon for attacking with. It kept its body low, hunched over unlike the tall standing friend by it side as it eyed the trio as they approached.

“We cannot stay long. Your friend might be doing well, but their leader is stronger than we expected,” Phuong Vy said.

In the background, behind them, the pulse and flare of battle could be felt. It caused the very air to tremble and shriek, the repeated noise of weapons clashing and the crash of massive strikes that tore up the ground and sent gouts of flame and debris flinging through the air lighting up the sky. No wonder that the roused villagers had chosen to chase the three rather than join a battle where they were nothing but impediments.

The glow from the battle, where Tou He had unleashed the full strength of the fire dragon blood that now coursed through his body, that impacted both his dao and his body itself was clear across a third of the city. It lit up the night’s sky like a beacon of the gods, and the heat and its effects had drawn an updraft that threw Wu Ying’s own command of the wind in further disarray. Yet the air freed at the top of that growing cyclone was clean and clear, singing to his senses like a cup of water after a day’s march through the dessert.

“Then we finish this quickly. I’ll take the hammer,” Wu Ying said, flatly. He buried the worry for his friend beneath action, as he sped up once more. Sword held by his side, his eyes narrowed as he charged onwards, searching for the opening.

Each step, the wind gathered around him as he flexed an iron control that he rarely utilized. No longer friend but subservient to him, his wind chi poured out from his dantian, forming a domain where even the corrupted energies had no choice but bow to.

He would not fail, he would not stop and he would not allow his friend to fall.

Killing intent bled from him into his aura, the long dormant and whisper of the wind dragon’s blood within him thrashing awake at the presence of a nearby cousin. The air around him bled energy, a corona of wind and light forming around him as he outpaced his friends with each movement, his sword pointed ahead of him.

Second form of the Wandering Dragon, the Dragon’s Truth.

Consume.

The modified lunge tore through the air, the last hundred feet covered in the blink of an eye. His opponent turned, feet braced under the incoming gale, timing the swung of the hammer that he held over his head. He timed it perfectly, swinging downwards for when Wu Ying crossed under the ponderous attack, the hammerhead targeted to crush the cultivator’s neck and spine.

Perfectly timed, but an utter misjudgment of the strength of Wu Ying’s attack.

The leading trail of the attack was not the sword point, but the killing intent and energy that bled outwards from Wu Ying. Those tore into the muscular hanged demon long before Wu Ying’s tip struck. Then, winds along the edge and around Wu Ying cut into exposed muscles and tendons, killing intent laced through the attack as the hammer began its descent. As it neared, underneath the glowing light of shed chi, the swirling cyclone of wind that wrapped the wind cultivator tugged the attack off course even further.

Even the ponderous attack, filled with its own form of dao and the full killing intent of the attacker could not avert the swing. It tore through the side, even as the sharpened tip of killing intent entered the demon’s body, expanding wider as winds tore through him. The attack twisted away, torn from numbed fingers, the hammer never even reaching Wu Ying even as he continued the attack all the way through, piercing the monster’s chest.

Tearing through it, as wind entered the body and expanded, sending chunks of the body exploding outwards, leaving Wu Ying to skim across the ground as he bled off momentum and turned around with casual ease, his robes flaring out behind him, not a touch of blood or viscera on him.

Surprise registered on his other opponent’s face, the creature awaiting Wu Ying’s opponent’s, confident in his friend being able to deal with the wind cultivator. Eyes narrowed, and then abruptly it began to fade into the shadow pooled around its feet.

Wu Ying snarled, throwing a blade strike that he knew would never reach the creature. However, he was not the only one in battle.

Yang Mu’s fan opened, flaring bright green and white as the enscriptions on the fan triggered. Light flowed through the surroundings, spreading out in a formation beneath her feet and catching the creature as it sank halfway through the ground, trapping it.

Surprise registered on its face, as it leaned away from Wu Ying’s blade strike that finally caught up, watched as a deep gouge was torn from its flesh. Only to miss the darkened, poisoned throwing knives that Phuong Vy had thrown sinking its flesh.

Then, the fan’s light guttered out, the massive configuration disappearing. The creature finished sinking into the ground, even as the pair of cultivators hurried over to Wu Ying.

“Damn it, where did it go?” Wu Ying said, casting his senses outwards and finding no sign of the creature. It sat ill with him, to leave what was an obvious assassin behind.

“Do not worry, it is dead.” Phuong Vy grinned, savagely as she hurried by him. She called out, over her shoulder. “It just doesn’t know it yet.”

Wu Ying shook his head, turning away from her to cast his hand upwards to slice the rope holding the last corpse that had managed to survive the battle unscathed to set it clattering to the floor. “She scares me sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Yang Mu said. “My father always said, women with books are the most dangerous because they know things.”

“Aren’t you and your sisters and your mothers all read well?” Wu Ying asked.

“Yes, yes we are.”

Even as they spoke, bones were being pulled towards them by simple chi strings, Yang Mu utilizing the wood chi in the ropes to pull the bodies closer and Wu Ying his own wind chi. In short order, they had the corpses gathered and stored away in a storage ring, to be taken back. The actions by the pair were done by unspoken accord, neither willing to leave the bodies behind.

Task complete, the pair ran after Phuong Vy, scanning the surroundings for additional guards on rote. There were some, but many lay on the ground, gurgling their lifeblood or twitching as Phuong Vy cleared the way with her poisoned knives.

Time to enter the temple and see what other dangers awaited them.