Ten Thousand Tragedies

An instant later, the world resumed. The rain splattered against the muddy ground. The blasts of wind went on. The clouds up above didn't disperse.

But as Wu Hao's saber slashed down at the wave of earth three times his own size, the blast of qi that tore outwards from his saber was enormous. Bigger than anything he'd ever launched before, easily exceeding the scale of his Void Rips at least ten times, it felt like he'd lost something when all of it had finally left the edge of his saber.

But that something was the shackles that had been put on him.

The immense blast ripped through the wave of earth and stopped it in its tracks, an enormous slash through its middle that left the structure teetering dangerously. It collapsed instants later, and Wu Hao's eyes widened with surprise as he realized the qi that'd kept it moving had been torn away and added to the blast's whole.

He lost sight of his technique then, forced to balance himself on unsteady feet as all that stone and earth came crashing down with a rumble so loud that Wu Hao's ears buzzed and he had to clap his hands over his ears at the spike of pain that the sound drove into his mind.

When it settled, Wu Hao looked back up, and what he saw left his arms to fall limply at his side.

A line had been carved through the earth and into the mountain, biting so deep that the cave he'd been earlier had had its roof torn off. He'd decapacitated the beast entirely, exposing crevices and stone to the storm. Water began to collect all over the mountain and rushed down, forming into a river that plunged straight down.

Panting, Wu Hao ignored the subsequent crashes and roaring of stone smashing into stone.

His saber was on the verge of simply shattering. Its rings gave a final, plaintive wail, like a living thing that had been dealt a mortal blow, and then the cracks in the steel burst, sending the fragments that had once been the bandit's saber crashing to the ground.

Wu Hao stared down at it, then looked away again while his hands felt for his knives.

Lan Yongbin had escaped the center of the slash, or rather the center of the slash hadn't ever been aimed at him. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, and he simply stood there, looking at the ragged stump that'd once been his right arm. His leg didn't look much better, utterly gone below the knee. Blood flowed like a fountain from the parts of his body that had been crushed by a single strike.

Nonetheless he remained standing. Wu Hao would give him praise for his durability, at least.

Wang Hangsheng, on the other hand, hadn't been carved into directly. As Wu Hao watched, the man lunged out of hiding, jumping forward with a movement technique. His saber flickered, azure scales forming at its side and surging up to envelop the entirety of the edge, before he spoke a whispered command.

His saber flashed, flickering from low to the ground to high in the air, and while Lan Yongbin still tried to turn and block he'd instinctively pushed his stump of an arm forward instead of the arm that actually functioned.

"No," Lan Yongbin roared. "Heart of Stone Art -"

But he was too late.

As the crash of the earth reasserting its pull on the mountain continued to rage, Lan Yongbin's head fell from his shoulders. The qi that he'd been gathering had been achingly close to forming a technique. His expression had never shifted from that angry surprise, but Wu Hao could feel a few more emotions flash through the Stone Soul Sect martial artist before he died.

Regret. Shame. Pain.

And then nothing. His qi burst out of his body, fairly little for his actual cultivation, and Wu Hao assumed that he'd expended most of it already. It released into dark brown clumps that, despite looking heavy, fell slowly.

Before they'd reached the ground the qi was gone, washed away by the rain and swept away by the wind.

Wu Hao watched the man's corpse collapse to the ground.

Wang Hangsheng turned to Wu Hao. He was panting, the look in his eyes wild, and his saber was splattered with blood.

"What was that?" he demanded. "Was that - a Heaven-tier technique?"

"Yes," Wu Hao said bluntly.

"Who taught it to you?" Wang Hangsheng asked.

"No one," Wu Hao said.

Wang Hangsheng's hands tightened so much around his saber that his fingers went white.

"Impossible," he said. "Even I don't -"

His mouth clicked shut. Paranoia and jealousy spiralled through his core and formed into a massive pile that sunk deep, staining the entirety of his body with its dark green.

"What are you?" Wang Hangsheng hissed. "No normal martial artist is capable of doing this. Which clan's hidden heir are you, boy? Which sect raised you in secret? How many are there like you?"

"You think I'm a spy?" Wu Hao asked, breathless.

"What else can you be?"

"I'm no one," Wu Hao said. He drew his knives, certainty setting in that there'd be no more talking after this, and made a mental inventory.

Two exploding knives, two untreated ones. Barely any qi left. His muscles shook with the strain he'd put them under. A fight he really wasn't supposed to win.

Fuck it, Wu Hao thought, and palmed the first of his knives with a reverse grip. He had already planned on killing Wang Hansheng, anyway. What did he have to lose?

Wang Hangsheng gathered qi, power exploding into being as he swept his saber back.

Wu Hao raised his knife, pushed the qi through his feet, and ignored the ripping feeling of his skin tearing and his muscles screaming for rest as he lunged forwards. From what he'd observed Wang Hangsheng's technique was meant for one-hit kills, launched from hiding and then rapidly returning to cover to prepare another strike.

But in return for that ability to take cover, to build up without alerting the opponent, it'd sacrificed power and speed of use.

When the serpent's head flashed by, Wu Hao jumped straight over it, letting the wind whistle in his ears as he turned in mid-air, hands ripping knives from his belt as quickly as he could and launching the one he'd been holding at Wang Hangsheng, who rolled away and then blurred again into a movement technique-assisted bid for cover.

The knife exploded, raining fragments of steel and wood everywhere, but there was no answering trail of blood, no scream or even a grunt of pain. The only thing he could hear was the wet noise of the mud falling back to cover the holes that'd been pierced and the din of the mountain collapsing.

Wang Hangsheng had disappeared again. If Wu Hao had struck him then he'd hidden the injury.

That was good, though. If Wang Hangsheng had struck immediately he'd have had the advantage of being more or less fresh. The only reason he hadn't must have been that he'd overestimated Wu Hao and his ability to use his Heaven-tier technique again.

Landing, Wu Hao took a deep breath. He felt around as much as he could, ears rumbling with the loud violence of the mountain behind them still settling. Every trace of qi was turbulent and choppy, as a result of the techniques that'd been unleashed and the disturbance that'd been caused.

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It made spotting Wang Hangsheng very easy, though. Wu Hao's hand flickered to his belt, throwing out the second one that he'd been holding near to Wang Hangsheng, where it pulsed slightly.

Wang Hangsheng exploded into motion, blurring away from the knife as he was forced out of hiding. He was mistaken to do so, though, because the knife had been a regular kitchen knife.

Wu Hao had tricked him and now launched himself forward, qi blurring in his improvised movement technique as he pushed himself to his limits. The wind roaring in his ears he pushed qi through his knife in mid-air, forming a Long Hook that clashed into Wang Hangsheng's saber, held up in a desperate block.

Teeth bared, they struggled before Wang Hangsheng began to push forwards, his more muscular build allowing him the advantage.

Then Wu Hao let it go, dropping the knife. Wang Hangsheng's saber skimmed an inch away from his throat, even cutting into the skin, but despite the shock that ran through Wu Hao's body he barely even felt it.

And in return for the wound he'd gained the breathing room he'd needed to pull his last knife. He charged it with qi even as he thrust it upwards in a killing blow, all thoughts of technique or of forming it into a loop forgotten by the sheer need to get it there in time.

At the last instant Wang Hangsheng managed to pull his face away, and the knife didn't thrust into the soft flesh of his chin but instead skimmed across his face. Qi sprayed wildly, and there was a roar of utter agony as Wu Hao carved away at Wang Hangsheng's face.

With a blast of unmanaged, wild qi, Wu Hao was pushed back relentlessly, feet skidding over the torn-up mud. He nearly tripped, but righted himself again, and in his hand he clutched the last knife that he'd prepared.

That same knife, though, was one that he'd prepared as an explosive.

Which meant he couldn't use the Rending Dagger Art anymore, because that'd just cause it to explode.

Wu Hao raised the knife anyway and watched Wang Hangsheng try to gather himself. Blood ran deeply down his face from a cut that stretched from the tip of his chin up to his forehead. His left eye was bloodshot, and the right was a ragged ruin, seeping blood.

"You," Wang Hangsheng rasped. "You!"

The man let out an incoherent howl, then launched himself forward, and this time he didn't use qi in a movement technique. His qi didn't gather into something cohesive enough to be called a technique at all. Instead it just ran wildly through his body, utterly overwhelmed by his emotions to form wild, blazing tangles.

His muscles bulged, and red spots appeared throughout his skin as blood vessels burst.

Then he was on Wu Hao, swinging his saber without any hint of technique but with a hell of a lot of force. The first wild swing nearly took Wu Hao's head off, and he could feel the razor-sharp wind following the path that the saber carved through the air.

Best not to block that, he thought. Instead, using the dregs of qi he had left, he tried to answer Wang Hangsheng's assault in kind, smashing into him like two furious, scrabbling beasts.

Steel flashed, blood flew, and neither could stop until the other fell. Wu Hao pushed so hard that he couldn't even draw breath anymore, that the edges of his vision went black, and that his head pounded with a relentless agony, and then his knife managed to find a weak spot between Wang Hangsheng's blows and ripped into his throat.

Immediately, all their movement stopped. Wang Hangsheng was still rearing back, both hands on his saber in a wild swing that might have cut Wu Hao into half, when the saber fell from his limp hands and clattered into the muddy ground.

They leaned together, exhausted, in something that was eerily similar to the hug that Jin Qilong had given him just a day ago.

"You'll die," Wang Hangsheng hissed, voice ruined from the injuries that Wu Hao had inflicted. Blood bubbled from his lips and dribbled freely onto his chest, splashing onto Wu Hao's face and clothing as just another stain. "The clan will chase you to the ends of the earth."

"I will die," Wu Hao admitted. "A few times, probably. But as long as you and yours underestimate me, one day I'll succeed."

"What?" Wang Hangsheng asked. "You -"

Wu Hao thrust the knife into Wang Hangsheng's ruined eye, and what might have been the man's last words were cut off by a slow, wheezing death rattle.

Then he fell on top of Wu Hao, arms going slack and muscles failing to keep him up any longer. Wu Hao turned his hips, feeling his own muscles shift at the effort and the strain of keeping the weight of an adult man on top of him, and finally managed to pitch the corpse onto the ground.

Feeling bone tired, Wu Hao looked around him. The crash of the stone above had finally subsided as everything found its new place, during the fight that he'd just had with Wang Hangsheng. Below him he could hear urgent shouting, men moving around, people running away from the camp as fast as their legs could carry them.

He'd done it. He'd survived while two men nominally stronger than him had done their best to kill him. Wu Hao watched, trying to think, but the sheer exhaustion stopped him from doing any of the sort. He simply panted, putting his hands on his knees for support.

But he had work left to do. Wu Hao sank to his knees next to Wang Hangsheng's corpse, raised his arm despite every bone in his body telling him to just lay down and rest in the soaking rain, and started stabbing, methodically. He tried to leave the same distance between each puncture that claws might, but it was hard work, and the shaking aching feeling in his hands made his work all the sloppier.

If nothing else, he'd finally found a use for the Five Beasts Claw Art. It pointed out to him what the motions would have been.

He'd never mutilated a corpse like this before, he noted mechanically as his hands worked, and then that thought was gone as well in the haze: all he did was raise the knife with both hands, stab deep into the corpse, try to wriggle the knife free, and then readied himself to do it over again.

Something told him it might not be the last time.

Then, before he'd even regained his breath, he rose to his feet and looked. The carriage, the camp in the distance - he had to get away from it all. Now would be his best chance, and while he could try again if he died, it'd been sheer chance that had allowed him to survive this at all.

No knives, no qi, no saber, and nothing to hold him back. A good result.

Wu Hao began to hobble away. Nearby, the storm still raged, but in the distance he could see a rainbow, where the rain hadn't passed but had caught the light at just the right angle.

There, he thought, seeing it shine in the distance. That was his destination.

At the end of the rainbow, his freedom still beckoned.