Chapter 82: Breakthrough?
The purple light in her palm flared into a jagged spear of energy.
She hurled it with a scream, and as it closed in, her eyes brightened. But Kian’s eyes opened just in time and he vanished from the roof.
The spear punched through the tiles where he’d sat and blew a smoking hole in the ridge.
BANG!
"Indeed, one cannot be too lucky in this cultivation world."
Kian’s voice echoed from nowhere.
Gasp!
He reappeared behind the captain, one hand closing around the back of her neck.
Her body went rigid, the bow slipping from her fingers and clattering into the courtyard below.
The green-robed swordsman lunged a step forward, then stopped, blade half-drawn, as a ring of cold Qi pressure rolled outward from Kian’s still form.
At some point, Kian had produced a Qi sword and it was now inches away from the swordsman’s neck.
The swordsman’s throat bobbed against the cold edge of Kian’s Qi blade.
His knuckles whitened around the hilt he didn’t dare draw.
"Stage Six," he whispered. "At least Stage Six. Maybe much stronger. Wind step and iron skin, truly a formidable youth!"
One of the gray elders let his spirit chain fall slack, the links clinking against the roof tiles.
"This aura is too dense for a normal Stage Five. Too controlled. Clearly, he just had a breakthrough, though."
A guard stumbled backward, and the talisman lamp in his hand swung wild, throwing long shadows across the courtyard.
Kian didn’t move.
He didn’t need to.
The Qi sword held steady, and the pressure rolling off him kept the whole circle pinned where they stood, like insects under glass.
The female captain was still locked under his palm, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts.
She knew that if she moved once, he would swing his sword and take her life.
If it were someone else, she would not have cared.
But Kian had appeared behind her so quickly. He was fast. Much faster than her.
Across the neighboring rooftop, Su Chen watched without flinching.
His eyes met Kian’s for one long, cold second—no anger, no fear, only calculation.
That made Kian reasses Su Chen.
This guy was quite a headache.
Su Chen smiled faintly and vanished, leaving only a stir of dust where his boots had been.
Kian watched the empty rooftop for a breath, then let the Qi sword dissolve into silver sparks.
He released the captain with a small shove and stepped back, his gaze sweeping over the guards.
"I am done cultivating for now. Leave."
The outer disciples shifted, glancing at one another, then at the captain still standing frozen where Kian had shoved her.
"Stand down," the captain said, breathing heavily.
One of them, a broad-shouldered guard with a fresh cut on his cheek, stepped forward and raised his spirit chain. "You dare order city guards to leave? Do you know who you’re speaking to?"
He swung the chain once, the links sparking with pale blue light. The two gray elders did nothing to stop him.
A younger guard followed his lead, lifting a short blade and planting his feet. The formation tightened again, bodies pressing closer along the roof’s edge.
The female captain finally moved.
She whirled on them, chest heaving, and slapped the chain out of the first guard’s hand. "I said stand the hell down!"
Her voice cracked at the end, high and panicked. She wiped sweat from her jaw and snatched the younger guard by the collar, shoving him backward so hard he stumbled into one of the elders.
"Retreat! All of you, now! That is a direct order from your captain."
The broad-shouldered guard stared at his bruised knuckles, then at the smoking hole in the roof ridge.
His face paled as the reality of the shattered arrow and the vanished spear finally sank in.
Clearly, their bold female captain had been intimidated!
He nodded and backed away, dragging the other guard with him.
The two gray elders exchanged a long look and melted into the shadows without a word.
In less than ten breaths, the rooftop was empty.
The talisman lamps faded into the streets below, their glow scattering like frightened fireflies.
Kian stood alone above his home, listening to the retreating boots fade into the night, and let the last of the cold Qi pressure dissolve from the air.
Down in the courtyard, nobody spoke for a long moment. Then Jia let out a shaky breath and said exactly what everyone was thinking.
"What the fuck bro? Can we have a single day of peace?"
Kian ignored Jia and turned his head toward the shadowed roof line.
"Come out."
The two gray-robed elders materialized from the darkness as if they had never left, their feet touching the tiles without a whisper.
They no longer carried slack spirit chains.
Both of them folded their hands inside their sleeves and bowed deeply, backs bending until their gray hair hung toward the ground.
"Young master," the first one said. "This old man is Du Ming, of the Iron Serpent Dojo."
The second straightened, eyes alight with something close to hunger.
"And this one is Liu Fang. We came alongside the city guards, but we have no quarrel with you. Seeing your Iron Skin at such a level—truly splendid—this old heart beats faster than it has in forty years!"
"The technique you used tonight is the same foundation we teach," Du Ming said, his wrinkled face opening into a wide, almost boyish grin.
Liu Fang continued: "To think a young man from this backwater region has pushed it to the level of reinforced bronze, maybe beyond. This is unbelievable."
Liu Fang stepped forward, stopping a respectful distance away.
"Please, let us speak with you when the city settles. Not as enemies. We only wish to know how far you have taken the art. Perhaps we can even help one another."
Kian looked at the two gray-haired elders and said nothing. A cold sneer pressed against the base of his throat.
These fuckfaces had stood in his courtyard while the captain tried to put an arrow through his skull. Now they wanted to speak of techniques and friendship like the night had cost him nothing.
Wow, he had a lot to learn from these hypocrites! Truly, splendid work!
The opportunity was gone. That was what burned Kian the most.
He had been wide open to the universe, Qi had been pouring into him from the stones and the wind itself for fucksake, the heavens offering more with every breath.
One arrow, one screaming spear and that one bitch’s jelousy. Damnit. And the opportunity was gone.
At this moment, Kian truly understood what Su Chen had felt the other day.
Having such great luck, but it getting ruined by random foids was indeed annoying to an extreme.
"You want to talk techniques with me?"
"Indeed!"
Kian’s gaze slid toward the street where the female captain had vanished.
She was the main one. He didn’t even know her name, but he would not forget the bright, eager look in her eyes when she hurled that purple spear.
She wanted him dead while he sat helpless.
Tsk. Tsk.
Kian shook his head, forgetting the matter for now. He looked at the two good men.
The elders waited with patient smiles. Kian thought of Su Chen’s faint, calculating smile too.
Kian said: "Not tonight. I have other matters. Return in a few days. And when you do, bring me something good that makes your impression better."
If they were useful, he would squeeze them dry. If not, he would cast them aside like the rest.
Whatever.
They vanished soon enough and Kian turned to look at his system before anything.
Unlike what all these people thought, he had not yet reached the sixth stage of Qi Building. He was incredibly close, but the reason he could use martial art techniques was a system cheat.
He had not truly reached Stage Six like they thought he did.
The translucent blue panel shimmered in front of his eyes.
[Realm: Qi Building Stage 5]
[Qi Sparks: 99,812 / 100,000]
[Fortune: 0]
[Martial Techniques: Iron Skin (Medium), Wind Step (Mastery), Art of the Blood Beasts (Initiate)]
One breath away.
A few more moments in that cultivation state would have shattered the wall, but there was no use crying about spilled milk. He could only do that himself.
Kian didn’t mind.
It was a lucky opportunity anyway.
He let the panel fade and stood in the cold air, feeling the last threads of Qi burn away from his meridians.
Finally, he turned to look at Jia’s pouting face.
"Why are you pouting now?"
"Shut up!"
Mia chuckled, her hands wrapped around Xiao Cui’s shoulder. "Jia is just mad that you ignored her."
Kian dropped off the ruined roof and landed in front of Jia before the dust could settle. He flicked her forehead with two fingers. "I didn’t ignore you. I was busy."
Jia swatted his hand away, and the pout only became bigger. "That female captain is so fucking annoying. Who does she think she is?"
"I agree!" Jiao Yin said.
"Yeah, she looked scary," Xiao Cui said.
Feimei smoothed her robe and looked from the smoking hole in the roof to Kian’s face.
"Now people of the city know you. It’s not good being so famous, Kian. Should we move?"
Kian shrugged. "That’s alright. I don’t want to be constantly on the move. But we really have to secure this room with an array formation."
Saying that, he grabbed Jia into a princess carry and walked towards the home. The girls followed him.
Jia took a deep breath. Then said, angry at herself: "I couldn’t even see that girl move. What use is my cultivation if I am so weak?"
"Do you want to grow stronger?"
"Of course I do."
"You know what that means."
Jia looked away, rolling her eyes.
Feimei looked to the distance, her red eyes deep. "Kian, maybe it is time we looked into that thing we got the other day."
Kian hesitated, stopping in his path. "That thing?"