Dantai Qi knew his horse could not sustain another full-force impact, so he did not take the second blow head-on.

He used the lance to deflect the iron staff, then swept the lance tip back in a counterattack.

In the exchange, the moves were swift as lightning.

Scar Lion knocked the lance tip aside with the staff, though he seemed to take a particular interest in the lance itself — he deliberately looked it over several times.

He seemed to envy the man before him, being in possession of such a weapon.

Scar Lion’s staff technique was unusual. The style was something an ordinary person could not replicate, which made it deeply unsettling to face. It could be called a swinging-staff method.

His iron staff was somewhat shorter than Dantai Qi’s lance but longer than the wooden spears carried by ordinary soldiers.

And it was solid iron throughout — wrist-thick. Its weight could only be imagined.

Most staff fighters used both hands. He used one.

With an iron staff of this weight, he gripped only the butt-end in his right hand, yet held it as steadily as though it were planted in stone. The wrist strength required was beyond anything a normal person could match.

Forget the iron staff — how many ordinary people could hold even a wooden pole of this length and thickness in a single hand, from one end, perfectly level without trembling?

Used this way, the staff achieved maximum reach and maximum force.

When he swung it up and brought it crashing down — what power was in that blow?

“If you were once a garrison soldier, why become a bandit?!”

Dantai Qi called out, driving a lance thrust at Scar Lion’s chest.

Scar Lion raised the iron staff vertically to block, meeting the lance tip with precision.

“Garrison soldier? Garrison troops are a den of thieves themselves!”

He shot back, rage spilling openly from his eyes. His wrist snapped; the staff swept horizontal.

Dantai Qi dropped flat against his horse’s neck. The iron staff swept over his back, the wind of its passing rushing over him.

The moment the staff completed its sweep, Dantai Qi straightened instantly and drove a lance thrust forward.

Scar Lion’s staff had swung out to the side — pulling it back to a defensive position was clearly impossible in time.

But he did not try to defend. Instead, using the momentum of the sweep, he launched himself from the saddle.

In midair, he kicked out and deflected Dantai Qi’s lance.

And because the staff had just completed a full sweep, it was now trailing behind him — with his single hand he wrenched it forward by sheer force, hauling it from behind, around, the arc carrying mountain-shattering power, straight down at the top of Dantai Qi’s head.

Dantai Qi had no room to dodge. In desperation he released the lance and slapped both palms against the shaft.

The lance tumbled through the air and struck Scar Lion squarely in the chest, slamming him backward — yet the iron staff still completed its arc and fell.

Dantai Qi clenched his teeth, raised both hands, and caught the blow.

Under the crushing force, the staff drove downward. In the instant his hands seized it, Dantai Qi let out a thunderous shout.

“Away!”

His horse cried out in anguish beneath him — plainly near its limit, it held itself up through sheer stubborn will.

Dantai Qi, both hands gripping the iron staff, threw his strength into it and *pulled* — dragging Scar Lion, still midair, back toward him.

Scar Lion was wrenched in close, and Dantai Qi drove a fist into his chest.

The punch sent Scar Lion crashing to the ground. The iron staff was simultaneously wrenched free, falling into Dantai Qi’s hands.

Before Scar Lion could rise, Dantai Qi hurled the iron staff like a javelin at the man on the ground.

The dark gleam came like a thunderbolt.

Scar Lion rolled clear. The staff hit the road with a crack and drove deep into the earth — this road had been packed and beaten hard for years, yet the staff buried itself at least a foot down, the ground erupting around it.

That strike, if it had landed on Scar Lion’s body, would have punched straight through.

Dantai Qi dropped from the saddle and was on Scar Lion before the man could stand, a sideways kick sweeping at his throat.

Scar Lion raised both hands to guard his neck, but the force of the kick still sent him staggering sideways.

“Whether you were wronged by the court or carry your own grievances, whether you suffered injustice — none of that is reason to harm innocent people! Those who wronged you deserve death. So do you, for what you’ve done to others.”

Dantai Qi continued to shout as he pressed his attack — fist after fist, relentless as a gale.

Scar Lion was forced onto the defensive. He deflected punch after punch, but couldn’t keep them all out. One broke through and landed square on his face, snapping his head back. He went down.

Dantai Qi stepped in immediately, a kick driving into Scar Lion’s body, sending him skidding sideways, curled and tumbling, sliding a full zhang and more along the ground.

From this position of advantage, Dantai Qi would not spare him. He closed the distance again and brought his foot stamping down at Scar Lion’s chest.

Scar Lion’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t dodge — he thrust both hands up to catch the boot.

“What do *you* know?!”

Scar Lion shoved Dantai Qi’s foot aside with force, pushed himself up with his hands, and kicked out with both feet at Dantai Qi’s chest.

Dantai Qi stepped half a pace to the side, then caught both legs under his arm. He hoisted Scar Lion up and swung him in a circle.

Mid-swing, he spotted a large tree nearby — and he hurled Scar Lion into it.

The impact was devastating. Scar Lion’s head struck the bark and split open, his skull ringing, and in an instant his capacity to fight was gone.

Dantai Qi released him and threw him clear, then closed in again with a kick to the jaw. Scar Lion’s body spun and skidded another half-zhang across the ground.

Dantai Qi saw his lance lying close by. He retrieved it, walked to where Scar Lion lay, and stood over him — both hands gripping the lance, tip directed downward at Scar Lion’s chest.

Scar Lion was barely conscious. He had no strength left to resist.

Dantai Qi said: “I don’t know why you left the garrison forces. From what you’ve said, I suspect you were wronged. But none of that gives you the right to harm others. Those who wronged you deserve death. You also deserve death for what you did to innocent people.”

Scar Lion slowly opened his eyes. He coughed violently, blood welling up between his lips.

He fought no more. He lay there looking up at Dantai Qi — and in his eyes there was no fear. Instead, a strange calm had settled over them.

“You’re right. It’s not a reason…”

Blood continued to seep from Scar Lion’s lips, making the words come thick and blurred.

“But what do you know… what do you understand… cough cough… I fought with courage and earned merit in battle, and every time they let the aristocratic sons take the credit. Then they were afraid I’d talk — so they tried to kill me and silence me.”

He raised a hand with great difficulty and pointed to the scars on his face: “They cut me three times across the face, then dumped me outside the camp, expecting me to die…”

He suddenly screamed: “Why in heaven’s name should I go on being a decent man?!”

One eye was sealed shut by blood. The other stared, unblinking, up at Dantai Qi.

“That lance of yours is worth a fortune — not something a poor man could ever carry. I’d guess you were born into wealth. What could a man like you understand?”

He raised his hand and gripped the lance tip. The blade cut both palms open; blood poured freely.

“Kill me.”

He said.

Dantai Qi stopped.

“Kill me!”

Scar Lion roared.

He gripped the lance tip with both hands and wrenched it downward. The point drove through his chest with a dull sound. In the instant it pierced him, his body gave one violent shudder — then both hands went limp and dropped to the ground.

“Your life… was so fortunate… you have… such a fine lance…”

Scar Lion’s last few words came squeezed between his lips, and then his head fell to the side, and he was still.

Dantai Qi looked down at that body. It was as though a great stone had been dropped into his chest.

The scarred man who lay dead before him must have been a frontier soldier once. In those few sparse words, he had laid out half a lifetime of bitterness.

“The court wronged you. Those bastards wronged you.”

Dantai Qi pulled the lance free and turned to mount.

“Not the common people. They didn’t wrong you. But you still had to die.”

He swung into the saddle. His horse whinnied, and turned toward the mass of brigands surrounding Bei Kuangtu and charged forward.

But at that moment, from the other direction, two more riders came from the south, driving their horses at full gallop toward Bei Kuangtu as well.

The Hanging Blade Sect’s senior disciple Jia Ruan called out: “Cut off the head and the body falls — we go kill that leader, and the bandits attacking Li Chi will fall apart!”

Yu Jiuling, well aware his own martial skill was limited, nevertheless nodded as hard as he could. “Let’s go!”

The two flattened themselves against their horses’ necks to avoid the brigands’ arrows, shafts whizzing past them on either side and behind.

“I’ll go first!”

Senior disciple Jia Ruan shouted. He straightened from his crouch as the brigand line came rushing up, and both hands swept outward.

“Today you will learn — the Three Supremes of the Hanging Blade Sect are no empty boast!”

Both hands threw wide, and a glittering fan of silver flew out. In that single cast, there was no counting how many flying blades his hands had released.

All that could be seen was the line of brigands before him falling in succession — nearly the entire rank caught by the blades.

Charging through them, senior disciple Jia Ruan leapt from the saddle into the air; the horse beneath plowed into the horses ahead and sent them crashing.

As horses screamed and collided, Jia Ruan hung in the air and flung out another fan of silver — his target this time was Bei Kuangtu, still seated far behind the mass of men.

High on the great erma’s back, Bei Kuangtu saw the man spring upward and knew flying blades were coming. He reached out and grabbed the nearest brigand.

He held the man in front of him as a shield. The blades hit him in a dense cluster — three across the face alone.

Jia Ruan touched down for a moment on one brigand’s shoulder, then launched himself again to close the remaining distance — but midair, Bei Kuangtu heaved the corpse at him.

At this range it came too fast to evade. The body slammed into Jia Ruan and brought him crashing down hard.

Bei Kuangtu reached over and plucked a long saber from a brigand beside him, then gave it a casual throw.

Jia Ruan hadn’t seen it, but he knew a follow-up was coming. The moment he hit the ground he rolled. The saber flew in, struck the earth — and drove in completely. The entire blade vanished into the ground; only the hilt stood above the surface, not even trembling. As though it had always been there.

Jia Ruan rolled to his feet and patted himself down. He had only two flying blades left.

He flicked one — straight at Bei Kuangtu’s chest — then sidestepped one pace and sent the second flying at Bei Kuangtu’s throat.

The two throws were masterfully timed. The first went out first, but the second was faster; the two blades arrived almost simultaneously.

The deliberate sidestep before the second throw was intentional — it made the two blades come from slightly different angles. And because the second was thrown with greater force, both arrived together, giving no chance to evade.

The instinctive assumption was that the first blade came first — block the first, then block the second. But with both arriving at once from different angles: how could anyone block?

Take it head-on.

Bei Kuangtu raised both hands — one left, one right — and at the same time, pinched.

He caught both blades clean out of the air with three fingers each, catching the flats and avoiding the edges, bringing two blades streaking at full force to a dead stop.

The precision of force. The exactness of eye. It was staggering to witness.

Bei Kuangtu glanced at the blades in his hands with complete indifference and dropped them in the dirt.

Senior disciple Jia Ruan’s eyes had gone wide. He had been certain those two throws would kill — but both had been caught. He was out of blades.

“Jia Ruan!”

From somewhere behind, Yu Jiuling wrenched his own long saber free and hurled it to Jia Ruan.

Jia Ruan sprang into the air and caught the hilt, then thrust off again in a single leap, bringing the saber down at Bei Kuangtu’s neck.

Bei Kuangtu moved his horse forward one step at that precise moment.

Just one step — and the blow that had been aimed at his neck would now fall on his shoulder behind him. Midair and committed, Jia Ruan had no means of redirecting the strike.

Bei Kuangtu raised his hand and caught Jia Ruan by the forearm, then heaved him upward — and reached out to close his hand around Jia Ruan’s throat.

He looked Jia Ruan in the eye. The contempt in his gaze was absolute.

“Soft. No strength in it at all.”

—