A man like Duan Hen was a reflection of a large portion of the martial underworld — extraordinarily powerful, with simple desires, thrown into such times as these, and so — arrogant.

Martial arts are divided by school, and also by region into north and south.

Just as northerners and southerners will stubbornly disagree over whether savory bean curd or sweet bean curd is superior, martial artists from the north and south were equally unwilling to yield to one another.

The martial teachers of Suzhou, Yuezhou, and Liangzhou practiced arts that were refined and precise, with their schools subdivided into far more numerous and intricate branches.

Northern martial teachers, on the other hand, mostly practiced eclectic styles, learning something of everything — especially those lone wanderers of the martial world.

In the Dachu era, the greatest distinction between northern and southern martial practitioners was that in the north, conditions were far harsher.

In Jizhou, Yanzhou, and Yongzhou especially, foreign enemies invaded nearly every year, and martial training was for the purpose of killing and self-preservation.

The reason Duan Hen was different from the gentle temperament common to most southern practitioners was that he had not learned his martial arts in the Central Plains.

From a young age, he had followed his family in the ocean trade, doing business in Qiuli and other distant lands. The seas were a considerably more brutal environment.

Every time they set out, they would encounter pirates lying in wait. Most of these were from Qiuli — fierce and merciless, never leaving survivors. After killing, they would destroy the evidence and leave without a trace.

Every year, untold numbers of maritime merchants lost their lives at the hands of Qiuli pirates.

Duan Hen began sailing with the crews when he was thirteen or fourteen. The ship’s guards were his teachers — and he had countless teachers, including the Qiuli pirates he later encountered. Any who fell into his hands were made to teach him something, even those weaker than himself.

In those days, he was sharp, eager to learn, and fearless, and though young, he was greatly liked by the shipowners.

He also knew how to flatter those martial teachers, and before long, his skills had entered the inner sanctum.

One time, they encountered a large-scale pirate attack — four or five ships surrounding their cargo vessel. The pirates boarded, and Duan Hen killed for the first time. And that first time, he killed a great many.

What set him apart was that others who killed for the first time would be afraid, would have nightmares, would take a long time to recover.

Duan Hen was not. He was exhilarated.

It must be said that his natural gifts were truly off the charts. During that incident, his employer was killed, and most of the crew died as well. When he finally finished killing to his heart’s content, he found there were only a handful of people left alive.

The survivors discussed it among themselves, sold off the cargo at a low price, and then went their separate ways after dividing the money.

People who got their hands on money no longer wanted to risk their lives in such a dangerous trade — they simply took the silver, went home, and lived well.

But Duan Hen was unwilling. He loved this kind of life, and above all, he loved the feeling of killing.

And so he began joining various merchant caravans, and after countless battles, his reputation grew ever larger.

Four or five years later, there was not a soul along the Yuezhou coastline who did not know the name of Duan Hen, the killer.

The reason for such an epithet was that every time he encountered pirates intercepting a merchant vessel, Duan Hen would always leave one survivor and tell them to come back for revenge — “The killer is Duan Hen.”

Living this life for roughly seven or eight years, Duan Hen in his mid-twenties had already amassed enormous prestige.

Even among the Qiuli pirates, a saying had spread: if the merchant ship being intercepted was under Duan Hen’s protection, just turn around and leave.

Pirate gangs were generally not especially large — at most a few hundred, at least a few dozen, sometimes as few as seven or eight people.

And they couldn’t very well come all the way onto Dachu soil to seek revenge, and revenge wasn’t even guaranteed to succeed.

But by this point, Duan Hen had grown dissatisfied with killing only at sea, for he felt that no matter how many of those pirates he slew, it offered no further advancement for his martial progress.

He needed to challenge stronger opponents — challenges with killing as the purpose.

Duan Hen once said: if martial arts are not practiced for the purpose of killing, that is a disrespect to martial arts.

*Train in martial arts with the goal of killing.* This was Duan Hen’s famous maxim, known to all who worked the sea trade.

After returning to land, the people under Duan Hen urged him to challenge the top martial artists within Yuezhou — the heads of the great schools.

Duan Hen agreed with pleasure, and his campaign of slaughter began.

Every time he challenged someone, he would show no mercy whatsoever. Even if an opponent had already surrendered and admitted defeat, he would never leave them alive.

And so Duan Hen’s fearsome reputation in Yuezhou grew larger and larger, as did the number of his enemies — yet no one could kill him.

He spent several years in Yuezhou challenging thirty-six schools, killing several hundred people in all.

Precisely because of this, the martial world formed an alliance with the express goal of killing Duan Hen. And also precisely because of this, an uncountable number of people were willing to follow Duan Hen — the more enemies he had in Yuezhou, the greater his power grew.

Thus it was that approaching forty, he felt there was no longer any point in remaining in Yuezhou. He heard that the great bandit Li Xionghu commanded an army of two million and might become the new master of the Central Plains, and his ambitions stirred once more.

What meaning was there in being a martial adventurer? If he could become a founding meritorious subject, ennobled and given command of armies, that would be far more impressive.

And so he went to Suzhou to join Li Xionghu. On the way there, his disciple said: going to pledge allegiance like this, out of the blue, he would certainly not be given any position of importance. Better to first make a name for himself.

His disciple said: in Yuezhou, everyone knows Master’s great name, but here in Suzhou, they have no idea who Master is, and on top of that, everyone is haughty and won’t give an inch of face.

And so Duan Hen began his challenge of the entire martial world of Suzhou.

Seven months. More than two hundred killed. Not a single defeat.

Armed with such pride, Duan Hen went to join Li Xionghu. Li Xionghu was powerful and had, of course, an abundance of talent under him.

Among martial practitioners, no one simply defers to anyone else — so Duan Hen’s arrogance rubbed many people the wrong way.

After watching Duan Hen demonstrate his skills, Li Xionghu asked what he wanted. Duan Hen said: give him a generalship, anything will do.

This made everyone burst out laughing.

Li Xionghu was no fool. With so many of his own people watching, a newcomer — however extraordinary his martial skills — could hardly be handed a generalship outright.

If he did that, resentment would spread through his ranks like wildfire.

And so the advisor Yao Zhi came up with a plan for Li Xionghu: send Duan Hen to assassinate the Dachu Emperor Yang Jing. If he succeeded, such a great achievement would more than justify a generalship. If he failed — losing Duan Hen would be no loss to Li Xionghu at all.

What happened next was unexpected. Duan Hen ended up becoming one of Emperor Yang Jing’s own men instead.

In a teahouse by the roadside, Duan Hen was listening with great relish as one of his men spoke of the top martial experts from each province of Dachu. He loved hearing this sort of thing. He had listened many times and still loved it — especially loved hearing the line that said the top of Su-Yue was Duan Hen himself. That was when he felt most pleased with himself.

“Among Dachu’s thirteen provinces, the people of Guangling Gate once compiled a list of the top martial artist in each province.”

Duan Hen’s man Guang Zhizi took a sip of tea and began his account in a measured, flowing manner.

In Dachu’s martial world, there was a particularly unusual school known as Guangling Gate. It was said to have existed for several centuries, though it had been destroyed a few years ago under circumstances that remained unclear.

The founding ancestor of Guangling Gate was Tan Guangling, a man of renown from the founding era of Dachu.

His identity was a special one: he had once served as an advisor to the founding Emperor of Dachu, and his contributions had been immense.

But he knew that however much the Emperor valued him when he was needed, that was exactly how much the Emperor would be wary of him when he was no longer needed.

And so after Dachu was founded, he submitted a memorial requesting to resign, telling the Emperor that he still preferred the life of the martial world, and that his abilities were limited and unequal to weighty responsibilities.

The Emperor was overjoyed, though he made a show of trying to dissuade him several times.

He then bestowed upon Tan Guangling the title of Commandery Duke — though not hereditary — and permitted him to leave the court.

The reason Tan Guangling feared the Emperor would not tolerate him was that he was too unusual. He had once been a wandering Daoist known by the Daoist name Guangling Zi.

Of the founding Emperor’s generals and advisors — the more than twenty founding dukes — seven had been personally recommended to the Emperor by him.

The commanding generals, the governing advisors, even one of the Emperor’s favored consorts — all had been introduced by him.

If he stayed, a court minister with a network of connections like his would keep the Emperor awake at night with worry.

Afterward, Tan Guangling did what he most loved to do: he founded Guangling Gate, recruited people, and traveled across the land gathering information on the martial world’s top experts.

Over more than ten years, he compiled the *Dachu Martial World Registry* — not merely cataloguing the top experts of Dachu’s great provinces, but narrowing it all the way down to individual counties. Who was the most capable person in each county — it was all thoroughly investigated and recorded.

Tan Guangling priced this register at twenty taels of silver per copy, and still couldn’t meet demand.

The school’s membership grew ever larger, with rankings updated every year, and Guangling Gate’s importance to the martial world became easy to imagine.

Some years ago, Tan Guangling’s descendant was killed within the school, and the school’s archive was burned to ash in one fire.

Some said that Guangling Gate’s descendants had overstepped, offending someone they should not have offended, and that was why they were killed — but this account was not entirely credible.

After all, even back when Liu Chongxin was in power, Guangling Gate had prospered, and the Jishi Bureau’s people had needed Guangling Gate’s cooperation.

At any rate, for such affairs, the conclusion of “karma” was always the right answer.

For many renowned martial figures had met their ends by means of the *Dachu Martial World Registry* — with that register came challenges, came battles, came struggles to the death.

Guang Zhizi had been a registrar of Guangling Gate, and Duan Hen’s precise targeting of so many challengers had a great deal to do with him.

This man had no martial ability whatsoever, but his mind was extraordinarily sharp, and he had a perfect memory.

“In Jizhou, the strongest was originally the head of the Golden Blade School. But the old head later died in battle fighting the Heiwu people, with over two hundred members of the Golden Blade School suffering seven or eight parts in ten casualties. The school never recovered, and now there is no longer anyone in Jizhou who can survey the landscape from on high.”

Guang Zhizi continued: “The strongest in Yongzhou is Yongzhou’s Military Commissioner Pei Chongshan — formerly the head of the imperial guards, who through his flattery of Liu Chongxin managed to be appointed to a provincial posting, rising directly to the rank of Military Commissioner. The current head of the imperial guards, Hui Chunqiu, falls considerably short of Pei Chongshan by comparison.”

“The top martial artist in Qingzhou is the abbot of Xianhai Temple on Yunling Mountain. But that venerable elder takes no interest in worldly affairs and does not venture into the martial world. If I am not mistaken, he is now well past one hundred years old.”

“The top martial artist in Yuzhou was originally a man called the Blade Emperor — mysterious and secretive, though in recent years he too has vanished without a trace.”

“The top martial artist in Jingzhou is She Taibai, the alliance leader of the Jingzhou Martial Way — leader of Jingzhou’s ninety-two schools and thirty-one sects, along with a great many of the outlaw paths, who all acknowledge him as the one who presides.”

“The top martial artist in Liangzhou is Yue Hetang…”

At this, he glanced at Duan Hen. No flattery was spoken, yet that gaze was already the finest flattery.

Duan Hen smiled slightly. “He was indeed quite strong.”

Yue Hetang had already been killed by Duan Hen.

“The top martial artist in Shuzhou was originally the great chieftain of the horse clans, Cai Fo — killed a few years back by a slow-witted man, simply because Cai Fo passed him on the street and said: ‘look at this big dullard.'”

Guang Zhizi said: “This dullard is now in the service of Yang Xuanji, the Sovereign of Heaven’s Mandate, as his guest retainer — known as the Golden-Armored Divine Warrior.”

“Of course, the martial world also has many mysterious and reclusive schools with many top fighters who have never emerged into the world. For instance, there are rumors of a school called the Sacred Blade Gate somewhere in Jizhou or Yuzhou — but whether it is truly strong, I cannot say.”

Guang Zhizi said: “The foremost figure in Daxing City is Fang Zhuhou — only he is not here of late. If he were, he would probably have been killed by you, Master.”

Duan Hen burst out laughing at that. In that moment, his eyes lit up, and he spotted a woman in a long purple skirt.

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