Rewinding a little in time — Li Yanfeng was running east through the chaos of the battlefield. He could feel a great, roaring commotion building up behind him.

It wasn’t just that the Great Brightness Sect’s masters had arrived — Peng Tiangang had finally organized a large-scale counterattack as well.

The two pursuers who had been relentlessly chasing him from behind had gotten caught up in wave after wave of the fighting. Just a little longer, and he’d be able to turn around and deal with the two of them himself.

He Wen had insisted on stubbornly setting off a great calamity across all of Jiangnan — and Jiangning’s situation, on its own, no longer mattered to the overall direction of things. But now, with the appearance of the Black Banner, everything happening here today would still bring tremendous prestige to the many small and mid-sized factions taking part in it, for years to come.

As long as he threw himself into this maelstrom today and made a name for himself, he could return to Tongshan afterward and, on the strength of that reputation, rise even further. And after that, with Liu Guangshi and Dai Mengwei backing him on one side, and his position as protector of the Great Brightness Sect linking him to Xu Zhaonan on the other, he might just, in this chaotic age, transform himself from a mere pawn into the hand that moved the pieces.

Of course, this trip to Jiangning, with its several rounds of fighting, had involved certain strange incidents he still hadn’t fully puzzled out — why, for instance, had the assassin who’d tried to kill Gu Anhe also tried to kill him?… But with the fighting against the Black Banner now underway, such small matters had, for the moment, ceased to be important.

He calculated in his mind the right moment to counterattack.

What appeared before him next was something almost absurdly simple—

—a fist.

…

The black-clad figure that had, an instant before, appeared abruptly several zhang away, was now, in the next instant, right before his eyes — its movement utterly silent, as though every sound in the air had been swallowed up in the sudden magnification of that black shadow.

Every hair on Li Yanfeng’s body stood on end.

Already sprinting at full speed, in an almost reflexive instant his body suddenly coiled up — the form of the Little Monkey Fist shifting and warping, and, with an involuntary shriek, he seemed to blur into five or six shapes at once, bursting off in different directions.

Among the martial traditions of the green forest, passed down over centuries, most styles drew their principles from the way animals or objects generate force in the instant of death or survival; the monkey-form stance Li Yanfeng unleashed in that instant had reached a state of near-perfection.

The fist across from him came crashing in.

Every bit of that monkey-form coiled to a single point in Li Yanfeng’s body, and then his entire being seemed to explode outward, hurtling forward. Though his frame was originally tall, once the Little Monkey Fist stance drew everything inward, his body seemed to transform into a wildly darting little monkey — and in that single instant, the little monkey exploded outward, seeming to become a towering demon ape. This coiling and release happened in the blink of an eye, every ounce of strength in his body driven to its absolute limit.

This was the fiercest secret technique of White Ape Long-Arm boxing: the Cloud-Grazing Sky-Strike.

The terrifying posture of the demon ape unfurled for only a single instant.

With a crash, Li Yanfeng was blown backward off his feet, smashing through a crumbling rockery behind him. Amid the flying stones, his body tumbled backward, kicking up a spray of dust and dirt.

Not far off, the young monk Ping An, who had been chasing after him, watched the whole thing unfold.

The sequence of movements Li Yanfeng had unleashed in that reflexive instant, from coiling inward to explosive release, had captured the essence of monkey-form boxing to perfection — from the nimble stance of the Little Monkey Fist to the towering, majestic force of White Ape Long-Arm, it was the kind of display that would leave any true practitioner in awe. And yet the punch that met him had been so ferociously powerful that Li Yanfeng, just as he’d reached the peak of his release, had his entire stance smashed apart in an instant.

So much so that the fierce, overwhelming “Cloud-Grazing Sky-Strike” ended up looking like nothing more than a child throwing open his arms to make a scary face just as someone opened a door —

— only to get punched flying by that someone.

In that instant, the young monk felt as though he’d witnessed his master strike with absolutely no restraint whatsoever.

Li Yanfeng tumbled across the ground, and before he could even stop, the approaching black-cloaked figure had already stepped past him — and when he spoke, his voice, surprisingly, was gentle.

“Why so soon?”

The question was directed at the Huaxia Army soldier who had been chasing Li Yanfeng alongside him. Not far off, a burly Huaxia Army uncle wielding iron palms slammed one of the Heaven’s Slaughter faction’s lackeys to the ground and said, “It’s Young Hero Long… he jumped the gun.”

“Long…”

The black-cloaked figure hesitated for a beat, a note of confusion in his voice — but then, seeming to catch himself, he vanished from where he stood, leaving only the faint trace of something like a stifled laugh hanging in the air.

Who was this man…

The young monk’s mind was still swimming with confusion, but the next moment, he saw more figures in black cloaks come sweeping in from the east, surging forward in overwhelming numbers, tearing open the line jointly held by the Great Brightness Sect, the “Wheel-Turning King,” and the “Yama King” — the wave rolling in behind them a boiling storm of blade-light.

The young monk turned and ran. Ahead of him, he knew his master had already made his move, and he wanted to give warning — to tell his master that “the Huaxia Army’s great master has arrived.” But the distance was too great; it was already too late.

…

At that moment.

The masters under the Yama King had already spread across the Huaxia Army’s forward position, engulfing the several dozen Huaxia Army soldiers there in a sea of enemies.

Turning back from the rear, about to launch an assault on the Huaxia Army’s core squad, Lin Zongwu suddenly slammed into a mountain.

This was the first time, since entering the battlefield, that his rampaging advance had been brought to a halt by another person. Though the outer wall of the shop had temporarily blocked the charging figures from view, the masters watching from near and far — many of them fired up by that demonic silhouette — sensed at once the collision unfolding on the second floor of the shop.

The violent fight that erupted in an instant first sent out a stormlike, muffled rumble; then the windows and walls of the room began cracking and warping under the impact, the floorboards twisting and rippling with every step and blow exchanged.

Then the floor gave way, and the two of them, still locked in fierce combat, sank down to the ground level, Lin Zongwu’s furious roars echoing outward.

Most of those taking part in this battle were famous figures of the jianghu, and so, for the most part, they could recognize the true caliber of the skill on display all around them.

From the very first exchange, Lin Zongwu had displayed a mastery the likes of which had never been seen in this world; against his crushing advance, few among the many masters, elders, and even so-called grandmasters present would have dared meet him head-on. The Huaxia Army too had no shortage of masters, and their fighters were fierce, willing to throw themselves in front of him without regard for their own lives — not that they couldn’t manage a few counterstrikes. But when the storm that had erupted persisted for one breath, two breaths, and Lin Zongwu still hadn’t broken through his opponent — the thunderous sounds of destruction even shaking the whole first floor beneath them — many of those present couldn’t help but change expressions. They understood: a true grandmaster of the Huaxia Army had arrived.

The fierce exchange raged on within the shop, like heavy artillery firing, like thunder crashing. Amid Lin Zongwu’s long roar, the two figures smashed through the shop’s rear wall, and in a swirling cloud of dust, Lin Zongwu’s punch spun like a massive grindstone, the dust kicked up by his wide sleeves shooting out like a cannon blast, straight at the upper body of the man before him.

And the black-cloaked man across from him met that force with equally ferocious boxing, the two figures smashing through the rear wall of the shop, crossing the narrow alley behind it, twisting the courtyard wall on the far side out of shape, then slamming back into the wall of the shop once more.

As the two figures shifted position back and forth, if Lin Zongwu’s body was like a colossal Buddha, like a mountain — then the fists and kicks the black-cloaked figure unleashed were like the roar of ten thousand dragons. He combined his attacks with vicious grappling, tearing, and throwing techniques, dragging Lin Zongwu around and striking as he charged left and right. At close range, he seized and tore with his hands, using his elbows like fists in a savage assault; but the moment the distance opened up even slightly, his fists would unleash like a torrential downpour, blanketing Lin Zongwu’s upper body — a style that drew its maximum power from range, not unlike Li Yanfeng’s White Ape Long-Arm technique. And yet the way this black-cloaked man combined his fists and footwork was far grander in scale, his hunting range far broader, as if he had fused the framework of Dragon-Form Fist with cannon-fist strikes and spearplay — and in that brief span, the effortless, masterful air with which he moved seemed to be edging Lin Zongwu out.

Of course, the collisions and exchanges between the two figures were fierce and swift; in that short span of time, the storm of shadows they formed crashed left and right through the alley behind the shop three times over, and there was no telling how many blows had been exchanged between them. Amid Lin Zongwu’s furious roars, a tremendous crash rang out, and after the most violent exchange yet, the two combatants broke apart. Lin Zongwu staggered backward, step by step, back into the shop, while the black-cloaked figure crashed through the wall of a courtyard on the other side, his stomping retreat cracking the paving stones beneath him — his tall figure, black cloak swaying, still standing, refusing to fall.

Billowing smoke and dust filled the air; the courtyard’s walls were collapsing piece by piece, and across the way, the shop with its entire wall torn open had also begun slowly caving in.

The fighting elsewhere continued, but at the sight of this fierce, frenzied scene, a number of masters belonging to the Great Brightness Sect and the Yama King’s forces, both near and far, fell silent for several breaths. Everyone stared at the black-cloaked figure, now covered in dust, who had managed to stop Lin Zongwu in his tracks, and felt their scalps prickle.

Some of them thought: could this be that Master Ning, arriving in person?

That thought didn’t have time to settle before, from within the collapsing shop, Lin Zongwu’s laughter rang out: “Hahaha.” His voice was steady as he said, “Chen Fan.”

That voice sank heavily into the ears of everyone nearby on the battlefield, exploding like a thunderclap — and yet, compared to what many had first assumed, hearing this name actually brought them some measure of relief.

The southwest and Jiangnan were thousands of li apart; when the green-forest folk spoke of that inner demon or blood-handed butcher from the southwest, they could always do so with a certain lightness. But if it truly came down to fighting the Black Banner, the notion that Master Ning himself had arrived and personally struck down Master Lin at the very peak of his power — that, people found, they could actually believe.

Chen Fan, deputy commander of Huaxia’s 29th Army stationed in Miaojiang — this was the man who had personally killed the Jurchen general Yinshuke on the Tanzhou battlefield. As for his background, a small number of people in the jianghu knew of it, but most martial artists were not particularly well informed.

On the street, “Avici Butcher” blade-chief Peng Tiangang took two steps back, looking east down the road, where more figures wielding long blades were carving their way out from the far end of his field of view. Compared to the earlier wave of charging Huaxia Army soldiers, these black-cloaked figures wielded their blades with a bloodier, more brutal ferocity, cutting a towering wave of blood as they advanced down the street.

The eastern defensive line had originally belonged to the Great Brightness Sect and the “Wheel-Turning King’s” faction — and this black-cloaked unit was, in fact, the main force the Black Banner had originally intended to use to suppress Master Lin.

A ferocious voice roared through the air: “The Southern Overlord Blade has come to settle old scores with the Great Brightness Sect! All bystanders — clear the way!”

Along this defensive line, several masters, unable to stomach the insult, called out in challenge: “This is the territory of the Fair Party! What kind of nonsense blade is this — don’t be so arrogant!”

A master from the other side charged forward as well: “Then die, then!”

More than twenty years ago, before “jianghu” had become a term everyone understood in the same way, and before most people had formed any solid recollection of the green forest, only a handful still faintly remembered that the Southern Overlord Blade, once commanded by Liu Dabiao, had been every bit as domineering a presence as this.

After the Ministry of Justice, spearheading the imperial court’s forces, had mobilized its resources and thrown every master it could muster at hunting Liu Dabiao down and killing him, the Overlord Blade Manor had thrown in with Fang La and become a mainstay of the Yongle Uprising, gradually stepping outside the bounds of the ordinary green forest. After the failure of the Yongle Uprising, the remaining eight hundred or so members of the Overlord Blade Manor had returned to Miaojiang to recover and regroup — and afterward had taken part in the regicide at the Golden Hall and the resistance in the northwest. Most of the old manor hands had, by now, been folded into the Huaxia Army’s own ranks.

This was the last time the name “Overlord Blade” would appear in the disputes of the jianghu.

In the courtyard, the black-clad figure threw off his cloak amid the swirling dust, tossing it into the air.

“Fatty. Your dead sworn-sister has been waiting for you for many years.”

As the tattered cloak unfurled and drifted through the air, beneath it stood Chen Fan’s tall, solidly built figure. He rolled his shoulders and looked across at the other man.

“I’ll send you to go see her.”

Across the way, the ruined shop was still collapsing, dust and stones raining down. Amid this narrowing pocket of darkness, Lin Zongwu reached out and grabbed hold of a falling pillar, then, with perfect calm, pushed it aside with one hand, sending an even more violent crash of debris billowing up into the air.

He was laughing.

“Hahaha, Chen Fan, Chen Fan… good of you to come.”

The colossal demon-god strode forward.

Over the course of a lifetime, a person accumulates so many regrets, going round and round. Lin Zongwu had, for a time, treated martial arts as the single most important thing in the world, believing that once he became the strongest man alive, everything would fall into place, and he would be able to accomplish great things and win the world’s acclaim.

His talent for martial arts had truly been extraordinary — he had touched the threshold of grandmastery early in life. And yet, now, looking back from the very summit of the martial path, not a single one of the great things he had set out to do had ever truly gone smoothly.

Back when the world was still at peace, he had hoped to use the strength of the Great Brightness Sect to dominate the Central Plains — and just as he’d begun to glimpse an opportunity, Ning Yi had cut him down without mercy at Zhuxian Town;

When chaos engulfed the realm and he sought to turn back the tide, leading hundreds of thousands of his followers, he still proved no match for the Jurchens in even a single engagement;

He had once wanted to challenge Zhou Tong to make a name for himself, but Zhou Tong went off to assassinate Nianhan and died in battle instead;

Politically, he had wanted to work with others, but had ended up thoroughly humiliated by a woman like Lou Shuwan — and because his own followers had performed so poorly on the anti-Jurchen battlefield, he hadn’t even been able to use his own martial strength to seek her out in retaliation;

At Zhuxian Town, he had once forced the treacherous chancellor Qin Siyuan to his death — but as time went on, with all the Black Banner’s various propaganda, this might well become the greatest stain and disgrace of his entire life;

He had fallen out with Ning Liheng over the matter of Fang Qifo, and the grudge had only deepened since — yet even now, he could find no way to seek revenge, simply because the Black Banner had openly and honorably crushed the Jurchen commanders Nianhan and Xiyin in the southwest. If he were to kill the man over a personal grudge — never mind whether he could even succeed — he would only bring a mountain of infamy down on his own head;

Even coming to Jiangnan, being reverently addressed as “Holy Sect Master” by Xu Zhaonan — was that, too, not simply a consequence of his own loosening grip on the Great Brightness Sect and the resulting slippage of power…

All told, over these several decades, every great thing he had tried to accomplish had, again and again, been thwarted by one person or another — not a single one truly, thoroughly carried through to a satisfying conclusion.

Since coming to Jiangning, he had lived in the New Tiger Palace, watching from the sidelines as chaos swept through the city amid all manner of praise heaped upon him — and, strangely, his heart had only grown calmer for it.

With the great affairs of his life left unfinished, and having, at this stage, grown less attached to power, status, and acclaim, he found he could actually savor something in this murky, chaotic current. Living in this world, drifting with the tide — by the time one grows old, many things are done not because one wants to, but simply because they must be done. He could hand the Great Brightness Sect off to Xu Zhaonan; that, too, might not be such a bad outcome. Fortunately, his disciple Ping An had considerable martial talent and a pure, upright temperament, well suited to carry on his legacy. Given all this, he had finally been able to face the Black Banner’s arrivals without restraint, and cross blades with them once, for the sport of it.

And now, with Chen Fan’s arrival, he felt, after a long absence, his blood beginning to boil once more.

This was the strongest disciple to carry on Fang Qifo’s legacy — a man who, from childhood, had possessed prodigious natural strength, who had spent these recent years active on the battlefield, now in the prime of his life. Looking at him, one could see the peak-form Fang Qifo all over again.

Sworn-sister Sikong Nan had died at his hand — killed in an assassination.

And over the years, he had never been able to take revenge for her.

First, because in the jianghu, the young grow old in their turn — for a junior like Chen Fan to seek vengeance on behalf of Fang Qifo was entirely legitimate and above-board; but for himself, a man of the same generation as Fang Qifo, to go seeking him out over this would hardly be dignified — it would be humiliating even to speak of.

Second, Chen Fan had joined the Black Banner and become a general on the battlefield, had later killed a Jurchen commander in open combat — a figure like that, like Ning Yi himself, could no longer be settled with through private grudges.

But in this moment, it was Chen Fan himself who had come here of his own will, in his identity as Fang Qifo’s disciple and a member of the Overlord Blade.

Across the courtyard, shifting patches of tree shade fell over Chen Fan’s figure, and within that shade, he carried himself with the same heroic bearing that Fang Qifo had once shown, over twenty years ago, leading Liu Dabiao and the others in their raid on the Manichaean Church’s headquarters. This was a heroism that belonged uniquely to the jianghu — the very thing the fat monk had, all his life, respected and pursued above all else.

This half-lifetime spent chasing invincibility, this tangled web of grudges with the Fang lineage — in this very moment, it seemed, at last, they might come full circle.

He felt a great joy well up inside him.

The support pillar, along with the heavy wall it had been holding up, collapsed and came apart, and the ruined, chain-reacting shop billowed with an enormous cloud of dust. Out of that dust, the “Demon Buddha” Lin Ecan strode forward. His left arm swept out with an air of casual ease, catching a half-brick falling from mid-air just at the perfect moment, and hurled it sideways like a cannon shell. Half the battlefield heard him utter a single line of scripture in that moment: “…Amitabha.”

That deep, resonant chant, thick with a kind of joy, seemed to ring out in everyone’s ears nearby.

At the very same instant, Chen Fan vanished from where he stood.

A charging punch.

Two figures sank thunderously into the ruined wreckage—

…

A little earlier.

Carrying the rifle he’d taken from a wounded comrade, Ning Ji sprinted across the battlefield at full speed.

Wang Nantuo and another master were chasing behind him, determined to hunt down and kill every rifle-bearer on sight, but Ning Ji’s footwork was swift and nimble; in the blink of an eye he passed through buildings, over rooftops, across rubble, charging toward the most intense part of the fighting, always keeping a few strides ahead of his pursuers.

The rifle was highly effective at killing, but poorly suited to one-on-one combat. The ideal scenario, of course, was to lead the enemy on a chase, letting his comrades pick off the two pursuers while he himself worked in coordination with them. Though the battlefield was chaotic right now, he was confident that once Yuwen Feidu and the others saw his situation, they’d find a chance to intervene and rescue him.

On the other hand, his “lifelong nemesis” Lin Zongwu had already wrought tremendous destruction; if he could find the chance, he was determined to get at least one shot into the man, no matter what — to show him what it meant that “times had changed.”

A few courtyards away, the sound of fierce fighting and destruction reached him, extremely violent — and the instant Lin Zongwu’s voice cried out “Chen Fan,” Ning Ji’s eyes went wide, and he threw himself, heedless of the danger, toward a nearby rooftop.

He surged up over the roof ridge, his footwork kicking up tiles, dropped low, crept forward, took a half-kneeling stance, and raised his rifle, swinging the barrel toward the direction Lin Zongwu’s voice had come from.

Amid the drifting smoke, his eyes caught, just as the dust rose, Lin Zongwu sweeping his arm through the air.

Chen Fan’s figure had already vanished.

He didn’t see the fat monk’s body, but the side of his own head suddenly felt as though pierced by a thousand fine needles — malice sweeping over him.

Like that life-or-death moment last year in Chengdu, when he and his sister-in-law had challenged Chen Fan together. Ning Ji didn’t have time to think it through; he threw himself with everything he had toward one side.

“…Amitabha.”

A brick came hurtling in with a roar, along with countless tiles and splintered roof-beam fragments spinning through the air.

The autumn wind had not yet stirred, but the cicada already sensed it coming.

In that moment, Lin Zongwu’s heart was perfectly at peace, without the slightest obstruction.

Clutching his rifle, Ning Ji tumbled clumsily off the roof.