It came like darkness rushing to meet him head-on.

“Who goes there!” The shout had barely left his mouth when a flash of sword-light was already cutting through the dark, moving with the racing figure. But it was no more than a single flicker of light — he couldn’t make out where the blade had passed, only three sharp cracks in rapid succession as it swept past him. That shadowy figure seemed to brush against the racing horse ahead in that same instant, using it as a springboard, the second step landing on the carriage shaft, already slicing past him — and then, the horse out front was thrown into the air, the carriage wheels lifting off the ground, tilting, and the third footfall came down on the tilting carriage body itself before the figure sped off into the distance.

The horse let out a long, piercing whinny—

Song Xian threw back the carriage curtain with a snap, firelight sweeping across his vision, his contracted pupils reflecting the scene ahead. In that instant, the carriage in front had its wheels spinning wildly, already tilted midair, one of its horses with all four hooves flailing. The flash of the blade had cut across the animal’s flank, then on through the soldier driving the carriage — blood already spraying skyward, and at the speed everything was moving, it seemed to be rushing straight toward him. Most striking of all was the black-clad figure at the very front, still airborne off the tilting carriage body, both hands gripping a sword now raised in a full downward strike, having closed a gap of over twenty meters in the span of the carriage’s mad rush!

The driver beside Song Xian had already drawn his blade with all his strength, but hadn’t managed to bring it up into any proper defensive stance before steel met steel — a spark flashed, and in an instant the blow was driven back into his own chest.

A thunderous crash — the figure, like a cannonball, tore straight through the carriage, half the carriage body shattering and flying across the length of the street. Two figures tumbled to the ground, quickly putting distance between themselves and the wreck — one, a woman, rolled several times before rising smoothly to her feet, weapon in hand, striding forward; the other body had been struck so completely out of shape by the impact that it no longer looked human at all, bones shattered, flesh torn, left far behind on the road, thick blood spreading outward around it.

The two carriages were still moving, but the horses had bolted in panic — one of the horses drawing the lead carriage had even had half its body sliced clean through, and the other, caught in the impact, tumbled violently as well. Driven by sheer momentum, the fallen carriage body kept plowing forward down the street, smashing through the various stalls, wooden racks, and leftover refuse the daytime vendors had left behind, rumbling on with a deafening roar. The axle snapped in the middle, sending one wooden wheel flying backward to collide violently with the shaft, the carriage still hurtling forward under its own momentum, breaking apart further and further as it went. By the time the wreckage of both carriages finally ground to a halt, nearly a hundred meters of the street lay in ruins behind them.

Shattered carriage bodies, undercarriages, axles, wheels; wooden stalls and scattered debris caught up in the destruction; trails of blood smeared across the ground; vegetable scraps and other refuse; the dead horses, their innards exposed; people, injured to varying degrees, struggling to rise from the ground.

Wind swept down the length of the street. The woman in black lowered her sword and walked forward at an easy pace. It was summer, the night breeze stirring her robes, her figure as slight and graceful as any ordinary woman’s, betraying not the slightest hint of the fierce power she’d just unleashed to shatter two carriages in a single strike. A black cloth now covered her face; above it, her eyes, fixed on Song Xian, were cold and unfeeling. After a moment, she flicked the flat of her blade lightly with a finger, and the sword let out a clear, resonant hum, trembling faintly.

Ahead, Song Xian, longsword in hand, had already risen to his feet — his skill was considerable, after all, and he’d come through more or less unscathed. He studied that cold, distant gaze, tilting his head slightly.

“Song Xian. I told you last time.” Her voice, cold and clear beneath the night sky, cut through the air — nearby, an injured guard, having lost his weapon, snatched up a wooden club and charged forward with a shout, only for the sword to move in a flash, like the sound of silk tearing violently apart, lines of blood arcing through the air as the woman simply walked on through.

“I will kill you.”

“Lu! Hong! Ti—!”

Down the length of the street, Song Xian roared, his voice low and fierce, and then sparks scattered in every direction as the violent clash of steel on steel rang out across the road…

…

It hadn’t taken long, moving at a full run, to reach the side gate of the Su estate. As Ning Yi got down from the carriage, Xiao Chan looked utterly bewildered. “Young Master, what’s wrong?”

“Xiao Chan, go on back first. I still have something to attend to.”

“Eh…”

Ning Yi finished speaking and turned to leave, but Xiao Chan suddenly grabbed hold of his sleeve. “Y-young Master, what’s going on…”

Clearly flustered at the idea of being sent off on her own, Xiao Chan held on. Ning Yi turned back, hesitated a moment, then patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious… Be good, I’ll be back soon…”

“But, but…”

Ning Yi walked toward the carriage. Xiao Chan stood there anxiously for a moment, not knowing what to say, and troubled, took a few steps toward the gate. Just as she crossed the threshold, the old gatekeeper came out. “Ah, Miss Xiao Chan, you’re back with the young master?… Eh, where’s the young master?”

The gatekeeper glanced outside; the carriage was already slowly pulling away. “The young master, the young master’s… I don’t know either…” Her thoughts churning without any clear order, she suddenly recalled something her mistress had said a few days back — that the young master had run off to see some fox-eyed temptress, leaving her behind. But that was just a fleeting, muddled thought, one she certainly couldn’t voice to the gatekeeper.

“Young Master…”

The little maid spun around and ran back out through the gate. Down the road outside the side entrance, the carriage was already picking up speed. Xiao Chan clenched her fists, hitched up her skirt, and chased after it. Up ahead at the crossroads, the carriage suddenly slowed, then came to a stop.

A troop of riders emerged from the T-shaped crossing there, galloping swiftly past the intersection just ahead of Ning Yi — a dozen or so guards of the Martial Might Army, hurrying urgently toward the far side.

How could they be moving this fast…

Ning Yi muttered this to himself, sitting in the carriage, then turned the horse and set off in pursuit of the galloping riders.

Xiao Chan too had seen the dozen-odd riders sweep past the crossroads, and then watched her young master drive the carriage off after them. She caught up to the intersection, her face a mixture of confusion and worry, an odd feeling stirring uneasily in her chest. But by then Ning Yi’s carriage had already sped off, vanishing beyond the crossroads.

“What’s the young master gone off to do…”

Thinking it over more carefully, she dismissed the idea that he’d run off to see some pleasure-house woman — the young master simply wasn’t that sort of person, and even if he really had meant to meet someone, he wouldn’t have rushed off like this. But as for what could possibly explain this sudden, strange turn of events, she truly couldn’t work it out. Having dressed so carefully today for the sake of watching the performances, the girl returned to the estate gate in low spirits, hugging her knees as she sat down on the front steps, glancing now and then toward the end of the road, hoping to see the young master’s carriage come turning back that way. When the gatekeeper called to her from behind, she rose again. Just as she turned to go, a burst of fireworks lit up the night sky.

The fireworks hadn’t gone up too far away, but they weren’t the kind meant for celebration — she had some vague sense of what they meant, and found herself instinctively stepping forward, tilting her head up to look that way. The gatekeeper came over too. A few seconds later, the girl murmured, “Uncle Bing, that’s… has something happened…”

“Oh, that looks like a signal flare the army uses when hunting down criminals — probably some thief trying something tonight… how despicable…”

…

“Aaaaaaaaaah—”

The wind of blades howled, the clash of steel on steel ringing out across the street like rain battering banana leaves, dense and chaotic. This night, the whole stretch of street had fallen victim to the chaos — some shop doors had been blown open by flying carriage debris, and in some rooms where people lived, lamps flickered on briefly before being hastily snuffed out again. Down in the street below, the pursuing, clashing figures moved like some frenzied dance, the clash of steel throwing off startling sparks in the air. At times a thunderous impact would send a body crashing into a heap of roadside debris, unable to move again, blood spattering and pooling in sheets. Several corpses already lay strewn across the road, while a burly man wielding a blade shouted himself hoarse, swinging his weapon like a net cast wide, struggling desperately to survive against the overwhelming pressure bearing down on him.

His own martial skill was, by the standards of the martial world, considered first-rate — but this woman’s swordsmanship was simply too formidable. Swift yet never lacking in force, it came at him like a summer storm of wind and thunder, bearing down head-on.

He fought with everything he had, still hopelessly outmatched, sparks scattering wildly before his eyes. Now and then, her swordplay would suddenly unleash a blow of tremendous force, like a howling clap of thunder, smashing his fully committed blade aside with brute strength.

And her attacks weren’t limited to that seemingly clumsy blade-style alone — sometimes gripping the sword single-handed, sometimes hacking with both hands, the transitions swift and utterly natural, dazzling to follow. At times, the moment his blade had just been knocked aside, her left palm would already be slicing through the gap in his guard, striking at his face, jabbing toward his eyes or suddenly clawing at his throat. Her wrist, fair and slender, fingers moving like a dance, made it hard to believe such vicious, lethal attacks could come from such a hand. He’d twist desperately aside to dodge, only for the flash of her sword to come thrusting in again; he’d swing his blade to parry, and her toes, in the same instant, would land on a shattered bamboo pole on the ground, silently kicking it toward his ribs — like a cobra that had lain in wait, she seemed capable of turning anything within reach into a weapon at any moment, leaving him with the impression that he wasn’t facing a single opponent at all, but three or four of them at once.

The two carriages had carried only a handful of guards to begin with, and by now most were dead or wounded; those with lighter injuries rushed in to intervene in the fight between the two of them, only to be sent flying the very next instant as though put through a meat grinder. Song Xian fought and retreated by turns, but the woman stuck to him like a shadow, utterly impossible to shake off — wounds appearing one after another across his body, his life force being driven, at an alarming rate, toward its very limit within moments of the fight truly beginning.

By now he could do little more than keep swinging his blade amid continuous shouts. At one point, he grabbed a rotten wooden table beside him and swung it out — with a thunderous crash, the whole table shattered into flying splinters, and the incoming flash of the sword suddenly shifted from hard to soft, silently piercing into his arm before withdrawing again.

Ignoring his wound, Song Xian took advantage of the flying splinters still in the air to force his legs into a full retreat. The woman’s black-clad figure tore through the swirling debris with a sharp motion, refusing to yield so much as an inch of ground as she closed in — with another crash, sparks bursting again, Song Xian was sent flying backward, blood trailing from him. By now he’d reached a street corner, and the thunder of galloping hooves rolled through, sweeping over and swallowing both of them into its midst.

Clop, clop, clop—

Hooves flew and thundered past, sparks flashing repeatedly at the spot where the woman had just been standing; then a horse let out a piercing whinny as it collided with the body blocking its path, rearing up on its hind legs, its two front hooves striking out. Under the tremendous force of the impact, the woman’s figure was sent flying through the air — yet for that brief instant, she seemed to cling to the front of the warhorse’s neck, her hand flashing through several swift motions, before she was carried forward along with the horse’s charge, having somehow, in that same instant, seized the reins with one hand.

The dozen-odd riders seemed to sweep the woman along with them, thundering off and quickly vanishing into the distance. The woman’s figure still looked, at first glance, as though the warhorse had knocked her flying — sent hurtling sideways toward one of the mounted guards of the Martial Might Army on a horse to the side. That guard swung his longsword; the two figures merged together for an instant, then crashed and tumbled to the ground beside it — and when someone finally rose again, it was only the woman in black. Her sword dripped with fresh blood; the rider she’d seized had already become a corpse.

Another body now lay on the road behind them as well — the rider who’d first driven his horse to collide with her at the very start. As she’d seized the reins in midair, she’d struck twice with her sword — one stroke slitting his throat, the other opening his chest.

The two now-riderless horses charged on down the street, while the remaining dozen-odd riders closed in to encircle the woman, longswords drawn, killing intent thick in the air. The woman stood there, turning her gaze toward Song Xian, now some distance away at the far end of the street.

Song Xian’s body was covered in wounds large and small, but he still retained his fighting strength — nothing serious or fatal among the injuries, though he looked a pitiful sight nonetheless. Longsword in hand, drenched in blood, he spread his arms wide.

“In the end, I’ve won after all, Lu Hongti.” He laughed. “The martial world? You people of the jianghu will never understand just how narrow your own vision truly is. A bit of cunning, and you think you’ve accounted for every possibility? Did you really think I didn’t know you meant to kill me?… Even as you racked your brains trying to draw my men away from my side, who knows how many people were working behind my back, plotting to turn the tables on you instead…”

He paused, then lifted his head high.

“This — this is what real power looks like!”