Lu Fengxiao’s vision narrowed, the elegant script on the vellum blurring into a red haze. Elder Mo’s chilling glee, the precise timing of the Climax Altar, the horrifying target: Zhiruo’s very essence. His breath caught, a raw, ragged sound, and the Brand flared, a searing pain across his chest that threatened to rip him apart from the inside. He clenched his teeth, the taste of copper filling his mouth. Not three minutes. Three minutes was an eternity for a soul to be consumed, a blink for the Heavenly Dao to erase him. He slammed the diary shut, the thud echoing in the quiet tea house.
“Old man, your heart rate just decided to imitate a startled woodpecker,” Xue-Zhi chirped from the rim of a cooling tea cup. “I’m assuming the evil wizard’s diary wasn’t a cookbook?”
Pei Suyin, who had been pouring a fresh cup, paused. Her eyes, usually calm as still water, held a flicker of deep concern as they went to Lu’s ashen face. She placed the cup before him, its steam rising like a gentle promise. “Breathe, Lu Fengxiao,” she said, her voice a soft anchor. “Just breathe.”
He forced air into his lungs, the agony in his chest momentarily eclipsing the rage. He couldn’t afford to lose control, not now. He had less than a day. He nodded, pushing the diary away as if it were a venomous snake. “The final stage,” he rasped, his voice rough. “It’s designed to harvest her soul.”
Suyin’s hand, reaching for the teapot, froze. Her serene expression cracked, replaced by a sudden, fierce protectiveness that mirrored his own. “Then we stop it,” she stated, her gaze steady and unwavering.
Before Lu could respond, a low whistle cut through the evening air, followed by the soft rustle of leaves in his backyard. It was a sound he knew intimately: the approach of trained hunters. Not local ruffians, but cultivators. And they moved with the silent, predatory grace of the Azure Canopy’s Vanguard, the sect’s elite executioners. Elder Mo was growing impatient.
“Looks like the local gossip about a certain ‘secret master’ is spreading faster than a forest fire,” Xue-Zhi muttered, twitching its nose. “And they don’t look like they’re here for tea.”
Lu Fengxiao rose, setting his weight squarely over his heels. He could not use Qi, but he was still the Sky-Cleaving Sovereign. He gave Suyin a quick, reassuring nod. “Stay here. Zhiruo will be home soon.” He moved with a deceptive calm, stepping out the back door and into the muddy yard, leaving the door ajar. He didn’t want them disturbing Suyin or damaging her shop.
Three figures, clad in midnight-blue robes, materialized from the shadows beneath the ancient pines. Their faces were obscured by dark hoods, but the glint of steel and the cold aura of cultivated power were unmistakable. The lead enforcer, a woman with a whip-like cultivation chain coiled at her hip, eyed him with disdain. “You are the ‘woodcutter’ interfering with the Pavilion’s plans? A mortal? How pathetic.”
“I’m just a man doing his chores,” Lu replied, his voice flat. He reached for a heavy, mud-caked broom, its handle thick and sturdy. It was meant for clearing the yard after a particularly messy log-splitting session.
The second intruder, a hulking man with twin crescent blades, sneered. “Chop wood, old man. This isn’t your fight.” He lunged, his blades carving arcs of shimmering Qi. Lu didn’t dodge. Instead, he swung the heavy broom in a wide, sweeping arc, not at the man, but at the muddy ground. A sheet of wet earth, leaves, and pebbles erupted, a dense wall that slammed into the brawler's chest. The man stumbled, coughing, his Qi-infused attack momentarily disrupted by the sheer physical impact of compacted filth.
The third scout, lithe and fast, launched a volley of poisoned darts. Lu, without breaking stride, grabbed a freshly split oak log—heavy, dense, and still oozing sap—and used it as a shield. The darts embedded themselves with soft thuds, harmlessly absorbed by the tough timber. He didn’t stop there. With a grunt, he pivoted, his immense physical strength, even without Qi, allowing him to hurl the log with terrifying force. It spun end over end, a bludgeoning missile that caught the dart-slinger squarely in the midsection. The attacker flew backward, colliding with a pile of firewood with a hollow crack.
“The old man fights like a grumpy badger!” Xue-Zhi exclaimed, having perched on a low branch, a handful of sharp pinecones clutched in its tiny paws. “A very, very strong badger!”
The whip-wielding leader, her eyes narrowed, finally joined the fray. Her chain snapped, imbued with crackling lightning Qi, striking with impossible speed. Lu met it not with a parry, but a counter-attack. He swung his broom again, this time aiming for the ground directly beneath her feet. The mud, still agitated from his previous sweep, became a slippery, treacherous trap. The woman lost her footing, her lightning chain going wide as she struggled for balance. As she teetered, Xue-Zhi, with surprising accuracy, pelted her with pinecones. Not randomly, but with pinpoint precision at the delicate pressure points on her exposed wrists and neck. Each tiny impact sparked localized agony, disrupting her Qi flow and causing her to cry out.
Lu didn’t hesitate. He dropped the broom, grabbed a thick coil of dried iron-wood vines, meant for binding logs, and, with a swift, practiced motion, ensnared the struggling woman. He yanked hard, pulling her off her feet and into a mud puddle. He then used the vines to swiftly tie her arms and legs, just as he would a particularly stubborn bundle of branches.
The hulking brute, recovering from his muddy face-plant, roared and charged again. But Lu was already on the offensive. He tackled the man, not with a martial arts maneuver, but a simple, brutal body slam. He then pinned him against a freshly felled log, grabbed the man’s own crescent blades, and with a swift, decisive move, used them to chop the assassin’s belt and the laces of his boots, leaving him awkwardly pantless and immobile. The scout, groaning, was quickly disarmed and bound with more vines, left tangled among his own scattered darts.
Lu Fengxiao surveyed the three incapacitated prowlers, now trussed up like oversized firewood bundles in the muddy yard. He retrieved his broom, flicked a bit of dirt from its bristles, and gave a satisfied grunt. “Chores done,” he muttered, glancing at Xue-Zhi. “You earned a double ration of walnuts tonight.”
“Hmph. Only double? I disabled three elite killers with *fruit*,” the squirrel grumbled, but its chest puffed out. “Still, a nut is a nut.”
Just then, the back door creaked open, and Zhiruo stumbled in. Her clothes were torn, her hair disheveled, and a fresh bruise bloomed on her cheek. Her left arm hung at an awkward angle, and a thin trickle of blood ran from her temple. Despite the injuries, her eyes burned with a fierce, defiant light. “I… I won, Master,” she rasped, swaying on her feet.
Lu’s heart, which had been a stone of furious resolve moments before, cracked. The sight of her, battered and bruised but victorious, tore at him. The sect had clearly cheated, had allowed her opponents to unleash brutal, illegal attacks. Anger surged, instantly tempered by steady, protective grief. He moved to her side, his touch gentle as he helped her sit by the fire pit.
“You fought well, Zhiruo,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. He carefully examined her arm, his fingers brushing against the painful swell. “They made you pay for it, though.”
That night, while Xue-Zhi kept watch over the trussed captives, Lu Fengxiao didn’t sleep. He sat by the fire, his rough hands carefully carving, shaping, and polishing. He selected the densest, most resilient iron-wood, the kind that took days to split. He worked with an intensity that bordered on reverence, his every stroke imbued with a silent promise. He crafted plates for her shins, her forearms, her chest, molding them with painstaking precision. He didn’t speak, and Zhiruo, cradling a mug of Suyin’s tea, didn’t ask. She simply watched him, a quiet understanding passing between them, a silent bond forged in the flickering firelight.
As the first hint of dawn touched the horizon, painting the sky a sickly, unnatural blood-red, Lu finished. Before him lay a set of sleek, dark iron-wood armor, light enough not to impede her movement, yet impossibly strong. He gently lifted a greave, its polished surface reflecting the ominous sky. Just as he was about to present it to her, a deep, resonant horn blared from above, shaking the very foundations of the town. It was followed by another, and another, a triumphant, terrifying cacophony. The massive, floating Cloud-Piercing Pavilion, usually a distant jewel in the sky, was visibly descending, its vast jade arenas now looming directly over Whispering Pines Town. The final match, barely hours away, had begun early.