Storm clouds churned over Canglan Citadel. Their freezing pressure struck the arena like a dropped steel plate.
Across the stone stands, every saber, hunting knife, and ritual blade began to hum. Thousands of weapons rattled in their sheaths, eager to answer the figure in the sky.
Governor Zhao looked up from the frosted dais. The blood left his face.
“The Sword Saint of the Southern Skies,” he whispered. “Jiang Taixu.”
Along the VIP verandas, clan elders and Golden Core patriarchs overturned tables and threw themselves flat on the ice.
For eighty years, Jiang Taixu had remained sealed in the Glacial Abyss of the Northern Marches, trying to break through to the Nascent Soul realm. His name was a warning told across the southern provinces.
Two hundred years earlier, he had held Iron Willow Pass alone during the First Barbarian Incursion. One sweep of his greatsword had killed ten thousand armored horsemen and cut down the ridge behind them.
Now the mountain had come to town.
Jiang Taixu hovered two hundred feet above the pit on a seven-foot blade of Glacial Cold-Iron. His white crane-down robes snapped in the gale. Long silver hair whipped around his pale, sharp face. His blue eyes shone with sword light, and each blink split the air with a metallic rasp.
He looked down at Governor Zhao with open contempt.
“You have disgraced the royal court and spat on your ancestors.”
Zhao pressed his forehead to the freezing jade. “S-Senior Jiang! The expo was held under royal seal. The Ministry of Works and the Artisan Guild—”
“SILENCE!”
The shout cut through three forty-foot cedar flagpoles along the southern wall. They crashed into the empty seats below.
“The Crown Prince is a spoiled child chasing shiny toys,” Jiang snarled. “The First Epoch Core contains the lost plans of the ancient heavenly sword arrays. It belongs to the Sword Dao! And you gave it to a grease-covered ditch-digger?”
His gaze settled on Austin.
He saw the blue hard hat, faded denim overalls, heavy tool pouches, and muddy boots. Then he saw the sacred black cube tucked under Austin’s left arm like a box of spare parts.
Ice needles formed around Jiang as his aura flared.
“Boy! Put the cube on the altar. Cut off both forearms to cleanse your insult. Then crawl out of this citadel on your belly. Hesitate, and I will slice you into ten thousand pieces!”
Austin pushed his glasses up his nose. He shifted the forty-pound server core and pulled his canvas jacket over its six-pin port to keep the sleet out.
Xiaoyao shook beside him. “Master, that is Senior Jiang! The border records say his sword can cut a river from five leagues away!”
“Write this down,” Austin said. “One citation for cutting city timbers without a demolition permit. One for threatening a licensed guild builder. Open a tier-two incident report.”
He looked up. His HUD flashed.
Austin’s shoulders dropped.
He looked like a player who had finished a four-hour raid, opened the reward chest, and then found a high-level bully waiting at the exit.
“Every time. You win the tournament, the confetti falls, and some boss drops out of the clouds to give a speech about his bloodline.”
He cupped a hand around his mouth.
“Hey! You in the white bathrobe!”
Ruan did not wait for Zhao’s orders. He sent guards to open every exit and moved the remaining spectators away from the southern flagpoles. Ouyang pulled Tang and the injured apprentice behind a stone barrier.
Austin noticed. For all his complaints about the event, the local crew was finally making its own safety decisions.
Jiang Taixu’s left eyelid twitched.
“What did you call me, mortal?”
“White bathrobe,” Austin called back. “And you’re breaking half the flight rules in the book. You’re hovering over a packed public venue with no clearance, no anti-crash strobes, and no way for anyone else to see you. You’re a flying hazard.”
Jiang’s sharp cheek twitched. “What gibberish is this?”
“Second, your storm is dumping freezing water on my four-hundred-and-eighty-volt server. It’s rated for forty percent humidity. You short out those contacts, you’re paying for the damage.”
Austin unhooked his five-foot Stellar-Steel pipe wrench and set its heavy head on the jade.
CLANG.
“And look at those sleeves. Loose silk around ten thousand spinning blades. One hem gets caught, and you’ll be wrapped around your own sword before you can finish chanting. No safety glasses. No steel toes. No bright markings. You’re an OSHA case with a topknot.”
He pointed the wrench upward.
“Come down to ground level and talk like a normal contractor, before I add reckless flying and public endangerment to your ticket.”
Even the wind seemed to pause.
Jiang Taixu’s face turned from pale white to choking purple. Two hundred years of glory. Eighty years of bitter seclusion. Sacred robes woven from the feathers of thousand-year spirit cranes.
Dismissed as a bathrobe by a mechanic in a plastic hat.
“WHITE BATHROBE?” he roared.
The sound cracked the dais.
“ENTANGLEMENT HAZARDS? FLIGHT RULES?”
His restraint snapped. He threw both arms toward the sky. His Peak Golden Core power burst outward and tore ten square miles of storm cloud into mist.
“DIE, INSECT! WITNESS THE FULL WRATH OF THE SWORD DAO!”
“TEN THOUSAND VOID-SEVERING BLADES—AWAKEN!”
SKRRRRRRRRRRRR-SHING!
Daylight vanished.
Ten thousand blue Glacial Cold-Iron swords filled the sky above Canglan. Sub-zero blue fire burned along their edges.
As one, every point turned toward Austin’s midnight-blue hard hat.