The air on the eighty-eighth floor terrace screamed with supersonic friction.
Cold autumn rain whipped through the shattered steel balustrade, but the three incoming assassins seemed to ignore the storm entirely.
Ghost-Crow, Blood-Viper, and Iron-Bone moved with the synchronized precision of veteran butchers. For forty years, the Blood-Shadow Trio had terrorized the northern martial border. They had wiped out entire dojos, poisoned provincial governors, and butchered rival clans in their sleep.
In their clawed hands, the three cursed Hundred-Refined Spirit-Iron Daggers drank the ambient light.
The daggers were eight inches long, forged from blood-soaked meteor iron and quenched in the venom of thirty-six horned mountain vipers. Dark crimson runes twisted along the blackened metal like living veins. The weapons did not reflect light. They emitted a dull, sickening red glow that made the air smell of ancient rotting graves.
Ghost-Crow lunged for Chu Lingxiao’s throat. His blade whistled through the dark with three tons of kinetic force.
Blood-Viper aimed for her heart, thrusting upward from a low, serpentine crouch.
Iron-Bone struck low, his curved dagger seeking to sever her Achilles tendons and break her knees.
