The twenty armored guards didn’t get the chance to thrust their pikes.
Before the first iron boot could finish its step, Chu Lingxiao moved her left hand. Her movement was so light it looked like she was brushing a speck of lint from her blue silk sleeve.
SHING.
A razor-thin crescent of translucent sword qi flickered through the air. It didn’t strike the guards’ flesh. It whispered across the shafts of all twenty spirit-pikes in a single unbroken circle.
CLATTER.
Twenty heavy iron pike heads hit the floor at the exact same instant, rolling across the obsidian tiles like severed carrots. The twenty guards stood frozen, gripping bare wooden sticks in their gauntlets.
Chu Lingxiao took another sip of her melon tea. “Your sticks are blunt. Bring sharper ones next time.”
The guards backed up three paces, their knees knocking against their iron greaves. Several of them dropped the broken sticks entirely, too frightened to make a sound.
