The southern fringe of the Grand Desolate Forest was bathed in the harsh, dry glare of the midday sun. Here, the dense green canopy of ancient iron-bamboo gave way to stunted yellow pines, crumbling limestone gullies. The rutted dirt tracks of the Old Imperial Highway. A road abandoned by the mortal dynasties over two hundred years ago.
Creaking along the stony track was a massive merchant convoy. Twenty heavy wagons, each built from heavy mountain cedar and iron bracing, were dragged slowly through the ruts by pairs of shaggy, broad-horned spirit oxen. The heavy wagons groaned under their huge cargo. Stacked metal bars of refined northern charcoal-iron, crates of pressed black tea bricks, barrels of raw forging coal, and bundles of fine southern mulberry paper.
Walking beside the lead wagon, wiping cold sweat from his lined forehead with a silk handkerchief, was Patriarch Lu Feng of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion.
At fifty-four years of age, Lu Feng looked every inch the consummate veteran merchant. He wore deep purple robes of fine brocade, slightly faded at the cuffs from travel, with a counting frame of polished jade beads hanging at his belt and a pair of glasses framed in brass resting on his nose. But right now, his shrewd merchant eyes were shadowed by deep tiredness and rising anxiety.
“Patriarch Lu,” his chief bodyguard, a scarred veteran named Captain Zhao whose iron sword-sheath was notched from dozens of skirmishes, stepped up beside him. “The spirit oxen are lathered and limping. The heat in this dry gully is choking. If we don’t find a mountain spring to water the beasts within two hours, three of the wagon axles will snap on this limestone.”
Lu Feng sighed, tucking his handkerchief into his sleeve. “I know, Zhao. I know. But we couldn’t take the main country highway through the Jade Gate Pass. That extortionist Magistrate Qian Bo raised the trade transit heavy tax to eighty percent! Eighty percent! If I paid his crooked toll collectors, thirty years of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion’s work would have turned to ash. We had to take the shortcut through the southern forest border.”
“Cutting along the edge of the Grand Desolate Forest is madness, Master,” Captain Zhao grunted, his hand resting tightly on his sword handle. “The legends say this forest is inhabited by ancient demon beasts who devour whole caravans bones and all. And worse than beasts... These border gullies are hunting grounds for outlaws.”
Before Lu Feng could answer, a shrill, piercing whistle tore through the stale mountain air.
SHREEEEEEK!
From the dry pine ridges on either side of the sunken road, heavy wooden logs and jagged boulders crashed down into the front and rear of the convoy. With bone-shaking thuds, the road was blocked in both directions, trapping the twenty spirit-ox wagons inside a ninety-pace limestone trench.
“AMBUSH!” Captain Zhao roared, his iron blade clearing its sword sheath with a sharp hiss. “Guards, form the turtle circle! Protect the oxen and the cargo!”
Twenty armored caravan guards, seasoned practitioners at the Mid to Late Qi Gathering realm, drew their broadswords and raised box-shaped bronze shields. They locked together around the central wagons. The wagon drivers and clerks huddled beneath the wagon beds. They grabbed ledgers and baggage in shivering terror.
From behind the limestone crags and scrub brush, sixty figures emerged. It slid down the gravel banks like hunting jackals.
They were the Red-Scar Bandits—the most ruthless mercenary outlaws running in the southern border provinces. Clad in mismatched leather armor smeared with animal fat, their faces wrapped in red cloth, they carried serrated scimitars, barbed iron hooks, and short composite bows. But what caused Captain Zhao’s stomach to plunge into ice were the three figures leading the gang.
The three leaders didn’t wear leather. They wore tattered robes the color of clotted blood, their pale foreheads marked with the black serpent tattoo of the Blood Sea Demonic Sect. In their hands, they held yellow bone magic charms and curved sickles dripping with vile, smoking poison.
“Patriarch Lu of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion,” the lead bandit chieftain mocked. He stepped forward with a cruel sneer. He swung a jagged five-foot scimitar with easy ease. “What good fortune! We were expecting common salt peddlers, and instead heaven delivers twenty wagons of refined iron and fine paper straight into our hands!”
Lu Feng stepped to the edge of the shield line, his voice shaking but struggling to maintain dignity. “Chieftain Ba! We’re honest merchants. My wagons carry goods bound for the border markets. Let’s pass, and I’ll pay you two hundred mid-tier spirit stones and ten crates of fine tea as a passage toll!”
The bandit chieftain threw his head back and howled with vicious laughter, joined by sixty mocking outlaws.
“Two hundred spirit stones?” the chieftain spat onto the dry dirt. “Old fool, look at your surroundings! You’re trapped in a dead ditch. When we butcher your guards, your wagons, your iron, your cattle. Your own hide will belong to us! The demonic masters in the southern barrens pay top silver for living slaves to toss into their blood pits. Tie them up! Kill anyone who holds steel!”
“Archers, fire!”
Thirty bandit bowmen drew their horn bows to the ear, loosing a dense volley of black, barbed arrows coated in poisonous scorpion venom.
The caravan guards raised their bronze shields, bracing against the onslaught.
CLANG! THWACK! CRACK!
Arrows slammed into shields and wagon planks with lethal fury. Two guards took arrows through their calves, collapsing with agonized cries as the black poison caused their flesh to swell and purple within seconds. The three rogue demonic fighters stepped forward, chanting dark curses as they hurled black magic charms that blew up into clouds of flesh-corroding red smoke.
Captain Zhao blocked a heavy scimitar strike, his arm going numb under the impact. Five bandits surged against his shield. “Patriarch Lu, fall back! We can’t hold this line! Their demonic poison is eating through our armor!”
Lu Feng fell against the wheel of the lead wagon, clutching his chest. His heart hammered in sheer, helpless despair.
He had built the Hundred Treasures Pavilion from a single donkey cart into a respected merchant enterprise through fifty years of honest dealing, fair contracts, and sleepless nights. Now, in this godforsaken limestone trench, his loyal guards were being butchered, his hard-won assets were about to be plundered. He would end his life as an offering in a demonic blood cooking pot.
“Is there no justice under the heavens?” Lu Feng whispered in anguish. He closed his eyes as a bandit lunged toward him with a raised machete.
At that exact moment, a faint, sweet aroma drifted across the battlefield.
It didn’t smell like ozone, sword-qi, or the foul rot of blood magic charms. It was the wonderfully comforting, mouth-watering fragrance of roasted mountain persimmons. Sugary, rich, and bubbling with caramelized honey sweetness.
Perched upon a level pine branch fifteen paces above the gully, a creature was watching the battle.
It was a round, semi-clear sapphire-blue sphere, about two feet in width. In two small, rubbery azure pseudopods extending from its sides, the creature held a steaming, perfectly roasted wild persimmon, blowing gentle puffs of cool air on the fruit to let the molten sugar cool.
Lin Xiao had been having a marvelous afternoon.
After inspecting the lower river water chutes with Elder Lu Da, Lin Xiao had rolled up to the southern ridge to forage wild mountain fruit. He had discovered a grove of ancient persimmon trees laden with heavy, frost-sweetened orange globes. He used a trace of clean flame-essence stored within his dantian. He had gently roasted three of the fruits until their skins split open, releasing an aroma that could bring a smile to an angry stone statue.
He had just taken his first delicious bite when the screaming, the whistling. The clang of steel had ruined his peaceful lunch.
Lin Xiao peered down through the yellow pine needles, his crescent eye-markings narrowing with deep annoyance.
Within his mind, the Dao Spirit chimed with clean clarity:
“Sixty outlaws jumping forty honest wagon drivers,” Lin Xiao muttered inwardly. He tucked the leftover warm persimmon into his internal storage void where it would stay piping hot. “And those three hooded creeps are using blood poison on innocent cattle. What kind of crushed-star shoots poison arrows at poor oxen hauling carts?”
Down in the ditch, the bandit who had lunged at Lu Feng swung his scimitar downward, aiming directly for the old merchant’s neck.
Captain Zhao screamed, lunging forward with his sword. But two bandits hooked his shield with iron pikes, dragging him to his knees. Lu Feng squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the cold bite of iron.
THWIP!
From the high pine branch, a blue streak shot down like a falling sapphire meteor.
Lin Xiao didn’t use a sword. He didn’t roar a terrifying battle cry. He simply condensed his mass into a dense, non-Newtonian bowling ball and dropped squarely out of the sky!
CRACK!
Lin Xiao struck the flat blade of the dropping scimitar with razor-sharp moving timing. The heavy steel blade shattered into three fragments as if struck by a bronze pile-driver. Meanwhile, the blast wave traveled up the bandit’s arm, cleanly dislocating his shoulder with a sharp pop.
The bandit shrieked in shock, tumbling backward into the dust, clutching his limp arm while staring in utter confusion at the object that had fallen from the heavens.
Resting on the dirt between Lu Feng and the bandits was a round, semi-clear azure blob. It wobbled pleasantly, absorbing the moving landing shock with an elastic ripple, before settling into a neat sphere roughly two feet wide.
Lu Feng opened his eyes, trembling from head to toe.
Instead of an immortal swordsman in white robes, or a legendary mountain hermit dropping on a crane, the old merchant found himself staring directly into two large, white crescent markings on the front of a semi-clear blue jelly ball.
“You really shouldn’t swing sharp tools around old people,” the blue blob said, its voice echoing in Lu Feng’s mind as a clear, pleasant deep. “Someone could get seriously hurt.”
The bandit chieftain blinked, then rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
“What in the nine hells is that?” the chieftain yelled, pointing his scimitar at Lin Xiao. “A puddle of pond slime? Kill it! Turn it into fish paste!”
Lin Xiao let out a gentle, bubbling sigh. “Why does nobody ever want to talk things over first?”