Yan Tianheng crossed the ten paces in less than a heartbeat. The stone broke under his boots. He brought the Nine-Ring Cleaver up, and amber fire spread along the steel. The nine rings rose to a scream.
Mountain-Cleaving Dragon Strike.
Pei Jing had met Tianxiong’s cleaver with the Astral Bone Blade on the coast. Back then he had needed the blade and the lodestones inside it to take the force. Now he could feel what his Mid Golden Core was doing to the bones in his arm.
He stepped in as the cleaver came down. Near the handle, the steel had less room to build speed. He raised his bare left forearm to meet it.
The strike drove a crater into the stone under his feet. Powder rose around his legs. The rings sent their howl into his chest. It reached the nine bands of violet fire around his core and came back along the same path.
All nine bronze rings burst. Pieces struck the walls of the Disciplinary Hall. One skipped past the execution stone and fell quiet.
The blade had gone through the flesh of Pei Jing’s forearm to the bone. Blood ran down his wrist and spotted the marble. The cut pulled open when he tried to make a fist. His core could slow the bleeding, but he couldn’t ask the arm to take another blow.
