Chi Lian moved with the speed of an unsheathed blade.
There was no preliminary charge, no dramatic roar, no gathering of visible spiritual light. Peak Foundation training didn’t waste striking force on theatrics.
One moment he was standing thirty paces away on the carcass of the gore hound. The next, he was three feet from Meng Shan’s breastplate, his serrated crescent sickles trailing twin ribbons of black, sizzling foul fog.
The twin sickles whipped forward in a headsman’s scissor-cross, aimed exactly at the narrow flesh gap between Meng Shan’s iron collar and his skull.
Meng Shan’s greatshield was anchored in the bedrock, optimized for frontal crushing force. Against a razor-sharp, high-speed decapitation strike from a Peak Foundation sword-master, his lateral reaction time was thirty split seconds too slow.
Meng Shan’s eyes widened, his neck muscles tensing to take the severing blow.
Thirty paces away, on the raised stone walkway, Lin Ke raised his right arm.
He didn’t sprint down the stairs. He didn’t draw a sword. His ribs were still bruised. His heart was ran on cold fight-or-flight rush and iron-leaf extract. His left arm was strapped tight against his ribs.
