Chapter 698 — Spring Thunder Chain

CHAPTER 698

Spring Thunder Chain

The chain came at him in a loop.

It left Dong Kai’s hand straight, then opened in the air into a ring as wide as a cartwheel, humming with blue light. Spring Thunder Chain was a binding art. The loop would drop over a man’s shoulders, close, and pour thunder into him until he stopped struggling.

Shi Feng stood on the threshold stone with the gate at his back. Five paces of frosty lane lay between him and the captain. There was no room to dodge sideways, and the queue was pressed against both walls.

He lifted his left sleeve.

The loop dropped over it and closed, and the Quiet Sleeve Art took it in. At Minor Success, the art hid whatever his sleeve held from anyone else’s senses. The sleeve swallowed the loop, and to Dong Kai the chain had closed on nothing at all.

Dong Kai frowned and pulled.

Dong Kai dragged the loop back out, still blazing with blue sparks. While it had been hidden, the thunder had bitten Shi Feng’s forearm. His fingers prickled. Quiet Sleeve had concealed the binding, not protected him from every part of its force.

“Where did he—?” a porter gasped.

“It went right through him!”

Dong Kai didn’t waste breath on surprise. He snapped his wrist, and the chain dropped low and came round again. This time it swept the ground in a wide ring at the height of Shi Feng’s ankles, and the thunder along it crackled over the frost like burning grass. If it closed on his legs, he’d be down on the stones.

Shi Feng stepped up.

Cloud Ladder Step put a rung of qi under his right foot, then his left, and he stood a man’s height above the lane with the ring of thunder closing on empty air below him. The chain snapped shut around the threshold stone and wound itself tight. Its tip bit into the gatepost.

Now the chain ran in one straight line from Dong Kai’s hand to the gate, pulled taut, every link blazing.

Shi Feng drew the grey Sword from his ring as he came down.

Shi Feng watched the first link beside Dong Kai’s fist. The captain’s thunder passed through it before reaching the rest, and it burned brighter than the other links. Severing that point would interrupt the whole chain at once.

The grey blade turned the colour of a setting sun.

The Sunset-Splitting Sword at Major Success didn’t look like a stroke. Red light fell across the lane, over the walls and the queue and the violet carriage. Inside it, the edge was so thin that nobody saw it touch anything.

Clang.

The first link split in two.

All the thunder that had been going into the chain had nowhere left to go, and it went back into Dong Kai’s arm. The captain shouted. He stumbled two steps, dropped to one knee on the frost, and clutched his arm against his chest. Smoke rose from his sleeve.

The rest of the chain fell slack around the threshold stone and went dark.

For one breath, Willow Ford was silent.

Then the pressure came down.

Lei Zhenhai hadn’t moved a step. He had only opened his aura, and the aura of Shattering Void filled the lane from wall to wall. The queue went down at once. Porters, stewards and old women dropped flat on the frost. Auntie Niu sat down hard on her stool, and her tray of buns went rolling.

Shi Feng’s knees bent.

Shi Feng raised his aura to mid Deity Transformation and held it there. The pressure made his bones creak. His left hand lost feeling, the numbness spreading to his wrist by the third breath. He knew the deacon could feel his resistance, and refused to let his knees give way.

Then he straightened them, one at a time, and stood.

“Deacon Lei,” Shi Feng said. His voice came out a little rough, but it was level. “Your captain invited me to your carriage politely. If you press any harder, sixty people in this lane will tell the whole city that Thunder Abyss Valley pressed a queue of old women flat to collect one alchemist.”

Lei Zhenhai looked at him and said nothing. The pressure didn’t lift.

From the far end of the lane came a heavy, tired voice.

“What’s all this, then?” Sergeant Chai of the ward watch said.

Sergeant Chai came around the corner with two watchmen behind him. He looked at the people lying on the frost, the smoking captain and the deacon in violet. Then he looked at Shi Feng.

“Nothing happened, I assume,” Sergeant Chai said.

Lei Zhenhai looked at their city badges. The watch answered to the Long family, not Thunder Abyss Valley. Pressing these people down in front of its own sergeant would turn a private threat into an open insult to Imperial authority.

The pressure lifted.

All along the lane, people gasped for air and struggled to their knees.

“Nothing happened,” Lei Zhenhai said.

“Good,” Sergeant Chai said. “I hate paperwork.”

Lei Zhenhai turned to go. Dong Kai got up without help and followed him, his arm held against his ribs. At the carriage step, the deacon stopped.

“Young Master Huangfu will hear of this,” Lei Zhenhai said.

The violet door closed. The carriage backed out of the lane mouth and was gone.

Then the lane exploded.

“Did you see that? He cut a chain made of thunder!”

“That captain was late Deity Transformation! I felt it!”

“And the young master’s only mid! Mid! He beat a whole stage higher in three moves!”

“Forget the captain! He stood up under a Shattering Void deacon! That’s a whole great realm!”

“My goose ran away…”

“…”

Shi Feng tried to shake feeling into his left hand. It stayed numb. He used his right to pick up the severed link and checked its warmth. Cutting Dong Kai’s art had been the easier part; resisting Lei Zhenhai had cost him far more.

The kitchen door creaked. Ji Yuanhe stood in it with the account book held against his chest. His lips were moving.

“Seven,” Ji Yuanhe said. “You took seven breaths.”

“Then write that down too, Master Ji,” Shi Feng said, and set the broken link on the table. “Thunder Abyss Valley. One link of chain, left at the gate. They can collect it when they queue.”