Chapter 80 — At the Limit

CHAPTER 80

At the Limit

Cao Wenshu raised one finger.

Boom! The parapet exploded beside Shi Feng’s head.

Stone flew into his cheek. He rolled with the blast, crossed the fallen blocks and thrust at the old man’s wrist. Piercing Current! The short step carried him close without throwing his weight forward, and against an ordinary early Foundation Establishment cultivator it would have forced a desperate retreat.

Cao Wenshu didn’t retreat.

A thin shield of qi met the blade. The ordinary steel bent, then snapped in the middle. Shi Feng turned his shoulder, but the palm behind the shield still landed on his chest.

Bang! The world flew backward. He crashed through the inner doorway of the fort and slammed into the far wall, and old plaster burst around him. The air left his lungs. His ribs groaned but held, because his Bone Refinement was complete, and the unfinished gold beneath them took the rest of the blow.

Shi Feng was on his feet before Cao Wenshu crossed the threshold.

“Bone Refinement,” Cao Wenshu said, surprised. “Guo Zhen was a fool.”

Shi Feng spat blood on the stone.

“He wasn’t alone,” Shi Feng said.

The old man’s expression turned cold. He advanced with his palm open, and qi filled the room. The pressure bore down on Shi Feng’s shoulders and knees, heavy as a mountain. Mid Foundation Establishment, Shi Feng thought. Early Foundation Establishment opponents couldn’t withstand him, but this old man was another stage higher. This fight would take everything he had.

Cao Wenshu no longer thought of this as an execution. Now he treated it as a real danger.

Shi Feng moved before the gathering hand could close. He thrust the broken sword at the wrist again, and Cao Wenshu turned the hand aside, certain the short blade would pass harmlessly by.

Turning Wave!

Shi Feng’s wrist turned while his foot was still moving. The thrust became a cut. The jagged edge slid under the old man’s elbow, exactly where his shield was thin from meeting the first attack.

Blood ran down Cao Wenshu’s sleeve.

“What?” Cao Wenshu said, and his face changed.

Xu Changhe’s lesson had found what raw strength alone would’ve missed. Shi Feng’s heart leapt. A mid Foundation Establishment cultivator was bleeding from the hand of a boy still in Bone Refinement!

The old man looked at his arm once. His next attack carried no contempt at all.

Qi filled the ruined chamber. A window frame cracked outward. Shi Feng felt the pressure clamp around his limbs, and he forced every meridian in his body to carry the strength rising through him.

Three hundred and sixty-five pathways answered.

The five Epoch Meridians carried what ordinary cultivation couldn’t. No borrowed power came from the ring. No dead master appeared to save him. Every current belonged to the battered body standing against the wall.

I can still move, Shi Feng thought. That’s enough.

Cao Wenshu struck at his chest. Shi Feng stepped aside, let the palm slide past his shoulder, and drew the sword fragment back by the width of one hand.

Returning Tide!

The point shot forward beneath the attacking arm. Cao Wenshu twisted sharply and the fragment missed his throat, but it opened the side of his neck.

“Impossible!” Cao Wenshu roared, his expression twisted.

His return blow caught Shi Feng across the ribs. Something tore, and warmth ran beneath his robe. Shi Feng’s legs nearly folded. He caught the broken doorway with one hand, forced himself upright, and met the next palm with his own.

Crack! Stone broke under both men.

Cao Wenshu’s supporting foot slipped. Shi Feng stepped into him, seized the wounded arm and drove his knee under the old man’s ribs. The shield held. He struck the same place again, and this time it trembled.

Then Cao Wenshu caught him by the throat.

The air vanished. The old man’s fingers tightened and lifted him against the jagged doorway. Stone dug into his back. Shi Feng stabbed again with the broken blade, but Cao Wenshu knocked it aside with his good arm and hit his wounded side.

Pain turned the room white. The blade fragment fell from his fingers.

Shi Feng knew he couldn’t win by pretending the wounds didn’t matter. His golden bones were unfinished. The First Extreme was still far away. No Foundation Establishment breakthrough would come to rescue him, and nobody else would finish this fight.

So he’d finish it as the man he already was. Both hands closed around the wrist at his neck. His right heel found a fallen block, and he planted it and put his whole body into the turn.

Snap! The wrist broke.

Cao Wenshu’s fingers opened. Shi Feng dragged the old man forward and drove his forehead into the face above the strained shield. The protective qi shattered between them. Pain burst behind Shi Feng’s eyes, and Cao Wenshu’s nose collapsed with a wet crunch.

“You little beast!” Cao Wenshu screamed, staggering, one ruined wrist hanging while his other arm drew back for a killing blow.

Shi Feng saw the shoulder move.

He drilled Returning Tide every single day, until retreating no longer meant retreating. Now he stepped back just far enough, let the blow pass, drew the knife from his belt and came back along the same short line.

A knife has less reach than a sword. At this distance, it doesn’t need any, Shi Feng told himself, and the thought was almost calm.

The point entered the unprotected throat. Cao Wenshu’s eyes went wide, shock frozen on his face, and he tried to speak. Shi Feng followed the knife in, caught the back of the old man’s head and pinned him to the stone. Qi gathered under his hand, fierce enough that another breath might still kill.

Shi Feng pushed the knife deeper.

The gathering force broke apart. Only then did he let go. He stepped backward and almost fell beside the body.

Mid Foundation Establishment, and the old man lay dead at his feet. This was the limit of what Shi Feng could handle now, not another easy victory. Shi Feng stared down at him, stunned by his own survival. The gap was real, he thought. So was the corpse.

His strength kept him alive long enough to fight, and Xu Changhe’s sword art opened wounds, spoiled blows and carried his last weapon to the throat. Neither one alone would’ve been enough.

He pressed a folded cloth to his side. His hands shook so badly he had to start the binding again, and he pulled it tight with his teeth while blood from his mouth darkened the cloth. Then he sat against the broken wall and swallowed a healing pill.

It worked cleanly, but the wound was still there. For a long while he counted breaths instead of victories.

When he could stand without the chamber tilting, he searched only what was safe to search. Under Cao Wenshu’s robe lay a sealed royal pouch, its identifying jade pulsing faintly as the body cooled.

Shi Feng left it where it was.

That jade will call someone, he thought. Or it’ll tell someone where this man died. Either way, I don’t want it near my gate.

Carrying unknown royal objects home would only bring the next assassin to Ling Qingzhu’s door, he thought. And no vitality rose from this human corpse. He’d repair himself with his own supplies.

He fetched the root bundle from the path and went down the dry ravine, one hand pressed to his side. At the lower slope he washed his face in the stream and closed his collar over the marks on his throat. He’d promised to be back before the vegetable market closed.

Shi Feng looked toward the distant roofs of the capital.

What a terrible detour. He was going to be late for the vegetables.