Chapter 817 — The Second Anvil

CHAPTER 817

The Second Anvil

The fire went into his hand.

Shi Feng didn’t fight it. He opened the Thousand Forge Flame Art in his palm and let the burning pine’s heat pour into him. The skin of his palm turned red, then white. It hurt exactly as much as it should. He let that in too.

Inside the art, he struck the Second Anvil Fire.

The Second Anvil Fire beat flame the way a smith beats iron, one hammer stroke at a time, and every stroke made it hotter and harder. Since the contest it had sat at Minor Success. It could fold another man’s flame into his own, but it couldn’t send it back.

Today it had to.

He took Qu Ming’s heat in on the upstroke. He brought it down on the anvil. One beat, and the Scorching Sun’s fire was his. Two, and it was folded into his own. Three, and he sent it back out along the same path it had come in by.

The pine under his palm stopped leaning toward him.

It leaned away.

Then the next one did, and the next. The ring of fire, which had been closing on the banner, bent outward all round its edge in one long wave. The wall of flame tipped back over the dry needles, away from the princess’s banner, toward the only gap in the ring.

The four Azure Sun hunters stood in that gap.

“What—?” the tallest one shouted, and then his sleeve caught.

Shi Feng felt it settle in the middle of the fourth beat. He could finally keep the returning heat inside the rhythm instead of forcing it out between beats. Second Anvil Fire, Major Success. Now he didn’t just fold another man’s fire into his own. He could beat it back out at him.

Qu Ming’s face changed.

“Impossible!” Qu Ming shouted. “That’s Azure Sun fire! It answers to me!”

He threw both palms forward and poured the Scorching Sun into the ring, everything he had, trying to wrench it back. White-gold fire roared out of his hands.

Shi Feng took it in on the upstroke.

It was a great deal of fire. It came up his arm, and every vein from his palm to his shoulder burned. He brought it down on the anvil anyway, and beat it, once, twice, three times, and threw it back out through the pines.

Boom!

The stretch of ring nearest the gap blew outward. Burning needles and splinters sprayed across the road, and the four Azure Sun hunters broke apart with their robes on fire. The tallest one threw himself down and rolled in the ash. Two more ran for clear ground. The fourth stood beating at his sleeves and shouting for Qu Ming.

Qu Ming himself went back three steps. His own fire had come back at him off a cook’s palm. It caught the hem of his red-and-gold robe, and for the first time in his life, Qu Ming’s robe was smoking.

“Now!” Shi Feng said.

His banner moved at once.

Hou Tieshou came out through the gap in the fire with his eyebrows gone and his good fist up. The tallest Azure Sun hunter was still on the ground, rolling. Hou Tieshou put one foot on his chest, reached down and tore the core pouch off his belt.

Jiao Lanyin shot the second man’s pouch strap off his shoulder at forty paces, with a hand that still couldn’t close. The pouch fell in the ash. The man spun round to grab it, and her next arrow went into the ground between his fingers. He jerked his hand back and didn’t reach again.

Yue Shaoan didn’t fight anybody. He limped after the third hunter, who was running, and simply stuck out his bad leg as the man came past. The hunter went down face first. Yue Shaoan sat on him, very apologetically, and untied his pouch.

The fourth one was still beating at his sleeves. Shi Feng walked up to him, plucked the pouch off his belt, and walked on.

“You... you can’t!” the fourth hunter shouted. “Those are our cores!”

Hou Tieshou climbed up on a stump in the middle of the road, held up two pouches high over his head, and faced the bronze Mirror.

“What is hunted,” Hou Tieshou roared, so loudly that ash fell off the nearest pines, “belongs to whoever carries it out! The Emperor’s own Hunt law! Young Master Qu quoted it to us himself! We heard him! The Mirror heard him!”

“You’re only supposed to read it once,” Yue Shaoan said nervously.

“I’m reading it twice!” Hou Tieshou bellowed. “WHAT IS HUNTED BELONGS—”

“We heard you,” Jiao Lanyin said.

Outside the array wall, the crowd under the sixth Mirror had lost its voice and found it again, all at once.

“He took the flame! He took Qu Ming’s flame and threw it back!”

“That’s a peak Deity Transformation’s art! He’s only late!”

“The Azure Sun banner’s lost every core it had!”

“By the carry-out law! Their own law!”

“He who plays with fire burns himself…”

“…”

The ring of fire had gone out of control now and was burning outward, away from the road, into the endless dead pines. The princess’s banner stood together in the middle of the road with four Azure Sun pouches and their own pack.

Qu Ming stood alone on the scorched ground at the edge of the clearing, between a burning stump and the stone post of the Mirror. His hands still glowed, but faintly. His robe was smoking at the hem, his sleeves were black to the elbow, and his face in the bronze behind him was white with fury.

His four hunters were scattered behind him, trying to put out their clothes. None was ready to stand beside him when Shi Feng approached.

Shi Feng shouldered the pack again and walked toward him. The burnt ground cracked under his boots.

“Young Master Qu,” Shi Feng said. “It’s finished.”

Qu Ming raised both glowing hands.

“This young lord,” Qu Ming said, through his teeth, “does not yield.”