Chapter 843 — Grey Veils in the Lull

CHAPTER 843

Grey Veils in the Lull

Six men stepped out of the rift, one after another, and the rift closed behind them.

They wore plain grey robes with grey veils across their faces. Five of them spread out along the south edge of the herb-rod ring without a word. The sixth stood a little apart. He was tall and thin, and his hands were bare.

Their pressure rolled down over the ridge.

It wasn’t the pressure of a tribulation. It was the pressure of men, six of them, and every one of them was Shattering Void.

Shi Feng opened his eyes.

He didn’t get up at once. He looked at the five men first. Two at early Shattering Void, three at mid Shattering Void. Then he looked at the thin one, and his eyes stayed there. Late Shattering Void. The air around that man’s hands had a faint grey tinge, as if the colour had been sucked out of it.

At the north edge of the ring, the guard captain had already drawn his saber. He stepped in front of Ji Yuanhe.

“Master Ji,” the guard captain said, without looking back. “Stay behind me.”

“Yes,” Ji Yuanhe said faintly.

Shi Feng stood up.

“You’ve picked your moment,” Shi Feng said, watching their hands. “Who sent you?”

The thin man didn’t answer him. He lifted one bare hand a little, and two of the grey men broke away to the left and right. They went round the outside of the ring toward the north edge, toward the guard captain and the old man behind him.

Shi Feng’s face went cold. They weren’t merely blocking his escape; they meant to reach Master Ji while the sky held him here.

Down on the slope, the crowd had finally seen them.

“Who are they?”

“Those are Shattering Void! Six Shattering Void!”

“Six Shattering Void against one Deity Transformation, in the middle of his tribulation!”

“Bandits! It’s bandits!”

“Run!”

The lower slopes broke apart at once. Sect juniors snatched up their cushions. Gamblers grabbed their stakes. The noodle seller who’d carried his pot up the ridge that morning tipped it over in his hurry, and a hundred people ran through the hot broth. Liu Su stayed on her flat rock with her odds-book clutched to her chest, staring.

“Bets stand!” Liu Su shouted after the crowd. “Bets stand! Bandits don’t cancel anything!”

At the north edge, the two grey men reached the guard captain together. One drew a short sword. The other’s palms glowed a dull red. The captain’s saber met them both.

Steel rang across the ridge. The captain was late Shattering Void, a quiet man who’d stood behind the princess for years, and he gave ground slowly, one step at a time. He didn’t let either man past him.

Shi Feng didn’t look away from the thin man.

“You came for me,” Shi Feng said. “Then come for me. The old man has nothing to do with this.”

“He has a great deal to do with it,” the thin man said. His voice was mild. “But you’re right. You come first.”

He made a small gesture with two fingers.

The nearest grey man swung his arm. A hooked chain flew from his sleeve, fast and low across the ring, and its iron hook went straight for Shi Feng’s ankle.

So that was the plan. Shi Feng understood it at once.

A man under tribulation had to stay inside the ring he’d set until the last sky had fallen. If he left it before then, the tribulation didn’t stop. It followed him and fell on him with nothing to slow it, and it killed him. These six didn’t have to survive a direct fight with him. They only had to drag him thirty paces and let the tribulation finish their work.

His sleeve was already there.

The hook hit the cloth and disappeared inside it. The Quiet Sleeve Art at Major Success hid whatever entered his sleeve from every sense but his own, and the chain man felt his hook catch nothing. No weight. No ankle. Only air.

Shi Feng turned his wrist.

The chain went taut. The hook came back out of his sleeve going the other way, and it buried itself in the rock at the chain man’s own feet. The man jerked his arm, and the chain only pulled him a step closer to the ring.

“Strong bones,” the thin man said, watching.

“Strong enough,” Shi Feng said.

The chain man let go of the chain and drew a knife. The other two grey men moved out to either side of him. Three men stood at the south edge of the ring now. With the thin man behind them, that made four. They couldn’t step into the ring without stepping under the tribulation, so they stood just outside it, waiting.

Shi Feng stood in the middle of the ring with his raw forearm hanging at his side and the grey Sword in his hand. Every one of them was a whole great realm above him.

“Cut the grass and pull up the roots,” the thin man said quietly to his men. “Bring him out alive if you can. Dead is also fine.”

Above the ridge, the thinned clouds were darkening again. Patches of grey daylight closed one by one. A low hum ran through the ring of cloud, deeper than thunder.

The thin man glanced up.

“The fourth sky falls in thirty breaths,” the thin man said. “Thirty breaths outside the ring is enough, Master Shi.”

Shi Feng looked up at the darkening sky. Then he looked at the four men standing so carefully outside his ring, and for the first time since the rift had opened, he smiled.

“Then you’d better stand a little closer,” Shi Feng said.