"The wind," Ma Fu repeated, dangerously flat.
"Yes, boss. Just the wind."
"The wind laughed at me."
"...It was a very disrespectful wind, boss."
Ma Fu's hand tightened on his sword. For a moment it genuinely looked like he might kill his own man just to make a point. Then he remembered the stranger.
He turned back to Lu Chen.
"You." His voice was low. Venomous. "You think this is funny?"
Lu Chen shrugged. "I think your men do."
Ma Fu's face contorted. Three years of careful infiltration. Three years of building this reputation. All of it. every wall, every layer of fear he'd constructed now shattered in two sentences by a teenager with a lazy smile.
"KILL HIM!" His voice cracked like a boy going through puberty. "KILL HIM AND LEAVE NOTHING INTACT! I WANT PIECES! I WANT TO MAIL HIM BACK TO HIS CLAN IN A SACK!"
The bandits exchanged glances.
Long glances. Meaningful glances. The kind of glances that said, I'm not dying for this man's sack-based revenge fantasy.
The skinny bandit took another step back. "Boss, maybe we should—"
"NOW!"
They charged.
Reluctantly. The way a cat enters a bath. The way a student approaches a teacher who has just said "we need to talk."
---
Lu Chen sighed.
Finally.
He drew his sword. The blade caught the light of the oil lamps hanging from the wagon. Flickering as though it was excited to watch the show.
System, are you watching?
Generous.
The first bandit reached him—a big man with a scarred face and a sword that had probably seen real use before. His blade came down in a wide, wild arc. No technique. Just raw desperation dressed up as aggression.
Lu Chen stepped to the side. One inch. The sword whistled past his ear close enough to move his hair.
Swoosh.
The bandit's momentum carried him forward. His eyes went wide. His arms pinwheeled. He looked like a chicken attempting flight.
Before the man could recover, Lu Chen grabbed his wrist and squeezed.
CRACK.
The bandit let out a sound that was scientifically impossible for a human to produce—a sort of screech-yodel hybrid. A sound that even his parents would disown him if they heard it. Lu Chen shoved him into the next attacker. They went down in a tangle of limbs, curses, and at least one misplaced elbow that definitely belonged to the second bandit and not the first.
Two came from the sides. Faster. They'd watched the first one fall and tried to be smart about it. One went high. One went low.
Both hit.
Thunk. Thunk.
Well they tried then failed successfully
Lu Chen looked down at the sword pressed against his side. Then up at the bandit holding it. The bandit had a terrible mustache, the kind that said I have made poor decisions and will continue to make them, bite me.
"...You done?"
The bandit's eyes went wide. His mustache seemed to wilt.
Flowing River Slash.
Lu Chen's sword traced a clean arc. The bandit's blade spun away, tumbled through the air like a confused bird, and embedded itself in a tree with a satisfying thwack.
The bandit stared at his empty hand. Then at the tree. Then back at his hand. He opened and closed his fingers several times, as if checking to see if they still worked.
The remaining bandits stopped charging.
Not all at once. Some took an extra step before their brains caught up. One man actually ran in place for three seconds before realizing his feet weren't moving forward.
They looked at their fallen comrades. Three men. Fifteen seconds. Lu Chen hadn't even broken a sweat. In fact, he yawned.
He yawned.
The skinny bandit—the one who had laughed—took a step back. Then another.
Then he turned and ran so fast his hat flew off and he didn't even stop to get it.
No one blamed him.
The departure began as a trickle and became a flood. Bandits threw down weapons like they were on fire. One man dropped his sword, tripped over it, got up, apologized to the sword, and then ran. Another took off his armor mid-sprint because it was slowing him down—then tripped over his own pants.
Even the oil lamp flickered, as if it couldn't quite believe what it was seeing. Or maybe that was just the wind. Either way, the lamp looked deeply uncomfortable.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!" Ma Fu's voice cracked so badly it jumped two octaves and landed somewhere in the range of a distressed teakettle. "GET BACK HERE! COWARDS! TRAITORS! I'LL—I'LL WRITE YOUR NAMES IN A BOOK! A VERY BLACK BOOK!"
A passing bandit paused. "You can't write, boss."
"I'LL LEARN! I'LL LEARN SPECIFICALLY TO WRITE YOUR NAME IN A BLACK BOOK!"
The bandit ran faster.
Lu Chen stood among the scattered bodies, sword loose in his hand, expression unchanged. The torch flickered. His shadow stretched behind him—long, dramatic, and entirely unintentional.
[Battle Summary]
[Defeated: 7 cultivators — at BT7]
[EXP Gained: +88]
[Breakthrough Progress: 438 / 2560 → 526 / 2560 towards Body Forging]
[Basic Sword Lvl. 1: 50.5% → 51%]
He looked at Ma Fu.
Lu Chen took a step forward.
"Hoy, shit face."
Ma Fu flinched so hard his entire body left the ground for a moment—like a startled cat.
"Your men ran away."
Ma Fu's jaw tightened. His eyes darted left and right, searching for anyone still standing with him. There was no one. Just the groaning of the unconscious and the distant sound of a bandit still apologizing to his abandoned sword.
"Looks like you're all alone."
Lu Chen raised his sword.
Ma Fu stared at the blade leveled at him.
Lu Chen tilted his head.
Ma Fu felt something he hadn't felt since the stables—since he was twelve years old and a donkey had looked at him with more intelligence than he possessed.
Small.
He felt very small.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]