Chapter Eighty-One: The Serpent of a Thousand Faces (Part Two)

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The sky gradually darkened, and the night view above the sea became especially beautiful. When that immense ball of fire, illuminating all and yet wearied like an elder at dusk, finally sank below the horizon, the entire surface of the sea was dyed crimson. Then, once more, the world was plunged into darkness.

The sunset was infinitely splendid, but alas, dusk was near.

With dusk’s fall, the sea wind wailed, and flames engulfed Penglai Island!

Thanks to the island being desolate year-round, its withered grass and deadwood had accumulated layer upon layer over countless years. This fire, once set, raged with an intensity that shook the heavens and the earth.

Most of the foreign assassins had already retreated from the wild woods. Thick smoke billowed, and though the actual flames covered less than a quarter of the island, the smoke had already spread into every corner.

The Princess Sakura watched the blaze with a hint of excitement. In her small, crowded homeland, such a vast island would be a feudal lord’s entire domain. She had never set such a great fire before.

“I am quite satisfied. Where is my wine?” Princess Sakura turned with annoyance to the nearby assassin, her voice sharp, “Your hands are empty—do you plan to disembowel yourself right here?”

The assassin did not answer. He approached in silence, then suddenly raised his head, revealing eyes boiling with murderous intent.

With a twist of his body, he covered three yards in a single stride. Almost as soon as Princess Sakura finished speaking, he appeared before her. His foot struck the ground with a thud, making the earth tremble. At the same time, his hand shot forward, arm twisting, bones cracking, fingertips extended as if they had grown several inches in a blink. Facing the petite princess, he seemed a demon from legend, a monster snatching up a child.

“Just in time—ha!”

Who would have thought that, despite her tender years, Princess Sakura possessed swordsmanship of remarkable depth? With a thunderous shout, her body tensed as if by incantation, her suppressed spirit erupted, and her form dropped then sprang upward. As her toes touched the ground, she rebounded, and with a flick of her treasured blade’s hilt, a flash of white light shot forth—the most precise and orthodox of all draw-slashes.

The gleam of steel, bright from friction against the scabbard, reflected off her iron and wood armor, transforming the delicate girl in an instant into a demon-quelling child of legend.

‘This strike is perfection itself!’

Beginning with a shout to exorcise evil—a mark of mastery in the art of focused spirit—her leap, though unremarkable to the untrained eye, was in truth the signature fox-step of the elite assassins.

In her homeland, the fox-step was likened to a lightning flash: those who mastered it could run freely upon walls and trees. In the instant of descent and rebound, she borrowed the force of her opponent’s shock to the earth, as if drawing her blade with the strength of two.

Her final draw-slash was so swift and forceful that her whole body was obscured in steel, a technique known as the sword’s vanishing, twice as deadly as a common draw-slash.

Yet the assassin, mid-lunge, stomped down with a jarring force. Suddenly, the sound of rushing water echoed—the ground beneath him buckled with a bang, and, contrary to all reason, he halted mid-motion, as if a river had reversed its flow and mountains turned upon themselves.

In Sakura’s eyes, the demon was abruptly revealed as mere mortal. Though the blade’s momentum remained sharp, a gap had appeared.

To cut down a mortal with a blade meant for demons felt, somehow, amiss. The princess’s perfect swordplay suddenly lost its luster.

Within the infinitesimal shift between fist and blade, there lay a fleeting flaw—an opening as brief as a lightning flash.

In that instant, a finger slipped through the gap—three joints: tip, middle, base. The tendon along the outer arm, thick as a noodle, bulged as he pulled tight, merging the three joints into one, their force flowing into the arm as a whole.

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The tendon of the outer arm begins at the tip of the thumb and forefinger, connects at the wrist, travels along the arm, and joins at the elbow. Its branch winds over the shoulder blade and along the spine.

With a light flick, like the toll of a great bell, Sakura felt a massive force explode against her. Her whole body trembled violently, and yet, despite her youth, her resolve was astonishing—her palm split, tendons torn, but she did not let go of her sword’s hilt.

But resolve alone is not the power to survive. The assassin’s hand flashed out like lightning, snaking around to seize her slender neck.

Such force could crush a skull with a single squeeze.

Yet at that moment, the ancient sword, Child-Slasher, began to vibrate more violently.

Child-Slasher, a relic from three centuries past, was said to possess the strength of the pufferfish spirit.

Just as the assassin’s claw neared her, a chilling, disharmonious giggle escaped Sakura’s lips. Her face melted like wax—her eyes bulged enormous, the pupils spinning wildly; her cheekbones shrank, fangs jutted forth, hair grew with unnatural speed, curling from her heels around the assassin’s body. An evil, terrifying aura seemed to press inward to the very soul through eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

At the same time, a blade, silent and patient for so long, swept down from behind. This slash was slow, gentle as flowing water, utterly devoid of murderous intent.

That strike was like a bard lamenting the falling of autumn leaves—the shifting of seasons, irreversible.

Life and death, equally irreversible.

Though elegant in appearance, this move was far more perilous than the demonic spirit that possessed the princess.

The time was right: a moonless, windy night, clouds hiding the blade’s gleam, a demonic aura pressing in.

The place was perfect: a flat, open beach, not a scrap of cover, for five miles around nothing but allies.

The moment was ideal: a front assault and a rear slash, striking as the enemy’s momentum faltered.

He was trapped, doomed to near-certain death.

“Tiger, Dragon!”

The mind of the tiger boiled, bestial intent surging. The pressure of the demonic spirit conjured by Child-Slasher vanished in a heartbeat—one crouch, one leap, the blade flashed past his ear.

The gentle glow of the second blade followed like water.

Tiger-skin shredded, the spirit of the dragon burst forth, boundless and free, transcending life and death. In the crisis, every technique merged into the dragon’s form; his tight black clothing billowed, wind following the tiger, clouds following the dragon.

That fatal slash landed only on mist—there was a ripping sound, his upper garment exploded, but his form had vanished. Life hidden in the mountains, lost within the clouds.

His silhouette darted away with inconceivable speed, and though the master’s blade, imbued with all his vital energy, struck with full force, in that instant, the enemy still managed to escape.

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“What a pity,” the master sighed deeply. In the unity of man and blade, he felt clearly that if the tip had gone even a tenth of an inch deeper, it would have cut the spine—and then escape would have been impossible.

“If not for Princess Sakura’s delaying tactics, now that the enemy is wounded, his strength greatly diminished, this is the best moment to finish him.”

“Damn it! How dare the enemy commander seek my head—kill, kill!” Princess Sakura gnashed her teeth.

“Are your injuries severe, Princess? Will you pursue this villain yourself?”

“This man must die!” With her uninjured left hand, she picked up Child-Slasher once more. Mastery of sword in both hands was a foundational skill for any elite assassin.

‘What a magnificent blade,’ the master thought. The spirit within had shielded its master—there were few such sentient swords in all the land.

Had it not been so, Sakura would have been captured, and the master could have slain them both, blaming the deaths on the enemy, leaving no flaw in his plan.

The master was one of the four grandmasters of the assassins—neither vassal to Sakura’s mother nor subordinate to Zhu Baoyai. His loyalty was to the entire order, which prided itself on bloodlines and would never allow an outsider to become its future head.

Setting fires in daylight, filling the air with smoke, and knowing the blaze would soon spread—his adversary, a master of the fist, hiding with the southern princess in the woods, had but one chance: to kidnap the enemy commander.

And the master had deliberately withheld any warning, hoping the abduction would succeed.

Whether in spirit technique or swordplay, the greatest strength always lay in cunning.

A pity about Child-Slasher.

The assassins filed in. This time, the enemy was not only wounded but trapped amid smoke and flame. With the master, Princess Sakura, and the entire assassin order on the hunt, his head would surely be theirs.

…

Near the strange tree, four ripe, monstrous fruits had vanished once more, while from the tangled grass came a bizarre, singsong chant:

“Big rabbit fell ill, second rabbit came, third rabbit bought herbs, fourth rabbit brewed, fifth rabbit died, sixth rabbit carried, seventh rabbit dug the pit, eighth rabbit buried, ninth rabbit sat crying on the ground, tenth rabbit asked, ‘Why do you weep?’ Ninth rabbit said, ‘Fifth rabbit is gone, never to return…’”

“Big rabbit fell ill, second rabbit came, third rabbit bought herbs, fourth rabbit brewed…”

Silver-gray moonlight spilled down, shining on the rustling grass nests, and the song rang out ever louder. Who knows how much time passed before a shrill, piercing scream split the air, as if child’s wailing and an old crone’s keening had fused into one, grating against the very soul like glass shattering.

By then, the fire had spread to the roots of the strange tree. That eerie, oppressive sensation once again emanated from the woods. This time, the face that emerged from the darkness was Lin Su’e.