Cha Ming massaged the middle of his brow. Just as he was about to ask another question, he heard screams outside the door, along with the clanking of armor. He summoned his Clear Sky Staff in case of trouble but noticed they were carrying a familiar person. The door burst open, and four armored men brought Ling Dong inside. Or what was left of him.
“Please save him, Blood Doctor!” one of the guardsmen said.
Before he’d even said these words, however, Yue Bing had charged in to heal him, and Cha Ming had already fed him a runic pill and stabbed formation flags around him to assist Yue Bing however she needed. Zi Long was also there, helping however he could, and Jin Huang had rushed into the building as well.
Cha Ming sighed in relief as Ling Dong’s body began to heal. Many of his fingers had been amputated, and his feet were missing. This normally wouldn’t have been a problem for a cultivator of Ling Dong’s caliber, but special restrictive devices had been set in place to prevent these injuries from recovering. Further, many spikes had been jammed into him. Even his eyes weren’t spared from the torture.
Fortunately, Yue Bing was a miracle doctor. She first removed the spikes going through his torso and aided his body in healing the most critical damage. Then she moved on to his hands and feet. As she did so, Cha Ming used his transcendent force to break the manacles that were restraining what was left of his arms. He used his thumb and middle finger to destroy his collar, giving vision to the blind man. The blindness was temporary, of course, as Yue Bing healed his eyes shortly after.
Ling Dong shuddered but grinned when he saw Cha Ming. “I knew you hadn’t died. Those guardsmen and marshals were full of shit.”
“Who did this to you?” Cha Ming asked, barely containing his anger.
“The three newly appointed marshals and their cronies,” Ling Dong said. He stood up and stretched out, shadowboxing in the air to test out his newly grown limbs. “From what I gathered, they’re the head of the new elite corps, a wing of the City Guard.”
“Elite corps, my fins,” one of the guardsmen spat. “They’re only more powerful than us because they’ve done the unthinkable. They’ve ‘tamed’ fiendish sharks as mounts. Sharks! Those are bad enough, but fiendish ones? Is it even possible to tame them?”
It is, Huxian said. The guardsman wanted to object, but Huxian continued. I can do it, and several of my friends can. Ling Dong can do it. But aside from that, no human could. Unless… unless they used a devil-binding contract on them.
“What’s required for such a contract?” Cha Ming asked, his headache mounting.
“A devilish cultivator adept with fate affinity,” Huxian said. “If he pays a high enough price. We even know one who’s had ample time in this city and ample resources to work with. He could have been making them for years without us knowing.”
“This keeps getting better and better,” Cha Ming said. He looked to one of the guards. “How big is this elite corps?”
“Only a few hundred members,” the guardsman said. “But every one of them is a middle-formation body cultivator mounted on at least a middle-formation fiendish demon. They’re almost unmatched in the sea.”
“Great,” Cha Ming said. “Just great. This is madness. I’m half tempted to go over to the palace and just kick in the Emperor’s face.”
Elder Gan paled and looked toward the guards. They looked surprisingly amenable to the idea but shook their heads helplessly. “The Sea God Emperor is out to witness a military demonstration on the surface. I heard they were heading to Beihai City, where an armada of the Southern Alliance will be arriving a day from now.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Cha Ming hissed. “That’s not a military demonstration, that’s an invasion of the North. We need to stop this.”
“With what army?” Elder Gan asked.
It was a good point. They didn’t have an army, and apparently their enemies had two.
“Huxian, his friends, and I can hold our own against many senior cultivators, but you’re right,” Cha Ming said. “It’s not enough. What about the Alabaster Group’s forces in the city? Will they fight?”
“We’ll all help, of course,” Elder Gan said. “And some neutral cultivators might as well, if just to maintain Haijing’s neutral status. Unfortunately, they’re currently being suppressed by the headmaster.”
“Then that’s where we’ll start,” Cha Ming said. “We need as much help as we can get.”
“If I might suggest,” the leader of the guardsmen said, “most of us guardsmen don’t like the direction we’re heading in. This military demonstration—this invasion, as you called it—flies in the face of tens of thousands of years of neutrality. It’s madness. If what you’re saying is true, and they’ll either be attacking a coastal city or getting drawn into the conflict unwillingly, it’s best if the City Guard confronts the Emperor. He might be strong, but without us, what can he accomplish?”
“That’s surprisingly helpful,” Cha Ming said. “What do you need?”
“We need Ling Dong,” the guardsman said.
Cha Ming raised an eyebrow, but he continued.
“Ling Dong is highly respected amongst all the guardsmen. He’s armed many of our senior members and would be a good rallying point. Moreover, you might not know this, but Ling Dong is a huge benefactor of the City Guard. He’s tamed over twenty percent of the mounts currently in service.
“Twenty percent? How?” Cha Ming asked.
The kid’s got talent, Huxian said in a haughty tone. It’s why I picked him. Now, I’d like to add that I happen to know some friends who hate sharks, especially fiendish ones. If I leave now, I should be able to convince them to fight. I’ll
