Before, they’d been able to protect themselves against a relatively small encirclement. Now, their opponents could attack them in three dimensions. They didn’t hesitate to throw one technique after another, sending out flying swords, burning dragons, and icy phoenixes of energy to strike them. They pushed like it was the last push in their life, struggling fiercely to beat their way out of encirclement. Their enemies encouraged their flight, giving way for them but circling around, following them as they escaped.
Then one sword came through, then another, then another. Feng Ming took cuts to the arms and legs while Gong Xuandi began taking entire blades in the torso. He didn’t have time to yank them out, so they simply remained there, making him look more like a living pincushion than a human being.
Over here, a voice called out. It came from the floor up ahead.
Feng Ming didn’t hesitate. He used everything he had to push himself off toward what called him. He grabbed Gong Xuandi and noticed everything around them sinking into darkness. The darkness obscured both sight and spirit, an absolute blackness more potent than Feng Ming had ever seen.
Where the floor should have been, they found none. They fell through, then something strong appeared above them. Whether it was a formation or a physical piece of wall, he didn’t know. The darkness faded, and through their spiritual forces, they could sense their opponents even though their opponents could not sense them. Feng Ming noticed that they were in a refuge completely formed by combat sigils. Thin lines of qi ran around them, shielding them, while others were up above, creating the false ground they hid under, where many others stood.
At that moment, a man crashed down from the air into a house beside them. Half the house was instantly demolished, and the man recovered thirty feet later, pulling himself out of a deep gouge. He struck a heroic pose, his yellow armor in sharp contrast to the familiar black spear Feng Ming had lost so long ago.
No way, Feng Ming thought. He recognized the man from a folio he’d seen at a Northern Alliance meeting. That was Prince Shen, without a doubt. The heir to the Ji Kingdom, the most powerful kingdom in the Southern Alliance.
“Young prince, are you all right?” asked the leader of the royal guard, who’d joined the battle against Gong Xuandi once Feng Ming had jumped in.
“It was just a glancing blow,” Prince Shen said, fingering a deep gouge in his chestplate. The gouge didn’t seem burnt or bent; it was simply missing. Like it had never been there in the first place. “The enemy is strong. It threw me from all the way across the city. Fortunately, I had this armor. It was able to absorb the blow for me.”
“You must take care,” the guard leader said. Then he hesitated. “Did you see two strong cultivators, one a spear wielder and one a Haijing royal? They’re wreaking havoc in the city. One of them even stole from our treasury.”
The crown prince’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that while my royal father is fending off the Life-Leaching Monarch to the north, and half the transcendents in the entire South, along with a large contingent of our elites, including myself, my brothers, and two of my sisters, are fighting for the survival of our very city, our very plane, you are here chasing mere thieves?”
The guard leader paled. “I was assigned to guard the palace.”
“The palace is meaningless!” the crown prince shouted. “It’s all meaningless if we don’t save this city, don’t contain this creature. My father’s battle is excusable, because without him, the entire city would fall. But you are all here dealing with petty criminals?” He lifted his spear. “I should cut you down where you stand.”
The leader of the imperial guard, so majestic, so heroic before, could only bow his head in shame. He gripped his spear tightly, gulped, then looked up. “What are your orders, my prince?”
“Your orders are to fly to where our elites are and help destroy that creature,” Prince Shen said. “Do it now!”
“Yes, sir!” the guard leader said.
Just as they were about to fly off, however, the prince suddenly gasped and fell to one knee. “My prince!” the man said, flying up to him.
“I’ll be fine,” Prince Shen said, panting heavily. “I just need a little time. The others, they don’t have time. Go help them.”
“I’ll stay and—”
“Go!” Prince Shen yelled.
The head of the royal guard hesitated but saluted. “Let’s go, men. We have a duty to fulfill. Not just for our country, but for the South and to everyone who lives here.” They rose up in the air and shot out toward the beast, which now towered above the city walls.
Feng Ming pondered attacking the crown prince as the men left. He was a juicy target, someone they had a bounty on in the North. A surprise strike in the back was all it would take, and the spear he’d lost would be his once more. So he jumped out of the hole, concealing his presence as he snuck up behind the man. He gripped his spear, ready to stab down at the man’s exposed back, when the man changed before his very eyes. His face, his aura, his armor. Everything. Revealing a familiar figure: Cha Ming.
“Let’s go,” Cha Ming said. “We don’t have much time to waste.” Judging by his weary state, he’d also seen his fair share of fighting.
“My friend,” Feng Ming said, running up to him and giving strong hug. “You’d vanished.”
Cha Ming changed once again, this time into a heavyset middle-aged man with slightly grizzled hair.
“I don’t exist,” Cha Ming said. “I’ve never been here.” He looked uncertainly toward the Taotie. “We need to move now. Those transcendents are up to something. They’ve withdrawn from the battle and have
