The storm of steel and iron Qi outside Third Willow Lane transford the quiet rainy evening into a warzone.
Through the shattered window fra of the archives, the collision of energies was blinding. Old ng’s grey, resting steel Qi burned with the desperate, jagged intensity of a dying ember, forcing his decaying pathways to output everything they had left. But Commander Yuan was an unyielding glacier. Moving with flawless, rhythmic precision, his short iron batons cut through the air, systematically deflecting ng’s heavy slashes while his cold, iron-attributed Qi froze the moisture in the air into jagged frost rings.
Thud. Clang!
Old ng was thrown backward across the wet cobblestones, his boots sliding three feet through the mud before he could anchor his weight. A thin line of crimson leaked from his lips, his chest heaving violently. Inside his body, his decayed ridians were tearing themselves apart like rotted ropes under a heavy load. He had less than two minutes before his core structurally collapsed.
Inside the ruined lobby, buried beneath the splintered frawork of the collapsed oak ladder, Shen Jin lay perfectly still.
He didn't panic. He pulled up his pale-blue translucent screen, his dark eyes wide and completely cold.
📊 HOST PROFILE
Na: Shen Jin
Realm: Third Seal of Qi — Qi Gathering (Late Stage)
Vanguard Points (VP): 25
📜 ACTIVE PASSIVE SKILLS:
[Absolute Obscurity - Rank: Max]
[Danger Sense Radar - Rank: 1]
[Vanguard Ward - Rank: 1] (Active)
I have twenty-five points, Shen Jin’s mind calculated with clinical efficiency. I cannot step out there and execute a high-level manual openly. If I do, Yuan will recognize the style of a regressor or a hidden master, and the Flowing Jade Chamber’s main inner council will lock down the entire district. I need to tilt the scales through a sequence of natural, catastrophic environntal failures.
He accessed the Vanguard Exchange Shop (Tier 2).
🏪 VANGUARD EXCHANGE SHOP (TIER 2)
[Deflection Array Seals (Set of 3)] — Cost: 15 VP
(Disposable spiritual tags hidden in walls. Subtly bends the trajectory of incoming ranged elental attacks or physical objects by up to 15 degrees.)
[Shatter-Trigger Mark] — Cost: 10 VP
[ridian Washing Dew (Mid-Grade)] — Cost: 25 VP
Purchase the Deflection Array Seals, Shen Jin commanded ntally.
[Transaction Complete. 15 Vanguard Points deducted.]
[Current Balance: 10 VP.]
[Items deployed. Three Deflection Array Seals stored in System Inventory.]
Shen Jin materialized the three invisible, stamp-sized spiritual tags into his right palm. Utilizing [Glinting Shadow Steps], his figure blurred into absolute, weightless fluidity. He phased through the deep shadows of the collapsed bookcases, moving through the ruined lobby toward the broken storefront without making a single sound or generating a ripple of Qi.
With three rapid, phantom-like flicks of his wrist, he launched the invisible tags through the rainy air.
The first seal embedded itself into the rotted wooden support beam of the library’s overhanging roof tile awning. The second slamd into a heavy iron streetlamp post right outside the threshold. The third attached itself to the stone base of a nearby drainage conduit.
Outside on the slick cobblestones, Commander Yuan raised his twin iron batons, his face completely smooth and devoid of expression as he stepped toward Old ng. His sixth-seal iron Qi flared, condensing into a dense, vibrating lance of absolute piercing force around his right weapon.
"Your foundation is a sieve, ng," Yuan whispered, his voice cutting through the downpour like a cold wire. "Your sword has no edge left. Die with your paper."
Yuan lunged forward—a movent so fast it blurred the falling raindrops into static lines. He thrust his iron baton straight toward Old ng’s throat.
Old ng roared, raising his unadorned iron blade to initiate a suicidal counter-strike, intending to take the assassin down with him.
[🚨 DANGER SENSE ACTIVATED!]
Lethal Strike Imminent.
Trajectory: Linear piercing vector targeting Ally (Old ng).
Optimal Low-Key Counter-Path: Trigger Deflection Seal 1 via a minor kinetic vibration.
Shen Jin, currently crouching behind the shattered fra of the front door, breathed out a concentrated wisp of twilight energy through his fingers, striking the rotted awning beam where the first Deflection Seal was hidden.
Hum.
The invisible array ignited. It didn't launch a flashy shield. Instead, it subtly manipulated the gravitational density of the air within a two-foot pocket right in front of Commander Yuan’s advancing boot.
It was a microscopic deviation. As Yuan stepped forward to complete his lethal thrust, his boot passed through an area where the friction of the wet mud was altered by exactly twelve percent. His heel didn't slide out spectacularly like a common thug's; rather, his high-level martial alignnt shifted by less than a quarter of an inch.
But at the sixth seal of Qi, where a strike's lethality is calculated based on absolute, linear perfection, that quarter-inch shift was everything.
The vibrating lance of iron Qi surrounding his baton grazed the side of Old ng’s rusted iron collar, missing his throat entirely. The imnse kinetic force of the missed strike shot past ng's shoulder, blasting a deep, smoking trench into the mud behind him.
"What—?!" Yuan’s blank eyes flickered with a brief, razor-sharp spark of confusion. He had executed that thrust ten thousand tis; his body did not make geotric errors.
Before Yuan could re-align his center of gravity, Old ng’s survival instincts took over. Seeing the massive opening, the old captain smashed the heavy hilt of his iron sword brutally into Commander Yuan’s left shoulder, accompanied by a desperate, Qi-infused kick to the assassin's hip.
CRACK!
Yuan was forced backward, his boots scraping sharply against the stones. He redirected his montum, spinning gracefully in the rain to launch a secondary, long-range throwing attack. Three more black steel core needles materialized between his fingers, humming with high-frequency iron energy. He threw them simultaneously, targeting ng’s chest.
Shen Jin watched the needles clear Yuan’s hand. He instantly triggered the second and third Deflection Seals hidden in the iron streetlamp and the stone drainage conduit.
Ping. Ping.
The two invisible arrays rippled in sequence.
The three black steel needles, flying through the heavy downpour, encountered a sudden, chaotic cross-current of localized kinetic pressure. To an outside observer, it looked like a violent, erratic gust of the mountain wind had suddenly ripped down the narrow alleyway, catching the rain.
The trajectory of the three lethal projectiles bent sharply by fifteen degrees.
Instead of piercing Old ng’s vital organs, two of the needles slamd violently into the heavy iron fra of the streetlamp post with a sharp, tallic CLANG, snapping the tal in half. The third needle shot downward into the mud, striking a forgotten, rusted iron chain used for securing cargo wagons.
The chain, wrapped under tension around a heavy stone hitching post, snapped like a whip under the imnse kinetic puncture.
WHACK-CRACK!
The broken, heavy iron link of the chain flew through the dark rainy air like a piece of high-velocity shrapnel. It didn't hit Old ng. With a spectacularly absurd, unpredictable angle of bounce, the iron link tore through the fog, striking Commander Yuan squarely across his left kneecap.
"Ugh!" Yuan let out a sharp, guttural groan, his leg buckling instantly as the heavy iron link fractured his joint capsule.
He staggered sideways, his perfect, icy composure finally shattering as he looked down at his bleeding knee, then at the snapped cargo chain, and finally at the broken streetlamp. It was a sequence of structural failures so utterly random, yet so catastrophically coordinated, that his logical mind was entirely paralyzed.
The cross-wind... the tension of the cargo line... a freak ricochet? Yuan thought, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck as he looked back at the ruined archives. Is this entire district cursed?
Old ng stood in the rain, his iron blade trembling, his breathing a ragged wheeze, but his clear eye was fixed on the limping assassin. "It seems... the ancestors of this city... do not favor the council's dogs today, Yuan," ng mockingly panted, though he was using his sword as a crutch just to stay upright.
Commander Yuan stared at Old ng, then at the caved-in storefront across the street where his scouts had been crushed by a signpost just days ago. The pattern was undeniable. This area was a hotspot of unnatural, lethal environntal anomalies. To an elite assassin who operated on precise probabilities, a location that threw logic out the window was far more dangerous than a ninth-seal grandmaster.
"This is not over, ng," Yuan whispered, his face pale from the pain in his shattered knee.
He didn't risk another strike. He turned on his heel, his figure blurring as he executed a high-level retreat technique, leaping over the roofs of the lower ring tenents and disappearing into the misty darkness of the inner ring, leaving a trail of watery blood behind.
The silence returned to Third Willow Lane, save for the steady, heavy pattering of the rain.
Old ng stood alone in the mud for three seconds before his knees finally gave out. He collapsed forward, his unadorned iron sword clattering onto the stones as his consciousness faded from pure ridian exhaustion.
Inside the ruined lobby, Shen Jin quickly rolled back into his original position beneath the fallen oak ladder. He caked a fresh layer of pine ink and white wood splinters onto his arms, adjusted his expression into one of absolute, unadulterated trauma, and let out a long, loud, pathetic wail that echoed down the empty street.
"Help! The sky is falling! Master ng! Don't let the shadow n eat !"
He scrambled out from beneath the debris on his hands and knees, looking entirely pathetic as he rushed out into the rain toward the unconscious old librarian.
[PING.]
[Lethal Executive Encounter Concluded: Commander Yuan Neutralized.]
Assessnt: The host utilized Tier 2 Deflection Matrices to systematically disrupt a sixth-seal assassination squad without revealing manual execution or internal Qi reserves. Asset survival secured.
[Rewards Distributed:]
50 Vanguard Points (VP) added to the Karma Ledger.
Current Balance: 60 VP.
Shen Jin dropped to his knees in the mud beside Old ng, gently hoisting the old man's frail shoulders while letting out loud, theatrical sobs for the benefit of any hidden observers in the surrounding buildings.
But as his head remained lowered, his dark eyes locked onto the glowing text of his 60-point balance. The first major wave of the syndicate had been broken—and the ledger was finally ready for the next level of growth.
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