The young Daoist planted his feet on the dusty road, his expression a mask of desperate sincerity. "Listen to me, I'm not some charlatan trying to swindle you. I am telling you, the road ahead leads to ruin. I can see it clinging to you all like a shroud—the glint of spilled blood, a sky choked with funeral clouds. This is not a day for travel. Worse, something… something not of this world… has made its lair up ahead. I can see you are men of strength, but the strength of the flesh is a fragile thing. I implore you, turn back now."
Guo Dutian, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, squinted. "Not of this world? What nonsense is this?"
"It's no nonsense!" the girl at the Daoist's side chirped, her chin held high with borrowed pride. "You should listen to him. My brother's second sight has never once led him astray."
The statement sent a jolt of unease through Guo Dutian. His gaze snapped to the ornate sedan chair, the heart of their convoy. A moment of silence passed before a voice, deep and resonant as a temple bell, rolled out from within.
"Daoist, what is this creature you speak of?"
"My name is Xu Zifeng," the young man replied, bowing slightly. "And this is my sister, Zhao Ziling. What I have told you is the absolute truth. A great evil waits for you."
"Describe it," the voice from the sedan demanded, calm and unshakable.
"Even if I did, the words would be meaningless to you," Xu Zifeng insisted, his voice tight with urgency. "Sir, I truly cannot stand by and watch you march into a slaughter. Please, heed my warning."
"That won't be necessary," the voice replied, a new, harder edge to its tone. "You claim to be a reader of faces. A fortune-teller. Very well. Tell my fortune. Look upon my face and tell me what you see."
The curtain of the sedan was thrown aside by a hand the size of a small ham. A figure emerged, seeming to unfold himself into the daylight, growing larger and more imposing with each inch. He was a mountain of a man, his shoulders wide enough to block the sun, his bare arms corded with thick, dense muscle. A mane of jet-black hair fell around a face that looked as if it had been carved from granite, and from him radiated a palpable heat, a shimmering aura of raw, volcanic power. He turned his gaze upon Xu Zifeng, and the young Daoist felt as if he were being physically pinned in place.
Both Xu Zifeng and his sister gasped. The sheer presence of the man was overwhelming. But then Xu Zifeng narrowed his eyes, activating the sight that had served him so well for years. He looked past the skin, past the bone, attempting to read the currents of fate etched upon the man's soul.
And he saw nothing.
It was impossible. He blinked, rubbing his eyes until they stung, and looked again. The man before him was a void, a perfect, unnerving blank. The portents of doom, the shadows of bloodshed, the encroaching darkness he had seen so clearly on the other men—none of it touched this giant. It was as if he were a blank page in the grand ledger of destiny, or perhaps a page so thoroughly shrouded in fog that no mortal eye could ever hope to read it. In all his years of practicing the art, he had never encountered anything like it. It defied all principles of his craft.
"Well, Daoist?" Jiang Dao's voice rumbled, pulling him from his stupor.
Zhao Ziling shot her brother a questioning, slightly mocking look.
Xu Zifeng's eyes darted over Jiang Dao's form one last time, a frantic search for any sign, any hint of a future. There was only a calm, terrifying emptiness. Finally, defeated, he gave a bitter smile and bowed low, his hands clasped in a gesture of respect and surrender. "Forgive my incompetence, sir. My art is not refined enough to perceive your destiny."
"A pity," Jiang Dao said, the single word dripping with disappointment. He turned without another glance and re-entered the carriage, his massive frame disappearing behind the curtain.
"Move out!" Guo Dutian bellowed, snapping the convoy back to life. The thunder of hooves resumed, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Sir, wait! Be careful!" Xu Zifeng cried out, his warning swallowed by the noise.
Jiang Dao's men didn't pause, their column vanishing down the winding road. Xu Zifeng stood frozen, his mind a whirlwind of confusion.
"See, Brother Xu?" Zhao Ziling said, nudging him playfully. "I told you that you were getting rusty. Some ordinary man walks up, and you can't read a thing. What do you have to say for yourself now?"
"I…" Xu Zifeng started, but the words wouldn't come. His face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and profound bewilderment. How? How is that possible?
A sudden thought seized him. He fumbled in his pouch, producing three ancient, worn copper coins. Cupping them in his hands, he closed his eyes and whispered a frantic incantation, his thumbs rubbing patterns into the cool metal. He shook them, the rattling sound sharp in the sudden quiet, and then cast them into his open palm. He stared down at the pattern they formed.
His breath caught in his throat. "The reading… It's changed." He leaned closer, his eyes tracing the lines and orientations of the coins. "The path ahead is still fraught with a killing-omen, yes, but now… now there's a powerful life-line running through it. A singular point of brilliant fortune. It says that if this chance is seized, the calamity can be transformed, the path cleared of all obstacles."
"You're kidding," Zhao Ziling whispered, her playful demeanor gone.
"It was him," Xu Zifeng breathed, his eyes wide with a dawning, terrifying realization. "That man… he changed the very fabric of fate just by being here." He snatched up the coins and rushed back to the roadside tavern. "Shopkeeper!" he called out. "Those men who just left—who are they?"
The shopkeeper, who had been watching from his doorway, paled. "Who? Son, you must be new here. That was the Fierce Flame Gang, the most feared name in the entire Southern Prefecture. And from the looks of that procession, the man you were talking to was their leader. You tried to read his fortune? You're lucky you still have a head on your shoulders."
"The leader of the Fierce Flame Gang…" Xu Zifeng repeated, a sense of awe mixing with his fear. He turned to his sister, his eyes blazing with a newfound purpose. "Come on. We're going after them."
The road narrowed into a grim canyon, the cliffs on either side like jagged teeth against the bruised twilight sky. Jiang Dao's convoy galloped onward, the horses' hooves striking sparks from the rocky path. As they emerged from the oppressive passage, the vanguard, led by Guo Dutian and Du Feng, reined in their mounts so sharply that the horses screamed in protest.
The scene before them was a portrait of hell. A dense, ancient wood bordered the road, and from the thick, gnarled branches of every tree hung a corpse. Dozens of them. Hundreds, perhaps. They swayed gently in the evening breeze, a silent, macabre audience to their arrival.
"Gang Leader," Guo Dutian called out, his voice strained, "we have a problem."
Jiang Dao needed no such warning. His gaze, sharp as obsidian shards, had already pierced the thin veil of the carriage curtain, taking in the full, grotesque tableau. The sight of the dead, clearly martial artists by their garb, only cemented his conviction: Black Mountain Town was under siege.
He was about to give the order to advance when a flicker of movement, impossibly fast, caught his eye.
A low whistle became a monstrous roar. From the depths of the forest, a weapon of nightmarish proportions—a spiked mace as thick around as a man's torso—came hurtling through the air. It blurred with speed, trailing an aura of pure murderous intent, aimed directly at Guo Dutian's head.
The man had no time to even raise a hand. The world slowed to a crawl, the shadow of the mace eclipsing the sky. Terror locked his muscles, a cold certainty of his own imminent, brutal demise. But in that final, stretched-out instant, a shimmering, crimson web erupted from the sedan chair. It shot forward, wrapping around the charging mace with a hiss of superheated air.
BOOM!
The impact was thunderous. The mace stopped dead, less than six inches from Guo Dutian's face. The shockwave tore through the air, whipping his hair across his face and stinging his skin like a thousand needles. He stared, wide-eyed, at the weapon's brutal construction—each iron spike was barbed and wicked, glinting with a cold, unholy light. He was drenched in a sudden, icy sweat, the phantom sensation of his skull shattering still ringing in his ears.
"You court death," a voice of pure, cold fury announced. Jiang Dao stepped from the carriage, his presence extinguishing the last of the day's warmth. With a casual flick of his wrist, he plucked the colossal mace from the air, its weight seeming like nothing in his grasp. He hefted it onto his shoulder and turned his gaze to the woods.
A figure had emerged from the shadows. It was draped in a black, tattered robe, its long hair hanging like a veil over its face. Its hands, tipped with long, jet-black claws, hung limply at its sides. An aura of decay and grave-cold malevolence rolled off it in palpable waves as it stood, perfectly still, by the roadside.
Jiang Dao began to walk forward, dragging the head of the mace along the ground, the sound of scraping iron a promise of violence. The black-robed creature remained motionless. As Jiang Dao drew near, the creature finally moved.
It didn't run or leap. It simply vanished. The air screamed as it was torn asunder, and a black, poisoned claw materialized an inch from Jiang Dao's temple.
But Jiang Dao was faster. The mace in his hand was no longer a clumsy, heavy object. It became a blur, an extension of his will, moving with a speed that defied physics. It swung horizontally, seeming to pass through space itself.
The resulting CRACK was not just sound, but a physical concussion that shook the very trees. The creature was hit square in the torso and launched sideways like a projectile from a siege engine. It crashed into a massive oak with enough force to splinter the trunk, blood and something darker spraying from the point of impact. Both of its arms were mangled, twisted into unrecognizable shapes.
Jiang Dao didn't pause. He continued his relentless advance, his face a mask of cold indifference.
The creature lay in a heap, emitting guttural groans of agony. Its shattered body was a ruin of blood and bone, yet a faint, sickly green mist was already beginning to seep from its wounds, a sign of unnatural regeneration. Its arms, however, were beyond even its own dark power to repair.
"Pain…" it rasped, the sound like grinding stones.
"Does it?" Jiang Dao's voice was devoid of all pity as he stood over the broken thing. "It will be over soon." He raised the mace high above his head.
A flicker of absolute terror crossed the creature's hidden face. It tried to scramble away, its body contorting in a desperate, sideways lurch.
It was useless.
The mace descended, breaking a barrier of speed and space. The shriek of its passage was the last sound the creature ever heard. This time, the blow was absolute. The creature's body didn't just break; it detonated. It exploded in a shower of gore and splintered bone, a wet, final punctuation to its existence. Every last fragment was instantly consumed by a black, roaring fire, leaving nothing behind but sizzling, greasy stains on the forest floor.
Jiang Dao let the mace fall to the ground with a heavy thud. He spared a single glance toward the distant silhouette of Black Mountain Town. Turning back to his men, he vaulted onto the back of a nearby warhorse.
"Ditch the carriages," he commanded, his voice a cold whip-crack of authority. "We ride, now. Full speed. No more delays."