He stopped on a mountain path that cut through the valley like a scar. His cracked and calloused hand traced the Nine-Ring Mountain-Shaking Hammer at his waist. Six pairs of its Profound Steel Rings were broken, the remaining clasps like the shed fangs of a great beast. A few deep blue scales, embedded in the gnarled gashes on the hammer’s head, glinted coldly in the twilight.

The group behind him snaked through the evening mist like a dying python.

Flanking him were twelve Rangers, Ten-Foot Horse-Cutting Sabers strapped to their backs. Dark red scabs of blood seeped out from under their Profound Iron Armor. In their midst, a wizened old man leaned on a Pigeon Staff, pausing every three steps to press a hand to the festering wound on his waist and gasp for air. A woman cradling a sleeping child brought up the rear.

Other than the crunch of straw sandals on gravel, the group was unnervingly silent.

Even the three-year-old child bit down hard on his coarse swaddling cloth. The only sound was the mournful whimper of metal plates clashing as the mountain wind blew through their tattered Armor.

Fu Jin glanced back, sighing to himself. ’I should have headed to Qingzhou’s Divine Weapon Ridge, consequences be damned. Instead, I somehow became the backbone of this group.’

’Hopefully, the disciples of the Celestial Craft Cave’s Giant Kite Team got the message out. Hopefully, someone from the sect is coming to reinforce us.’

The next moment, Fu Jin dismissed the thought.

These days, apart from the three core states still held by the Nine Radiance Sect, the vast majority of Yanbei Dao was under Daqian’s control. Even Yanbei City itself was on the brink of collapse.

As the last ray of sunlight was swallowed by the valley’s depths, the sharp SNAP of a twig came from somewhere nearby. The cold glint of twenty Horse-Cutting Sabers being drawn at once startled the sleeping Ghost-faced Bats on the cliff face.

At the instant the twig snapped, Fu Jin’s hands had already snatched the twin hammers from his waist.

The Nine-Ring Mountain-Shaking Hammer began to hum with the slight tremble of his wrist. The veins bulged on his knuckles, his grip so tight the haft creaked.

The cold glint from twenty drawn Horse-Cutting Sabers sent night owls scattering from their roosts in the rock crevices.

Fu Jin did not raise the twin hammers. Instead, he let them hang at his sides, swaying slightly, the crisscrossing gashes on the hammer heads perfectly shielding the vital points of his throat and heart.

"Marshal Lu, your Snake-shaped Sword is half an inch slow."

Fu Jin stared at the figure in Profound Armor emerging from the mist. Three claw marks on the man’s left cheek glowed a dark red in the twilight, his eyes holding a trace of lament.

"Back in our days at the Cangwu Mountain Xuan Yue Gate, the sword in your hand could pierce Triple Rhinoceros Armor. Today, it seems to have grown a bit soft."

A soft CLICK came from the mechanism beneath Lu Zhaoyang’s Profound Iron Bracelet. Seven barbed Tungsten Steel Chains shot out from the rock walls on both sides. On their ends were not the Flying Claws common in the Mortal World, but military-issue Armor-Piercing Awls.

He unfastened his crimson cloak, tossing it onto a pile of gravel and revealing the imperially-bestowed Bi’an emblem on his chest. He looked at Fu Jin, whose face was weathered from hardship and sleepless for days.

"Brother Fu, it’s been many years. I thought you had died at Divine Weapon Ridge. When I passed by a few years ago, I even made a special trip to pay my respects."

A hint of a smile touched Fu Jin’s lips. "Sorry to have made you waste the sentiment. I’m alive and well."

Lu Zhaoyang gave a wry laugh, shaking his head slightly. Then his expression quickly grew cold.

"Brother Fu, Daqian has taken control and issued the Forbidden Martial Law, banning Martial Power among the populace. For Martial Artists like us, the only way forward is to join Daqian’s Luo Net. It’s our only chance for survival.

If Brother Fu is willing to hand over this pair of Mountain-Shaking Hammers, the position of Marshal in the Luo Net..."

The Nine-Ring Hammer suddenly shot out. The battered head grazed past Lu Zhaoyang’s ear, smashing a spiderweb of cracks into a granite boulder thirty feet away.

Fu Jin took half a step back into a horse stance, the hammer’s haft groaning under the strain of his grip. "So you slaughtered the Martial Arts sects of the seven states? And counted an eighty-year-old woman’s foot-binding cloth as a deadly weapon?"

Lu Zhaoyang, who had sidestepped the hammer, shifted his feet.

The cold flash of the unsheathed Snake-shaped Sword was like a viper’s tongue, striking close in an instant.

As Lu Zhaoyang stepped forward to attack, the opening revealed by his slightly limping left leg made Fu Jin’s pupils contract. He was suddenly reminded of the wound Lu Zhaoyang had received years ago, when the two of them had hunted down a pair of Bandits together.

Sword and hammer clashed in an instant.

Sparks flew as the sword scraped against the hammer’s haft, illuminating the bloodshot veins in Lu Zhaoyang’s eyes. "The Forbidden Weapons List, personally approved by the Emperor of Daqian, is perfectly clear!" he snarled. "For every blade we confiscate from the people, one less battalion dies on the border! The world gains a measure of peace!"

The corner of Fu Jin’s mouth twitched into a cold smirk.

"Since when did you become Daqian’s dog, Lu Zhaoyang, and learn to bark so righteously?"

"Brother Fu, a fine bird chooses its branch, and a wise man knows the times. Think of how many people the Great Zhou’s Demon Emperor has ruined! Daqian has come to cleanse the universe and purge the demonic. This is what I have always wanted!"

The next instant, as Lu Zhaoyang’s Snake-shaped Sword got stuck in a crack on the hammer’s haft, Fu Jin suddenly let go of the hammer.

As the blood-and-rust-stained Nine-Ring Mountain-Shaking Hammer fell, his calloused right hand shot out like a striking dragon. Two fingers jabbed precisely into the Huantiao acupoint in the old wound on Lu Zhaoyang’s left leg—a hidden vulnerability left by a Wolf Fang Arrow years ago, a secret known only to the two of them.

The General in Profound Armor grunted and dropped to one knee. Fu Jin spun to catch the falling Iron Hammer, its remaining barbs pressing against Lu Zhaoyang’s throat.

Twenty paces away, the bodies of six Rangers lay in pools of blood, their Horse-Cutting Sabers still held in a defensive stance even in death. The remaining Rangers roared, still locked in a desperate struggle with the black-armored Daqian soldiers.

"It seems I haven’t completely forgotten the Breaking Blade Seven Forms you taught me."

Panting heavily, Fu Jin tore off a strip from his ragged clothes and used it to bind the Mountain-Shaking Hammer to his right hand.

Without the slightest hesitation, he brought it down on Lu Zhaoyang’s head.

DANG!

A Giant Axe came spinning from the depths of the forest, shearing through several massive trees. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

As the tungsten steel blade cleaved the air, Fu Jin had already raised his Mountain-Shaking Hammer in a sky-ward block.

The two weapons collided with the muffled BOOM of a falling star. The muscles on Fu Jin’s arms instantly bulged with veins like green pythons. His linen bracers disintegrated, and the remaining rings on his hammer shattered in unison, the weapon letting out a dying hum.

Under the immense pressure of the axe, the hammer’s haft bent into a grotesque arc. The one-hundred-and-twenty-jin weapon of Profound Iron was blasted from his grip. It flew sideways, shattering three stone pillars before embedding itself in the cliff face with a thunderous CRASH. New cracks spiderwebbed across the hammer’s head like lightning splitting the night sky.

Fu Jin stumbled back seven steps, his back carving a half-foot-deep furrow into the cliff face.

Black blood, mixed with chunks of his internal organs, surged up his throat and splattered across the ground.

When the dust and smoke cleared, the chain-wrapped Ornate Patterned Giant Axe was embedded in the rocky ground ten paces away.

A giant of a man stood on the end of the axe’s haft, clad only in the upper half of a suit of Iron Armor. The muscles on his exposed right shoulder were as gnarled as ancient tree roots, and with every contraction, they hummed like a drawn bowstring.

When he stepped off the axe haft and onto the ground, the gravel within a thirty-foot radius actually jumped half an inch into the air.

"Damn it, what a waste of my time."

Tuoba Lie glanced at Lu Zhaoyang struggling to get up from the ground, spat, and muttered under his breath.

"I have no idea what His Majesty is thinking, recruiting these Martial Artists. They’re as weak as newborn chicks."

He slowly straightened, looking down at the incapacitated Fu Jin at his feet. He sneered, and just as he was about to bring down his Ornate Patterned Giant Axe, his expression shifted.

He looked up at the sky above.

A piercing roar suddenly exploded from overhead, and a crimson figure, like a falling star, could be seen plummeting downwards.