Chương 123: A Mockery of Death, I

Wu Hao raised the spear, stabbed it down into the last Array Doll's heart, and exhaled loudly as it sputtered and stopped moving, its black beady eyes still fixated on him. If not for the fact that he'd knocked it off its feet first, it would have fallen over, but even now it still sagged back, its arms going limp in ways that made clear that they wouldn't be moving again.

"That's the last one," he said. Next to him, Hanzi nodded silently.

"Now what?" she asked. Huifei raised her head, having finished off the last of the Array Dolls on her end as well. There was some tiredness visible in her qi, a vague sense of strain, but she didn't let it show on her face.

"Can you move?" Wu Hao asked. Hanzi pouted.

"I'm tired, not a lame duck."

"Good," Wu Hao said. He whirled his spear, ridding it of the vestiges of flesh still stuck to it. Then he placed it on his back again, where it didn't get in the way and it was easier to carry. It only took him two tries.

"Now we go in and end this." As they made their way through the mansion's silent, dusty corridors, Wu Hao kept his eyes in front, his ears open for anything that happened nearby, and his senses fixated on nothing in particular. The mansion had clearly seen better days, but that much had been clear from the outside. All the inside could do was make this clearer.

Holes had been chewed into the wallpaper of what might have once been a beautiful home, allowing rats in that didn't even bother to scurry away from the sound of their footsteps. The walls were discolored occasionally where paintings might have hung, with only the occasional picture still hanging up. Elegant calligraphy browned and turned nearly translucent with age.

There was a particular order to each of the rooms they passed with their doors stuck permanently open, from the glances that Wu Hao had thrown inside: each of the objects arranged just so, but left to gather dust. He shook his head and dismissed the thoughts. He wasn't here to sightsee or to gawp: he was here to kill a man. Two signatures still loomed ahead.

Despite Wu Hao's senses still slightly fuzzy, he was certain that these two signatures, and their own three, were the only martial artists left in the entirety of the mansion. That left two things to kill, then. They ran past another empty room, this time made up with a bed and everything. Wu Hao saw a child's things there: a dirty doll, which might have once been a little girl's. It'd been left to gather dust. He could have gone faster, but Hanzi was still clearly winded from the technique that she'd used earlier.

Her movement technique occasionally sputtered out in the space between one step and the next and she had to catch herself before she accidentally tumbled into a wall. Huifei kept pace, though, and she occasionally bit her lip and looked over to Hanzi. It was clear what she wanted, and Wu Hao slowed just enough after bounding up a staircase that she noticed and gave him a small nod of gratitude, before stopping altogether. Annoyed with himself for not just maintaining pace, he stopped as well.

"Hanzi," Huifei called, to her groaning fellow disciple.

"Come on, it's just a little farther."

"Right," Hanzi panted. The cloud-like nature of her qi had since shrunken, most of it having gone into that needle technique, and now there were only wisps left. She puffed and slowed as well.

"I'll be right there." Huifei gave Wu Hao a look, but he had no clue what she wanted and he said nothing as a result until she actually spoke.

"Who's in there?" she asked. She'd caught the attention he'd been paying, then.

"Another of the things," Wu Hao said. He breathed slowly until Hanzi had walked over.

"And someone else." Together they made for the biggest door, behind which the room lay where the signatures were. It was slightly ajar. Things had been painted on top of the door and all around it, though they weren't arrays as such. Wu Hao wondered what they meant. His knowledge wasn't able to connect it to anything he'd seen before, and it didn't have the organized nature of writing as far as he could tell. Just looked like a beast had tried to brute-force its way through the door.

"Someone else?" Huifei repeated.

"I don't know who he is," Wu Hao said.

"I recognize his qi, though. It's more of the same."

"What does that mean?"

"Don't know," Wu Hao said honestly.

"We'll see." Huifei gave a nod like this somewhat reassured her, and then Hanzi tried to squint beyond the door.

"I can't see," she whispered.

"The karma, I mean. Not through the door." Wu Hao nodded. He'd expected as much, though he wouldn't admit that he felt a little thrill of superiority running through him. He was about to take his spear, but then Huifei stopped him. Another flash of qi had given her another message, which she was listening to intently.

"Senior Sister says," she said, and then her qi shook a little. She stared at Wu Hao as if she knew that she was going to ask something unreasonable.

"She says not to kill whoever's inside. The Martial Arts Alliance investigators have questions." Wu Hao stared mutely.

"Don't kill him?" he asked. Huifei nodded. Great. He grunted and pulled out his spear again from where he'd bound it to his back. Gripping it too tightly still hurt - already the first signs of chafing were beginning to be felt all along his palms, and muscles he'd never intentionally used before now felt like they were going to be sore in the morning. Good enough, he decided. He'd be satisfied if there was a morning, after this.

"Are you ready?" Huifei took a deep breath and nodded. Next to her, Hanzi did the same, wiping sweat from her forehead.

"Ready when you are," she whispered, and stood up. Wu Hao kicked the doors in without further ado. The inside of the room was dark, with only a single source of light: the lamp in the center of the room, which blazed with an eerily bright light but didn't illuminate all that much. The little it showed was that the room's floorboards were rotting in places, that talismans inscribed in blood on every surface including most of the floor, and that a chair had been set near the lamp.

A man sat in there - the bright light of the lamp twisted as Wu Hao watched, nearly turning the man's blue hair into a whitish sort of color.

"I am Mu Jun," he roared, his pinprick eyes staring at Wu Hao and Huifei.

"Who are -" Wu Hao's qi roared into motion and he followed it immediately, the spear whirling around as he launched himself using a rapid step. The Dragon Gate Ascending Art threw him forward, the tip of his spear an arrow that would penetrate the man in the chair before he could even finish his sentence. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

But as he hurtled forward, his senses caught the feeling of movement and he had to turn his dash into a roll that sent him tumbling along the sodden wood of the floor, because where he might have otherwise have been an enormous spear crashed into the floor and cracked even more of the floorboards. Coming to a stop, Wu Hao stared at the thing that had just attacked him as it came into the light, moving silently and with plodding steps. But this thing didn't just have the same arrays as the other Array Dolls.

More designs had been scribbled on every single available surface, like tattoos that covered every single inch of skin. Where flesh had rotten away, its creator had simply carved into bone. It was a mismatched monstrosity that made no pretensions to humanity, unlike the others Wu Hao had seen. The spear it bore in its hands was the size of his entire body almost twice over, with a blade long enough to be a saber serving as its tip.

Its arms had been enlarged and elongated, bulging with muscle and an extra elbow joint on the arm. Its skin was patched up in places and simply left unattached in others: a sort of patchwork doll of flesh and skin and muscle. Huifei turned green at the sight of it, and Hanzi outright vomited onto the floor. Wu Hao didn't feel much better. Even for him, this was fucked. He stood up straight, staring at the thing and the man who apparently commanded it.

Now that he got a better look at this Mu Jun, it appeared that he wore a sort of crown made of thin, blackish metal that reflected no light at all but instead almost seemed to absorb it. The entire thing had been inscribed with more arrays than Wu Hao had ever seen - had even considered that might be theoretically possible to inscribe onto one surface. It was a piece of art. He'd never imagined human hands might deliver work so finely carved. It was leagues beyond his own level of skill.

It was also, he recognized, what was giving the commands to the creature, as it stomped forward. Strength gave it a deceptive speed, though it at least didn't seem able to use techniques the way the others had. He shot a glance at Huifei, whose hands gripped her sword tightly, and then Wu Hao launched himself at Mu Jun, trying to speed past the creature and crack its master's skull. The monstrous thing smashed wildly around it in a whirling movement that had all the strength of five men.

If it had hit, it would have cut Wu Hao in half. Failing that, it'd have splattered Wu Hao across the floor, the walls, and probably the roof. Blurring steps kept him moving in a circle, avoiding the strike but also unable to come much closer to Mu Jun. Whatever else was true about the creature, it didn't seem to really even need eyes, and Wu Hao realized that that was because the thing was relying on Mu Jun for sight.

Gritting his teeth he juggled his spear so that he was only holding it with a single hand, plucking a knife from his belt with the other. In mid-movement it was hard to aim, but he'd hit in worse conditions. It sped towards Mu Jun, who frowned. The thing intercepted his knife after he'd thrown, jumping forward to shield its leader from the impact. The knife thudded into its thick forearm and detonated.

Whatever else had been done it to its skin in the process of creating it, it had been effective, because only small fragments of flesh dropped off. Blood dripped. Fine, then. Wu Hao gathered his qi again, took a deep breath, and stopped running. No place for jumping, limited resources. Huifei took that moment as a sign to leap in and aim a slash at Mu Jun, who stumbled away from the blade. Wu Hao darted forwards, inside the range of the thing's monstrous spear.

The tip flashed past as Wu Hao ducked, nearly bowled off his feet by the sheer ripping winds. The tip of his spear flashed as he tried several stabs, prodding the thing's defense. It had been made tough, though, and with even more treated skin than its already hardy arms, Wu Hao's hard stabs managed to draw about as much blood as a mosquito bite. He took a step backwards on instinct so that he wouldn't be disembowelled, and reset his position. One leg in front, one leg back.

The qi had to be just right, and he breathed out as he made it click into place.

"One Strike Spear Art," he said.

"Lung Collapser." A flash of steel moving like quicksilver through the air, and when it ended Wu Hao's hands clung to the spear, which had carved a long furrow through the thing's chest and pierced into its lung cavity. Wu Hao's spear had sunken deep. He couldn't pull it out, and the thing simply raised its arms. It normally would have been impossible for it to use a spear at this angle, but then that was why the second arm joint had been added. He hadn't hit it in the core or in the brain.

It had suffered flesh wounds, but not anything to debilitate it. It might have smirked, were it human enough to do so. Mu Jun let out a little giggle mad enough for the both of them, though. Staring directly into its dead black eyes Wu Hao smiled as well as he felt Huifei's qi ignite itself again. She'd stepped back just enough that all of Mu Jun's attention was on him, and that was why he'd spoken the name of his technique.

"Rooted King Sword," she spoke softly.

"Golden Root." And then, with a single swing, she cut through the thing's back and ripped it open. Wu Hao kept an eye on the thing's gaze as it stiffened, as Mu Jun let out a howl of outrage, and started babbling nonsense.

"No!" he finally screamed.

"No, no, no! This wasn't what I was promised! It wasn't supposed to be like this!" Wu Hao breathed in deeply, felt the sweat bead on his forehead, and then tried to pull the spear back out again. It remained stuck, though. Fuck. He turned to Mu Jun, ready to end this, one way or another. The man just smiled at him, though. A shiver went up Wu Hao's spine.

"Ah," Mu Jun said, and suddenly the insanity in his voice was utterly gone. That crown let out another pulse, a heavy one that was tinged with finality.

"Just kidding, by the way. Bye, kids." Wu Hao spun back around, staring with wide eyes as he tried to figure out what had just happened. Only too late did he notice that the creature had had several more patterns etched along its spine, along its heart, and on the inside of its ribs. Instead of simply expiring, the rest of the qi that had collected in the core gathered into a vessel that had been prepared. It swelled and grew and grew like a balloon, but there was only so much that it could take.

"Run!" someone screamed, and he was surprised to find that it was him. Huifei just stared, though, open-mouthed, her sword still only partially out of the thing's back. And then, of course, the monstrous Array Doll exploded.