The blade glistened again, the blood on its edge catching on the underside of Hao’s forearm, while the blade stuck through the top.

  Mo Bangcai twisted the handle. It moved with a slight flex as it opened the wound between the bones, giving Hao a clear view of the inside of his arm.

  Hao moved his arm. He brought his left thumb up to the sky, which made his flesh and bones pinch down on the sharp blade. If he could pull it free, he would. But there was a slight curve at the end of the sharp steel that made the small dagger into a fang, stubbornly stuck in his flesh.

  The pain wasn’t small, but Hao’s eyes were narrowed. He stared right past his forearm to the one that gave his gang enough courage to beat an old man to death simply for protecting his wife and painting freely. His body felt alive. A strange way to put it, but that was the only way Hao could comprehend how he felt; he felt more than ever. Not just the pain, but every fiber that made up his bones and flesh.

  Bangcai looked back up at Hao, staring him in the face with a shrinking grin. The smile never quite went away as he pulled back unsuccessfully before creating small, pressurized fountains of shining, syrupy blood. Giving up on freeing one-blade, he shoved forth a second.

  Two things were coming at Hao, not just the second dagger, which had a different profile and color, a smaller straight blade, and an ugly blocky handle. Black as night all the way through.

  There was a fist, too. A fist from the man Hao thought he had knocked unconscious, whose blade nearly split his belly.

  Two on one. Hao felt he had played perfectly to their hand. Not without pulling them away from their allies and placing obstacles in their easy path towards killing him.

  Hao felt a sudden lightheadedness, almost as if he were breathing thin air atop a mountain for the first time again. His senses were heightened, acute, and sharp. The pain in his arm became worse, and even his scars began to itch.

  He kept his composure. Physical discomfort and threats to his life were one thing, something he was strangely familiar with, since even before he was a disciple of the Drifting Stream Sect. But the sound of heartbeats was a massive distraction.

  The world seemed to slow, and all that was there was the loud beat of…

  Thmp-thm, Thmp-thm, Thmp-thm.

  That was just one, but there were nearly a dozen, some fading, others getting faster. The loudest one was his own, which screamed as blood pressed through the veins in his body.

  Mo Bangcai again pulled on the dagger in Hao’s arm.

  Hao felt he was just slapped awake and pulled back just as hard, ignoring the damage to his flesh. His left arm was most useful now as a vice. His right arm never stopped moving, switching targets back and forth since Bangcai appeared at his side only three heartbeats ago.

  He grabbed the fist that was making its way towards his face, and he pulled it closer, across his body. The fist filled his face, not hitting him, but blocking the trajectory of the knife.

  The two reacted, but not fast enough.

  Hao pulled them both into his body, his pierced arm made a repulsive slushing sound, Bangcai moved further as his feet came loose from the wet ground, his knife out, pointed at his ally’s upper arm.

  Set up to hit each other, Hao released right. He looked down over the two of them in a half-fall, more focused on killing him than protecting themselves. Instead of pulling now, he pushed.

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  The knife slowed in its approach, and the fist tried to retreat; the wind curled around the three of them in a flurry.

  With a smack to the shoulder, the man who tried to punch went forward. The knife slicing through his bicep, which made his arm flop, hang loose like it had given up. He screamed and fell towards Bangcai. Arching slightly, he nearly slammed his shoulder into his young master, but he fell just to the side into the reddish mud of the battlefield.

  Bangcai didn’t spare his ally a glance. He kept going, pulling on the fang-shaped dagger stuck inside of Hao’s left forearm, while readjusting the knife in his off-hand, which he nearly lost as his fingers fumbled.

  Hao didn’t stop either. He was in too deep, and this was his chance; his right hand rose, ignoring the cold feeling in his left hand’s fingers. His palm blasted through the air, wind curling. His hand collided with the knife first, the blade cut just above his wrist. The rest of his body followed through. His hand was still traveling toward its target.

  Hao slammed his palm into Mo Bangcai’s face as the knife, along with red droplets, flew through the air. The dagger stuck in Hao’s left forearm came out with a pop.

  Mo Bangcai went flying back. His back hit the ground, and his head followed.

  If Hao said it didn’t feel good to hit Mo Bangcai, it would be a lie.

  Hao had only seen Mo Bangcai a few times in person, yet this man had become a plague on the tiny amount of peace Hao had in the Drifting Stream Sect since the day they both ascended to the lower peaks. All Hao did was complete the Bone-Shaking Trial. The normal trail was Mo Bangcai’s big spotlight, the place where he was taken as the First Elder’s disciple. No one would have noticed or cared. Yet Bangcai ran his mouth and made the First Elder lose face. In the average Cultivator’s logic, Hao was at fault.

  There were plenty of reasons for Hao to despise Bangcai.

  If Mo Bangcai was better than Hao and could complete the Bone-Shaking Trial, why didn’t he—if he had the right to be the Young Patriarch, in his mind, of him and his Master, he would have no problem completing the trial. It was one of the requirements. The reward Hao was denied, all of the Sect at his beck and call, in exchange for a spatial treasure, a few scowls, insults at his back from old men ten times his age, and the floor he walked as he left the hall after the trail spat on.

  Instead, Bangcai would take his achievements; He and the First Elder would claim Bangcai rang the bell, not Hao. All of that—authority and resources—would be given to Bangcai because he was the First Elder’s tool.

  Bangcai was a source of rumors that made Hao hide his hair in the sect. Most people on land already disdain Islanders, but his false rumor that Hao was a half-blood bastard son of an Elder who got into the Sect on the back of others got him more than one fight in the Sect. It was strange that those old days of gang attacks were missed—blood was never drawn with blades.

  All those shied compared to Grandpa He. An old man did a painting, and for it, he was beaten to death at the hands of Mo Bangcai’s and the First Elder’s goons. His wife left in tears over his corpse in the rain.

  Hao wasn’t sure what Mo Bangcai or the First Elder planned in taking the Young Patriarch title. It didn’t matter much. It was a smart plan, really—how much reputation would they gain in the Sect if people believed it? Mo Bangcai would rise. Even if he lacked talent compared to his servants, it would no longer matter. Mo Bangcai would have it all.

  The First Elder would ride up alongside his disciple, his reputation already good, even better. They would have the Sect in their palm.

  How many more would die like Grandpa He, for just a painting? How many things would they crush under the fists until the Sect and every Elder and Disciple bowed to them like collar dogs existing only to perform commands given.

  Hao would stop it if he could. Not for any noble cause, because he fucking despised the First Elder, and more, he would let anyone except Mo Bangcai have what he earned during that madness-invoking trial.

  If the only option was Hao or Mo Bangcai, then only Hao could have it; that was all that was in his mind as he stood there looking down at Mo Bangcai bouncing like a stone across a pond.

  If only he could reach him…

  “Dog!” Hao shouted, the word surprised everyone. But another attack from the side didn’t surprise Hao; this entire pack of rabid hounds was always eager to gang up on someone.

  Hao knew all killing was unjust. Yet, the thought of stomping away Mo Bangcai made his hair stand with excitement, his entire head buzzing as he matched strikes with another part of Mo Bangcai’s hunting team. It was nice to get rid of them. Perhaps because he was punching up, fighting against the odds like those in his mother’s stories, or, perhaps, in his heart, he simply wanted to. Whether he was the villain or the Hero, it didn’t matter in the stream of the ink-filled river.