The vibrant, chaotic energy of the Wu Tan City afternoon eventually surrendered to the quiet, creeping embrace of the night.
Inside the courtyard, Yoriichi's room was completely dark, save for the faint, silvery moonlight spilling through the open window. He sat cross-legged on the polished wooden floor, the ancient, blackened parchment of the Battle Through the Heavens scroll unrolled before him.
He was entirely alone. After their relaxing stroll through the market, Xiao Yu had departed to the clan's training grounds to instruct a few of the younger branch disciples before retiring to her own quarters. Taking advantage of the absolute solitude, Yoriichi had immediately thrown himself back into the depths of elemental comprehension.
He closed his eyes, his mind replaying the complex, paradoxical sentences he had painstakingly deciphered from the Water element section earlier that morning at the hot springs.
'Water is the weakest of the elements, yet it can erode the hardest mountains. It does not fight the rock; it flows around it, stealing its foundation until the rock collapses under its own weight. To master water is to master the art of yielding without breaking.'
Yoriichi synchronized his breathing with this profound philosophy. He visualized the ambient moisture hanging in the cool night air. He actively willed his naturally sharp, cutting Dou Qi to become heavy, fluid, and endlessly adaptable. He practiced shifting the state of his milky-white cyclone, trying to make it mimic the gentle, unstoppable flow of a river.
Time seemed to completely vanish. He was so submerged in his deep meditative state that the hours bled together without his notice.
When he finally opened his crimson eyes, he noticed the position of the moon hanging high in the pitch-black sky.
It was well past midnight.
A sharp realization instantly pierced his tranquil demeanor. 'Liu Xi,' Yoriichi remembered, his brow furrowing slightly.
The geopolitical threat of the lustful Tier 1 Alchemist had not been resolved. If Xun'er assassinated him tonight as her fleeting killing intent had suggested in the plaza, the Jia Lie Clan would undoubtedly weaponize the corpse. They would blame the Xiao Clan, bringing the devastating wrath of a Tier 3 Alchemist down upon his family.
Moving with swift, calculated efficiency, Yoriichi carefully rolled up the cursed scroll and locked it away in a heavy ironwood chest. He quickly stripped off his casual robes and changed into a specialized outfit he had purchased a week ago for his night training.
It was a pitch-black, form-fitting martial arts uniform that clung tightly to his lean, muscular frame. It possessed no loose fabric to catch the wind, offering maximum mobility and absolute stealth in the darkness.
He then slipped out of his window like a phantom.
Utilizing the Shadowless Sun Tread, Yoriichi bounded across the tiled roofs of the Xiao estate, entirely undetectable to the patrolling night guards. He cleared the clan's high outer walls and plunged into the dark, winding alleyways of Wu Tan City, heading straight for the luxurious eastern district where the Jia Lie Clan resided.
He was halfway to his destination, moving at a rapid, stealthy pace through an abandoned market street, when his Transparent World vision suddenly and violently flared in warning.
A terrifying, condensed aura was rapidly approaching from the opposite direction.
Yoriichi instantly halted his momentum. He slid effortlessly into the deep, pitch-black shadow of an overhanging balcony, suppressing his own heartbeat and breathing to an absolute, undetectable minimum.
A split second later, a fast, blurry image darted through the alleyway. It was a girl dressed in light, unassuming clothes, moving with a terrifying, unnatural speed that left a faint afterimage in her wake as she leaped from roof to roof.
But it wasn't her speed that shocked Yoriichi; it was the sheer, oppressive weight of her Dou Qi.
'Da Dou Shi level?' Yoriichi thought, his crimson eyes widening marginally in the dark. 'There is no woman in this city with that level of cultivation except... wait. Can it be her?'
He recognized the faint, residual trace of ancient golden heat lingering in the air behind her. It was Xiao Xun'er.
'How does a girl of my age possess the explosive strength of a Da Dou Shi?' Yoriichi analyzed rapidly, his mind racing to comprehend the anomaly.
'Did she use some kind of high-tier artifact to temporarily boost her cultivation?' he deduced rapidly. 'If she is heading back toward the Xiao Clan estate... then she has already visited the Jia Lie compound.'
Regardless of how she achieved it, a palpable, icy tension gripped Yoriichi's heart.
'Did she already kill him?!' If Liu Xi was already a corpse, the political fallout was inevitable. Yoriichi gritted his teeth. He could not afford to be late.
Abandoning his cautious stealth, Yoriichi pushed his Shadowless Sun Thread to its absolute limit. His calf muscles coiled and exploded with terrifying force. He launched himself out of the shadows, his speed instantly skyrocketing to a level comparable to a high Dou Shi. He became a literal streak of black lightning tearing across the rooftops, ignoring the risk of being spotted.
'No... I need to check the body,' Yoriichi thought, the wind roaring fiercely in his ears. 'If the worst has happened, I need to stay there, intercept whoever discovers him, and fabricate a scene to tackle any storm coming for the clan. That foolish, impulsive girl...'
In less than a minute of relentless sprinting, Yoriichi descended upon the perimeter of the Jia Lie Clan's luxurious guest compound.
He vaulted over the high stone wall and landed silently in a secluded, beautifully landscaped inner courtyard. The air here was thick with the scent of ozone, scorched earth, and fresh blood.
His eyes immediately locked onto a figure lying crumpled on the shattered cobblestones. It was Liu Xi. The alchemist was covered in severe burns and deep, ugly bruises. His chest was barely rising and falling. He was heavily injured, teetering right on the absolute edge of death—clearly the victim of a brutal, one-sided beatdown.
'He is alive,' Yoriichi realized, a fraction of relief washing over him. If he could stabilize the man and extract him, he could control the narrative.
But before Yoriichi could step forward to secure the alchemist, a massive shadow detached itself from the darkness of the courtyard.
It was a person entirely engulfed in a voluminous black cloak. In their hands, they held an incredibly bizarre weapon—a massive, slab-like black ruler that was as wide as a man's torso and completely devoid of a cutting edge.
The cloaked figure—who was actually Xiao Yan, his identity completely masked by Yao Chen's spiritual cloak—stepped over the broken stones. He raised the colossal heavy ruler high above his head. The weapon hummed with a violent, crushing pressure. Xiao Yan shifted his stance, his aura flaring with lethal intent, fully preparing to strike a full-blown, devastating blow to crush the terrified alchemist into paste.
"Please! No!" Liu Xi croaked, his bloodshot eyes wide with absolute, primal fear as the massive shadow of the ruler fell over him.
With a deafening swoosh that tore the air apart, the ruler swung down.
WHOOSH!
Before the heavy black metal could shatter Liu Xi's skull, a blur of motion intersected the weapon's path.
CLANG!
A tremendous shockwave of displaced air violently swept through the courtyard, blowing the dust and loose leaves into a fierce vortex.
Xiao Yan's eyes widened to the size of saucers beneath his black hood. His full-strength, downward strike had been stopped dead in its tracks.
Standing directly over Liu Xi's battered body was a youth in form-fitting black clothes. The youth hadn't drawn any weapon. He had raised both of his bare hands, his palms pressed flat against the broad, flat side of the Heavy Xuan Ruler, catching the catastrophic kinetic energy entirely with his physical body.