Nightwatcher

# 464. Hurts, doesn't it?

“Crack!”

A sound like bones being crushed came from Irbu’s neck. In that same instant, he broke off his own finger, letting the severed digit, slick with blood, transform into a twisted crimson glyph.

Glyph after crimson glyph engulfed Wei Yuan, seeping into his body.

This wasn’t a physical attack; Bronze Skin and Iron Bones couldn’t defend against it. It was a warlock’s curse of death.

A curse of death came in two forms. The first involved obtaining the target’s blood, hair, or even clothing or personal belongings to use as a medium for the curse.

At Third Rank, a warlock could curse at a distance without any medium, but the effect was greatly reduced.

The second form required the warlock to use their own flesh and blood to launch a curse.

The prerequisite for this was that the enemy must have inflicted harm on the warlock.

But that single second was enough for Irbu.

He crushed a compass-shaped magical tool, and his figure abruptly vanished, reappearing several hundred yards away in mid-air. There, he summoned the shadow of a bird, its talons clamping onto his shoulders as it carried him swiftly towards Mount Jing.

Wounded and in serious condition, Irbu chose to summon the soul of an avian yao beast to escape.

Blood-red light flared over his body, healing injuries that would be fatal to those of lower ranks.

A Ninth Rank Blood Spirit’s ability to rouse one’s qi and blood improved drastically at higher ranks, nearly on par with a martial artist’s limb regeneration, though it came at the cost of far greater spiritual energy.

Martial artists, by contrast, paid almost no price for regenerating limbs, as such regeneration was a “gift” of the undying body.

A Third Rank master was never easy to kill, regardless of system, those at Third Rank had already transcended the mortal realm.

On the shoreline and aboard the warships, those who witnessed this scene, both from the Church of the Warlock God and the Great Feng forces, were dumbfounded.

Gold Gongs like Zhang Kaitai were moved to tears. Aside from a few close confidants, most had never known how terrifyingly powerful Wei Yuan once was. Those secret assassinations on the yao, the barbarians, and the Church of the Warlock God those years ago, were all planned and lead by him, with Buddhist masters at his side.

On open battlefields, he’d always strategised from the rear, rarely engaging directly.

After the Battle of Shanhai Pass, Wei Yuan had mysteriously crippled his own cultivation, like a tiger willingly tearing out its own claws. He chose to remain at court, living as a mortal.

No one remembered the glory of this peak martial artist.

Now, twenty-one years later, he had once again revealed his unmatched edge.

Soldiers who didn’t know the full truth felt their previous understanding overturned, first disbelief, then elation, as if a tide surged through their chests.

This was the Great Feng’s God of War.

This was our God of War.

Having struck all the way to the Church’s sacred seat, it was no empty gesture.

Compared to the Great Feng troops’ rousing cheers and boiling blood, those in the Warlock God’s camp, warlocks and jianghu folk alike, felt their scalps go numb.

It wasn’t just Elder Irbu, Master of Wisdom being beaten back in a single blow, rather they all sensed that this battle would be far worse and more dreadful than they had imagined.

The overall strength of the Church of the Warlock God’s headquarters wasn’t inferior to the capital of the Great Feng. Though Wei Yuan had earned a resounding reputation at Shanhai Pass, no one truly believed he could pose a threat to Mount Jing City.

At most, they thought he’d bite off a chunk of flesh, painful, but bearable.

The Great Feng’s army came surging, but with no peak experts in sight, how could they possibly threaten the Church’s stronghold?

Now though, this God of War of the Great Feng had shown himself to be a powerhouse of unimaginable rank.

…

The phantom bird carried Irbu over the vast sea, across forests, and landed atop a cliff beside Great Warlock Sarun Agu.

At that moment, the national teacher of Kang, Uda Batu, finally arrived, soaring towards the mountain peak on a beam of black light.

Aside from the national teacher of Jing, who was engaged in fierce combat with Zhujiu in the north and unable to return, all of the Church’s peak warlocks had now gathered.

This gave immense relief to the warlocks and defenders who had retreated from the artillery bombardment, and calmed the nerves of many martial wanderers in the northeast.

On the flagship, Wei Yuan gave a command: “Storm Mount Jing. Slaughter the city!”

Slaughter the city, again.

War disrupted fortune. Slaughter weakened fortune.

“Slaughter the city!”

“Slaughter the city!”

“Slaughter the city…!”

The roars of the Great Feng troops echoed over the sea, their momentum unstoppable.

Since the Church of the Warlock God’s founding, in the thousand years of Mount Jing City’s existence, never had a great army reached its gates, let alone threatened to wipe it out.

They were about to make history.

To proclaim the might of the Central Plains and the Great Feng.

The warships slowly approached the shore. The heavy gangplanks slammed onto the beach, and infantry carrying sabres, crossbows, or fire lances rushed off the decks, alert to the surroundings.

Next came the cavalry, leading their horses down at a gallop.

Finally, the artillery troops pushed cannons and repeating crossbows along the planks to land.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…

Just as the Great Feng army landed, archers hidden in the forest launched their attack.

With ringing clangs, most arrows were deflected by shields forged from fine steel. A few expertly fired arrows pierced the shields, claiming the lives of soldiers.

Gold Gong Zhang Kaitai flicked his thumb, drawing his sword with a resonant clang, then slashed out a brilliant wave of sword light that cut through the rain of arrows.

He vanished the next moment, and screams rose from the woods near the beach.

This Fourth Rank expert, who had once completely subdued Chu Yuanzhen, was like a wolf among sheep, launching a massacre.

The Great Feng’s elite fighters all charged into the woods, buying time for the army’s landing.

The flames of war started at the coast and spread to Mount Jing, creeping towards the Church’s headquarters, Mount Jing City.

…

Sarun Agu gazed ahead at the figure in azure robes suspended in the air. Stroking the lamb in his arms, he smiled and said:

“Twenty years ago, I foretold that the Great Feng would produce a peerlessly fierce warrior. I thought you’d lost your edge, but you’ve been hiding your light all this time. Let me see, are you Rank Two, or Rank One?

“Irbu, Uda Batu, you two test him.”

The Church’s two Third Rank warlocks showed no fear or hesitation. Each summoned a heroic spirit, Irbu’s was still that martial artist’s soul, which he used to transform into a giant.

Uda Batu, meanwhile, had summoned a fierce-looking monk, a burly bald man with knotted muscles, one of the Buddhist vajra.

Every warlock tried to slay masters of other systems to establish a karmic link, allowing them to summon that person’s heroic spirit later.

This enriched their combat arsenal, against different foes, they could summon different spirits to counter them.

But if their opponent was a martial artist, they would, without hesitation, summon a martial artist’s spirit.

Only a martial artist could defeat a martial artist.

Only a martial artist could endure a martial artist’s blows.

Uda Batu had summoned a Third Rank Vajra, essentially a martial artist, with physical defence that rivalled or surpassed one.

Once the summoning was complete, both national teachers raised their hands, palms aimed at Wei Yuan.

“Die!”

A curse of death cast from afar!

Wei Yuan’s body momentarily froze, as though some force was invading him from within.

The two high-rank warlocks seized the chance and attacked from both sides. At this moment, they were like undying warriors.

_Bang! Bang!_

With two thunderous crashes, Irbu and Uda Batu were blasted away, the phantoms above their heads dispersing.

Wei Yuan did not attempt to pursue. With a first rank Great Warlock looking down on them, he did not believe he could slay two rank threes.

“Every stage of a warrior’s path is built step by step. All you’ve borrowed is strength and defence, mere appearances. Against a higher-ranked warrior, you're no match at all.”

Wei Yuan shook his head.

Sarun Agu waved a hand, sending the two warlocks to a distance. He looked at Wei Yuan with a trace of admiration and said:

“You’ve touched the threshold of _Hedao_[^1], but your vitality is lacking, at the peak of rank three in essence, yet already at Hedao in realm. Hm, I suppose you must have refined your original blood energy into a blood pill for safekeeping. Over these twenty years, your cultivation has advanced, but your body and qi remain at rank three.

“With another two or three years to harmonise the two, you’d naturally step into rank two. How did you hide this from Yuanjing?”

Wei Yuan calmly replied, “The first ten years I behaved myself. In the latter ten, I grew bored and decided to retrain in martial arts. So I asked the Jianzheng to shield my presence from Heaven’s gaze. Still, Yuanjing sensed something later on.”

“Break and then rebuild, not bad.”

Sarun Agu nodded. “The Jianzheng must have been furious. If you hadn’t crippled your cultivation back then, you wouldn’t be dying here today.”

Wei Yuan looked toward the valley and the towering sacrificial altar. In a quiet voice, he declared, “I’m going to seal the Warlock God.”

He stepped forward, in a single stride, he covered a thousand feet.

The second step would bring him to the altar.

Yet as he took that step, he returned to Sarun Agu’s side, time itself seemed reset.

The Great Warlock smiled. “I’ve become one with this land. You could walk your entire life and never reach that altar.”

He raised his hand and pressed down gently.

In that instant, the weight of the entire world seemed to bear down on Wei Yuan. His bones cracked under the pressure, divine radiance flickered across his body and stalled.

A Great Warlock!

To turn the power of Heaven and Earth into one’s own, to command the forces of nature, as though the master of creation itself, peerless and unmatched.

This was first rank.

Under that terrifying pressure, Wei Yuan threw out dozens of punches in a flash, all missed. Sarun Agu hadn’t dodged; it was Wei Yuan’s own fists that avoided him.

“Interesting.”

The corners of Wei Yuan’s mouth lifted. He stopped punching, brought his palms together, and thrust forward.

Then he tore outward with force, as though rending an invisible veil, and the world was restored to its natural state.

Sarun Agu’s brow twitched.

“I Forgot to mention, the intent I grasped at fourth rank is called Breaking Formations,” Wei Yuan said with a gentle smile.

“Now that I’ve joined with my Dao, nothing in this world can confine me.”

Before he could savour the breakthrough, an illusory figure appeared, descending to hover above Sarun Agu’s head. The first rank Great Warlock punched Wei Yuan and sent him flying.

Boom!

Wei Yuan crashed into the ocean, raising a thousand-feet-high wave, a truly majestic sight.

Sarun Agu stood atop the mountain, overlooking Wei Yuan as he broke through the surface of the sea. Hands clasped behind his back, he said without ire or haste:

“Over a thousand years ago, a king of the Great Zhou, a rank two warrior, rampaged for hundreds of miles like you, and reached the capital of Yan. The Warlock God had already been sealed by the Confucian Sage and could not act. The one who truly destroyed him was me. Can you, Wei Yuan, really surpass that Great Zhou king?”

A warlock’s method of summoning heroic souls was the core ability of fifth rank. At that level, they could only summon ancestral spirits.

But at higher ranks, this ability evolved. Beyond ancestors, they could summon any soul entangled with their karma, friends, foes, or defeated enemies alike.

In theory, Sarun Agu could even summon the soul of the first Jianzheng, for he was once his disciple.

But he never succeeded. The current Jianzheng had erased that possibility.

Wei Yuan soared into the clouds, then suddenly twisted and dove downward in a fierce strike.

Sarun Agu thrust out his right hand from within his hemp-coloured robe and met the strike with a punch.

_Thrum!_

On the distant battlefield, soldiers saw a miraculous sight, at the peak of Mount Jing, a colossal ripple burst forth, sweeping across the land.

It scoured the mountainside, turning forest into dust; lashed the sea, raising waves hundreds of metres high.

Beneath Sarun Agu’s feet, the cliff cracked and split with loud rumbles. Moments later, it collapsed entirely, boulders plunging into the ocean.

Even as the ground gave way, Sarun Agu remained motionless, slowly forming a fist with his left hand.

As he struck, Wei Yuan felt the entire world turn against him. That boundless, unstoppable power of Heaven and Earth was channelled into a single punch.

_Clang!_

The blow struck Wei Yuan’s chest. The divine light on his body shattered like fragile glass, scattering into tiny flecks.

His chest bones were crushed; blood gushed from his lips.

Sarun Agu reached out, drew a stream of blood, smeared it on his palm, and aimed at Wei Yuan to unleash a curse: “Die!”

Beside him, Irbu and Uda Batu mirrored the movement, drawing a small stream of blood and chanting, “Die!”

One Great Warlock. Two Masters of Wisdom. All casting a curse on Wei Yuan.

_Bang bang bang..._ Sounds of destruction echoed from within Wei Yuan’s body. Blood mist erupted from his pores.

In that moment, he seemed to endure unimaginable pain. This man, once the unshakable god of war of Great Feng, who had faced countless armies without flinching, now let out an agonizing, inhuman cry.

Sarun Agu appeared above him, slowly clenched his fist. The spirit of the Great Zhou prince mirrored his motion.

A dull crack rang out between his fingers, as though the very air had been crushed.

Sarun Agu drew his right arm back, gathering force, and then punched toward Wei Yuan’s head.

In that moment of crisis, a warrior’s instinct for danger gave Wei Yuan a flicker of clarity. He made a vital move to save his life, he leaned back!

The punch pierced through his chest, bursting out his back along with blood and a section of spine.

“These past two thousand years, you’re one of the most gifted I’ve seen. The founding emperor, the later Emperor Wuzong, none matched you. Killing you is a true shame.”

Sarun Agu’s arm swelled with muscle, preparing to rupture Wei Yuan’s body. But in the next second, his qi suddenly surged outward like a receding tide.

The spirit of the Great Zhou prince flickered a few times, then dissipated.

Sarun Agu, this Great Warlock of the Church of the Warlock God, one of the few first ranks in all Jiuzhou, looked down in disbelief at his own chest.

There, a simple, ancient carving knife was embedded.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Wei Yuan smiled gently.

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[^1]: Union with one’s Dao