"Wait," the clerk voice suddenly cut through the bounty den.
His eyes narrowed behind his jade spectacles. "What did you say your name was again?"
Victor froze and tried to play it cool.
"What do you mean?... I already told you..."
The air thickened around him.
The lanterns flickered faintly in the silence that followed.
The clerk straightened and waved a hand over a carved jade slip on the counter. It glowed for a moment before dimming again.
"There's no Void Veil listed in our registry," the clerk said. "No assassin by that name has taken the Fang Chen bounty."
Victor's fingers twitched.
He tried to play it off. "Look, it doesn't matter. Just take the body. I'm not here to talk."
He shoved the unconscious cultivator onto the floor with a heavy thud and turned to leave.
But he didn't make it two steps before weapons were drawn.
Steel rang out and qi began to crackle like sparks behind him.
From every corner of the room, masked and robed figures rose from their seats—cultivators with bloodstained robes, assassins sharpening poisoned blades, shadow-walkers with no visible aura but death in their eyes.
The clerk stood with a twisted glee in his eyes. "You've made a mistake, boy."
Just then, the unconscious prisoner stirred.
His eyes blinked open as his bloodied lips parted.
He looked around with a dazed expression and then suddenly screamed, "THAT'S HIM! THAT'S THE REAL FANG CHEN!"
Then, as if on cue, ten different killing intents flared at once.
Someone hurled a chain of spirit-imbued needles. Another let loose a thunder talisman that cracked the stone walls. A twin-sword user in black lunged straight for Victor.
Victor's hand snapped out.
[ Wind Arts Technique: Wind Gale Activated ]
A roar of compressed wind exploded outward from his palm. The twin-sword cultivator was sent crashing through the wall with a thunderous boom causing splinters and dust to sweep across the surroundings.
Victor didn't wait a second longer.
He burst through the hole in the wall and took off into the night.
Blades and bolts of elemental qi chased after him. Fire, wind, darkness—all streaking like comets.
He ducked under a roof beam, rolled through a narrow alley, and then leapt onto a rooftop.
His body blurred as he dodged a poison-laced throwing star by inches.
Blood trickled down his cheek where a shard had grazed him.
He was fast. But they were many.
Three landed behind him. One hurled a flaming spear. Victor deflected with his blade and returned a counterstrike, slashing across the shoulder of the nearest attacker. Another came in low with a dagger.
Victor kicked him in the chest, sending the man flying into a chimney.
A wind slash followed by an earth spike caught him by surprise, forcing him to twist mid-air. One grazed his thigh—he felt the burn of pain and warm blood start to leak.
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Victor tore across the slum town like a phantom, but blood now dripped in his wake.
He landed on a slanted tile roof and spun around before flinging out a pair of wind daggers that he had materialized from his own qi.
Two pursuers screamed as the blades pierced into their legs, causing them to tumble off the roof into the market street below.
A Core Formation assassin reached him with a shriek and attacked from above with a blade charged in fire qi.
Victor stepped aside and slashed upward with his own sword, meeting the strike and redirecting it. The blow sent sparks into the night.
The assassin hit the ground hard.
But Victor wasn't done. He spun to deflect another attack from behind, then launched himself with another wind burst further ahead.
He dashed with blood streaking out of his leg and his robes torn at the edges.
He spat onto his right palm and rubbed it on his injuries.
A small glow immediately coated his torn flesh in different areas and he felt instant relief as the wounds closed up.
Behind him, a chorus of footsteps and battle cries gave chase.
The alleyways and streets blurred.
Victor ducked into a crumbling stone passageway, only to find it blocked by a massive iron gate.
A cloud of wind gathered around his palm as he thrust it forward, breaking the hinges loose and causing the iron gate to get sent flying.
He stumbled straight through and kept charging forward.
The assassins weren't far. He could hear their breathing, their curses, their thirst.
His only hope was to make it outside the town, toward the rocky cliffs near the eastern edge where few ventured.
"I'm not dying here," he muttered.
"Seems like a shitty place to respawn."
He leaped forward again and vanished into the rising mist.
Elsewhere, beyond the destruction and screams echoing from the den, a tall man covered in dark tattoos walked calmly through the ruined town path.
He had two corpses slung over his shoulders—both heads cleanly removed. His outfit was bloodied but his footsteps were light.
He approached the assassin den's shattered entryway, where glowing embers still clung to broken wood and qi energy still flickered in the air.
He stepped over the debris and spotted the clerk sprawled across the floor, groaning.
"Hmm…" the tattooed man muttered before letting the corpses drop with a wet thud.
He walked over and nudged the clerk with his foot.
"What the hell happened?"
The clerk coughed. "It was... someone who had a bounty. Someone big..."
The tattooed man's brows lifted.
The clerk nodded as bloody spit pooled on the floor.
The man straightened slowly while cracking his knuckles.
He looked toward the open wall in the direction of the fleeing target.
"I suppose it's going to be one of those nights."
Minutes later, Victor crouched low beneath the thick shade of a broken fence line, the faint throb of pain racing along his ribs, arms, and legs. His clothes were torn and soaked in blood and dirt.