The two daoists rushed up the cobblestone road like a flash flood. The monsters attacking the city were hideous things, slobbering venom, their spines coated in yet more venom, their claws carrying more venom still. Their qi was a twisted, horrible thing. Not the same as Gu, but close enough to make Tian grimace. He speared one with his rope dart, hauled the heavy thing over, and with a grunt of effort managed to saw it in half.

"Some kind of constructs made of meat. Not corpses, but that isn't natural." He had barely broken stride to make his investigation, but that still let Hong get yards ahead of him.

"They all look identical, of course they aren't natural!" Hong conducted her own examination in the form of stabbing. Her red tasseled spear flickered out piercing heads and chests with clinical precision, finding exactly how much force to apply and exactly where to apply it to transform unnatural life into wholly natural death.

Tian had just enough time to see one of the monsters turn and bristle before it exploded. Venomous quills scythed across the street. Tian jumped, avoiding some and blocking more by quickly spinning his rope dart, but some still got through. The evil qi was quickly torn apart by the Hell Suppressing Art, and he could feel the venom struggling to make inroads into his refined body. Which just left disease. He could feel some disgusting sickness latching on and trying to corrupt his mortal body.

He didn't grin. The disease was having even less success than the poison, but the blast hadn't been aimed at him. It hadn't been aimed at Liren either. The street had been filled with running mortals. Now it was filled with dead and dying mortals, each of whom would be a new source of illness. He shuddered to think of stray quills that lodged in rats or dogs, spreading and going undetected until far, far too late.

Thousands of these monsters. Scattered all over a large city. Even if there were hundreds of cultivators in the city, which there absolutely were not, it was already a horrific massacre. The kingdom would have to take action, which meant that the Ancient Crane Monastery would have to move some of its forces away from the battlefield, at a time when they were already desperately shorthanded.

The battle had just started, and Tian couldn't help feeling that the heretics had already won.

Too complicated, make it simpler. He couldn't fix every problem. He could kill the monster in front of him. Then the next. Then the next. Eventually, he would run out of monsters. He saw another monster curling up to explode. He flung out his Heavenly Swallows, the invisible darts burying themselves into what he hoped was the creature's brain. He must have hit something useful, as the monster fell apart in a mess of meat. Pale wobbling sacs of some stinking fluid burst in sharp jets, making flesh sizzle when the droplets fell.

Tian frowned and yanked his darts back with a flex of his will. No damage, thankfully, but he wouldn't be trying that twice. He could feel corrosive liquid on them already. He wiped them as best he could and stowed them in his storage ring. His rope dart was already spinning around his head, ready to slam into the next target.

He bit back a curse. The liquid, whatever it was, was already soaking the dart and parts of the rope. He had no good way of guessing how much damage it was doing. So far, his vital energy was flowing normally through it, but by any measure, the situation was very bad.

Tian and Hong battled towards the Temple in their usual formation- Hong leading the charge, with Tian following close behind. She breached whatever was in front of them, and Tian widened the gap. If there were a lot of enemies, they would split the group and roll them up in pieces. If not, they would happily fight one on one. Two on a literal army, though, was a bit much. Some of the quills were bouncing off Hong, but more were sticking in. What made it agonizing was that the monsters were scattered over the whole city. Even though they were killing dozens as they ran, the number was nothing compared to the horde.

The Crane sent another memory down to Tian. "They are converging! Noble district! Shift north, follow the Crane. The Temple has mobilized, and local cultivators are pitching in too."

"Are they any use?"

"Better than the mortals."

The two kept pushing the pace, focusing on reaching the largest concentration of targets as fast as they could.

"The guards are fortifying around some kind of local shrine, local cultivators mixed in. Hundred and fifty monsters and increasing fast." Tian fed Hong the updates from the crane as they came in.

"Plan?"

"Punch through their line. Whatever they are trying to kill, we protect. I'll get inside, try to figure out what it is. You mess them up outside, Crane will support."

Hong grunted. Her spear had never stopped moving. Neither had Tian's dart. He kept pouring as much vital energy as he could spare into it, hoping that it would help prevent corrosion. He had a growing obsession with washing it.

There were close to three hundred monsters gathered around the shrine by the time they got there. It had been bare minutes, but something was calling them over. According to the crane, they were converging from all over the city on this spot.

"Punch us through!"

Hong drew back her spear, crouching low. There was a spiraling accumulation of fiery vital energy around her, less stable than it should be, but strong. Then an explosion. The stones shattered under her feet as she ran through the monsters. Skewered, smashed, slapped to the side, the monsters were removed at speed. Tian and Hong were catching more of the quills in their skin, the poison and disease load building, but it would keep. The shield line was in sight.

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"ANCIENT CRANE MONASTERY IS HERE! WHO DARES RIOT BEFORE ME?!" Hong roared and spun back towards the monsters. Her spear was a roaring blur in the air. The monsters melted away beneath it. Hissing puddles of corrosive liquid and rotting flesh, needles stabbed into the pavements, into shields and armor, into her. All suppressed. All pressed down under the blazing yang spear of Hong Liren.

She was burning now, the fire in her stoked to an all consuming blaze. It would be bad tonight. Very bad. But that was tonight. Tian had problems to solve now.

Tian vaulted over the shield line. There were ranks of cultivators at the front, some holding proper shields, others behind barricades of tables or wagons, anything they thought might stop the poison quills. Local guards in their stout steel armor stood behind the cultivators. They didn't look like they put much trust in their armor, but they still held firm. The front line carried great tower shields, forming a secondary wall of steel behind the brick walls of the shrine.

Behind the guards was a noble family. Father in armor, bright blue plume on his helmet and golden wire inlaid on his breastplate. A younger man stood next to him in soft robes- maybe a brother? Mothers, aunties, maids, all in scattered finery. A boy, six or seven years old, dressed perfectly in his deep blue robe embroidered with carp. Soft red silk shoes on his feet. Behind the boy was a tutor, wearing scholar's robes, and with books hanging by a strap from his waist.

There was a twist of qi coming from the tutor. Something stagnant and bloody. Not gu, but something unspeakably wrong. Tian fixed his eyes on him and pushed forward. The tutor turned his head, too fast for a mortal. Tian raised his hand, calling his darts from his ring.

"Too late." The tutor's hand darted forward, the skin of his fingers ripped apart, hooked claws reaching out through human tatters, and tore open the boy's neck. Tian's Flying Swallows drilled through the tutor's head. The boy fell, grabbing his neck, not understanding what happened. The tutor died with a smile on his face.

"The hell I am too late! SISTER! KILL THEM ALL! CRANE, HELP HER!" He sent his mind out to the crane, and a screeching cry came from high above.

The boy gasped, green and black threads running up from the hole in his neck, red blood running down. His bright eyes were dimming, and filling with gold.

Tian swore and pulled a pinch of wound clotting powder from his ring. Even in small doses, it would form blood clots that would kill a mortal. It was as sure a poison as whatever was running through the kid's body. So he would have to try something a little stupid and very desperate.

His rope dart twisted in his hand, ripping apart his palm. Thick blood poured out. Tian flicked the wound powder into the open wound, then slapped his bloody hand over the hole in the boy's neck.

"Humans are born from primordial yang, formed with earthly yin, but become dross and without true essence. We self-sever our connections to that eternal essence. Every one of our vital essences are without virtue, for we lack a root. Yet the universal benevolence, that eternal primordial yang, is never more than a breath away. All we have to do is cultivate. If not in this lifetime, in a lifetime to come. The roots will be set down, and from it, the tree will grow. And from that tree comes the golden elixir."

Red seal script was running across the golden eyes of the boy. He didn't sound like a boy. He sounded ancient, like a hermit expounding on the dao. Not quite the same as the other boy, but too similar.

"Oh no you don't!" Tian snarled. "I don't know about any of that, but this little daoist is built to do two things- defy Heaven and crush Hell! See how I deal with you!"

Tian used the Demon Pulling Art, carefully fashioned threads of elementally tuned vital energy wrapping around the poison and the disease. Each thread was matched exactly against the qi of the poison and disease it targeted, locking it tight. Then, using the most exquisite care and being sure not to explode his own meridians in the process, Tian hauled the poison and disease from the boy's body… and into his.

It didn't want to go. Something in the venom very, very much wanted to kill this boy. Tian's mouth opened in a feral snarl. He hadn't told any lies before. This was his battlefield, and he was right at home.

The Hell Suppressing Art roared to life inside of him. As the poison came in, the vital energy spun around the statue in his lower dantian. Grinding away the poison and evil qi. Crushing the disease. Turning it into pure, healing, vital energy. Energy that flooded out through his body and into the wound in his hand.

Tian was pulling the disease out, crushing the venom, and using his own blood as a medium for the wound clotting powder on the boy's neck, near enough all at the same time. It wasn't a fast process, nor an easy one.

He heard a thunder of mighty wings. The ground shook below him. A screeching cry, and a tumult as monstrous bodies were sent flying.

"Eh? Who's bird is this? Does Bluestone City provide dinner as well as a show?" The voice coming from above was a vile thing, hungry for blood and slaughter.

"I was waiting for you, Old Freak Blackhand!" There was a clap of thunder, and a sudden press of air pressure. Tian didn't let up. If his focus slipped even for a moment, the boy would die. If it slipped for two moments, he might cripple himself. His good sister was behind him, and the crane was more reliable every day. Heavenly problems were dealt with by Heavenly Seniors. All he had to do was keep his head down and work.

The venom fought him, drilling for the boy's brain and nerves, even as the disease raced for the heart. Meanwhile, the blood clotting powder was trying to turn everything around it into a solid mass. Which Tian was fine with, except tiny grains of it kept trying to flow away with the rest of the boy's blood and lodge in a heart valve!

He felt Sister Liren come stand behind him. Her spear rapped gently on the ground as she stood over him. A slim, strong hand pressed gently to his back. "Just help him. You won't be disturbed."

Tian fought the sickness. Fought it until his body shook and his mind burned and his vision faded to gray. There was a moment, a bare moment where all hung in balance, and things could have gone either way. In the end, Tian wanted to save the boy more than he was worried about getting hurt. He pushed until his meridians screamed. He screamed with them, but he never let up.

The poison was ripped away in a long thread. Disease broken apart, shattered into nothing, then it, too, was consumed. The blood clotting powder was forced into place, the ripped artery sealing, the torn skin patched. The golden eyes flashed, and something was released. Something spread from the boy and the bell in the shrine began to ring. Not in warning, but victory. A pulse of something so profound he couldn't put words to it was carried in that ringing bell. It seeped into Tian and Hong and into the crane too.

He could feel a strand of it rushing south. A flash of purple, the exact color of the Yang qi that came with the dawn, and threads of incorruptible gold.

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