Chapter 119 - Four Sunken Corners

Four Sunken Corners had once echoed with the bustle of a thriving copper mine, back when its gaping pits swarmed with industrious men hacking ore from the hills. More than a century of seasonal torrential rain, however, had long since flooded those once profitable pits, leaving only crumbling foundations and dim memories of a different era to mark this once important place. Now silence clung as heavily as the mist drifting between broken stone foundations and listing walls overgrown with lichen and moss.

In the summer, brave youths of aquatic bloodlines might attempt to dive to the bottom of one of the ancient shafts while wiser children played in the shallower waters that covered much of the area around them beneath one to two meters of water. No parent, however, would bring their children to this place in anything less than full daylight and watchful eyes of guardians never ceased their vigilant watch for any child unfortunate enough to discover one of the many hidden drop-offs or underwater ruins that dotted the ancient mining site. 

Little natural light penetrated this place even at high noon in summer. Tonight, as the sun inched towards the horizon, shadows multiplied rapidly amidst the skeletal remains of structures while the moldering wood timbers seemed to exhale a miasma of decay. 

Atop one crumbling wall, Long Ma sat almost casually, one black booted leg stretched out to support his precarious position, the other dangling above the surface of the murky water below. Eyes gazing at the sinking sun, his hands continuously moved back and forth along the smooth serpent leather grip of his new horsetail spear. Every piece of the weapon carried a trace of spiritual energy from the nimble and excitable lightning energy that pervaded the spear's shaft of Ancient Thundercloud Plum Wood to a serpentine set of small pearls inlaid in a sinuous line that flowed from the serpent leather grip to the brightly polished snake shaped spear blade. 

"You truly outdid yourself this time Aesthete Qing," Long Ma praised, twirling the weapon in one hand and watching the water beneath him echo the spinning spear's movements. "What did you name it again?"

"River's Bite," the weapon maker said from the base of a large tree where he sat uncomfortably avoiding looking at either Long Ma or the bound and injured man perched beside him. "Look, I built what you wanted. It's getting dark. Maybe Ao Wen isn't coming or she's gone to get the City Lord back from Red Moon City or…"

"She's coming," Long Ma insisted without turning his gaze toward the two other men. "Your daughter would never abandon you would she Master Ao?"

"She'll come," Ao Yang agreed with a grim nod. "She might not move stone warriors like my grandfather did, but she'll come for you, and she'll crush you just like he would have."

"Spoken like a worm who can't understand the difference between Heaven and Earth," Long Ma snorted derisively. "I thought you wanted to see Ao Wen suffer Aesthete Qing. Didn't you want to see her defeated by the weapon you worked so hard to create?"

"Defeated yes," Qing Chen admitted, looking at the one-handed Ao Yang in shame. "But I didn't want to see her dead and I never signed up for kidnapping mortals!"

"Just do as you're told Aesthete Qing, you'll thank me for this opportunity later," Long Ma said, eyes fixed on the blood-red skies. Would he truly need to send another hand to make the message clear? Perhaps he should send an eye instead. Losing a hand was already all but career-ending for Ao Yang, Losing his sight would doom him to live as an invalid. That was certain to drive Ao Wen's temper beyond all control. The angrier she was, the better. The more she lost herself to the Dragon Rage she was too young to understand, the less she'd be able to use her damnable intellect against him. A rational Ao Wen was dangerous. A murderous rage rage-fueled little girl, out to rescue her father, consumed by the rage flowing from her Dragon Core… that was the Ao Wen he wanted to see… the one who would be easy to defeat! 

"Long Ma," a rich feminine voice called from the darkness of the tree line. Moments later, Wan Yue drifted forward on a flat-bottomed boat, four members of the City Lord's personal guard flanking her. "And Aesthete Qing," she added. "How unexpected."

"Lady Wan," Long Ma said with a frown. "So Ao Wen was too much of a coward to come herself," he said with a sigh. Standing up, he balanced atop the crumbling wall, backlit by the setting sun, back straight as his spear, inky black hair flowing in the wind as if to emulate the tassel on his customary horsetail spear. "Master Ao, it isn't personal, but for this offense, I'm afraid your life is forfeit," he said, lifting his spear, and preparing to hurl it through Ao Yang's chest. 

"WHO SAID SHE WOULDN'T COME?" Wan Yue roared, unleashing a blazing aura of Fire Dragon energy, her feet lifting centimeters off the bottom of the shallow boat as her energy took the shape of vast sheltering dragon wings behind her. 

"Impossible!" Long Ma cried, his heart shaken, his blood surging. He knew, knew for a fact that Wan Yue had no dragon bloodline. She, like her father and her newly awakened little sister, manifested an almost pure Dark Moon Crow bloodline. Even her mother was a Poet's Raven, there was nothing in her blood that could produce this…. "Ah," he said, his mind calming even as his blood continued to boil in the presence of her aura. "Historian Wan has been studying Dragons. But if Ao Wen is coming, where is she?"

"Waiting for me to secure her father. We know you won't stop until you face her," Wan Yue explained more calmly than she felt. She'd worked with Ao Wen the whole way here to improve her invocation of Cong Houzi, to manifest enough of a draconic aura to provide a buffer against any sudden attack from Long Ma. Truthfully, she was safe from him without her own powers, the protective amulet gifted to her by her husband could easily defend against half a dozen full-strength attacks by Long Ma, plenty of time to retreat to safety. Still, it was the first time she'd ever stood in opposition to such a powerful cultivator and her mind hadn't yet adjusted to being a second-stage cultivator herself. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that Cong Houzi had stood alone against whole armies to defend mortals in need. If she couldn't stand against one Soldier to save one mortal, the father of her benefactor, then she was unworthy to wield this power! "Release Ao Yang and you can have your duel with her. None of us will interfere," she said, raising an arm in signal before snapping it down. 

"Hunters, ignite!" Feng Xi called as soon as she saw Wan Yue's hand drop. Striking flint to a belt knife she quickly set fire to the thick, sticky substance coating the arrows in front of her. From the darkness, dozens of flames burst into being as two dozen hunters followed her in striking sparks to ignite the Torchlight Sap-covered arrows meticulously prepared by Alchemy Novice Wu Lin. 

"Hunters, loose," Feng Xi called a moment later, knocking a burning arrow into her bow and letting it fly. Two dozen arrows arced across the deepening night imbedding themselves into wet tree trunks and burning like torches ringing an arena of fire. The first volley was followed by a second, a third, and finally a fourth until the entire ruin became covered in flickering orange-red torchlight and inky flickering shadows. 

"Let him go you fork-tongued serpent," Ao Wen said, in a voice reverberating with draconic rage as she strode from the darkness centimeters above the surface of the water, her feet and legs wreathed in multicolored flames.

"I told you for each person you brought to help you, I'd return your father in that many pieces," Long Ma sneered. "I can't believe the learned Alchemist couldn't read my words." 

"They're not here to help me," Ao Wen replied with scorn, drawing Wild Fang and pointing her saber at Long Ma. "They're here to stop you from fleeing!"