*Chapter 20: The Dance of Shadows**
The air hung thick with the acrid stench of burnt earth and lingering spores, a grim reminder of the siege Qingyun had barely survived. Li Tian leaned against the splintered remains of the watchtower, his body a symphony of pain. The **Eternal Supreme Scripture's** qi, once a roaring inferno within him, now flickered like a guttering candle. His hands trembled as he tightened the bandage around his ribs, the starlight in his veins dimmed to a faint shimmer. Across the square, villagers moved like ghosts, salvaging what they could from the wreckage.
Wen Lin approached, her steps steadier than they'd been in weeks but her face drawn. "The carts are ready," she said, handing him a waterskin infused with frostroot. "We leave at dusk."
Li Tian nodded, though his gaze lingered on the tree line. Magistrate Heng's retreat had been temporary, and the rogue cultivators' defeat had only whetted the wolves' appetite. The Kitsune's warning echoed in his mind: *"They will come again. Hungrier."*
The first warning came not from the forest, but from the sky.
A hawk's cry pierced the silence—too shrill, too rhythmic. Li Tian's eyes narrowed. *A scout's signal.*
"To positions!" he barked, shattering the uneasy calm.
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**The Bandit's Gambit**
They came not as cultivators clad in qi-rich robes, but as a rabble of mercenaries and deserters. Thirty strong, their armor cobbled from stolen plates and their weapons nicked and rusted. But their eyes gleamed with a familiar hunger—the promise of easy plunder.
"Remember the bounty!" their leader bellowed, a hulking brute astride a scarred spirit-beast. "Alive for the Azure Dragons, dead for Magistrate Heng!"
Li Tian crouched behind the granary, the **Earthen Veil** masking his presence. His plan was a fragile tapestry woven from desperation:
1. **Lure them into the spore fields.**
2. **Trigger Old Man Heng's traps.**
3. **Strike from the shadows.**
But plans, as the Kitsune often sneered, were mortal follies.
The first bandit tripped a wire, releasing a cloud of dormant spores. They hung innocently in the air until a flaming arrow from the blacksmith's daughter ignited them. The explosion engulfed five men, their screams harmonizing with the villagers' battle cries.
Li Tian moved.
**Seven Celestial Steps** carried him between panicked bandits, his dagger—a shard of celestial-tempered ironwood—finding throats and tendons. He fought not with divine wrath, but with mortal precision, conserving his waning strength.
The leader's spirit-beast charged, tusks glistening with venom. Li Tian feigned retreat, leading it into a trench disguised with woven reeds. The beast plunged into a pit of glowing moss, its howls silenced as spores devoured its flesh.
"Clever tricks!" the leader roared, hefting a serrated axe. "But tricks won't save you!"
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**The Price of Cunning**
Li Tian's breath came in ragged gasps. His qi reserves were spent, his muscles screaming. The bandit leader advanced, each step shaking the earth.
"You're just a boy," the man sneered. "A scared, *weak* boy."
The axe swung. Li Tian dodged, but his legs betrayed him. He stumbled, the blade grazing his shoulder. Starlight blood pooled, drawing gasps from both sides.
"Witch!" the leader spat. "You'll burn for this!"
A child's scream pierced the chaos. Little Mei-Ling, the miller's daughter, had strayed too close. The leader seized her, his axe at her throat.
"Drop your weapons," he growled, "or she dies."
Li Tian froze. The villagers' eyes locked on him—their protector, their failed hope.
*"Bargain,"* the Kitsune whispered. *"Give me three drops, and I'll spare the whelp."*
Li Tian's jaw clenched. Every pact with the mountain exacted a toll. But Mei-Ling's tears mirrored Wen Lin's, and his resolve crumbled.
"Take them," he hissed.
The bandit leader laughed—until roots erupted from the earth, serpentine and glowing. They coiled around his limbs, his axe, his throat. Mei-Ling scrambled free as the man was dragged screaming into the soil.
The remaining bandits fled, their courage shattered.
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**The Aftermath**
Dusk painted the village in hues of blood and gold. Li Tian knelt at the forest's edge, retching starlight onto the moss. The Kitsune's toll had left his meridians frayed, his vision swimming with phantom tails.
Wen Lin found him there, her hand steady on his back. "You saved her."
"At what cost?" He gestured to the village, where Old Man Heng directed the loading of carts. "They'll never stop coming. Not while I live."
She cupped his face, her touch warmer than he remembered. "Then we find a way to make you more than a man. Or less."
The herbalist approached, his shadow long in the dying light. He unrolled the cryptic scroll, its fox-sigil glowing. "The path is open. But the mountain's heart demands a guide."
Li Tian's gaze fell on Mei-Ling, now clinging to her mother. "Who?"
Old Man Heng smiled, his teeth glinting. "Why, the one who lit the spores."
The blacksmith's daughter stepped forward, her hands still smudged with ash. "I'll do it. For Qingyun."
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