Chapter 14: Bloodhunters

"The flower that grows without roots," Lin Feng repeated, staring at Mei Shen with growing unease. "How could you possibly know—"

His words died as a whistling sound cut through the air. Lin Feng's instincts took over before his mind processed the danger. He lunged forward, tackling Mei Shen to the ground as three crimson arrows streaked through the space where she had been standing.

"Ambush!" Jin Wei shouted, already forming defensive seals. Beside him, Song Li pulled out a jade shield talisman, activating it with a burst of qi.

Liu Mei spun toward the treeline, her hands moving in practiced patterns. "Six attackers, northeast ridge!"

Lin Feng helped Mei Shen to her feet, scanning their surroundings. The mountain path offered little cover—a steep cliff rising on one side, a sharp drop on the other, sparse vegetation providing minimal concealment.

"Stay behind me," he told Mei Shen, who looked remarkably calm despite the attack.

"That won't be necessary," she replied, brushing dust from her simple gray clothes. With a fluid motion, she pulled what appeared to be a thin jade needle from her sleeve. "I've been avoiding Bloodhunters for years."

Before Lin Feng could question her, six figures emerged from the trees fifty paces away. They wore fitted black armor accented with crimson trim, faces covered by masks resembling stylized flames. Each carried a bow of unusual design—black metal limbs with a crimson energy string.

"Phoenix Sect?" Liu Mei asked, moving to Lin Feng's side.

"No," Mei Shen answered grimly. "Bloodhunters. Mercenaries who specialize in tracking bloodline cultivators. The Crimson Phoenix Sect hires them when they want plausible deniability."

The lead Bloodhunter stepped forward, nocking another crimson arrow. "Jade Lotus bloodline carriers, by order of our contractor, surrender for processing or face elimination."

Lin Feng felt the jade lotus mark heating against his chest, resonating with danger. The concealment pendant was clearly ineffective against these specialized hunters.

"Jin Wei, Song Li," he called, "defensive formation three!"

The two disciples moved immediately, taking positions that would protect their flanks from another volley. Lin Feng was grateful for the combat drills his grandfather had insisted on before their departure.

"Surrender is not an option," Lin Feng called back to the Bloodhunters. "But we have no quarrel with mercenaries. Leave now, and we needn't become enemies."

The leader's laugh was cold. "Bold words from someone outnumbered and outpositioned."

Without further warning, the Bloodhunters fired simultaneously. Six crimson arrows split into eighteen mid-flight, the energy projectiles curving unnaturally to target vital points.

"Time Barrier!" Lin Feng shouted, channeling jade energy into a technique Elder Lian had taught him for emergencies. He swept his hands in a circular motion, creating a dome of jade light around their group.

Inside the barrier, time flowed differently—seconds stretching into what felt like minutes. The arrows that penetrated the barrier slowed drastically, giving them precious moments to react.

"Jin Wei, Song Li, scatter the arrows," Lin Feng commanded, maintaining the barrier with visible effort. Sweat beaded on his forehead as the advanced technique strained his Foundation Establishment cultivation base.

The disciples moved with precision, knocking aside the slowed projectiles with qi-enhanced strikes. Liu Mei stepped forward, her hands forming a complex pattern Lin Feng hadn't seen before.

"Soaring Dragon Art: Mist Concealment," she intoned, exhaling a cloud of pale blue vapor that rapidly expanded within the time barrier, thickening until it obscured them completely.

Lin Feng felt a hand on his arm—Mei Shen, her eyes now glowing with jade light. "I can help," she said. "My bloodline manifests differently, but I can strengthen your barrier."

Without waiting for permission, she pressed her jade needle against the lotus mark on his chest, sending a jolt of energy through his meridians. The barrier pulsed brighter, its jade light intensifying. The strain on Lin Feng immediately lessened.

"Now," he said as the last arrow clattered harmlessly to the ground, "we counter."

He dropped the time barrier, and Liu Mei's mist billowed outward, covering the path and surrounding area in an impenetrable fog. The Bloodhunters' shouted commands to each other echoed confusingly in the mist.

Lin Feng closed his eyes, focusing on the temporal perception techniques his mother had taught him. In his mind's eye, he could sense the Bloodhunters' positions by the disturbances they created in the flow of time around them.

"Jin Wei, two targets thirty paces at your two o'clock," he directed. "Song Li, one trying to flank us from below the path." He turned to Liu Mei. "Three remain in their original position, including the leader."

The disciples moved silently into the mist, their jade energy signatures fading as they activated stealth techniques. Sounds of brief struggle reached them moments later.

"We should move," Mei Shen suggested urgently. "More will come. The Bloodhunters always hunt in waves."

Lin Feng nodded. "Back to the mountain? Or continue on?"

"Neither," Mei Shen said. "I have a safehouse nearby. We can regroup there."

From within the mist came a sudden cry of pain—Jin Wei's voice. Lin Feng started toward the sound, but Liu Mei caught his arm.

"Wait," she warned. "Something's wrong with the mist."

She was right. The pale blue vapor was now threaded with crimson energy that seemed to be consuming the mist, burning it away like paper in flame.

"Phoenix Fire Purge," Mei Shen identified, her expression grim. "It negates concealment techniques. Your disciples are in trouble."

Lin Feng made a split-second decision. "Liu Mei, can you create a distraction? Something big enough to cover our retreat?"

She nodded, already forming new seals. "I'll need twenty seconds."

"You have ten," Lin Feng replied, then turned to Mei Shen. "Where is this safehouse?"

"Two li west, hidden in the cliffside," she answered, pointing toward a jagged outcropping barely visible in the distance. "Look for jade markers in the rock—small enough to miss if you don't know what to seek."

The mist was rapidly burning away now, revealing Jin Wei locked in combat with two Bloodhunters. His robes were singed, one arm hanging limp at his side, but he fought with determined precision. Of Song Li, there was no sign.

"Ready," Liu Mei announced, her hands completing a complex pattern that culminated in a tight spiral. "Soaring Dragon Art: Storm Serpent Ascension!"

She slammed her palm into the ground. The air pressure dropped suddenly, and water vapor condensed from nowhere, forming a massive serpentine shape that rose into the sky. With a sound like thunder, the water construct expanded explosively, then plummeted toward the Bloodhunters' position.

The impact was spectacular. Water crashed down with crushing force, sweeping across the path and down the mountainside. The Bloodhunters' shouts turned to cries of alarm as the flash flood carried them away from their positions.

"Jin Wei!" Lin Feng called into the chaos. "Fall back to the mountain! Take Song Li!"

Through the spray and mist, he saw the disciple acknowledge with a raised hand before disappearing back up the path. Whether Song Li was with him remained unclear.

"Now we run," Lin Feng said, turning to Liu Mei and Mei Shen. "That won't hold them long."

The three sprinted westward, leaving the path for rougher terrain that offered more cover. Lin Feng matched his pace to the women, noting with approval that both moved with the efficiency of trained cultivators. Mei Shen, particularly, navigated the difficult landscape with the ease of someone intimately familiar with mountain travel.

They had covered perhaps half the distance to the safehouse when a crimson flare shot into the sky behind them, exploding into a pattern that resembled a spreading flame.

"They're calling reinforcements," Mei Shen explained between measured breaths. "Second wave incoming."

No sooner had she spoken than the ground beneath their feet trembled. Ahead, from behind a cluster of boulders, emerged a figure that made Lin Feng's blood run cold.

Standing nearly eight feet tall, with skin like black iron and eyes that burned with crimson fire, was a creature Lin Feng had only heard about in sect legends—a Flame Wraith, one of the unorthodox beasts bred by ancient Phoenix cultivators for bloodline hunting.

"Of course they brought a tracker," Mei Shen said with grim resignation. "They always bring a tracker."

The Flame Wraith's nostrils flared as it caught their scent. Its mouth opened in a grotesque parody of a smile, revealing rows of metallic teeth that glowed red-hot.

"Jade," it rumbled, voice like stones grinding together. "I smell the jade in your blood. Give it to me."

"What does it mean, 'give it to me'?" Lin Feng asked, dropping into a defensive stance.

"It literally consumes bloodlines," Mei Shen explained, her jade needle now extending into a thin sword. "Drains the energy and the cultivator with it. These things are why there are so few Jade Lotus descendants left."

Liu Mei moved to Lin Feng's side. "Plan?"

"I'll engage it directly," he replied, jade energy gathering around his hands. "You two flank and look for weaknesses."

The Flame Wraith charged before they could act further, covering the distance between them with shocking speed for its size. Lin Feng barely had time to activate the Time Flow Disruption technique, altering his perception to make the creature's movements seem fractionally slower.

He dodged the initial swing of its massive arm, feeling intense heat as it passed inches from his face. Using the momentum of his dodge, Lin Feng struck at the creature's midsection with a palm strike enhanced by metal affinity energy—a technique his mother had taught him that focused force into a needle-thin point.

His strike connected, but instead of penetrating, his hand rebounded painfully. The creature's iron-like skin had barely dented.

"Physical attacks are useless!" Mei Shen called, darting in with her jade sword. The thin blade sliced across the Wraith's shoulder, leaving a shallow groove that leaked molten fire instead of blood. "Only jade energy affects them!"

The Wraith roared, spinning with unexpected grace to face Mei Shen. It inhaled deeply, chest expanding, then exhaled a gout of crimson flame directly at her.

Liu Mei reacted instantly, pulling water qi from the air to form a shield. Steam exploded outward as flame met water, temporarily blinding them all.

Lin Feng seized the opportunity, channeling jade energy into a technique he'd been practicing but hadn't mastered—the Time Anchor. He formed the complex seal sequence, jade light coalescing around his fingers, then slammed his palm into the ground beneath the Flame Wraith.

A circle of jade symbols erupted around the creature, climbing up its body like vines. Where they touched, its movements slowed dramatically—not frozen, but reduced to a nightmarish crawl, each motion taking seconds to complete.

"Now!" Lin Feng shouted, the strain of maintaining the advanced technique evident in his voice. "Hit it with everything!"

Liu Mei moved first, abandoning water techniques for something unexpected—a golden needle that she plunged directly into the Wraith's right eye. "Soaring Dragon Hidden Art: Meridian Disruption Needle!"

The creature's agonized roar seemed to shake the mountainside. Mei Shen followed immediately, her jade sword extending further as she poured energy into it. She executed a perfect thrust through the Wraith's chest where a heart would be on a human.

"Jade Lotus Legacy: Bloodline Severance," she intoned, twisting the blade.

The Flame Wraith convulsed, its body cracking from within as jade energy spread from Mei Shen's sword throughout its system. Crimson fire leaked from the widening fissures in its skin.

Lin Feng felt his control of the Time Anchor slipping as his cultivation base reached its limit. "Get back!" he warned, releasing the technique with a controlled dissolution rather than letting it collapse chaotically.

As the jade symbols faded, the Flame Wraith stumbled forward one step, then another. It reached for Lin Feng with burning hands, its ruined face twisted in hatred.

Then it exploded.

The blast of heat and force threw Lin Feng backward. He tucked into a roll that his father had taught him years ago for falling from harvest trees, coming up singed but largely unhurt. Liu Mei and Mei Shen had both managed to dodge the worst of the explosion, though neither looked unscathed.

"That," Liu Mei said, breathing heavily, "was not a typical unorthodox beast."

"No," Mei Shen agreed, examining a burned patch on her sleeve. "That was an elite tracker. Which means—"

"The Bloodhunters aren't just mercenaries," Lin Feng finished. "Someone high in the Crimson Phoenix hierarchy authorized this hunt."

A distant shout drew their attention back the way they had come. Multiple figures were visible now, descending the path they had fled—more Bloodhunters, at least a dozen.

"We need to move," Mei Shen urged. "The safehouse isn't far."

They resumed their westward sprint, moving as quickly as the rough terrain allowed. Lin Feng felt the burn of exhaustion in his muscles, the drain on his cultivation base from the advanced temporal technique. He hadn't fully recovered from creating the Time Barrier earlier.

The jagged cliff Mei Shen had indicated loomed closer. Lin Feng could make out the promised jade markers now—tiny glints of green embedded in the gray stone, forming a pattern visible only if you knew to look for it.

"There," Mei Shen pointed to what appeared to be a solid rock face. "Quickly!"

As they approached, Lin Feng realized the jade markers outlined a doorway-sized section of the cliff. Mei Shen pressed her hand against the center, channeling jade energy into the stone.

"Blood recognition," she explained. "Your father's design."

The stone rippled like water, then simply ceased to exist, revealing a dark passage beyond. They hurried inside, and the stone solidified behind them, sealing them in darkness.

"Illumination," Mei Shen commanded. Jade lights embedded in the walls activated, revealing a surprisingly extensive cave system that had been converted into living quarters. Simple but comfortable furnishings filled the main chamber, with doorways leading deeper into the cliff.

"What is this place?" Liu Mei asked, examining the jade script carved into the walls—temporal arrays Lin Feng recognized from the Jade Lotus mountain.

"A waystation," Mei Shen replied. "One of many your father established throughout the region. Safe havens for bloodline carriers, hidden from Phoenix detection."

Lin Feng stared at her. "You keep saying 'your father' as if you knew him well."

Mei Shen's expression softened. "I did. Feng Wuying saved my life when I was a child, just as he saved Liu Mei's. But unlike her, he recognized the bloodline potential in me immediately." She gestured to the jade mark at the corner of her eye. "Hard to miss the physical manifestation."

She moved to a cabinet, retrieving medical supplies. "He brought me here, taught me enough to survive, to hide my nature from those who would hunt me for it. He visited every few years until..." Her voice faltered slightly. "Until he didn't."

Lin Feng exchanged a glance with Liu Mei. The picture of his father was becoming increasingly complex—the simple farmer who was secretly a powerful cultivator, who had arrangements with the Crimson Phoenix Grandmaster, who apparently spent years creating a network of safehouses and identifying bloodline carriers throughout the region.

"How many others are there like you?" he asked. "Bloodline descendants he found and helped?"

"Seven that I know of directly," Mei Shen answered, applying a healing salve to a burn on her arm. "Though I suspect more. Your father was... methodical."

Liu Mei had moved to a map mounted on the wall—a detailed rendering of the surrounding territories with jade markers indicating locations. "These are all safehouses?"

"And meeting points, supply caches, emergency routes," Mei Shen confirmed. "A complete network for bloodline carriers to navigate the world unseen by Phoenix hunters."

Lin Feng studied the map, recognition dawning. "These match the locations on the tablet the Crimson Phoenix Grandmaster gave my grandfather." He turned to Mei Shen. "But how did you know to find us today? How did you know we were coming to Mist Valley City to look for you?"

Mei Shen smiled enigmatically. "Because sixteen years ago, your father gave me this." She reached into her robes and withdrew a small jade disk. "He called it a Temporal Resonance Compass. He said it would activate when the mountain returned, when his son carried the lotus mark." She held it out to Lin Feng. "It led me to you."

Lin Feng accepted the disk, feeling its jade energy resonate with his own. Another piece of his father's elaborate preparations, another thread in a pattern he was only beginning to discern.

"We should rest and recover," Liu Mei suggested practically. "Those Bloodhunters are still out there, and we need to contact the mountain about Jin Wei and Song Li."

"There's a communication array in the back chamber," Mei Shen said. "Designed to reach the mountain directly, once it returned."

As Liu Mei went to activate the array, Lin Feng found himself studying Mei Shen more carefully. "The technique you used against the Flame Wraith—Bloodline Severance. That's an advanced Jade Lotus technique. How did you learn it?"

"Your father taught me," she replied simply. "He said if I was going to survive as a bloodline carrier in a world that hunted us, I needed more than basic defenses."

"And the others he found? Did he teach them as well?"

Mei Shen nodded. "Different techniques for different manifestations. The jade lotus bloodline expresses uniquely in each carrier." She pointed to the mark by her eye. "Mine manifests in perception—the ability to see temporal flows, to identify bloodlines by sight. Another carrier in the western provinces manifests in speed manipulation. Another in healing."

"He was building an arsenal," Lin Feng realized. "Finding bloodline carriers with different specialties, training them in secret, creating a network that could activate when needed."

"Yes," Mei Shen agreed. "Though for what final purpose, he never fully explained. He spoke only of a coming crisis that would require all bloodlines to unite." Her gaze turned thoughtful. "The same crisis, I assume, that led to his arrangement with the Crimson Phoenix Grandmaster."

Liu Mei returned from the communication chamber. "I've made contact with the mountain. Jin Wei and Song Li returned safely—Song Li was injured but stable. They're sending a recovery team to meet us."

"They'll never find this place unless we guide them," Mei Shen noted.

"Then we rest for now," Lin Feng decided. "Recover our strength, and meet them when we can." He looked between the two women, feeling the weight of his father's legacy pressing on him. "And then we find the other bloodline carriers before the Bloodhunters do."

Outside, beyond the illusion of solid stone, the Bloodhunters continued their search, unaware that their quarry had vanished into a sanctuary created years before by a man who had seen further ahead than anyone could have imagined.

A man whose plans were still unfolding, even a decade after his death.