Chapter 9: Blood on Terraces
Beast tide.
The cry flew down the mountain as red smoke curled over the outer fields. A blood lure array, crude and hungry, pulsed under the soil near the eastern terrace—Li Cangfeng's doing or a benefactor's, Qin didn't care. Wolves with iron teeth poured from the pines; boars like boulders barreled between plots, tusks splintering fences.
Outer disciples stumbled, screaming, blades shaking.
Qin Mo sprinted. He stamped a line at the terrace edge."Quiet Lake Gathering, wake." The array took a breath and the field exhaled a wet fog. The front rank of wolves hit damp and slowed, joints heavy. Blades found necks. Blood steamed.
A roar shook soil. The Ironhide Boar King smashed a cart, eyes red, hide like forged armor. It charged. Qin Mo ran at it—insane—then slid low, palm skimming mud. Fingers snapped. Pebbles jumped into the air, seven in a line. He struck each—tak tak tak tak tak tak tak.
The Seven-Stone Lattice fell like a net of invisible bricks. The boar struck the lattice; force bled sideways into the ground. Its knees wobbled, not understanding betrayal. Qin was already moving—two steps up its shoulder, heel down like a falling hammer at the joint behind the skull.
Bone cracked. It bellowed, wild and gnashing. Ao Ling, fierce as a bead of sky, darted down and puffed mist into its nostrils. Frost bloomed inside the monster's breath. It snorted ice, stumbled, and Qin drove a Rain Needle into its eye.
The King thrashed once and stilled.
He pivoted, eyes sweeping. A girl clung to a fence post, leg trapped under a fallen beam. A wolf sprang. Qin tore the willow's fallen branch free, spun, and the branch drew a circle. The wolf met the circle and forgot how to bite. It landed, puzzled, then asleep forever.
The red pulse under the soil tugged at his bones. He knelt, palm on dirt, and felt the array, clumsy as a drunk's attempt at music. He changed three notes. The lure stuttered, sighed, and died.
By the time the inner sect's patrols thundered down like belated rain, the terrace was quiet—strewn with bodies, breath heavy with iron and sap. Qin Mo stood on the broken cart, mud to his knees, clothes torn, chest rising like a bellows. He looked like a weed.
The elders looked at the corpses and the quiet fields and then at the weed.