Chương 18: "He was going to have to turn his body into an anvil"

Ch 18: "He was going to have to turn his body into an anvil" The next morning, Shuo didn't wake Zhen with the usual bark to break camp. Instead, the old cultivator stood beside an already saddled Chul. He jerked his chin toward the hills.

"Let's go." Knowing that questioning Shuo was pointless, Zhen quickly packed his bedroll and climbed into the saddle. They set off, cresting one hill, then another. Just before the summit of the steepest incline, Shuo stopped and spun around so fast that Zhen nearly rode into him.

"I'm in the mood for jugged hare." Zhen blinked.

"What?" Shuo's expression shifted to one reserved for particularly slow children.

"Jugged hare. Stew. Wine, vegetables, liver. You do know what jugged hare is?" Zhen glanced at Chul. The mare tossed her head and snorted in the equine equivalent of a shrug.

"I... no?" Shuo's eyes rolled skyward, and a long-suffering sigh escaped his lips.

"The education Mei-Bao and Gang gave you is worse than I thought." He waved a dismissive hand.

"Doesn't matter. What's the one thing you must have if you're going to make jugged hare?"

"Sorry?"

"Hare. The critical thing about jugged hare is that you need a hare to make it." Zhen looked around in the vain hope that there might be someone who could explain what the old man was talking about.

"I don't follow."

"It's simple." That predatory grin from last night returned, stretching across Shuo's face.

"You need to learn to fight with those hammers." He held up one hand.

"I want to eat jugged hare." He held up another.

"We're going to solve both problems at once by having you catch a hare." He brought both hands together. Zhen's confusion deepened.

"A hare? Like... a large rabbit?" The grin widened until it threatened to split Shuo's face in two.

"Yes! Exactly that. You've got it." His voice carried a disturbing amount of enthusiasm.

"Think of a hare as a large rabbit. A very large rabbit." The way he emphasized 'very' sent a warning chill down Zhen's spine. He looked down at the hammers hanging from his belt, then back at Shuo.

"How large are we talking?" But Shuo had already turned and continued up the hill. Zhen followed, his earlier excitement about combat training rapidly curdling into apprehension. Chul whickered with a sympathetic sound. He patted her neck as they followed after Shuo, who had reached the crest and stood silhouetted against the morning sky.

"There." Shuo pointed down into the valley below.

"Your hunting ground." From his position lower on the hillside, Zhen stared up at Shuo, trying to process his words. The old cultivator's patience dissolved. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Go over hill." Shuo gestured with exaggerated slowness.

"Hares. Lots of. Lift hammer. Hit. Hare dead. You bring. I make stew. Is that simple enough for your blacksmith's brain?" The insult stung, but Zhen kept his mouth shut. He had learned that arguing with Shuo only made things worse.

"Actually..." Shuo's eyes glinted.

"Why doesn't Chul come along? You two need to learn to work together anyway." Chul's ears pricked forward. Zhen felt her muscles tense beneath him, ready for action.

"Master Shuo, I still don't…"

"Just get on with it!" Zhen nudged Chul forward, but apparently their pace was too slow. The old man's hand blurred through the air cracked against Chul's rump with an echoed across the hillside. The mare's startled neigh ripped through the morning air as she exploded forward, her spirit herb enhanced haunches launching them into a full gallop. Zhen grabbed her mane with both hands, his hammers bouncing against his thighs.

They crested the hill at breakneck speed, the world tilting as they plunged down the other side. Zhen's stomach dropped as he saw what spread out below him. The valley churned with violence. Dozens of hares fought on their hind legs, their forepaws whipping through the air. Even from this distance, Zhen heard flesh crack against flesh. The nearest pair caught his attention. One hare landed a devastating right cross. Its opponent's head snapped sideways with an audible crack that carried up the hillside.

The victor dropped to all fours, seized the corpse's throat in its teeth, and tore it out. If that was all, Zhen could have coped, but that wasn't the worst of it. These weren't ordinary hares, they were monsters in rabbit-like forms. Each stood seven feet tall, hind legs thick as tree trunks, and forepaws that had evolved from digging tools into weapons capable of crushing bone. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Zhen hauled on Chul's mane, desperate to stop their headlong charge. The mare's hooves dug furrows in the earth as she fought to slow their momentum. A familiar figure pulled up beside them, matching their pace with an infuriating casual lope.

"Too slow!" Shuo's palm connected with Chul's hindquarters again. The mare neighed in indignation and surged forward again, heading toward the carnage below.

"Mating season!" Shuo called out, still keeping pace without apparent effort.

"They're in a frenzy! Won't stop until there's only one left standing. That's who leads the warren for the next year!" A hare near the edge of the melee turned at their approach. Its eyes blazed crimson, foam flecked its muzzle, and blood, not its own, painted its chest.

"Don't kill the last one!" Shuo's voice carried a note of warning.

"Bad for the local ecosystem. They still need a leader. But the rest?" That toothy grin returned.

"They're fighting to the death regardless. Excellent training!" The red-eyed hare rose to its full height, his massive chest expanding as it released a challenge scream that sounded nothing like any rabbit Zhen had ever heard. More heads turned. Their crimson eyes fixed on the approaching horse and rider.

"Good luck!" Shuo slapped Chul's rump one final time then bent his knees and launched himself skyward. He landed thirty feet up on the highest branch of a gnarled oak. He folded his arms across his chest, settling in to watch. Zhen had no more time to spend on him as Chul charged into the melee. The nearest hares pivoted toward them, abandoning their own battles. Three rose onto their hind legs simultaneously, forepaws cocked back like prizefighters.

Zhen rolled off Chul's back, his hammers in his hands before his feet hit dirt. A massive paw whistled past his ear. He jerked backward, the rush of displaced air ruffling his hair.

"Up, up, up. Weight on the balls of your feet!" Shuo's voice drifted down from his perch.

"Remember the footwork drills! Spring Storm Lunge." A hare darted in, its jaws snapping. Zhen pivoted as he had practiced during those endless evening exercises and brought his right hammer around in a tight arc. The head caught the creature's shoulder, spinning it away. Another attacked from his blind spot. Powerful hind legs drove talons toward his ribs. He twisted, but not fast enough. Claws tore through his side. As he spun, he saw a shadow leap toward Chul.

"Chul! Behind you!" The mare's rear hooves lashed out. A faint silver arc cut through the morning dew as her Moonlight Steel shoes reappeared for a moment and caught an approaching hare square in the chest. The crack of breaking ribs punctuated the morning air as the beast sailed backward. She wheeled, positioning herself at Zhen's back.

"Better!" Shuo called.

"Now use those hammers like you know what you're doing. Controlled strikes like you're working steel, not wild swings!" Two hares rushed them simultaneously. Zhen shortened his grip on the left hammer, using it to deflect snapping teeth while the right swept low, shattering a leg joint. The creature collapsed, screaming. Chul danced sideways, her enhanced speed keeping pace with a circling hare. When it committed to an attack, she reared and brought both front hooves down on its skull.

"Also, do you have the Eye or don't you?" Shuo's tone had a hint of exasperation.

"Why aren't you taking advantage of their mistakes? Watch their shoulders before they attack!" Blood trickled into Zhen's eye from a gash across his forehead. His breathing came in ragged gasps as he activated the Eye. The old man was annoying, but he was right. There were flaws in the hares' attacks, and he could see the patterns now. Tension in the shoulder to signal a punch, a hip rotation before a leap. He flowed around a haymaker, bringing both hammers down on an exposed spine. The hare crumpled.

Another tried to flank him, but Chul's teeth found its ear, tearing it away with a vicious shake of her head. The more they fought, the more the two of them worked as one. Chul covered his blind spots. He protected her flanks. Zhen's confidence swelled. The drills that Shuo had forced him to carry out had taught him to fight without him realizing. With his hammers in his hands, his body knew what to do almost before his mind did. These creatures were dangerous but manageable. He could do this.

Then a shadow fell across him and the bloodied grass. Pure instinct saved him. Zhen threw himself sideways as something crashed down where he had been standing. The impact cratered the earth, sending out a shockwave that knocked nearby combatants off their feet. The newcomer rose to his full height. Nine feet of scarred muscle and barely contained violence. Gray streaked his muzzle, and his left eye was a milky ruin. The right one, though, burned with an intelligence that made Zhen's blood run cold.

This wasn't some maddened beast. This thing could think.

"Ah!" Shuo sounded delighted.

"Old One-Eye! I was wondering where he was. He's been running this warren for a decade. Killed seventeen challengers last time." One-Eye's good eye tracked between Zhen and Chul, calculating. Then he moved, faster than anything that size had a right to be. Zhen barely got his hammers up before a paw the size of his torso slammed into them. The impact launched him backward, arms screaming from the shock. The other hares attacked with renewed fury, as if their leader's arrival had triggered some primal response.

Zhen found himself fighting in three directions at once while One-Eye stalked the perimeter, waiting.

"Well, you're not going to get anywhere against him with love taps," Shuo called over.

"Circulate your qi between your two open gates to strengthen your muscles!"

"What are you talking about?" Zhen snarled back, ducking under a swipe that would have removed his head.

"Did I forget to teach you?" From the corner of his eye, Zhen could see Shuo scratch his head.

"Ah well! Figure it out or die." Zhen gritted his teeth against a curse. He turned his Eye of Xiezhi inward. He could see his meridians now, the qi flowing from his Qihai gate at his navel and his Mingmen gate at his lower back. But they had to take a circuitous route to travel between them. In the direct path at his solar plexus, sat another blockage. A third spirit gate, sealed tight. If he could open it, the qi would flow directly between his two active gates, creating a circuit.

More importantly, it would spill into the closed meridians he could see in his muscles, reinforcing them. One-Eye chose that moment to attack. The ancient hare's paw connected with Zhen's guard, but this time, he was watching with his Eye. The impact sent a qi-enhanced shockwave through his body, and the blocked gate wobbled. Understanding of what was needed dawned on him. This gate didn't respond to gentle grinding or smooth circulation or even a head-on assault; it responded to external blows.

It was similar to how he hammered out impurities in an iron ingot before he learned to use his qi to do it. To destabilize this blockage, he would need to let himself get hit by qi-empowered strikes in exactly the right spots. One-Eye's strikes would hammer the blockage from the outside while his own qi pressured it from within. His stomach clenched at what that meant. He was going to have to turn his body into an anvil.

"Ah! You've worked it out." Shuo's cheerful voice rang out over the battlefield.

"Excellent! I knew you would. Remember, if you get hit too hard, you'll still die. So my advice is, well, don't get hit too hard." One-Eye's scarred face split in something that disturbingly resembled a grin. The creature had sensed his hesitation. Zhen exhaled slowly, adjusting his stance. He met the creature's good eye and gritted his teeth.

"Fine." He circulated qi through his meridians.

"Let's do this the hard way."