Chương 122: Death on the Doorstep, IV

Fortunately after a little while the desire to skip over to this "adventure" that the girls thought they'd have had faded, and instead they simply followed Wu Hao as he made his way through the streets. It was good, because otherwise he'd have felt even worse about leading children to their deaths, no matter how accomplished they were as martial artists. He'd have liked to spend the time in silence, but Hanzi kept trying to talk to him, asking nonsensical questions.

When he didn't answer, she instead pretended that she'd been talking to Huifei, who seemed to used to this way of conversation. It was clear their minds worked in different ways but they found some sort of harmony. It might have been beautiful in a sense or heartwarming or something like it, but Wu Hao was a little too busy trying to revise his plans. Laying in wait until night wouldn't be possible now, with these two chatterboxes besides him.

Besides, with them treating it like an adventure, it was more than possible that they'd simply announce their presence and try to stroll in. He stopped and Hanzi nearly smacked into his back as he stood there, thinking. Huh, he thought, and he'd accidentally vocalized it, as well.

"What?" Hanzi asked, her eyes still uncomfortably close to Wu Hao. She had a thing about that, he'd noticed.

"Nothing," he said, and started walking again. It didn't take them too long to arrive at the mansion, which looked the same as it always had. To give them some credit the girls realized that this was where it was going to happen and their conversation which had ebbed and flowed as the walk had continued died out.

"Halt," one of the Array Dolls serving as guards ordered. Wu Hao studied it carefully, wondering how he hadn't noticed the way its jaw barely moved as it spoke. It was an array etched onto the side of the mask that allowed it to speak at all. Did it only have rote phrases? It was an interesting little function, but he had to focus.

"I'm here to see the one in charge of the Mu Clan," Wu Hao said.

"No entry permitted," the Array Doll repeated.

"I know," Wu Hao said. He began gathering his qi, forming it into a tight loop while his other hand crept to his spear.

"I'll be waiting for him inside." The Array Doll stared mutely at him, those blank eyes unblinking.

"No entry permitted." As if for emphasis, he - it - and the other Array Doll let their spears ring out together as they blocked the path with their bodies. He nodded, took a step back, and then things happened very quickly. Qi flooded through his arms as he wrenched himself around, his spear dropping into his hands and whirling around, carefully balanced, to end up pointed straight at the first Array Doll.

"One Strike Spear Art," he said calmly.

"Heart Seeker." Then Wu Hao took another step forward. The spear flew out, straight and true, and before the Array Doll had managed to do more than receive another signal Wu Hao's spear had already ripped through its back. Wu Hao's arms strained with the effort of keeping the corpse balanced on top of his spear.

"I wasn't asking," Wu Hao said, ripping the spear out and twisting his arm. The Array Doll just stared at him with those blank eyes. All of its movement had ceased the instant that Wu Hao had torn through the arrays that kept its pseudo-core running. It bled, but it was a darkened, drab sort of blood. Then it collapsed, folding in on itself like it had been made out of wood. There was an intake of breath as the girls realized what he'd just done. The other one moved, then, in two steps.

First its qi rang out, loudly and clearly, announcing a clear signal for danger to all of the other Array Dolls in the mansion. Then it summoned up that same qi, pulling out as much as it could so that shadows seemed to bubble up underneath its skin, dark shapes moving into ominous patterns. Shadows began to flood across the Array Doll's spear and Wu Hao tried to prepare himself for another use of the Heart Seeker.

In the meantime, as his qi uncoiled itself from the tangled mess the first kill had left it in, he was forced to backpedal. No movement techniques for now, then. He grit his teeth. The spear thrust into the long shade of the nearby gate and Wu Hao's eyes tried to track every single angle, attempting to spot where it'd come from and trying to dodge. He only had one chance. Someone whispered at his side and he turned, but he'd turned the wrong direction and he saw nothing.

He forced his eyes wide, trying to see - There! It'd erupted from his own shadow and it hurtled forward, and he twisted on his feet to try and get away. He'd noticed a breath too late, though, and all he could do was trip over his own feet and watch it get closer and closer as his perception of time slowed.

Another glint of steel flashed and suddenly Huifei was there, her sword cutting into the space where the spear would have torn into Wu Hao's skin and pushing it away from his body, until the tip tore nothing but air.

"Rooted King Sword Art," Huifei's cold voice came.

"Divine Snare." A stunned few breaths of silence before Wu Hao's qi managed to abruptly disentangle itself, and within moments he'd arrived before the Array Doll, still struggling to pull its spear back where Huifei had blocked it from moving.

"One Strike Spear Art," he hissed again.

"Heart Seeker!" The spear flew out, a bright streak of qi in Wu Hao's vision that erupted from his hands and flew forward. Wu Hao's wide eyes followed the spear as his clumsy stab shifted into a smooth thrust forwards, buoyed by the loop of qi he'd just completed, and then it was more difficult to keep hold of the spear than anything else. It hit the Array Doll's chest and stopped. The thing had managed to block his strike after all.

Its technique had been interrupted midway and as a result its spear had been shorn in half - which left the sharp tip of it clattering to the ground but enough of its shaft left that it could push down on Wu Hao's own spear with both hands. Forcing more qi into his arms, Wu Hao gave a grunt of exertion and then let his spear dip down, as if giving way. More of that shadowy qi poured forward, the last of the thing's reserves.

It didn't so much as seem bothered that it was dragging Wu Hao's spear tip through what had once been its organs, letting parts of its guts spill out of the cut with the force of its push. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Wu Hao let it, pulled back his spear, and spun it around in a whirling circle.

Before the thing had had a chance to do more than raise its head or gather the dregs of its qi Wu Hao's spear had already raised up high and came crashing down. It wasn't a technique as such - he wouldn't have the qi free for it anyway - but steel met the Array Doll's rotting flesh and peeled it like a grape, cutting from its shoulder all the way down through the patterns on its heart before stopping.

Then, for the second time in as many minutes, Wu Hao pulled his spear back and watched the thing collapse lifelessly onto the ground without even trying to give a token resistance. He breathed in and out, his breath sound loud in his ears. He felt his heart pound, nodding to himself. That had gone better than expected. He inspected his spear's tip carefully, finding it bloodied and dirtied by viscera but, after a bit of cleaning, it hadn't been dinged too hard. Wu Hao raised his eyes then and turned to Huifei.

Hanzi stood next to them, looking ashen-faced at the Array Dolls' remains.

"You killed them," Huifei said. Her face had gone cold and furious, unlike her sister disciple.

"You can't kill what's not alive," Wu Hao said, interrupting her.

"He's right," Hanzi said. Her relentless cheer had finally faded in the face of seeing what they were up against. Wu Hao had found it slightly annoying earlier, but its absence equally made him feel bad.

"Those things were - not right. It's vile. It's a..." Her voice trailed off without ever finding the word that she'd been looking for. Huifei didn't seem to entirely get why but her displeasure abated slightly, until Wu Hao flicked his spear and ripped off the mask, exposing the Array Doll's rotting flesh. Even Huifei's proud face turned slightly green at that. She took a few breaths, studying the Array Doll from a few angles, and then nodded.

"Apologies," she said quietly.

"I... lack experience. I'll make amends." Her qi gathered at the edges of her skin and then shot out like a missile into the distance before Wu Hao could stop it.

"I've notified Senior Sister again," Huifei said quietly.

"She says to proceed before we're caught and that she's coming to help us." Wu Hao stared grimly at the mansion.

"Might be too late," he said, and started his path forward, spear clutched tightly in his hands. Together, they'd just dealt with two of four of the biggest threats in the entire mansion. The rest wouldn't be as easy. An avalanche of other Array Dolls poured out of the mansion. It was, he noticed, every third-grade martial artist that had been inside the house. Only two signatures were left inside the house, both blobs of that same shadowy goop that he was coming to really dislike.

It stuck in his senses in ways that just felt wrong. Wu Hao didn't bother to count how many enemies there were. He just raised his spear grimly. Compared to the second-grades, this'd be far harder to win. He didn't have the qi to keep reusing Heart Seeker - as a one-shot kill technique it used a great deal of qi, with the idea that there'd be ample time to recover afterwards. At least he'd have an idea of how many they had, now. His hand strayed to his belt, where he still kept two knives handy.

They'd probably chip and shatter after a few blows, though, and the techniques for wielding daggers that he knew weren't meant to deal out damage to specific parts of the body. His thoughts were interrupted by Huifei, whose grip on her sword had grown white-knuckled, and by Hanzi, who was scratching at her hair. Wu Hao couldn't help but wonder if this was really the time, before Hanzi showed that her hands were full of hairpins and thin needles, one clenched between each knuckle.

"Target the heart," Wu Hao said, and she nodded at him, her smile returning briefly before it was gone again. She still looked a little ill at the sight of all the Array Dolls amassing and beginning a staggered charge over to the three of them in total silence. If they had an advantage right now, he supposed, it was the Array Dolls' stumbling. Hanzi's hands moved slowly until the qi loop clicked into place, a shudder running through all of her meridians as she channeled all the power she had.

The first needle flew out with immense speed, thrown with an overhand movement and blazing with qi. Its small size lent it speed and agility, and it landed in the chest area of the Array Doll leading the pack, where the needle burst apart in a spark of bright, cloudy qi. The Array Doll staggered slightly before the one behind it pushed it forward. More and more needles followed, new ones created from pure qi mingling with every other one being made of metal.

Then instead of every second needle, it was only one in five that was real. They punctured eyes, necks, the soft skin of the feet, but most of all they targeted the chest. Needle after needle flew, faster and faster, Hanzi's fingers turning into restless blurs until the entire first two lines of the Array Dolls' battle formation had been turned into stumbling porcupines. They still moved, though. Wu Hao glanced back, not quite impressed, but Hanzi's look of concentration didn't let up.

Her small mouth formed the words to a silent chant, and then she spoke.

"Vision King Sword Art," she whispered.

"Thousand Pinpricks." Then, wincing at her fingers chafed raw having to move again, Hanzi detonated the qi in each of the needles. Small but numerous holes were blown into each of the moving corpses, tearing off chunks of skin and viscera, and drove the entire mass of maybe-men into uncontrolled chaos as they stumbled over their own feet, lost the signals as parts of their heads were simply gone, or fell into that lifeless slumber as parts of the arrays that made up their cores were gauged out.

With two moves, she had taken the best part of their opponents out of action. Wu Hao gaped.

"Can you do that again?" he asked, eyeing the rest of the group still shambling forward. Though their numbers had been diminished, it didn't mean that it'd be easy or simple to take them all on. If another mass technique could be used...

"I can't," she said, panting.

"I'm out of qi and I'm out of needles. Apologies." Wu Hao raised his spear, gathered his qi, and pushed it against the qi points in his feet. Then he rocketed forwards, charging into the horde with his spear held high. In the end, it'd fallen to him anyway.