The Beheader

From his perch on the roof beam, Li Huowang silently reached out and pulled the two eyeballs free from where Li Sui’s tentacles had been holding them. “This Mercenary King really knows how to play his part.”

Down below, the Mercenary King’s already yang-deficient face was now painted with the theatrical makeup of a young male lead. He was locked in a fierce performance opposite a male Dan, only they were doing it lying down—moving and singing at the same time.

Listening to the rhythmic, filthy lyrics spike and fall, Li Huowang’s right hand went white-knuckled from gripping too hard. If he could have found Li Sui’s ears, he would have pulled them off too.

He waited. Ready to move the moment the enemy was at his most vulnerable.

“Aiiii~yo~~ I~ see~ my heart’s~ darling~ flesh of my flesh~”

Just as the opera’s cadence reached its highest pitch, murder flashed in Li Huowang’s eyes. He kicked off the beam and swept downward, sword in hand.

The spinal sword left a faint afterimage as it arced toward the Mercenary King on the bed.

The crack in the world—a cut of the Great Qi itself—went with it. A harsh, tearing screech filled the air as an impossibly fine mosquito net woven from metal thread suddenly materialized between Li Huowang and the Mercenary King.

It was clearly the Mercenary King’s last-ditch defense against assassins. But whatever its purpose, the fissure sliced through it without effort.

The male Dan lying on the bed saw the anomaly above faster than the Mercenary King. His painted face went pale with terror. “My~ lo~rd~!”

He wailed the line in a tragic falsetto, then shoved with both hands, pushing the Mercenary King off the bed.

But Li Huowang had planned for that. He deliberately extended the fissure’s reach.

No sound. The male Dan and the Mercenary King, who had tumbled off the bed, were both severed clean in two. Blood slowly spread across the floor.

“That’s it? Too easy?” Just as Li Huowang thought it was done, a palm-sized yellow skin-man crawled out from among the Mercenary King’s hair.

It didn’t even wait to grow to full size. Its featherlight body wobbled as it shot toward the exit.

“He had one of those things on him too!” Li Huowang gritted his teeth and gave chase, sword raised.

But the moment his weapon was about to strike the fleeing skin-man, a whole swarm of shadow-puppet figurines poured out from under the bed. They grabbed at Li Huowang’s shadow with countless hands, freezing him in place.

Li Sui’s tentacles lashed out, snuffing every candle along the walls. The shadow-puppets vanished. Li Huowang was free.

But in that brief window, the palm-sized skin-man had grown to normal size—though his body was still as thin as a sheet of paper.

A frantic gonging began. White smoke poured in through the wooden shutters, swallowing the Mercenary King’s paper-thin body.

“Die!” Li Huowang swung the spinal sword toward where the Mercenary King had disappeared. The flying fissure carved through the white smoke.

But what he found disappointed him. There was no Mercenary King’s body in the cut smoke. Instead, a strange figure emerged, carrying a huge gold ingot and wearing a white mask with a black beard.

The figure’s oversized copper-coin official hat wobbled. His legs seemed to have no joints as he swayed and hopped toward Li Huowang in time with the gong rhythm.

The moment he saw the two copper coins sewn over the mask’s eyeholes, Li Huowang knew exactly who this was.

“Jumping Wealth God, is it?”

Li Huowang clenched the spinal sword and charged straight at the masked Wealth God without dodging.

Since the ambush had failed, he’d have to win through brute force. He had to finish off the Mercenary King before the rest of his reinforcements arrived.

As they closed in, Li Sui struck first. A tentacle thick as a bowl burst from the left side of Li Huowang’s neck, seized the copper-coin sword from his back, and swung it at the Wealth God.

“Brother Li, put that sword away! It’s made of coins!”

Zhuge Yuan’s warning came too late. With a chattering rattle, the copper coins unspooled along their red cord like a whip, lashing at the enemy.

The instant the coins struck the huge gold ingot, every coin on the sword began to tremble. Li Sui lost control of them all.

As if pulled by a powerful magnetic force, the scattered coins flew to the gold ingot and stuck fast.

Then the Wealth God thrust the ingot forward. The coins re-condensed into a sword and shot back at Li Huowang.

The copper-coin sword he’d been using all this time was taken from him in a single move.

“Ssh!” Li Huowang swung the spinal sword again, cutting the coin sword right into the Great Qi realm.

The next moment, every alarm in his mind screamed. He spun instinctively and raised the spinal sword above his head.

Crash!

The floorboards beneath his feet exploded, dirt blasting upward. Li Sui’s eight tentacles plunged into the ground, barely holding against the enormous pressure.

A massive silver mace, formed from clumps of crushed silver, pressed down on the spinal sword like a mountain.

“Li Sui! Catch!”

As black tentacles wrapped around the spinal sword’s hilt, Li Huowang freed his hand, drew the Purple-Tasseled Sword, and hacked it down on his own left wrist.

The severed arm flew forward, fingers already curling into a claw, reaching for the enemy.

Taking advantage of the opening, Li Huowang reclaimed the spinal sword and jumped back.

He studied his new attacker. This man wore an identical mask to the first Wealth God, but his clothes were completely different.

Eight feet tall, he sat astride a growling leopard. He wore heavy armor made of copper coins, held a massive mace of crushed silver, and had four yellow pennants with the character for “wealth” thrust into his back.

“Martial Wealth God? Civil Wealth God?” Li Huowang’s gaze swept between the two enemies now standing in the white smoke.

As he spoke, the civil and martial Wealth Gods began to circle him from left and right. The urgent, piercing gong never stopped.

“This isn’t going to work. Even if I take these two down, the Mercenary King will be long gone by then.”

Li Huowang’s thoughts raced, ideas flaring up and dying out.

Then he spotted other dark shapes moving within the smoke. He gripped the spinal sword’s hilt and swung with all his strength.

This time the fissure was huge—wide enough for a person to crawl through.

“Li Sui! Through there!”

Li Huowang twisted his body, bringing himself to the edge of the tear. The Great Qi fissure was right there, so close he could even see what was inside.

This was the idea that had just come to him: use the Great Qi realm as a stepping stone to escape the encirclement of these Great Liang people.

Li Sui slapped two talismans onto Li Huowang’s legs. He pushed with everything he had, drawing a little closer to the fissure.

But it still wasn’t enough.