The Law Faith Rises

Li Huowang was still in a daze when he heard someone calling out to him.

“Daoist! Hey, Daoist!”

The man with the bound feet from earlier waddled over, sizing up Li Huowang’s face with an ingratiating smile. “Daoist, you’re leaving already? Why not stay a few more nights?”

“What exactly are you people doing?” Li Sui suddenly asked, her curiosity piqued.

At this, the bound-foot man casually lifted the lid off a nearby pot. Steam billowed up, revealing a fist-sized stone sitting placidly in the boiling water.

“Stone soup! This stuff is nourishing! Drink this stone soup—it’ll stave off hunger and extend your years! And if you just keep boiling it until the stone’s completely dissolved, then drink it down... you can ascend to the immortal realm! No more suffering in this mortal world!”

“Mm?” Li Huowang’s brow furrowed. He stared at the man for a few seconds, then said, “Stone soup? Ascending to immortality? You’ve been duped by the Zuowandao, haven’t you?”

The bound-foot man set the lid back on the pot and asked, with a hint of confusion, “Daoist? What’s ‘Zuowandao’? This little one’s never heard of it.”

“Stop boiling it. Whoever told you that—it’s a lie. A stone can’t be boiled down, and drinking stone-water won’t make you an immortal.”

Li Huowang figured that warning was good enough for his conscience. He lifted his foot and started threading his way through the cooking stations, ready to leave.

But as he walked, he noticed a group of men with hostile expressions weaving through the patchwork of stoves, converging on him.

And every single one of them wore the same white headband that bound-foot man had on.

Li Huowang’s hand went to his sword hilt.

“Who are you calling a liar! Say that again! These are the words of Granddaddy Shidu himself, come down to the mortal world!”

“Shidu?” The moment Li Huowang repeated the name, he realized he was surrounded. Men and women, every one of them wearing white headbands, packed in around him.

Clang.

Li Huowang yanked the Purple-Tasseled Sword from its scabbard. A murderous aura exploded outward. “Get out of my way!”

Seeing him like this, the people recoiled in fear. A little.

But they didn’t scatter far. More white headbands poured out of the alleys, crowding around as if they’d come to watch a show.

“Brother Li, get moving. I’ve spent plenty of time in Great Qi, and I’ve never heard of any ‘Shidu.’ These people are wrong.”

“Mm.” Li Huowang opened his mouth, and Li Sui—as if reading his intent—sliwed back inside in a single fluid motion.

Black tentacles erupted from Li Huowang’s body. With a violent lash outward, they sent the pots on the stoves flying, splashing their contents into the crowd.

The water in those pots was still boiling. Screams of scalding pain filled the air.

“Go!”

Li Huowang drove off the ground with his feet and four supporting tentacles, launching himself high over their heads and arcing toward the distant fields beyond.

Almost there. A white blur flickered at the edge of his vision.

The next instant, the two tentacles extending from his armpits snapped like whips, cracking twice in the air.

With the sound, the white blur came crashing to the ground, face-first in the dirt.

When Li Huowang caught sight of the large character on the man’s white mask—Wu (Shaman)—his expression turned very, very dark.

He’d seen people dressed like this before. In Great Liang, the masks were black. In Great Qi, they were white.

There was no such thing as Shidu! This was nothing but another name for Yu’er Shen! These white-headbanded fanatics were the Law Faith of Great Qi!

“Great Qi has a Law Faith too… This Heavenly Calamity has affected both sides.” Zhuge Yuan’s face grew heavy, as if something had just clicked into place.

The man in the distance was just struggling to his feet when the towering form of Peng Longteng dropped from the sky, landing squarely on top of him.

Crunch. The ground shook. Bones snapped. Dirt sprayed into the air.

But it didn’t end there. Seeing their shaman killed, the white-headbanded folks near the stoves went berserk. They grabbed hot stones straight out of the pots with their bare hands and came surging toward Li Huowang in a black tide.

“Can’t get tangled up with them!” Li Huowang slapped two talismans onto his legs and shot out of the city gate in a blur.

But the instant he cleared the gate, he froze.

Outside the walls, the open ground was thick with refugees—skinny, ragged, filthy. But no matter how torn or dirty their clothes, every single one of them wore a white headband.

These were followers of the Law Faith.

“I should have known. The worse people’s lives get, the better these cults flourish! The Law Faith in Great Qi is probably ten times bigger than the one in Great Liang!”

“Brothers and sisters! Rise up! That red-robed Daoist just killed our shaman!”

A shout went up from the top of the wall. The refugees stirred, rising crookedly to their feet, turning in unison to stare at Li Huowang.

Feeling the weight of all those eyes on him, looking out at the endless sea of starving faces, Li Huowang clenched his jaw.

He tightened his grip on the Purple-Tasseled Sword in his right hand. Then he reached over with his other hand, seized the thick bone-sword slung across his back, drew it, and slammed the tip into the ground.

Li Sui’s tentacles flipped open his kit of torture implements. Every tendril not already holding the Brass Coin Sword seized a polished, glinting weapon.

“Aaagh—!” The gaunt refugees bared yellowed gums and came pouring toward him like a tide of corpses.

“Li Sui! Let’s move!” Li Huowang kicked off the ground and charged into the mass without hesitation.

The bone-sword swung in a wide arc. The refugees in front of him went down like wheat before a scythe, their severed torsos spraying blood as they crumpled to the earth.

Li Huowang leaped high, came crashing down like a meteor, and every point of impact erupted in a storm of gore.

The Law Faith had numbers on their side, but not one of them could withstand a single blow from him.

The Purple-Tasseled Sword was a true weapon of the military path. Far from tiring, Li Huowang felt his strength redouble with every life he took.

He realized he’d been using the sword wrong before. This was where it belonged—on a battlefield like this.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” His eyes were completely bloodshot now. Everything around him was red.

Ting! The Purple-Tasseled Sword came down, slicing through a rusted sickle like butter.

But just as Li Huowang’s instincts swung his blade toward the next obstacle in his path, he stopped.

It was a woman in a white headband. She stood there, motionless, holding a dead infant buzzing with flies in her arms. One look told Li Huowang she had lost her mind.

She looked at him. Then she reached into the swaddling, pulled out a rusty knife, and drove it into his body.

The next second, a massive black shadow dropped from the sky and came down directly on the woman and the baby in her arms, pulping them both to paste.

Peng Longteng grabbed a living person in each hand, using them as bludgeons, and hurled them in every direction, clearing a huge circle of open ground.