The Divine Martial Stars

“LI — ZHI — YUAN!”

Syllable after syllable, the young woman roared like a ferocious lioness on the hunt the moment she got back to her feet, her eyes set on the direction of the room from whence she was hurled out, flaring with rage.

“One more word. One more word and you’ll be dead. You’re free to try me.”

Li Mu’s steely cold voice reverberated quietly from inside the room.

The young woman gulped hard. As if her throat was grasped in a vice-like grip, she could barely utter another sound let alone any coherent words. This was the first time in her short but proud life that she encountered a man who not only refused to balk at the mention of Arcusstone, but also hurled threats and abused at one of its agents! As a messenger of Arcusstone, this young lass has had numerous dealings with Grand Masters, Chieftains, and even Patriarchs of various sects and orders. Few, if not none, had ever spoken to her in such a tone.

“We’ll see about that, Li Zhiyuan!”

She cursed quietly before she wheeled around and left.

Back inside the room, Li Mu cast a curt glance at Mr. Wei.

Mr. Wei’s face looked like someone had given him a kick in the groin. He forced a weak smile and bowed before he hastily scurried away. Deep down inside, he was already panicking about how should he resolve things with the messenger just now.

Meanwhile, Li Mu quietly retreated back to his suite, feeling somewhat disappointed by the outcome of the meeting.

For a long, long time, Arcusstone was a beacon of order and the bulwark of justice in the domain of warriors. But if the stance of Arcusstone as a whole mirrored that of the messenger just now, that would mean that Arcusstone, after years of being corroded by power and position, has become like the kings and emperors that Li Mu had seen before on Earth — monarchies that would eventually fall and crumble into dust with the passage of Time.

As to whether Arcusstone would seek reprisal for what he had done today, Li Mu was hardly worried about it at all.

For the next couple of days, Li Mu delved into giving Shen Jia more lessons on fighting. Shen Xiaoyue was allowed to look and train too. But having passed the best age to learn fighting and magic, even with Li Mu’s meticulous tutelage and his abundant stores of supplies, she just couldn’t catch up to Shen Jia anymore.

Time swept by swiftly.

It was a breeze-filled morning on the clear, sunny morning of the third day.

Li Mu got up early. He gave Shen Jia his practice instructions of the day before he left Cloud Nine Lodge for a stroll like nothing was going to happen that day and the declaration, he made a few days ago at Pink Alley seemed like something long forgotten.

Outside the Lodge, a huge crowd was mobbing the steps outside the entrance.

The way to the Priory’s stronghold barely spanned up to a mile, but the street that led all the way there was filled with scores of warriors and champions from everywhere on both flanks. From far and wide they had come just to behold the Aspect of Vengeance Li Zhiyuan himself. Li Mu only needed to step out of the entrance and, literally, every pair of eyes in the vicinity swiveled around to home in on him.

Beyond any doubt, the aftermath of this showdown would shake the very foundations of the world of warriors and alter its landscape for a very long, long time.

For day and even night, these warriors had traveled to gather here in Rydorburg, all so that they could witness up-close a battle that could very well be remembered in the histories of the Northern Steppes.

As he walked down the streets swarming with people jostling against each other to see him, even Li Mu had to admit that he really was surprised.

“As always, warriors really are merry folk that loved to be among crowds,” he mused, feeling amused.

But what was more intriguing to him was the fact that Arcusstone had yet to retaliate as if the debacle with the female messenger a few days ago had not happened at all. But Li Mu knew better. It was always the calm before the storm that was always the most ominous.

Before he knew it, he found himself just outside the gates leading into the Priory’s stronghold.

Li Mu stood outside and his gaze angled up.

Before an arched gateway so lavishly festooned like a set of palace gates, a legion of warriors each armed to the teeth stood in Li Mu’s way, backdropped by the majestic and imposing edifice surrounded by lush and verdant grounds that was the main sanctuary of the Priory’s stronghold. Each and every one of these warriors was the Priory’s finest, along with numerous of the Priory’s allies who had come to answer the Priory’s call to arms. At the sight of Li Mu, the warriors all lowered their stance and readied themselves for the impending skirmish.

At the forefront was a hulking man with the sternness and air that could even put the alpha lion of pride to shame. The rosy-cheeked but wide and flat-faced elderly man with a snow-white beard and hair looked as spry as a youth even with his age. Li Mu needed not to be told that this must be Xiao Zhan the Lion, High Patriarch of the Priory of Four Seas.

The radiation of Mana coming from the horde of almost a hundred men that formed up Xiao Zhan’s back was enough to indicate that these were some of the most deadly warriors that the Northern Steppes had ever seen.

Just by these set up alone, no one could deny that the Priory of the Four Seas really was the second strongest militant sect in all of the Northern Steppes.

Facing the gates of the Priory, behind Li Mu’s backs were the crowds and congregations of warriors who flocked every noon and cranny nearby, hoping for a close-up view of the fight that was to come.

“There you are, Li Zhiyuan! I’ve been waiting for you! Raze the Priory to the ground, that’s what you said before, right? Let’s see how you’re going to do that when I’m here!”

The Lion guffawed smugly with brimming arrogance.

Li Mu refused to respond.

He slowly reached for his weapon and drew the weapon from its scabbard that hung from his waist and tilted his grip on the saber so that he could see his enemies off the sharp edge of his weapon like a crossbowman taking an aim at his target using his weapon’s iron sights. Malice and fury slowly pervaded the space between them like a slow but unstoppable tide. Li Mu beheld his foes and called loudly, “This is the day I dispense vengeance for the deaths of the former Grand Master and my fellow sworn brothers of the Creed of Divinity. Anyone that stands in my way is my enemy. You have ten seconds to reconsider. Walk away and you’ll live. But if you decide to stay, may woe betide you, for my weapon knows no mercy.”

Those words could make even the very moisture in the air freeze.

Men amongst the mob of warriors standing between Li Mu and the Priory’s main gates started to fidget and stir with apprehensive fright.

“What’s past is past, Li Zhiyuan. Nothing good can come out of dwelling in the yore when peace can do so much more good for everyone. I am Wei Dong’An, Grand Master of the East Mountain Brotherhood. Some respect for an elderly like me wouldn’t go amiss, young man. Heed my advice and allow me to help you and my friend Xiao Zhan come to an amicable deal…”

A gnarly old man who looked like he had just spent more than a hundred winters broke out of the mob and stood beside Xiao Zhan. Despite his hair and beard so white as milk, nothing he said screamed reasonable and respectable.

Li Mu remained taciturn and motionless, regarding the old man with his eyes squinted with undisguised scorn and skepticism.

For one moment, Wei Dong’An looked embarrassed at his attempt ending in failure. “Younglings like you need more experience. You don’t know how dangerous the world could be. You can be as powerful as you want, but what can a lone man like you do against great sects and orders that wield greater power and influence? Besides, you have your fellow sworn brothers who are still at the Creed of Divinity’s stronghold. What if someone decides to respond to your actions by attacking them? Trust me, boy, this cycle of vengeance of yours needs to be broken…”

Li Mu did not allow him to finish.

“That’s ten seconds over.”

Li Mu’s saber escaped its scabbard in a blinding flash of steel.

Wei Dong’An’s white-hairy head leaped into the air in a wake of trailing red. His body stiffened and froze for one split second before it finally tumbled to the ground.

Still grasping his saber, Li Mu slowly advanced toward the Priory’s defenders and the horde of allied warriors.

“Where were you when the Grand Master and my fellow sworn brothers were killed?! Where were you when we were senselessly hunted down like mongrel dogs?!” Li Mu scoffed with derision, “Filth like you knows nothing about justice. All you want is to further your sickening and demented agendas. That’s why you filths deserve death a thousand more times than regular scum!”

He trained his weapon and fired a blast of Spiritual Qi from it.

Li Mu swung his saber at the Lion.

“Insolence.”

A cold and sinister voice rumbled forth as how a lion would when in sight of prey.

Bright but wintry flashes of steel bedazzled every pair of eyes watching the fight.

The shiny and sparkling image of a sword bisected the radiant morning rays of the sun. As crisp and clear as morning dewdrops, the ashen bolt of Spiritual Qi erupted from behind Xiao Zhan himself, blasting to bits the attack by Li Mu before charging straight at him like a rapidly slithering serpent.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

The clangor of steel gnashing against steel wafted into the air incessantly.

“Oh? Surprisingly remarkable skills…”

Li Mu commented as he unleashed blow after blow without even moving an inch.

In mere moments, Li Mu demonstrated all thirty-six strokes of the Sundering Clouds technique, not only with apparent ease but also with an unbelievable speed that the afterimage of his strokes painted the divine sight of an iridescent plume of clouds glowing radiantly.

Li Mu withdrew but only one step backward, succeeding in defeating his mysterious enemy’s blow at last.

Severed locks of black billowed in the wind.

It was Li Mu’s, sheared off by the enemy’s Spiritual Qi bolt.

Standing in his way was a middle-aged stranger armed with an ebony sword. His pale and emotionless expression stirred not one bit at all even as he channeled another burst of power into his weapon. His jet-black robes fluttered as his aura surged and another Spiritual Qi bolt fired at Li Mu. His hair and robes tossed in the unnatural winds churned in resonance to his roiling powers as if he was the very personification of Death whose very presence cast a pall of gloom over what should be a cheerful and sunny morning.

“Hahahah! Take that, Li Zhiyuan! What? You think just because you’ve achieved Class X, that makes you the biggest bully in town? This is but only a servant of my son’s and he alone is enough to take care of you!”

The Lion threw his head back in a hearty and self-conceited guffaw.

In the brief exchange with this mysterious swordsman, Li Mu was forced backward by a step. But it was a step that invoked waves of disbelief and amazement in everyone witnessing the fight. “Since when did the Priory have a swordsman with such a skill?!

“Has Li Zhiyuan finally found his match?”

Li Mu ignored Xiao Zhan’s taunting. His sight was however glued to the swordsman in black. The aura and presence he exuded resembled very greatly the dark-cloaked young man he killed by the little pond at the foot of Mount of Divinity not long ago.

“Are they from the same group or school?” Thought Li Mu.

“You. Tell me the name of this move you just used?” He asked the mysterious stranger.

“Dewdrop Strike, executed seven times.”

The reticent and stolid swordsman replied quietly as if he was reluctant to say anything else.

“Sterling skills,” praised Li Mu.

It really was the most intricate sword technique he has ever seen ever since he began learning how to fight. The variations and the explosive force alone were well beyond what he had seen Wang Yanyi, the God of Sword, displayed before.

It was as what he had guessed: the combat techniques of this world have been honed to such a fine degree that no combat technique of other worlds could compare.

But Xiao Zhan was none too happy about Li Mu’s suave casualness. The Lion snarled at the mysterious swordsman. “KILL HIM! KILL HIM NOW!”

“Farewell.”

The swordsman lifted his sword once more.

A surge of Spiritual Qi shot forth from his sword. A streak as pure as the morning dew and yet as intense and electrifying as a lightning bolt.

Such an elaborate sword technique, all who watch him couldn’t help admiring it.

“The same attack doesn’t work on a Saint twice,” Li Mu quipped facetiously. He swung his weapon and fired a similar flash of energy from it, easily defeating the mysterious swordsman’s blast this time.

“ARGGH!”

The blast pummeled the mysterious swordsman with the force of a breaking dam. The black-bladed weapon in his grasp shattered like glass and he was sent hurtling in the air like a kite with a broken string. A trail of red followed as he was tossed through the air before he crashed into the arched gates of the Priory’s stronghold.

Boom!

The walls of the arched gates cracked and gave way. Only as the entire structure began toppling down did the entire mob of Priory defenders finally awaken from their stupor.

But it was too late. Amid the waves of dust and fumes tossed up by the crash, Li Mu was already amongst them like a wolf infiltrating a flock of sheep, sweeping his saber back and forth like the scythe of Death.

Again and again, he attacked. But what he displayed was not the Sundering Clouds technique, but the Dewdrop Strike used earlier by the mysterious swordsman instead! Using sword technique on his saber, he fired blows after blows of Spiritual Qi relentlessly, felling the defenders as effortlessly as a farmer slicing off stalks of wheat with his sickle!

Trickles of blood turned into streams that gathered into pools that eventually flowed into rivers of morbid red.

Screams and howls of agony and pain echoed like the repeating tolls of a bell over the whole grisly scene.

But to the crowds that had been overlooking the fight, none of them could extricate themselves from the bewilderment of what just happened. The mysterious swordsman had all the advantages in the first exchange, yet why did he fail to even withstand a blow from Li Mu?

The dust finally settled.

And there was the Aspect of Vengeance Li Zhiyuan standing on the rise of dead bodies and maimed limbs.

Drip. Drop.

Blood channeled down the nickel fuller of Li Mu’s saber, falling in rivulets and converging into a pool of slimy red slick.

Mounds of dead bodies and severed limbs sprawled all around him.

If living, the combined mob of Priory defenders and the order’s allies posed enough strength to conquer almost every other militant order and sect in the Northern Steppes. Yet Li Mu alone was enough to make sure none of them would see daylight ever again. All that was left of the carnage was the Lion and a few of his Class VIII allies, and all of them bloody and wounded, staring at Li Mu with forlorn despondency and despair.

No one saw this happening. No one thought that whatever defenses that the Priory had put up could be steamrollered down at such a speed. No one expected that the Priory could fall this quickly!