99 Freedom

Cha Ming had fully healed by the time he returned to the village. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the bandits were still going about their business. The guards were guarding, the miners were mining, and those with special functions were performing them at peak efficiency, lest they get caught for slacking by the tyrannical Wei Chen.

Here and there, he heard whispers and musings. Some people questioned whether the thief would be caught, while others berated them for lack of faith. Cha Ming used the many things he heard to organize his thoughts and formulate a plan.

The first thing he did was sneak past the many tents, rushing next to Wei Chen's tent and swiftly killing the six guards in the vicinity. He dragged them into the captain's tent as soon as he realized that the Clear Sky Brush refused to take in the corpses. It did not appreciate being a corpse repository, and Cha Ming didn't have time to burn them.

After dumping the corpses, he entered the tent that held the life slips of the various cultivators, just in time to see a bandit with a panicked expression rushing out toward him. The reason for his panic was obvious—six life slips had suddenly shattered, and the leader was nowhere to be found. Cha Ming didn't think twice before clutching the man's throat and snapping his neck, tossing him aside unceremoniously. He didn't bother to pick up his belongings, as his time was limited.

Cha Ming rushed out of the tent soon after, looking like the bandit that he'd just killed. The man's weapon, a large saber, was strapped on his back. Many of the bandits greeted him as he passed by, but unfortunately Cha Ming didn't know the man's voice. He waved curtly and ignored them, heading out toward the caves. He wanted to settle the caves first, lest the bandits hole up there after he defeated the rest. That would make rescuing the villagers extremely difficult. While he wasn't aware of the exact terms of the oath Wei Chen made, he wasn't willing to risk a single life on its efficacy.

Soon, Cha Ming finished mounting the steps to the waterfall, where he was greeted by four guards.

"Xing Bao, what are you doing here?" one of them asked. "Shouldn't you be guarding the life-slip tent? Did something happen?"

Cha Ming didn't reply, instead choosing to summon the Clear Sky Staff and dispatch the four guards in quick succession. He then ran into the nearest tunnel after taking on the appearance of one of the guards.

"What are you doing down here? Did something happen?" one of the mine guards in the tunnel asked, worried.

Cha Ming nodded gravely and replied using the voice of the guard. "The camp has been invaded many times recently, so we need to escort the prisoners back to their cages. Come help me gather them."

The guard looked uncertain, but seeing Cha Ming's authoritative demeanor, he followed his lead. Soon they encountered three more guards who were supervising a dozen hardworking men. Cha Ming recognized every single one of them. He'd treated some of them, treated some of their wives and children, and had helped them with miscellaneous tasks. He was relieved that while they had been mistreated, that glow in their eyes from when they'd lived freely had not yet faded.

"Shackle these prisoners and lead them back to the cages," the guard he accompanied said.

"That won't be necessary," Cha Ming said. Then, quick as lightning, he took out his staff and instantly dispatched the four guards as easily as cutting grass. The miners looked at the corpses in horror, not daring to speak. Cha Ming then swiped his hand over his face, revealing himself to the prisoners.

"Stay here calmly and don't cause trouble," Cha Ming said in his soft, kind voice. "You will all be free soon, mark my words."

Seeing Cha Ming's face, the villagers were overcome with joy. After all, they had heard he was dead, but now their assistant physician was here in the flesh and saving them.

Cha Ming then reverted back to the form of the previous guard and calmly walked into another tunnel, repeating the process. This time, one of the village cultivators was there, mining with peak efficiency. After gathering the guards, Cha Ming dispatched them all quickly. The enslaved cultivator, who had previously been mining mindlessly, suddenly turned around and rushed toward Cha Ming, who he now identified as an invader.

Cha Ming sighed and gripped the man, pinning him against the wall. He ignored the screams of the nearby miners and their pickaxes, shrugging off the slight cuts they gave him, which quickly regenerated. The cultivator's strong physical blows also couldn't do a thing to Cha Ming's sturdy body. After observing the servant character on the man's forehead, Cha Min materialized the Clear Sky Brush and began drawing four intricate characters and geometric shapes, linking them to the sigil imprinted on the man's forehead.

The characters he drew were those of freedom and breaking shackles. He linked them together with the sigil in a subtractive sense, using them to weaken the cultivator's mental restraints. Soon, the cultivator stopped struggling and regained clarity in his eyes.

"Stop!" the man yelled. The villagers looked at him in astonishment, as this was the first word the man had said in over a year. The servant character was still there but seemed slightly faded. "Who are you?" the man whispered.

Cha Ming smiled and revealed his face to the cultivator and the rest of the villagers, prompting shock and happiness. "I need to go save the rest. You are not free yet, but it should be no problem to maintain your consciousness and control over your movements for the time being. Once this is all over, I'll free you once and for all." After seeing the man nod, Cha Ming rushed off and killed all the guards and set the other four cultivators free.

Having saved the most difficult cases, he looked down toward the village and assumed the appearance of the life-slip guard. The man's position was clearly very influential, and Wei Chen trusted him greatly. He descended the slippery stone steps behind the waterfall, and after walking past the guards at the spirit-stone shack, he proceeded to the area where the cages were.

Cha Ming walked over to the few guards surrounding the cage and yelled in an authoritative voice. "Gather together. On Vice Leader Wei Chen's orders, we are to gather and resist the thief, who is on his way. We must hold out together until the vice leader arrives.

"What about the prisoners?" a guard asked suspiciously.

"You stupid oaf, what's more important?" Cha Ming scolded. "Do you like your life so little? Come now, if you refuse to follow orders, I'll just kill you myself."

In this way, Cha Ming gathered the bandits little by little and led them to the center of the camp, where their tents were erected.

"What is this all about?" one of the men grunted. "Wei Chen doesn't usually use you to give orders."

"Oh, it's quite simple, really," Cha Ming said, suddenly transforming to Zhou Xian's appearance and changing his clothes back to a black cloak. "It's time for you all to die."

Cha Ming suddenly whipped his staff out, striking guard after guard like a tempest.

"Run away!" a remaining bandit yelled, fully aware that they weren't his match. The bandits were the cowardly type to begin with, fearing the strong and bullying the weak. They would have abandoned their fellow bandits countless times to save their own skins. Only a charismatic and powerful figure like Wei Chen could keep them in line, and only barely at that.

Cha Ming slaughtered them as efficiently as possible, using the Swift Staff Art to leap between targets. Despite being his weakest strikes, they were already far too much for the bandits to bear, and before long, one hundred of them were lying on the ground, dead.

After slaying the closest batch, he rushed toward the group that was moving toward the prisoners' cages, slaying them before they had a chance to use them as hostages. He slew them one by one, and finally, none of the bandits below foundation establishment remained. The camp was now deathly silent, and the only noises he could hear were the sounds of wailing children. Even the man who had betrayed him earlier, Lei Dong, lay dead with the others. Gloating wasn't Cha Ming's style, and he had not had the luxury of confronting the man. No matter. In his opinion, all the bandits received a quicker death than they deserved.

Cha Ming chose not to free the villagers just yet, sitting down in meditation to recover his strength instead. He took out the well-used energy-gathering formation plate, using it to quickly convert spirit stones into useable energy. It cracked under the strain of the increased volume of energy he pumped through it. But he didn't care and continued to turn a frightening amount of spirit stones to dust. He continued until the formation plate finally shattered. He had managed to recover nine tenths of his qi. It felt like a huge waste, but he didn't have the luxury of time. He opened his eyes and materialized his staff just in time to see Wei Chen and Xue Shen approaching with murderous looks.

"Who are you?" Wei Chen said, nearly erupting with anger. Seeing the vice leader's livid expression, Cha Ming chose to stoke the flames.

"I'm just a dog," Cha Ming said, regaining his original appearance. "A dog you would eventually put down, but a loyal dog all the same. Yet I'm this village's dog through and through. I will protect them with my life."

Wei Chen became red as a tomato when he saw Cha Ming's appearance. "I knew you were no good. I should have killed you when I had the chance."

Cha Ming smiled calmly. "And now you do. I'm not going anywhere." Both men looked at each other briefly before rushing him, unleashing a multitude of techniques. Clearly they had recovered their energy with pills before arriving.

Cha Ming rushed to meet them and clashed intensely with their flying swords in a frontal confrontation. His qi weakened as the corrosive power of Wei Chen's sword enveloped him, while his movements slowed as his staff clashed with Xue Shen's frost sword.

Xue Shen, who was not a frontal combatant, formed multiple hand seals that summoned nine swords of ice. They began attacking Cha Ming in tandem, restraining his movements. Cha Ming could only evade with great difficulty, using Flaming Wheel Defense to cover the area where his staff traveled with red runic characters that fended off the nine icy swords. Most of his attention was centered on Wei Chen, who grabbed his sword and dove toward Cha Ming, causing its aura to surge. The vice leader rapidly formed hand seals with a single hand, and vines shot up from below and attempted to entangle Cha Ming. He quickly evaded them using his Seven Cloud Steps and Stormchaser Boots.

Cha Ming felt greatly pressured by both cultivators, and realizing he would surely fall by fighting them both at once, he focused his attention on Xue Shen. He ducked and weaved, deflecting various blows with heavy metallic staff strikes as he moved elusively toward Xue Shen. The blue-robed man, realizing Cha Ming's intent, began retreating in a circular fashion, trying to move himself behind Wei Chen. Cha Ming tried to chase after him but realized that frost lotuses had bloomed behind Xue Shen and were invaded the surrounding air with a frosty aura.

Cha Ming, seeing that it would be difficult to eliminate this man, clenched his teeth and withdrew one of the talismans from his Clear Sky World. It was the Mao Mao talisman covered in geometric shapes, the one that looked the least dubious between them.

Here goes nothing, Cha Ming thought while throwing the talisman at Xue Shen. The man snorted and sent out one of the nine flying swords toward the talisman, hoping to cut it down before it activated.

Much to Cha Ming's dismay, the sword reached the talisman before anything happened. To his surprise, however, the sword of ice shattered on contact. Xue Shen paled as the massive apparition of a bobcat appeared and fiercely charged toward him like a vicious beast from the depths of hell. Cha Ming was equally shocked at both the apparition and its presence. He noticed that it shared many features with Elder Ling's territorial cat, Mr. Mao Mao.

Is that his true form?

Still, he was overjoyed to see such a powerful ally. Wei Chen diverted his assault on Cha Ming to attempt to deal with the summoned animal, striking at it with his Archaic Sword. Cha Ming snorted and used Seven Cloud Steps to jump in front of the middle-aged cultivator, deflecting blow after blow with great difficulty. Fortunately, he used his Sword Staff Art, which seemed to have a restraining effect on the wood-based power of corrosion.

Xue Shen let out an agonizing wail as a large chunk of his body disappeared, leaving behind a gaping wound. His lifeblood quickly left him, and soon after, the apparition of Mr. Mao Mao disappeared along with the last vestiges of the man's life.

"I refuse to believe that you have more than one of those," Wei Chem shrieked, increasing his rate of assault. They exchanged multiple blows, but unfortunately, Cha Ming wasn't able to dodge all of the sneaky man's cuts. They were soon both covered in wounds, but Cha Ming's wounds seemed worse than Wei Chen's. This was because the man continuously restored the various bruises and breaks with a powerful wood-qi healing technique.

"You're much too young if you think you can defeat me so easily," the man said, cutting Cha Ming for the seventy-second time. This strike felt different than the others that came before, and he noticed that the vast majority of the qi in his body had disappeared. Even the creation qi he used had eroded to nothing.

"What have you done?" Cha Ming said, shocked.

"You should feel honored to fall victim to this technique," Wei Chen said, chuckling. "Only three people have seen it, and they are all dead now. I am named Archaic Sword because I control the power of corrosion."

Wei Chen swiftly attacked Cha Ming with his sword after saying these words, forcing Cha Ming to block with impaired technique and only his physical body strength. The staff was knocked out of his hands, and he felt a wave of enfeeblement hit him.

Cha Ming's mind raced as he saw the looming specter of death. What can I do? he thought. All of my qi has disappeared, so I can't activate any talismans. I don't have any qi-recovering pellets either.

He looked into his dantian, noticing that the thick qi surrounding his five qi pillars had completely vanished. The creation-qi matrix was no long brimming with the usual white fluid that he could use interchangeably with all of the other types of qi. He focused on the black star at the center. To his surprise, the destruction qi inside the matrix was still flowing freely, unaffected by what Wei Chen had done to him.

Can I somehow use this destruction qi? he wondered. Unfortunately, none of the runes or sigils he'd learned contained any elements of destruction. It was as though a character formed of destruction qi or energy couldn't exist, not without the support of anything else.

I'll have to take a chance, he thought, directing it toward both his hands. The violent black qi struggled as he urged it down his qi pathways, forcing it through the meridians that had been formed after he cleared the rubble.

***

Wei Chen's eyes narrowed as a black film formed on Cha Ming's hands and began wearing away at his skin. His heartbeat sped up. An overwhelming and threatening sensation was coming from the black substance on the younger man's hands.

He was a master of the power of corrosion. However, he felt like an ant struggling before a mountain when he saw the corrosive qi that was eating at away at the man's hands. It only took a single breath for Cha Ming's bones to become exposed. Wei Chen wasted no time and rushed in for the kill.

***

Cha Ming's hands ached like they had never ached before. He knew he didn't have much time, so he rushed toward Wei Chen, who was doing the same. This was the final clash, and the victor would be determined in mere moments. As Wei Chen's sword bore down, Cha Ming chose to dodge only slightly, allowing it to pierce a nonlethal part of his abdomen. He howled as a searing, corrosive pain lanced through his blood vessels near the deadly wound. However, the pain wasn't anything compared to what he felt in his rapidly withering hands.

Cha Ming pulled himself closer to Wei Chen, using the man's forward moment against him. The older man panicked and tried to move away, but it was too late. Cha Ming reached out and grasped the man's head with both his hands, and they penetrated his flesh like a hot knife through butter. After all, Cha Ming's body had been tempered by destruction, but Wei Chen's had not.

Wei Chen crumpled to the ground, and Cha Ming collapsed, unable to remain conscious much longer. He looked at his ruined hands but didn't despair. He had been through an extensive recovery process before, so he was confident in his odds of success.