![\"Sword.png\"](\"https:\/\/www.benjamincheah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Sword.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Six days. Eighty-three incidents. Twenty-two Defenders.<\/p>\n
This city was insane. The second he received his issue gear and vehicle from the Defenders\u2019 Guild, he hit the street running and never stopped. Day became night became day became night again. Sleep was the period of non-wakefulness between callouts.<\/p>\n
At the border of the wildlands, this city was one of the most dangerous places for a Defender. Beast attacks were commonplace. Many Defenders were never assigned here. Those who did didn\u2019t always survive their tour. It was almost unheard of for rookies to be deployed here.<\/p>\n
But Sun had insisted. And he worked triply hard in the Academy to prove he was worthy.<\/p>\n
After all,\u00a0she<\/em>\u00a0was here.<\/p>\n And so, for his efforts, he had the honor of handling the eighty-fourth incident.<\/p>\n A xiangliu.<\/p>\n The massive serpent wound sinuously across the river\u2019s surface, cutting swiftly through the water. Its nine heads fanned out in every direction, seeking prey. Oily streaks and shattered planks floated in its wake, the remains of boats too slow or too unfortunate to get out of its way.<\/p>\n Circulating qi<\/em> through his body, he supercharged his limbs and pounded the pavement. Sirens howled all around him. Shutters slammed shut over windows and doors. Civilians ran in every direction. Some pounded uselessly on the barricades. Others curled up and pretended to be dead. Still more ran about like headless chickens, fleeing the beast.<\/p>\n \u201cDefenders! Make way!\u201d Sun shouted.<\/p>\n His infinity gun held high across his chest, he followed the beast\u2019s trail. It was fast, but so was he. Utilizing the art of\u00a0qinggong<\/em>, he was as light as a feather, his limbs the match of a purebred stallion.<\/p>\n The gigantic beast was headed upriver, racing for the Bund. Great white domes loomed in the distance, protecting the city\u2019s heart. There was no risk a single xiangliu would breach the barriers, but that was cold comfort to everyone caught outside.<\/p>\n Out the corner of his eye, Sun saw Fu sprinting up alongside him.<\/p>\n \u201cHey!\u201d Sun yelled. \u201cWill the police help us?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey won\u2019t!\u201d Fu replied. \u201cThey\u2019re not trained for this! We have to slay the beast ourselves!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow? It\u2019s\u00a0huge!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n The xiangliu reared its heads. Its enormous torso rose above the two- and three-story shophouses that lined the waterfront. Hissing, the serpent struck. Heads battered against shutters, smashed furniture, gobbled down unlucky humans.<\/p>\n \u201cShoot it until it dies!\u201d Fu advised.<\/p>\n The xiangliu weaved back and forth across the green river, never staying still, its heads dancing in every direction. And right in front of the xiangliu were even more shophouses.<\/p>\n Shooting was easy. Not hitting a civilian was beyond him.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have a clear shot!\u201d he yelled.<\/p>\n As his words left his mouth, the xiangliu swerved around a river bend, leaving his line of sight.<\/p>\n \u201cKeep up with me, rookie!\u201d Fu ordered.<\/p>\n Qi<\/em>\u00a0emanated from the senior Defender. Subtle energies warped the world around him. He blurred.<\/p>\n Vanished.<\/p>\n And reappeared down the street.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the devil\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n Fu blurred again. Now he saw Fu, a swiftly-moving shadow cutting through the air. Fu rematerialized at the bend.<\/p>\n Sun\u2019s smartglasses transmitted Fu\u2019s voice into his skull.<\/p>\n \u201cOver here, Sun Yao!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have that technique!\u201d Sun replied, still sprinting.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t keep up, I\u2019m claiming the bounty!\u201d<\/p>\n Sun didn\u2019t waste his breath replying. He just kept running.<\/p>\n Higher-level Defenders had access to a staggering array of skills. With proper cultivation, they could develop their powers however they liked, suiting their unique personalities and preferences. Sun, fresh from the Academy, only had foundational skills. He couldn\u2019t hope to keep up with Fu. He didn\u2019t even know what Fu had done.<\/p>\n Rounding the bend, he caught sight of the xiangliu again. A barrage of bolts slammed into its back. The creature howled, all nine heads searching for the source of the gunfire.<\/p>\n \u201cRookie, shoot the water around it! Force it out on land!\u201d Fu ordered.<\/p>\n Taking careful aim, Sun set his weapon to full auto and triggered a long burst. Geysers erupted around the creature. It writhed in agony. Coiling up, it leapt out of the river, slamming heavily on the pavement.<\/p>\n Muzzle flashes winked from the roof of a shophouse. More bolts lashed the creature\u2019s back. Squinting, Sun saw Fu perched on the roof of the building.<\/p>\n Four snake heads turned to glare at Fu. The other five twisted around to face Sun. Forked tongues darted in and out, tasting the air. No shot. A xianglu was armored all over\u2014except its underside.<\/p>\n \u201cCover me!\u201d Sun shouted.<\/p>\n He charged the beast. The nine-headed snake hissed. Fu blasted away at it, but the beast didn\u2019t seem to care. Sun had the complete attention if the five heads eyeing him.<\/p>\n Sun dropped to a knee. Aimed up. Now, even if he missed, the bolt would soar harmlessly into the sky. He locked on the nearest head and pressed the trigger.<\/p>\n Star-bright bolts blew through its neck. The head splashed into the river. Screeching, four heads plunged down on him.<\/p>\n Sun rocketed off the ground, pushing off with all his\u00a0qi<\/em>-augmented might. The heads crashed into the pavement, smashing the weathered stone. Shrapnel struck Sun\u2019s combat suit, bouncing off his chest plate. A head curved up, staring at him.<\/p>\n He shot its eyes.<\/p>\n The xiulong hissed, rearing up in pain\u2014and exposing its soft belly.<\/p>\n Sun dropped to the prone. Planted his crosshair on the soft white flesh. And held down the trigger.<\/p>\n Red steam. Gray dust. The snake convulsed and screeched and went limp. As its heads came crashing down, Sun rolled to his feet and sprang away.<\/p>\n The heads slammed into the ground with a bone-shaking\u00a0BOOM<\/em>. Sun counted four\u2026 well, three and a half intact heads. Somewhere in the chaos, Fu had blown off the other heads.<\/p>\n The air parted next to him. Fu popped out into the real world.<\/p>\n \u201cGood job, rookie.\u201d<\/p>\n Sun wiped the sweat off his brow. \u201cThanks. What technique did you use to move around so fast?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSpatial manipulation, fifth degree.\u201d<\/p>\n Fifth? Fu must have been a cultivator for a decade.<\/p>\n \u201cMust be nice to have a specialization,\u201d Sun said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have one? Oh, of course you don\u2019t have one. This isn\u2019t even your first week on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. I only have the basic Three Dantian Empowerment.\u201d<\/p>\n They inspected the corpse, prodding the cooling flesh and examining the wounds. No heart, no breath, most definitively dead. Sun stepped aside and worked his glasses.<\/p>\n \u201cDispatch, this is Defender Sun Yao. Our target has been eliminated. Requesting coroner team at\u2026\u201d he looked around. \u201cSpark House.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRoger. Coroner team is on the way,\u201d Dispatch replied.<\/p>\n \u201cAsk if there are any more jobs!\u201d Fu shouted.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have anything else for us?\u201d Sun added.<\/p>\n \u201cNegative. Board is clear.\u201d<\/p>\n Sun heaved a sigh of relief. \u201cThanks.\u201d He hung up and added, \u201cDefender Fu, there\u2019s nothing for us now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEnjoy the calm while it lasts,\u201d Fu said.<\/p>\n The sirens went silent. The shutters began to rise. Civilians crawled out of their hiding places. They whipped out their phones and glasses, taking snapshots of the body and whispering among themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cIs anybody injured? Does anyone need medical attention?\u201d Fu yelled.<\/p>\n No one responded. They were too busy taking photos and videos.<\/p>\n The police popped up out of the holes they had hidden in and circulated the area. As Sun moved to join them, Fu laid a hand on his shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cLet them do their jobs,\u201d Fu said. \u201cWe\u2019ll guard the body.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGuard the body? There\u2019s plenty of wounded around here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf the police need us, they\u2019ll call us. Until then, conserve your\u00a0qi<\/em>. The day isn\u2019t over yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Cultivator he may be, but he didn\u2019t have unlimited stores of\u00a0qi<\/em>. Sun retrieved a bottle of energy tonic from interspatial storage and gulped it down. Fresh blood and\u00a0qi<\/em>\u00a0pumped through his body. His skin flushed, his face warmed, his\u00a0dantian<\/em>\u00a0recharged.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do we need to guard the body anyway?\u201d Sun asked.<\/p>\n \u201cScavengers,\u201d Fu said. \u201cLeave a dead monster alone and they\u2019ll pick the beast apart like vultures. They\u2019ll take the skin, meat, bones and organs and sell them on the black market. Black doctors would buy them, grind them up, mix them with all kinds of rubbish, and sell them as \u2018elixirs\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Sun sighed. A Defender\u2019s bounty was calculated by the weight and quality of flesh, bone and organs harvested from slain beasts. Scavengers were thieves. And there was no telling what poisons went into black market elixirs.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery day we descend deeper into the Realm of Beasts,\u201d Sun said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re religious?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI try to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Fu shrugged. \u201cSo long as it keeps you sane.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, this place is insane. I\u2019ve never seen so many beasts in one place in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the seventh month. The gates of Hell are open, ghosts walk the land, and the beasts of the world follow them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was a rumor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s reality for us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy isn\u2019t the City Barrier online?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we kept it raised all the time, we\u2019d starve. Planes, ships and trucks won\u2019t be able to enter the city. It\u2019s only ever raised during an emergency. For individual beasts like this, there\u2019s the local Barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhich sucks for the seventy percent of the population who can\u2019t afford one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn the bright side, we\u2019ll always have a job.\u201d<\/p>\n A dozen men in white hazmat suits approached the Defenders. Their leader waved.<\/p>\n \u201cDefender Fu!\u201d he called.<\/p>\n \u201cMr Shen. Took you look enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Shen shrugged apologetically. \u201cYou know how busy it gets during the Ghost Month.\u201d<\/p>\n The coroner team laid out series of gigantic plastic sheets on the pavement. Sun stepped out of their way. They must be planning to wrap up the corpse in plastic. But\u2026 how were they planning to move it?<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you handle massive corpses like that?\u201d Sun asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a transporter just around the corner,\u201d Shen replied.<\/p>\n Qi<\/em>\u00a0surged around Sun. The coroner team glowed. Six men grabbed a head each. Five more latched on to the body. Together, they hauled it across the pavement. Shen shouted instructions, guiding his men along.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to take a break?\u201d Fu asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI can?\u201d Sun asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThis job\u2019s a marathon, not a sprint. You need downtime whenever you can take it. Besides, didn\u2019t you promise to see your girlfriend?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not my girlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n Fu laughed. \u201cGo on, get going. If we need you, we\u2019ll call you.\u201d<\/p>\n The car was still where he\u2019d parked it. Nobody messed with any vehicle that bore the red-and-blue stripes of the Defenders\u2019 Guild. Nobody sane, anyway.<\/p>\n Inside the relative privacy of his vehicle, Sun called Liu. She picked up after the first ring.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018It\u2019s me\u2019?\u201d she echoed. \u201cBut I\u2019m me. Who are you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVery funny.\u201d<\/p>\n She giggled. \u201cYou don\u2019t call, you don\u2019t write, you don\u2019t visit\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m calling you now. Are you busy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy shift ends in fifteen minutes. What\u2019s up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got some free time. Want to have dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure! Where do you want to go?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still trying to find my way around this city. Any recommendations?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe could have dinner at my place.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGreat. Where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSeventy-seven Hanzhou Street. Unit five-eighteen. Could you be there in an hour?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure. See you then.\u201d<\/p>\n In the relative privacy of his car, he changed into the only set of civilian clothing he owned, a plain white shirt and gray slacks. He applied fresh bandages on his cuts\u2014he\u2019d picked up a dozen over the past six days\u2014and washed up in a public toilet before heading to Liu\u2019s home.<\/p>\n The apartment blocks of Hanzhou Street loomed over him. Fifteen, twenty, thirty stories tall, so tall he had to crane his neck just to see the top. He\u2019d spent most of his life living in a cramped single-story home in Hongcun and a succession of tents and dorms after joining the Defenders; he still didn\u2019t know how people could live so high in the air.<\/p>\n He made his way to her door. A little early, but he supposed she wouldn\u2019t mind. He rang the doorbell.<\/p>\n Nothing happened.<\/p>\n He knocked on the door.<\/p>\n No response.<\/p>\n He called her. The phone rang and rang and rang. Then:<\/p>\n \u201cThe number you have dialed is currently not available. Please try again later.\u201d<\/p>\n He activated his spirit sense. No one was in.<\/p>\n Odd. If she were running late, she would have called him. She wouldn\u2019t flake out on him like that.<\/p>\n He tested the doorknob. It turned.<\/p>\n She wouldn\u2019t leave the door unlocked.<\/p>\n Something was wrong.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Previous chapters:\u00a01<\/a>,\u00a02<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Cheah](\"https:\/\/www.benjamincheah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Cheah-Git-San-Red.jpg\")
<\/p>\n