Feichen gave a condescending chuckle. "You're absolutely terrible at bluffing, kid."
"We'll know soon enough if I'm bluffing," I said calmly.
"Even if you did kill her, I'll just go find another healer then. Another town, another master healer. What's a few more months of recovery?" he said, trying to sound unconcerned.
"You're the one who's terrible at bluffing," I said with a confident smile. "Whatever you're planning to do, you're clearly working on a strict time limit. Ironbell is absolutely the best weapons manufacturing place in the whole of Wanshou, but it isn't the only place that can do this work. You could've easily chosen anywhere else to hide, stayed low profile, and been done with your work. But no, you specifically wanted higher manpower and absolute expertise.
You've been shipping massive amounts of Mingchen Tie for a full month with no breaks at all. Tons of it. Which means you want a large volume of weapons manufactured as soon as possible, and the only place where that's realistically possible? Ironbell. I must say though, your plan actually sucks when you think about it. How long did you even think it would take the government to figure out the whole suspicious shipping of rare materials nonsense and storm this place with their army?"
"I'd be long gone by then," he said dismissively.
"Yeah, right. And yet here you still are," I pointed out. "Anyway, speaking of Mei, she's literally the only healer in the region capable of healing your specific condition. Her unique set of skills is the only chance for you to see another day, or you'll fucking die from the Yun Xi curse. You did your research carefully and it got you to Ironbell. Sure, large quantities of weapon manufacturing could theoretically be done anywhere else too with the right amount of planning and resources, but no other place has Mei Lian. You hit two birds with one stone coming here. Funnily enough though, searching for the best healer is exactly what brought me here too. Small world."
He gave me a dark frown, clearly not enjoying my analysis.
"And you wanna know something else interesting?" I continued, really getting into it now. "Your precious cargo of Mingchen Tie, all ready to be welded and forged into weapons, is currently sitting in the western armory right now. But guess what? It ain't alone. My fire cultivator friend is waiting there too, ready to melt it all down to the ground at my signal. Sure enough, melting it isn't damaging at all in the traditional sense, I mean, you literally melt it anyway to create your shiny little weapons, haha, but it sure as hell will cost you a lot of time to re-collect and re-process everything. Anything bad happens to me, and she goes ahead with destroying your timeline. So, am I smart enough for you now?"
He frowned hard and got several steps closer to me, his aura becoming threatening. "Listen to me very carefully, you clever little fuck. You don't know what you're meddling with here. Unless you have a genuine death wish, I strongly suggest you turn around and go back to wherever the hell you came from."
"That last line is kinda racist," I said, deliberately trying to piss him off.
And it worked beautifully. He instantly tried punching my face with significant force, and I dodged it at the last second, to which he seemed visibly shocked. His eyes widened. I then screamed at the top of my lungs, "Now!"
Jian and Liangyu, who had been hiding nearby in the pavilion shadows while carefully suppressing their qi signatures, quickly summoned their roots and branches and got a tight hold of Feichen's arms and legs, rendering him stuck in place. Yup, same exact plan I'd used against King Cangyuan earlier. Works like a charm every time.
"Oh, and one more thing," I said as I quickly rushed forward and snatched his necklace right off his neck. "The best kind of magic to hide someone are bracelets, rings, clips, and crystal fucking necklaces!"
I threw the necklace high up in the air as Gezo swooshed in from above, took the necklace in his talons, and flew away swiftly into the night sky. Love that bird!
Feichen screamed in anger as he broke free from the roots with sheer strength, snapping them like they were twigs.
The three of us immediately attacked him at once, trying to overwhelm him.
He managed to jump upwards and away from us with impressive agility. Even in his supposedly weakened state, he was quite fast and agile, far more than we'd hoped. Then he didn't waste a single second more in trying to escape. Fighting us clearly wasn't his priority right now. It was getting to the armory to protect his cargo.
He turned around and started running at full speed as Jian and Liangyu summoned several more thick roots and managed to get a hold of his legs mid-run. I then ran towards him as fast as I could to try and knock him unconscious while he was restrained.
He somehow countered my attack and managed to get himself free from the roots again. He gave me a powerful kick to the chest that sent me flying backward, and then managed to land a few solid punches on both Jian and Liangyu too, making them stumble.
Then he got serious. "You want a real fight? Fine. I'll give you a fucking fight." He started concentrating his qi intensely, which sent out a heavy, oppressive aura that filled the entire training ground. We could literally feel our bodies getting heavier under the pressure, like gravity had increased.
In a split second he ran towards Jian with inhuman speed and hit his knee joints with precision. Jian screamed in pain and fell to the ground, holding his knee desperately. He tried getting back up but his leg wouldn't budge at all. "What the fu- I can't move my leg!"
Feichen threw another precise strike at Jian's shoulder joint. It was rendered completely immovable too.
He then came to a sudden stop, standing still. Liangyu looked at him for a tense moment with fastened breathing, sweat dripping down his face. Feichen was moving way too fast than any of us had expected or prepared for.
Liangyu was about to launch another desperate attack when Feichen appeared in front of him in a blur and rendered him immovable too with quick strikes to his joints. He then slowly turned to look at me like I was the last prey left to hunt down.
"So, precision attacks to the meridian points. That's your thing? Really impressive technique," I said, wincing with pain from his earlier kick, still lying on the ground.
"Nah. What you did was impressive," he admitted. "There are only two other people in this world who can dodge my attacks."
"It's alright, don't beat yourself up about it too much. You're significantly weakened right now," I said.
"You're patronizing me, asshole?" He dashed towards me and tried landing a devastating punch to my face.
I dodged again somehow. And he seemed genuinely surprised yet again. Honestly, I was surprised too at this point. It was like I was on an incredible roll. Master Juechen would always tell me that I tend to perform really well under extreme pressure, and it definitely seemed to be true.
Feichen was getting fucking pissed off. He started moving even faster, his attacks becoming more aggressive. The attacks finally landed this time. But I was able to block most of them with my arms. Punch after punch, kick after kick, I was somehow able to counter or block all of them, though each impact hurt like hell.
"Stop holding back!" He screamed as he got faster and faster with each successive attack, becoming more frantic.
He seemed to genuinely think that I was somehow hiding immense power and deliberately trying to toy with him. I swear to God I wasn't holding back at all though. Matter of fact, I was almost completely exhausted and running on pure adrenaline. But obviously you can't let your enemy know that you're at your limit, so I tried putting on my best poker face smile and said confidently, "Why not? You're not worthy enough for me to use my full power yet!"
He screamed even louder in frustration and attempted to land a devastating punch right to my throat that would've killed me instantly. I quickly jumped backwards as fast as I possibly could, barely avoiding it.
Right when I thought it was a close escape and I might survive this, he dashed even faster towards me and hit precise strikes to both my legs simultaneously. I fell down hard and couldn't move them at all. The paralysis was instant.
He got a brutal hold of my hair and pulled me upwards roughly. He then said to me as I screamed in pain, his face inches from mine, "Look at me carefully. This is the last face you'll see before your death, boy."