Shu Mingye's sword ignited with flames, its blade cutting straight through another puppet-like guard. The thing crumpled in a heap of limbs but then, disturbingly, its severed arm twitched and clawed at his boot.
"What in the heavens—" he muttered darkly, already stabbing down again.
It didn't matter. These things didn't stop. Head gone? Still crawling. Legs off? Still flailing. Hands missing? Still biting, somehow.
He sliced again. An arm flew. Then a leg followed. Then another, because apparently this one had extras to spare. The training ground was an absolute disaster. Blood pooled across the dirt in sticky, dark puddles, reflecting the ruined sky above. Broken bodies, human-shaped but all wrong were scattered on the ground.
He was halfway through decapitating one particularly stubborn puppet with annoyingly creaky knee joints when Shanjun sprinted up, panting hard. Sweat clung to his forehead.
"Lord!" Shanjun gasped, voice high with panic. "The northern palace! Four hundred soldiers! They've started attacking!"
Shu Mingye's sword paused mid-swing. "Four hundred?" he repeated.
Shanjun nodded frantically. "Yes! Four hundred—armed! Armored! They're—"
"Took them long enough." Shu Mingye's lips curled, not quite a smile.
After Linyue told him about the intruder, he had quietly stationed two hundred men at the northern palace. Just in case. He couldn't spare more, not with the Weeping Moon approaching and every paranoid instinct screaming that the worst was yet to come. He also had five hundred men at the Shulin-Shenlin border after discovering that haunted cave filled with dead bodies and skeletons.
With a sharp sigh, Shu Mingye swung his blade one last time, lopping off the final stubborn puppet limb. The arm landed with a wet slap against the ground, still twitching as if trying to crawl back for vengeance. He kicked the mangled body aside.
"Tell the soldiers to move," he ordered, voice cold and steady.
Shanjun nodded and sprinted off.
Shu Mingye turned back to the training ground. A dozen puppet corpses littered the field—heads gone, limbs scattered. And yet… one particularly stubborn headless puppet was still dragging itself across the blood-slick ground toward him. His eye twitched.
"How many limbs do these things even have?" he muttered.
Truly, nothing brightens your morning like dismembering unkillable puppets.
...…
While He Yuying was still clinging to the big man's leg, flopping wildly every time the man shook him, Shen Zhenyu finally rose from the pile of corpses. His hair was a mess, his robe was stained with something very corpse-like, and whatever dignity he once had was nowhere in sight. But he still had a knife and a mission.
With a sharp breath, Shen Zhenyu lunged at the big man's neck, aiming for something swift and heroic.
The big man merely turned his head, caught Shen Zhenyu's arm again, and without even grunting, tossed him aside. Again.
Shen Zhenyu went flying back into the corpse pile with another dull thud followed by a low groan.
He Yuying shouted, "STOP RECYCLING SHEN ZHENYU!" as he clung to the man's leg.
Linyue saw her opening and moved. A thin needle slipped from her sleeve into her hand, and stabbed it into the big man's thigh. It barely pierced through, more like an aggressive acupuncture session than actual injury, but it still made him grunt. The grunt was followed by action. His enormous hand shot out, clamping around her wrist, the one still holding the needle. In the next instant, she was lifted clean off the ground.
Linyue's feet dangled in the air. She stared down at him, her voice flat and unimpressed. "This is very rude."
Just then, Song Meiyu who had spent the last minute frozen in absolute horror, suddenly found her courage. It came in the form of teeth. With a strangled battle cry, she launched herself at the big man's leg and sank her teeth into him like he was the last meat dumpling on earth. She bit hard.
The big man actually flinched. His thick brows knitted together as his head tilted slightly.
"LET GO OF HER, YOU OVERSIZED SCARECROW!" Song Meiyu shouted, her mouth full of fabric and possibly… muscle? It was hard to tell. Whatever it was, she wasn't letting go.
The big man looked down at her, his expression somewhere between confusion and insult.
Are you… eating me? his stare seemed to ask.
Song Meiyu didn't care. She had entered full feral mode. She spat out a questionable mouthful of whatever-that-was, drew in a sharp breath, and chomped back down like a starving alley cat with no regrets and nothing left to lose.
It was chaotic. It was awkward. It was slightly horrifying. And it was definitely the weirdest rescue attempt in the history of anything.
One person dangled in the air. One clung to a leg like a drama-loving koala. One kept getting launched into the corpse pile every few seconds. And now, one was biting through someone's pants.
Somehow… unbelievably… it was working. Sort of.
The big man still had Linyue dangling in the air, his grip steady and unshaken. But his sharp, beady eyes flicked down to where Song Meiyu was making aggressive attempts to chew his leg off. And that was his mistake, because Linyue never came armed with just one weapon. The needle had only been the appetizer. She always saved the main course for later.
While his attention drifted from her face, her free hand moved. Two fingers rose like a sword. She struck. Straight for the eyes.
It was clean. It was fast. It was terrifyingly accurate. And it was extremely rude.
Both fingers jabbed right into his eyeballs.
The big man roared, stumbling back. His hands flew up to his face, and Linyue dropped from his grip. She landed lightly, straightened her robe, and brushed imaginary dust from her sleeve.
Song Meiyu immediately let go of his leg and pumped her fist in the air. "YES! Go eyeball poke! Ten out of ten! Would recommend!"
Unfortunately, the victory was short-lived. In his blind, furious flailing, the big man staggered backward. One heavy step. Two. And then—THUD. He crashed to the floor.
He Yuying, still wrapped stubbornly around the man's leg, went down with him.
"AARGH! I AM NOT A FLOOR MAT!" He Yuying's scream echoed through the dumping room as a massive leg pinned him squarely to the cold, stinking floor. "GET OFF! I STILL HAVE BONES I HAVEN'T BROKEN YET!" he screeched, kicking wildly under the crushing weight.
Song Meiyu clapped her hands to her mouth. "Oh no! He's been… flattened!"
Linyue crouched beside the toppled duo. "He's still screaming. That's a good sign."
Meanwhile, from the noble heap of corpses rose Shen Zhenyu once more. He limped slightly, his robe even more stained with questionable fluids. He raised one elegant eyebrow. "We should move him before he actually stops yelling."
"Yes! Quick!" Song Meiyu nodded frantically, flapping her sleeves for extra urgency. "Before he becomes a permanent part of the floor!"
He Yuying flailed one hand out from under the man's leg. "SAVE ME! SAVE MY BONES!"
The big man, still very much awake but clutching his eyes with both hands, didn't move. So Shen Zhenyu did what heroes do. He gripped the massive leg and pulled, trying to free He Yuying.
Bad idea. The big man's other leg shot out in a surprising burst of energy. THWACK. Shen Zhenyu was kicked hard, he somersaulted back into the corpse pile.
"BROTHER ZHENYU!" Song Meiyu gasped, clutching Linyue's sleeve as they both instinctively scooted backward.
Underneath the big man's colossal thigh, He Yuying's muffled voice wheezed out, full of betrayal and despair. "I hate everything." His hand flopped uselessly against the floor, a silent plea for someone or anyone to save his crushed ribs.
Linyue, still calm in the face of absurdity, exhaled a quiet sigh. The long needle still rested between her fingers. Without a word, she moved closer and jabbed it into the big man's leg—not once, but repeatedly, like performing rage acupuncture.
The big man let out a thunderous roar, the sound bouncing off the damp stone walls.
At that moment, Shen Zhenyu—having resurrected again from the corpse pile—limped forward. He raised his crescent knife and started slashing at the man's other leg in careful, practiced arcs. And finally, the big man let out another guttural sound and rolled sideways, clutching at both legs.