Yuming felt the battle above like pressure against the sky. Chen Fang appeared to conjure some sort of pseudo-domain, creating a pocket of space around him that resonated with his decrees. Zhengan did the same—with help from the functioning parts of the formation.

  Chen Fang continuously shouted decrees at Zhengan, which Zhengan mostly blocked through heavy pressure, sending the edicts crashing below. The tumbling words seemed to harm Liu Family cultivators but ignored everyone else—Yuming felt incredible pressure, but the buildings around him appeared untouched.

  Chen Fang weaved his way out and around the formation, testing the weak points—which tended to be along the eastern perimeter. Gao Ping had recovered and killed the operator of node thirteen. He was now locked in battle with another Liu Family Dantian Awakening expert, Liu Mingzen.

  Yuming pushed more qi into the pedestal, ignoring his protesting meridians.

  Above, Chen Fang spoke again. This time he didn't address Zhengan alone, but the whole of the inner Qinglu Market.

  "Thousands of souls. Pinewood Hollow. Blood rising like threads of crimson into a monster's palm."

  This was a technique Chen Fang had mastered over the past decade—Witness Testimony.

  The words hit Yuming like a physical blow. For a moment, he seemed to smell copper, the thick scent of blood drifting into his nose. He heard the confused screams of children, and saw mothers dropping their babies and running.

  Yuming's head burned.

  Condense! Condense! They were never real! He screamed at himself internally, finally awakening from his trance.

  Through the formation, he sensed other node operators faltering, guards stumbling. Members of other clans, who had been running or hiding, briefly felt surging hostility towards the Liu Family.

  At the Command Array's edge, Liu Hanwei, the other Qi Condensation cultivator, made her decision.

  The Formation had been breaking. Chen Fang's magical arts pressed against their defenses slowly but surely—every minute they waited, he found new weaknesses.

  At first, she wanted to hold out until support arrived. But it hadn't yet. I'll go on offense, break his concentration, and give Zhengan an opening.

  "I'll intercept, keep the array stable," she transmitted mentally to Zhengan.

  "Don't!" Zhengan responded. "His cultivation is higher than ours, he wants to bait us out!"

  But she was already moving. Fire Qi gathered around her hands as she blazed across the sky. Her technique—Pyroclast Palm—used momentum to gather a terrifying explosive force. She'd killed with this technique before.

  Chen Fang saw her coming. He didn't retreat, merely forming a few seals with his hands.

  The pseudo-domain around him contracted, causing his skin to gain a golden tint.

  Liu Hanwei, filled with explosive force, threw three balls of qi at him, while Zhengan shifted to the defense and tried to protect both her and the formation. The qi balls combined to form a charging tiger, its mouth open wide.

  Chen Fang put up his forearm, letting the tiger bite down on it. But all the tiger could do was gnaw—his armor was impenetrable. Zhengan sent another attack his way and Chen Fang dove down, the tiger still attached.

  "Be free!" Chen Fang declared, and his gold-tinted armor left his skin and wrapped around the tiger. The tiger let out a roar and dissolved into various streams of qi.

  Liu Hanwei, seeing this, had an ashen expression. She felt blowback from the tiger's demise and coughed up blood.

  Chen Fang's plain expression transformed into a sneer. "Incompetent," he declared.

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  Zhengan directed pressure towards the words, trying to stop them from reaching Hanwei, but it was too late. Hanwei took the full blow, and her heart filled with rage.

  She activated Pyroclast Palm again, charging towards Chen Fang to Zhengan's dismay.

  Chen Fang returned to his normal expression, and spoke calmly. "Liu Hanwei, born into prosperity. How many villages did you watch get trampled? How often—"

  "Shut up!" Hanwei yelled, charging towards Chen Fang.

  "Did you pretend the lives below you didn't exist? I witnessed."

  As he finished speaking, Chen Fang raised a finger and pointed towards Hanwei, his golden armor thrown at her.

  "Guilty."

  The word struck like a hammer. Every time Hanwei had filed a report without reading, every scream she'd walked away from, every question she decided not to ask. The guilt flowed through her, causing her to halt suddenly and tremble violently.

  "Hanwei! He's planting thoughts in you! Don't listen!" Zhengan transmitted rapidly.

  But Hanwei knew the thoughts weren't planted.

  I didn't know the details… she tried to tell herself. But she had known enough, she was complicit. She knew she was guilty.

  "Ahh!" she let out a scream, clutching her head that was surging with countless thoughts.

  Chen Fang gently pressed his palm through her chest.

  She fell from the sky. Dead.

  Yuming felt the formation tremble; it was like losing a limb. The arrays that Hanwei had been feeding went dark.

  Yuming watched a body in ember-red robes fall through the sky slowly, like a rose. Yuming held his breath in anticipation, waiting for her body to erupt in flames and envelope the surrounding area. But it never happened.

  Her spark was extinguished completely.

  Yuming pressed his hands harder against the pedestal. Above, Zhengan and Chen Fang circled each other.

  Chen Fang sighed. "She finally admitted to her guilt."

  His gaze flickered below, tracing the thin pocket of air that he'd felt coming here, the "opportunity" that had guided him to attack.

  But strangely, he felt as if that opportunity had disappeared.

  Chen Fang looked at Liu Zhengan in front of him, then towards the formation below him.

  His soldiers were just too weak. Despite the aspect of surprise, most of the formation nodes still held. Waves of shimmering condensed qi continuously funneled towards Zhengan, amplifying his strength.

  I'll help give my men a boost.

  His voice resounded throughout the market once again, louder this time now that he had less to concentrate on.

  "Dustwood Village. Peaceful by the river, mothers baking pies in the autumn, their fragrance reaching the firmament. Joyous laughter could be heard the next town over. Now that river flows with blood. My Witness Testimony."

  Witness Testimony.

  The two words filled Yuming's head with agonizing screams. He fell over, his bloody hands wandering aimlessly in the dirt below. Through the searing pain, he rose and returned to the pedestal, his node lighting back up.

  But a few nodes remained dark. Their operators ran away, their shouts filling the air, begging the Heavens for mercy.

  In the sky, Liu Zhengan frowned. He curled his fingers and conjured formless pressure tunnels, dragging dispersed qi towards him and projecting it towards Chen Fang.

  Chen Fang's right pupil dilated, perfectly predicting the blow's landing spot and dodging seamlessly.

  I'll pick them off one by one, Chen Fang thought to himself, pointing towards a random formation node and declaring: "Guilty!"

  The operator scrambled from their post in fright.

  Zhengan felt his protective formation loosen. I have to go all out defending the formation and waiting for help to arrive… Why hasn't help arrived yet?

  Zhengan decided to force Chen Fang's attention towards him. He spread his arms out wide, opening them towards the sky, then flung them forward. A wall of pressure fused with Water Qi flung towards his opponent.

  Chen Fang tapped his fingers together. His faint golden pseudo-domain formed, blocking the bulldozing pressure. The two forces ground against each other; shockwaves reverberated and damaged the city below.

  Seeing the damage, Chen Fang withdrew his domain and rolled left. But he was a step too slow, the pressure from Zhengan's wall crashed down and enveloped him.

  But Chen Fang's will was absolute, and his conviction was his will. With a shout, he manifested his golden domain again, breaking through the pressure wall.

  Zhengan felt as if he'd been struck in the gut, staggering back slightly. He spat out a mouthful of blood.

  Zhengan cursed inwardly. He's at an advantage, I need to maximize my strength now.

  "Operators, full output—NOW!" he roared.

  The remaining node operators cycled tirelessly, their meridians straining. But the qi infusion propelled Zhengan—he unleashed another pressure wall, this time hitting Chen Fang directly.

  Chen Fang's eyes widened. The pressure caught him mid-stride and drove him backward, cracking something in his chest. He winced briefly.

  Both cultivators hung in the air, breathing hard. Both were wounded and depleted.

  Suddenly, Chen Fang felt his perception strengthen and his vision clear, as if cool water was removing mud from his eyes. He realized that he could—for just a second—finally perceive the world as it was.

  In his heightened state of clarity, his gaze avoided Liu Zhengan, but looked down instead.

  At the fourteenth node.

  That boy…

  Chen Fang had an epiphany: that boy had more weight! Potential curled tightly to him, waiting to unfold. Faint hands seemed to hang to him, clutching for warmth.

  He must be important. More important to the Liu Family than anything else here.

  I can hit them where it hurts.