"She is a thousand-year-old sovereign of ice, she is NOT WELL, she has been under rot and silence for ten centuries and YOU opened her cage like a lunchbox, WHERE IS SHE?"
"Growing," said Tianlong, and took another bite of honey-cake.
Whatever that word meant, it detonated something behind Ling Zhao's eyes, and his knuckles went white on his father's sword.
"Huntresses," he said, low. "Take the clearing. Take the women. I will take the demon."
The huntresses moved, and the clearing moved with them.
The first one went for Yanshi, war-fan of qi blooming in her hand, and she was fast, shrine-trained, a killer with three decades of bow and blade.
Yanshi hit her mid-stride.
The wild woman had been hunting in this valley since she could walk, and there had never been a fight in her life that was not also a hunt, and now her whole body sang with a base that was not her own. Gold-veined green qi, thick as river water, multiplied past anything her瓶颈 had ever allowed.
