# 208
**Chapter 208: Night Watch—Shen Qingzhu (Triple Chapter)**
Instructor Hong’s pupils shrank violently. He lunged forward, snatching Baili Pangpang before he could plummet into the shaft, and rammed his Straight Blade into the rock wall to stop their fall.
Shen Qingzhu also stabbed his blade into the wall, but he was too weak; the edge bit only a third of the way in and his body tilted downward, ready to slip at any second.
There, standing perpendicular on the wall, one arm gone and drenched in blood, was Ma Yitian. He sneered at the three of them—then froze.
“Where’s that brat?”
He swept his gaze up and down the shaft, confirming Lin Qiye wasn’t there, confusion flooding his face.
Before the Flame-Vein Earth Dragon spat its fireball, Ma Yitian had used his ability to slip out of the cave. After racing through the earth for a while and realizing no explosion had come, he’d doubled back. When he returned, dragon and people alike had vanished. Clueless, he’d spotted the new fissure overhead, guessed they’d fled upward, and chased to kill Lin Qiye—only to find the boy gone. He was stunned.
Shen Qingzhu frowned, about to speak, but Baili Pangpang’s eyes rolled craftily and he cut in first:
“Qiye… he’s dead.”
“Dead?!” Ma Yitian blurted. “How?”
“The Flame-Vein Earth Dragon knocked him into the magma… burned him alive.” Baili Pangpang glared, voice cracking seventy percent grief, thirty percent rage. “What did Lin Qiye ever do? Why hunt him?! Damn you—damn you!”
Instructor Hong blinked at Baili Pangpang’s sudden Oscar-worthy performance, then matched the stare, face twisted as if he’d flay Ma Yitian alive.
Ma Yitian raised an eyebrow. “Then how are you alive? Why didn’t the dragon kill you? And this tunnel?”
Baili Pangpang: “…”
“Actually, the dragon thought we looked kind and let us go, even opened a way out.” He delivered the line with utter sincerity.
Ma Yitian studied him, then laughed coldly. “You expect me to believe that crap?”
Half his body dissolved into black light that seeped into the rock. The walls came alive, rippling violently. A dozen stone spears erupted, stabbing straight at them—aimed to miss Shen Qingzhu and Baili Pangpang’s vitals but meant to kill Instructor Hong outright.
“The dual-agent got away; even if I live, I’m finished. But if I bring back the Baili young master and that prodigy…” Madness blazed in Ma Yitian’s eyes.
The spears struck without warning. Exhausted, Shen Qingzhu twisted but still took two through his right leg; pain bleached his face white, yet he bit back every sound.
Instructor Hong, still gripping Baili Pangpang, flared blue light and spider-manned across the walls, barely dodging most spikes. Only a few grazed his cheeks, carving deep cuts.
“Lose some weight!” he snarled, hauling the nearly-two-hundred-pound Baili Pangpang slowed him badly on the vertical surfaces.
Baili Pangpang flushed but didn’t idle; he whipped out 【One Becomes Three Thousand】. Sword-light exploded into a skyful of blades raining toward Ma Yitian.
Ma Yitian, half-merged with the wall, sneered. A hundred stone pillars burst forth, pinning every sword-shadow and sealing the route upward.
“My Forbidden Ruins merges me with the terrain. In this environment you can’t beat me.”
He sank deeper; the circular shaft narrowed, more spears spawning to skewer them in the shrinking space.
Instructor Hong narrowed his eyes. “He was badly hurt earlier—now he’s running on fumes. Hit him with everything… we can win.”
Baili Pangpang and Shen Qingzhu nodded, grim as never before.
Only one side would leave this choke-point alive.
Screech—!
Shen Qingzhu’s blade tilted again; he was almost falling. Calmly he raised his free hand and snapped his fingers overhead.
Boom—!!
A violent blast tore through the shaft, shattering the stone spears above. The scorching back-draft nearly roasted Instructor Hong and Baili Pangpang, but they seized the instant.
Blue light blazing, Instructor Hong hurled Baili Pangpang upward and sprang wall-to-wall like lightning.
Baili Pangpang inhaled, drew a black ring from his pocket; black light condensed into a blade—【Soul-Severing Blade】—and he slashed at Ma Yitian.
Ma Yitian laughed. The rock beneath him rolled into a colossal hammer that smashed straight through the Soul-Severing Blade and slammed into Baili Pangpang—while the intangible blade likewise passed through stone and carved a gash across Ma Yitian’s chest.
Soul-Severing Blade: wounds only the soul, ignores armor.
Baili Pangpang coughed blood, hurled into the wall, and blacked out.
With odds so hopeless, he’d traded lives to open a chance for Instructor Hong.
Aaaargh—!!
Ma Yitian’s face turned chalk-white as soul-pain flooded him; consciousness blurred into a shriek.
Instructor Hong flashed in, eyes wide, fists raining blue-lit blows.
Thud—!!
Ma Yitian was driven into the wall. Still dazed, he was yanked out and uppercut skyward. Instructor Hong ripped his Straight Blade free, leapt, and speared it through Ma Yitian’s chest—then a haymaker!
Boom—!!!
Blood spurting, chest pierced, Ma Yitian was punched clean off the wall and sent plummeting down the endless shaft… into rolling magma far below.
In a blur Instructor Hong caught the unconscious Baili Pangpang and the slipping Shen Qingzhu, hauling one over each shoulder. Gritting his teeth he began Z-shaped leaps upward, muscles screaming, blue glow fading.
No elevator from Baili Pangpang now—only brute springing, two men across his back.
Can’t stop. Stop—die.
A flicker of fire appeared far beneath them. Heat surged; they looked down.
A roaring fiery tornado, a volcano in miniature, raced upward, walls melting and collapsing ahead of it—like a flaming dragon opening its maw.
At its head: Ma Yitian’s face.
“Die-die-die… If I go, you all come with me!!” Half his visage was already gone, yet the remaining eye burned with venomous madness.
“Impossible,” Shen Qingzhu breathed. “His heart was pierced—how?”
“His mental signature’s chaos,” Instructor Hong said grimly. “Must’ve taken a drug to cling to life.”
This mad dog!!
Instructor Hong’s legs trembled. The magma-twister would melt the shaft; lose the walls and they’d fall back into the fire.
Only one way: kill Ma Yitian before the fire reaches them, let the flames drop back into the cave.
He drove his Straight Blade into the wall, then Shen Qingzhu’s beside it—two steel footholds.
“The black light Lin Qiye shot was obvious; other instructors will come. Wait here with Baili—two blades can hold you.”
Shen Qingzhu frowned. “What are you doing?”
“What an instructor should.” A faint smile tugged at Hong’s lips. “No grief, no guilt. Dying squarely in front of my men—best end we can ask for.”
He closed his eyes, hand moving to his chest—
“Still pissed that brat Lin Qiye cut my last cool line short… Didn’t think I’d get a second chance.”
His hand patted, froze, patted again. He looked down blankly.
“Where’s my Coat of Arms?” He’d sworn it was in his inner pocket.
Shen Qingzhu’s lips curled. He bent, slipped the black ring from Baili Pangpang’s unconscious fingers—then stepped off the blades into the shaft!
Wind and heat tore at his blood-soaked coat; in his right hand the familiar Coat of Arms glinted.
Instructor Hong’s eyes bulged. When—?
He remembered: while fixing the blades, Shen Qingzhu’s hand had brushed his chest…
Shen Qingzhu’s hair whipped in the updraft. Facing the brightening fire he closed his eyes.
“I said it before—today, I don’t want to see anyone else die…”
Hong Hao, I never liked you, not since camp. But you’re a damn good instructor. Good men shouldn’t die.
Click—!
A silver needle popped from the Coat of Arms; Shen Qingzhu drove it into his neck. Power skyrocketed—Pool, peak Pool, River, peak River…
His finger brushed the black ring; under peak-River mental force a two-meter Soul-Severing Blade materialized.
Used it before—borrowed from that fat bastard.
Right, I told him: if we don’t wipe the Believers, dump my ashes in the sea. He’d better not dig me up and scatter me like an idiot— I’ll haunt him.
Ah… no body left this time.
Face in the approaching fire-tornado, he chuckled. Sharing a mountain with my brothers— not bad.
He raised the huge blade high—and slashed with everything!
Black steel split the flaming face in two. Ma Yitian’s final soul-shred dissolved, features vanishing amid the fire.
Soul annihilated!
The black-coated figure fell into the inferno.
“Shen Qingzhu!!!” Instructor Hong roared, eyes bloodshot. “You fought me in training, in exams—now you steal my heroic death too?! What kind of rebellious soldier did I raise?!! Fuck!!!”
His thunder rolled up the shaft, but Shen Qingzhu no longer heard.
Flames licked his body; pain was the only sound. Someone cursing… who’s got the balls? If I get a chance I’ll beat him—no chance, I guess.
Believers still alive, never became a real powerhouse, never saw Shangjing’s Night Watch squad, missed the oath ceremony…
Hell, I’m not even Night Watch.
Regrets stay regrets…
Dammit—at least die like a Night Watch!
Don’t know if my oath counts…
In the furnace, charred Shen Qingzhu opened his eyes and grinned.
Forgot—I’m Shen Qingzhu. Screw the rules; if I say it counts, it counts!
Among endless red he parted cracked lips and silently roared:
“I, Shen Qingzhu, swear beneath the Great Xia banner…”
He clutched the Coat of Arms though his hand was half carbonized, the back-plate lines glowing in the fire.
“If the final night falls…”
…
Flames still climbed. Ma Yitian dead, inertia drove the fire upward. Instructor Hong unclenched blood-nailed fists, hoisted Baili Pangpang, and bounded upward.
…
“I will stand before millions…”
…
Legs shaking, he leapt wall to wall; the fire gained. He couldn’t stop—one soldier dead, the other would not follow!
…
“Draw blade against the abyss…”
…
Flames licked a meter away, tongues almost touching. He didn’t look down; veins bulged as he stared at the distant surface.
…
In the falling fire, unrecognizable Shen Qingzhu closed his eyes. The hand holding the Coat of Arms lost feeling and opened—
“—stain the sky with blood!!”
Boom—!!!
A hollow thud sucked all air from the underground world; every flame vanished. In the vacuum, Shen Qingzhu’s carbonized body hit the bottom; molten rubble rained and buried everything.
Silence… darkness…
Only a thin jade shard glimmered.