Wu Hao threw himself forward, feet flying over the ground.

  "Kill them all!" Uncle shouted, his qi surging to accompany his words and transforming them into an order. The others rushed out of hiding as the wave of qi impacted them all, but Wu Hao had reacted first.

  He ran forward, his qi straining against the filter. He hadn't dared unchain it, not while trying to lay low, and now he didn't have the time.

  The ripple of Uncle's wine qi reached him between two long steps and Wu Hao held his breath, wondering what would happen to him, but as it washed over him he just felt momentarily weak to his stomach and that was all. He couldn't feel it taking root in him, didn't have to fight the urge to obey instinctively.

  He really had freed himself. Joy ran through him, surging like a wave, but he couldn't let that distract him. Instead, he tried to channel it into running faster, keeping his concentration sharper, aiming just at the right place, where the Medical Knowledge that he'd obtained once told him could be a killing blow...

  Uncle didn't stir at all when Wu Hao approached, cut off the qi to his feet, and gathered all of it in a tight loop of the Long Hook. Phantom edges burst out of the knife's edge, trying to cohere together into one whole, but that needed more concentration than he could spare right now. It flickered in the mid-morning light, splaying in several directions and then trying to pull itself together again.

  And maybe that had tipped off Uncle somehow, because when Wu Hao was three steps away he turned slightly, eyes widening as he saw the knife extended towards him. One hand flew to his mace, the other slamming his wine bottle into his knee and spilling wine everywhere.

  But he wasn't fast enough. Wu Hao threw himself forward, both hands on the handle of the knife, eyes drilling into Uncle's. He let all of the anger flow through him that the block had surpressed, pushing it into his qi. The phantom edges fused together into a single point, sharper than anything Wu Hao had ever seen.

  Wu Hao's knife slammed into Uncle's belly, cutting through his robe as easily as if it wasn't there at all, carving into him. The impact jarred both of them as Wu Hao came to an abrupt stop, knifepoint spasming as his feet landed firmly back onto the ground. Blood flew, splashing all over Wu Hao's face and body.

  Uncle Bai screamed, and so did Wu Hao, voice breaking as he roared back his defiance, his hate of everything that Uncle stood for.

  Forcing more qi into the Long Hook, Wu Hao pushed the knife in as deep as it would go until his hands rested against pallid skin, wet with blood and human fat and other things he couldn't begin to name. He began to saw it back and forth, trying to cut whatever he cut, feet pushing him forward until his entire body was working just to kill Uncle.

  As if from a distance Wu Hao saw the mace on Uncle's other side spasm, but it didn't lift up.

  For a moment he dared to hope - he'd killed Uncle in a single blow - but then something huge and fast slammed into his face, sending him flying. He hit the ground and rolled on his side, hands slapping into leaves until a bush abruptly stopped him.

  He hung there for a confused moment before his wits returned and he tore his arms out of the branches, ripping his rags as he rose as quickly as he could, breathing deep and wincing. Uncle had slapped him like a disobedient child, so hard that his cheek had swollen. Wu Hao spat out a few fragments and wiped his face, the back of his hand coming away dark red with blood.

  Uncle stared him down, having finally lifted his mace above his shoulders, and only now Wu Hao managed to get a decent look at what he'd inflicted.

  It was a gut wound, but that didn't do it justice. An enormous flap of skin hung loose, and beneath that was a red mess of blood and gore, with things that weren't meant to see the light of day poking out. It was a miracle that Uncle Bai was still standing, and the pallor of his face and his belabored breathing made it clear that he was suffering from the wound.

  Uncle's hand shifted to the wound, and he grasped at it firmly, eyes never straying from Wu Hao's. He tore at himself, pulling at the gore with his bloody hand, and gave a loud, pained grunt as he did. Blood poured from it and Uncle's eyes narrowed into slits.

  Then, opening his hand again, something steel and solid clattered to the ground. Wu Hao's knife. Uncle had pulled it out of himself, but Wu Hao knew that would only cause more bleeding, so why -

  The thick stench of Uncle's qi burned into Wu Hao's nostrils as the man summoned a huge amount of it, forcing it all into his hands. Again his hand moved over the giant wound in his belly, flaring up like black flame as Uncle formed it into something Wu Hao couldn't recognize. Uncle screamed loudly as he did, but the qi didn't stop flowing.

  But when his hand moved away, a bright patch of angry red burns covered the wound. They pulsed with a sickly shine and sweat beaded Uncle Bai's forehead. He'd burned it closed. Blood still dripped from his hand and from the flesh, but he could move again.

  As if to prove it, he hefted the mace up again above his shoulders, stepped down heavily onto the blood-soaked earth, and blurred into motion.

  "Guardian Naga Mace Art," Uncle roared. "Grand Hammer!"

  Wu Hao threw himself out of the bushes, skidding across the ground in a wild tumble, barely escaping the loud impact of Uncle's mace where he'd been standing. Qi flared from the mace's head, thrumming with a pulse of power that soaked into the ground. Wu Hao felt it seep in, and with his eyes he could see the bush withering instantly. Ye Qingfeng, who'd scrambled out of the bushes the moment the confrontation had started, was watching with wide eyes.

  Uncle swung at Wu Hao even as he was turning to face him again, a brutish back-swing that sent his mace shrieking through the air, heavy with qi, but Wu Hao had already run away.

  Shit, he thought, and the thought turned into almost a chant.

  Feet pounding on the dusty road, forcing qi into his steps - he shouldn't have used so much on the initial stab, goddamnit - he felt another heavy mass of qi burst into some sort of shape behind him and threw himself forward again, making a snap judgement as to where Uncle would attack from.

  The head of the mace clipped the side of his ankle, though, and Wu Hao was thrown backwards, Uncle's thick qi splashing all over him the moment he got hit, and he screamed when he felt it burn at his clothes and his skin.

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  Frantically he tried to stop it with his own qi, pitting qi against qi, but Uncle's was much thicker than his. He pushed with all his might, felt it scald at his skin with a burning heat. Flooding it with qi seemed to help, even if it was only a little, and though the burning sensation didn't fade entirely it didn't grow any further.

  Teeth gritted and eyes stinging with tears he crawled forwards, pulling himself across a puddle of blood and gore and dust, a new plan forming in his desperate mind. If he could just - there!

  His fingers thudded into something still vaguely but reassuringly solid and still, somehow, glinting, and he pulled it towards him as quickly as he could. He'd found his knife again.

  But before he could even take a proper hold of it, he felt Uncle blur and reappear again in a single step, standing mere inches from him. Wu Hao felt the older man's eyes burn with a deep hate, heard the swish of air disturbed as Uncle raised the mace again to squash him like a bug. Light fell away as Uncle's head blocked out the sun and a cold, angry shadow took its place.

  The stench of wine hung heavy in the air, and even as Wu Hao was struggling to turn around Uncle's foot slammed into his back and forced him back down into the ground with such force that he felt his ribs begin to give. The muscles in his legs spasmed and burned, going up into the poisonous pungent smoke of Uncle's corrosive qi.

  Uncle's mace reached the peak of its arc and reversed, qi streaming from Uncle's hands to form a thick, foul spike that seemed almost physical. The mace crackled with Uncle's power as he didn't just let it drop but swung with all his might.

  Wu Hao didn't close his eyes, forcing his hands forward to try and stop the blow instinctively even though he knew that it wouldn't help, but there was nothing else he could do, no weapon he had in his arsenal that would -

  The scent of peaches broke through the pungent scent of wine, scattering it, absorbing it, burning it up as fuel. A sword appeared in front of Wu Hao, catching Uncle's mace and dipping down as they struggled for dominance.

  With wide eyes, Wu Hao looked at the sword and the girl who was holding it, both hands gripping the handle and trembling with the strain. She gave a soft grunt of exertion, but Uncle's veins were bulging in his neck and the foot that was being kept on Wu Hao's back lifted.

  Du Linglong had come to save him. She was standing over him, and he couldn't see her face due to her chest being in the way, but she was fighting Uncle, her qi burning brightly at his.

  "Get up," she shouted, and Wu Hao stared at her for a moment longer before his brain kicked in and he pushed himself up. Uncle tried to force him down again but all of his strength was being held by Du Linglong, and Wu Hao forced himself to his knees, and Uncle stumbled, once.

  Her qi flickered, suddenly brighter and more forceful as she pulled more qi from her core, and then her sword rose, pulling Uncle's mace up and away. She tore it sideways, trying to pull the mace from Uncle's hands, but he held onto it tightly and just took another step back.

  Wu Hao rose to his feet, wide-eyed, feeling the poison still burning at his skin. It had started at his ankle, climbed up to his thigh, but he ignored it like he ignored all his pain. She'd saved him. Another emotion that he hadn't felt for a long time reared its head - something warm, hot, which burned in his chest.

  But then Uncle gave another roar and Wu Hao's mind snapped back to the present. The wounds on Uncle's belly had opened again slightly in the scuffle, leaving a thick trail of blood on the leaves as he turned.

  Gripping his knife so tightly that it hurt, Wu Hao breathed once, twice. He gave another glance at Du Linglong, who had raised her sword again with both hands, holding it slightly diagonally to cover her entire body.

  Uncle surged forwards in another blinking step. One moment he was half the clearing away, the next his mace was already coming down heavily, eyes fixated on Wu Hao. Du Linglong wrapped herself in a haze of qi and blurred away in her own version of the blinking step, appearing to Uncle's side, leaving Wu Hao the only one to bear the brunt of the blow.

  "Guardian Naga Mace Art," Uncle's voice hissed. "Quaking Strike!"

  But Wu Hao couldn't run anymore, even if he'd wanted to. He raised the knife, forced all the qi he had left into its steel, pouring everything he could muster into it, trying to ram it into a loop and praying that he wouldn't fall short.

  "Rending Dagger Art," he screamed hoarsely. "Rippling Net!"

  His dagger flashed repeatedly and he tore it through the air, his arms burning with the effort. White wisps of qi were left in mid-air and he forced them out as quickly as he could, trying to build something that would withstand Uncle's attack, layering them repeatedly.

  The mace came crashing down, tearing through all of the structures that Wu Hao had tried to build up like they were made of paper.

  But he'd bought himself a moment to tear his legs back, stumbling backwards as the earth underneath him shook hard enough to throw him even if he'd been steady on his feet, and he fell.

  And then Du Linglong blurred back into sight, to Uncle's side, having stabbed him straight in the gut wound. Her hands hesitated before twisting the sword around, thick drops of her peach-scented qi surging down the length of her sword's edge to burn him from within.

  Uncle ripped the sword out of him as he retreated instinctively, his hand flew to the wound, as if still in disbelief. He recoiled as his hand touched at Du Linglong's lingering qi and went up in bright orange flames, a scream ripping free from his mouth that was almost animal-like in its agony. Eyes wide, crazed, his eyes flicked to Du Linglong and Wu Hao both.

  Wu Hao, legs still burning with Uncle's corrosive qi, let out a pained sigh of relief. He wanted to let himself fall, but until Uncle was actually dead he couldn't let himself go.

  A sigh broke through the air, whistling through the leaves like a soft breeze but unmistakenably a human voice. A truly monstrous amount of qi reared up from one of the nearby trees, so thick it had actual physical presence, and Wu Hao stiffened at its deathly cold.

  Someone else had arrived.