Destiny in Cinders

An Jing looked outside and saw someone familiar. It was Manager Li Xiao of Blessed Virtue Garden, the one who had helped him with his trade convoy as of late.

"Calm down." An Jing received the raggedly breathing manager and asked, "Tell me what happened from the start."

"A group of foreign martialists started fighting at Blessed Virtue Garden out of nowhere!" Manager Li was a man who typically kept to himself. Apart from being a little too hasty and ambitious, he was a man of good character. The respect and responsibilities that An Jing had given him made him admire An Jing even more. Yet, he seemed utterly horrified. "People died! Little Liu and A'Mao died! They were far too savage to be normal martialists!"

Have they finally come? An Jing wasn't too sure who they were, but he did have a bad feeling about it. He knew that his individual karmic influence, or that of his master or You Ruhui for that matter, wouldn't instigate anything too serious, but their combined influence on causal events would eventually blend together and result in serious consequences. This was far from a trick of fate. Instead, it was a logical inevitability.

"Calm down!" An Jing pressed down on the horrified man's shoulder.

The manager felt a sudden chill as if he had just touched the edge of a sharp blade and snapped out of it. "Oh no! Was I under a spell the whole time?"

"I think so." An Jing knew that Manager Li had seen his fair share of dead people. Fights often happened at establishments that catered to martialists like Blessed Virtue Garden, so there was no way he would fall into such a panic under normal circumstances. Someone had intentionally mixed in a terror spell after killing people. Those martialists had supposedly come from outside the city, yet they behaved with such impunity. They were definitely more than met the eye.

"How did the authorities respond?" An Jing had an idea of what was going on and pressed for some details. "And what are the martialists up to now?"

"We already reported the incident, but most of the authorities aren't around," Manager Li said, furrowing his brow heavily. He suddenly noticed many things that were amiss once the spell wore off. "That's right, City Manager Zheng left yesterday for the prefectural capital to make his report. That means Keensight no longer has a mandated official on duty!"

Manager Li started to shudder for real this time, evident from his shaking voice. "T-that means... There's n-nobody who can keep those martialists at bay!"

Law and order in Grand Chen heavily depended on the institution of mandates. The trifecta of mandated officials, divine armaments and major defensive formations was what kept the various terrestrial-vein cities safe. They were the bulwark that kept maritalists from misbehaving and causing chaos. If a city didn't have any mandated officials, it was asking for trouble. Even if the troublemakers were natives of Grand Chen, nothing stopped them from pretending to be martialists from other countries.

"Is that so? The troublemakers sure picked a good time to show up." An Jing pondered for a moment and patted the manager reassuringly on the shoulder. "Leave it to me."

***

Blessed Virtue Garden's doors opened at dawn, but they didn't serve customers that early. Typically, only old regulars got to enter and talk to the employees while enjoying some buns as a light snack. However, the usual clean and long hallway of stone was utterly devastated. The intricate tables and chairs in the establishment had been wrecked by brute force, tossed to the side and covered in bloodstains.

The once spacious hall was occupied by two groups of people, one dressed in gray and the other in blue. They faced each other menacingly, having left potholes and dried blood all across the ground. The refreshing air of spring had been dampened by the moist and gloom of the wrecked restaurant.

The other managers and servant girls hid on the opposite side of the street, shivering as they watched the figures within. Of the three martialists that the restaurant hired for security, two had been reduced to corpses, while another still breathed, albeit weakly, laying heavily injured in the courtyard. It didn't take long before he breathed his last too.

The two groups of feuding martialists were mostly well built with only the occasional slender one. A casual glance was enough to discern how tough their bodies were. Every muscle on their body was as strong as steel, oozing with the majestic and imposing essence of black iron. Most of the dozen martialists there were at the Tide Aura Stage while the leaders were all at the Fortification Realm.

"Where in the world did these people come from?" The owner of Blessed Virtue Garden, Boss Cheng, had escaped to the roof of a nearby building across the street with some other employees.

He was completely clueless about the situation. Seeing his business ransacked to this point, even a man of measured temperament like him couldn't help but feel his hands twitch from rage! "How dare they do this?! How dare they?!"

"Based on how they're dressed, they appear to be martialists from Floodfloat Mountain and Slumberplume Mountain," whispered a young worker next to the owner. "This is just what happens in areas outside the divine capital with no guardian adepts. Foreign martialists start acting uppity once there's nobody to put them in their place."

The young man did find something weird about all this. "Aren't martialists from these sects mostly concentrated in the territories of the northern barbarians in Hanhai? Why did they come all the way here?"

It was indeed odd for these two groups to show up in Keensight all of a sudden. Blessed Virtue Garden hadn't opened their doors for long before they heard the sound of horses approaching. Then, the martialists came knocking.

The younger Manager Sun had known that something was off when he saw the burly martialists in gray who exuded hostile killing intent and stopped the young worker from going out to welcome them. Instead, the manager himself went out to deal with them.

The martialists didn't put up any pretense of politeness and immediately interrogated him about dao comprehension. When the manager heard it, he immediately told them about Jing Xuan famously entering a dao-comprehension state at the seat by the window. Blessed Virtue Garden had since converted that space into a private room and offered to rent it to martialists who wanted to try their luck at dao comprehension at a high price.

When the martialist with a scar on his eye heard all that, he humphed coldly. "So, this is the place! What's that bullshit about a genius Dustdawner? The Brightmirror Sect loves their fanciful and nonsensical stories alright. Dao comprehension?! That's nothing but a scam to trick lowly non-martialists like you! Smash up the place!"

The other Tide Aura and even some Fortification martialists heard the order and immediately smashed the renovated private space, taking apart the new wooden separators and spitting on the ground once they were done tearing it down.

Blessed Virtue Garden's martialist guards wanted to stop them, only to be sent flying by the burly leader of the group with a single punch. Two of them died instantly while the other held on after suffering heavy injuries, though he soon perished all the same.

The employees in Blessed Virtue Garden immediately scrambled to flee after seeing their hired muscle killed just like that. One of the martialists was tired of the panicked shrieks, so he picked up a nearby rock and flung it at the head of the woman who cried the loudest. Just like that, a few lives were lost within a matter of seconds.