The air in the coffin shop was thick with the scent of sawdust and finality. An old man and his three young apprentices worked in a steady rhythm, the scrape of their planes the only sound in the dusty room. Wood shavings curled and fell to the floor like silent, pale tears.
"You here to book a box, or pick one up?" the old man asked, not bothering to look up from his work.
"Where's the Golden Feather Tower?" The voice that answered was flat, cold, and utterly out of place.
The old man's plane stopped mid-stroke. He slowly raised his head. So did the three apprentices. Their eyes, once dull with labor, were now sharp and alert. To walk in without a mission, to ask for headquarters right off the bat… this was not a client. This was trouble.
"I'm afraid I don't follow, sir," the old man said, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"I won't ask again. Where is the Golden Feather Tower?" Jiang Dao's voice was like ice.
"Never heard the name."
Swoosh. THUMP.
It wasn't so much a sound as a wet, concussive pop. The room was suddenly painted in a fine red mist. One of the young apprentices was simply gone, replaced by a grotesque spray of blood and bone that coated the far wall. Jiang Dao stood where the man had been, his hand still slightly extended, not a drop of blood on him.
It happened so fast that no one even saw him move. The old man's heart hammered against his ribs; he'd seen fast men in his life, but this was something else entirely. This was inhuman.
"You…" he stammered.
"Talk," Jiang Dao said, his voice a low promise of violence. "Or I'll peel the skin from your bones."
The old man knew it was over. He slammed his palm toward his own forehead, a last, desperate act of defiance. But Jiang Dao was already there. CRACK. CRACK. The old man screamed as both his wrists shattered. In the same motion, Jiang Dao's fingers hooked under his chin and dislocated his jaw, silencing his cries and robbing him of a quick death.
The two remaining apprentices, wide-eyed with terror, tried to turn their daggers on themselves. Jiang Dao blurred between them, and two more sets of wrists snapped with sickening cracks.
"Trying to check out early?" Jiang Dao's voice was a cold murmur. "Don't worry, you'll get your chance. I've always heard assassins are tough. That you don't break. Let's test that theory."
He picked up a fallen dagger. He knelt before one of the whimpering men, whose eyes pleaded silently. Jiang Dao ignored them and methodically slid the blade into the man's calf, twisting it slowly.
A muffled, gurgling scream was the only reply.
For the next half hour, the coffin shop became a canvas for cruelty. The sounds that echoed within were inhuman, the desperate, strangled shrieks of men being unmade, piece by agonizing piece.
When it was over, Jiang Dao stood calmly, wiping his nails with the bloody dagger. Before him lay three things that were no longer men. They were raw, twitching sculptures of agony, stripped of nearly all their flesh but, by some miracle of torment, still alive. The floor was a slick, black pool of blood, the air thick with its coppery stench.
"See?" Jiang Dao said to the twitching heaps. "You're not so tough after all. Could have saved us all the trouble."
A garbled, wet sound came from one of the figures. "…Qian Yuan City… underground… palace… entrance… Zhaoyang Gambling House… east side… kill… me… please…"
"I hope for your sake you're telling the truth," Jiang Dao said softly. "Because if you're not, I'll find every last one of your hideouts. And I'll make sure this," he gestured to the bloody room, "looks like a mercy."
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Three quick palm strikes, and the twitching finally stopped.
He wiped his hands on a rag, stepped over the carnage, and walked out into the daylight. Mounting his horse, he spurred it toward the east, leaving the flies to feast in the slaughterhouse he'd made.
The Zhaoyang Gambling House was a riot of noise and desperation. Even from a block away, you could hear the roar of the crowd, the clatter of dice, and the shouted curses of men losing everything. It was a sprawling complex, red flags snapping in the wind, with hulking guards posted at every one of its half-dozen entrances.
Jiang Dao swung off his horse and strode inside.
He scanned the chaotic main floor, his eyes cutting through the haze of smoke and sweat. He spotted the manager, a portly man with a greasy smile, and walked straight for him.
"I'm looking for the entrance to the Golden Feather Tower," Jiang Dao said, dispensing with any pleasantries.
The manager's smile faltered. "Who… who are you?"
"Where's the entrance?"
The manager's shock turned to an angry, incredulous laugh. "Golden Feather Tower? Never heard of it. Look, pal, if you're here to make trouble, you picked the wrong place. I suggest you turn around and walk out the way you came in."
Jiang Dao's brow furrowed. "That's funny. My source was very specific. He said it was right here."
"Then your source is an idiot," the manager snapped, giving a subtle nod to the thugs loitering nearby.
Seven or eight of them began to close in, trying to look casual as they surrounded Jiang Dao. One, moving up from behind, slid a poisoned dagger from his sleeve. "You heard the man," he hissed, thrusting the blade straight for Jiang Dao's kidney. "Wrong place."
CLANG!
The dagger hit Jiang Dao's back with a jarring metallic ring, as if it had struck solid steel. The thug's hand went numb from the shock, his eyes wide with disbelief.
Jiang Dao turned his head slowly, his eyes devoid of emotion. "Looks like I'm in exactly the right place."
A backhand. The man's head simply ceased to exist, exploding in a shower of gore that splattered across a nearby gambling table. Gamblers screamed, stumbling back from the headless corpse that collapsed onto their game.
"Kill him!" the manager shrieked, his face a mask of fury and fear. "KILL HIM!"
The thugs charged, blades drawn. From a back room, dozens more flooded out, led by a trio of men in pristine white robes who radiated a deadly calm.
"You're dead!" one of the white-robed men snarled. "Tear him apart!"
A cruel grin finally broke the cold mask of Jiang Dao's face. He didn't bother with fancy moves or even his monstrous transformation. He just charged.
He was a human bulldozer. The first wave of thugs simply vanished under his assault, their bodies crumpling with the sound of snapping bones. He moved through them like a force of nature, a hurricane of bone-snapping violence. His palms, coated in a poison of their own, lashed out, and with every strike, a man's chest would cave in, his body sent flying like a broken doll.
"Departing Sword Technique!" the lead man in white screamed, his body dissolving into a blur. His sword became a silver streak, a flurry of motion that sought to stitch Jiang Dao with a dozen fatal wounds at once.
Jiang Dao didn't even dodge. He just reached out and… caught it. The blade, humming with deadly energy, stopped dead in his grip.
The swordsman's jaw dropped. He was a master, at the very peak of his power, and this man had just caught his ultimate technique like a child's toy. He tried to pull back, but Jiang Dao was already on him. Five fingers, sharp and hard as steel talons, raked across his face. His head came apart like a rotten melon.
Jiang Dao tossed the headless body aside. "No one," he roared, his voice booming over the screams, "is walking out of here alive!"
He was a whirlwind of death. The manager, his face white with terror, turned and ran for the back rooms. Jiang Dao crushed the skull of the last white-robed assassin and blurred across the room, his hand clamping onto the manager's neck.
"Last chance, manager," Jiang Dao whispered, his grin wide and terrifying. "Is the Golden Feather headquarters here?"
"What… what are you?" the man whimpered, shaking like a leaf.
Jiang Dao threw his head back and laughed, a sound that was utterly, terrifyingly inhuman. "Me? I'm Jiang Dao."
The manager, trembling so hard he could barely walk, led Jiang Dao through a series of courtyards, deeper into the gambling house complex. Jiang Dao followed a pace behind, a predator stalking his terrified prey, completely unconcerned about a potential trap.
They finally stopped in a storage room at the very back of the property. The manager's hands fumbled with a hidden catch on the wall. With a low groan of grinding stone, a section of the wall slid away, revealing a dark, foreboding tunnel that seemed to swallow the light.
"In there?" Jiang Dao's eyes narrowed.
"Y-yes," the manager stammered.
"After you."
The manager had no choice. He stepped into the oppressive darkness, Jiang Dao's silent presence a crushing weight behind him. They walked for what felt like an eternity when, with a sudden CLANG, the trap was sprung.
Hundreds of poisoned blades shot from the walls as the stone slabs began to slam together, a hydraulic press designed to pulp anyone caught inside.
"NO! WAIT!" the manager shrieked uselessly.
CRUNCH.
The walls met with sickening finality. The manager was instantly turned into a bloody smear, impaled on a hundred different blades. Jiang Dao, however, just stood there, a cold smile on his face as the poisoned tips pressed harmlessly against his skin.
"Really? This is the best you've got?" he murmured to the empty tunnel.
Then, he began to change.
His body didn't just grow; it erupted. Muscle boiled up under his skin, twisting and expanding at an unnatural rate. Veins like thick cables writhed across his grotesque, newly formed physique. In seconds, he was a monster, a nearly nine-foot-tall titan of corded muscle and raw power, barely contained by the two-meter-high tunnel. He was a giant stuffed in a shoebox.
With a contemptuous flex, the hundreds of steel blades embedded in the walls shattered like glass. He lowered his head and charged.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
He was a living battering ram. The stone walls cracked and exploded outwards as he tore through the tunnel, the entire structure collapsing in his wake. After a hundred-meter sprint of pure destruction, he burst through the end of the passage into open space.
He found himself in a cavernous underground palace. It was immense, a breathtaking and terrifying feat of subterranean architecture, lit by the flickering orange glow of massive braziers.
And it was full of people.
An army of killers stared back at him, a sea of cold eyes and drawn steel, waiting for him. At their head stood three men whose presence felt ancient and deadly. The moment they saw the monstrous form of Jiang Dao emerge from the collapsing tunnel, they knew this was no ordinary intruder.
"A Vicious Fiend," the one-eyed man in the center breathed, his voice a gravelly rasp.
Jiang Dao's transformation receded slightly, but he remained a giant among men. A terrifying grin split his face. "Looks like I'm right where I need to be," he boomed, his voice echoing through the vast chamber. "Welcome to the Golden Feather Tower."
"Who are you?" demanded the leader, a mountain of a man with a wild white beard. "What has our organization done to earn the wrath of a creature like you?"
"What have you done?" Jiang Dao laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Simple. One: give me Qin Qingqing, alive and untouched. One hair on her head is out of place, and I burn this entire place to the ground. Two: bring me every single one of your Gold-ranked assassins so I can kill them myself. Do that, and I walk away. If not, none of you will live to see another dawn."
"Insolent beast!" a bald man beside the leader roared.
They were the Golden Feather Tower. They had killed Vicious Fiends before. This one's arrogance was astounding.
"Let me be clear, 'friend,'" the old leader said, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. "First, Qin Qingqing is not here. Second, these men are under my protection. You will not harm a single one. I will respect what you are and allow you to leave. Do not test my generosity."
"Not here? Then where is she?" Jiang Dao's grin vanished, replaced by a murderous glare.
"That is not your concern."
"Fine," Jiang Dao snarled. "Then you can all die."
He exploded forward. The stone floor cracked under the force of his launch.
"Gold-ranks and above, engage! All others, fall back!" the bald man bellowed, meeting Jiang Dao's charge head-on. His fist, glowing with a vortex of raw energy, shot forward. He was joined by a half-dozen other masters, their weapons blazing as they unleashed a coordinated storm of attacks designed to overwhelm and execute their monstrous target.
Jiang Dao just laughed. He met the bald man's punch with an open-palm strike.
BOOM!
A shockwave ripped through the air. The bald man screamed—a short, wet sound—as his entire arm detonated in a spray of blood and bone. Jiang Dao's hand didn't stop. It plunged straight through the man's chest and out his back, shattering his sternum and spine. He lifted the dying killer, still impaled on his arm, and used him as a gruesome shield against the other attacks.
"Terrifying…" the bald man choked, blood pouring from his mouth, before his eyes went dark.
Jiang Dao was a whirlwind. He wore the corpse like a gruesome trophy as he waded into the other masters. A sword flashing with lethal energy lunged for his temple. He turned, caught the blade in his bare hand, and then simply slammed his entire two-hundred-kilo frame into the attacker. The man crumpled with a full-body crackle of shattering bones.
Tossing the body from his arm, Jiang Dao reached over his shoulder and drew the massive, black greatsword strapped to his back. The air itself seemed to groan under its weight.
"Let's see who can stop me now!" he roared.
The fight turned into a massacre. The greatsword was not a weapon of finesse; it was an instrument of pure annihilation. Men were not cut; they were bisected, pulverized, and erased. No one could withstand a single blow. The grand hall became a charnel house, slick with blood and littered with the unrecognizable remains of elite assassins.
The old leader, his face a mask of horrified rage, finally broke. He scrambled backward, his voice a desperate roar that echoed with power. "Venerable Shangguan! Do you not see what is happening? Show yourself!"
As if in answer, a new pressure descended upon the cavern. An aura of immense, terrifying power exploded from the depths of the palace. A figure moved with impossible speed, a blur that tore through the air, arriving before Jiang Dao in a heartbeat.
The newcomer stood, radiating an icy calm, his eyes locked on the blood-soaked giant.
For the first time, Jiang Dao paused, his head tilting with genuine curiosity as he faced the new arrival.
"So," he rumbled, a deadly smile playing on his lips. "You called for backup?"