Book 2 Chapter 13 – The Ma.s.sacre

　　Li Yiming smashed the window and opened the door to the side-entrance of the shop. The three carefully entered the shop and found nothing abnormal inside. Li Yiming searched for the light switch in the darkness, and, a moment later, the shop was lit up. 'Knives, swords… Wow, everything's here.'

　　He dropped his police baton and picked up a Tang-style blade. He examined the edge of the blade. 'Unsharpened, of course. There's no way that in a country like ours a small shop like this sells sharpened blades.' ¹

　　'Well, I suppose that it's better than nothing.' Li Yiming swung the weapon in his hand and felt his confidence improved. Suddenly, he noticed a huge sword hanging in the middle of the shop. The colorful hilt of the weapon was decorated with a coiling dragon, and a flaming pattern ran across the body of the blade. Li Yiming's eyes lit up as he strode towards the sword and removed it from where it hung. 'Oof, heavy. Ten, fifteen kilograms? This metal reflects the light well, oh, and it looks sharp too…'

　　'Nice sword—!'

　　Li Yiming suddenly felt as if he was invincible. He raised the sword above his head and brought it down on the counter mightily with an inward roar. 'Demacia!' This was a swing worthy of someone who ruled the world, a swing that reminded onlookers of the true nature of the Jianghu, a swing that brought out an unequaled courage.

　　Bang!

　　The sound of the blade breaking echoed within the room, along with the noise from its collision against the counter. The broken piece almost hit Liu Meng and brought a scream out of her. Bai Ze brought her palm to her forehead and rolled her eyes. Liu Meng panted from the scare while Li Yiming stared vacantly at the remnants of the sword still connected to the hilt.

　　"What did you expect to find here? The Excalibur? These are only artistic renderings." Bai Ze picked up the Tang blade Li Yiming had dropped and weighed it out. It seemed odd for her to hold a weapon taller than herself.

　　"Take all of the simple, robust-looking ones." Bai Ze had no time to mind Li Yiming. She handed a small dagger to Liu Meng and turned around and rummaged through the weapons in the shop one by one. After a quick examination and weighing, the weapon would disappear into Li Yiming's storage bracelet with a flick of her wrist.

　　By now, Liu Meng had grown accustomed to these oddities and did not even question what she saw. She tried swinging the dagger in her hand and looked back at the Tang blade that Bai Ze held. She seemed unsatisfied with the size of her dagger, so she picked up a sword that looked similar to what Bai Ze had.

　　Li Yiming threw away his broken sword in embarra.s.sment and imitated Bai Ze. Whenever he found something satisfying, it would vanish with a flick of the wrist.

　　Suddenly, Bai Ze gestured to them with her left hand and turned her head toward the window they had broken to enter into the shop. Li Yiming understood her intimation and walked in front of Liu Meng. A golden silhouette suddenly pounced on Bai Ze, who stood at the front, bringing with it a breeze of putrid smell. Bai Ze lifted the blade above her head and swung it down, just like what Li Yiming did earlier, only the results were completely different. A shower of blood fell as the Dragondog was cut into two halves and continued sliding on the floor after it had fallen. One half b.u.mped against the wall whereas the other half stopped right in front of Li Yiming.

　　"Let's go, they'll pick up the smell." Bai Ze looked like she had just killed a fly. She wiped away the droplets of blood on her cheeks with the corner of her skirt, cleaned her weapon with a vigorous shake of the wrist and headed for the exit, without even looking at the corpse.

　　Li Yiming gulped down a mouthful of saliva and dragged Liu Meng to follow her; he found the dainty figure in front him to be the most rea.s.suring thing in the world.