Iron Hand Zhang woke up screaming.
Lin slapped a wet rag over his mouth. "Quiet. You'll tear the stitches."
Zhang thrashed, his eyes wide and bloodshot. He looked down. His right leg was splinted with two lengths of rusted rebar and wrapped in dirty bandages. His iron-plated hand was a crumpled lump of metal and flesh.
He tried to sit up. The pain slammed him back down.
Yang Yi shadowed the doorway. He sharpened the edge of a shovel blade with a whetstone. Scritch. Scritch.
"You broke me."
Zhang's voice was a gravelly whisper through the rag.
Yang Yi didn't look up. "I broke a bad leader. I'm building a good tank."
He stood up and walked over. The heavy thud of his calcified shins against the floorboards made the hut vibrate. He loomed over the fallen giant.
"Block 8. Tonight. You take point."
"I can't walk."
"You don't need to walk. You just need to stand there and catch arrows."
Yang Yi grabbed Zhang's collar and hauled him upright. Zhang howled, his good leg scrambling for purchase. Yang Yi shoved a pill into the man's mouth. One of the Qi Replenishment pills stolen from the alchemy hall.
"Chew."
Zhang gagged, then swallowed. Color flooded back into his face as the medicinal energy forced his body into overdrive. It didn't heal the bone, but it masked the pain with a manic buzz.
"Get him a crutch," Yang Yi ordered Lin. "And a shield."
Lin handed Zhang a heavy trash-can lid reinforced with scrap metal. She looked at Yang Yi. "This is a death sentence for him."
"It's redemption."
The border between Block 9 and Block 8 was a drainage ditch filled with neon-green sludge.
Thirty men stood behind Yang Yi. They held their makeshift weapons with sweaty palms. They were terrified of the Vipers, but they were more terrified of the gray-skinned demon leading them.
Yang Yi sniffed the air.
The Wolf essence picked up the scent of bodies—unwashed, anxious. The Rat essence picked up something else under the stench of the ditch. Sweet almonds. Rotting cherries.
Neurotoxins.
"Masks up," Yang Yi commanded.
The men pulled rags soaked in vinegar—Lin's concoction—over their faces.
"Crossing formation. Zhang, front."
Zhang hobbled forward, leaning on a spear shaft, the trash-can lid held high. He looked like a broken golem.
They stepped onto the wooden planks spanning the ditch.
The air shimmered.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Blowdarts.
They came from the darkened windows of the tenement building across the ditch.
"Shield!"
Zhang instinctively raised the lid. Metal pinged as steel-tipped darts struck the scrap. But he was slow. Two darts buried themselves in his iron-skinned shoulder.
He grunted. The Iron Bone technique flared, turning his skin into a metallic gray, stopping the needles from penetrating deep. But the poison was potent.
"Green Lotus venom," Lin hissed, analyzing the residue on the lid. "Paralytic."
Zhang's knees buckled.
Yang Yi didn't let him fall. He kicked Zhang's good leg, forcing him to stay upright.
"Hold the line."
Yang Yi took a deep breath. He inhaled the green mist drifting from the ditch.
The Vipers were venting gas.
The sweet taste hit his tongue. His lungs burned. The Rat essence in his liver woke up, hungry. It latched onto the toxin. It didn't just neutralize it; it digested it. The poison broke down into raw, jittery energy.
Yang Yi grinned. His vertical pupils snapped open.
"They're feeding me."
He dropped the shovel. He didn't need range. He needed speed.
He sprinted across the planks.
"Fire!" a voice screamed from the tenement.
More darts. A rain of steel needles.
Yang Yi didn't dodge. He moved in a zigzag pattern, erratic and jerky. The Rat's Scuttle.
He hit the door of the tenement. It was barred.
He didn't use his hands. He spun, driving his calcified shin into the wood.
CRACK.
The door exploded inward. Splinters the size of daggers flew into the hallway.
Two Vipers stood there, reloading blowpipes. They wore green leather armor and masks shaped like snake heads.
They froze. They saw a man breathing their poison gas like it was fresh mountain air.
Yang Yi didn't hesitate. He grabbed the first Viper by the throat.
"Your ventilation is terrible."
He slammed the man into the wall. The impact cracked the plaster.
The second Viper drew a curved dagger. The blade dripped with black sludge. He lunged for Yang Yi's ribs.
Yang Yi caught the wrist. His grip was iron.
"Is that nightshade?"
He twisted. The Viper's wrist snapped. The dagger fell.
Yang Yi picked it up. He licked the blade.
His tongue went numb, then tingled with heat. The toxicity fueled him.
The Viper stared in horror. "Monster..."
Yang Yi drove the dagger into the Viper's shoulder, pinning him to the doorframe.
"Manager."
He turned back to the street. His army was crossing the bridge, emboldened by the breach. Zhang was shouting orders, dragging his paralyzed leg, swinging his shield like a bludgeon.
"Clear the building!" Yang Yi roared. "I want the alchemist!"
He took the stairs two at a time. The Rat essence vibrated in his skull, guiding him toward the source of the sweet smell.
Top floor. Penthouse.
He kicked the door open.
A room filled with bubbling beakers and drying racks of poisonous herbs. In the center, a man stood over a mixing table. He was slight, elegant, wearing robes of shimmering green silk.
He didn't look scared. He looked annoyed.
"You're interrupting a delicate titration," the man said. He held a vial of purple liquid.
"You're the Viper Head?"
"I am Liu Feng. And you are the noisy brute from the garbage dump."
Liu Feng flicked his wrist. He threw the vial.
It shattered at Yang Yi's feet.
Purple gas expanded instantly. Corrosive Cloud.
The floorboards hissed and dissolved.
Yang Yi stepped back. The acid mist ate at his boots. This wasn't a neurotoxin; it was a physical solvent. The Rat couldn't eat this.
"Crude," Liu Feng sneered. "Flesh melts. Bone dissolves."
Yang Yi grabbed a heavy oak table nearby. He flipped it up as a shield.
The acid sprayed against the wood, eating through it in seconds.
But seconds were all Yang Yi needed.
He charged through the dissolving table. He burst through the cloud, his skin stinging where droplets landed.
Liu Feng's eyes widened. He reached for another vial.
Yang Yi didn't let him.
He swung his hardened forearm. A clothesline strike.
CLACK.
It hit Liu Feng in the chest.
Ribs shattered. The alchemist flew backward, crashing into his shelves of poisons. Glass rained down. Potions mixed on the floor—red, green, black—creating a bubbling, toxic stew.
Liu Feng coughed blood, struggling to rise. The fumes from the mixture started to rise around him.
Yang Yi walked over. He stepped in the puddle of mixed poisons. His boots smoked. His skin turned red, then gray as the beast blood fought the chemical assault.
He grabbed Liu Feng by the hair and lifted his face out of the fumes.
"My turn to titrate."
He held the stolen dagger to Liu Feng's throat.
"Block 8 belongs to me. Your lab belongs to me. And you..."
Yang Yi looked at the shelves of ingredients. Nightshade. Arsenic. Ghost Pepper.
"...You're going to make me a drink."