Dragonblood Chaos Heir

Chapter 9: "Who Are You, Beggar?"

The Roosting Phoenix Teahouse in the evening was a different thing. The quiet, dawn melancholy was gone, replaced by the ruckus energy of men shedding the day's toil. Smoke from cheap tobacco and roasting meat hung in the air, mixing with the sour tang of ale and unwashed bodies. The central hearth roared, casting flickering light on faces flushed with drink and gossip.

Lin Feng stood just inside the back entrance, a shadow among shadows. His hood was up, his cloak smelling of damp fur and the deep woods, marking him as just another poor hunter or trapper. He scanned the room, his new senses filtering the noise into useful data.

The energy in the room was a low, muddy simmer, the fatigue and modest vitality of laborers. But one corner blazed like a gaudy lantern.

There, holding court at the largest, stickiest table, was Lin Tao. He was already deep into his cups, his face flushed, his fine green robes stained with spilled liquor. Around him clustered a leeching ring: a few lower-ranking Lin clansmen whose loyalties had conveniently shifted, and a couple of city toughs wearing the Deng clan’s colors. They were laughing too loudly, their energy signatures, Lin Tao’s earthy brown stream now sloppy and unfocused, spiking with each bellow.

“—and I told the guard captain, if you see so much as a shadow that looks like my pathetic cousin, you strike first! Don’t bother asking questions!” Lin Tao slammed his cup down, sloshing ale. “We’re purging the weakness, you see? My father says the clan must be as hard as the mountain, as relentless as the earth!”

“To Elder Tian! And to the new young master!” a Deng clansman cheered, raising his cup.

Lin Feng moved like a whisper along the wall, finding an empty stool at a small table near the kitchen doors, half-hidden by a supporting post. He ordered a bowl of watery stew with his last copper coins and kept his head down, listening.

The gossip flowed freely, lubricated by Lin Tao’s presence and his open purse.

“...the funeral was somber, very dignified. Elder Tian wept openly when they sealed the tomb...”

“...the Lei Clan sent a representative. Just a steward, but still, a sign of respect...”

“...heard the City Lord might officially recognize Elder Tian’s leadership at the week’s end...”

“...good riddance to the old line, I say. Weakness attracts wolves. We need a strong hand now, with the Azure Sky Sect trials coming up...”

Lin Feng ate his stew slowly, each bland spoonful a mask for his cold, analytical focus. The narrative was solidifying. His uncle was moving fast, weaving his lies into the fabric of the city’s politics. The Earth-Spine Convoy was mentioned, due at the Deng warehouses tomorrow at dusk, carrying a “special consolidation shipment” for the Lin Clan’s “rebuilding.”

Perfect.

His plan was set. But as he prepared to slip back into the night, fate, or perhaps Lin Tao’s own bloated arrogance, intervened.

A serving girl, young and nervous, was refilling the mugs at Lin Tao’s table. As she leaned over, Lin Tao’s drunken hand, pretending to reach for a plate, “accidentally” brushed against her hip, then squeezed. The girl jerked, yelping, and a pitcher of ale tipped, pouring its contents over Lin Tao’s lap.

Time froze.

The girl paled, her eyes wide with terror. “F-forgive me, young master! I-I’m so clumsy!”

Lin Tao looked down at his soaked robes, his face transitioning from drunken with high spirit to cold, sober-looking fury in a heartbeat. The performance was for his audience. He stood up slowly, the chair screeching behind him.

“Clumsy?” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “You think ‘clumsy’ covers ruining the robes of the Lin Clan’s young master? These are spirit-silk, you worthless pig. Worth more than your life.”

He backhanded her.

The crack echoed in the sudden silence of the tavern. The girl stumbled back, crashing into an empty table, a bright red mark blooming on her cheek. She clutched her face, tears welling but not falling, trapped in sheer terror.

No one moved. The tavern keeper peered from the kitchen, his face ashen, but he didn’t intervene. The Lin and Deng men at the table smirked. This was their entertainment.

Lin Tao loomed over her. “You’ll work off the debt. A year of service in the clan’s kitchens. No pay. And we’ll start your training tonight. Get up.” He reached down to grab her arm, his fingers digging in.

A cold, clear voice cut through the thick air. “The debt is a cup of ale. The price of your dignity, however, appears to be far lower.”

Every head swiveled.

Lin Feng had spoken. He hadn’t planned to. But the sight, the casual cruelty, the echo of his own helplessness, the girl’s terror mirroring the fear in Old Chen’s eyes, had snapped something inside him. He didn’t rise from his stool. He simply looked up from his bowl, his face still deep in his hood’s shadow.

Lin Tao’s head turned slowly, his eyes narrowing as they found the source of the challenge. He saw a figure in a filthy hunter’s cloak, hooded, sitting alone. No visible weapons. No aura of power. Just a beggar with a death wish.

A slow, ugly smile spread across Lin Tao’s face. The distraction was even better. A chance to demonstrate his authority publicly.

He released the girl, who scrambled away, and took two steps toward Lin Feng’s table. His leeches fanned out behind him, blocking any exit.

“What did you say, beggar?” Lin Tao asked, his voice dripping with mock curiosity. “My ears must be full of this place’s filth. It sounded like you were commenting on my affairs.”

Lin Feng took a final, slow spoonful of his stew. He placed the spoon down deliberately. “I said you value your robes more than your honor. And you price a girl’s freedom cheaper than spilled ale. The math is simple. And pathetic.”

A gasp rippled through the watching crowd. This was suicide.

Lin Tao’s smile vanished. “You dare? You know who I am?”

“I know what you are,” Lin Feng said, his voice still calm, almost conversational. “A bully in a borrowed robe, playing at being a master before his father has even finished digging the grave.”

The insult was so precise, so venomously specific, that it left a vacuum of silence. It struck at the very insecurity festering beneath Lin Tao’s bravado. His face purpled with rage. His earth-attribute qi flared involuntarily, a visible, dusty brown aura that made the air feel heavy. He was at the 6th Layer of Qi Condensation, and he was about to crush this insect.

“You’re dead,” Lin Tao hissed, the words barely audible. He didn’t wait for a challenge. He stepped forward and threw a punch, not a fancy technique, but a straightforward, qi-enhanced blow aimed to cave in the beggar’s hooded face. The force behind it was enough to shatter stone.

Lin Feng moved.

He didn’t stand. He simply leaned, a minimal, almost lazy shift of his torso on the stool. Lin Tao’s fist, crackling with earthy power, whistled past his hood, missing by a hair’s breadth. The force of the missed punch caused Lin Tao to stumble forward slightly, off-balance.

In that fraction of a second, Lin Feng acted.

His left hand, resting on the table, shot out. Not as a fist. Not as a claw. It was an open-handed, sideways swat, like shooing a particularly annoying fly. He targeted not Lin Tao’s body, but the flowing stream of earth qi around his extended arm.

The Chaos-Stealing Palm activated.

There was no dramatic blast. Only a soft, sucking hiss as the dense brown energy around Lin Tao’s fist was violently ripped away, drawn into Lin Feng’s palm. To Lin Tao, it felt like his arm had been plunged into a vacuum—a sudden, terrifying numbness followed by a deep, spiritual chill.

Before Lin Tao could even register the loss, Lin Feng’s right hand, still holding the crude wooden spoon from his stew, flicked upward.

THWACK!

The spoon, imbued with a microscopic thread of the just-stolen earth energy, now sharpened and edged with chaotic discord, struck Lin Tao squarely on the bridge of his nose.

The sound was a satisfying, wooden crack, followed by a wetter, more biological crunch.

Lin Tao’s head snapped back. He let out a choked, gurgling cry, stumbling backward into his friends. Blood, shockingly red, spurted from his flattened nose, streaming down his chin and onto his precious, ale-stained robes. He clutched his face, eyes wide with a confusion that was swiftly being drowned by world-shattering pain and humiliation.

The tavern was dead silent. Stunned.

Lin Feng slowly stood up from his stool. He was still a head shorter than the recovering Lin Tao and his men, but in that moment, he seemed to fill the space. He dropped the now-cracked wooden spoon onto the table with a final tap.

“The debt,” Lin Feng said, his voice now carrying a frost that hadn’t been there before, “is settled.”

He turned and began to walk calmly toward the back door. He moved not with fear, but with an absolute, unnerving certainty that he would not be stopped.

“KILL HIM!” Lin Tao shrieked, the words mangled by his broken nose and blood. “KILL THAT FILTHY BEGGAR!”

The two Deng clansmen and one Lin guard, snapping out of their daze, surged forward. One drew a short sword, its edge glinting with weak metal qi. Another raised fists wreathed in earth power. They were all at the 4th or 5th Layer of Qi Condensation, not geniuses, but competent fighters.

Lin Feng didn’t break stride. As the first, a Deng clansman with the short sword, lunged, Lin Feng used the Chaos Shuffle Step. His body seemed to blur, taking two short, impossibly quick steps that put him inside the man’s guard. His palm slapped the clansman’s sword arm. The metal qi flickered and died, absorbed. A follow-up shove, enhanced by a burst of stolen force, sent the man crashing into a table, splintering it.

The second attacker threw a heavy, earth-empowered punch. Lin Feng didn’t block. He met the punch with his own palm, another devouring touch. The earthy power vanished, leaving a feeble physical swing that Lin Feng caught by the wrist. With a twist that used the man’s own momentum, he flung him into the third attacker, sending both tumbling to the floor in a heap.

It was over in three seconds. No grand techniques. No drawn sword. Only efficient, devastating neutralization fueled by a power that consumed their own.

Lin Feng reached the door. He paused, one hand on the frame. He looked back, his gaze finding Lin Tao, who was holding his bloody face, his eyes filled with tears of pain and boiling, impotent hatred.

“Tell your father,” Lin Feng said, his voice low but carrying perfectly in the silence. “Tell him the ghost he threw into the abyss sends its regards. And it’s hungry.”

Then, he was gone, melting into the dark alleyway.

Inside the Roosting Phoenix, chaos erupted—shouts, the groans of the injured, the wail of the tavern keeper. But above it all, sitting in a pool of his own blood, Lin Tao trembled not just from pain, but from a dawning, ice-cold horror.

The beggar’s final words echoed in his shattered mind.

The ghost he threw into the abyss.

Only one person had been thrown into the Abyssal Chasm.

His cousin was dead. Everyone said so.

But the cold in his arm where his qi had been stolen… the impossible skill… the eyes that had gleamed from within that hood for just a second…

“No…” Lin Tao whispered, blood bubbling on his lips. “It can’t be…”

Outside, moving swiftly through the night-shrouded streets toward the city’s eastern gate and the road where the Earth-Spine Convoy would travel tomorrow, Lin Feng allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction.

The message was sent. The first ripple of fear was sown.

Now, for the first real blow.