SUPREME WAR GOD The Despised Son-in-Law Returns

Chapter 7: Three Moves for Iron Hand

"Red Root, Tiger Bone Vine and a handful of Cold Moss," Damon said, laying the black card on the wooden counter. "The oldest you have."

The herbalist on Old Herb Street was a thin man with a wispy beard and a sour face. He looked at Damon's torn clothes, then at the card, and snorted.

"Those roots aren't for beggars, friend. Do you know what Tiger Bone Vine costs?"

"Run the card."

The man rolled his eyes and swiped it, then stared at the screen, swiped it again and stared harder. His face changed color twice. Without another word, he hurried into the back room and returned with three paper parcels wrapped in red string.

"The best I have, sir," he said, bowing a little. "Fifty years old, every root."

"Thank you. Do you have any Blood Ginseng? Five hundred years or older?"

The herbalist laughed nervously. "Sir, there's only one root that old in all of Eastbay, and it sits in the Grant family vault. Old Mr. Grant shows it off at parties like a gold watch."

"Does he now?" Damon picked up his parcels. "Then I'll wait."

The herbs weren't rare, not like the treasures Damon had eaten as a War God, but they would feed the Core for a few days. Every hour he spent weak was an hour his enemies spent getting stronger.

The sun had set by the time he cut through the narrow alley behind the fish market. The alley was dark and wet, lined with rusty bins and the back doors of shops that had already closed.

Halfway down, he stopped.

A black car sat across the far end of the alley, its engine purring and its back window halfway down. Damon didn't need to see inside, because the smell of expensive cologne carried all the way to him.

"Lucas," he said.

The window slid down further. Lucas Grant sat in the back seat with his phone raised. "I wanted a front-row seat, idiot. Nobody pushes me into a cake and walks away."

A heavy footstep sounded behind Damon.

A man stepped out of a side door into the alley. He was huge, almost two meters tall, with a shaved head and a neck as thick as Damon's waist. His hands were wrapped in iron-grey cloth from wrist to knuckle, and the bricks behind him had fist-shaped dents in them, as if he had been practicing there for years.

"Iron Hand Rourke," the big man said, cracking his neck from side to side. "Remember the name. You'll be screaming it in your sleep."

Damon set his herb parcels down gently against the wall.

"He looks like a scarecrow, Mr. Grant," Rourke called toward the car. "You paid me two hundred thousand for this? I feel like a thief."

"Both legs," Lucas said. "Slowly. I want every second on video."

Rourke rolled his shoulders, and the air in the alley grew heavy. Damon could feel the pressure of Master-realm power, at least four times what the Kane thugs had carried and far beyond his own thin thread of inner force. A Master could beat twenty armed men; in a fair fight, a fresh Inner Force warrior would last maybe ten seconds.

Damon had no plans to fight fair.

"I'll give you one chance," he said calmly. "Walk away now, and I'll forget your face."

Rourke threw back his head and laughed until his shoulders shook. "You hear that, Mr. Grant? The dog is giving me a chance!"

Rourke spat on the ground. "I've broken forty men's legs in this city, and none of them ever walked right again."

Then he charged.

He was fast for a man his size, and his right fist came down like a falling brick, aimed straight at Damon's knee.

Damon didn't block. He slid half a step to the side and drove one finger into a spot just below Rourke's ribs, a nerve point the Legion called the Broken Bell. Rourke's whole right side locked up; his fist missed Damon's leg and slammed into the brick wall instead, cracking three bricks.

That was the first move.

Rourke roared and spun, swinging his left hand. Damon ducked under it and chopped the inside of his elbow with the edge of his palm, hitting a point most fighters never even knew existed. The big arm went dead and dropped to his side like a rope.

That was the second move.

"What... what is this?" Rourke staggered back, his eyes wide and wild. "This isn't martial arts. What is this?"

"It's war," Damon said.

He stepped in close and laid his palm flat against Rourke's chest, right over the heart, and pushed with every drop of inner force he owned. It wasn't much power, but it was in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment.

The air left Rourke's lungs in one long groan. His eyes rolled up, his legs folded under him, and the giant sat down hard in a puddle, unable to move or speak, his huge chest heaving.

That was the third move.

At the end of the alley, the car's engine roared. Lucas was screaming at his driver, and the car shot backward, scraping the wall with a shriek of metal, then spun away into the street with his phone still filming from the window.

Damon let him run. A frightened man talks, and Damon wanted Lucas to talk to everyone. By morning, Lucas would show that video to every rich friend he had, and none of them would believe a skinny son-in-law had beaten a Master. They'd call it fake, and that suited Damon perfectly.

He crouched in front of Rourke. "You'll be able to move in an hour. You'll fight again in a month, if you're lucky and you rest."

"Who... who are you?" Rourke whispered.

"Someone you shouldn't have taken money to hurt. Tell Lucas Grant that if he sends anyone else, I won't be this gentle."

Rourke gave a tiny, shaking nod.

Damon searched his jacket, not for money but for answers. He found a phone first. On the cracked screen was a message from Lucas: Break him tonight. I want him in a wheelchair when he signs the papers.

Damon put the phone back. Then he found a roll of cash, a key card for a Kane-owned hotel and, in the inside pocket, something small and cold.

He pulled it out and held it up under the single alley light.

It was a round badge of black metal, the size of a coin, with a lotus flower carved into its face. The petals were long and sharp, more like blades than flowers.

Damon went completely still, and for a moment he forgot the cold.

He had seen this exact symbol once before, five years ago on the cliff at Frostgate, in firelight and falling snow. It had been stitched in black thread on the collar of the masked man who had driven a blade into his side and pushed him over the edge.

The other killers had worn Draven's colors that night, but that man had worn this lotus. He had fought differently too, smoother and colder than any soldier, and he hadn't said a single word while Damon fell.

"Where did you get this?" Damon asked, very quietly.

Rourke's eyes filled with fear. "A man at the Kane house. He gives them to masters who do special jobs, and he says it's for protection."

"What man?"

"I don't know his name; nobody does. But once I heard Silas Kane talking about him." Rourke shivered in the cold puddle. "He said the people who make these badges don't come from any city. They come from the mountains." He swallowed hard. "And he said even the Grand Marshal is afraid of them."