The Xiao clan cultivators didn't see him coming until it was too late.

Yun Che struck from the crowd like a thrown knife — fast, precise, and aimed at the weakest link. The cultivator holding the girl's left arm was first. A palm strike to the elbow, channeling the last dregs of his Spirit Profound breakthrough energy, shattered the man's arm in three places. Before the man could scream, Yun Che had already pivoted to the second cultivator.

The crowd erupted. Civilians scattered. The remaining three Xiao clan guards dropped the girl and drew their weapons — spirit swords that hummed with charged profound energy.

'Who dares?' the leader demanded. He was a man in his forties, heavy-set, with the dead eyes of someone who had killed often enough that it no longer registered as significant.

Yun Che pulled back his hood. Let them see his face — let them recognize the former crown prince, the boy they'd crippled and left to rot. Let them know who was coming for them.

'Yun Che,' he said.

The name landed like a thunderclap. The guards exchanged uncertain glances. They had heard the stories of the crippled prince. Some of them had probably been there the night he fell.

'You're supposed to be — '

'Dead? Crippled? Helpless?' Yun Che smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. 'I was. Now I'm not. Leave the girl and go, or stay and find out what three years of hatred can do to a man.'

Two of the guards fled. The leader, to his credit, stood his ground — for approximately three seconds, which was how long it took Yun Che to close the distance and bury a profound-energy-reinforced fist in his solar plexus. The man folded like wet paper.

The girl stared at Yun Che with eyes that were equal parts terror and awe. 'Who... who are you?'

'Someone who knows what it's like to be a Xiao clan prisoner,' he said, snapping her slave collar with a pulse of profound energy. 'Run. Don't stop running. And if anyone asks who freed you, tell them Yun Che is alive.'