The noise in the alehouse quieted, dice clattered to a stop and people paused their card games to watch the drama unfolding. A clash like this wasn't a rare sight in Bufa City but it wasn't common either. Many of the gangs who did business in the city had grievances with each other which could only be settled in the Pit and it looked like this might be one of them.
"Tell me. Where. She is," San growled. "Or fight me. If you tell. I won't kill you."
For a moment, Su Xiang said nothing as she stared down the furious man. San had grown even larger and more intimidating than he'd been when he first cornered her and Wu Ling on their way to shop at her aunt's store in Silver Sword City. The cruelty, rage, and malice that emanated from the man's smoldering gaze was unlike anything she'd seen from him then. She didn't have to be an artist to know that his hatred of Wu Ling was something he would never put down.
Wu Ling had mentioned encountering the man when he killed Nalan Jiang but until this moment, Su Xiang hadn't given it any thought. For her, the conflict between them and the six men from the Red Tiger's Den had ended when the men were expelled from their sect. There was no need to harbor further grudges. For San, however, the nearly fatal wounds Wu Ling inflicted had clearly scarred him for life. As long as he was alive, this wouldn't end.
"Fine," Su Xiang said, shocking her companions at the table. "You want to fight, I'll fight. Don't they have a place to settle things like that here? Fetch your weapon, I'll meet your blade in the Pit."
"Sister Su, what are you doing?" Jin Wuya hissed from the side. "That man is… is terrifying."
"Maybe," Su Xiang agreed. San's aura truly had become something fierce, radiating barely restrained aggression. "But he's hunting Sister Qianhu. I have to put an end to him or he'll hurt her," she said in a voice that carried all of her conviction to protect the person who mattered to her more than any other.
"No. Weapon," San sneered. "Tear you apart. With bare hands!"
"This is my first day in Bufa City," Su Xiang said addressing the crowd. The tone she used was much calmer than she actually felt but she hoped that she could borrow a fraction of Wu Ling's presence to make this request. "I wonder if any big brothers here can lead me to the Pit to settle things with this man?"
As soon as she asked, her ears burned with embarrassment. She had no idea how Wu Ling could say things like that so easily and yet it never seemed to bother her sworn sibling. The faint blush on her cheeks, however, was even more effective than Wu Ling's pure flirtation might have been. Before she knew it, half a dozen men had volunteered to escort her to the Pit with one or two even volunteering to take her place in the fight.
"No, thank you," she told the men who volunteered. "This man wants to hurt my sworn sister. If I don't handle him with my own hands, I won't be able to sleep at night."
While a crowd gathered around Su Xiang and her friends, an entirely different group of people pushed their way through the crowd toward San.
"You've been here a day," Bullheaded Mao hissed when he reached San's side. "Are you causing trouble already?"
"That woman. Is the sister. Of 'Sister Vixen," the burly man said. "I will do. To her. What Vixen. Did to me," he spat.
"Fine," Mao said, realizing that there would be no reasoning with the man. "But I'm sending someone to tell Little Boss Gao. Don't make trouble for the rest of us just to settle this, Little Boss Gao doesn't want much trouble until after the auction," the veteran member of the gang tried to remind San.
San, however, didn't seem to care about the larger picture. The hate he felt for Su Xiang embarrassing him and his brothers was a tiny spark compared to the inferno of what he felt for 'Sister Vixen', 'Little Lingling' or whatever her name was. If it had only been to settle old scores, he'd never have bothered. But when he thought about mangling the young swordswoman's body the way his throat had been mangled, and then dropping that mangled body at Hua Qianhu's feet, San could barely suppress the intense surge of emotion that welled up in his chest.
Slowly, the two groups made their way across Bufa City, taking a tunnel that had been carved with wide steps to a lower level in the ancient, abandoned mine. Lanterns along the way were eventually replaced by crystal lamps, each one powered by a single spirit crystal and providing much better illumination without adding smoke from countless lanterns to the subterranean environment.
The Pit itself was a grand structure, dug directly into the earth like a grand arena. The lowest level held the main stage, a venue only used for the grandest of events. The two layers above were each ringed with several smaller arenas. The ones on the second lowest level were surrounded by several levels of seats and private viewing rooms for spectators who flocked to the bloody matches that took place at all hours of the day.
It was the third lowest level, however, that Su Xiang and her friends were guided to. Here, each small arena could accommodate at most a hundred spectators and the stage itself was only twenty meters on a side. Powerful formations ringed the fighting stage, ensuring the safety of the spectators from errant blasts of energy and in some cases, the direct attacks of combatants.
These arenas were both the busiest and the least crowded. Everywhere you looked, fights were starting or ending dramatically as all manner of grievances and grudges were settled in brutal, bloody matches in the arenas of the pit. Most of the fighters had no great reputations to speak of but they fought with a savagery that made it clear that the things they fought for were deeply personal.
In the stands above these small rings, a small number of spectators might have some personal connection to the combatants but the majority were common residents of Bufa City, some of them even mortal, who had come to watch blood flow and lives end. Silver, gold and spirit crystals changed hands endlessly as a dozen small crowds called out for blood.