Splintered roof beams rained down around the landing as Ye Chen scrambled to his feet, gripping the hilt of his rusted sword with white knuckles. He expected an execution squad sent to finish Zhao Feng's dirty work, so he flattened his back against the scorched stone wall and waited for the smoke to clear.
Through the haze of burning wood and sulfur, a figure crawled frantically among the glowing embers on all fours.
"Where is it, where is it?" a cracked voice shrieked, coughing between breaths. "If the blast turned it into ash, I will feed the warehouse manager to the mountain rats!"
Ye Chen edged forward, sword raised, but he froze when he saw the man. The person digging through the wreckage was an old man with wild, singed gray hair that stood in frantic clumps around a face coated i
