Code of Umbrellas

"Code of Umbrellas" (雨傘の義理, Amagasa no Giri) is the first episode of the first season of Thunderbolt Fantasy. It originally aired on July 8, 2016.

Synopsis
When the Xuán Guǐ Zōng attack the Dān siblings, their leader, Miè Tiān Hái, kills Dān Héng and takes the hilt of the mystical Tiān Xíng Jiàn sword from him. Dān Héng's sister, Dān Fěi, escapes with the sword's guard only to be tracked down by Cán Xiōng, a member of the Xuán Guǐ Zōng. At the behest of a mysterious man, the traveling swordsman Shāng Bù Huàn steps in to protect her from Cán Xiōng. Shāng manages to defeat Cán Xiōng, but his intervention earns him the ire of the Xuán Guǐ Zōng.

Plot
Dān Héng pulls his sisters hand behind him running through the forest outside the shrine where they lived. As the protectors of the Tiān Xíng Jiàn ("Sword of Divine Retribution"), They take the Hilt and Guard of the blade with them after their shrine is invaded by the Xuán Guǐ Zōng, the chase being led by Cán Xiōng. Héng's sister, Fěi, is briefly separated, but successfully fends off her attackers. The two siblings impressively defeat each of the lower level Xuán Guǐ Zōng, but before being able to escape together, Cán Xiōng uses Dān Fěi's sword against her and weakens her. Dān Héng slashes several thugs before dueling Xiōng. Using his family's Hù Yìn Shī techniques, he is able to distance Cán Xiōng with the "Flying red cloud rush", But before he can attempt to finish off his foe, Everyone's movement is halted by the arrival of Miè Tiān Hái. Miè Tiān Hái's arrival shakes the ground around him as descends from the skies, recognized immediately by Dān Héng as the Bones of Creation. Tiān Hái asks Héng one last time for that which he desires. Because there would be no point to his life should he fail, he engages Miè Tiān Hái, only to be forced back again as the Bones of Creation uses the swords of the Xuán Guǐ Zōng and flings them all at Héng. He deflects them but is critically wounded by Tiān Hái's "Demonic war force : Total Annihilation". Héng is blown away after blocking the blow but is caught by Dān Fěi. Héng tells his sister to abandon him and take the guard, and despite initially refusing, Fěi escapes by jumping off of the cliff once her brother takes his position. Héng creates a barrier that rips the lower level Xuán Guǐ Zōng to pieces as they charge him, but Tiān Hái forcibly dissipates the barrier with the flick of a finger, and appears before Dān Héng at superhuman speed. Without a word between the two, The Bones of creation grabs Dān Héng's skull, and seemingly infuses it with his necromantic abilities, destroying his entire body, leaving only the handle to the Tiān Xíng Jiàn. With the divine sword's guard having escaped them for now, Miè Tiān Hái returns to Seven sins tower, leaving Cán Xiōng and the remaining Xuán Guǐ Zōng to find the last of the Dān family. Meanwhile, downstream...

" A truly wondrous journey does not require horses to carry you over long distances, or a luxurious carriage, but enough time to aimlessly stop and enjoy yourself. One man, fully aware of this, sits under a tree to stay out of the rain, in no hurry at all. Nearby, a Buddha statue with a broken roof, But the statue is shielded from the rain by an umbrella someone has left. But who left this umbrella, and under what conditions?  ". A Mysterious, anxious, and wet stranger to these lands wanders looking for someplace dry. He comes across a Buddha at a small shrine with a collapsed roof. The Buddha is being shielded from the rain by an umbrella. Before he can take it for himself, He is chastised by a beautiful young man smoking from a pipe, telling him that someone took enough care to leave the umbrella before the storm. Obviously in a hurry, the man with the sword on his side decides to take the umbrella anyway, lest he catch a cold. Despite a stone statue being no worse for ware rain or not, as an offering, the man with the pipe says that the umbrella should b left alone. Not being able to afford any time to wait for the rain to stop under the tree, the swordsmen takes the umbrella. Betting on the presence of some virtue, the smoking man tasks the swordsmen with repaying his debt, to whoever he finds who may need his help. In an effort to keep the man out of his hair, the Swordsman agrees. Despite not believing he looks the type to live up to his promise, The swordsman still asks a girl stumbling through the rain whether or not she needs help. She appears to ignore him, to which he is prepared to go his own way once again, until several Xuán Guǐ Zōng warriors walk past him and draw their swords on the wet girl. Exhausted by her escape, and wandering for quite a while, she passes out. The swordsman steps in, asking the thugs what they want from the girl, when asked why he should care, he tells them about a wet Buddha. Obviously confused, but not wanting to waste anytime in returning the girl to Miè Tiān Hái, the Xuán Guǐ Zōng warn the warrior about their affiliation. Not being of the same land, the Warrior asks them if their gang do more than harass defenseless girls. Angered, the aggressors draw their blades to the girls defender instead. The man easily dodges their blades and uses the umbrella to knock on of them off balance with a blow to the head. Considering how quick the masked men are to threaten him, he decides who's side he is on, and spins the umbrella into the air. He takes each of the thugs out, only actually drawing his blade once to slice their leaders hand off. The Xuán Guǐ Zōng retreat and the umbrella lands back into Dān Fěi's savior's hand. (Unfortunately, The umbrella returns damaged).

The Hero picks up the girl and heals her with by infusing her with Qi energy, and brings her back to the stranger by the tree so she can rest. The stranger expresses surprise that the wanderer actually fulfilled his debt. The stranger is even more surprised to find that the warrior is has no idea who the Xuán Guǐ Zōng are. Deducing that the Swordsmen is a foreigner based on his accent, the smoking young man asks the warrior for his name so he can tell the girl when she wakes up. Dissapointed with the answer "Just tell her it was the providence of that Buddha over there". He then asks the warrior whether he understands what the girls situation is, noting her clothing. He deduces that the girl must be of the Hù Yìn Shī, the ones who protect the Shén Huì Mó Xiè of the War of Fading Dusk (Qióng Mù Zhī Zhàn). The smoking man says that the Hù Yìn Shī aren't meant to leave their shrines as to better protect the divine wisdom that keeps the holy swords sealed. The warrior says that the bizarre tale would be a pain, and moves to continue his journey. The smoking stranger points out that the girl could never face the Xuán Guǐ Zōng alone, and says that the hero title belongs the guy with the sword who healed her wounds, saying there is no need for him to be involved. The hypocrisy angers the warrior but the choice is made for him, as Cán Xiōng arrives.

Cán Xiōng offers the warrior his forgiveness for the mistake of picking a fight with the Xuán Guǐ Zōng, but before he can say anything, the smoking man blows something from his pipe, and Cán Xiōng suddenly sees Dān Fěi before him, instead of her savior. Xiōng attacks who he believes to be the holder of the Tiān Xíng Jiàn's guard, and the hero attempts to knock some sense into him, but Cán Xiōng has no intention of backing down. The wanderer immediately recognizes that the smoking man has played some kind of trick, and is forced to fight defensively as his deranged opponent continues his pursuit. He finally draws his sword, offering his opponent the opportunity to give in. Cán Xiōng promises that his pride can't repair until he silences the interloper, to which the hero declares he now will take their fight seriously without regret, and with a wave of his blade, flings a boulder in the other direction, narrowly missing Cán Xiōng, who performs the "Dry Bones, Blood Slash", spinning and bouncing off a tree, nearly slicing the Hero's face.

The deployment of the "Eight-way arrival" attack of the "Formless rouge sword" blows Cán Xiōng away from the swordsman, who then rushes him and rolls his sword around Xiōng's, and as the Hero sheathes his sword, Cán Xiōng's torso explodes. The dying man demands to know the name of the one who defeated him after his years of training, to which the victor of their bout offers, "Shāng Bù Huàn" Xiōng begins laughing maniacally, promising Shāng Bù Huàn that he has made an enemy of the Xuán Guǐ Zōng for life, and having discarded his own shattered sword, tosses Dān Fěi's sword into the air and uses it to take his own head after it lands in his neck. Cán Xiōng's severed head is taken by one of the Xuán Guǐ Zōng's demon birds, and Shāng Bù Huàn immediately blames the pipe-smoking stranger's trick for his new problems. Dān Fěi gets up and is introduced to her future companions. The smoking man, who introduces himself as "Guǐ Niǎo", returns her specially-made Cui Huī Jiàn sword.

At Seven sins tower, Miè Tiān Hái asks his other two lieutenants, Diāo Mìng and Liè Mèi, what success Cán Xiōng and his team had, only to find his answer with the arrival Cán Xiōng's demon bird. He uses his dark magic to see Cán Xiōng's final moments through his eyes, and finds the name of the one who killed him, and the one who saved the keeper of the Tiān Xíng Jiàn's guard, as well as cameo of "Lüè Fēng Qiè Chén", the Enigmatic Gale, or as he calls himself now, Guǐ Niǎo.

Characters

 * Shāng Bù Huàn
 * Lǐn Xuě Yā
 * Dān Fěi
 * Dān Héng
 * Cán Xiōng
 * Miè Tiān Hái
 * Diāo Mìng
 * Liè Mèi

Techniques

 * "Flying Red Cloud Rush" (Dān Héng)
 * "Yang Sunrise" (Dān Héng)
 * "Demonic War Force : Total Annihilation" (Miè Tiān Hái)
 * "Dry Bones, Blood Slash" (Miè Tiān Hái)
 * "Formless Rouge Sword, Eight-Way Arrival" (Shāng Bù Huàn)

Trivia

 * It is never explicitly said by any characters, but Cán Xiōng uses Dān Fěi's sword along with his own in all scenes after his initial appearance, where he is shown taking it from her. This is apparently meant to represent something he does often with his opponents: as in Thunderbolt Fantasy: The Sword of Life and Death, his fighting style is described as stealing and using his opponent's sword against them.
 * No dialogue is present during the transition other than Shāng's groaning, but Dān Fěi can be seen bowing in grace to Lǐn Xuě Yā after he hands her sword back.
 * Despite only using "Flying red cloud rush", and "Yang Sunrise", Dān Héng is well established to be much more proficient at using the sword techniques taught by his family, Making his defeat at the hands of Miè Tiān Hái more intimidating. In later episodes, Dān Fěi will express the regret that she not only hadn't mastered their families techniques, but was the only one left in their family to pass their techniques down.

Next... "An ancient stolen treasure. The tears of a maiden for her late brother. A wise man teaches to avoid danger, but rising to a challenge is a man's path."