Chapter 102: Desperate Situation!

“Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack…”

Sharp, brittle sounds kept coming from Ding Xiang’s body.

The son of a Silver-Armored Guard commander was now enduring one of the most terrifying tortures imaginable.

Zheng Fan stood behind him, both hands clamped around Ding Xiang’s head. Strands of black aura flowed from Zheng Fan’s palms into Ding Xiang’s body.

Ding Xiang’s eyes had rolled completely white.

His mouth hung open, yet no sound came out.

Even an ordinary person who drank a bellyful of water and then jumped could feel the liquid sloshing inside.

That was what Ding Xiang’s entire body had become.

Only far worse.

His bones.

His organs.

Everything inside him.

All of it was turning to liquid.

Like winter ice and snow slowly melting away, every tangle, every obsession, every persistence suddenly became meaningless.

Chu Fengjiu watched with his own eyes and slowly drew the flexible sword at his waist.

The blade trembled faintly and gave off a tiny hum.

He knew the Silver-Armored Guards lying in ambush nearby would soon converge on this place.

As a Lieutenant Commander of the Silver-Armored Guard, he valued his life greatly.

“Pa!”

Zheng Fan released Ding Xiang’s head.

Ding Xiang swayed several times.

Then, by instinct, he began walking toward Chu Fengjiu.

Perhaps at this moment, Chu Fengjiu was the only person who could offer the bewildered Ding Xiang even the faintest sense of security.

Even though this superior, this elder, had moments earlier shoved him forward without hesitation to serve as a shield.

But Ding Xiang was no longer capable of much thought.

His brain had melted too.

Rather than saying he was still alive, it would be more accurate to say that inertia merely made him look as though he remained alive.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

“Splash…”

It sounded like a paper bag filled with water crashing onto the ground.

Or perhaps like a perfectly made Yangzhou soup dumpling.

Ding Xiang collapsed.

All that remained was a skin bag filled with liquid.

It wobbled on the ground, wet and glistening.

Chu Fengjiu’s pupils contracted violently.

As a Lieutenant Commander of the Silver-Armored Guard, what filth and ugliness had he not witnessed?

The Silver-Armored Guard’s prisons contained countless tortures designed to break a person.

But he had never seen anything like this.

Right now, Chu Fengjiu had no doubt that if someone poked Ding Xiang with the tip of a sword, Ding Xiang would simply… flow out.

Zheng Fan tilted his head slightly.

His body leaned as well, left shoulder higher than the right.

A smile rested on his face as he looked at Chu Fengjiu.

This was the Demon Child’s torture.

This was the Demon Child’s experience.

The Nine-Lives Resentful Infant.

This was pain he himself had personally endured.

The sin he had personally suffered.

Again and again, he had carried hope for life.

Longing for the outside world.

An instinctive yearning for everything beautiful.

Again and again, he had waited for the moment when he might finally descend into the world.

Yet in the end, what awaited him was not his own infant cry.

Not the care and protection of parents.

Only cold metal piercing inward.

That was how he was ended.

Again and again.

Hope.

Beautiful expectation.

And finally, the most merciless shriek of all.

Now, he had transformed that suffering into his own method.

This was the Demon Child’s punishment.

“Heh…

“Hehehe…”

A childish voice sounded.

Zheng Fan reached one hand forward.

“Buzz!”

In the next instant, Zheng Fan’s feet carved grooves across the ground and he appeared directly before Chu Fengjiu.

Gray radiance burst from Chu Fengjiu’s body.

It spread over the flexible sword in his hand.

The blade instantly straightened and stabbed forward.

Blood qi externalization.

An Eighth Grade Martial Artist!

And unlike Old Sun, who had advanced with spear in hand beneath Mianzhou City, Chu Fengjiu was not old and withered.

Old Sun had once been Eighth Grade, but age had weakened him badly.

In truth, he may only have possessed the strength of a peak Ninth Grade Martial Artist, and perhaps even lacked endurance.

His final stand against Liang Cheng had merely been a burst of radiance purchased by burning away the last of his life.

Chu Fengjiu, however, was a genuine Eighth Grade Martial Artist.

The flexible sword was extremely fast.

Like a silver serpent striking with a metallic hiss.

But Zheng Fan was faster.

He twisted sideways.

His entire body leaned backward until his face pointed toward the sky, yet his feet continued moving.

The sword passed beside him.

At the same time, Zheng Fan’s hands reached toward Chu Fengjiu.

After seeing what happened to Ding Xiang, how could Chu Fengjiu possibly allow those hands to touch him?

He immediately retreated.

Zheng Fan pursued without pause.

Chu Fengjiu’s flexible sword whipped downward diagonally.

He intended to cut Zheng Fan through the waist.

In that instant, a trace of hesitation seemed to appear in Zheng Fan’s eyes.

As though, at this moment, having his own father’s body cut in half might not actually be unacceptable?

His body suddenly trembled.

A powerful will forcibly descended.

It shattered that hesitation.

Zheng Fan abruptly dropped even lower.

His entire body nearly flattened against the earth.

The sword tip merely scraped across his armor, leaving a deep mark.

Sparks burst everywhere.

It failed to truly injure him.

And all the while, Zheng Fan’s feet continued propelling him forward at astonishing speed.

Chu Fengjiu roared.

From the beginning of the exchange until now, he had been completely suppressed into retreat.

He knew that if he remained on the defensive, sooner or later something would go wrong.

Every Silver-Armored Guard rose from the bottom.

Those who climbed into high positions had all survived something resembling the cultivation of poisonous insects in a jar.

Their combat experience was naturally rich beyond comparison.

But what Chu Fengjiu could never have anticipated was this:

No matter how rich his combat experience, how could it compare with a character from a comic?

Their ceilings.

Their histories.

All the countless things that made them who they were.

Those did not require decades of accumulation.

They only required one chapter one side story.

Zheng Fan moved even faster.

His palms turned backward and braced against the ground.

In an instant, he transformed from an ape walking on two legs into a crawling beast.

His speed abruptly increased!

Chu Fengjiu’s gaze tightened.

Before he could even react, Zheng Fan had already slipped completely inside his guard.

Chu Fengjiu immediately unleashed a storm of sword light.

With blood qi reinforcing the weapon, he laid down three layers of defense around himself.

But after closing the distance, Zheng Fan did not attack directly.

Instead, he moved around Chu Fengjiu’s body at terrifying speed.

Too fast.

So fast Chu Fengjiu’s eyes could barely follow him.

What in the hell was this thing?

Chu Fengjiu’s composure collapsed.

Even against a stronger opponent—even a Seventh Grade or Sixth Grade Martial Artist—he would never have fallen into this state.

At the very least, everyone normally followed recognizable patterns.

There were methods.

Rules.

Victory and death were decided by ability.

But this thing that had suddenly appeared in front of him possessed no pattern whatsoever.

Like peeling an onion, Zheng Fan’s rapid movement stripped away one layer after another of Chu Fengjiu’s defense.

Because Zheng Fan’s speed was so absurd, Chu Fengjiu did not even dare launch another reckless attack.

He knew perfectly well that if he struck and missed, he would leave his vital points completely open.

But passive defense could not last forever.

At last, a flaw appeared.

Above his head.

Zheng Fan suddenly sprang upward.

His left arm twisted like the limb of a puppet.

Half a rotation.

Then smashed down!

“You’re courting death!”

Joy erupted inside Chu Fengjiu.

He had deliberately exposed that opening.

In this sort of battle, the true contest was ultimately one of mind.

Chu Fengjiu believed his experience and judgment surpassed the opponent’s.

“Buzz!”

The flexible sword in his hand abruptly split.

One became three.

The three sword lights flickered rapidly and enveloped Zheng Fan’s head.

Perhaps in the next instant, Zheng Fan’s skull would be shredded apart.

Like someone in a factory pushing his head into an enormous industrial fan.

Yet while Zheng Fan hung in midair, a dull sound suddenly came from his chest.

The armor there burst apart.

It was as though someone in midair had shoved Zheng Fan backward with an invisible palm.

His body froze in the air for a fraction of a second.

Then, using that instant to generate force through his waist, Zheng Fan reversed his position.

What had originally been a downward punch became his upper body falling backward while his lower body drove forward.

Not only did his head avoid Chu Fengjiu’s sword flowers, both feet descended violently at the same time!

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

Two kicks.

Both landed squarely on Chu Fengjiu’s chest.

“Puh…”

“Puh…”

Chu Fengjiu spat out two mouthfuls of blood.

His entire body flew backward and smashed into the tree behind him.

“Creak…”

The tree snapped outright and crashed backward onto the ground.

“This…”

Blood foam filled Chu Fengjiu’s mouth.

His face was full of disbelief.

He was not some peerless master.

There were plenty of people stronger than him inside the Silver-Armored Guard.

He could lose.

He could be defeated.

He could die.

What he could not understand what confused him what left him unwilling to accept the result was that from beginning to end, the other party had never once glowed.

It was clearly a Martial Artist’s fighting style.

Clearly a victory achieved through close combat and killing technique.

Yet there had been no radiance of blood qi.

How?

How was that possible?

Zheng Fan landed.

Chu Fengjiu leaned against the broken tree, staring fixedly at him.

Then Zheng Fan’s body began trembling.

His chest rose and fell violently.

At that moment, Chu Fengjiu heard a rustling sound from the distance.

The nearby Silver-Armored Guards had probably arrived.

Zheng Fan braced both hands against the ground.

His mouth opened wide.

“Ah…”

Hoarse, painful sounds escaped continuously.

“Ah…”

His face twisted again and again.

He was in terrible pain.

Chu Fengjiu’s mouth slowly opened.

He had lost.

But something seemed to be wrong with his opponent too.

At this rate, Chu Fengjiu had indeed lost but he would live.

That monster would die.

Intense joy began stimulating Chu Fengjiu’s nerves.

His chest started heaving as well.

The movement tore at his wounds.

Mouthful after mouthful of blood poured from between his lips as though it cost nothing.

Chu Fengjiu knew his body was probably ruined.

He had no idea how many ribs had been broken.

His spleen was certainly badly injured.

In the future, he might never be able to perform field duties again.

But right now, nothing was more attractive than surviving.

As long as I live.

As long as I live.

As long as I can stay alive!

The Silver-Armored Guard had desk jobs too!

“Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!”

Suddenly, the thunder of hooves erupted.

Then came the sounds of killing from the distance.

Chu Fengjiu froze.

He tried to leave the broken tree, but his body could not move.

His injuries were far too severe.

In this condition, he could not even circulate his blood qi.

If he tried, his own chest would burst first.

Ding Hao had once told Zheng Fan that Martial Artists possessed two foundations.

The body.

And blood qi.

The two supported one another.

The physical body was the vessel for blood qi.

Only a powerful body could bear the circulation of powerful blood qi.

Without the body to carry it, blood qi alone amounted to nothing.

When Shatuo Queshi had charged through thousands of Zhenbei cavalrymen, what truly sustained him was his terrifying Martial Artist physique.

That was the greatest difference between Martial Artists and other cultivators.

Replace him with a magician or qi refiner and let thousands of cavalrymen close in.

They might die without even producing a ripple.

The fighting sounds quickly ended.

But the thunder of hooves did not disappear.

Instead, it drew nearer.

Liang Cheng charged over at the head of the barbarian cavalry.

Earlier, they had eliminated the Silver-Armored Guards positioned around the perimeter.

The Silver-Armored Guard was no longer the personal army that had followed Qian’s founding emperor in conquering the realm.

Now reduced to an intelligence and secret-police organization, they remained useful for covert affairs and underhanded work.

But frontal combat was no longer their specialty.

Besides, there had only been twenty or thirty of them.

Against the charge of several hundred barbarian cavalrymen, even high individual cultivation could not save them.

The first impact shattered their formation.

The second wiped out the survivors.

Liang Cheng swept his gaze across the scene.

First, he pointed toward Chu Fengjiu leaning against the broken tree.

The barbarian soldiers behind him immediately understood.

They raised their bows.

“Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!”

In the next instant, dozens of arrows buried themselves in Chu Fengjiu’s body.

They nailed him directly to the broken tree.

Liang Cheng did not delay.

As he passed Zheng Fan, he leaned sideways, reached down, lifted Zheng Fan up, and pulled him into his arms.

“North!

“Charge!”

The cavalry thundered away.

……

Zheng Fan regained consciousness in Liang Cheng’s arms.

When he woke, Liang Cheng was still riding.

The barbarian soldiers around them were galloping desperately as well.

Behind them, the shadow of another cavalry force could be seen.

Zheng Fan opened his mouth.

Then immediately felt the muscles around it ache horribly.

Like they had accumulated an impossible amount of lactic acid.

There was no helping it.

Whenever the Demon Child controlled Zheng Fan’s body, he seemed to particularly enjoy grinning.

Smile too long.

Smile too widely.

Smile too often.

Eventually even the mouth cramped.

“Master, you’re awake?”

Liang Cheng shouted while riding.

“Cough… cough…”

Zheng Fan coughed.

Then he realized his back hurt.

Liang Cheng was holding him against his chest while riding at full gallop.

“My back… really hurts…”

Most of his body merely ached.

But his back genuinely hurt.

It even felt as though he were bleeding.

Liang Cheng had not noticed at first.

Then he lowered his head and saw blood on the saddle.

Suddenly, Liang Cheng understood.

“Master, this subordinate made a mistake.

“The spearhead lodged in my abdomen—

I still haven’t removed it.”

“…”

Zheng Fan.

“But… it really hurts.”

“Master, there is no time to deal with it now.

“Please endure a little longer.

“Endure it.

“Then it won’t hurt anymore.”

“…”

Zheng Fan.

Several thousand Qian cavalrymen were chasing them like mad from behind.

How could they possibly stop now to deal with a spearhead?

Zheng Fan genuinely regretted it.

Yesterday, no matter what Liang Cheng had said, Zheng Fan should have helped him pull that spearhead out.

Unfortunately, there was no medicine for regret.

And Zheng Fan could never have imagined that one day the spear beneath Liang Cheng would actually stab his own Master.

Still.

Pain was pain.

Better pain than death.

Zheng Fan could only bite his lip and endure.

He actually remembered everything that had happened the previous night.

While the Demon Child controlled his body, Zheng Fan had been able to seize control back.

But from the Demon Child’s perspective, he had seen Qian scouts hiding nearby.

In order to escape, Zheng Fan had voluntarily handed his body over to the Demon Child.

Last night… had he really defeated an Eighth Grade Martial Artist?

Hiss…

Pain!

“Master, fortunately you noticed early yesterday.

“After we dealt with those scouts, we broke out quickly.

“If we had been even a little later, more than ten thousand Qian troops would have surrounded us.”

At that time, the Qian army had already begun arranging an encirclement based on intelligence from the Silver-Armored Guard.

But because the Demon Child acted, Zheng Fan’s group broke out before the Qian army completed the trap.

Then, several thousand Qian cavalrymen began pursuing them with everything they had.

Those cavalrymen came from several military commands.

But every Military Commissioner had issued a death order.

This Yan cavalry force had to be left inside Qian territory.

“Master, ahead!

“As long as we cross the beacon-fort line in front of us, we’ll be back in Yan!”

Liang Cheng tried to encourage Zheng Fan.

Seeing Zheng Fan in so much pain made him feel somewhat guilty.

Truthfully, when Zheng Fan had been unconscious, he obviously could not complain.

Now that he had awakened, he cried out from pain.

But by then, the jostling of the horse had already caused the spearhead to carve who knew how many wounds across his back.

“I’m telling you…

“Can you not raise a flag right now?

“Shut that crow mouth of yours.”

Zheng Fan genuinely felt that perhaps because Liang Cheng was a zombie, whether compared to crows or any other ominous creature, this zombie was more sinister and a more perfect representation of disaster and misfortune.

Which meant his words were extremely likely to come true in reverse.

Zheng Fan advised, “You should say:

“We’re dead.

“There’s no way we escape.

“We’re finished.

“No chance at all.

“We’re family.

“Don’t buff us to death.”

“That won’t happen, Master.

“We can definitely escape.

“The beacon forts ahead should be empty.

“We’ll definitely—”

Before Liang Cheng could finish, seven or eight hundred cavalrymen suddenly charged out from among the beacon forts ahead.

They formed ranks and began charging directly toward Zheng Fan’s force!

“…”

Liang Cheng.

(End of Chapter)