Chapter 320: The Might of the Sword Saint!

The people of Jin were fond of male lovers. Everyone across the four great states of the East knew that much. Among Jin nobility, it was even regarded as an elegant pastime.

But neither the First Prince nor the Sword Saint had ever imagined that one day, they themselves would become part of someone else’s “elegant pastime.”

Longyuan trembled faintly in the Sword Saint’s arms, almost unable to restrain itself.

A murderous aura was gathering between the First Prince’s brows as well.

One was the son of an emperor.

The other stood at the summit of the sword.

When had either of them ever been humiliated like this?

The potbellied rebel commander, of course, had no idea that in this instant he had essentially reached the very pinnacle of his life.

A beauty in each arm.

The First Prince of Yan on his left.

The Sword Saint of Jin on his right.

Good heavens.

What bliss.

Bliss beyond imagination.

Xue San hurriedly stepped forward.

“My lord, that won’t do. It truly won’t. These men were personally selected by the Second Lord and are being sent into the Prince’s Residence.”

The “Second Lord” naturally referred to Situ Yi’s younger brother, Situ Jiong.

The two brothers had lost their political struggle against Situ Lei and been sent away to guard the frontier beyond the Snow Sea Pass. After rebelling, they had remained together. Once Situ Yi ascended the throne, he had not been stingy when rewarding his younger brother.

Perhaps Situ Yi truly had given up on himself.

At the end of the previous month, he had even formally elevated two male favorites to the rank of consort.

That was something unprecedented.

In earlier years, even if Jin nobles enjoyed that sort of thing, no one would ever speak of formally marrying a male lover. It remained an unspoken secret, understood by everyone and declared by no one.

Situ Yi, however, had once sat on a Dragon Throne.

And yet he had descended into absurdity to this extent.

When the elder brother set the example, the younger naturally refused to fall behind.

So lately, the Second Lord had also been holding a grand selection for male favorites.

Everyone inside and outside Fengxin City knew about it.

The moment the potbellied commander heard that these men belonged to the Second Lord, he hesitated.

Xue San immediately pressed his advantage.

“My lord, take a good look. If either of these two is left over, this lowly one guarantees I’ll send him straight to you. How does that sound?”

The commander nodded.

“You’re a clever one.

“Go on, then.

“Don’t keep the Second Lord waiting.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The ox carts continued forward.

The First Prince closed his eyes.

He had never imagined this mission would expose him to an experience like this.

The Sword Saint silently turned his gaze toward Xue San.

*So this is the so-called ‘enduring humiliation for the greater cause’ you spoke of?*

As for that potbellied commander he had already been placed on Longyuan’s must-kill list.

“You use a sword?” the First Prince asked.

Perhaps he wanted to distract himself.

He did not know the Sword Saint’s identity, but judging from the way Xue San had treated this man earlier, he could tell the fellow was certainly no ordinary person.

In some ways, Xue San had even shown him more respect than he showed the First Prince himself.

“Yes.”

The Sword Saint nodded.

The First Prince nodded as well.

He assumed this must be some swordsman Zheng Fan had recruited specifically for this kind of gate-seizure operation.

Still, no matter how skilled the man was, the First Prince did not care too much.

However high his level might be, surely he could not be as strong as the Sword Saint of Jin.

For Zheng Fan, recruiting even one genuine expert was probably already difficult enough, which explained why he treasured the man so much.

This was not because the First Prince was narrow-minded.

It was simply that, as an imperial prince, he possessed an enormous natural attraction for people of the jianghu.

If he wished, he could wave a hand and any number of wandering heroes would volunteer to serve him.

The three ox carts crossed the drawbridge over the moat.

At that exact moment, Xue San pulled a signal tube from inside his robes.

He removed the stopper.

*Whoosh!*

A firework shot into the night sky.

“KILL!”

The “pretty boys” sitting on the ox carts instantly drew the weapons they had hidden away and charged the soldiers guarding the gate.

All their previous refinement and quiet vanished.

Only savage expressions remained.

The First Prince flipped down from the ox cart and pulled out a saber hidden beneath it.

Before he could make his next move, an overwhelmingly powerful surge of sword qi exploded beside him.

The First Prince had personally watched Li Liangshen, Chief Commander of the Zhenbei Army, practice the sword.

Yet the sword intent exploding beside him now was not inferior to Li Liangshen’s in the slightest!

The Sword Saint had already been “starving” for blood.

And after Xue San’s ridiculous infiltration scheme had forced him through another round of humiliation, his rage had been driven even higher.

At this moment, only killing could release it.

Three steps.

His body became a streak of startled light.

The Sword Saint shot straight up the wall from the city gate.

Fengxin’s walls were not high.

In the blink of an eye, he had reached the battlements.

His sword danced like a silver serpent.

Thin red lines appeared across the throats of three guards beside the crenellations.

Only after the Sword Saint had already passed them did the blood seem to catch up.

It erupted from their necks in sprays.

The three soldiers stared in shock, clutched their throats, and collapsed in agony.

There were many defenders atop the wall.

After all, nearly twenty thousand rebel troops were stationed in and around this little city, along with the puppet court’s so-called civil and military officials.

Fengxin simply did not possess enough housing.

Many soldiers could only find places to sleep around the walls and camps inside and outside the city.

Once the Sword Saint reached the wall, he killed everyone he encountered.

Apart from the burst of overwhelming sword qi when he first drew his blade, however, the slaughter that followed was exceptionally practical.

His sword specifically sought gaps and weak points in enemy armor.

The instant the blade penetrated, he injected exactly enough sword qi to shred the target’s heart and meridians.

Then he withdrew the blade without hesitation and stabbed the next man.

So the Sword Saint continued forward, killing as he went.

There were no dazzling flowers of swordlight filling the sky.

No extravagant display.

But watching soldier after soldier collapse behind him was terrifying enough.

This, in truth, was one of the Sword Saint’s changes.

He had gone from a swordsman who carried his blade beneath Heaven in pursuit of the sword to a killer who calculated how best to fight.

One might call it the transition from dream to reality.

Some beauty had inevitably been lost.

But for those who understood how to appreciate it, killing itself could possess a terrible beauty.

Below, after Xue San, his scouts, the First Prince, and the others had cut down the guards around the gate, they split into two groups and occupied key positions.

“WOOOOOOOOOO!”

In the distance, war horns sounded.

The Shengle Army had begun moving.

Their horses were driven to full speed.

The charge began!

Cavalry on both wings immediately moved to divide and scatter the rebel camps outside the city.

Liang Cheng personally led the central force straight toward Fengxin’s western gate.

In an instant, rebels inside and outside the city fell into chaos.

The Yan army had arrived too fast.

Too suddenly.

And it was night.

That made the rebel response even more confused.

Some men tried to resist.

Others thought only of running.

Under those circumstances, the outer edge of the rebel camps was torn apart by the Shengle Army almost effortlessly.

Still, not everyone among the rebels was a fool.

Very soon, an armored commander appeared inside the city, leading more than a hundred mounted guards as they raced toward the gate.

That reaction could not be called slow.

Most likely, the man had already been leading a patrol nearby and had immediately rushed over after hearing the commotion.

“Fuck!”

Xue San cursed and shouted:

“CROSSBOWS!”

The scouts under Xue San had been trained according to his idea of special troops.

Each carried a concealed crossbow of Xue San’s own design.

Its range was limited.

But under Xue San’s order, nearly twenty scouts drew their blades and prepared to rush forward without hesitation.

They intended to use their bodies to block the cavalry charge.

Once the enemy closed the distance, they would fire the concealed crossbows.

No matter what, they had to hold this gate until the main army arrived.

But then, a long cry rang out.

The Sword Saint, who had just slaughtered his way across the wall, leapt down.

He landed directly in the path of the charging rebel cavalry.

Two years earlier, Sha Tuo Queshi had stood alone before the Marquis of Zhenbei’s Residence and fought three thousand Zhenbei iron cavalry, showing the world just how terrifying a peak Martial Artist could be.

And now, the Sword Saint faced the charge of more than a hundred rebel cavalrymen.

He was about to write the pride of a swordsman.

Breathe.

Focus.

Level the sword.

Draw it back.

Then, the blade swept forward.

Longyuan screamed.

For one instant, the charging rebel cavalry felt as though they were riding directly into a mountain.

Men and horses alike experienced an instinctive terror.

But the sword aura had already arrived.

Armor split.

Horses were severed.

One body after another.

One mount after another.

Clean.

Smooth.

Decisive.

No hesitation.

It was like a sharp blade cutting through soft clay.

With a single sword-strike, nearly fifty riders and the horses beneath them were sliced in half.

The broad road instantly became a ruin of blood and flesh.

Layers of blood mist still hung in the air before they could disperse completely, draping the scene in veils of red.

The commander who had led the guards over instinctively hauled on his reins.

The remaining riders around him did the same.

Faced with a sight like that, stopping was almost a reflex.

More importantly, the commander had clearly recognized something in that strike.

His eyes widened.

The people of Jin were proud when it came to the sword.

Because Jin had a Sword Saint.

For countless martial practitioners across the lands of the Three Jin, the Sword Saint was both dream and destination.

That single strike had already said too much.

The commander knew the man before him wore no armor.

He carried no heavy sword.

So this could not be Li Liangshen of the Zhenbei Army.

Nor could it be the Hundred-Li Sword of Qian, who had no reason to appear here and attack them.

And the Swordsmith of Chu was their ally.

Which meant the identity of the man before him was obvious.

Truthfully, this rebel commander had come painfully close to prolonging the life of the puppet Dacheng court.

His timely charge might very well have broken Xue San’s position.

Xue San was willing to order his scouts to die buying time.

But Xue San himself probably was not especially willing to die.

If things became hopeless, he would certainly retreat.

And if the gate-seizure failed, the Shengle Army had no intention of stopping here to conduct a formal siege.

But the Sword Saint was present.

And with one strike, he killed the only charge that might have reversed the situation.

This was the power of a peak warrior.

He might not be able to change the entire war.

But at one crucial point, he could absolutely decide everything with a single blow.

It was precisely because Zheng Fan had someone like the Sword Saint at his side—someone whose individual strength was absurd beyond reason—that he dared plan a long-range raid to seize a city and capture a puppet emperor.

Fengxin was not Mianzhou.

However weak these rebels might be, they were not the utterly neglected Qian garrison that had sat in peace for a century.

But when you had a Sword Saint beside you, not trying something like this would almost feel wrong.

“LORD SWORD SAINT!” the rebel commander shouted.

“Why are you standing with the Yan people?!”

The Sword Saint laughed.

“You still have the face to ask *me* that?”

The next moment, he attacked again.

The rebel commander’s guards instinctively scattered.

The power of that earlier strike had frightened them out of their minds.

And after their own commander shouted the Sword Saint’s identity, their courage collapsed even further.

None of them had the nerve to protect him.

When a true apex expert appeared on a battlefield, there were really only two ways to handle him.

Either send a dedicated body of troops to pin him down and exhaust him, or send an expert of your own to trade with him.

The first method required feeding human lives into the grinder.

The soldiers had to be genuinely unafraid of death.

These rebel guards clearly were not.

And so, the Sword Saint reached their commander.

The commander slashed downward with his saber.

The Sword Saint raised his blade.

Longyuan scraped along the saber’s body.

As the Sword Saint drew the edge backward, he stripped away the force in the attack.

The moment the commander tried to sweep his saber across, the Sword Saint had already turned around him.

His body rose lightly.

His left hand landed on the commander’s shoulder.

His right hand held the sword horizontally before the man’s neck.

Longyuan sliced into his throat.

The Sword Saint’s left hand seized his head.

*PFFT!*

The sound was so crisp it was almost pleasant.

A perfectly good head was lifted free in the Sword Saint’s hand.

The terrified warhorse continued charging forward with its headless master still in the saddle.

That scene completely destroyed the courage of the remaining guards.

They turned and fled.

Gate?

What gate?

They could no longer care.

Outside, the thunder of hooves had already become deafening.

The Yan army was clearly almost upon the city.

The Sword Saint did not chase the fleeing men.

Instead, his gaze turned toward the city interior.

*Thud.*

The fresh head dropped from his hand.

He did not care about military merit.

Nor did he have any intention of seeking rank or wealth beneath Zheng Fan.

His desire to kill tonight was enormous.

And he knew perfectly well he had not killed nearly enough.

Unfortunately, Xue San’s shouting dragged him back to reality.

“MY LORD!

“WE NEED HELP OVER HERE!”

Outside the gate, rebel soldiers were constantly trying to flee back into the city.

The drawbridge was narrow, so Xue San’s group had managed to hold until now.

But too many rebels were crowding toward them.

The pressure was becoming harder and harder to bear.

The Sword Saint turned with Longyuan in hand.

He forced down his urge to charge directly into the city and find Situ Yi.

Instead, he returned to the gate.

The First Prince’s saber whipped through the air.

It was largely because of the First Prince’s own ferocity that the rebels had failed to break across the drawbridge.

But in only a short period of fighting, he had already suffered several wounds.

The Sword Saint arrived.

He bit the tip of his tongue.

A mouthful of essence blood sprayed across Longyuan’s blade.

Then he thrust the sword forward.

His finger pointed.

*WHOOSH!*

Longyuan transformed into a streak of red light and tore into the rebel crowd ahead.

“AAAAAAAH!”

“AAAAH!”

A chain of screams erupted.

Heaven alone knew how many armored bodies Longyuan, filled with the Sword Saint’s core essence, pierced through in that instant.

But the rebel assault stopped cold.

Longyuan could not be retrieved immediately.

So the Sword Saint gathered sword qi at his fingertips and stepped onto the drawbridge himself.

Each movement of his hand released another blade of sword qi.

It punched through rebel bodies one after another.

Screams rose continuously.

Men toppled from the bridge and crashed into the moat below.

The First Prince, still fighting beside him, naturally noticed everything.

His heart shook.

He truly had not expected that the swordsman who had infiltrated Fengxin alongside him disguised as a male courtesan was actually the Sword Saint of Jin.

A figure like this if he appeared before the Emperor would immediately become one of the state’s highest-retained experts.

And yet he was willing to remain beside Zheng Fan.

Willing to let Zheng Fan use him as a sword.

How in Heaven had Zheng Fan managed that?

Xue San’s mouth hung open as well.

Among all the brutal fights he had seen before, the strongest single display probably belonged to Hero Chen.

But now, compared with the Sword Saint, Hero Chen, despite also using a sword, looked like a little brother.

This Sword Saint was fucking savage.

He was an army all by himself!

No wonder Master had been so careful about coaxing him and keeping him happy.

It had been worth it.

No.

It had been worth it beyond measure.

With the Sword Saint constantly moving back and forth, appearing wherever the position was close to breaking, the western gate remained in Xue San’s hands.

Finally the thunder of iron hooves erupted directly before them.

Shengle cavalry smashed through the rebels ahead and charged into the opening.

Xue San immediately shouted:

“FALL BACK!”

Everyone withdrew.

Shengle cavalry raced across the drawbridge and poured straight into Fengxin City, rank after rank.

The First Prince dropped his saber and leaned against a wooden post behind him.

The other wounds on his body were manageable.

But a spear had pierced into his abdomen.

The wound was not shallow.

Xue San immediately hurried over and began stopping the bleeding.

“That... that man... is the Sword Saint?”

“Reporting to First Highness— yes.

“That is the Sword Saint.”

“He’s strong.”

“No kidding.

“Fucking savage.”

The First Prince nodded.

He said nothing more.

Then suddenly, he remembered something.

His hand instinctively moved toward where he had dropped his saber.

There was still one person he had not killed.

But at that moment, the Sword Saint returned.

Longyuan, which he had recovered, rested in his left hand.

In his right he carried the severed head of that potbellied commander.

The Sword Saint swayed slightly as he walked.

Even for him, the killing just now had exhausted him badly.

But the posture also made him look drunk.

He threw the potbellied commander’s head onto the ground.

Then he sat directly on top of it.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He muttered to himself:

“That brat Zheng was right.

“Blood... really is more intoxicating than wine.”

[End of Chapter 320]