Chapter 745: Jealousy from His Own Son

The Demon Child simply dropped straight down, carrying with him a kind of grim resolve.

No warning.

No hesitation.

He left naturally, freely, without the slightest trace of reluctance.

Marquis Zheng had not expected things to turn out this way, because it made no logical sense.

Fortunately, the woman had already attacked. In a way, that spared Marquis Zheng the awkwardness of having to ponder this twisted father-son morality.

Wuya came up horizontally before him.

His blood and qi surged.

The woman's two leather whips had already sealed off the space beneath the ice. But when she truly rushed him, what she used was the leather cord that had originally been tied around her waist.

Buzz!

Buzz!

Buzz!

They exchanged blows rapidly in the span of a few breaths.

What surprised the woman was that no matter how treacherous the angle of her leather cord, no matter how bizarre its trajectory, the Marquis before her always seemed able to anticipate it and react in time.

She attacked again.

A leather cord was still a whip.

Snap.

Drag.

Hook.

Again and again, an entire series of dazzling attacks.

Marquis Zheng did nothing but defend.

Defend.

And defend again.

If I don't attack, I can minimize my openings.

And Marquis Zheng's defense was genuinely excellent.

Wuya turned, slapped, lifted, pushed.

Every movement precisely dissolved the woman's attacks.

She was truly surprised.

She knew the man before her had come from the army. By rights, he should have been accustomed to the broad, forceful methods of battlefield fighting. There was no reason he ought to have adapted so quickly to her techniques, much less read them in advance.

In truth... even Zheng Fan himself found it a little strange.

Honestly, when an expert came at you with a whip, the psychological pressure was much worse than if the expert simply swung a saber at your head.

If someone hacked at you with a saber, then fine.

Block it.

Your arms went numb from the impact.

Blood leaked from the corner of your mouth.

Your blood and qi churned violently.

All of that was expected.

Whether you could win was another matter, but at least your heart knew what to expect.

Against a weapon like this, though... a moment's lapse, or even full concentration, might still leave you inexplicably punctured through somewhere or suddenly flung off your feet.

There was no sense of security at all.

Yet after several exchanges, Marquis Zheng himself became surprised.

Somehow... he could defend against this ghostlike style with remarkable smoothness.

The reason was Siniang's "needlework lessons."

In terms of control, Siniang's silk threads were absolutely no worse than this woman's whips.

And while threads and whips differed, they shared a peculiar rhythm in combat that sabers, swords, spears, and staves did not.

Sometimes fast.

Sometimes circling.

Sometimes striking from nowhere.

If you could not judge and anticipate them ahead of time, you would lose in an instant.

The more Marquis Zheng defended, the more confident he became.

As long as she did not simply break his defense through overwhelming power, he could keep grinding against her until his own blood and qi ran dry.

Besides...

Marquis Zheng sometimes underestimated himself too much.

He always thought of himself as someone who was not truly from the jianghu and who preferred to play safe whenever possible.

But in reality, he had gone out several times with only Hero Chen or the Sword Saint at his side to hunt smugglers and fight.

A'Ming accompanied him when he practiced archery.

Liang Cheng accompanied him when he practiced the saber.

In terms of real combat experience, he certainly could not compare with the Demon Kings.

But against ordinary jianghu fighters of the same Grade... he was nowhere near weak.

Ultimately... he still had to thank himself for persisting with saber practice every afternoon, no matter how sore and aching his waist might be.

For a time... the two battles on the frozen river fell into exactly the same pattern.

One side attacked.

The other defended.

...

The Lilong Spear moved like a flood dragon.

Every sword strike from the Sword Saint was overwhelmingly forceful.

It was obvious that Wei You could do little except defend.

But breaking that defense in a short time was equally difficult.

Without opening Second Grade... there was no way to produce a decisive result quickly.

And the problem was...

Kong Shanyang was standing right there.

He continuously isolated the local celestial qi and refused to join the battle directly.

His sole purpose was to deny the Sword Saint even the slightest chance to open Second Grade.

Meanwhile, while continuing to suppress Wei You, the Sword Saint was already preparing to break the deadlock.

"He's going to attack me directly with his sword."

Kong Shanyang suddenly shouted.

His voice rolled across the frozen river like a wave of sound.

It was also a warning.

A warning to the woman on the other side that the time they had bought was running out.

After all... the two men were joining forces against the Sword Saint of this age.

And this Sword Saint was far stronger than he had been back when he walked the jianghu.

Far, far stronger.

Wei You believed that years ago in Litian City, when he had sparred with the Sword Saint, he still would have lost, but at least they could have traded blows back and forth for a while before the defeat came.

Now, even with a Qi Refiner assisting him... he was still being completely suppressed.

Even after the Sword Saint's intention was exposed, he forcibly withdrew Longyuan and swept a wave of sword qi toward Kong Shanyang, willingly leaving an opening for the Lilong Spear.

But Wei You did not greedily seize that tiny advantage.

He immediately pulled back.

Turned his spear horizontal.

And once more blocked Longyuan in front of Kong Shanyang.

If you chose to fight a stubborn defensive battle, then you needed the awareness and persistence to see it through.

Even if he punched a bloody hole through the Sword Saint's body, so long as the Sword Saint remained alive, shattered Kong Shanyang's restriction, and forcibly opened Second Grade...

Wei You truly had no confidence he could withstand that strike.

Because he could feel it clearly.

The Sword Saint before him was absolutely determined to protect the Marquis of Yan.

For that... he might do anything.

Even trade his own life for the Marquis's.

That was simply the truth.

The Sword Saint was not Hero Chen.

And yet... the Sword Saint was also Hero Chen.

Otherwise, he would never have accepted Hero Chen as a nominal disciple.

And the Sword Maid would never have called Hero Chen "Junior Brother."

Under ordinary circumstances, if Zheng Fan died, the Sword Saint would grieve. Then perhaps he would pack up, take his wife and children and chickens and ducks, and find somewhere else to continue living.

But today was different.

The Sword Saint blamed himself for everything that had happened.

For the greater cause, he had already sacrificed much.

His willingness to risk his life before Snow Sea Pass had been his final repayment to the lands of Jin.

Now... what he was repaying was his own guilt.

If Zheng Fan truly died here today... he would have no face to keep living.

Unfortunately... the Lilong Spear remained in his path.

Kong Shanyang remained protected behind it.

The Sword Saint was already giving everything he possessed at this moment, yet he still could not shatter this Jin spear in a short time.

On the other side... after receiving the warning, the woman finally began to get "serious."

It was not that she had been careless before.

Rather, she had deliberately been sealing the surrounding space.

Now she raised one hand.

One of the real leather whips that had been hidden beneath the ice flew into her grasp.

BOOM!

The whip smashed directly toward Marquis Zheng.

After failing to break his defense through technique and reactions... she had switched to crushing him with the absolute difference in power.

Purely bullying him with the gap in Grade.

And just like that... the fight finally entered the rhythm Marquis Zheng was most accustomed to.

He blocked the first strike.

Both arms immediately went numb.

He did not dare block the second.

Instead, he dodged quickly.

But this sort of evasion was like one army being forced to abandon its camp in the middle of battle.

At this level of combat... the enemy would never give you time to establish another position.

Marquis Zheng understood that perfectly well.

But he had no choice.

The whip did not strike the ice.

Instead, it swept upward and sideways toward Zheng Fan as he shifted away.

Marquis Zheng raised Wuya to block.

The whip instantly wrapped around the saber.

Wuya proved worthy of being a divine weapon.

The leather began splitting almost immediately.

But before it broke completely... the woman suddenly tightened it around Wuya.

She tried to wrench the saber from Marquis Zheng's hand by force.

Marquis Zheng refused to let go.

So both man and saber were dragged into the air together.

For a Martial Artist... this was one of the weakest possible positions.

Both feet off the ground.

No leverage.

And in midair... you were nothing more than a living target.

The woman stretched out her right hand.

The second whip hidden beneath the ice shot upward like a bloodthirsty python and lashed viciously at Marquis Zheng in the air.

The sound of it cutting through the wind nearly tore at the eardrums.

BANG!

The back of Wuya came across his side.

But this strike... he had no choice but to take head-on.

Marquis Zheng spun like a top.

Blood sprayed from his mouth in midair.

His body smashed downward.

The woman moved instantly, trying to seize this opportunity and end the life of Great Yan's Marquis in one blow.

This was the most dangerous moment.

As Zheng Fan fell, his consciousness had already begun to blur.

His blood and qi, shattered by the previous strike, were collapsing and running wild inside him.

His body could barely respond at all.

For someone who had only just entered Fifth Grade to survive this long alone against a Third Grade expert was already extremely difficult.

He could even be praised for it.

Unfortunately... he was not wearing armor.

If the Black Qilin Battle Armor had been on him, he might have managed to endure one more whip.

Before his eyes... the woman's figure seemed to come riding the wind.

Fast.

Filled with murderous intent.

Crack!

The ice directly in front of the woman suddenly split.

Ma the Cripple burst out wearing his fish-skin clothing.

But he emerged upside down.

Feet above.

Hands below.

A bizarre handstand in midair.

Then his arms and legs began folding and stretching in unnatural directions.

Bones popped one after another.

The sound alone made the scalp crawl.

And Ma the Cripple was even wearing a broad, clownish grin.

The scene was horrifying.

Like a corpse possessed by a ghost.

And in truth... that was exactly what had happened.

Ma the Cripple had taken one saber strike from Marquis Zheng and sunk beneath the ice.

He was definitely going to die.

He simply had not finished dying yet.

Then the Demon Child brought him back up.

Possessing someone already on the edge of death could hardly have been easier.

The grotesque spectacle genuinely stunned the woman for an instant.

Anyone confronted with something like that would instinctively raise their guard.

But that single instant... was all Ma the Cripple was needed for.

Marquis Zheng crashed down from the air.

He smashed through the ice.

And fell into the Wang River.

In truth... that impact hurt even worse than the whip had.

It caused more damage too.

When you saw the whip coming in midair, your body had already prepared itself.

Blood and qi raised to defend.

Muscles tightened.

Everything braced for impact.

But after being whipped down... his body had relaxed.

His consciousness had blurred.

Anyone good at swimming knew exactly how much a flat impact against water could hurt.

It was like an entire row of palms slapping your whole body at once.

And this time, Zheng Fan did not even land on water first.

He smashed face-first through ice.

Several ribs broke immediately.

He coughed another mouthful of blood, but before it could even leave his mouth, freezing river water rushed back down his throat.

His lungs felt ready to explode.

At the same moment, the Demon Child abandoned without hesitation the toy he had just played into uselessness.

Splash.

He went back down through the same hole he had come from.

Originally, Ma the Cripple might at least have drifted toward the riverbed in his final moments, enjoying that last slow procession of memories from childhood to death, perhaps even savoring a few scenes from his thoroughly mediocre life.

Now... even that right had been stripped from him.

He died cleanly.

Died completely.

And fulfilled his purpose.

The woman waved one hand.

A blast of force sent Ma the Cripple's corpse flying aside.

Then she immediately rushed toward the place where the Marquis had fallen.

Both whips she had originally used to seal the underside of the ice had already been drawn out during the battle.

The restriction below was gone.

And through the ice, she saw a red stone quickly reach the body of Great Yan's Marquis.

Then... the stone seemed to "drag" him through the river at remarkable speed.

Marquis Zheng was already completely disoriented.

His consciousness was fading.

Yet instinctively, in the surrounding darkness and cold, he sensed something warm.

Even with his brain barely functioning... he immediately understood what had happened.

Strictly speaking, this was hardly the right moment for sentimentality.

But he still could not help thinking:

So this is what true father-and-son connection feels like.

The boy... had not abandoned his daddy after all.

The woman was furious.

She knew her husband was risking his life to buy her time.

And yet she had actually allowed the Marquis of Yan to escape beneath the river.

She leapt in.

Blood and qi surged without restraint.

Her foundation had already become unstable because premature childbirth had badly damaged her vitality.

Now she went so far as to let her realm drop directly into Fourth Grade in exchange for explosive underwater speed.

She shot forward like a mermaid.

Within only a few breaths... she closed most of the distance.

She understood that something beside the Yan Marquis must be a spirit, a ritual artifact, perhaps even some tiny demon beast.

That did not matter.

The Marquis himself had to be barely conscious now.

Catch him... and she could end his life.

At last... she caught up.

And now... with Zheng Fan's consciousness almost completely blurred, he no longer possessed the mental clarity required to resist anything.

It was like a father lying on his deathbed.

No one could possibly stop his son from trying to open the family treasury.

It was natural.

Perfectly justified.

The Demon Child... entered Marquis Zheng's body.

Experience.

What was the experience of a Demon King?

Among the seven Demon Kings, whenever they ranked seniority, they deliberately excluded the Demon Child.

Because they were adopted sons.

The Demon Child... was the biological son.

He was the Demon King... even the Demon Kings feared.

The woman finally caught up.

She reached out... trying to seize the Marquis of Great Yan.

Then suddenly... his body straightened beneath the water.

His hand... caught hers.

And a smile appeared on his face.

Sounds could not travel clearly underwater.

But the words Marquis Zheng spoke somehow reached her "ears" in an utterly impossible way.

"He actually said he'd make your son a Marquis?"

[End of Chapter 745]