Chapter Ninety-One: The Six-Armor Devours Gold, a Bolt from the Blue
Xie Han’s inhuman appearance made everyone present pause in slight astonishment.
Vertical pupils like a beast’s, long black hair, and a pair of long fangs.
Most striking of all were his disproportionately powerful legs.
He looked utterly bizarre.
Boom!
Xie Han moved, stamping the ground.
The earth exploded at once, stones spraying everywhere.
Then he shot forward on that rebound toward Xie Xuan.
“Xie Han!”
Boom!
Xie Xuan had only time to cry out once before he was smashed to pieces in the next instant.
Then Xie Han turned his gaze toward the man in white beside him.
This was the old man who had pursued him that day.
“Hmph. Tricks and theatrics.” The old man reacted swiftly, having already come to Xie Han’s side before Xie Han could make his move.
Boom!
A palm force powerful enough to sever gold and split iron slammed hard into Xie Han.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of the old man’s mouth.
He looked terrifying enough, yet his strength seemed pathetically weak.
Boom!
The instant that palm struck Xie Han, the old man’s expression changed strangely.
It felt as though he had struck solid steel.
Crack!
The recoil alone shattered the old man’s hand outright.
He lifted his head and met Xie Han’s mocking gaze, then smiled. “Is it my turn now?”
Xie Han extended a hand, clenched it into a fist, and lightly tapped the bridge of his nose three times.
Puff!
A crimson fire serpent, two meters long, burst from his mouth.
It shot straight through the old man’s chest, then circled once across the battlefield.
Firelight and thick smoke swept indiscriminately through friend and foe alike, burning gaping holes through most of the people present.
Boom, boom, boom!
The ground was strewn with corpses, leaving fewer than one in five alive.
Xie Han remembered Lu Qian’s warning well: a few captives had to be left behind, so there would still be people to use after the slaughter.
After dealing with the majority, he did not stop.
His figure sprang high into the air and leapt into the inner residence.
Boom!
The sound of a heavy body crashing down followed, then a chorus of shrill screams and pleading voices.
Lu Qian remained hidden in the shadows, observing all this in silence.
Even when Xie Han charged into the inner residence and butchered the old, the weak, and the women and children, he did not stop him.
This was vengeance for his mother’s murder. Meddling in it would only invite lightning from heaven.
Very soon, Xie Han came before Lu Qian and knelt on one knee. “My lord, I have not failed you. There are three innate masters and twelve acquired ones left alive. Half of the Xie clan remains.”
“Good. In the next few days, you will take over their forces. And of course, increase the supply of medicinal herbs tenfold.”
“Yes!”
Swish!
Xie Han vanished in a blur.
Watching Xie Han’s departing back, Lu Qian fell into thought.
The mountain spirit blood used to refine the mountain spirit soldiers had produced far better results than he had imagined.
Impenetrable to blades and spears, immense leg strength, fire-breathing, night vision, and more.
Although they had no qi cultivation, they were at least as complete as a perfected fetal-breathing practitioner.
“Could it be because they are humanoid, and thus their bloodline compatibility is higher?” Lu Qian silently noted the lesson.
The path of cultivation was not merely a matter of copying predecessors, or mechanically following a manual without deviation.
If one had no ideas of one’s own, one would surely take far more detours than others.
He then wrote down another point.
Humanoid beasts were still different from true humans.
For example, when Xie Han breathed fire, he first had to tap the bridge of his nose twice to ensure the passage was open and the fire could come forth smoothly.
This was determined by the structure of the human body; the mountain spirit and mankind were built somewhat differently.
At Ten Thousand Swords Manor, word came that the dispatched experts had been utterly wiped out.
“Ancestor!”
In the rear mountains of Ten Thousand Swords Manor, a middle-aged man in white, his face pale with panic, stumbled hurriedly toward the back peak.
From afar, the rear mountain resembled a gatehouse.
Tall and imposing, it stood with its back to the east and facing west.
In the center, three bold characters were written with soaring brushstrokes: Hall of Virtue and Reverence.
This was the ancestral shrine of Ten Thousand Swords Manor.
The man was the current manor lord, Wan Tianlu.
“Ancestor, this is bad, something has happened!”
Wan Tianlu burst into the ancestral hall and knelt in the center.
Within the hall were three statues enshrined, each dressed in crimson and purple official robes.
Beside the statues stood more than a dozen spirit tablets.
Entering the hall, Wan Tianlu felt a little uneasy.
He did not know the secret of this place.
He had only heard from his elders that whenever the manor faced a matter of life and death, one should come here to pray.
Whoosh.
A cold wind swept through. The candle flames swayed, then went out.
Wan Tianlu could not help but shiver.
“What is it? Speak quickly.”
A solemn voice echoed from all directions.
It was impossible to tell the speaker’s age, but the voice was immense, forceful and resounding, like a great bell and a grand chime, without the slightest trace of emotion.
Wan Tianlu shuddered and dared not delay, hastily recounting the whole story from beginning to end.
When the voice heard that the manor’s men had been annihilated, it interrupted: “Who did this? Some martial world power, or a strange and extraordinary being?”
“This junior does not know. We sent out several waves of scouts, and all of them vanished.”
Wan Tianlu said shamefully.
To lose so many men without a trace, including an old veteran of the Innate Realm, was terrifying to think about.
“Hmph! I would like to see what kind of divine being this is!”
Swish, swish, swish!
Suddenly, the statue on the right side of the ancestral hall, the one in white with a black goatee, shattered with a thunderous crash.
A figure stepped out of the dust and smoke.
He bore some resemblance to Wan Tianlu.
What left the deepest impression, however, was that his skin was black.
Not the black of tanning, but a metallic black, as though cast from dark iron.
With every step he took, the bluestone floor could not bear the strain and burst apart.
“Are you the founding ancestor?” Seeing him, Wan Tianlu hurriedly dropped to his knees and kowtowed. “Your descendant pays respects to the founding ancestor!”
It was not that he had seen him before, but that the man who had emerged looked like their forefather, Wan Jianying.
“Where is the Mighty Martial Escort Agency?”
“Right beneath Green Mountain.”
A breeze swept by. By the time Wan Tianlu raised his head again, the person before him was already gone.
Inside the Mighty Martial Escort Agency, Lu Qian was studying a map intently.
The map was rather crude; the mountains and terrain were only roughly drawn, while a vast river cleaved north from south across it.
This river was called the Sky-Connecting River. It was said to be five hundred li wide at its narrowest.
The current was fierce and the waters extremely perilous.
They were now on the north side of the river; it was said that the prosperous lands lay to the south.
“The south, huh?” Lu Qian recalled legends he had heard at the Taoist temple.
It was said that the place where they lived was actually quite barren, merely the edge of the continent.
The south was held by the orthodox sects. Unlike the heterodox paths that advocated plunder, the orthodox sects maintained closer ties with ordinary people and were far more harmonious.
“Hm?”
At that moment, Lu Qian raised his head.
“Whichever hero dares injure a disciple of my Ten Thousand Swords Manor, come forth and die!”
Boom!
Faster than the voice came countless sharp swords.
Like a storm of rain, the blades blanketed the entire hall.
Boom!
The swords pierced through the hall, then it collapsed in a thunderous crash.
Dust billowed, and there was no movement whatsoever in the ruins.
“Hmph.”
A trace of cold mockery appeared on Wan Jianying’s metallic face.
So it was only this much.
Swoosh!
Five streams of green light, each three feet long, sliced through the air.
They came from all directions, sealing off every escape.
Wan Jianying’s brows rose; it seemed the other party was also a qi-cultivating Daoist.
The yin fire was scorching, the air screaming and distorting.
Just as the strikes were about to land, Wan Jianying was suddenly enveloped in a sphere of iron.
Boom, boom, boom!
The yin talisman swords were all rebounded away.
Out of the dust walked a man nine feet tall.
“A body-refining cultivator?” Wan Jianying said with calm amusement.
“Metal-eating art?” Lu Qian said, looking at Wan Jianying, who seemed to be assembled entirely from iron.
“Of course! My Six-Walled Devouring Metal Art is specifically designed to counter body refiners!”
Whoosh!
Before he had even finished speaking, Wan Jianying’s skin bulged, and countless swords burst forth from his body.
Thousands upon thousands of blades shot in from every direction.
At this, Lu Qian smiled and said, “How unfortunate for you. I counter you as well.”
As he spoke, golden light blazed from his eyes.
Boom!
A thunderclap in clear weather, azure wood divine lightning.
The battle was over.
Ten chapters delivered. A little late, sorry.