After the Immortal Disappeared

Chapter 264: Chapter 263: A Single-Exchange Enemy

Jiao Tai and the others galloped behind Hee Chunhua, trying their best to block the arrows flying from behind.

An arrow aimed straight for a horse’s rump was knocked away by Hee Lingchuan’s raised hand. Fuzzy Peach wasn’t so lucky; his mount was shot in the hind leg and collapsed with a pained whinny.

Fuzzy Peach was instantly left behind.

When Hee Lingchuan looked back, the man had already scrambled to his feet and shouted, ”Don’t worry about me!” before ducking into a low building at the side of the road. There was a row of squat houses here, and with a few leaps, he vanished behind one of the walls.

The Xunzhou riders’ target was the Grain Transport Team; they couldn’t be bothered to clean up a small fry like him. The main force continued to thunder forward.

Arrows rained down from behind, impossible to block completely. Hee Chunhua simply tossed a Crystal Round Token over his shoulder.

The token, glowing with the green light bestowed by the Society Command, transformed into a wall of ice the moment it left his hand, materializing behind the two horses.

The wall was a finger thick and over ten feet high, completely shielding Hee Lingchuan and the others’ backs.

A series of dull thuds followed as dozens of arrows struck the ice wall.

A Xunzhou Ranger shouted, leveled his Long Spear, and charged forward on his horse.

The ice wall wasn’t thick to begin with and was already riddled with dozens of holes. It shattered with a CRASH upon the horse’s impact.

But in that brief moment, Hee Chunhua and his son had already charged back into their own camp.

Inside the camp, everyone was in a state of panic.

The Grain Transport Team had finished their hard day’s work. They had eaten and drunk, and half of them had already gone to sleep. Now, they were jolted awake, rubbing their eyes, only to hear someone outside shouting in terror, ”Lord Mozhe is dead! Lord Mozhe was blown up!”

Mozhe Jingxuan was the supreme commander of this grain transport mission. With the news of his death, the team was left without a leader.

Just then, a second explosion rocked the tavern to the east.

Some of the Grain Transport Team’s officers were still groggy with sleep, so confused they couldn’t get their bearings. Others scrambled up, shouting orders to regroup and stay alert, but to little effect.

And then, the Xunzhou Rangers charged.

The guards outside the camp saw the billowing dust and immediately blew their warning whistles.

The people in the camp who had been watching the ”fireworks” finally realized something was terribly wrong and began to scream and flee. The Xunzhou Rangers let out a powerful war cry, their killing intent soaring. Their force of two or three hundred men created the sound and fury of a thousand, intimidating even the soldiers patrolling outside the camp. The guards clutched their Long Halberds and began to back away.

Hee Chunhua was the first to charge into the camp, his voice booming like thunder, ”Hee Chunhua, Governor of Xiazhou, is here! Who wants to run? Who dares to run!”

He bellowed three times, infusing his voice with True Power. The sound shook the entire field, even drowning out the subsequent explosions from the east.

At the sound of the title ”Governor of Xiazhou,” the fleeing soldiers’ pace slowed.

Hee Chunhua had not been in his post for long, but he had already accomplished several great deeds. His three consecutive victories while hunting down the Xunzhou Army, in particular, had made his name famous throughout southern Xiazhou. Most of the soldiers in the Grain Transport Team were from the south. Hearing his thunderous name, they first froze, then felt a mixture of doubt and joy.

’The big boss is here? How can that be?’

’If the Governor of Xiazhou himself is here to take command, then who gives a damn about the dead Lord Mozhe? He was just an Assistant Governor from the State Government.’

Hee Lingchuan no longer shared a horse with his father; he leaped off and commandeered a mount for himself.

He heard someone not far away shouting, ”Lord Mozhe is dead! The enemy is attacking!” He followed the voice, only to find the man hiding behind a tent. His eyes darted around the field, and he let out a shout every now and then. He didn’t look panicked at all.

Hee Lingchuan sneered and spurred his horse in pursuit.

The man wasn’t blind; seeing that things were turning sour, he turned and fled. His pathing was slick, weaving through areas thick with obstacles, clearly calculating that Hee Lingchuan would have a hard time catching him on horseback.

But just as he ran past a storehouse, a massive, shaggy black shadow suddenly appeared before him...

Hee Lingchuan galloped over to see Rock Wolf Luu Xin leap out from behind the storehouse. Without a sound, Luu Xin opened his great maw, bit down on the man, and began to thrash him about.

Everyone knows the speed and power of a dog shaking its head, and a Rock Wolf is only stronger. From dozens of feet away, Hee Lingchuan could hear two distinct CRACKS, like firecrackers being lit. In reality, it was the sound of the unfortunate man’s spine being snapped in the wolf’s mouth.

Fortunately, Hee Lingchuan arrived right after to end his suffering.

He beheaded the man with a single slash, then grabbed the head and galloped around, shouting, ”This is the fate of all deserters!”

The head in his hand didn’t belong to a Xiazhou Soldier, but who could tell with all the blood? Hee Lingchuan shouted a few more times and saw that it was working. Many of the fleeing soldiers saw him approach and quickly turned to face the enemy.

At this time, the Execution Team also came to their senses and began to carry out their duties. After they cut down five or six deserters to make an example of them, the rout of the Grain Transport Team significantly slowed.

The other man who had been shouting to disrupt morale was caught by Shan Youjun.

These Xunzhou people had a clear division of labor. Some went to blow up the tavern in an attempt to wipe out the Grain Transport Team’s high-ranking officers in one go. Others disguised themselves as merchants hiding in eateries, waiting for a chance to assassinate any officers who came out to eat. The remaining main force hid in the outskirts, using the tavern’s explosion as a signal to launch a surprise attack on the Grain Transport Team’s camp!

They even had dedicated personnel for disrupting morale, and they’d picked two with particularly loud voices. The plan was clearly meticulous.

The most brilliant part was that the Xunzhou people chose to make their move inside the town, not in the treacherous wilderness where the Hee father and son had expected. They were caught completely off guard. Due to previous raids by Xunzhou Soldiers in central and northern Xiazhou, the major local families had all conscripted men to form Village Defense Teams and Civilian Safety Teams. The Xunzhou people would have likely faced additional resistance there.

However, the County Magistrate was hosting a banquet for Mozhe Jingxuan at the tavern tonight, and the local prominent families would certainly have been there to accompany them. Thus, they were all wiped out in one fell swoop.

Several officers naturally recognized Hee Chunhua and immediately rushed forward to surround him. Some were still disheveled, clearly having just crawled out of bed.

Hee Chunhua didn’t reprimand them, merely issuing a loud command, ”Form ranks and counter-attack! Pass the word, the enemy only has a hundred riders!”

With the Governor of Xiazhou present, the officers’ morale stabilized. They started shouting and cursing as they went to gather their subordinates. The heralds relayed the order again and again: ”To arms, to arms! The enemy has only a hundred riders!”

When the Xunzhou Rangers charged into the camp, they did indeed sow chaos. They cut down anyone they saw and set fire to tents and grain carts, seeming unstoppable. The Xiazhou Soldiers were stunned, doing nothing but fleeing or hiding.

Seeing this, Hee Lingchuan puckered his lips and whistled—two long notes and three short ones. Then he wheeled his horse around and charged toward the nearest enemy commander.

This was his way of summoning his men. Upon hearing the whistle, Rock Wolf Luu Xin and Shan Youjun dropped the unlucky souls they were dealing with and quickly closed in.

Nearby, Jiao Tai had been protecting Hee Chunhua, but as more and more Personal Guards gathered around the Lord Governor, he too heard the whistle and immediately turned with his men.

The approaching Xunzhou commander was extremely fierce. Primordial Power flickered around his body, and he could send a soldier flying with just two thrusts of his spear. He even snuck up on a scrawny Xiazhou Soldier who was fighting someone else, stabbing him in the stomach from the side.

The tip of his spear had a hook. When he pulled it back, he ripped the man’s intestines out.

They called this ”flying a kite.”

The young soldier fell to the ground, rolling and wailing in agony. How could the other Xiazhou people dare to advance? The commander laughed heartily, leaped out from the protection of his Close Guard, and began a joyous slaughter, moving as if through an empty battlefield.

He was reveling in the slaughter when he suddenly felt a rush of air behind his head. It was Hee Lingchuan, charging in from the side, swinging his saber without a word.

There was no strange aura about the Floating Life Blade; it looked just like an ordinary Long Saber. Hee Lingchuan himself was only wearing common Soldier Armor. A sneer appeared on the Xunzhou commander’s face as he spun his spear around to parry.

’An inch of length is an inch of strength. Trying to fight my Long Spear with a saber? Naive!’

His spear technique was meticulous. He first executed a Flower Spear thrust aimed at Hee Lingchuan’s throat. If his opponent blocked, the spear tip would flick down ahead of time and stab into his belly.

He wanted to fly another kite.

Just then, an arrow flew in from the side.

It was Fuzzy Peach, hiding behind a burning warehouse. He had seized the opportunity to send an arrow straight for the commander’s eye.

The commander couldn’t block in time and had to jerk his head aside to dodge. Because of this, his spear strayed by two inches, and he didn’t have time to execute the rest of his fancy move.

Just two inches.

His hands were steady enough. Leaning his upper body back didn’t stop the spear tip from flicking up, striking like a venomous snake toward Hee Lingchuan’s chin.

But the young man before him gripped his saber with both hands and performed an upward slash—a mistake even a novice would make.

’This kind of move is all effort for little reward. At best, it’ll just knock the spear shaft aside. If he fails to block, he’ll get a hole punched in his cheek, and it does nothing to counter any follow-up attacks.’

However, Hee Lingchuan’s movement was as fast as lightning. The daily practice of the Wave Slash was finally paying off.

’Confidence, momentum, power—not one can be missing.’

He was determined to deliver a strike that was perfect in spirit and energy.

The Xunzhou commander’s men saw the two pass each other, and a flash of light, like a bolt of white silk, nearly blinded them—

The moment the weapons clashed, the previously unassuming Long Saber finally erupted with a dense killing intent, like a tiger that had been stalking its prey for a long time, finally pouncing.

The two charged toward each other, their reaction time infinitesimally short—the blink of an eye. The commander felt his hands suddenly go light, and then several things flew into the air—

An arm;

A spray of furious blood;

And half a Long Spear, the break exceptionally clean.

The commander screamed in pain, blood gushing from his severed arm like a fountain. His opponent was completely unharmed and was already wheeling his horse around for another charge.

His subordinates were shocked. ”Lord Baili is injured!”

”Protect Lord Baili!”

Dozens of men surged forward, forming a protective wall around the injured Lord Baili. With one arm severed, blood poured endlessly from his right shoulder. The pain was so intense he slumped over. If his Personal Guard hadn’t rushed up in time, he would have been ambushed by Rock Wolf Luu Xin—that beast leaped up, aiming to tear out his throat.

He was both shocked and enraged. Amid the searing pain, he didn’t forget to unleash a stream of curses at Hee Lingchuan.

’I was careless. This man and his saber looked so ordinary, no different from the dozen or so grunts I killed earlier. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

’That saber... that saber is unnaturally sharp. In a single clash, it effortlessly sliced through the Cold Iron Spear that has been with me for years!’

’With such a Divine Weapon in hand, how could he be an ordinary person? Why would he wear a common soldier’s leather armor and mix in with the scattered troops?’

Lord Baili felt like he had climbed a tree to pick a peach, only to grab it and realize it wasn’t a peach at all. He looked up and saw the furious face of a lion right in front of him...

’Important figures are supposed to act their station, so why is this bastard so shameless!’