In the blink of an eye, over half of the two hundred Black Guards had been killed or wounded. With Xu Quan absent and Qi Yong fallen, having lost their leaders, the remaining men were fighting individually, desperately seeking shelter to defend against the enemy’s powerful arrows.

“Don’t panic! Extinguish the torches, pile up horse corpses to block the arrows! First squad head east, second and third squads protect the left flank, fourth squad take the right wing, fifth squad break through, sixth squad protect His Highness, everyone else follow me up!” In the chaos, Yang Feng suddenly stood up and shouted loudly. Several powerful arrows immediately shot toward Yang Feng as if they had eyes.

Yang Feng’s long spear instantly moved like a dragon emerging from the sea, countless spear shadows flying and dancing, drawing away over half of the rain of arrows, but not a single one could hit him. At this moment, a bright yellow arrow suddenly whistled through the dark night with incomparable force. Yang Feng sneered coldly, his body twisted, and he reached back with his hand, actually catching that arrow firmly in his grip. He unstrapped the longbow from his waist, nocked the golden arrow, and shot it thunderously back along its original path. A scream rang out in the black night, clearly someone had died.

This was the first time since being ambushed that their side had injured enemy forces, greatly boosting the morale of the Black Guards. After all, they were all elite troops carefully selected from the army. The reason for their earlier panic was truly because they had been caught in an unexpected ambush, their two commanders were absent, the enemy attacked with arrows from hiding in the darkness where not even their shadows could be grasped. Now seeing Yang Feng’s divine prowess, easily hitting enemy forces, their spirits greatly lifted and they hurriedly acted in an orderly fashion according to his commands.

The torches were extinguished almost simultaneously, and the entire courier road was instantly plunged into complete darkness. The Black Guards no longer had to serve as targets under the bright torches for the enemy. Now both sides were in the dark night, shooting arrows blindly – what accuracy could there be? The rain of arrows suddenly became like headless flies, flying about wildly but unable to find targets. The pressure on the Black Guards greatly reduced, and they drew their waist-mounted bows and arrow pouches to counterattack.

While others were shooting arrows purely by guesswork, Yang Feng seemed to have grown eyes in the darkness, identifying positions by sound. Every arrow he shot was followed by screams. For a moment, he was like a messenger from hell – not a single arrow missed its mark, while cheers occasionally rang out from their own side.

Qing Xia hid behind two horse corpses, drew the standard long blade of the Black Guards from her waist, carefully dodging stray arrows while surveying the enemy’s situation. Although the current situation still seemed unfavorable to their side, as long as they could delay, Xu Quan’s reinforcements would arrive. The fear was that the enemy wouldn’t wait and would advance for close combat. With the Black Guards having suffered deaths and injuries, not many with fighting capability remained. Once it came to close quarters, their chances of victory would be slim.

However, as if responding to Qing Xia’s thoughts, a light whistle suddenly came from the dense forest beside the courier road. The chaotic arrow rain immediately paused, and hurried footsteps rapidly approached. Clearly the enemy knew the Black Guards inside and out, understood that dragging things out would bring no benefit, and could wait no longer.

Yang Feng had obviously thought of this point too. Remaining calm under pressure, he hung his bow at his waist, gripped his long spear, and went forward to meet them. His speed was extremely fast – in a flash he had darted into the crowd, and the thick scent of blood spread through the dark night. Yang Feng’s spear pierced blood-filled throats as he shouted sternly: “Fifth and sixth squads break through and escort His Highness back to the city, everyone else follow me!”

At this moment, he had clearly become the backbone of all the Black Guards. Everyone obeyed his orders and acted accordingly, with the remaining men from the fifth and sixth squads rushing toward Qing Xia and Chu Li’s direction.

“Hmph! If this prince were to flee in panic from these petty villains, how could I command the million-strong army of Southern Chu in the future? Everyone listen to my orders, uh…”

Chu Li thunderously stood up, his eyes fierce and imposing, speaking with heroic spirit. However, before he could finish speaking, someone suddenly punched him hard in the lower abdomen. Chu Li couldn’t help but groan and bend over.

Qing Xia grabbed Chu Li and pulled him down to one side. Sure enough, just as Chu Li’s words fell, countless flying arrows shot rapidly in their direction. After dodging a round of attacks, Qing Xia shouted sternly: “Fifth and sixth squads follow me, charge out through the left side!”

She grabbed Chu Li by the collar, led over a warhorse that had luckily escaped injury, gritted her teeth and with great force threw him onto the horse.

“You! How dare you!” Chu Li roared in fury. Qing Xia ignored him completely, leaped onto the horse, sat behind Chu Li, letting Chu Li lie on the horse’s back like a turtle, suddenly cracked the whip, and shouted loudly: “Follow me!”

The others were also afraid that this future emperor would display his divine might at this moment and insist on staying to fight desperately. They all ignored Qing Xia’s great disrespect and spurred their horses to follow behind her, charging toward the left side.

“Stop them!” The enemy suddenly shouted, and people quickly moved toward Qing Xia’s group. Yang Feng’s long spear swept up, and though he was just one man with one spear, he was like an entire army tightly blocking the path.

By the time they finally broke through with great difficulty, Qing Xia’s group had long since disappeared without a trace.

On the silent ancient road, the sounds of slaughter rang out in unison.

In the pitch-black dense forest, light footsteps carefully fell, stepping on fallen withered leaves, making a rustling sound like insect chirping. The black-clothed figure waved to those behind him. Under the cold moonlight, his shadow appeared particularly long.

Loud barking sounds rang out from behind as two hunting dogs the size of small wolves bounded up from the rear, barking loudly toward the eastern direction.

The moonlight was bleak, and the black night carried an atmosphere of deadly silence. Unnoticed in the high tree canopy, a dark human figure suddenly slid down, soundlessly landing on the thick layer of withered leaves, quickly approaching the people ahead.

No one knew that the star of death was slowly drawing near. In this deadly game, they had always believed themselves to be the hunters stalking prey.

The leading black-clothed figure raised his eyebrows and said in a low voice: “Follow up!”

However, no one responded to his voice. The leader frowned tightly and was just about to turn his head when he suddenly felt his neck turn cold. Sharp pain immediately struck, and his consciousness became somewhat confused. When he suddenly realized something, life no longer gave him the strength to think.

Drawing out the flying daggers from the necks of the two vicious dogs, and delivering two more strikes to those still breathing, after dealing with all this, Qing Xia quickly straightened up, vigilantly surveyed the surroundings, then rapidly ran toward the western direction.

She had been careful and cautious all along, not even daring to cut through thorns for fear of leaving traces. Unexpectedly, the enemy still clung to her trail like vengeful spirits – it turned out they were indeed relying on the dogs’ keen sense of smell. Having now dealt with the hidden threat behind her, Qing Xia still didn’t dare to be careless. Who knew how many vicious dogs there actually were? She had taken some clothing to confuse these beasts, but didn’t know how long it could delay them.

The southern forest was very dense. Qing Xia ran and leaped all the way, as agile and nimble as a wildcat. After winding around, a small lake suddenly appeared before her eyes. Qing Xia didn’t stop, quickly running to the other side of the lake where a man in silver armor was half-sitting on the ground with his battle blade for support, eyes closed in meditation. Hearing Qing Xia’s footsteps, he suddenly opened his eyes, sharp brilliance shooting from them like two unsheathed precious swords.

“All dealt with?” Qing Xia asked in a low voice.

The man in the darkness slightly raised his eyebrows, his eyes holding some deeper meaning as he stared intently at Qing Xia. Although she knew he couldn’t possibly recognize her, Qing Xia still felt a wave of urgent panic. Finally, Chu Li slowly nodded.

Qing Xia let out a long breath and quickly said: “Your Highness, we need to leave here immediately. General Xu’s reinforcements…”

Before she could finish speaking, Chu Li’s expression immediately changed drastically. A cold light flashed as he suddenly drew his battle blade and slashed down toward Qing Xia’s neck. Qing Xia was greatly alarmed, but having exceptionally quick reflexes, her form suddenly tilted sideways with the blade’s edge, falling to the ground with a thud. The dagger at her ankle was drawn out with lightning speed, and with a backward roll she distanced herself from Chu Li, half-crouching on the ground, ready to spring up and attack in self-defense.

However, before she could execute her next move, a long black shadow shot fiercely from her previous location toward Chu Li. Chu Li’s long blade flashed, immediately cutting the thing in half. The rear section twisted in mid-air and fell limply to the ground, while the front section flew into a rage, opening its ferocious huge mouth to bite down savagely at Chu Li!

With a thud, Chu Li’s long blade fell to the ground. Qing Xia was greatly shocked to see it was a giant serpent with a dark green head and spotted yellow back, about two meters long and as thick as a bowl, with a triangular head, upturned mouth, and yellow-brown black-edged markings on its back. The severed snake tail was still continuously writhing and twisting on the ground, looking quite disgusting, while the front section still bit fiercely into Chu Li’s wrist, eyes wide open with a malicious and vicious expression.

Qing Xia was greatly alarmed, immediately sprang up, grabbed the snake’s body, and threw it to the ground. She saw that Chu Li’s wrist had been bitten, with two rows of deep pressure marks prominently bleeding black blood outward, with two fang marks in the middle of the front row being especially obvious.

This was a venomous snake, and Qing Xia had seen this type of snake before. It was called a Russell’s viper, also commonly known as the hundred-pace snake, fierce and aggressive. Although its toxicity and strength weren’t the strongest among snakes, it consistently ranked first in mortality rate. This snake’s venom was extremely vicious, capable of killing a person within two hours, and such a large venomous snake would have even more deadly poison. This type of snake mostly lived in Taiwan’s mountainous regions. Qing Xia had once seen this kind of snake in a local resident’s home during a mission in Taiwan. Unexpectedly, in this ancient state of Chu from a thousand years ago, they met again.

Qing Xia quickly found two strips of cloth and tightly bound them around Chu Li’s wrist and elbow to prevent the poisoned blood from spreading toward his heart. She removed the black iron helmet, filled it with a large amount of clear water, and thoroughly washed the wound. Then she took out flint, made a small fire, heated the dagger until it was red-hot, made cross-shaped incisions on Chu Li’s wound, and made similar incisions around the wound, working hard to squeeze out the poisoned blood. Only when the flowing blood was no longer black did she breathe a sigh of relief.