Blood Floating Tower’s Holy General Wang Huan watched the Ning officer wheel his horse and charge back, and the dread in his heart deepened still further.
He had been a soldier. He had served in the Chu army and spent years with the northern border forces. Among Blood Floating Tower’s people, no one understood soldiers better than he did.
Watching Tang Pidi’s personal guard and the force of their charge, he knew at once that things had gone very badly wrong. In all his years of leading men, he had never seen soldiers carry themselves like this.
The quality of the soldiers tells you everything about the quality of their commander. Those cavalrymen numbered barely a hundred — yet they carried an air of absolute invincibility.
Wang Huan immediately nocked again. This time not one arrow but three.
This was Wang Huan’s signature — and most lethal — technique. The three arrows were not loosed simultaneously, but in a rapid chain, each one overlapping the last, three shafts arriving in near-seamless succession. Even if an opponent reacted fast enough to block the first, no human being could have the reflexes to break the second and third in time.
He chose the wrong opponent.
All three arrows flew at Tang Pidi. And Tang Pidi did not even consider evading.
The iron spear thrust forward — on the surface, nothing more than a simple mounted charge with the lance. Yet this thrust caught all three arrows and sent them shattering away.
One thrust. Three arrows.
Even if the three arrows came in a straight line and a perfectly aimed lance point could break them in sequence — no ordinary person could do that.
Imagine: a normal man holding a spear, charging forward. Three ordinary arrows fly at him. By some miracle, the first arrow clips his lance and is deflected. That alone could only be a single stroke of luck. The remaining two arrows follow too fast — there is no time to react a second time, and the force of the first impact would have already pulled his lance off-line, making it impossible to intercept what comes next.
Yet Tang Pidi’s spear appeared to do nothing more than drive straight forward. And yet there were shifts in its path — subtle variations.
Call it one thrust with three changes, or three thrusts in an eyeblink. Those three heavy iron-sinewed arrows — *heavy*, and carrying tremendous force — did not so much as make the spear shudder.
In a cascade of sparks, all three arrows were sent spinning away.
In that moment, Wang Huan’s eyes went very wide.
Without the slightest hesitation, he loosed again — another three arrows, chained in the same way. The speed was identical. The spread was different: this time the three shafts flew in a triangle — one aimed at Tang Pidi, two aimed at his warhorse.
At a full charge, Tang Pidi’s iron spear shook out a circle in front of him — a visible ring of light forming before man and horse together, a corona of the spear’s cutting edge.
*Crack, crack, crack.* Three clean impacts. All three iron-sinewed arrows were knocked aside.
Wang Huan’s face went ashen. By now the distance between them was too short for another shot — he could only wrench his horse around and flee.
But somehow that horse of Tang Pidi’s was impossibly fast. In the moment Wang Huan turned in panic, Tang Pidi’s spear was already there.
*Through.*
The spear struck like a thunderclap.
In full charge, Tang Pidi thrust forward. The spear drove clean through Wang Huan’s back.
The impact lifted Wang Huan entirely off the ground. Tang Pidi rode on at the same speed, without a single interruption.
Wang Huan was speared through — run all the way through — yet was not dead immediately, and so he could still struggle.
And this produced a sight that left every witness unable to believe their eyes.
The Great General rode on at full gallop, his iron spear extended forward — and on the end of that spear was a man still flailing his limbs. And the shaft of the spear did not dip or waver by so much as a hair.
What manner of arm strength could make this possible?
Not far away, the Black Wu Sword Sect’s Grand Swordmaster Daxin Tuonuo watched this, and his own eyes went sharply, suddenly wide.
“That man must not be allowed to leave! He is certainly one of Ning’s senior commanders — he must be kept here!”
At his command, the Sword Sect disciples around him kicked their horses forward toward Tang Pidi.
Were they unafraid? Of course they were afraid. But the Sword Sect’s discipline was absolute — to disobey the order of a Grand Swordmaster was equally death. And when a Grand Swordmaster commanded, who among them would dare refuse or hesitate?
The disciples drew their heavy swords. Two of them came in from left and right, flanking Tang Pidi.
The one on the left extended his heavy sword across to the right. The one on the right extended his across to the left. Together, their blades formed two sweeping bars — one aimed at Tang Pidi, one aimed at his horse.
At this collision speed, being caught by either heavy sword meant being cut through — man or horse alike.
Tang Pidi rode in. Before either blade reached him, he brought his iron spear sideways and struck his own warhorse across the skull. The horse flipped laterally with not even a dying cry.
In the same motion, Tang Pidi swept the iron spear back across to the other side — a *bang* as it connected with the heavy sword in the right-hand rider’s grip. The force sent the heavy sword spinning back on its own path — and that same heavy sword sheared away half its owner’s skull.
The horse galloped on. Its rider sat in the saddle with the front half of his head gone.
The blade had passed horizontally — from the crown downward, taking the forehead and face. The face landed on the ground, eyes still open. Whether the man saw anything in that final instant was unknowable. The hooves of the riders surging behind came down on it. The face was crushed flat, something beneath it — flesh or something else — squeezing out from under the impact.
—
Blood Floating Tower’s Holy General Wang Huan — killed by Tang Pidi with a single spear. Xu Suqing had seen it.
Now Xu Suqing’s eyes were full of murderous fury. Daxin Tuonuo had said the man must be taken alive, but Xu Suqing had no interest in that — he wanted only to kill the man and avenge Wang Huan.
In those years long ago, the jianghu men of Yanzhou had protected Xu Suqing and cut their way out with him — and had Wang Huan not opened the border gate, they would have been surrounded by Zhou Shiren’s pursuing forces. Even if all of them were famous martial artists, they could not have withstood the encirclement of a large army.
To Xu Suqing, Wang Huan’s debt was a debt of his very life.
Seeing two Sword Sect disciples killed in swift succession, Daxin Tuonuo spurred his horse forward — but before he moved, Xu Suqing had already charged out ahead of him.
Riding hard, Xu Suqing reached to one side and unhooked the horse-slaying saber hanging there.
This weapon resembled the Chu imperial forces’ standard long saber — but with a longer blade and roughly the same hilt length. A weapon of tremendous cleaving power, capable of splitting both horse and rider in a single stroke.
Xu Suqing was a jianghu master, but the years he had spent riding across the northern wastes had also built in him considerable skills on horseback.
Now, seeing that Ning officer charging close, Xu Suqing said nothing at all. His horse-slaying saber swept down at Tang Pidi.
Tang Pidi, naturally, did not know that this was Xu Suqing.
Knowing would have made no difference.
He saw the ferocity of the horse-slaying saber and thrust forward with the iron spear — the same thrust he had used to kill Wang Huan, outwardly identical in every respect.
*Clang.* The spear point struck the flat of the falling saber, precisely.
The saber had been dropping with tremendous force — yet a single spear thrust had slammed it backward, the blade springing back up.
Xu Suqing’s expression changed.
He had already seen this Ning officer’s power — but feeling it firsthand was something else entirely. The force behind that thrust was enough that even he was hard-pressed to hold on.
In the instant the blade rebounded, Xu Suqing wrenched it down with raw strength and swept it horizontally, cutting at Tang Pidi as their horses crossed paths.
But in the same instant, Tang Pidi’s spear swept horizontally too.
The spear shaft met the blade.
*Clang.*
A metallic ring.
Tang Pidi’s spear bounced back slightly. Xu Suqing’s saber was pushed back slightly. The two men passed each other — and behind Xu Suqing came several screams.
Xu Suqing was immediately occupied fending off Tang Pidi’s advancing guard. Those soldiers were no match for him individually, but at this scale of charge, moving in coordinated formations, he could not kill anyone — he could only barely hold off the continuous chain of spear thrusts.
Behind him, meanwhile, Tang Pidi was killing steadily — several Blood Floating Tower riders crying out and falling.
In that moment, the Sword Sect’s Grand Swordmaster Daxin Tuonuo leaped into the air.
He had not brought the Sword Sect’s characteristic heavy sword. With bare hands, he flew up — and reached out a grab for Tang Pidi’s throat from above.
“Come here!”
A shout from Daxin Tuonuo as he lunged.
Tang Pidi drove the spear through the Blood Floating Tower rider before him, then flung it backward in a reverse arc.
“Get back!”
*Thud.* The spear shaft smashed squarely into Daxin Tuonuo’s palms. The pain was sharp; his body flipped backward and he landed on his own warhorse again.
Came fast, gone just as fast — as though nothing had happened except for the hit.
Tang Pidi, with barely a hundred men at his back, drove straight through the pursuing Blood Floating Tower cavalry in a single pass.
In that one charge, at least two hundred bandits were speared through. Not one of the personal guard fell from the saddle.
The gulf in skill sent fear racing through every bandit present.
They had ridden unchallenged across the northern wastes, calling themselves a match for the Youzhou Iron Cavalry, styling themselves Blood Floating Tower.
And yet today — for the first time — they understood what real cavalry looked like.
Xu Suqing wheeled back, still wanting to fight. Xiao Ting had already seized his arm. “Chief — more people will die.”
Xu Suqing startled.
He looked around and noticed that nearly half the men he had brought out were already dead.
They had charged out so boldly — and now found themselves so thoroughly disgraced.
He wanted to fight again. But his bandits were afraid.
A clash of this scale — six or seven hundred against barely a hundred riders — one side had lost two or three hundred dead, the other not a single man.
If they clashed again, how many bandits would remain?
The Holy General Nie Zuo came back carrying Wang Huan’s body — the corpse had been thrown clear by Tang Pidi and landed in blood-soaked dirt.
“Chief…”
Nie Zuo’s eyes were crimson as he called out.
Xu Suqing clenched his teeth. “Withdraw.”
He took Wang Huan’s body into his arms, turned his horse, and pulled back toward the encampment.
When they began their withdrawal, Daxin Tuonuo — who had still wanted another exchange — had no choice but to withdraw as well. Too few of his Sword Sect disciples remained.
Tang Pidi did not pursue. He reined in his horse, pushed up his visor, and watched the fleeing bandits with no expression of triumph at all — utterly flat.
He gave a casual wave. His soldiers immediately dismounted and began moving through the fallen — methodically cutting off heads, one after another.
Daxin Tuonuo looked back at the battlefield. He watched those Ning soldiers working through the bodies, their blades rising and falling. Watched them lift the blood-soaked heads, one by one, and hang them casually from their own belts.
The sight sent a chill moving through Daxin Tuonuo’s bones.
*This* was the supposedly frail and easily bullied Central Plains army?
One of the Sword Sect disciples said involuntarily, “Who is this man? To be this ferocious…”
Daxin Tuonuo let out a long, heavy breath. “In a one-on-one duel, I could beat him. But in a battlefield like this — I could not stop him.”
He was unwilling to admit it. But there was no avoiding it.
Daxin Tuonuo thought now: even if you gave him five hundred Black Wu cavalry, and that man still had only his hundred or so riders — he still could not stop him.
That man was a sovereign of the battlefield.