Dantai Yajing, checking the wine jars, saw his father moving toward the golden armor — and his expression changed at once.

Today’s situation was such that who was in league with whom was essentially impossible to determine. Any one of these envoys might have murder in mind.

Feidingtan and the Yuezhi Kingdom had been mortal enemies — but with the old Emperor Takeri’s death, the balance between the two nations had certainly shifted.

So Dantai Yajing lunged forward immediately. “Father, let me take a look at this golden armor!”

One shout, and Dantai Yajing was already moving to get in front of Dantai Qi — but just as he started moving, a wine jar beside him shifted as well.

Sanding saw the wine jar move, and broke into a loud laugh. “Let me see too — I want to see what manner of splendor this Yuezhi Kingdom relic possesses.”

Talking, he stripped off the cloak he was wearing and with an apparently casual toss, draped it squarely over the shifting wine jar.

Everyone’s attention was on the golden armor. No one noticed that the wine jar had moved slightly — a hand emerged from inside, turned, and then a head appeared.

The man moved fast. Out of the jar, he pulled the knife strapped to his leg, then closed the distance swiftly and raised the knife, driving it savagely at the back of Dantai Qi’s neck.

A dull thud.

A spear flew in from a distance, driving through the assassin’s skull — in through one temple, out the other.

A person’s head pierced clean through, the spear shaft lodged there, looking grotesque and extraordinarily bloody.

There was a muffled groan — yet Dantai Qi did not turn his head.

He had seen it: across from him, Tang Pidi reached out and snatched a long spear from the guard beside him — and then there was a flash of light.

In that same instant — the golden armor moved.

A sharp crack.

The golden armor wrenched free of the wooden frame, one hand reaching out to take down the curved sword from the frame, gripping it in both hands and bringing it hewing down at Dantai Yajing with the force of splitting a mountain.

The golden armor on its frame had appeared to be empty.

This blow’s weight had the force of cleaving a mountain in two.

Dantai Yajing had already been on guard — he felt certain something was wrong with this armor.

As the blade descended, Dantai Yajing drew his own sword to meet it, and with a sharp metallic ring, his sword snapped cleanly in two.

The fighter beneath the golden armor was clearly immense in stature. The curved sword he wielded was a Yuezhi Kingdom supreme treasure — a divine weapon.

With Dantai Yajing’s sword shattered, he threw himself backward immediately — but the blade tip still caught him as he went, tracing a gash across his body.

He wore armor himself on duty today, and that blade edge — passing over him — had cut a gash even through his plate armor.

His armor was no ordinary piece, yet it still couldn’t withstand one stroke of this sword.

The armored warrior stepped out from beside the frame, wrenching it apart in the process — which showed the enormity of his strength.

One step out, and the curved sword swept horizontal, going straight for Dantai Yajing’s throat.

Dantai Yajing felt a force come from behind, and in an instant was pulled and flung backward.

Li Chi came from behind Dantai Yajing, grabbed him and yanked him to the rear, and simultaneously drove a kick into the armored warrior’s chest.

The armored warrior had immense strength and a towering frame — but was slightly less agile for it, unable to avoid Li Chi’s kick, and took it full on.

Yet when Li Chi’s kick landed, the sound was dull and muffled, like a plugged bronze bell.

The armored warrior lurched forward, pushing Li Chi back.

“Protect the Grand General!”

The Residence guards came rushing in all directions, loosing bolts at the armored warrior in rapid succession — many crossbow bolts came flying in.

Yet those bolts struck the golden armor and produced a pinging, ringing chorus — and could not pierce it.

Whatever the golden armor was made of, it looked like gold yet was far harder than gold. The bolts only left faint scratches, sparks flying, while the armored warrior paid it no mind whatsoever and continued forward.

Quite a few Residence guards closed in with long spears, stabbing at the armored warrior — to no avail.

Six or seven men with spears drove against the armored warrior with combined force, managing to push him back one step, his feet coming down so heavily the stone slabs beneath cracked — and in the next breath he thrust his chest forward.

There was a series of sharp snaps — the spear shafts broke.

The armored warrior, freed from the force that had been pressing against him, surged forward. He compressed his body slightly, leading with his shoulder to ram into one soldier, sending the man flying bodily.

“Halberd!”

Dantai Yajing called out hoarsely.

Someone passed him a broken halberd. Dantai Yajing grabbed it, charged forward, reached out — and the halberd shaft slid rapidly through his palm.

When he reached the butt end, his hand clenched shut with sudden force, adding the momentum of his full charge — and the broken halberd drove into the armored warrior’s chest with a thunderous crack.

The force behind it was tremendous, staggering the armored warrior back several steps — but still the golden armor held.

He looked down. A dent had been driven into his chest plate — and then a roar broke from him, fury clearly erupting.

Just in that moment, the Yuezhi Kingdom’s envoy Pangteidi leapt into the air — on both his arms, concealed wrist crossbows became visible.

These wrist crossbows were extremely compact; the bolts they fired were no bigger than long nails, with limited force, useless at range.

Pangteidi was mid-air when the bolts flew out, aimed directly at Dantai Qi.

“Close!”

Dantai Qi’s bodyguard officer shouted.

Two shields came from left and right, and with a sharp crack, closed together like two tightly shut doors.

Several bolts thudded into the shields with a dull sound.

Pangteidi spun in mid-air, drawing a flexible sword from his belt — it shot out like a striking viper.

“Thrust!”

A battle cry.

The bodyguards before Dantai Qi simultaneously stepped forward, thrusting their spears at the airborne Pangteidi.

Pangteidi, seeing that close quarters was impossible, shifted his flexible sword’s line — sweeping aside several spear tips.

He landed — and immediately heard another shout.

“Advance!”

Dantai Qi’s bodyguard officer pointed, and a dozen bodyguards formed a wedge formation and pushed forward. This time their spear thrusts were not simultaneous — they moved with a remarkable, almost instinctive stagger.

The first spear came at him, and Pangteidi deflected it with his sword. Before he could recover, the second spear was already there — he barely managed to beat it down with another desperate stroke.

The third came immediately. The interval between each spear was barely a breath apart — the coordination between these bodyguards was breathtaking.

The third came again and Pangteidi kicked the shaft aside, but the fourth was already nearly upon him, which he seized with his left hand.

The fifth drove into Pangteidi’s chest with a thud — the spear tip couldn’t penetrate, suggesting a chain-link vest beneath his clothes.

That strike landed, and the subsequent spears came in without pause — two spears found his legs, and Pangteidi screamed and fell to his knees.

“Open!”

From behind the bodyguards came another battle cry.

The dozen guards forming the formation stepped apart simultaneously to both sides. Dantai Qi’s bodyguard officer came striding forward — three, four running steps, then launching himself into the air, both hands gripping a long heavy saber, bringing it down in a mighty chop.

A crack.

The saber fell from directly above Pangteidi’s skull, and with one clean fall — Pangteidi was split in two.

The saber cleaved down and out from Pangteidi’s groin, the blade then biting into the stone slabs of the courtyard with a ringing clang.

From beginning to end, Dantai Qi stood there with an utterly calm expression, not having moved once. He watched the Yuezhi Kingdom envoy’s remains fall in two pieces, his eyes carrying only a trace of faint contempt.

Right at that moment, on the corridor behind Dantai Qi, two Shenshe assassins dropped down — they had been hanging upside-down in the rafters, waiting for their moment.

Now they saw that all of Dantai Qi’s people were focused on the front — both dropped simultaneously, light as nothing, not making the slightest sound.

Two knives, aimed simultaneously at Dantai Qi’s lower back, driving in with savage force.

Again a spear flew in — faster and more ferocious than the first — the spear pierced through the left assassin’s temple, drove through his skull, and then into the second assassin’s skull as well.

One spear. Two kills.

In the distance, Tang Pidi had one arm holding a Shenshe assassin — that man had been choked by his elbow and was already dead.

After throwing the spear with his right hand, Tang Pidi looked behind Dantai Qi, and saw several more shadows leaping their way — like ghosts appearing in broad daylight.

“Close!”

The bodyguard officer shouted, and supporting guards from both flanks immediately formed a defensive formation behind Dantai Qi.

Dozens of bodyguards watched the black-clad figures vaulting and leaping from the rear courtyard — but no matter how those figures changed direction, the formation held.

The assassins shifted direction several times, trying to draw the bodyguard line out and scatter it — but once those bodyguards formed up, they stood immovable as a mountain.

“Volley!”

The bodyguard officer gave the order.

The front rank of bodyguards dropped to a crouch simultaneously, and the rear rank threw their long spears.

Over a dozen spears, flying like a dozen lashing vipers — and in moments, two black-clad assassins were pinned to the ground.

Dantai Qi didn’t even turn his head — these assassins weren’t enough to stir him. His gaze remained fixed on the armored warrior.

At this moment, Dantai Yajing was still pressing one ferocious assault after another — and still being forced steadily back by the armored warrior.

If one were to judge martial skill, the armored warrior couldn’t be said to have anything particularly refined. He had inexhaustible physical power, and with that armor as protection, he simply ignored Dantai Yajing’s broken halberd completely.

Already more times than could be counted, Dantai Yajing drove the halberd into the armored warrior — there would be a metallic clang, and the armored warrior’s footstep would pause for just a moment.

But in one of those moments, the armored warrior’s left hand shot up and grabbed the halberd tip. Though it was a broken halberd, the remaining tip was still keen — he gripped it without caring in the slightest.

Dantai Yajing wrenched back with all his might — the tip scraped against whatever the man wore on his hands with a metallic grinding sound, and the halberd tip couldn’t cut through it.

The armored warrior exerted force, and in one motion ripped the entire halberd away.

The force was so tremendous that Dantai Yajing simply couldn’t hold on, and as the shaft scraped through his grip at speed, the flesh of his palm was torn raw.

A whooshing sound — something dark and bulky came flying from the side, right into the armored warrior’s face, and was smashed by the armored warrior with one fist.

As it burst apart, wine splashed out.

After hurling a wine jar at him, Li Chi didn’t stop — he grabbed one jar after another and flung them at the armored warrior. The armored warrior swung his curved sword, smashing the jars one by one.

Wine spread further and further across the ground. The armored warrior was soaked in wine streaming down him, pouring and splashing onto the ground.

The General’s Residence courtyard was paved in blue-green stone slabs, and wine had spread across a wide expanse.

Li Chi grabbed two more jars and charged forward, throwing them on the run — the armored warrior smashed those two as well.

But Li Chi was already close. He feinted a saber cut at the armored warrior, and when the armored warrior raised his sword to parry, Li Chi compressed his body and drove a kick into the armored warrior’s legs.

With a slick sound, the armored warrior’s footing slipped — and this time he couldn’t find his balance, going heavily face-down.

That armor was impossibly heavy, and in falling the armored warrior’s hands slammed against the ground to catch himself — but getting back up was far slower than it would be for a normal man.

Li Chi reached down and picked up a wooden post from the ground — a piece of the frame that had been ripped apart and fallen.

“A blade can’t break you — but can you block a club?!”

Both hands gripping the post, he wound up and brought it horizontal across the armored warrior’s golden helm with every ounce of force — the sound it made was truly like a great bell being struck.

One blow — the armored warrior went down flat, and the wooden post shattered.

Li Chi dropped what remained of the broken post and looked urgently toward Yu Jiuling. “Ready?!”

Yu Jiuling bellowed, “Ready!”

And in that moment, Yu Jiuling leapt aside.

Behind him, Ruoling came striding forward, great hammer swinging — bringing it down on the back of the armored warrior’s skull with all her might.

That hammer.

Truly large.