The dark-red spear and the serrated blade struck sparks that burst apart in midair, and in the next instant came several more rapid exchanges, the spear sweeping in a wide arc toward the men rushing in from the side.
This Gao Chong of the Beiwei Army was solidly built and tall, in no way inferior to Lu Tuo himself. His martial skill was formidable; within the Beiwei Army he ranked as a first-class vanguard fighter, and the only man who could truly match him blow for blow was Yue Fei himself, personally trained by Zhou Tong—it was only that, being a career soldier, his reputation in the wider martial world had never been especially prominent. Now, with Yinping and Yue Yun taken, and the army’s finest fighters sent out one after another in pursuit, he too had, without hesitation, taken up the role of vanguard.
Only, the pursuit and evasion between masters was an entirely different matter from open warfare; searching for an enemy and confronting them face to face were two separate things as well. The enemy’s hundred-odd masters had split into several groups, leading their pursuers on a chase in different directions, and Gao Chong had no choice but to follow just the one direction. On the first day he had come up empty-handed several times over, his heart burning with anxiety; it was only because of his formidable skill, and being in the prime of youth, that after two full days and nights of relentless pursuit and searching—by which point even the scouts accompanying him could no longer keep pace—he finally located the true target near Dengzhou.
Taking advantage of the enemy’s attention being drawn by a skirmish to one side, he crept in quietly; but as he closed the distance, it was still Lu Tuo who spotted him first. The moment the two of them clashed, each recognized the other as a formidable opponent, and Gao Chong, without the slightest hesitation, lunged to the side. The others around him reacted at once as well—Young Master Lin the Seventh, who had been sent flying at the very start, had only just managed to roll with the blow to absorb the impact, and was now scrambling back up from the ground; the tall, heavyset man Yinping had identified as “Grand Origin Blade” Pan Dahe had already unleashed a sheet of blade-light, while beside him a long staff and a hooked sickle-spear came sweeping in to intercept as well!
Gao Chong lunged forward, his spear smashing through the wall of blade-light, his body slipping straight through the gap between the staff and the hooked blade. These masters swung their weapons with such force that they stirred up gale-like winds, roaring like thunder—yet Gao Chong charged straight ahead without a moment’s hesitation, threading through by the narrowest of margins, a skill forged and tempered on countless real battlefields. He rolled once across the ground and rose with the motion, just as a fierce gust of wind came howling in from ahead, an eagle-claw strike flashing toward his face like lightning.
Behind him, the hooked sickle-spear had already caught on the shaft of his own spear; a flying shuttle-blade came whipping in as well, wrapping around it in an instant, trying to lock his weapon down together with the hooked blade!
Further ahead still, a master of ground-rolling blade techniques came tumbling forward at speed, aiming to slash at his legs!
Gao Chong had only just risen when his head snapped sharply backward, dodging the crossing pair of claws by the narrowest of margins; gripping his spear in both hands, he wrenched it back, but the eagle-claw master had already locked both claws onto his shoulders. Gao Chong’s tiger-eyes went wide; with a violent wrench of both arms, he forced the middle-aged man wielding the eagle claws to release the leather armor at his shoulder—only for the man to lash out again, lightning-fast, clamping onto the gap in his armor at his waist. Below him, the ground-rolling blade had already been drawn, sweeping across in a horizontal slash!
In the darkness, both sides in this clash were masters among masters, each with formidable skill of his own, their movements truly like hawks striking and rabbits leaping. Even with all his formidable skill, Gao Chong found himself, in the blink of an eye, caught in a lethal trap. At that moment, his spear held horizontally at his side, was locked by both the hooked blade and the flying shuttle; the eagle-claw fighter had half his body pinned; the ground-rolling blade came sweeping in from below; and from behind and to the side, “Grand Origin Blade” came slashing upward at his upper body—and then, with a roar like a tiger, he heaved the shaft of his spear upward and slammed it down with tremendous force!
The furious roar shook the surrounding air, and then came a thunderous crash—the eagle-claw fighter took the full weight of Gao Chong’s spear shaft square across the back, and felt a crushing force descend upon him like a collapsing mountain; his vision went black in an instant, his bones cracking audibly, and dust erupted from the ground beneath him. In close combat between masters, it came down to internal power and raw strength; Gao Chong’s massive frame, with the eagle-claw fighter’s upper body locked against him, made the man look like a monkey caught in the grip of a giant ape, his whole body slammed heavily into the ground, with the added weight of Gao Chong’s own body driving the blow home. The “Grand Origin Blade” strike coming from behind was dodged as Gao Chong bent forward with the motion, while the ground-rolling blade fighter ahead, unable to check his momentum in time, swept his blade through—striking someone, though it was unclear whom, sending a spray of blood up through the churned dust.
Gao Chong’s furious roar was still echoing through the air when his body surged forward again like a raging tiger; wrenching and twisting the spear he dragged along, he shook off both the hooked blade and the flying shuttle, and the dark-red spearhead swept out in a howling arc. This single fierce sweep alone cleared a space of more than ten feet all around him.
After throwing in their lot with the Jurchens, these men had, naturally, held themselves in fairly high regard; Gao Chong’s sudden eruption had certainly caught them off guard, but the deadly trap that several of them had immediately sprung together was formidable indeed. These were men of considerable combat experience, and their first instinct upon rushing in had been that the enemy was as good as dead—even Lu Tuo, after forcing the man back and seeing how many others had already converged, had held off charging into the center himself right away. Who could have guessed that this young man would prove so fiercely bold—that eagle-claw master, who had spent decades honing his art and ranked among the very deadliest fighters in the north, had been caught out completely in a single exchange.
With his killing move so thoroughly broken, the others faltered for a moment, instinctively, as the spear swept toward them—only to see Gao Chong swing the spear back around and thrust it straight down at the ground-rolling blade fighter.
That brief instant of hesitation was already the very limit of what the moment allowed; the man on the ground rolled backward to escape, but the thrust had only been a feint, and by then Lu Tuo too had already surged forward again. Having just violently forced back three masters with his spear, Gao Chong wheeled around and slammed the weapon straight at Lu Tuo, then, with a great roar, charged directly toward Yue Yinping’s position instead. Lu Tuo bellowed, “Take him down!” and Gao Chong swung his spear to meet him, fully prepared to trade his life for the kill.
Lu Tuo, too, was a man of fierce and violent temperament; covered in wounds already, he showed no fear of further pain in combat—only, Gao Chong’s fighting style was built around battlefield combat, taking on many opponents at once, and he understood better than anyone how to trade his own wounds for an enemy’s life in a fight to the death. Lu Tuo had no fear of exchanging blows with him directly, but he had no wish to trade a serious wound of his own for only a light one on his opponent. At that moment, Gao Chong swung his spear with reckless bravery, as though some god had descended to earth, and in the span of a few breaths managed to force back this crowd of masters and their deadly techniques by a full four or five paces—though in that same span of time, his own body had taken several new wounds, blood streaking down him everywhere.
Off to the side, Yinping and Yue Yun were about to shout for Big Brother Gao to retreat while he still could. Just then came a thunderous crash—Gao Chong’s spear collided head-on with Lu Tuo’s great blade, and the two figures went flying apart in opposite directions. The spear swept in a wide circle around him, forcing several men back, then thrust forward again, filling the air ahead of him with a storm of spear-shadows. There weren’t many masters left on that side by now, and the others, realizing what was happening, shouted, “He means to flee!”
“Don’t let the little cur get away—!”
The man wielding the flying shuttle was, at that moment, closest to Gao Chong; he loosed a shuttle straight at him. With a sharp clang, Gao Chong swung and twisted his spear, catching the flying shuttle and wrapping it tight around the shaft. At that moment, as Lu Tuo’s side moved to block his escape, both sides pulled with all their strength at once—only for Gao Chong to abandon the idea of fleeing entirely, driving his spear straight instead at the very man who had thrown the shuttle! In that instant, the man never imagined Gao Chong would willingly plunge himself deeper into this trap; their eyes met for the briefest moment, and in the next, Gao Chong’s spear had driven straight through the man’s heart and out through his back.
At that very moment, a figure came flying in from the side—the Taoist nun named Li Wanlian, striking with a sudden claw at Gao Chong’s face. Gao Chong, having just killed the man with the flying shuttle, gave his head a slight shake and, with a furious roar, swung a heavy fist with his left hand; Li Wanlian kicked him hard in the small of the back, then flew backward with the motion, dodging his fist.
Another figure charged in from the side to engage Gao Chong, and Lu Tuo, with a furious roar of his own, pressed forward too, giving no thought at all to his standing as a grandmaster of the art.
“You’ll die right here today—”
“The running dog will pay with his life—”
By now, Gao Chong had been wounded by Li Wanlian’s claw strike, his hair coming loose and half his face streaked with blood; and yet, amid his furious roars, he still cut an imposing, awe-inspiring figure, his fighting spirit undiminished. He fought on with reckless courage, showing not the slightest despair at having failed to save the Yue siblings, nor any disappointment at his failed attempt to break through—but his opponents were, after all, formidable, and before long, several new wounds had been added to his body.
This team led by Lu Tuo had originally been assembled specifically for missions of a special nature—infiltration, assassination, and the encirclement and elimination of especially dangerous targets. Back when Iron Arm Zhou Tong had assassinated Wanyan Zonghan, this very team had, quite naturally, treated masters of Zhou Tong’s caliber as their hypothetical enemy in training. This was Gao Chong’s first time facing an opponent of this kind, and even with his formidable skill, breaking free now had become exceedingly difficult.
And yet, this kind of reckless, life-or-death combat, waged by a fighter approaching grandmaster level, left even this group of men quietly shaken. In throwing in their lot with the Jin state, they had done so, naturally, for no ideal or glory or love of homeland; even now, giving their full effort in this fight, there was still, in the back of their minds, a certain hesitation when it came to truly risking their lives—a quiet hope that they wouldn’t have to pay with their own. Because of this, the wounds landing on Gao Chong remained, for the time being, mostly minor ones; and despite his large frame now looking rather gruesome with all his injuries, the strength behind his spear showed no sign of weakening.
At that moment, from the edge of the woods not far off, came the sound of yet another disturbance—likely more martial-world fighters arriving, clashing with the outer perimeter of masters. Gao Chong let out a thunderous roar: “Miss Yue and Young Master Yue are here! Spread the word—Miss Yue and Young Master Yue are here—”
This bellow carried far, and stirred movement in the woods; before long, a figure suddenly appeared on the grass not far away, a short sword in hand, calling out: “Noble warrior, I’ve come to aid you!” The voice was clear and bright—it was a slight, delicate woman dressed in night-black clothing.
Back by the campfire, Yue Yinping shouted at the top of her lungs: “Go—!” only to be struck down to the ground by Li Wanlian beside her. In the crowd, Gao Chong let out another furious roar: “Go, quickly!” By now he was covered in blood, his hair and beard bristling, his spear thrusting and sweeping with a howling force as he bellowed, “Death to any who stand in my way—” and threw himself into an even more reckless, life-or-death stance. The young woman across from him, however, only moved to meet the enemy: “Let me help you kill these Jin dogs…” The words had scarcely left her mouth when a figure flitted past beside her—”Grand Origin Blade” Pan Dahe, moving in a blur, cut off the young woman’s head with a single stroke.
Gao Chong’s spear surged forward with violent force, like molten lava breaking free, driving straight at Pan Dahe; Pan Dahe slipped aside and laughed. “Was that your sweetheart, then?” He seemed quite pleased with himself, though he still didn’t dare face Gao Chong head-on alone, and slipped sideways—only to find that the only one left in Gao Chong’s charging path now was Young Master Lin the Seventh. From behind, Lu Tuo bellowed, “Hold him back!” But Lin the Seventh had no intention of facing Gao Chong directly; he hesitated for just a moment, and Gao Chong forced his way past.
Covered head to toe in blood, Gao Chong plunged into the grass ahead of him, a crowd giving chase behind him. He fought and moved at the same time, never breaking stride, and in the blink of an eye had taken three more blade wounds, already reaching the edge of that stretch of woods.
The group here still needed to keep watch over Yue Yinping and Yue Yun, and dared not give chase in force. Several men pursued him deep into the woods, and the sounds of fighting carried on for quite some distance before anyone came back. In battles between grandmasters or near-grandmasters like this, unless one was truly willing to fight to the death, once an opponent had spotted a weakness, there was little hope of holding them there for long. This, too, was precisely why Ning Yi had once been unwilling to move rashly against Lin Zongwu.
Gravely wounded, Gao Chong fought his way all the way into the woods before finally managing to escape, badly injured, into the distance. Since the enemy’s strength was not yet exhausted, if the group had scattered and given chase individually, they might well have ended up killed themselves in a desperate counterattack; with more pressing business at hand, Lu Tuo had no wish to spend an entire night hunting down this one master, and in the end, the group turned back.
After this, the group set off again—but from then on, they found themselves unable to shake a tail that had attached itself to them. After two full days of travel, they had, at last, truly been tracked down. Bound atop the horse, Yinping felt a flicker of hope rise in her heart once more—but before long, that hope gave way to confusion, for they were now perhaps only an hour or two’s ride from Dengzhou, and yet the group still made no move toward the city. Toward the martial-world fighters who had picked up their trail from behind, neither Lu Tuo nor the Jurchen leader showed the slightest urgency; if anything, from the expression on the Jurchen leader’s face whenever he spoke with Lu Tuo, there was, faintly, something almost like smug satisfaction in it.
They traveled on like this for another half hour or so, and it was now the middle of the night. From behind, martial-world pursuers drew close once more. These men had arrived somewhat scattered, driven mostly by raw courage, and the fighting in the darkness dragged on for some time without any of them managing to close the distance—neither the Jurchen leader nor Lu Tuo had even bothered to intervene personally. Yue Yun struggled and thrashed atop his horse; Yinping, though half her face was swollen, kept quietly watching the Jurchen leader’s manner. The man noticed the girl’s gaze in the darkness, smiled faintly, and said in his imperfect Chinese, “Miss Yue is clever and quick-witted—very sharp indeed.”
Yue Yinping could only manage a few muffled sounds. Lu Tuo glanced at her once; the Jurchen leader turned his horse’s head and rode slowly over toward Yinping’s side.
“We’ve been circling back and forth between Xiangyang and Dengzhou for two days now—naturally, there’s a scheme behind it. Your father, General Yue, has shown remarkable composure—wary of some trick on our part, he’s sent troops out, but never rashly. We haven’t gained the slightest advantage from it, and honestly, that leaves us feeling rather unsatisfied…”
The Jurchen leader said this, though there was nothing in his voice that actually sounded unsatisfied. He went on: “He has the greater picture to attend to; he cannot afford to send troops out too hastily, or Dengzhou and Xinye will fall into disarray. Today, a great many martial-world fighters around Dengzhou have come out trying to rescue you, Miss Yue—I imagine that must move you deeply. Only, have you and all these many good men ever stopped to wonder why word of your capture spread so quickly?”
Yue Yinping’s heart sank. The leader smiled. “Naturally, we had a hand in it. If they truly did manage to rescue you, Miss Yue, then neither you nor the young general here would owe us any thanks at all.”
By now the group had climbed atop that small hill, and from far off, the sounds of fighting still carried, the glow of fires lit by the struggle flickering along the horizon. The Jurchen leader’s expression turned somewhat cold. “For your father to have taken Xiangyang is truly no small feat. The court keeps calling for it to be retaken at once, but the puppet Qi’s useless troops simply cannot fight. After several years of soft southern living, even our own Jin troops stationed here are nowhere near what they once were. They all deserve to die, but since I’ve come, I might as well share the burden a little.”
He gestured toward the flickering light ahead. “Since you’re going to hold onto Xiangyang for the time being, before our Great Jin’s royal army marches south, we naturally need to secure the Xiangyang-Dengzhou line properly. And for that, a fair number of cockroaches and rats need to be cleared out first—otherwise, when your army eventually marches north, the war won’t even have started before the gates of Dengzhou and Xinye swing open on their own, and that would be a joke. So, I let word of your capture leak, and while we were at it, did a little housecleaning as well. What you’re seeing now is the light of these vermin being put to the sword.”
The Jurchen leader paused. “My master, Lord Xiyin, thinks quite highly of that demon lord Ning Yi’s way of thinking. All of you so-called men of the martial world are nothing but a useless rabble, good for nothing. Hiding in the shadows, defending a city, you might be of some use in undermining an enemy—but the moment you step out into the open, trying to actually accomplish something, you become nothing but a joke. Back when the demon lord was causing havoc in the martial world, he killed them off batch after batch, and still they never learned to reflect on themselves—stir them up even a little, and here they come, rushing out eagerly all over again. Miss Yue, I only sent in a few men among them—I know exactly how many of them there are, and exactly which group among them is the most formidable. Tell me, then—if they don’t deserve to die, then who does?”
In the firelight, a brutal massacre was unfolding in the distance.
The most elite troops the puppet Qi had at Dengzhou, acting under military orders, had sent out a small detachment to surround more than a hundred martial-world fighters within a mountain hollow, and then set the mountainside ablaze.
The martial-world fighters scattered in every direction, but in the end were trapped by the encircling flames and burned alive, every last one of them; some who tried to force their way out amid the fire were burned to charred husks amid the shrieking screams of the damned. Two units of a thousand men each were responsible for the two largest groups of martial-world fighters. Many others were still fighting, or fleeing, and some had run into Gao Chong, gravely wounded as he was, along with several Beiwei Army scouts who had come rushing over, and had banded together with them.
Gao Chong had only had time to bandage his wounds hastily before leading them onward in pursuit. By now they understood that Lu Tuo and the others, circling around and around with the two Yue children, were using them as bait to draw more prey in—but even if the fish didn’t bite, once this night passed and the group entered Dengzhou, any chance of rescuing the two children would become close to impossible. If the enemy couldn’t threaten General Yue with them, then it was entirely possible they would simply send back the children’s heads instead—or else, as had once been done with members of the Wu imperial clan, march them off north as captives, a fate truly worse than death.
Not long after Lu Tuo’s group descended from that small hill, Gao Chong led his own group in launching an ambush against them within a small stretch of woods.
Given the disparity in skill between the two sides, fighting in such complicated terrain was hardly an ideal choice. But at this point, if there was any hope at all of turning the chaos to their advantage, this might be the only option left.
At that very same moment, Ning Yi’s figure appeared atop the small hill that Lu Tuo’s group had only just passed over…