Before her, none dared to claim a lineage of master marksmen. Wang Xiu’s status in the world of spear fighting was akin to Li Chungan’s in the realm of swords.
More than ten Rouran cavalry, proud of their superior riding skills and their exceptional warhorses, simultaneously raised their lances. However, the distance between them was too short; even with the finest bloodlines and training, the horses could not unleash an explosive charge while carrying heavily armored riders. Both steeds advanced with quick, small steps, charging first toward the elegant woman clad in green robes and green shoes. These riders were elite martial horsemen who had long followed their leader in countless battles, adept at facing both military warriors and martial artists. Two pitch-black iron lances descended from above—one thrusting, one sweeping. The left aimed at Qingniao’s forehead, the right at her arm.
Qingniao had once been an assassin who would stop at nothing to achieve her goals. After joining the Meng clan and training in the spear, her killing techniques transformed entirely, aligning perfectly with Wang Xiu’s fierce and obsessive style. Especially when Qingniao, a woman, executed Wang Xiu’s “Zhake” technique, it was breathtakingly beautiful. Zhake spear moved forth—though the motion was simple and direct, the spear shaft bent into a strange arc. The red spear’s outer curve slammed into the descending lance aimed at her brow, deflecting it. Then, using the rebound force, the spear bent again in the opposite direction, deflecting the sweeping strike aimed at her arm. Then Zhake straightened and thrust forward, piercing through the horse’s skull and striking the armored rider’s chest. The spear bent again, its tip Gathering Momentum for the Final Burst, shattering the knight’s breastplate and sending him flying into the air, already dead before he hit the ground.
Wang Xiu’s “Beng” technique damaged both flesh and meridians. The Chief Assassin of the Spiderweb, Jie Liu, learned his sinister sword technique “Chaziuliu” (planting willows to create roots) from Wang Xiu’s spear art. Wang Xiu had traveled the world with her skills, never yielding in a narrow path and never showing mercy in combat. For over twenty years in the Beimeng region, countless martial artists studied Wang Xiu’s spear techniques. After her death, later generations scoured the river for treasures—some found mere fragments, others picked up her whiskers, but only Jie Liu grasped the pearl. Qingniao, having grown up watching Wang Xiu, the martial fanatic, practice her spear techniques, was close to the source and inherited her natural talent. Her understanding of the four-character technique surpassed anything outsiders like Jie Liu could imagine. Back then, in the Wang family that dominated the Beiliang martial world, one could always see a little girl in the inner courtyard, practicing spear thrusts step by step regardless of the season, her hands calloused from endless drills with a wooden staff.
In the midst of a charging clash, Qingniao flicked Zhake, entwining one of the iron lances. The spearhead traced a mighty circular arc, decapitating a knight entirely. She kicked the horse’s belly as it passed, sending both rider and mount flying three to four zhang away. In the charge, she dodged a double-lance strike with a flick of her foot, sliding her hand to the middle of Zhake, spinning it into a wide circle. The circular motion, combined with the spear’s natural curvature, resembled a lasso swinging through the air. When fully charged, Zhake flew from her hand, and within twenty paces, centered on her, three riders were cut in half—waists or heads severed.
Qingniao continued her forward charge, crouching low. Zhake happened to swing back to her hand, and she thrust it forward. The spear halted abruptly three inches from a knight’s face. Before the iron rider could even feel relieved that this deadly woman’s momentum had waned, his face collapsed inward, a gruesome sight.
Qingniao lightly tapped the spear shaft, and Zhake circled behind her, blocking a downward slash from another iron lance. The “arc” technique could kill, but also defend. With her back to the knight, she struck the spear shaft with both arms, sending Zhake flying back to slam into the rider’s chest. Qingniao turned, stepping back with her right foot, catching the recoiling Zhake, switching from horizontal to vertical, delivering a rearward thrust—the classic “Huomagu” technique. She pierced the already pale-faced knight’s abdomen, then slightly lifted the spear. The immense force sent the half-dead knight flying into the air. She withdrew the spear, then stabbed and twisted, tearing the armored warrior’s corpse apart.
Around her, few knights remained standing.
The remaining few exchanged glances and prepared for a final, desperate counterattack.
Qingniao’s eyes flicked toward the commotion near the stream.
She needed to kill faster.
Xu Beizhi nearly wished for death. Once a scholar who disbelieved in ghosts and spirits, he was now suspended high in a tree by a red bat-like spirit with four arms, far from the danger. Previously, from a distance, the vermilion-robed Yuan Ying had always shown only one face, its four arms hidden within wide sleeves. Now, up close, Xu Beizhi clearly saw the compassionate face of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and felt the four arms beneath the sleeves. He silently closed his eyes. Once, he had argued with his grandfather over the interpretation of the phrase “Zi Bu Yu Guai Li Shen”—”the Master does not speak of the strange, the violent, the rebellious, or spirits.” Xu Huainan and previous Confucian scholars interpreted it as four things: strange phenomena, violent strength, rebellion, and spirits. Xu Beizhi had believed it should not be a simple rebuttal against Mohist reverence for spirits, but rather a separation between “strange force” and “spirits,” with “strange force” being a verb and “spirits” referring specifically to the mind. Now, Xu Beizhi realized he had been terribly wrong. He began chanting scriptures, incantations, and true words.
The spirit ignored the freezing scholar. Its joyful face gazed into the distance, seemingly hesitating whether to help. The vermilion-robed spirit, wearing a green dragon armor beneath its wide sleeves, discarded its burden, sending Xu Beizhi tumbling. Its body, though possessing two faces and four arms, was actually quite graceful. It began to float upward, rising above the treetops. Its wide sleeves flapped in the wind, making its bare feet appear even whiter and more glaring. Xu Beizhi happened to glance up and shivered even more. Could it truly be a ghost escaped from Fengdu? The Yuan Ying stiffly twisted its neck. In its vision, a dense swarm of armored soldiers, like locusts, abandoned their horses and advanced on foot up the mountain.
The spirit patted its belly and let out a burp.
Ordinary people burped after a full meal, but this spirit burped only when starving.
Wu Hema on the stream sneered, “Let’s see how long you can keep dodging!”
Enraged, the leader of the Tianshan Mountain flung the Dragon Sinew scabbard backward. He had drawn his sword when he broke the horse’s back, leaving the scabbard, tied with golden silk balls, near the dead horse, stuck in the ground. Now, he sheathed the Dragon Sinew with a throw.
Wu Hema was never known for his swordsmanship. That he had once snapped Duan Mao’s spear barehanded spoke volumes.
After discarding the sword, Wu Hema glanced downstream at the rippling stream, let out a cold laugh, and no longer deliberately floated above the water like Xu Fengnian. Instead, he dove beneath the surface.
Xu Fengnian finally emerged, soaked through, holding the Spring and Autumn Sword, its blade trailing a gust of sword qi like fluttering wind.
The stream receded rapidly from his head, dropping to his waist, knees, and finally leaving only a damp trace at his feet.
There was truly nowhere left to retreat or hide. The land occupied by Wu Hema became a boundary line. The stream was blocked by this purple-robed man, unable to approach within ten feet of the invisible line. The surging, murky stream halted behind him, spilling outward toward both banks, its waters clawing like a yellow dragon or fierce Dragon, ready to devour anyone who approached.
Xu Fengnian did something that Wu Hema found strange—he sheathed the peerless Spring and Autumn Sword.
Sheathing the sword was Wu Hema’s way of showing confidence.
Sheathing the sword.
Are you in a hurry to be reborn?
Wu Hema charged forward in huge strides, like thunder shaking the earth. With each step, the stream surged forward behind him.
Xu Fengnian withdrew one hand, palm inward, and pushed the other outward, palm outward.
Twelve flying swords formed a semi-circular formation, woven like silk threads into a net. It was named “Leichi,” a fairly imposing name.
Wu Hema, however, relied purely on brute force overpowering all techniques, without any flashy moves. When they were five steps apart, he twisted his body sideways and swung a devastating punch downward. Xu Fengnian raised one hand to block the city-shaking fist, his legs sinking into the mud past his knees. He used the “Towering Pagoda” stance, stacking one palm atop the other, not dodging or avoiding, determined to withstand the punch head-on. Wu Hema pressed harder, and mud sprayed from beneath Xu Fengnian’s knees, faster than arrows. The stream behind Wu Hema also trembled violently. Xu Fengnian’s sword formation remained steady, not for an extra offensive, but to use the twelve flying swords’ sword embryos to support the Great Huang Ting technique, uniting man and formation in perfect harmony.
Wu Hema kicked out. Xu Fengnian, expressionless, slapped downward with his right hand and pushed toward Wu Hema’s chest with his left. He didn’t deflect the kick entirely, nor did he touch the purple robe. He merely redirected some of the force, but still slid backward helplessly, his feet carving a deep furrow in the streambed.
Before Xu Fengnian could steady himself, Wu Hema delivered a sweeping kick aimed at his neck.
Xu Fengnian turned his shoulder sideways, blocking with both hands. Just from the trembling of the semi-circular sword formation, one could tell the immense force of the kick. Xu Fengnian was buried into the muddy streambank up to his shoulders.
Wu Hema stepped onto Xu Fengnian’s chest, pushing him several feet into the mud wall.
Still smirking, he mocked, “With twelve flying swords rivaling the Wujia Sword Tombs, if you don’t take heads, can they still be called flying swords?”
Wu Hema reached out empty-handed, then curled his fingers into hooks, tearing at the sword formation woven from silk threads into a thunder pool. The new sword formation trembled violently under his immense force.
Xu Fengnian didn’t give him the chance to destroy the Leichi. He charged forward, shoulder-checking Wu Hema.
Wu Hema grabbed the sword formation with one hand and swung his other arm sideways, sending Xu Fengnian and the formation flying apart.
Wu Hema stomped the ground and leapt high, delivering a devastating elbow strike toward Xu Fengnian, who had yet to stabilize.
A crater over a zhang wide and deep formed at the streambed.
This was only because Xu Fengnian used the Mirage technique to deflect nearly ninety percent of the elbow’s force.
Wu Hema sneered, “That’s all you’ve got? Dare to challenge me?!”
Wu Hema stopped chasing the battered Xu Fengnian, assuming a grand posture like a celestial being lifting a giant cauldron. He threw a punch from the sky.
Xu Fengnian’s internal energy surged to the peak of his martial cultivation, his hands circling again and again, yet still unable to fully neutralize the punch’s fierce momentum.
His body bent like a bow upon impact.
Blood dripped from his lips as he muttered, “Once I drunkenly whipped a famous steed.”
Wu Hema mercilessly pressed the attack. In the streambed, the purple robe blazed with power, while the black-clothed swordsman was continuously knocked backward across a dry streambed, already pushed a full li away.
Wu Hema hadn’t even heard Xu Fengnian’s next line: “Once I squandered a fortune in youth.”
In a relentless thunderous assault, Wu Hema seized an opportunity, grabbing Xu Fengnian’s legs and hurling him into the stream behind.
Xu Fengnian’s body tore through the surging water.
He flew nearly half a li.
Kneeling on one knee, Xu Fengnian lightly flicked the scabbard of the Spring and Autumn Sword behind him. “Once I traded Spring and Autumn for Spring Thunder.”
The Spring and Autumn Sword and its scabbard flew out together, piercing a satchel.
Xu Fengnian grasped the unsheathed Spring Thunder in his hand.
After rising, he slightly bent his knees, his right hand fingers together, his left hand’s Spring Thunder blade pointing directly at Wu Hema.
“Once I slew a Skyfaring expert at the streambed!”
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