Book 51 Chapter 2 – Crossing the Great River
Translator: Foxs" Wuxia
Kou Zhong’s Moon in the Well left its scabbard, immediately, highly concentrated, condensed essence, qi and spirit seemed to pierce through the saber blade, the true power penetrated the saber and shot straight out, so that, as if the Moon in the Well had its own life and its own inspiration – it became part of his body, communicating with his spirit like a deity.
Coming to attack from the right were Li Nantian’s sword, Shi Wanbao’s lance, Kang Qiaoli’s saber, Mei Xun’s golden spear, Feng Liben’s sword and the three high-ranking military officers wielding saber and swords, respectively. This group of men, none was not a first-cla.s.s martial art master. The target of Li Nantian and Shi Wanbao’s attack was also Ba Fenghan, to make sure that he would face enemies from three sides, suffer defeat and die.
The remaining six men stormed toward Kou Zhong, to make him too busy to spare time to cover Ba Fenghan’s right side.
The first attack to arrive was Mei Xun’s golden spear, and within this group of powerful enemies, his martial art skill could be considered the first or second best. Perhaps it was because Song Que attacked and captured Hainan Island, which made Mei Xun family bankrupt and the people dead [idiom: dest.i.tute and homeless], he took his anger out on Kou Zhong. The spear stabbed to kill, carrying a once-gone-won’t-comeback, without-victory-there-won’t-be-any-return taste, he became the sharpest point of the enemy’s offensive, spurred by this the-tide-rises, the-boat-floats [idiom: develop according to the situation], the other men’s offensive became even more threatening.
Feng Liben’s sword attacked from Mei Xun’s left side, in a quite ingenious angle it slashed diagonally from top to bottom at the vital part on Kou Zhong’s shoulder and neck, only a thread slower than Mei Xun’s spear, so that if Kou Zhong blocked Mei Xun’s spear, he would not be able to evade this sword.
The remaining three high-ranking military officers did not have any room to take part in the offensive, they could only circle around behind Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling to cut off their escape route, but also to launch violent attack on them from behind.
With such a large disparity in power between the two sides, the three began to be caught in more-than-one-can-attend-to [idiom: overwhelming] bitter battle.
For the first time Kou Zhong was able to accurately grasped the body intention that Song Que was talking about. In this life and death crisis, he no longer needed his eyes to see, his Moon in the Well was the most effective tool to detect the enemy, it was the extension of his senses. The saber qi generated by the Moon in the Well completely enveloped the enemy inside it, any variation of true qi’s speed was neatly transmitted back to his empty and bright lingtai, nothing was missing, just like he knew the enemy’s advancing to attack and retreating to defend like the back of his hand, magical to the extreme point.
The saber moved as he wished, the intention followed the saber, he finally reached Song Que’s Heavenly Saber’s realm, man and saber became an indivisible whole ent.i.ty.
He clearly knew that if he gave Li Nantian and Shi Wanbao’s one sword and one lance another opportunity to attack Ba Fenghan, facing attack from three sides, certainly Ba Fenghan’s blood would splash on the spot; even if Ba Fenghan was only wounded and not dead, his combat ability would be weakened, and then under attack from the enemy on four sides, eight directions, defeat and disperse would be the question of when, not if, definitely there won’t be any luck to speak of. However, if he spared time to help Ba Fenghan warding off Li Nantian and Shi Wanbao, it would be difficult for him to escape the calamity from Mei Xun’s golden spear.
In this critical juncture moment where life or death was hanging on a thread, Kou Zhong moved swiftly forward to dodge the threat from Feng Liben’s sword first, and then his saber slashed backhandedly toward Mei Xun’s continuously-changing golden spear, while at the same time he shouted in low voice, “Change formation! Lao Ba, retreat!”
In front of Ba Fenghan’s eyes were full of saber lights and sword shadows, he roared, and in the blink of an eye the Stealing the Heaven Sword in his hand swiftly stabbed four times, it poked the tip of Li Yuanji’s Splitting Horse Spear first, followed by Luo Shixin’s saber, Pang Yu’s Taixu Jian [great emptiness/cosmos sword], and Li Shiji’s long sword. Four different kinds of weapons with fierce-and-severe-without-equal momentum attacking from four different angles, but it looked as if they were delivering the weapons only to be picked head-on by Ba Fenghan’s successive sword strikes.
When Ba Fenghan heard Kou Zhong’s warning, he was hard-pressed to block the toppling the mountains and overturning the seas offensive from the right side, while in order to parry the offensive of the four major martial art masters from his left side and his front, he was already exhausting his reserved true qi, momentarily he was unable to recover his qi. Hastily he seized the opportunity to retreat between Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling. He took advantage of this instant to raise and gather his power, and then spinning around, the Stealing the Heaven Sword attacked backward in full power, to strike back at the three Tang generals who thought that they had an opportunity that they could exploit.
Qi power exploded.
Xu Ziling’s fingertips touched Xue Wanche’s copper truncheon, while simultaneously his left palm chopped on Li Shentong’s treasured sword with hard-to-believe accuracy.
The enemy’s two major martial art masters felt that the weapons in their hands were like empty and weightless; indeed it was a shocking feeling of not being able to exert their force. Finally they realized with a start that half of their power was deflected by Xu Ziling using some ingenious technique, while some smaller part was borrowed by him. By the time they knew the turn of events was not too encouraging and they wanted to retreat with great alarm, the other two generals have already suffered big loss.
Purely in terms of move and power, there was not much difference between the two and Xu Ziling, however, Xu Ziling’s spiritual realm this moment was far beyond the two were able to dream of. It was precisely because Xu Ziling was able to see clearly the way that their qi power was moving along its course that he was able to use a focused, profound mystery technique to break their fierce and severe offensive. This was precisely Shi Zhixuan’s supreme method that made him unafraid of fighting a group of enemies. Even a master like Xu Kaishan also had to suffer big loss, much less Li Shentong and Xue Wanche, who were comparatively next in cla.s.s. If the two did not join hands to attack, caught off guard, by relying on this move, Xu Ziling would be able to inflict injury on only one of them.
Xu Ziling’s left foot flew up, it pa.s.sed through the double axes, and kicked straight toward the pit of the high-ranking military officer wielding the double axes’ stomach, while his other hand grabbed the lance piercing his flank head-on; spiraling energy shot out.
If there was no borrowing-power technique, after blocking Li Shentong and Xue Wanche head-on, he definitely would not have the strength to counterattack.
Seeing the leg was about to reach his chest, already the axe-wielding general’s soul flew away and scattered, how could he still think about attacking the enemy? He retreated in panic, thinking that he could still miss the kick by a hairsbreadth. Who would have thought that the tip of Xu Ziling’s foot lightly stretched forward, it accurately tapped the tanzhong acupoint on the pit of his stomach? Luckily Xu Ziling was being lenient, he only sent enough true qi to seal his acupoint, not to take his life at all. The general’s double axes fell off, after staggering three steps back, ‘Crash!’ he fell on the edge of the deck, losing his ability to fight.
The lance-wielding general plainly saw Xu Ziling grabbing the tip of his lance, yet he was simply unable to evade. The spiraling energy flowed along the lance, naturally he was unable to hold on to his lance, he felt as if the pit of his stomach was struck by a large iron hammer head-on, he spurted blood and fell down. Although it was not fatal, he could no longer crawl up by relying on his own strength.
Grabbing the spearhead, Xu Ziling swept the shaft around at Xue Wanche and Li Shentong, who were coming to attack. His motion was like moving clouds and flowing water, both pleasing to the eye and very calm.
‘Dang!’
The Moon in the Well heavily chopped on the tip of Mei Xun’s golden spear’s head. No matter how Mei Xun made any change, relying on body intention, Kou Zhong, using a seemingly average, nothing-special saber strike, seemed to be intentional, but also appeared unintentional, lifting lightly yet looked heavy, was always able to seal off Mei Xun’s every change; except for momentarily retreating from his offensive, there did not seem to be no other way.
Kou Zhong’s Moon in the Well did not stop at all; in a trajectory that followed some kind of profound mystery principle, he filled the gap that Ba Fenghan left behind, taking advantage of the instant when Li Yuanji, Pang Yu, Li Shiji and Luo Shixin were regrouping. First, he met Shi Wanbao’s lance, ‘Qiang!’ Next, he jolted Shi Wanbao that both the person and the lance were hacked, sending him staggering backward, and finally, he rushed forward to block Li Nantian’s sword head-on. Spiraling energy shot out, the Moon in the Well twisted itself around the enemy’s sword. Even with Li Nantian’s ability, he was still unable to withstand his heavy technique, so that he was pulled and pushed toward the Dark Armored Warriors’ formation.
Stifled groan came from behind, the sound of clashing weapons lingered on faintly even more. The three Tang generals were struck that they were thrown in the direction of the ship’s bow, while their blood was splashing. Ba Fenghan was also staggering two steps back, while blood was flowing from his right arm and right thigh, but he quickly recovered and stood steadily. Unexpectedly he met ruthlessness with ruthlessness, he used injury to exchange with injury, breaking the fears of trouble in the rear in one move.
On the bridge, Li Shimin barked his order, from both sides of the cabin the Dark Armored Warriors swarmed out to fill the gap on the ship’s bow. If they managed to fill the gap left by the three defeated generals, the slight advantage that Ba Fenghan gained with his life as the stake would go down the drain completely.
In this moment, which demanded immediate action, Ba Fenghan swayed his body to dodge Feng Liben’s long sword slashing down on him, while sending a kick, which forced him to retreat in a hurry. Immediately he let out a shrill whistle, which resonated throughout the battlefield, while ignoring his injury, the sword and the man became one, it transformed into a long light, pa.s.sing through Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling, shooting at full strength toward Li Yuanji, who was moving straight ahead, showing clearly that he was going to fight with Li Yuanji, life for life, to see whether Li Yuanji had this kind of guts.
Earlier he intentionally provoked Li Yuanji’s anger, to make Li Yuanji recall old hatred, it was precisely to make Li Yuanji, his face suffering damage – to disregard everything and be at the front line in making his move in order to redeem his prestige. It should be noted that Li Yuanji’s status was special; even if they were finally able to kill the three men, but if Li Yuanji was also killed in this military operation, everybody present, including Li Shimin, would not be able to escape the guilt. Therefore, no matter how dauntless Li Yuanji was, it was not worthwhile to fight to mutual destruction with Ba Fenghan, who came from a-rank-growth-of-gra.s.s cla.s.s origin. Therefore, this move by Ba Fenghan was extremely brilliant; it once again proved his view, which he described as ‘whoever is more ruthless will be able to survive’.
‘Dang! Dang!’
Xu Ziling’s spear shaft swept Li Shentong and Xue Wanche’s treasured sword and copper truncheon in succession. He mixed the true power that he borrowed with his spiraling qi power and released it as much as he liked. The two men were swept back, blocking the path of the Dark Armored Warriors charging from the port side of the ship, throwing them in a great mess. And then he pulled the lance back and used the shaft to strike Li Yuanji’s right arm, blocking him from moving across to the right, forcing him so that he could only move either to the left or to the back.
Kou Zhong cooperated with the two seamlessly, knowing that success or failure entirely depended on this moment. After forcing Shi Wanbao back, the Moon in the Well magically turned into millions of saber light, hiding the sky and covering the earth, to attack Li Yuanji’s left side.
Li Yuanji suddenly found himself trapped in inferior situation, dangerous position, where there were enemies on three sides, while Pang Yu, Li Shiji, Luo Shixin, and a group of Dark Armored Celestial Soldiers were entirely blocked behind him. No matter how conceited and confident he was, he still did not dare to block Ba Fenghan’s frontal a.s.sault and Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling, attacking him from left and right – at the same time. Forget about him, even if it were Shi Zhixuan in his position right now, the only way out was to retreat.
Li Yuanji roared, the Splitting Horse Spear turned into more than a dozen spear lights, while emitting ‘Chi! Chi!’ sound of qi power – shooting toward Ba Fenghan, while swiftly retreating backward at the same time, hoping his men behind him could make up from the side, to reduce the huge pressure and the attack that he bore.
Seeing the turn of events was not too encouraging, Li Shimin on the bridge shouted, “Charge!”
On his left and right, Zhangsun Wuji and Yuchi Jingde flew away from the bridge simultaneously, the former’s jade Xiao emitting fierce and severe whistle, from high up in the air it stabbed toward Xu Ziling’s face; the latter’s two zhang and three chi’s Gui Zang [lit. returning to the storehouse/hiding place] Whip shot out from inside his sleeve. It was released later but arrived earlier, it met the like-dart-and-arrow-man-and-sword-fused-into-one shooting toward Ba Fenghan. The whip displayed its strength as long-range weapon, it snapped toward the throat, a position that Ba Fenghan had no choice but to protect.
Behind Li Yuanji, Pang Yu, Li Shiji, Luo Shixin, along with more than thirty Dark Armored Warriors split to the left and right, in order not to be in the way of Li Yuanji’s retreat. Henceforth the originally steady to the point of impossible to fault battle array melt like ice and broke like tiles, becoming chaotic situation where everybody was fighting for himself, rushing forward from two sides with the sole purpose of rescuing Li Yuanji from danger.
On the outer side, each enemy general hurriedly reorganized their team for attack, but they were all still a thread too slow.
The more than a dozen Dark Armored Celestial Soldiers behind Li Shimin were the best of the best among his personal guards; protecting their master, they were afraid that the three men might seize the opportunity to attack the bridge, they all scrambled in front of Li Shimin to form a human wall, so that Li Shimin was separated from the intense battlefield on the deck below the bridge.
‘Whoosh!’
Leaving Xu Ziling’s hands, the spear shot out, accurate-without-equal it knocked the tip of Yuchi Jingde’s Gui Zang Whip. The originally piercing-through-saber-way-filling-the-air long whip immediately became wave-like, losing its accurate head.
No longer had any barrier, Ba Fenghan’s sword light flared greatly, the fierce and severe sword qi locked Li Yuanji, who was still retreating, his acute spirit already lost – tightly, with the would-not-stop-before-killing Li Yuanji mighty power.
Li Yuanji’s retreat suddenly threw the battle array, which was surging forward but failed to break the enemy – into a great mess. This side diminishing, the other side flourishing, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling, like two-headed-tiger-out-of-its-cage, sticking close to Ba Fenghan’s left and right, slightly behind him, forming a no-stronghold-one-cannot-overcome, n.o.body-can-block triangular battle formation, breaking into the enemy’s battle array that was no longer a battle array.
‘Ding!’
Using the middle finger of his right hand, Xu Ziling flicked Zhangsun Wuji’s stabbing jade Xiao. While he was jolted and was thrown to the side, Ba Fenghan’s Stealing the Heaven Sword was less than half a zhang from the pit of Li Yuanji’s stomach, entangling his Splitting Horse Spear, and looked like it was about to enter his chest.
Li Yuanji displayed his quick wit and skill in this mortal danger, escape alive situation; he leaped up to retreat, with his back facing the bridge, revealing a gap leading to the cabin door.
Kou Zhong shouted loudly, the Moon in the Well turned into ten thousand streaks of light, he attacked Luo Shixin and a group of Dark Armored Celestial Soldiers, sending them falling to the east and skewing to the west, so that they were unable to coordinate with the enemy on the other side to form a battle array to block the cabin door.
Ba Fenghan let out a long whistle, he charged faster ahead, the Stealing the Heaven Sword producing ‘Chi! Chi!’ sword qi noise, four Dark Armored Warriors who wanted to rush from the left side to seal the door splashed their blood and fell down.
‘Bang!’ There was a m.u.f.fled explosion as the door was all split up and in pieces, he broke it like a thin piece of paper and entered inside.
Xu Ziling and Kou Zhong followed closely behind him. As the two entered the door, they simultaneously struck backhandedly, shocking Pang Yu and another Dark Armored Warrior, who came to pursue – back.
Inside the corridor, which was completely empty and deserted, Ba Fenghan sprinted at full speed. There were tightly closed cabin doors on both sides, the end of the corridor was the exit and the wooden stairs leading to the lower level.
Obviously, Li Shimin’s side did not expect that they would have the chance to break into the cabin. Apart from the sailors operating the ship in the middle cabin and lower levels, all hands were deployed in various strategic positions on the upper deck, therefore, when they entered the hold of the ship, not only they gained the s.p.a.ce and the time to take a breath, momentarily the enemies were unable to grasp their position even more. And the biggest headache for the enemy was that they could either escape from the exit at the other end, they could also escape via the lower level of the fore hold of the ship, or even leisurely run away from any window of the dozens of cabins lining the two levels of decks. In other words, the enemy could no longer trap them completely, the initiative had been won back into their hands.
‘Boom!’
Ba Fenghan dashed directly to the other end of the corridor and broke out, the enemy still had not rushed to seal this exit yet, the three came to the deck between the forward and middle cabins where from the hatch overhead they could see the mast and the sail covered the sky; immediately they were overcome with a bizarre feeling of penetrating deep into the important place inside the enemy’s ship.
The Dark Armored Warriors swarmed in from four sides, eight directions, their number was uncountable, they only knew that once they were entangled, no matter how outstanding their martial art skill was, their ending would be no different from falling into an ant hole, there was no way to get out, and then by the time the enemy main force, comprising of martial art masters – caught up with them, they would undoubtedly die.
The main cabin was only two zhang away from the forward cabin, two levels up from the deck, located right in the middle of the huge warship. The tallest main mast was rising up from the middle of the cabin.
How could Ba Fenghan dare to tarry the slightest bit? The Stealing the Heaven Sword moved left and right, after slashing and forcing two enemies to retreat, he continued to attack forward. Although the Dark Armored Celestial Soldiers were under the three men’s full-strength violent attack and fierce strike, they persevered and did not withdraw; on the contrary, there were more and more of them coming to attack, one fell down, the next followed, so that the three were under layer upon layer of heavy siege.
Gusts of wind came from behind and above them. Without looking back, the three knew that the enemy’s martial art masters have arrived.
Ba Fenghan roared, the man followed the sword.
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling were well aware that this was the moment that would decide whether they would die in battle or they would successfully escape; thereupon they threw aside all misgivings and charged forcefully ahead.
Flesh and blood splattered, none of those who blocked their way did not fall and collapse, but the three also did not know how many wounds were added onto their bodies. They entirely relied on the true qi protecting their body, ingeniously deflecting force and dodging, withstanding the enemy’s weapons’ unavoidable swift strikes.
‘Bang!’
Ba Fenghan broke through the door to the center cabin, and entered another safety zone. None of the three was not covered in dripping blood from head to toes; they took advantage of this brief moment of the blink of an eye before reaching the other end of the exit to apply their qi to stop the bleeding and to recover.
‘Bang!’
The other end of the cabin door opened, the Dark Armored Celestial Soldiers, like wolves and tigers, swarmed into the cabin, completely sealing the path ahead. For a moment there was no way out at the front, and there were pursuing troops behind them.
This moment the three crossed over the middle section of the corridor. They stooped down at the same time and sprang up. Wooden board shattered, the upper-level deck was split open, they reached a big cabin hall that was gorgeously furnished but not a soul was in sight.
Li Yuanji, Li Nantian, and Mei Xun were the first to appear on the deck toward the bow outside the cabin hall. The former shouted loudly, “Where do you think you are going?”
Ba Fenghan laughed aloud and replied, “Where is it that I cannot go?”
Just before the three entered the hall, Ba Fenghan, Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling already slipped out the window of the cabin at the aft of the ship, and rolled down toward the open-air platform outside the hall. ‘Chi! Chi!’ arrows and darts split the air. From the Dark Armored Warriors guarding the aft cabin, the stern, and the observation platform under the mast and the sail, hundreds of arrows were shot at them.
The three promptly shot up, they soared at an angle to evade the arrows and darts, and clung to the sail mast at the aft, only to see that the deck underneath was full of the enemy. Not daring to linger, they borrowed the force to fly and throw themselves toward the stern.
By this time the huge warship already moved to the middle of the river, the aft was directly facing the northern bank, there was approximately twenty zhang distance to the sh.o.r.e. Ba Fenghan had a brainwave, he suddenly shouted ahead, “I’ll take care of the first half, you guys take care of the second half.”
Hearing that, the two boys understood tacitly; their spirit greatly aroused, they promptly agreed.
The stern was the place where the enemy’s strength was the weakest. On one hand, it was because the martial art masters, the enemy’s main force have not caught up, furthermore, it was because the guards at the stern had just been split up to reinforce the front, so that this place was void of military strength.
The three men barely touched the deck, they immediately made their move with all their strength, killing their way to open up a path, straight toward the stern.
Behind them Li Yuanji and so on, leading their martial art masters and fighters, charged like a tide, but they were one step too late.
Ba Fenghan’s pair of feet stepped on the edge of the ship, he bent both knees, and concentrated his power to his legs.
Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling raised their qi to lighten their body, they separately grabbed Ba Fenghan’s left and right arms.
Ba Fenghan let out a long laughter and said, “Qi w.a.n.g, no need to see us off!”
Exerting his strength to his feet, he carried Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling soaring high into the air, straight into the night sky eight zhang over and above the tail of the warship. When it looked like they were about to fall, it was Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling’s turn to ascend; they grabbed and pulled him to drop at the northern bank, across the surface of the river, and disappeared in the darkness by the sh.o.r.e.
By the time Li Yuanji and the others pursued to the stern, they could only groan without being able to do anything.
Before the event, they had never thought that the three men would be able to charge their way from the bow of the ship all the way to the stern, and then flee to the opposite bank of the river.