Yang Anzhi watched the hall full of corpses. The Dragon Gate Sect’s inheritance had actually been severed under his hands within the turn of an eye.
All because Li Qingshan had been a weakling in his eyes back then. To deal with a weakling wasn’t called provocation, it was called grasping. Only today, he had become the object of grasping instead.
Yang Anzhi had actually escaped from death by clashing swords with Little An. He’d avoided Li Qingshan’s full-powered charge at the right time, otherwise Li Qingshan had some confidence he could have seen what color his heart was painted with, relying on the wide range of his moves. Meanwhile, Little An had first killed a dozen persons on his way before sending Yang Anzhi’s treasured sword flying. He had been an arrow at the end of its flight and hadn’t been able to recover in such a short time.
“Dad, save me!” Yang Jun didn’t have a single shred of his arrogant and threatening att.i.tude left as he watched the two “monsteres” almost within reach. He stretched out his hands toward Yang Anzhi and begged for help with a face full of fear.
Yang Anzhi didn’t manifest the slightest intent of stopping his steps as he skimmed like smoke toward the rear of the hall. He could birth another son, but there was only one of his life. It was indeed like a warrior severing his wrist to save his life, truly ruthless.
Yang Jun became instantly desperate. He closed his eyes and felt a strong gale rush his way, but there wasn’t any sense of pain. He opened his eyes and saw Li Qingshan and Little An brush past his body and chase straight after Yang Anzhi, not even sparing him a glance.
Yang Anzhi’s movement technique was outstanding. It would be difficult to catch up to him once he fled far away.
Yang Jun disregarded his heavy clothes soaked through with cold sweat and immediately moved his legs after escaping from the great catastrophe, dashing madly outside, repeatedly harping inside his heart: I will definitely take revenge! I will definitely take revenge!
“Puff!” A bone hand inserted itself into his back and ran him through. Yang Jun watched his chest with disbelief, still going forward a few steps before falling onto the floor with a “bang.”
It was originally Little An who saw he wanted to escape. He’d swung his left arm, the bony arm flying out like a concealed weapon and killing him.
The bone arm flew toward the rear of the hall as if under the influence of an invisible traction.
Behind the great hall was precisely the Dragon Gate Sect’s Ancestor Hall that enshrined the portraits of the successive suzerains of the Dragon Gate Sect. The first suzerain’s portrait was the biggest one, close to 10 feet, a tall swordsman painted on it holding the Soaring Dragon Sword and overlooking the entire Ancestor Hall with an indifferent expression.
Legends said he saw bandits running rampant and ma.s.sacring the innocent when he came to Suncheer. He’d killed his way inside the den of brigands all by himself and killed them to the last. He had been nicknamed “Soaring Dragon Swordsman.” His rise to fame shared a little similar tune with Li Qingshan. The common folks and the n.o.bles of Suncheer were all deeply grateful and invited him to stay, thus he established a sect on the Dragon Gate mountain and pa.s.sed down his martial learning, founding this “Dragon Gate Sect.”
But he’d probably never envisioned the present scene. No, perhaps he’d imagined it. The Dragon Gate Sect’s secret pa.s.sage was built precisely behind the offering table under his portrait. One only needed to drill inside to pa.s.s through the belly of the mountain and escape from lethal danger to an exit known to no one. This was Yang Anzhi’s goal.
Yang Anzhi self-confidence in his movement technique was under continuous a.s.sault from the sound of the wind coming increasingly nearer behind him. In the next moment, he would share the same outcome as those disciples and elders in the great hall.
There was no telling if his state of mind had become chaotic due to his fear, but he actually yelled out loud, “Ancestral master save my life!”
Li Qingshan immediately took back the hand turned into claws he had probed toward the center of Yang Anzhi’s back. He worried Yang Anzhi had a trump card exceeding ordinary martial artists just like Xiong Xiangwu. The way he saw it with his present experience, goods belonging to the category of spiritual devices or means resembling daoist magic weren’t uncommon in this world.
Those means may be very weak, or they may also be very strong. There was no way to be certain in advance.
Indeed, a small consecrated sword on the offering table suddenly lit up with bright light and stabbed through the air toward Li Qingshan before Yang Anzhi’s voice had even fallen.
Even if this small sword radiated with glorious light, one could still see at a glance it was a wooden sword under the golden lacquer. But it radiated astonishing sword light at this moment, brightly lighting the whole of the pitch black Ancestor Hall under its shine as it turned into a golden beam of rainbow.
The sword was still several dozen feet away but Li Qingshan already felt a little stabbing pain between his eyebrows. Another feeling rose inside him, as if he would be unable to avoid the pierce of this sword no matter how he tried to dodge.
Yang Anzhi relaxed somewhat. This was an untold secret only known by the successive Dragon Gate Sect suzerains. When their first ancestor had pa.s.sed away, he hadn’t left a corpse behind but just this small sword. This was absolutely what the taoists called “weapon remains1.” The then head disciple, also Yang Anzhi’s ancestor, had once been exhorted to worship this sword every day without slack. They could summon its help in case of invasion by a strong enemy and turn peril into safety, but it could only be used once.
Although Yang Anzhi had also followed suit and worshiped it for several decades, he originally didn’t believe this rumor. He’d also examined this small sword; it was but the most ordinary of wooden swords, and any iron sword would cleave it into two halves.
But at the same time he didn’t dare not believe either. He’d already thought about how to put it to use. But then he thought about the Iron Fist Gate and Horse Rein Village joining force together with those soldiers commanded by the county; they would inevitably launch a large scale attack on the mountain. What kind of decisive role a sword that could only be used once could play when a thousand men were rushing up. It had to come to this crisis of life and death before he finally gave it a desperate try. It actually truly succeeded.
Li Qingshan also knew he couldn’t meet it frontally. His body flipped around high in the air. That small sword seemed to be possessed of spiritual intelligence and twisted itself in the middle of its flight, producing the fierce hiss of breaking through air. With a “sou,” it once again flung itself like lightning toward Li Qingshan. Li Qingshan felt the sensation become fiercer on the spot between his eyebrows as the cold air blew on his face.
A sword suddenly swept over, stabbing on the small sword’s blade. Little An had acted to rescue Li Qingshan. This sword strike of his was fully sufficient to pierce metal and stab through stone, but not only it couldn’t break this small wooden sword, he instead felt a tremendous power transmit his way along with the sword blade. The Soaring Dragon Sword that could shave iron as if b.u.t.ter disintegrated into countless pieces that fired out in every direction, while Little An was also sent out bombing, crashing into a column.
The small sword merely suffered a slight dimming of its sword light. After a slight pause it once again stabbed toward Li Qingshan, vowing not to rest before taking his life.
Li Qingshan had already retreated to the corner of the hall. He took advantage of the additional timing Little An had earned for him and opened the [Cursive Sword Script] after pulling it out. He poured his true qi inside without regard for anything else.
A “brush stroke” lit up at this moment when life and death hung by a thread. It fired out a swift sword light that clashed together with the small sword resplendent with golden light.
No sound that could be called gigantic came, there was only a ring of spiritual light spreading out inside the hall, like a small sun suddenly risen.
But Li Qingshan felt as if the hum of thunder was ringing against his ears. A trace of fresh blood flowed out from his ears.
The rays of light vanished very fast. The portraits of the Dragon Gate Sect suzerains turned into dust one after another and scattered in the air, likewise for the clothes on Li Qingshan’s body. On closer examination, there were thousands and ten thousands of sword scars fine as oxen hairs left on the walls and the floor.
The small broken sword had released sword qi fragments shaped like sword tips, soundlessly piercing through everything in the great hall.
Even Li Qingshan stayed dumbstruck witnessing this level of power. The flying sword’s might had left a deep impression in his mind.
Yang Anzhi had originally been keeping guard at the mouth of the secret pa.s.sageway already. He immediately turned around and drilled inside the secret pa.s.sage after seeing the a.s.sa.s.sination’s failure. Then he triggered the mechanism and lowered a huge rock of several hundred thousand pounds, sealing the mouth of the secret pa.s.sage. There was no need to even think about chasing behind him.
Li Qingshan had been forced into a corner of the hall while Little An had crashed into a column, so no one could attend to him during this short time. It looked like he was about to make his escape.
1. The author is probably twisting/doing a wordplay on Chinese legends as usual. From my understanding, “weapon remains” can be a generic term for when a taoist dies from a weapon. Some legends call “weapon remains” when a taoist is beheaded so he can discard his mortal flesh and ascend to the heavens, or when a taoist kills himself after failing a heavenly tribulation for example so he can return to his primordial soul and seek another body.