The deserters continued to run through the vibrant forest, which had now become a bleak place of death in their eyes.

The deserters had run, rested, encountered a patrol, and then run again, this time in smaller numbers.

Running in front of the group, Zaki's hair stood on end, and he instinctively dodged to the side. He then heard a "Sou" sound and a muffled groan of pain behind him.

Looking back quickly, he noticed an Arrow lodged in the throat of the poor sod running behind him.

"Ambush!"

Someone yelled.

"sou," "sou," and "sou"

Several more arrows flew toward the group, some of which were avoided, while others pierced their targets.

Some silhouettes emerged from the overgrowth; they were fewer in number than Zaki's group, but their average cultivation level was higher.

They were the provincial guards on patrol.

Both sides charged at each other, resulting in a tumultuous battle.

Zaki charged at the nearest foe and struck out with his sword; the first strike was parried, and both sides took a step back as their strength appeared to be roughly equal.

Zaki struck out again, and both sides exchanged several blows, some of which were parried and some of which were dodged. The guard slashed diagonally, which Zaki dodged to the side and stabbed his sword into the guard's chest, killing him.

Zaki drew his sword from the guard's chest and quickly looked around him; he saw a guard fighting two deserters who were weaker than him; Zaki sprinted and slashed the guard in the back, then threw his sword at another guard, piercing the man's head.

Zaki snatched the sword from the guard he had slashed in the back and dashed toward other guards, along with the two he had assisted.

Zaki dashed past another guard, slashed the back of his neck while the guard was distracted by his opponent, and then dashed towards another guard.

The guards may have higher cultivation levels, but the deserters' numerical advantage cannot be overlooked, especially given the small difference in cultivation levels.

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A larger force will always have an advantage that will quickly snowball, especially in a small-scale chaotic battle.

Every guard Zaki killed freed the hands of a deserter, who in turn helped another deserter overwhelm his opponent, who in turn helped their other companions.

The casualties piled up for the guards, and half of them were killed. Morale quickly collapsed, and the guards fled the battle.

"Huff, huff"

In an unspoken agreement, the deserters began cleaning the battlefield, and those with more damaged or broken weapons exchanged them for the intact weapons next to the corpses of the guards...or their comrades.

Zaki approached the guard he had killed with his weapon, his thrown sword still lodged in the man's head.

Zaki reached out and pulled his sword from the man's head, but it wouldn't budge. So he put one of his legs on the dead guard's head and pulled the sword with both hands, and it broke with a crisp sound.

"Well, shit"

Zaki examined it for a moment before placing his broken sword beneath his belt. He then unfastened the guard's scabbard to sheath the intact sword he had picked up during the battle. He then strapped the scabbard to his belt and began walking towards another body.

The other body was that of the first person killed on the battlefield, the victim of an arrow to the throat.

Zaki looked at the man with the arrow lodged in his throat; the arrow had been so powerful that more than half of the shaft had gone through, leaving only the feathered end sticking out.

The man died instantly, his eyes wide open, as if he saw the arrow but couldn't dodge it.

He was hit by the arrow because he was behind Zaki, and when Zaki dodged it, the guy didn't have time to block or dodge it.

Zaki then removed the arrow from the man's neck and closed his eyes with his bloodied hand.

"...sorry"

If someone had told Zaki a month ago that he would kill a bunch of people, search their bodies, and step on a corpse's head to pull a sword while feeling no discomfort, Zaki would have called him a psycho.

But that's exactly what happened today, as well as several other times in the last two weeks.

Zaki was first thrown onto a battlefield that was a literal meat grinder for weaklings like him. A cultivator's single spell could either burn a group of people to a crisp, chop them into mincemeat, or simply blow them to bits!

He and his group were attacked by provincial guard patrols after escaping from that hell. He had gotten into so many fights and killed so many people that he had become desensitized to it all.

All of these events happened so quickly that he can't even remember his first kill, or if he did, he didn't have time to think about it!

Zaki stood up and turned to face the group.

The deserters had switched weapons by this point and had taken whatever coin or valuable the corpses had on them.

The battle lasted only five minutes from start to finish, with the battle lasting three minutes and the cleanup taking another two minutes.

"We must leave before the ones who fled return with their friends!"

Zaki exclaimed loudly.

The group then walked away from the corpses, gradually increasing their speed.

The deserters had lost a third of their group in this three-minute battle, and given that the injured would most likely fall behind, the group would most likely be reduced to half its original size by nightfall.