Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 143. White Guard’s Lieutenant.
“To the right, follow me!” Jasmine ordered, suppressing the storm of thoughts that was invading her mind. She could think about what in the world had happened later, after she made sure that the three of them wouldn’t perish here. “I hope they can do a sharp turn at this speed,” the thought crossed her mind as she pointed the new direction with her hand, then leaned her body heavily to the right and pulled the reins in the same way. Her steed responded without hesitation and threw his weight to the right while plowing the ground with his hooves. The steed and the rider thus made a very sharp, almost one hundred and eighty degrees turn without losing much speed at all.
“How are those two?” Jasmine glanced over her shoulder immediately after straightening her path. However, it looked like she had worried for nothing. Although the two boys weren’t as skillful as she was and their war horses weren’t as suited to rapid changes in directions, they still managed to follow her well enough not to fall behind too much. “Good. With that, we’ve got a good chance of getting out of this without any reckless life-or-death desperation stands,” she thought to herself, at the same time looking at the five hundred and fifty riders who stubbornly followed after them.
“If anything, they must have been told to take us alive,” she thought contentedly. It was a big help that no long-distance magic was being hurled at them at each step. It wasn’t easy to kill a war horse like the ones Laien and Yin were riding, so their pursuers likely saw it as too risky given that the riders were still children. However, it also suggested that whoever had leaked the information to them couldn’t have been too high in the Ruishian hierarchy as had they known about Laien and Yin’s battle prowess, they wouldn’t have hesitated to attempt and cripple their horses with magic.
“Oho, there is the remaining hundred,” Jasmine laughed in her heart. She had taken this direction while expecting the other side of the field to be manned up with more ambushers and it looked like her guess had been spot on. “Still, it doesn’t look like we will be able to break through without clashing with those two fifty-man units,” she recognized and clicked her tongue.
Whoever those people attacking them were, the coordination they had shown so far was flawless and they left no opening she could exploit during this chase. They steadily closed onto them with not one of the five units getting ahead of themselves and breaking the formation to attack them before the time was right. As it was, it could be said that the three of them had been doomed to be caught the moment they chose to ride through this path.
“What do we do?” Laien asked from behind. Up until now, they had been unable to confirm the cultivation level of those who were chasing them, but the fact that all of them were able to keep up suggested that they were being chased by elites. After all, none else would be allowed to ride the top-quality horses on their missions; loaning them to lower-level troops would be meaningless and would serve no purpose, at least in a situation like this one.
“That’s a good question,” Jasmine responded with a laugh. However, what she was thinking about was different from what Laien and Yin had on their minds. “Tell me, are you two up for a bit of danger or would you rather we retreat to the Ruishi Federation?” she asked, using the minute or of the time they had before their path would cross with two of the fifty-man groups that were closing onto them from the front, both from left and right in a careful manner that left no opening.
Hearing Jasmine’s question, Laien and Yin hesitated for a second. Would they be willing to return to the Ruishi Federation with nothing? They wouldn’t be enthusiastic about it, but their answer depended on what Jasmine’s plan was. “What’s your plan?” Laien asked a second later, without answering Jasmine’s question.
“I’ll deal with those guys here,” Jasmine said with a rather bloodthirsty smile on her face, which the boys regrettably couldn’t see. “Meanwhile, you two can either continue to the Holy Union or go back to the Ruishi Federation. The choice is yours, but do make it within twenty seconds,” she said with a laugh. With the majority of Yimar Maar’s forces tied up in the Faren Yimarate, attempting to keep Mustafa and the bulk of the White Guard separated from the Ruishi Federation, it was already very strange for such a large number of elites to be sent after the three of them without anyone noticing. Yet, it also meant that if those guys were dealt with, there would likely be no further reinforcement.
However, Laien and Yin needed to think this thing through on their own as there simply wasn’t enough time for her to explain. The three top-experts on the enemy side, Yimar Maar, Abdain, and Arakar, were definitely far away from them along with their own experts. That much had been confirmed with a one hundred percent certainty, so she trusted that those two wouldn’t be in that much of a danger as long as she held back this bunch and prevented them from giving chase.
“…. Risky, but,” Laien thought with a helpless smile. By this point, they were just about as far from the Holy Union as the Ruishi Federation. Since they had been ambushed here, their enemies likely knew about them beforehand. “It’s risky, but it’s still better than going back,” he assumed silently and could tell that Yin was agreeing with him.
The two of them had noticed it strange that no magic was being thrown at them, so those people probably wanted to capture them and not kill them. Moreover, if they were in their enemies’ shoes, what possibility would they guard against? Them breaking through the encirclement and running back to the Ruishi Federation or attempting to stubbornly get to the Holy Union? As far as the two of them were concerned, the former option was more likely in their pursuers’ eyes.
“We go north,” Laien said confidently about ten seconds after Jasmine posed the choice before him and Yin. “We need to shake those guys off anyway, so it doesn’t matter if we go north or south,” he added and at the same time, shifted his hold of the reins to a one-handed one while taking out his spear. Thinking and making decisions was nice, but they were about to crash with those one hundred riders who were closing off the path in front of them. They needed to focus!
“Got it,” Jasmine said very contentedly. “Grab it,” she said and flicked an interspatial ring behind her, throwing it straight at Laien. Then, she stored the reins away into her interspatial ring and took out her two scimitars, rousing her Qi before the battle. Was she nervous? Sure, she worried if Laien and Yin were going to be fine. However, as long as the two of them got away, then everything would be just fine.
Having hastily grabbed the interspatial ring, Laien stored it away without inspecting its contents. He suspected that it contained things like a sigil of Makarash and of the Ruishi Federation’s along with the proposed version of an alliance between the two and the Holy Union, but confirming that would need to wait for later. He quickly exchanged a glance with Yin, who by now had also armed himself with his twin swords. The two of them nodded at each other, coming to a silent agreement. If possible, they would flee towards the Holy Union but if not, then they wouldn’t think twice to turn back instead of risking their lives to fight off their pursuers.
“Get more behind me!” Jasmine ordered in the last seconds before the clash. She could hear that the two boys were getting too far to the sides as they followed behind her and she appreciated that they wanted to help with breaking through, but there was no need for that. Those hundred riders were doing a good job of preventing the three of them from dashing to either side and extending the chase, but due to that, they weren’t guarding the middle heavily enough! They either didn’t know that it was her who was accompanying those two or were underestimating her. Either way, they were going to pay dearly for their mistake.
With the two dozen grey-robed riders directly ahead of them, rousing their Qi, Laien and Yin still obeyed Jasmine’s order without arguing. If anything, the two of them were aware of what the extent of Jasmine’s abilities was and they knew that if they got entangled into the battle here, they would only be getting in her away. Because of that, they concentrated on making it through the path that Jasmine would undoubtedly pave for them and indeed, Jasmine didn’t betray their expectations.
The two of them saw how she pushed herself up off her saddle and just as they were about to ride into the group of grey-robed riders, they saw her leap forward with a light step against her horse’s back. Then, to their amazement, they saw her strike out with both of her scimitars and release dozens of the tongues of fire all around her as she twisted her body in the mid-air. They could tell that individually, those tongues weren’t all that powerful, but the speed at which Jasmine released them and their sheer number was incredible in its own right!
And the grey-robed riders were equally surprised, apparently not having known that someone at Jasmine’s level would be included in the small group of messengers. The two dozen of them defended themselves with their Qi and their weapons, but to their shock, they discovered that the flaming tongues kept twisting unpredictably, almost as if they were alive. Before they could do anything, the flames struck their mounts, either burning their heads to a crisp or ravaging their vulnerable legs, causing the horses to neigh pitifully as they fell to the ground one after another.
Yet, towards the back-end of the two dozen riders, things didn’t go as smoothly as two men slashed out with their swords. One using a fire-element martial art and the other using a wind-element martial art, they easily struck down the approaching tongues of fire. At the first moment, they intended to follow up with an attack against the three incoming horses; after all, this chase would be as good as over once those three lost their mounts and from so close-up, they didn’t need to worry about accidentally killing those two kids. Alas, they were forced to change their plans when they saw Jasmine kick at the ground and dash straight at them at a speed that far exceeded common sense.
“That woman, is she really just a martial master of the fifth rank just like the two of us?” one of the men asked himself while putting up his defenses. He could tell what level Jasmine’s Qi was at, but she had sped up further even after her momentum was already so great! Was he supposed to believe that a marital master of the fifth rank was capable of achieving bursts of speed of over five hundred kilometers per hour without using a movement art? Still, he couldn’t deny what he could see with his own eyes!
The next instant, Jasmine exchanged lightning-quick blows with the two strongest of the nearby riders. She didn’t slow down for a second and didn’t entangle herself with them, though she couldn’t help but laugh inwardly when the two men backed off when her tongues of fire threatened to slaughter their horses. Using a powerful martial technique required at least some time to gather Qi, but they had missed their only chance early on, probably because they didn’t want to get Laien and Yin swept up in their attacks.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Amta!” she shouted as she jumped slightly to the side, just as her horse was passing her through. It was just one word, but the stallion seemed to have understood her as it sped forward without slowing down in the slightest. The next split-second, Laien and Yin also rushed through the opening and left the grey-robed riders behind, at least for the moment.
“Don’t let them get away!” one of the martial masters of the fifth rank shouted to his subordinates. Ever since they had escaped from the Faren Yimarate, they were unable to secure a good position for themselves in the Yimar Maar’s court. If they failed to capture the messengers now despite their overwhelming numerical superiority, they would never be able to get into the man’s good grace!
However, how could Jasmine possibly stand by and watch the remaining seventy or eighty riders give chase while doing nothing? Even before the man finished his shouting, she had already gouged the ground and changed directions in the blink of an eye. Using the opportunity of their pursuers standing around in place after their initial clash made their two groups stop in their tracks, she jumped straight into one of the groups. Accompanied by the pained cried of the horses, she dashed while maintaining a very low stance and crippling the mounts with her tongues of fire.
“Stop her!”
“Aah!”
“My legs…!”
The forty or so riders were instantly thrown into a disarray. Even though they weren’t weak by any means and there was a fair number of marital masters of the fourth rank amongst them, they were unable to as much as attack the woman that jumped and dashed amongst their ranks. Those weaker of them even found themselves be targeted along with the mounts as their legs and lower bodies were either slashed by Jasmine’s scimitars or charred by the tongue-like whips of flames.
“Damned whore!” the two marital masters cursed. They had only finished ordering their men to chase after those two brats, but in those mere seconds, half of their subordinates had been rendered useless! They understood that they couldn’t allow that woman to run amok freely, so they dismounted and chased after her together. Yet, just as they thought Jasmine was about to engage them, they found themselves by attacked by those annoying tongues of fire and had her jump above their heads, then run past them!
They wanted to give chase, but the dead horses and their own men were in the way and they couldn’t exactly use any large-scale martial techniques to attack Jasmine. As such, they could only futilely chase after Jasmine’s back as she first killed the two horses they left behind and then dug her way into the remaining forty of their mounted men, who were just speeding up to chase after those two escaping brats.
“Slow, slow, slow!” Jasmine laughed in her heart as she leaped into the air, her blood boiling as she could finally enjoy a true, unrestrained battle! She twisted her body and swept horizontally with her leg, smashing into the torso of one of the riders in the back. The unlucky marital master of the third rank didn’t notice that he was in danger until the last second, so he failed to put up any meaningful guard. As a result, his ribs were crushed into hundreds of pieces as his chest caved in under the force of Jasmine’s kick. He was sent flying out of the saddle with half a breath of life left in him, serving as nothing more than a foothold for Jasmine who propelled herself forward.
“Slow, weak, stupid!” she berated, not even aware that she was laughing out loud with an excited and bloodthirsty smile on her face. She spun her body in mid-air and kicked downwards, smashing the head of another of the grey-robed riders into a bloody mush. Simultaneously, she kicked off from his dead body and assaulted another group of the men, this time using her scimitars and martial arts to slaughter the weaker bunch of them along with their horses. In but one attack, she sent ten of them to the grave and killed twice as many of the horses. She laughed again, ecstatic to fight freely and without any restrictions, without anyone she needed to stand ground and protect!
Seeing their comrades slaughtered by the laughing madwoman, the remaining riders were too frightened to think about chasing Laien and Yin. They started splitting up and speeding sideways, but Jasmine wasn’t planning on letting even one of them go! Everything was going just too perfect, so she was going to reduce the number of potential pursuers by as much as she could when the opportunity was presented to her on the silver platter!
“Ateş!” she exclaimed, using the brief moment of pause as she was chasing after the few people who were still riding ahead to make use of her favorite spell. Spiritual energy overflowed from her body and joined with the natural energy in the air, transforming into a wave of flames which she sent towards the group of riders that were fleeing to her right. She could tell that their bunch was weakest out of the three sub-groups that were left, so she saw her one-words spell to be enough to disable them, what was soon proven true as the seven men screamed in pain as their bodies were burned and as their horses were charred to death below them.
“Now it’s your turn!” Jasmine yelled while kicking the ground and catching up to the galloping horses. The five men who faced her demon-like self were terrified, some of them screaming out in fear and some trying to attack her. Yet, they were so uncoordinated and so frightened that despite their high cultivation bases, they were all killed by Jasmine one after another.
The first two of them were cut down alongside their horses as Jasmine slashed from below, cutting through both the horses and their lower bodies and charring all the flesh she was cutting through in the process. The next one of them had his head sliced in half by one of Jasmine’s scimitars after she dodged his fire-element martial technique and leaped into the air above him. His corpse was then used by Jasmine as a foothold as she jumped at the remaining two men, first killing their mounts and then in a few quick attacks first slashing off their limbs, then cutting them down for good.
“Now, where are you going, huh?!” She yelled after the eight riders that were fleeing towards one of the three remaining fifty-man groups. She didn’t even spare a glance at the two fire-element marital masters of the fifth rank as she gave chase, her running speed quickly overwhelming that of the galloping horses. As long as it wasn’t a run that was a thousand kilometers long, then a speed-oriented superior martial master like her would be able to easily outrun a horse!
At this point, Jasmine’s actions might have seemed unreasonable, but even though she appeared to have given in to the bloodlust, she didn’t lose her ability to reason in the slightest. Dealing with those two martial masters of the fifth rank? She could do it, but it would take too much of the precious time! She was always weak against those of the same element; she would probably need about twenty seconds to kill them both. In this case, it wasn’t worth it. She would rather attack and tie down those three groups while they were still close together! To her, the worst case scenario would be if those three groups split up and all gave chase after Laien and Yin, so she wanted to give them as little time to plan and think as possible.
“Fuck…!” the two men cursed. Before leaving, Jasmine had killed all of the horses in their two units and even though about forty of their men were still alive, they wouldn’t be able to go after those two kids! The two of them wouldn’t be able to keep up with those horses either; it was only a freak like Jasmine who could easily reach and maintaining running speeds exceeding that of a galloping mount! They felt terrible, but all they could do was to chase Jasmine on feet and hope that they could still be of some use to their companions. After all, even though Jasmine’s speed wasn’t something they could contend with, they still didn’t think that they would be absolutely hopeless in a fight against her; they could at least be of some use to their friends and allies!
“Amazing,” Laien said while looking over his shoulder. She knew that Jasmine had been unable to display her true abilities in the battle against Yimar Furi due to many circumstances that stacked against her, but he didn’t think she had been suppressed to this extent! Now it seemed that she had been unable to display even one-third of her full battle potential back then! To think that her abilities would shine so bright when she was allowed to fight in her usual way!
“Yeah, she’s really strong,” Yin supported with a smile. Seeing as everything had turned out this way, maybe the two of them should have stayed behind after all? Or maybe they should even turn around at this point? If the two of them joined forces with Jasmine, they might just be able to slaughter all of those riders. Then, there would be no need for them to flee and travel or lead negotiations without Jasmine. However, even though he was thinking so, Yin wasn’t about to suggest this idea.
Obviously, though, there was no need for him to intend anything for those thought to be shared with Laien, who in turn provided his own opinion.
“Mm, I agree, let’s leave it to Jasmine,” Laien said with a smile. They didn’t know if there weren’t more cannon-fodder people waiting in the area, so staying in one place and engaging those riders in a prolonged fight would be the worst choice they could make. Jasmine could surely flee with her abilities if she found herself unable to win, but if the two of them were added to the mix, they would be nothing but a burden to her in such a case. They were strong, true, but this time around they would provide more help to Jasmine by staying away and listening to her orders than playing heroes.
At the same time, a few kilometers away, a similar conversation between two grey-robed men was going on.
“The Death Reaper,” the short-haired man complained with an ugly look on his face. “Yimar didn’t mention that we’d need to deal with this old beast of Mustafa’s. Even if the two of us fight together, elder brother, we might not be able to defeat her,” he said with a sigh. The abilities of the two of them were definitely suitable enough to allow them to run away from the famed Death Reaper, but actually winning against her was an entirely different matter. The two of them were still merely thirty-something-year-olds; they didn’t have nearly enough experience to fight her on her conditions.
“Mhm.” The long-haired man nodded. “I’d say we’d have around thirty percent chance of killing her if we used all those trash well to exhaust her beforehand. That’s not worth it at all… let’s just leave her to those useless idiots from under Yimar Sharu’s and chase those two kids. We can hold that woman back with the rest of those idiots we’ve brought with us just in case. If the Death God kills them all in the process, it will only be doing us a favor,” he suggested with a smile, continuing the private conversation with the use of his Qi.
“Fine,” the short-haired man agreed. “Listen up!” he shouted with the aid of his Qi. “All of you hold that woman back! The moment we capture those two kids, she will surrender!” he yelled out, hold back the sarcastic bits that were trying to sneak into the tone of his voice. By this point, Jasmine was approaching quite close to their three groups already and it looked like the three unit-leaders were intending to engage her anyway, maybe to take revenge for their fallen friends or something equally stupid, so he didn’t feel like he needed to go through the trouble of threatening them.
“Yes!”
And just like he expected, the three responded positively, not suspecting that they were intending to leave them here to die either way.
Pleased with himself, the short-haired man leaped off his horse alongside his elder brother. The two of them smoothly entered a high-speed run in front of the one hundred and fifty of the grey-robed riders, then overtook them effortlessly. As the two of them got closer to Jasmine, the younger of them covered himself in a layer of wind while the older one engulfed himself in numerous sparks of lightning. Both of them equipped themselves with simple swords, then moved side by side to meet Jasmine… only to avoid her once she released her tongues of fire and to dash past her.
Making full use of the fact that their elements were highly suitable to increasing their speed, the two brothers hurriedly sped up even more and left Jasmine several hundred meters behind in the blink of an eye. In terms of running alone, they were confident that it wouldn’t be easy for Jasmine to win against the two of them, not to mention all the riders she was about to crash into.