Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 154. Breakthrough.
Around eight to nine hours after the sunrise, an hour or two after the noon, the thousand ruby-golden-robed experts emerged from beyond the south-western horizon. Yet, even though it had been only them who set out five hours ago, thousands more people started appearing from the west. The mass was clothed in a random and rough military fashion, looking nothing like the various relatively uniform-clothed regular experts of the Guode Yimarate. On the first glance, they were mercenaries.
There was no way that any mercenary band would agree to fight against the White Guard and even Yimar Maar was aware of it given his own background. However, now that Abdain had spread the news that whoever captures Arslan for him would receive ten thousand platinum coins and had made it known that the boy wasn’t protected by many White Guards, the sell-swords were tempted.
“All in all,” Abdain said from atop his horse. “Three groups of thirty-six experts roaming about, one group of thirty-six protecting the kid and three White Guards in the area. It looks like the Guild was saying the truth when it told us of the alliance between Makarash and the Ruishi Federation… those aren’t your regular mercenaries, the air is different,” he explained with a smile, then turned his eyes to the few command-suited subordinates of his which he had taken with himself.
“As we discussed, I’ll be leaving the overall course of the battle to you. I’ve told you the main points of what I expect from you. There’s no point in me trying to manage the details when I’ll need to do the fighting, so everything’s in your hands. Do not fail me,” he said calmly, more for the sake of cautioning his people than anything else. Although there were situations where his subordinates failed him, like during the chase of those two kids, he understood that some failures were inevitable. He had always done everything in his strength to raise his subordinates to a satisfactory level, so what would be the point of having them if he couldn’t trust them with any important task?
“Yes, Master,” the five men and three women replied readily. Perhaps they sensed the confidence Abdain had in them, but they renewed their silent vows to give their everything in order to meet Abdain’s expectations. To them, living as a part of Abdain’s core army was an incredible stroke of luck as their Master was one of the few fair and just high-ranked people they had ever known of. One would be punished for slacking and rewarded for working hard under Abdain. It might seem like a normal and obvious thing to implement, but as Arkarians, those people knew how rare it was.
“I’m going first then. Let’s feel them out,” Abdain said with an excited, but at the same time a relatively level-headed laugh. He enjoyed battle and was prone to fall into a battle-rage, but his mentality was mature enough to allow him to control himself when needed. As pleasant as he was sure it would be to fight crazily, his task was far too important to risk a failure.
“Forty-three hours… counting the time to deliver the news, forty-hours left,” he thought in silence as he looked at the overall area their two parties were about to fight at. “First things first, I have to probe how much strength the Ruishi Federation lent to Mustafa’s kid. We stopped the messengers to the Holy Union, so the only variable is that accused secluded mountain country… the worst of the worst would be if those bastards chose to send reinforcements the moment the kid finds himself in peril. I hope we didn’t forget anything important as we talked it all over on the way here,” he mused, trying to figure out if there wasn’t something that he was missing.
For some reason, he had a strong sense that there still was something important he had overlooked. However, no matter how much he cracked his head over it, he couldn’t come up with anything. In the end, he could only resign himself to being more careful than usual. “That is that, but… this one sure isn’t even trying to hide himself, eh? What an amazing killing intent, it gives me chills,” he thought to himself, a smile slowly emerging on his face. As he recalled, that golden-haired man who was brimming with murderous aura was Reian, the prime candidate for the next Captain Commander of Makarash. Reian’s head was truly worthy to be added to his collection!
“Is it because I killed that woman?” he wondered, waiting for his men and the mercenaries to get into the positions before doing anything. “As far as we know, this guy used to be the Death Reaper’s student. He should have been traveling with her for the past month, too. No wonder he’s furious,” he mused, wondering if he wouldn’t be able to make good use of this fact. Fighting fair and square was nice and all, but in war, the only thing that ultimately mattered was victory and defeat.
“Are they about done with preparations?” he asked himself impatiently. He had been taught a painful lesson by Mustafa’s White Guard and now, he realized that it would be him and his handful of elites that would play the main role in this battle. The elites of the Ruishi Federation were likely not inferior to the members of the White Guard, after all. Thus, all he needed the majority of his men and all those mercenaries for was to block Arslan’s path of retreat.
“It would have been far simpler if I wanted to kill the kid, but taking him alive will be incomparably more beneficial,” he murmured and almost felt like letting out a sigh. “I wonder if Arakar noticed? I would have asked him for some reinforcements had it not been for that,” he mused, not too sure what he was supposed to do with his remaining time. Their two forces were in a standoff as he waited for his own men to complete the half-encirclement and start getting their other tasks done. Thus, he couldn’t help it as his mind started wandering despite the fact that he was taking the brunt of Reian’s killing intent this whole time. For someone like him, who had gone through countless bloody carnages, facing a killing intent of one person was nothing much at all.
Finally, around half an hour later, Abdain received the confirmation from the messengers. His subordinates and the sell-swords were in place, while the two hundred of his best ruby-golden-robed men stood behind his back. “I’m going first. Wait for my sign before you make any unplanned moves unless you judge that the situation requires your interference immediately,” he glanced over his shoulder and instructed the two unit-commanders and their respective vice-captains.
“Yes, Master,” the four men replied in unison, in the same manner all of Abdain’s personal forces were used to doing.
“Well then,” Abdain smiled slightly and started walking towards Reian, who perhaps not so coincidentally was standing directly in-between him and Arslan’s party. He saw the three groups of thirty-six men adjust their positions immediately, preparing both to intercept him if need be and to protect their main team from the attack from the south. “They are probably thinking that I have some elaborate plan, hah,” he thought and chuckled in amusement. There weren’t many ideas he could possibly implement under those conditions and as much as he would have liked for such a thing to exist, there was no sure-fire way for him to easily dispatch of Arslan’s guards.
“Are you that angry that I killed your teacher?” he called out the moment he found himself one kilometer away from Reian. As powerful as he was, even he wouldn’t dare to venture deep into enemy lines on his own. There certainly were people capable of piercing his defense within those men, if they were allowed to get a clean hit in that was, and even if there weren’t, his Qi would soon get exhausted if he were to take on an assault of so many elites for a prolonged period of time.
“What, cat got your tongue?” he asked with a sarcastic laugh when his provocation was left with no response. However, Reian remained silent. “Don’t pretend to be calm and collected now, I’ve heard of your little rampage from a few hours ago. Don’t tell me you were actually in love with that woman? Hah, what a heartwarming story, a student falls in love with his much older teacher and they live happily ever after. Too bad it won’t be coming true, eh?” he kept going, the tone of his voice sounding nothing else but mocking and full of dark amusement.
And yet, even though he sensed the killing intent of Reian’s rise in strength, the man himself didn’t move from the spot he was occupying. “Tch, so stubborn,” Abdain complained silently. He enjoyed battle and killing, but low provocations of this kind left a sour aftertaste in his mouth. He was forcing himself to appear genuine in his contempt, but he was growing annoyed as his efforts brought no apparent results.
“Haah.” Letting out a loud sigh, one which he purposefully enhanced with Qi, Abdain shook his head and shrugged his broad shoulders helplessly. “It looks like I was wrong. You didn’t care for her all that much. Well, then you probably won’t care if I do that, either,” he said casually and towards the end, brought out Jasmine’s corpse from his interspatial ring, causing Reian’s whole body to freeze up.
He was far away, but he saw her clearly. Her clothes were in tatters, she was obviously wounded all over, but what stood out the most was the massive wound through the middle of her chest. Her body had lost most of its blood, so her skin was deathly pale; moreover, the mere act of bringing her body out of an interspatial ring was a definite enough proof. No living being could be stored in an interspatial ring, so undoubtedly, Jasmine was dead. Even though he had heard of Jasmine’s death, now that he saw her corpse, the grim reality hit him all that much harder than before.
And as if to mock those anguishing feelings that raged within him, Abdain smiled wickedly and raised his leg.
“Since you weren’t all that fond of her, you won’t care if I do that, right?” he asked again, causing Reian to realize what he was about to do. As the expression on Reian’s face turned bleak, as his mouth started opening in a soundless cry, he brought his leg down and crushed Jasmine’s shoulder into a paste, crushing bones and causing the skin and muscles to rupture.
“Stop…” the inaudible word escaped Reian’s mouth. Yet, he heard Abdain laugh and saw him raise his leg again, this time undoubtedly aiming to crush Jasmine’s head. Instantly, all the thoughts and convictions he had had in his mind disappeared, as if taken away by a wave of a magic wand. “Stop!” he yelled with the full strength of his voice and Qi, and at the same time, kicked the ground and dashed forward at an incredible speed, his body surrounded by the gusts of the Heavenly Wind.
“Finally!”
“Reian! Come back!”
The instant Reian charged at Abdain, the man himself rejoiced while Julien cried out in alarm. Alas, Reian was so infuriated that he didn’t even hear the silver-haired man’s shout. All that was in his eyes was the image of Abdain’s leg, raised above Jasmine’s head, threatening to go down at any second. If not for the last shreds of sanity that remained within him, he would have been ready to overexert himself and use the Wind Steps in order to attack Abdain as fast as possible at the cost of injuring his own body. He simply couldn’t allow it…! She was dead, he understood that, but he couldn’t allow Abdain to desecrate Jasmine’s corpse! He would kill him, he would take his revenge, he would make him pay for acting in the most despicable of the ways!
Stolen story; please report.
The distance of one kilometer wasn’t short nor long for someone at the level of a martial master of the fourth rank. Fifteen to twenty seconds would be enough for most such experts to cross it, but for someone at Reian’s level, for someone who not only had an excellent foundation but had also gained insights into a Supreme Profound Mystery, the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Wind, this distance was extremely short. In but five or six seconds, he found himself a few dozen meters away from Abdain, who in turn quickly stored away Jasmine’s corpse and took out his heavy broadsword.
The two martial masters clashed the next instant, one slashing with a sword that seemed to draw all the wind in the world towards it, the other standing in place, akin to an immovable mountain with his broadsword ready to take the blow. The two blades met with a loud steel-like sound of physical impact, followed by the elemental Qi surrounding around them scraping away at each other. The grass and dirt around the two figures rose up as the force imploded upon itself, sending the dust and rocks flying at a low level, just above the ground, carried by the force of the wind.
“Hmph!” Yet, the very next moment, not only Reian, but everyone else in the area realized that something was very wrong. With a content smile on his face, Abdain put more strength into his broadsword, ignoring the dozens of wind blades that were slashing as his body and tattering his clothes. Holding his weapon in one hand, he took half a step forward and pushed the blade against Reian’s sword with such speed and force that he lifted him up and threw him sliding across the ground for over fifty meters before Reian managed to come to an unsteady stop.
“This aura…!” Reian’s thoughts riled. However, before he could even collect himself properly, he saw Abdain pursue him at a scary speed, the ground shattering under each one of his steps. As the broadsword came sweeping towards him from above, he hurriedly dodged to the side, aiding his movements with his wind-element Qi. He was about to try and counterattack, but before he could get in range of his sword, he his spirit was overcome with an intense sense of crisis.
When he noticed what had happened, he could only twist his body slightly and try to put up a half-complete guard. He didn’t think that Abdain would pretend to be striking with all his strength with his first slash, only to forcefully stop his broadsword and sweep with it sideways. Although this kind of a maneuver would still reduce the blow’s strength by half, receiving a direct blow of any kind from someone with Abdain’s strength would always be disastrous.
And indeed, when Abdain’s broadsword hit the sword he had hurriedly moved to guard his torso, Reian felt as if he was hit by an infinitely heavy mountain. Accompanied by the sound of the bones shattering in his wrist, his blade was instantly pushed against his body. The broadsword slammed into him, mostly with its flat surface, the force of the blow pushing the powerful earth-element Qi directly into his body. With his ribs shattering into pieces, Reian did his best to use his Qi to protect his heart as his left lung was turning into a mass of shattered meat-paste. Then, the very next split-second, he was finally flung away by the force of the swipe and was blown into the air at great speed.
“Seventh rank...!” Only now did Reian’s original thought have the opportunity to flow across his mind. To think that Abdain had actually broken through to the seventh Realm of Heroes after his fight with Jasmine! This accused bastard…! “I’ve got to get away from him, there’s no way I can fight him alone,” he understood immediately. The shock of getting trashed in just one exchange proved to be very effective in bringing his sanity back, so he acted with haste in order to preserve his life.
He didn’t doubt that if he took another direct blow from Abdain, he would turn into a corpse. Thus, even before he regained his balance as his body was whistling through the air, he started accumulating as much Qi as possible in the short period of time he had left. He could sense Abdain’s aura getting closer at a rapid pace, so as the death loomed over him, he did the only thing he could think of in this situation. The moment he saw Abdain get in the range of a few meters from him, he grit his teeth and swept out with his undamaged right hand without restraint, causing all the already broken bones in his chest to crackle and dislocate even further.
However, despite worsening his wounds by yet another degree, he achieved his purpose. Directed by the movement of his hand, the vast amount of wind-element qi which he released turned into an unstoppable tempest. Given the speed of this technique, all Abdain could do was to take it head-on. Before he could strike at Reian and finish him off, he was smashed at by the raging winds, his clothes instantly transforming into tens of thousands of little scraps under the assault of countless invisible wind blades.
Alas, as mighty as this attack was and as much of Reian’s Qi as it contained, there was simply no way for it to break through Abdain’s defense. It would have been impossible for the wind blades to cut Abdain’s Iron Skin when he had been but a martial master of the sixth rank, but less now that he was a martial master of the seventh rank. Yet, even though he knew he was safe, Abdain couldn’t help but curse as the image of his prey was getting further and further away from before his eyes.
Yes, although the tempest created by Reian wasn’t nearly strong enough to wound Abdain, it carried more than enough strength to lift the man’s body up and send him flying high into the sky! As he had already been critically wounded, Reian understood that he needed to disengage from this fight as soon as possible. He had also judged that he wouldn’t be able to flee on his own nor would his companions have enough time to save him. There was a possibility of wounding Abdain if he opted to attack with a single-target technique, but he had discarded this option too as it was unlikely to stop Abdain in track. Thus, he had been left with only one choice, which he had promptly put into action.
The result of it could be seen by everyone as the mostly bare figure of Abdain flew higher and higher and at the same time, further away from the battlefield. At one point, those who weren’t experts of the Realm of Heroes lost sight of him as he rose well over two kilometers into the air, carried by the power of the martial technique unleashed by Reian. Only after a good half a minute did Abdain start descending and another forty seconds later, he stomped heavily onto the ground well over twenty kilometers away from his original spot, leaving a medium-sized crater below his feet.
“A pity,” Abdain said with a slight sigh, though a smile soon returned to his face. He put on a new set of clothes from his interspatial ring and started running towards the original area he had been at. He might have missed Reian’s head, but the sensation of power that flowed through his body was simply too pleasant for his mood to turn for the worse. The difference between a martial master of the sixth and seventh ranks… in his estimation, it was twice over. In other words, he had gotten twice as strong just by advancing this one boundary! He couldn’t wait until he cultivated all the way to the peak of his current rank; just how strong would he become by then? He truly wanted to see that!
As Abdain rejoiced, at the very same time Reian was being healed by Sirius and a few other water-element spiritual masters from Julien’s subordinates. In contrast to the joyous mood of Abdain’s, be it Reian, Julien or anyone else amongst their party, they all worse gloomy looks on their faces. A martial master of the seventh rank… be it as it may, Abdain wasn’t nearly as threatening in battle as Arakar. Julien himself had fought against a martial master of the seventh rank from his own country just recently, against the Great General Victoria, and he had fought her to a stalemate. Yet, that was only because of the overwhelming advantage in speed his lightning element and numerous speed-related insights brought him. Against Abdain…
It perhaps couldn’t be said to be the worst possible matchup, but it was close. For those who focused on speed and deadly attacks, people with absolute defense were the most annoying to face. The biggest problem, though, wasn’t this bad matchup but the fact that this wasn’t a simple battle, but a battle to protect Arslan! With Abdain’s increase in strength, If he stubbornly charged, who would be able to stop him or run away from him with Arslan in arms? Even Julien, the fasted one around, wasn’t confident if he could actually outrun Abdain! Moreover, the problems were starting to pile up.
“We expected it,” Julien said angrily, trying not to betray how anxious he was with the tone of his voice. “But it looks like Abdain’s men are cutting off our path of retreat. Cutting through them would be simple, but with Abdain on our backs… it would be hard to protect you at the same time,” he said truthfully, his gaze moving towards Arslan. The peril their group found themselves in might not seem that tragic just yet, but for those with foresight, those like Julien, his direct lieutenants or Sirius, it was obvious just how much of an upset in the balance of strength Abdain’s breakthrough signified.
“That’s not all they seem to be doing,” Sirius commented with a frown. Unlike Julien, who crouched in front of Arslan, he was standing straight and thus was one of the first to notice the change. “A few thousand… hard to tell exactly. They seem to be driving a few groups of kids towards us,” he said, the look in his eyes turning colder and colder. He could guess why those children were being led here and he was sure that more and more were to come. After all, no matter how disciplined warriors are, there certainly existed ways to disrupt the unity of Julien’s subordinates. It could even be said that given their respective past experiences, Julien and his people might very well prove to be quite prone to falling to those underhanded tactics.
“What for?” Arslan asked, almost blurting the words out without a second thought. In truth, however, he more than one thing had come to his mind as they had talked about such developments with Sirius and Jasmine. The only thing was… he really didn’t want to admit it was really happening.
“Nothing pleasant I bet,” Sirius answered without beating around the bush. What was the point in denying reality if it was already knocking on the door and about to slam the open and barge inside? Whatever Abdain’s plans were, they would be able to observe them sooner or later… and likely sooner rather than later.
“…What can we do?” Arslan asked after a moment of silence, then realized that his question would be misinterpreted and quickly clarified. “I mean about our overall plan, not about those kids. I understand that there isn’t anything we can do for them,” he said, speaking calmly the words that shouldn’t ever come out of a five-year-old boy’s mouth.
Admittedly startled, Julien squashed the conflicting emotions in his heart and after secretly taking a deep breath, he said with a strong look in his eyes. “As strong as Abdain is, the only thing that changed is that instead of being relatively safe from losing many men, we are in danger of being wiped. However, that isn’t going to happen all at once either. It doesn’t look like Abdain brought all that many elites with him, so he will be the main force behind their offensive,” he explained and after giving Arslan a few seconds to digest those few sentences, he finished up.
“We’ve been betting on your father defeating his enemies before we can be beaten anyway. In my estimation, it would actually be worse for us if we tried to turn around and flee back to the Ruishi Federation as Abdain might ignore everything and just try to kill you. You’re worth to him far more alive than dead, so he’s almost certain to try and capture you alive. So, I suggest we proceed as planned… who knows, perhaps with some luck, we might even be able to kill Abdain here.”
“Still, the final decision is up to you. After all, it’s you whose life we’re protecting. There’s no point fighting if you don’t want to.”
With the heavy responsibility of a major decision pushed onto him, Arslan’s face stiffened ever so slightly. He wasn’t old enough to instantly comprehend all the consequences of the options he had before himself, but he was fairly confident that he understood a fair bit about them. He had been thinking and talking about today’s evens for the past week, after all. In those circumstances, when they had already gotten this far, there was only one choice he could possibly make.
“Let’s go as planned. I’m leaving everything up to you, please win,” he said simply, though he couldn’t quite understand why Julien smiled to him in response. There would be great danger ahead and many of Julien’s men would undoubtedly die, so why did this silver-haired man appear pleased?