Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 165. Five Seconds.
“Laien! Yin!” Arslan exclaimed in joy, though his words were immediately lost in the clamor of the battle. He had gone through a roller-coaster of emotions during the last thirty seconds, much like those around him, and even now he was finding it hard to keep standing on his own two feet. However, unlike the others, he had spotted Laien and Yin early on; he had seen how they jumped off their horses at the end of the wedge of riders, how Yin grabbed Laien in the waist and how the two of them disappeared in a flash of emerald lightning to then reappear a hundred meters away.
Now, he saw how the two managed to save Reian and even if briefly, stop Abdain in his tracks. He wanted to call out to them again or to ask someone, anyone, to help them, but neither of the two was possible. To begin with, everything was happening so fast that he could barely follow the detailed movements of all the people around him with his eyes, much less have any real influence on the battlefield. As anxious as it was making him feel on top of his already heavily-strained nerves, his only choice was to leave everything to his friends and allies and hope for the victory.
Similar thoughts were going through the minds of everybody on Arslan’s side. Though, in Reian’s case, he was more astonished than anything else. Unlike the rest of his companions, his mind had been full of the thoughts about Jasmine and he didn’t really spare the matter of Laien and Yin’s demise much attention at all. Due to that, when those two appeared at the last moment and saved him, then actually managed to exchange blows without getting killed outright, he could only stare wide-eyed. He subconsciously understood that he should try to get back, but his body felt too heavy for him to move easily… and there was no guarantee that those two would be able to stop Abdain for long enough. So, he almost involuntarily decided that he might as well stay his ground.
As for Laien and Yin, although they weren’t aware of what all the people around them were thinking, for this brief moment in time they had become the lynchpin of the entire battlefield. While their strength wasn’t yet quite adequate to the task, there wasn’t anyone else who could set up. Whether they could hold Abdain back for just a little bit longer or if Abdain shook them off and made his way to Arslan, for just those two or three seconds, the fate of this entire war rested upon their shoulders.
“Tch.” Having just been slashes across his back by Yin and having had his slash deflected by Laien, Abdain clicked his tongue in irritation. The strength and the sense of danger he was getting from those two kids made no sense considering their cultivation bases, and such annoying thoughts were making him angry. He had no time to spare for stupid thinking, but his brain was refusing to cooperate when it was perceiving something so incomprehensible. Thus, he couldn’t help but become somewhat distracted as he forced all those thoughts down.
As a result, he moved his body instinctually, without considering what the best approach would be beforehand. He ignored the kid behind his back; those bloody lines on his back had barely cut through his skin, so even though the brat was as fast as Julien, his attacks were obviously much weaker. In exchange for that, he put more strength into his grip and with almost no delay in--between attacks, he changed the direction of his broadsword and slashed downwards and across, from the left to the right, aiming to directly turn the black-haired kid, Laien, into mincemeat.
His strength and speed were definitely leagues above Laien’s, this much was a matter of fact. So, when he once again felt the strength of his slash being weakened and dampened once it came in contact with the boy’s water-engulfed spear, he was honestly startled. Then, when he saw the boy agilely leap down to the ground level while simultaneously sliding his spear alongside the body of the incoming broadsword, only to quickly propel himself back up to a low-stance once the slash swept past, he became honestly shocked. For the first time in many years, he was dumbfounded in the middle of a battle and by none other than an adolescent child at that.
He could still understand that the kid had somehow guarded against his careless attack from before, but this time he had used his full strength! True, his starting position wasn’t the best and the overall prowess of the blow was reduced by the forced change in directions, but a similar attack had been enough to incapacitate Reian in their first exchange of blows! How did a kid whole six realms of cultivation lower than Reian escape without any wounds, it was a mystery to him. He had witnessed the defensive act and even felt the strange effects Laien’s ‘tricks’ had on his slashes, but he still couldn’t comprehend what was going on.
Objectively speaking, though, it wasn’t that surprising for Abdain to be baffled. After all, never would he have considered that his opponent’s, a boy’s at that, spear arts had reached a level so superior to his own that they went beyond the level which he could easily comprehend. And, considering how much progress Laien’s spear arts had made during the past months and especially during the past week, it indeed became so that in terms of his spear techniques, Laien had grown by leaps and bounds and was now heads and shoulders above the vast majority of martial artists across the entire continent.
To begin with, Abdain’s own sword arts were strength-oriented and simplistic and while it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing considering his cultivation path, his relatively low level of attainment in this field made it far harder for him to recognize just how exquisite Laien’s defensively-oriented Water Flow Spear Art had become. True, he was overwhelmingly superior to Laien in every other aspect, but the difference in the quality of their sword and spear arts was akin to a toddler waving a wooden stick around and a seasoned veteran fencing with his reliable sword. Even if that toddler was a huge ogre, it wouldn’t be simple for him to smash the veteran to pieces with a few hasty blows.
Moreover, Abdain himself seemed to have momentarily forgotten one thing. Right now the aim of his two young enemies wasn’t to kill him or wound him but to stall him. Thus, when a low kick to his left thigh came instead of another slash or an attempted thrust, he lost his balance just a little. He had shifted his weight from his left leg to the right as he attacked Laien, so the additional push made it a bit harder for him to regain the balance. Thankfully, the kick wasn’t stronger than what he could handle and the opportunity for it wasn’t perfect either. Had he been facing a stronger duo of experts, this attack would have most likely caused him to stumble if not outright fall down.
Yet, this bit of anger at the realization actually served to clear Abdain’s mind. Yes, those two kids were extremely annoying to deal with, but he didn’t need to stay here and play along with them. However, before he could put his thoughts into action, he sensed a surge of spiritual energy wash over his body and turn into a mass of ice in virtually an instant. Frustrated but with no other choice, not having regained his balance before being frozen over, he could only gather his strength and stomp down forcefully at the same time as he shattered the ice around him into pieces.
In itself, this level of magic posed no threat to him in the slightest, but due to those unfortunate circumstances, he lost yet another little bit of the precious time. In reality, after he had eliminated Julien and Reian from the picture, there was no one on this entire battlefield who posed a real threat to his life. But, despite that, he didn’t want to engage in another war of attrition when his ultimate prize was almost at the hand’s reach. So, this time, he settled his body and strengthened his balance, all his muscles tensing up in defense at the price of somewhat reduced speed and agility.
Then, he smashed at the ground with his foot and dashed straight towards Arslan, paying the two boys no heed. He allowed a slash of the green-haired one to land on his lower calf, then burst through another layer of ice the black-haired one attempted to slow him down with. In both cases, the boys’ actions left little to no wounds on his body and didn’t slow him down much if at all. In the end, he was a martial master of the seventh rank. No matter how skillful those two were, their cultivation was far too low to stop him once he stopped playing right into their hands.
“Fool,” Abdain couldn’t stop himself from shouting out once he noticed that Reian had no intentions of getting out of his way. The man had taken a few steps back during the last second or so, but he was still there, weakened and holding that sword of his while glaring at him begrudgingly. “If you want to die that badly, then go ahead!” he cried out inwardly and swept out with his broadsword, aiming at the middle of Reian’s body. He indeed wanted to get rid of this potential danger, but he had wasted too much time already; if he killed him then great, if he only swept him away and injured him heavily, then so be it, such an outcome would be satisfactory too.
The next second, Abdain’s broadsword met with Reian’s guard and effortlessly broke through it. However, it appeared that despite Reian’s seemingly foolish actions, the young man still had some clarity to his thoughts as he managed to change the angle of the incoming broadsword before it hit him. As a result, instead of being cleaved in half like Julien, he received a blunt blow and was sent flying and tumbling into the crowd a hundred meters away. Undoubtedly, his ribs were crushed and his internal organs were mangled, but as a martial master of the fourth rank, he wouldn’t die just from that.
Alas, even though Reian had sacrificed his body, he didn’t manage to buy all that much time, but the briefest of split-seconds. The various experts from Casimir’s and Anna’s Royal Guards were rushing over, but at this rate, they wouldn’t make it in time. Realizing this much, Sirius and Kasha both stepped forward, planning to do whatever in their strength to stall Abdain. Their faces were pale and covered in cold sweat, but unlike them, the five-year-old boy behind their backs was smiling slightly.
While everyone was paying attention to the charging figure of Abdain, Arslan’s gaze wandered behind the man, towards his two good friends. He saw how Laien and Yin jumped towards each other after their last two attacks failed to garner Abdain’s attention. Then, as his throat clenched after Reian was blown away, he saw how Yin moved behind Laien and grabbed the latter in the wait, just like a moment ago. Finally, he saw a beautiful flash of emerald lightning and in the blink of an eye, Laien and Yin moved in front of Sirius and Kasha, starling not only the two but also Abdain.
“Both of them?” The question passed through Abdain’s mind. By all logic, it was impossible for someone to carry another person while using a movement technique; the only result would be that the overflowing Qi would rebound from the second person’s body and wound both parties, in most cases preventing the movement technique from activating properly in the first place. Additionally, there was the problem of the burden the technique itself would place on the secondary participant’s body. Even if by some miracle two people managed to prevent their Qi from rebounding from each other’s bodies, the second person would be unable to synchronize his movements perfectly and would cause both parties to sustain damage from the uneven momentum.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
However, those two brats accomplished something that should have been impossible. Alas, Abdain couldn’t bring himself to feel as excited by the prospect as he would usually be. Since he had decided to capture or kill Arslan as soon as possible in order to avoid any more incidents, he was in no mood to enjoy his usual pastime. Thus, just like he had been doing for the past while, he continued to rely on his physical prowess and unbreakable defenses as he charged forward, intent on completing his main objective before moving on to enjoying the remaining battles.
He was feeling confident, but when he saw the smirk which emerged on the face of that black-haired youth, he was overcome with an inexplicable bad feeling. Then, this feeling grew in intensity when the kid released the spear from his hand and stored it away in his interspatial ring and at the same time, released and filled the surrounding air with what seemed to be too great of an amount of Qi and spiritual energy for someone in the mortal realm to possess.
At least, when the youth made a wide, grabbing gesture with his hands and caused all this spread-out energy to rush forward as it transformed into a true flood of water, Abdain couldn’t resist it and cursed out loud before being swept by the rushing waves. To his shock, however, the mass of water which he expected to try and push him away suddenly started shifting, making him feel as if he was thrown into the ocean in the middle of a storm.
Before he could react, his body was lifted off the ground and pushed upwards as all the water gathered around him, forming a huge spherical ball that was over ten meters in diameter. Angered by what he thought to be tricks, he slashed with his sword, trying to disrupt what he assumed to be a martial technique. However, even though the sphere destabilized in consequence, it returned to its original state in an instant, seemingly unaffected by the powerful slash.
Although the ill premonition of his was growing ever stronger, Abdain refused to believe what his gut feeling was telling him. He shifted the broadsword in his hand and this time, swept out with its blunt side and even added quite some Qi over the blade to increase the impact. This time, the entire sphere shook violently and a portion of it even spilled outwards, causing him to drop a few meters downward towards the ground. However, to his astonishment, the sphere once again reformed in an instant, lifting him up and locking him away once again.
This, this was ridiculous, even more so that those two already ridiculous things from before! No matter how sturdy of a martial technique this ‘Water Prison’ was, it was supposed to be fundamentally flawed by the fact that the controller would be unable to cope with the struggle of whoever was inside it. However, this one appeared to defy the common sense; what should have broken it only caused its controller to stagger a little, his face turning slightly pale.
“Damn it all!” Abdain yelled inwardly and once again swept with the blunt side of his broadsword, once more destabilizing the water prison for a moment before it reformed. As if enraged, he continued sweeping out non-stop as it was his only option to weaken the sphere once he had been caught by it and hanged high above the ground. He could feel that the energy around him was growing weaker and he could see that that brat was growing paler and weaker with each slash of his, but at this rate, it would take him way too long to break out of this detestable technique!
If it could be said that Abdain was flabbergasted, then all of the Bolan and Yali Kingdoms’ experts, including Casimir and Anna, were shocked out of their minds. Contrary to all the mercenaries around, they had received formal training which naturally included theory lessons. They had been taught the strong and weak points of all known martial arts and of course, of spells. The Water Prison was both a water-element martial technique and a water-element spell, but in both cases, it was judged to only be usable against far weaker or already exhausted enemies, not against someone like Abdain.
The core problem with using water in such a manner was that a martial technique had no mind of its own and so, it couldn’t adjust to changes well. As for magic, even though it could be adjusted to a degree by the Guardian of the caster, that Guardian was too inefficient and weak to play much of a role against someone just as strong as the caster, not to speak of someone far stronger. Thus, the scene of tones upon tones of water surging up and imprisoning Abdain, then actually holding him in without breaking immediately, was something they had trouble believing was happening.
Even the likes of Sirius, who was almost a thousand years old and was a water-element spiritual master of the fifth rank himself, couldn’t understand what they were seeing. However, once the man recalled that Laien had once stopped a water-based Grand Magic on his own, he no longer found the sight so unbelievable and was genuinely amazed instead. The potential of that kid, it truly was unlimited to the point of making even an old fogey like him jealous!
“Damn, what a monster,” Laien complained in his heart. It hadn’t been more than two seconds since he put Abdain in the water prison, but all his Qi and spiritual energy were just about spent. The man had slashed around twenty times by now, each of the blows carrying enough strength to blow away a small mountain. Had it not been for the many insights supporting him and the innate softness of water, he wouldn’t have been able to hold on for even this long.
Seeing Yin moving in front of him, just enough to the side to allow him a clear view of Abdain, Laien laughed quietly and released his magic. The entire sphere immediately fell apart and flooded the surrounding area and at the same time, Abdain fell back down to the ground. With Yin guarding him he wouldn’t need to worry about Abdain attacking him outright, but to begin with, it didn’t look like there would be any need for them to contest this monster alone anymore.
Once he was freed from the water prison, Abdain seemed to want to continue charging ahead, but he knew all too well that he had been stalled for too long. He thus slashed out with his broadsword in order to meet the incoming longsword of a dark-blond-haired woman, which seemed to carry so much wind-element Qi behind it that the incoming air itself turned into a mix of white and light blue colors. A split-second later, the two blades met and a loud clang of steel clashing rang out alongside an explosion caused by a mass of compressed air blowing up.
Abdain himself felt the gust of wind press onto his whole body as the ground below him caved in, but the one blown away was the attacking woman. Her longsword forced out of her grip by the sheer force, her stomach and chest both had a bloody line drawn across them. As excellent of a martial master of the third rank as she was, even Reian who was a supreme wind and fire element martial master of the fourth rank was no match for Abdain in a head-on clash. There had simply never been a chance for her attack to do more than force Abdain to use up a little of his Qi and stamina.
“So strong,” Anna thought while her body was still in mid-air. “I attacked him with all the Qi I could muster, but I still almost got killed by one slash,” she mused worriedly. It was a good thing that the two units they had borrowed from General Adrian were scattering the mercenaries all around and causing overall chaos. The remaining Ruishian experts were also holding off Abdain’s personal subordinates, so the center of the battlefield was more or less isolated. Yet, even without any interference, It would be a tall challenge for them to fight against Abdain.
“Still.” Anna’s gaze moved to the right, towards Laien and Yin. “Those two are even more monstrous than him,” she thought somewhat helplessly. She had expected those kids to be powerful, but their performance was beyond her furthest expectations. Especially Laien, that magic of his left a very deep impression in her mind and if they lived through today, then she promised herself to ask him a few things. Even if she needed to pay up a certain price to obtain the answers she wanted, she was positive that it would be worth it for her country in the long run.
Just as she was thinking so, she saw multiple wind-element techniques being released by her and Casimir’s subordinates, assaulting Abdain from all directions. The timing of each respective attack wasn’t perfect as their units of Royal Guards weren’t used to cooperating with each other, but it was still good enough for most of the force to concentrate on Abdain. The pressure of the wind and the thousands of wind blades assaulted Abdain, easily ripping most of his clothing to shreds… but leaving no marks on his skin in the slightest. And, more worryingly, not causing Abdain’s Qi to diminish all that much.
“I guess the plan failed,” Abdain mused as the dozens of wind-element martial techniques continued to rain upon his body with each and every passing second. “With those guys getting in my way, I won’t be able to capture Arslan anymore and killing him would be risky too. Well, no other choice but to go back to whittling them down,” he decided and reverted his approach back to the original one. Having made up his mind, he scanned the battlefield with his aura as well as he could given the circumstance, then rushed straight towards the weaker of the two groups of now dismounted riders.
“!!!”
The Royal Guards could sparsely believe their eyes when they saw Abdain run out from under their barrage of martial techniques as if he was facing merely a somewhat stronger breeze. Not many of them noticed that with each powerful step of Abdain’s, the cracked ground would rise up slightly and attach itself to his feet, allowing him to propel himself forward with full force. Albeit, even those of them who spotted this small detail didn’t have much time to spare for thoughts; they had been a mere hundred meters away from Abdain to begin with, so once the man started charging over, it took him almost no time at all to reach their lines.
“Spread out! Defend yourselves!” As much as Anna wished to shout those words out, there was neither time no way for the sound to carry over with as much Qi as was flowing in the air. At this time, the inexperience of her Royal Guards showed itself painfully. The older and more experienced of the members knew they had to retreat and keep their distance, but the younger ones, those who were still merely twenty-something and at the first and second Realm of Heroes, panicked.
With their minds going blank from stress as a martial master of the seventh rank was charging at them, they attacked recklessly, only for Abdain’s broadsword to turn them into meat paste, sometimes two or three people at a time. The older of the members attempted to pull their younger companions back, but the time it took and the confusion it caused made it only so that Abdain’s sweeps ended up killing quite a few of their martial masters of the fifth and fourth ranks alongside the weaker ones. It mattered not if some of them were quite strong for their level; even the famed Cherubim never engaged Abdain directly as to not throw their lives away pointlessly, so how could those much weaker Royal Guards hope to survive what Cherubim wouldn’t even attempt?
It took mere seconds for Abdain to push through the ranks of Anna’s Royal Guard and he reaped nearly twenty lives in that short period of time. Yet, instead of turning to the side and pursuing one of the split halves like Anna worried he would do, Abdain leaped forward by another few dozen meters and gathered a fair amount of Qi in his leg, then stomped with it heavily.
“No!” A short cry escaped Anna’s mouth once she realized what Abdain was about to do. However, there was no one to stop Abdain as he targeted the one hundred obediently waiting Tempest Horses. The beasts were powerful and well-armored, but the quality of the Qi of a martial master of the seventh rank wasn’t something they could hope to handle. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of earth spikes emerged from below the mounts and skewered them. The poor beasts neighed pitifully as they died without exception. Perhaps an armored elite mount would have had a chance to survive such an attack, but as strong as they were, those mortal-realm Tempest Horses were doomed to be slaughtered without being able to resist.
“About half of my Qi left,” Abdain judged quickly. For a split second, he hesitated as to whether he should pursue the second half of the nearby mounts, but he soon decided against it. His gaze turning towards the dark-blond-haired woman that appeared to be one of the enemy leaders, he did the same thing he had been doing for the past day. He charged over, aiming to kill his enemies off one by one until there was none left to protect Arslan.