Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 171. Two Flanks Annihilated.
Against a frightened and disorganized bunch of martial masters, Yin didn’t feel much pressure at all. Even the sole martial master of the fifth rank who otherwise could have posed a challenge to him wasn’t scary when he was fighting in the middle of Laien’s icy mist, as that steady advantage was more than enough to tip the scales heavily in his own favor. “And Laien is right behind me, too,” he mused in a strangely content manner. The thought that he probably shouldn’t feel comfortable in the middle of battle did cross his mind, but he decided not to concern himself with it for the time being.
“Sorry,” he thought as a slight smile appeared on his face, then quickly executed his lightning steps and moved tens of meters in an instant. “I’ll take care of you later,” he added playfully, having distanced himself from the martial master of the fifth rank and a few other ones that were trying to attack him. Then, he kicked at the ground and accelerated once again and in one swing, he decapitated one of the men who had chosen to flee the earliest and thus were the furthest.
In the next two seconds, he slashed four more times and used his Lightning Steps one more time in-between the attacks and just like that, he killed four more decently strong experts. The sensation of killing off martial masters of the third and second ranks as easily as beheading chickens caused him to feel somewhat weird. Though, when he considered that those guys had panicked and were now facing him in a situation where they couldn’t see well and their aura was heavily suppressed, he came to a conclusion that it only made sense.
He thought that it would be nice if he could take care of the eight men who were fleeing rightwards from the center of their original clash while Laien took care of those leftwards. Subsequently, he smiled when he felt that Laien moved in exactly the direction he wanted to. By this point, the two of them didn’t really need to rely on their Spiritual Bond for this level of coordination, but it sure made everything just that little bit faster and far more comfortable. Right now this seemingly little gain would change nothing in the grand picture, but there were times when it was invaluable.
“They sure run fast,” Laien pouted with a mocking smile. He could tell that his body had grown a little stronger already since that incident in the Forbidden Lands, but it didn’t change that fact that he wasn’t nearly as fast as Yin. He didn’t know how any movement techniques either, so while he would be able to catch up to these nine fleeing martial masters of second and third ranks who were about one hundred meters away at this time, in his opinion, it would be a painfully inefficient way to fight.
So, in order to take care of his part of the deal like Yin wanted him to, he not only ran after those fleeing men but also gathered more Qi and spiritual energy and sent it surging ahead. The additional power merged with the already present ice mist effortlessly and in the matter of a second, caught up to the nine martial masters. What followed were a few spiteful curses and something about the spawn of a devil being yelled by them, though he couldn’t care less.
With the icy mist having suddenly grown in power by over twofold, those of the nine men who had been barely holding on previously quickly turned into ice sculptures. Those four who could still resist the energy thanks to their fire or earth element affinities wanted to keep running but to no avail. The ice kept forming all over their bodies and their skin kept freezing and then cracking into a bloody mess every time they forced themselves to move, so how could they possibly run fast?
About three seconds later, Laien caught up to the remaining four. He thrust with his spear at the closest once and before the man noticed that he was being attacked, he ended his life by piercing his back and freezing him from inside out. When that happened, the other three men appeared to have finally understood that they wouldn’t be able to run away and turned around to fight. However, how could the three of them, exhausted and heavily wounded, put up much of a fight?
Laien thrust with his spear again, killing the second of the four men before the swordsman could enter the effective range of his weapon. Then, with a slight, satisfied smile still present on his face, he swiftly leaped backward, dodging out of the way of the fire-enhanced slash. This martial master of the third rank surely wanted to use the moment his comrade was being struck down to attempt and kill him, what in itself was as good of a plan as there could be. Yet, the end result remained unchanged. Having dodged out of the way of the desperate blow, Laien swung his spear lightly and slashed the throat of the momentarily off-balance and defenseless man, thus killing him on the spot.
The white spear itself, however, remained in motion as Laien twirled it skillfully in his hands. The shaft turned and came flying at the last of the four martial masters of the third rank, who was trying to attack him desperately. The man was forced to block the blow and given the state he was in, he almost let go of his sword once the two weapons clashed against each other with a metallic clang. Still, he grit his teeth and put more strength in his legs, unwilling to die just like that. If he could block one more attack of that devilish child, then he could at least hope to land a blow on him!
However, when the spear came for the second time, this time from above instead from the side, when he tried to raise his sword to defend, only then did he realize. He couldn’t raise his hands! His entire forearms and even his elbows, they had been frozen solid all the way to the bone despite the defense of his earth-element Qi! He hadn’t felt it in the first instant since he had been in a lot of pain since the very beginning, with most of his skin breaking and gushing blood with each movement.
Though, once he realized what had happened, it was far too late. He only saw the blur of the white spear approaching his neck at an angle from above before he lost his sight. For less than a second, he was overcome with an intense feeling of cold overtaking his whole body and finally, there was nothing.
“Well then,” Laien showed a refreshed smile and without wasting any time, turned and started running back toward the center. He had taken care of those few experts quite efficiently in his own opinion, but despite that he could tell that Yin was already waiting for him, having killed off the second of the fleeing groups. Truly, when it came to chasing people down, he couldn’t compare to this friend of his. “Mm!” Just as his mind was about to wander off a little, he sensed how the martial master of the fifth rank roused his Qi all of the sudden and immediately released a martial technique in his direction. The mass of wind blades pushed its way through the ice mist and though the quality of insights it contained was inferior, the quality of Qi used to support it made up for this fact.
The next moment, a sound of wind blades clashing against something hard resounded in the area. “Did I get him?” the leader of the group asked himself and focused his eyes. Thanks to his attack the icy mist had been distorted, so as long as he focused his eyes, he could roughly make out what was in the distance of a few dozen meters. Yet, the mist didn’t disperse at all and it kept puffing and spreading out once again, so he couldn’t see that clearly. Still, as long as he could at least force one of those monsters out of the fight for a bit, then they would have a chance to survive.
“Tch.”
Alas, when he heard the annoyed click of the tongue from that very direction, his throat clenched nervously. He then saw a blurry figure start moving behind the converging icy mist and running at them as if nothing had ever happened. His heart tightening, he poured as much Qi as he could onto his sword, planning to finish that devil off with one strong blow. However, he didn’t expect the strength of the icy mist around him to suddenly double and moreover, he surely didn’t expect his senses to scream danger! He moved relying purely on his intuition and only when they were so close it was impossible to dodge did he see the dozens of tough ice spikes flying at their group.
He shattered one with his sword, using the fact that he had poured a lot of Qi around it a second ago. Luckily, his instincts were pretty good too as the remaining ice spikes didn’t hit him directly and at most left some bloody scars on his body. He felt that he was fortunate, but it was only when a sword started sinking into his neck that he understood he had been a dead man ever since those spikes came flying at him. He hadn’t even sensed that second monster’s aura or killing intent! He had no idea how that monster slipped between all those ice spikes either! And, he would never learn.
Seeing the head of their leader go flying at the same moment they were being skewered by the incoming ice spikes, the four martial masters of the fourth rank attacked with abandon. That monster was right amongst them, so as long as they killed him, they could live! They ignored their wounds and attacked, but Yin didn’t give them a chance to retaliate. He hadn’t used Lightning Steps to approach since he had been hiding his aura thoroughly, so now that he was being attacked, he did just that.
He moved behind one of the men and killed him with one slash across his back, ripping his spine and almost cutting his body in half at the stomach level. He jumped at the next closest of the enemies and attacked from a low stance, slashing from the far left side. As he expected, the man was strong enough to move in time to block and their swords clashed briefly. He didn’t engage in a needless contest of strength though and while allowing the sword in his left hand to gently slide against the other blade and twisting his wrist slightly as he redirected the strength to the side, he kicked at the ground and slashed from below with the second of his twin swords.
Helpless to defend, the man was cut from the waist up, the huge wound stretching across more than half of his torso robbing him of any strength. Yet, as heavy of a wound as it was, a slash like that wasn’t enough to instantly kill off a martial master of the fourth rank under usual circumstances. This time, however, a finishing blow wasn’t needed as the freezing energy instantly invaded his weakened body and did the rest of the job, robbing him of his life quickly and efficiently.
“Whoa.” Yin almost laughed when he saw the last martial master of the fourth rank attack him with such a wide and heavy slash that it couldn’t hope to land no matter what. He easily sidestepped the attack and cut the man’s head off, all the while feeling a little bad for making fun of him in his thoughts. “Thinking ill of a dead man is quite a rude thing after all,” he mused, only to chuckle right afterward. By the looks of it Laien’s sarcastic attitude had well since rubbed off on him.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Nothing left for me huh?” Laien complained playfully as he stopped at Yin’s side. It took him two seconds to run to this place from the moment he released those ice spikes, but Yin had snatched all five kills in that brief period of time. Truly, annoyingly efficient. How could he not feel both impressed and competitive after being outdone so beautifully?
“Let’s keep going,” Yin said in a content manner and swung both of his twin swords downward, to the sides, thus shaking off the remaining blood from their blades.
“Yeah,” Laien agreed with a nod. He swapped the clothes which that wind-element martial master of the fifth rank had ruined for him for new ones, then dispelled the icy mist. Overall, he was quite satisfied. They had done what they promised to do and they hadn’t used up all that much strength, just like they wanted. He could tell that Yin depleted less than one-tenth of his Qi while he himself had used up about one-fifth of his Qi and spiritual energy, so they were good to go.
As the mass of white mist was clearing up at a visible rate, the two of them exchanged a glance and the next second, they whistled loudly. By this point, quite some of the cold was still in the area and normal mounts wouldn’t be able to handle it, but their elite horses would be fine. Once they mounted back up, they would be able to quickly rush toward Julien and Casimir’s battlefield.
Meanwhile, the same double whistle which called the two horses made Anna and quite a few other the experts around her flinch. From thirty seconds ago when that mass of white mist emerged, they weren’t able to see what was happening to the left. However, they had quickly understood that all those two thousand riders had been killed as the tantrum of the galloping horses died down alongside the sound of people and horses falling to the ground in hundreds. They had also quickly noticed that all around the edge of the white mist the ground itself was covered with a layer of frost, so even without an explanation from Sirius or Arslan, they understood what must have happened. And, once this awareness sank in properly, many of them, including Anna, were frightened.
Even Arslan and the others who had seen Laien use his icy mist before were flabbergasted by the size of this version of the spell, not to speak of those who were seeing it for the first time. Additionally, Anna and her Royal Guard, along with the many Euleanian nobles, were wondering if they had missed Laien’s chant or if the boy had really used this kind of magic through his Guardian. Once they thought about it, Laien had called forth a massive amount of water in order to restrain Abdain for two or three breaths of time, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Yet, when they actually saw Laien employ magic on such a large scale, they simply couldn’t believe their eyes.
If this boy was so strong when he was merely a dual practitioner of the eighth rank, still in the moral realm, then how ridiculously powerful would he become once he advanced to the Realm of Heroes? It was already unbelievable that Laien and Yin managed to put up a fight against Abdain, a martial master of the seventh rank, but to think their abilities went beyond that! All of them had been wishing they could see what was going on as they waited, so once those two whistles sounded and the white mist began disappeared, all of them watched in anticipation.
Two or three seconds later, tens of Anna’s Royal Guards gasped audibly alongside their mistress as the icy mist finally cleared up and revealed a scene of utter carnage. Although all of them were experts with bright futures ahead of themselves and with a high degree of potential, they shuddered regardless. Two thousand people, all of them close to the peak of the mortal realm, and two thousand mounts… all shattered, piled up in a literal mound of broken, pitiful corpses. Plus, amidst all of that, two youths casually mounting their horses a few hundred meters away.
Those with better eyesight noticed fist that there were four more groups of corpses in the area Laien and Yin had been at. Compared to the mound of bodies in the forefront, those forty or so bodies seemed insignificant, but almost undoubtedly those people were Abdain’s elite martial masters. Given their numbers, there must have been at least one martial master of the fifth rank leading them and at least a few martial masters of the fourth rank to assist him. Yet, when that icy mist hadn’t been up for more than thirty seconds, all of those experts ended up annihilated by two youths.
Judging by the positions of corpses, it looked like in some shocking turn of events a good portion of those experts had chosen to flee instead of fighting and yet, they were all chased down and killed regardless. For a team of elites so be so frightened by an attack of two adolescent boys that they would choose to split up and flee separately in their fear, just what must have had happened within that white mist? Moreover, a certain scary question appeared in the minds of Anna’s Royal Guards. If by some turn of events they were to face those two boys in a prolonged assault, would they be able to win or would they get slaughtered one by one just like those forty experts of Abdain’s?
“They really did it,” Sarah said with a helpless laugh, her voice at the same time containing quite a bit of relief. She had promised herself to help Johan find his happiness and not argue about everything anymore, but she had been seriously close to cursing everything and everyone during this way north. She understood that by taking this risk Johan was showing devotion and loyalty to Arslan, but one after another dangers kept piling up and up, seemingly to never end. It had been mere three days since they set out but she had seriously feared for their lives close to ten times in that short period of time. She did agree to this madness, but Arslan should seriously make sure that her little brother was happy after all of that, else she wouldn’t ever forgive him!
“Um!” Johan nodded strongly. “I was scared before, but I’m better now. Those two can always do it, we will get to the Holy Union,” he said strongly despite his body shaking from fear. Just like Arslan, Sirius, and a few others, he had this inexplicable trust in Laien and Yin. He somehow believed that no matter what the challenge was, no matter how bad things would get, those two would be able to somehow pull everyone out of the depths of hell by the power of some miracle. Perhaps this belief of his was childish and unreasonable, but with Laien and Yin here, he had the strength to believe.
“Haha,” the siblings’ father, Jacob, nodded in agreement alongside his nervous laugh. Truth to be told, he had been scared to the point of almost wetting himself the entire time, be it now or early on when they had been fighting Abdain for a day and a half. Unlike his son, he didn’t have such a strong faith in anyone and he was more aware than anyone of his own powerlessness. But, no matter how little he could do, he wanted to help his two dear children in some way. He had been feeling better these days thanks to Rakar who lifted his spirits, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough.
He had never been strong enough to protect his family properly… so at the very least, he had long since decided to give his best in the small and insignificant ways available to him.
“They are freaks.” In contrast to Laien and Yin’s old comrades, Anna shook her head with disbelief. She was happy that those two kids did a great job and were on their way to help Casimir, but simultaneously, she couldn’t help but be apprehensive in face of such an overwhelming mountain of potential. She had been training extremely hard for her seventeen years of life, but she was weaker than either of those two boys who were yet to become teenagers. She didn’t want to feel like that toward them, but her pride did sustain a heavy blow and she felt as if there was something heavy in her throat, something that was stuck there and refused to go down.
“Not only they,” Sirius commented with a hearty laugh, a load of weight disappearing from his shoulders. “Reian can fully by categorized as a freak too,” he said with a smile and once everyone’s attention was on him, he looked towards the right side of the battlefield. Unwittingly, everybody turned their heads in the same direction, then gulped heavily. The field of corpses left behind by Laien and Yin was horrifying enough, but Reian’s battle left piles of blood, meat, and intestines in the entire area of hundreds of meters around him. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Reian had left a small lake of flesh and blood behind and had done so faster than Laien and Yin had.
“Yeah,” Anna agreed with a straightforward smile. Reian’s performance, which they had been able to witness from the beginning to end thanks to the left battlefield being obstructed by the white mist, was indeed spectacular. However, it was easier for her and her Royal Guard to accept that the future Captain Commander of the White Guard was a monstrous genius and that his wind element was so strong that with one swing of the sword he could release tens of thousands of wind blades and slaughter almost two thousand riders with one attack, all within no more than one second.
A supreme martial master of the fourth rank who was a dual-element practitioner and had honed himself in an intense battle against a martial master of the seventh rank. Even though most of those present didn’t know that Reian had recently gained insights into the Supreme Profound Mystery of the Wind, the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest, the strength Reian had displayed was still within the limits of their imagination. On the other hand, Laien and Yin were too freakish. With two monsters like that on this battlefield, the spotlight was bound to be focused on them.
Thus, as it ended up Reian would later on likely feel somewhat annoyed that his spotlight had been entirely stolen by Laien and Yin. In fact, Reian himself was very satisfied with his improvement in those last few days. He had broken through to the fourth Realm of Heroes during his spar with Laien and Yin, gained insights into the Profound Mystery of Heavenly Tempest and then developed a far more intricate control over his wind-element Qi while facing Abdain. He was so confident in his progress that he would claim that if the current him faced his self from a week ago, he would be able to easily kill that past self within at most five seconds. It was a tremendous improvement!
Previously, the only reason his growth wasn’t apparent was because he was giving his all alongside Julien to suppress the defensively-oriented Abdain. He had grown far stronger, but he wasn’t at the level where he could stand up to a martial master of the seventh rank, especially not an earth-element one. Alas, whether he liked it or not, he would need to wait for another opportunity to show off his strength as so far, the opportunities just hadn’t been right.
“Hah.” Yet, Reian wasn’t thinking about such things at all. How could he possibly be concerned with who stood out more when all of their lives were on the line? He was in the middle of running toward the area were Julien, Casimir, Abdain and their respective subordinates were battling when he saw the white mist dissipate and the two boys ride out of it. Their mounts were fast, but he had dealt with his batch of enemies faster and had killed the elites hidden within effortlessly too. At this rate, he would reach the middle battlefield first… so he could as well help those out a bit.
“Time to draw some attention,” he thought, a smile emerging on his lips. Julien was currently fighting on equal ground with Abdain, but even if he joined this duel, it would be nigh-impossible to kill Abdain and even defeating him would take a long period of time. So, the most efficient way for them to break through was to decimate Abdain’s remaining five hundred or so elites. The biggest problem was that almost all of Abdain’s top-class experts were alive, so they had to kill almost one hundred martial masters of the fifth rank and well over two hundred martial masters of the fourth rank.
“And we have to do it fast,” he added silently and continued to rouse not only his wind-element Qi, but also the fire-element Qi. He wasn’t yet all that proficient at using both of them at the same time, but if it was just about drawing attention, then it would be good enough. He had trusted Laien and Yin to get rid of the two thousand sell-swords and any hidden experts before, so similarly, he trusted that as long as he gave them an opening, they would be able to strongly influence the central battle.