Yang Xiu was not happy. The bandits had prepared an ambush that she and Zou Tian had scouted. When she’d told the others about it, she had advocated for leaving the non-combatants behind with the wagons while the rest took the fight to the bad guys.
Yang Ru hadn’t liked that idea, and he had the right to make the decision since it was combat related. Surprisingly, both Xun Wu and Ye Zan sided with her brother, feeling uncomfortable either leaving the children essentially unprotected or splitting their forces.
Which was a stupid opinion. She, Yang Ru, and Zou Tian could beat a bunch of mortals all by themselves. Sure, there might be seventy-three of the gang, but what were mere numbers compared to the might of cultivators?
At least, she and Zou Tian had been allowed to split their forces in order to get in position before the fight. The two of them had taken to the woods on the side of the road opposite the bandits’ camp and looped way around to come back from the other side of the spot of the ambush. With their ability to move silently, none of the mortals had noticed a thing.
She climbed a tall tree that gave her a perfect position to snipe most of the bad guys, and Zou Tian, armed with two daggers, hid behind the mortals’ main position. He didn’t have either a technique or much experience with the weapons, but they weren’t exactly hard to use. The plan was for him to use his stealth to stab people in the back, a tactic that seemed dishonorable but that Master had insisted he employ.
Of course, it took forever for the caravan to actually come into view, as it moved so slowly. They had all decided that it was far better for the two of them to have to wait than for the caravan to arrive first.
In a slight departure from the caravan’s normal operation, Yang Ru and Ye Zan walked in front of the first wagon, and the children and Xun Wu’s wife had been moved to the mobile cultivation platform, which now assumed the trailing position. Yang Xiu found it difficult to believe that the mortals would pick up on or care about such minor differences.
Besides, they hadn’t gotten anywhere close to seeing the wagon train. She and Zou Tian had made sure of that by just happening to traipse loudly nearby when they tried.
She studied the enemies below her. They consisted mainly of spearmen and swordsmen. If the bandits would have had a lot of archers, the group would have gone with Yang Xiu’s plan, but training to accurately shoot a bow took a long time. A peasant could learn to at least swing a sword at an enemy, even if very unskillfully, quite quickly and be effective in ambush tactics like the ones they apparently used. To actually be able to hit someone in a fight with an arrow absent massed volleys was quite a different story.
At least, that was what Ye Zan said. It could just be that the bandits ran out of arrows. Learning to shoot a bow hadn’t seemed difficult at all to Yang Xiu.
She huffed. Well, she did have the advantage of having an apparently heaven-grade technique crammed into her mind from a jade slip, but she was sure it was mostly her natural talent.
The long and short of it was that she and Zou Tian had only identified four bandits who used bows, and those were her primary targets. She’d already noted their locations.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
The lead wagon’s squeaky wheels drew closer and closer. The tension in the air was palpable.
Everyone in the caravan was clearly trying to look as normal as possible, though Yang Xiu’s enhanced vision could easily tell that hands gripped spears much more tightly than if everyone were actually relaxed.
The same nervous energy existing on the other side of the fight that was soon to come as evidenced by bandits fidgeting as they got ready to burst from the trees.
Everyone was so clearly primed that a good stiff breeze could get things started.
It wasn’t the wind, though. It was a signal from one of the bandits. Yang Xiu mentally marked him as her fifth target.
She pulled back the bowstring, and her nocked arrow flew true. One of the bandit archers wouldn’t be loosing a shot at her sect mates.
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The rest of the bandits, save for the three—twang!—two remaining archers and a few leaders began rushing from the woods. Twang. One.
Like shooting fish in a barrel as Master would say even if she had no real idea why one would ever want to do such a thing.
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Yang Ru was not one to let the fight come to him. According to Master, he was hot molten rock pouring inevitably down a mountain. He was momentum.
As soon as the bandits began to emerge from the woods, he charged.
They were slow. So, so slow.
He reached the first of them before they had fully cleared the tree line, plowing into them in an explosion of blood and gore.
Theirs. Not his. Of course.
He hadn’t even bothered with using his remaining, very expensive talisman as he went through the first mortal. And the next. And the next.
All the bandits around him were focused solely on him. Which was to the good. He was much tougher than his sect mates. The more blows sought him, the fewer blows sought the others.
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When Zou Tian heard the caravan approaching, he ghosted to within a few feet of one of the leaders standing behind the gang. As soon as the bandits began moving, Zou Tian acted.
He plunged both daggers into the man’s back.
As a cultivator in the fourth minor realm of Qi Gathering, Zou Tian was much stronger and faster than he had been just several weeks prior, and his knives were sharp enough and high enough quality to penetrate a cultivator’s hardened skin. They went through the mortal like cutting paper.
Zou Tian didn’t bother to determine if the man had died. The wounds were bad. He wouldn’t be rejoining the fight, and there were plenty of targets around who were still combat able.
Yang Xiu seemed to consider striking people unaware from behind to be somehow dishonorable, but Zou Tian liked it. It made him feel powerful to hold the power of life and death over someone who would have happily crushed his skull had they met when he was a lowly street rat.
Besides, how was stabbing someone in the back different that sniping them from afar like she was so proud of doing?
Master approved of each method. That was the important thing.
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Ye Zan motioned for his guards to form up with him. Three moved to either side of him, spread out less than an arms’ width apart. The gaps behind were filled with the remaining four of his guards and two of the drivers who handled their spears the best. The last four drivers stayed in the very back, ready to either move up to fill a gap or to catch leakers around the edges.
He had always thought his ability with a spear was pretty good for a mercenary who’d been former street trash, but he’d recently discovered that his skill was laughable at best. Yang Ru, in contrast, was someone who knew how to wield a spear.
Ye Zan couldn’t wait until he reached minor realm three. He felt so, so close. Another few days. A week at most. Soon, Master would teach him that amazing technique.
In the meantime, Ye Zan and his guards were learning as much as they could. They soaked up every word Senior Brother was willing to teach them. Everything from how they held their weapons to their footwork had changed for the better. They were already leaps and bounds ahead of where they had been when they left the city.
And those improvements didn’t even take into account the very real improvements to their actual bodies. Cultivation, even two minor realms, had made them stronger and faster and tougher.
The rabble approaching didn’t stand a chance.
To make things worse for the attackers, Senior Brother had effectively broken the advance when he’d hit the middle of their line. Bandits still streamed past, but they had to arc around the clump of people being utterly destroyed by him. Literally. One guy was cut in half with his legs lying on the ground yards away from his torso.
The bandits who made it to the guards’ line were staggered and easily cut down.
With a disorganized approach and being both weaker and less skilled, the bandits didn’t stand much of a chance. Maybe they could have inflicted a wound or two but any who demonstrated any skill suddenly found an arrow sticking out of their head.
Ye Zan purely loved being a sect member. Between the increase in his personal power and that of his guards and the support of the twins, who he would have found terrifying if they weren’t on his side, he couldn’t even compare his current situation with his previous experiences of getting involved in basically street brawls.
For once in his life, he was serving a client, a Master, who he was actually proud to represent.
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Shi Long moved deliberately. Smithing required both power and finesse, hitting the metal at the right time in the right place. Rushing was not a part of the job.
He and Esteemed Expert Blacksmith Xun Wu had been together in the next to last wagon, and they’d taken the time to make sure no one approached the noncombatants at the rear before committing to joining the guards in the fight. By the time they’d loped to the battle, things were winding down, and them attacking the rear of the bandits engaged with the phalanx of guards sped the ambushers’ demise.
Crushing skulls with his hammer was about as disgusting and unpleasant as he’d expected, and he hoped he didn’t have to do it often. Esteemed Expert Blacksmith Xun Wu had been firm on one point, though. Cleaning the forge was not easy or pleasant, but sometimes it had to be done. The task before them was the same, one that was neither pleasant nor easy but that needed to be done.
For his mentor and his master, Shi Long would crush as many heads as necessary.
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Yang Xiu looked down at the bloody dirt road from her perch in the tree. None of the bandits were moving, and none of the caravan appeared injured.
Time for the real work.
She began climbing down. Over seventy bodies were a lot to loot and bury. She hoped the task didn’t delay them too much. Master would worry if they were late in reaching the town the next day.