pertwk Chapter 14: The First Demon of the Spring and Autumn Period, Untouchable by Heaven and Earth
Chapter 14: The First Demon of the Spring and Autumn Period, Untouchable by Heaven and Earth
Lu Shengxiang led four thousand heavily armored cavalry, like two torrents of steel, sweeping out from the east and west gates, intending to complete a fatal encirclement of that lone figure.
However, when they rushed to the designated battlefield with the momentum of crushing everything, they found that it was completely unnecessary and there was no need for any encirclement.
That figure had long since disappeared into the depths of the death jungle of 100,000 infantrymen. The battlefield was no longer a line of two armies facing each other, but a terrifying vortex that was constantly collapsing inward and spewing waves of blood.
On the city wall, Gu Jiantang waved his command flag with precision. Layer upon layer of military formations, like living behemoths, roared and died, carving a straight path through the vortex for Lu Shengxiang's torrent of heavy cavalry!
At the end of the passage, there was that figure, holding a knife in one hand, walking slowly forward.
"Heavy Cavalry—!" Lu Shengxiang took a deep breath, raised his long spear horizontally, and roared across the battlefield, "Follow me—"
"Run them over—!!!"
"kill!!!"
Four thousand armored warhorses accelerated simultaneously, their iron hooves striking the earth with a muffled thunderous roar. Both rider and horse were clad in heavy armor, like a moving steel wall, carrying the kinetic energy to destroy everything, launching a brutal and direct charge towards that seemingly unguarded figure!
Closer! Even closer!
The heavy cavalry in the front row could even see the dark red bloodstains on the opponent's clothes and feel the cold touch of the spear tip about to pierce through the body.
however--
The anticipated scenario of flesh and blood turning to mush and collapsing at the slightest blow did not occur.
It was as if it were not a person's back, but a majestic mountain range that stretched between heaven and earth, unmoving for eternity!
boom!!!
A deafening, heart-stopping bang exploded!
It wasn't a blade piercing flesh, but rather the heavy breastplate forged from fine steel, crashing with immense force against some invisible yet indestructible "barrier"! Time seemed to stretch and distort at that moment—
The heavy cavalry charging at the forefront, man and horse alike, crashed into the mythical Mount Buzhou! The mournful neighing of the warhorses abruptly ceased, and the sound of bones shattering rang out like popping beans! The armored knights were as if struck head-on by an invisible giant hammer, and with a speed even faster than their charge, along with their twisted and deformed armor and weapons, they were sent flying back with a thud, crashing heavily into the cavalry formation behind them!
People and horses were thrown into chaos! The front of the steel torrent collapsed and piled up on its own in such an absurd and tragic way!
At the very moment of impact, when Lu Shengxiang's pupils contracted in extreme shock—
He suddenly understood.
He understood why the other party always... kept the sword behind his back with his left hand.
"Zheng—!"
A clear, melodious sword cry, as sharp as a dragon's roar yet chilling to the bone, rang out from the "iron sword" carried on his back.
It was not a chopping motion.
Just... release.
An invisible and intangible yet powerful sword aura, causing the surrounding space to blur and tremble, suddenly erupted from the sword! It was not a single aura, but in the instant of its eruption, it transformed into hundreds and thousands of auras! Like a volcano that had been dormant for millennia finally erupting, or like the Milky Way bursting its banks and pouring forth!
The sword energy was like a torrential rain! Like pear blossoms! More like a giant net woven from death, instantly unfurled!
fast!
It was almost at its limit! It surpassed vision, perception, and even... surpassed Lu Shengxiang's life-and-death instincts as a top-tier military general!
He only had time to see the space in front of him distort slightly.
next moment--
Puff puff puff puff puff...!!
A continuous, subtle yet chilling piercing sound reverberated throughout the entire heavy cavalry formation at the same instant!
Lu Shengxiang, along with the hundreds of his most elite and heaviest-armored heavy cavalrymen, froze simultaneously. Their thick plate armor, the leather lining, and even their strong bodies were as fragile as sheet paper before that invisible sword energy.
Bowl-sized, open-ended holes appeared out of thin air on their chests, necks, and heads. No blood spurted out immediately, because the sword energy was too fast and too cold, even temporarily sealing the wounds.
Followed by.
laugh--! ! !
It was as if an unseen giant god, using the earth as a chopping board and these thousands of troops as food, wielded an invisible butcher's knife.
The powerful sword energy did not dissipate after piercing through the first batch of hundreds of riders, but continued to "plow" forward and to both sides!
Looking down from extremely high in the sky, you will see this scene:
The originally orderly and dense Li Yang heavy cavalry formation, resembling black iron blocks, and the crowded infantry formation behind it, suddenly had several clear and straight "blank" tracks appear out of thin air! It was as if someone had used a red-hot iron to brand solidified grease!
Wherever the trail passed, whether it was people or horses, armor or weapons, everything was reduced to a spray of crimson blood mist mixed with steel fragments! Limbs, broken armor plates, and snapped weapons were tossed high into the air like withered leaves caught in a storm, then fluttered down.
The real blood rain, mixed with fragments of internal organs and bone fragments, poured down like a deluge, turning a larger area of the battlefield into a terrifying dark red.
On the city wall.
Gu Jiantang's hand, resting on the hilt of the "Nanhua" sword, was pale and bluish from excessive force, with bulging veins on the back of his hand resembling coiled dragons. The usual composure and coldness on his face had frozen into an almost stone-carved stiffness.
He watched as his most trusted and promising general, Lu Shengxiang, was silently shattered and disintegrated into a cloud of blood mist and metal fragments the instant that invisible sword energy swept past, like porcelain thrown into the eye of a storm. The fragments mingled with the other soldiers' pieces, indistinguishable from each other.
There were no cries of anguish, no dying words.
Only the most thorough, physical... erasure.
General Lu Shengxiang of Liyang died just like that... so casually.
It wasn't a valiant fight, nor a tragic sacrifice. It didn't even make that figure turn around. Just a tiny wisp of sword energy from among the thousands of sword energies wiped him away, along with his hundred-forged armor and burgeoning ambition, as clean as brushing away a speck of dust.
What followed was a chain reaction of collapse caused by the forced halt to the heavy cavalry charge's momentum. The instantaneous annihilation of the front ranks caused the iron torrent behind to crash violently into the "steel ruins" ahead. The sounds of breaking bones, twisting metal, the dying neighs of warhorses, and the short, desperate screams of soldiers mingled together. Four thousand heavy cavalry, before even touching the enemy, had already suffered nearly half their losses due to this terrifying recoil and trampling!
The wind, carrying a nauseatingly strong stench of blood, swept up the city walls, ruffling the hair on Gu Jiantang's forehead and finally dispelling the last trace of composure that belonged to a commander in his eyes, igniting a raging fire of anger and fear!
"Kill him—!!!" The roar was squeezed out from deep in his throat.
The battlefield is ever-changing, but some "common sense" is deeply rooted in the understanding of all martial artists and strategists: no matter how vast your inner strength or how amazing your moves are, after a full-force attack, you must need to breathe and recover your strength. This moment of alternation between old and new strength is the most vulnerable gap for a master.
To deal with top martial arts figures trapped in a battle formation, military strategists throughout history have prepared far more than just heavy cavalry and strong shields. Deep within the formation, in the shadows, lie dozens of elusive assassins, existing solely for this moment. They do not participate in the frontal assault; their sole mission is to launch a deadly surprise attack in the split second when the target's old strength is exhausted and new strength has not yet been generated, cutting off their lifeline!
There was absolutely no need for Gu Jiantang to give the order.
Almost at the same instant that the sky was filled with sword energy slicing across the battlefield, and the blood rain had not yet completely fallen—
Moved!
Dozens of figures, like ghosts, venomous snakes, and leeches, suddenly sprang forth from behind heavy shields, from piles of fallen corpses, and even from the shadows of their comrades! Their movements were elusive and unpredictable, so fast that ordinary soldiers could only see a series of afterimages. The poisoned short swords, daggers, and Emei daggers in their hands gleamed with a ghostly blue or dark green light, and they attacked Zhou Yi from all directions, from every unbelievable angle, biting at him as he seemed to have just "exhaled a breath of turbid air"!
The timing was impeccable! It was precisely when the aftershock of that earth-shattering sword strike was about to dissipate, and according to common sense, there should have been an "absolute vacuum period" during which one should have had a moment to recover!
Apart from Huang Sanjia, who remained silent with a smile atop the mountain pavilion, the hearts of all the witnesses were in their throats—whether it was Gu Jiantang, who was furious on the city wall, or Wang Xianzhi, who was watching the battle with bated breath in the distance.
Wang Xianzhi was still reeling from the shock. In his assessment, the power of that sword strike was no less than the all-out swordplay Li Chungang had unleashed during their battle. Such power must have taken a tremendous toll. This was indeed a golden opportunity to strike while the opponent was vulnerable! Even he couldn't help but focus his attention, wanting to see how this mysterious "nameless swordsman" would deal with this insidious and precise "breath-changing attack."
Or they might endure the hardship, sustain serious injuries, and perish under the hooves of heavy cavalry.
All eyes, all killing intent, all judgments based on "common sense" converged on that slender figure whose breath seemed to have paused slightly.
however.
Reality often excels at delivering a crisp and cold slap to "common sense".
Faced with those dozens of deadly glints that could frustrate any grandmaster or even kill them on the spot, Zhou Yi didn't even lift his eyelids.
He was indeed "exhaling".
But what he exhaled was not the stale breath of an exhausted person, but more like... the shedding of some insignificant constraint.
The instant that breath left his lips, his aura not only did not weaken, but instead—
In a way that violates the fundamental principles of martial arts, it suddenly ascends to a deeper and more immeasurable level!
The supreme martial art, derived from the Qi Cultivation Classic, was propelled to an unprecedented level of internal energy by the ability to share the gray mist space.
The supreme martial art, later known as the True Scripture of Swords and Sabers, is now beginning to reveal itself.
The "iron sword" behind his left hand was never even raised.
He simply held the "iron knife" in his right hand, and with an extremely casual and nonchalant turn of his wrist.
The trajectory of the blade as it cuts through the air is simple and unadorned.
There were no dazzling blade strikes, no piercing shrieks.
Puff puff puff puff...!
Those dozens of carefully selected, well-trained assassins, whose timing was impeccable, their unpredictable movements, their vicious weapons, and their deadly killing intent concentrated in one point, all appeared so laughable, so... fragile, before this casually turned blade.
The figure froze in mid-air, then burst into tiny wisps of blood mist like a mosquito crushed by an invisible force, leaving not even a muffled groan before becoming just another insignificant crimson speck on the battlefield.
They couldn't even stop him from going.
The last drop of blood slid off the blade.
Zhou Yi's steps did not falter in the slightest. He maintained that chillingly steady rhythm, carving straight ahead towards the deepest part of the army formation, towards the figure on the city wall surrounded by armored soldiers and guards!
It was as if what had just been wiped away was not dozens of top-tier assassins trained with countless resources specifically to hunt down Grandmasters, but merely a few insignificant specks of dust from their shoulders.
With each swing of his arm, dozens or even hundreds of soldiers died, falling like grass being cut down.
At this moment, within the vast army formation, apart from the soldiers forced by strict orders to stand directly in front of him, no one dared to offer him a sword or spear. An invisible fear, like the deadliest plague, spread wildly through the ranks with his every step. The soldiers gripped their weapons tightly, their knuckles white, sweat soaking their undershirts, watching helplessly as that figure parted the sea of men like a rock parting a torrent, leaving only a straight path paved with silent corpses in his wake.
On the mountain pavilion, Wang Xianzhi's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinpoints. What he saw was far more than just the composure with which he casually crushed the soldier with a single slash.
"He was holding back on purpose," Wang Xianzhi said in a low voice. "No, not holding back... it was restraint."
His gaze, sharp as lightning, swept across the battlefield ravaged by Zhou Yi. Where sword energy crisscrossed, corpses littered the landscape, but the extent and depth of the destruction did not match the strength of his opponent.
"From the very beginning, everyone was wrong." Wang Xianzhi slowly turned her head to look at Huang Sanjia, who remained calm and composed beside her, her tone filled with sternness. "Including Gu Jiantang. He thought he and his 200,000 troops were hunters, having laid an inescapable net, only worried that their prey would be too slippery and escape..."
He paused, then said, word by word:
"But little did they know, they were the prey who had fallen into the trap. What the other side feared was exactly the same as what they worried about—"
Huang Sanjia finally shifted his gaze completely from the empty chessboard to the figure constantly advancing in the center of the battlefield, his enigmatic smile deepening. He nodded slightly, as if confirming Wang Xianzhi's deduction.
Wang Xianzhi took a deep breath of the biting mountain wind, but the words he uttered were colder than the wind itself:
"He is not trying to defeat or repel the enemy."
"He wants to kill all of these people."
"He doesn't intend to let a single one go... He's using Gu Jiantang as a scapegoat!"
Upon hearing this, even the howling mountain wind seemed to pause for a moment. A chill, more oppressive than the bloodshed of a battlefield, permeated the pavilion.
Wang Xianzhi's guess was correct.
Regarding this, in the few records available to later generations, contemporary martial arts practitioners and historians used a far more profound and chilling alternative name for the "Nameless Swordsman of the Southern Tang Dynasty" than the official title—
The greatest demon under heaven, heaven and earth will not tolerate him.
Because of the countless souls lost under his command, rivers of blood flowing, and his malevolent aura soaring to the heavens, it is even said that he once incurred the wrath of the heavens, who unleashed nine layers of purple lightning to strike him down. Although this title carries a strong flavor of unofficial history, it is enough to reflect the terrifying image of him in the minds of people at that time, which transcended good and evil and was almost a natural disaster.
On the city wall, Gu Jiantang looked down at the figure that had been moving through his own army formation as if it were empty, yet had strangely "stopped" there. He watched the assassins being easily wiped out, and what replaced them was a long-lost, almost beastly, cold sense of crisis.
He gripped the hilt of the "Nanhua" sword tightly, the icy touch of the renowned blade sending a shiver through him, his knuckles creaking slightly from the excessive force. His gaze, sharp as a hawk's, was fixed on the ground below, as if trying to pierce through the chaotic battlefield and swirling dust to see what the enemy was truly plotting beneath his calm surface.
"Pass on the order..." Gu Jiantang's voice was forcibly suppressed, becoming as cold and hard as iron, but upon closer listening, a barely perceptible, taut tremor could still be discerned. "Balloon battalion, all of you, advance to the front lines! Align! Infantry square formation, transform into the 'Iron Felt' death formation! Regardless of casualties, do not retreat a single step, nail him down there!"
"All archers, switch to 'Qi-Piercing' and 'Armor-Shattering' heavy arrows! Three rapid volleys of fire, no need to worry about friendly fire!"
"All commanders, personally supervise the battle from the front lines! Anyone who retreats will be executed on the spot! I, the commander-in-chief... will advance and retreat with you!"
Even though an ominous premonition loomed over him like a dark cloud, Gu Jiantang, a renowned general of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Grand Marshal of Liyang, was determined to wage a final gamble, using every last ounce of his resources. He could accept defeat, even death, but he would never surrender without a fight; this was a pride etched into his very bones.