Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
When he was twenty-four years old, the young saberman who hadn’t yet changed his name to ‘Silver Condor’ faced the biggest and most difficult choice of his life: whether to continue leaving his mark in the martial arts world or to accept a mysterious man’s invitation and live in seclusion with wealth and honour forever.
He had just defeated eleven famous sabermen in a high-profile tournament. Three months ago, in order to vie for territory in the southern area, he had spent three days and nights killing dozens of experts, eventually earning a popular nickname — Invincible Saber King, while the people of the Central Plains called him ‘Dark Saber.’ Ten months before that, with only a dozen or so brothers, he had swept a prairie tribe of more than a thousand people and slaughtered almost all of the adult men to avenge the death of his father and brothers.
He was a rising star on the prairie, gaining popularity so fast that he could not believe it himself. Countless people came to his door to either worship him as a Master, take refuge with him, or to bond with him. Gold, silver, women; all the beautiful things that used to be out of reach fell unavoidably from the sky like raindrops.
Each morning he woke up with a bewildered expression, struggling to recognize the sleeping women beside him, recalling how much wine he had drunk, and how many people he had killed the night before.
That was when the mysterious man had appeared. Without the usual flattery or generous offerings, the man only communicated a point to him: a reputation in martial arts world never lasted long.
He wasn’t the first saberman to suddenly rise. In fact, every three to five years, a new talent would spring up, bringing with them a great blood-shed before they stepped on the bodies of their predecessors on their way to the top.
If the emerging newcomers were really powerful and lucky enough, they could make it for another three or five cycles but it was always less than twenty or so years before they fell, and the fame faded faster even than the rot of their bodies.
The mystery man finally said to him, “Come to me if you want to break the cycle.”
He was attracted because he was going to challenge an old master, and just as the mystery man had said, he held no personal grudge against this senior. But many irrelevant people were helping to facilitate the challenge and their reasoning was simple: Two tigers cannot share one mountain. If the Invincible Saber King wanted to dominate the grasslands and consolidate his territories, he must defeat or even kill the seniors who were standing in his way.
He saw his destiny of several years later. Another young saberman would challenge him at the instigation of the same group of people. He might win, but the challengers wouldn’t stop there. They would come one after another until he died under someone’s saber.
All of a sudden, all his family, friends, and brothers of the martial arts world looked hideous, like a giant parasite sucking away his blood and flesh while at the same time ready to abandon him and attach themselves to a new host.
Without drinking wine, touching women, or his saber all day, he meditated and realized what he wanted. So he went to see the mystery man in the second half of the night, saying that he would accept the invitation.
He left a letter claiming that he was quitting the martial arts world from now on.
After a year’s trial and preparation, he became a wing guard of the Khan and was renamed Silver Condor.
Silver Condor originally thought his disappearance would cause a great storm in the martial arts world, but the result was just as the mystery man had said. It was almost undisturbed. Only a very small number of people were affected, and the general situation of the martial arts world was almost unchanged. In less than a month, a new person had replaced his position.
In less than five years, the nickname of ‘Invincible Saber King’ was rarely heard, and Silver Condor didn’t even need much disguising anymore. His reputation had withered and fallen like a flower, and could never return to its former branches. Instead, it had become the nourishment for another branch of fame: When the Invincible Saber King was occasionally mentioned. It was all about how one defeated him and forced him to retire.
More than a decade had passed, and Silver Condor felt that he had made the right choice. Although his life would no longer be hot-blooded and the ‘Jianghu’ around the Khan wasn’t easier than any other place, he had everything a man could want: a stable position, the right amount of money, a good and loving wife and children, and a stable future.
If he could sit down and talk to the Dragon King, these were the words that Silver Condor wanted to say.
The mystery man who had gone to him was one of the Khan’s wing guards, and now it was his turn to play that role.
The Dragon King’s kung fu was much better than he had expected but it was far from being invincible. The peculiar frosty Qi was quite unique, but he had a countermeasure ready. All he had to do was not compete with it and immediately retreat after releasing a strand of his own internal Qi. Even if a little bit of frosty Qi took the chance to enter his body, there was no need to worry. Just as the Taoist priest of the Jade Pure Sect had said, just put up with it and leave it alone, and it wouldn’t be a problem afterwards.
For the first time, Gu Shenwei had encountered an extremely tough opponent.
Golden Roc Castle also had many experts, some of whom might even have kung fu skills that were a little more powerful than Silver Condor, but in those killers’ rules, they never got entangled in a fight. If they couldn’t finish it in several moves, they would immediately retreat or find another good chance or day to fight again. But it was a regular kung fu competition today and someone had to lose.
Gu Shenwei didn’t know what Silver Condor was thinking. He just felt that this man’s saber techniques were fierce and swift and that his internal energy was very pure and powerful. Although the other side only shot out a little internal Qi each time their palms touched, it was a great blow to him. If it went on like this, he was sure to lose. And this was not even mentioning Iron Harrier, who was waiting aside.
In a very short period, he had exchanged more than twenty moves with the two wing guards of the Khan, but the cheers he won were more than the previous games added together.
Gu Shenwei felt like it was almost the right time. If the fight went on like this, he might fall into Qi deviation on the spot.
“Old Man Mu!”
Old Man Mu had spent most of the time circling around the sword formation, refusing to fight with the five elders of the Jade Pure Sect and Wild Horse. He knew very well that if he fell into the siege, he would have little chance of escaping.
The Dragon King’s call gave him a headache. Both Silver Condor and Iron Harrier had much more advanced kung fu skills than the others and were exactly the tough opponents he was trying to avoid. But the Dragon King was obviously ordering him to go and help.
Old Man Mu was really envious of Little Chu’s good luck, who was well protected in such a dangerous situation. The two hunchbacks of the Essence Pavilion couldn’t even get close to him. Old Man Mu himself, however, could only follow the Dragon King’s order and dash towards the most dangerous place.
“Coming!” Old Man Mu’s voice was cheerful as if he had been waiting for this chance to make a contribution.
Gu Shenwei and Old Man Mu quickly approached each other without many interruptions. And the place where they met was exactly at the edge of the sword formation.
It was the most chaotic moment of the tournament. With more than twenty people constantly crisscrossing and jumping, the audience could not even tell who was fighting whom, only hearing the short, second command of the Dragon King: “Attack.”
“Attack.”
Many people had said the word and many more had heard it but never before had it caused as much shock as now.
The Dragon King’s voice was neither loud nor solemn, but it reached far away with indescribable confidence as if it were not just a few men who would carry out the order but instead a hundred thousand cavalries that no one could see.
Tens of thousands Norland Cavalry drew their bows together and nervously looked around.
There was no invisible army, and the ones who followed the order were only the ten guards and Chu Nanping.
In an instant, the guards changed from defense to offense, and the ten grand swords waved like a sharp windmill, pressing at Silver Condor and Iron Harrier. Even the wing guards of the Khan had no choice but to avoid their momentum for the time being.
Chu Nanping, who had been in the protection circle for a while until now, had patiently waited, not knowing what the Dragon King was up to, or what the Dragon King wanted him to do. When the guards withdrew, the only enemies left in front of him were those two hunchbacks.
The two long swords abruptly shot out.
The hunchbacks had been looking for an opportunity to approach Chu Nanping but when the long swords came, the two were caught unprepared and could only jump away into a crowd of people to avoid the attack.
No one clearly saw what had happened at that moment, but Old Man Mu suddenly jumped out of the battle group and shouted as he ran, “Two! Two!”
He had killed the second target and completed the target the Dragon King had given him.
As an experienced kung fu master, Old Man Mu would naturally look for the weakest gap in the enemies’ lineup without the Dragon King’s reminder. So he started first with the three warriors of King Shengri and then the two hunchbacks of the Essence Pavilion.
He and the Dragon King each killed one.
Silver Condor and Iron Harrier also launched a counterattack in the meanwhile but their achievement was covered by the loud cry of Old Man Mu.
Three guards of the Dragon King had died, as Gu Shenwei didn’t have time to save them.
The real melee began, but it didn’t last long. Before the audience could focus on the center of attention and count how many people had died on each side, everyone involved in the melee seemed to have suddenly stepped into a trap, all of them either jumping or running away, all of them rushing out in a hurry.
“What’s going on?” King Rizhu craned his neck and swung his body to look around, and moved his horse back and forth, pushing King Shengri’s horse aside.
King Shengri didn’t care because he was so pleased with what he saw. Full of joy on his face, he said, “The Dragon King has been struck. He even threw his saber away. Fall down!”
The Dragon King did seem to have been struck, as he was stumbling around uncontrollably, but he didn’t fall as King Shengri had wished and ordered.
The Qi deviation had finally broken out in advance. The frosty Qi was tired of being driven by its master and had suddenly turned hostile. It broke free of the control of the yin and yang energy and galloped across the meridians that had just been repaired.
Gu Shenwei just wanted a little bit more time.
He threw away his Five Peaks Saber and unsheathed the Dragon Head Sword, and lowered his head to feel the chaotic living energy.
It had been a long time since he had used the pure Death Sutra Swordsmanship. In a daze, he couldn’t differentiate between enemy and friend, so he could only stab at the ones with the most powerful living energy.
He stabbed out three times with the sword and struck twice with his palm.
With that, Gu Shenwei stabilized himself, his face turning pale again.
Surrounded by a dead silence, he started counting the corpses.
“The Dragon King has won,” Silver Condor said bitterly. Although he had left the Jianghu for a long time, he still couldn’t accept such a defeat. He had been hit in the shoulder by the sword and his body was shivering. He was the only one who had directly taken the blow of the sword and palm and still survived the fight with the Dragon King.
Iron Harrier was lying on the ground with blood streaming from the chest and his body still shaking, unlikely to survive. He had received the second slash from the sword.
Dao Sheng was lying straight-backed on the ground with hardly a drop of blood, as the person who had received the third blow from the sword. He actually had a chance to retreat but had been pushed by his senior brother Dao Nian and thus bumped head-on into death.
Chu Nanping was also shivering. He had been staying around the Dragon King, so he was hit by the indiscriminate palm attack.
King Shengri was dumbfounded. The disciples of the Essence Pavilion were dead, and the Dragon King had surprisingly won. But this was also the best time to capture the Dragon King alive who had obviously lost most of his strength and couldn’t hold out for much longer.
Looking at the thirty thousand horsemen who were under his command and the other kings who were by his side, he decided to put all his eggs on one throw.
“Capture the Dragon King alive, and kill the others!”
King Shengri quickly gave the order and rode into the cavalry, staying away from King Rizhu’s big hand.
“Second King…” King Rizhu was shocked.
Then both lords were in even greater shock.
The thirty thousand Norland Cavalry, who were strictly trained to follow military orders, actually did not carry out King Shengri’s order. Instead, they all looked at the man standing besides the Dragon King.
Silver Condor held a small flag of order of the Khan as his other hand covered the wound, the flag issuing an order different from King Shengri’s. “Protect the Dragon King.”
