Chapter 171: First Snow (5)
Translator: Kelaude Editor: TomYummy
Caught by surprise, it was both Duan Jirui and Luo Wuqing’s first time witnessing so many transcendent artifacts erupting from the same person simultaneously. They initially thought that the armour was formed from just a couple of transcendent artifacts. None of them expected there to be almost seventeen in all. Where on earth did a Cave Master dig up so many treasures from?
Items like transcendent artifacts did not fear death, as they only listened and attacked according to their master’s commands.
Witnessing the battle from afar, Zhang Decheng frowned the moment he caught wind of the situation. “This is bad!”
He saw that the situation was about to get tenuous.
As expected, Duan Jirui and Luo Wuqing were instantly forced into a flurried frenzy. They barely had the time to react, much less attack Miao Yi. The treasured spears in their hands struck out, unleashing a flurry of blows in rapid succession. Clanging sounds resounded from striking the clouds of ferocious phantom beasts.
A first grade transcendent artifact is unable to withstand the formidable attack power of a Blue Lotus cultivator. What’s more, the weapons wielded by the two were also transcendent artifacts. Instantly, their strikes on each of the illusory ferocious beasts made their resplendent light darken. The Yao Spirit energy inside the artifact was beaten until they were scattered. With a whooshing sound, they shot back towards Miao Yi’s body and returned to their original armor form.
Miao Yi was never of the mind that his cultivation base would be enough to put up much resistance against cultivators of the Blue Lotus realm. If his cultivation level had crossed the dividing line into White Lotus Fifth Grade, then he could have pushed on with the transcendent artifacts. As it was, there was completely no chance for him to do so, let alone fight two cultivators of the Blue Lotus realm.
By relying on his artifacts, the most he could do was temporarily resist and counter them, in order to seize an opportunity to escape.
Even as half of the artifacts he had released were beaten to their original form, Miao Yi’s objective had been reached—he instantly brushed past the both of them.
The few remaining artifacts that had yet to turn into their original forms, quickly sped back and helped Miao Yi withstand Duan Jirui and Luo Wuqing’s counterattacks. Thus, they were able to to successfully aide Miao Yi in his escape.
The moment the distance between the two parties pulled apart in mid air, Miao Yi was instantly overwhelmed with concealed joy. With Charcoal’s leg strength, the opponents would never catch up to him!
Nobody expected Zhang Decheng, who had been observing the battle from the remote mountain range, to let out a cold scoff before joining two fingers and giving them a flick—a crisp clang sound sounded out from beside his waist!
The treasured sword suspended on his waist immediately pop
ped out from its sheath. The whole body was raven black, and faintly suffused with a blue light. Akin to a bolt of lightning, it shot out across the sky with a ‘Whoosh!’, slashing straight at Miao Yi while he was still hanging in mid air and had yet to touch ground.
Miao Yi was surprised by a powerful surge of transcendence energy whizzing from behind him. In response, the helm on his head exploded abruptly into an illusory silver lion that twisted its body as it pounced out.
‘KABOOM!’
A reverberating noise erupted from the air. Suffused with blue light, the incoming treasured sword slashed the lion into a shower of silver rain. Even the Yao Spirit inside had been destroyed, completely erasing any hope of recovering it. A first grade transcendent artifact had been destroyed on the spot by a single strike from Zhang Decheng.
The erupted silver lion had only just momentarily suppressed the might of the treasured blue sword by a little, and wasn’t able to successfully block the offensive force. It continued to slash towards Miao Yi just as he was about to reach the ground.
Twisting his body around, Miao Yi swiftly pressed Qin Weiwei down behind him. Utilizing the full might of his cultivation level, he returned the blow with a furious roar, dragging the Inversed-Scales Spear around to counter the attack!
‘KABOOM!’
The instant the Inversed-Scales Spear clashed with the blue treasured sword, the sword was deflected upwards. It flipped over in the sky, and curved in an arc before rolling back in Zhang Decheng’s direction.
The resplendent light on the Inversed-Scale Spear darkened, it had almost been jolted out of his grasp.
Miao Yi’s entire body was shaken so violently that it almost became numb. The blood and Chi in his body were doing somersaults. He felt as though his internal organs had been wretched out of place.
Charcoal was jolted in midair; so much that he let out whinny.
Even Qin Weiwei received some shock from the fearsome blow of the blue treasured sword. She spat out a mouthful of blood and was sent flying from Charcoal’s back.
Her beautiful hair danced in the air; Qin Weiwei’s eyes widened greatly as she stared at herself gradually drifting away from Miao Yi, falling towards the ground.
At first, she thought that she was going to die, but a thoroughly red-faced, swollen cheek Miao Yi suddenly stuck out his hand. In one hasty move, he’d bent over and grabbed onto her arm.
His movements were too large, and he couldn’t hold back a mouthful of blood any longer. Unexpectedly, he spat out the mouthful onto Qin Weiwei’s face and was also able to swiftly hauled Qin Weiwei back.
While he was dragging Qin Weiwei back, Charcoal had already touched the ground and broken into a mad gallop.
“Cave Master, hurry up and run! Yan Xiu will cover you!”
Seeing that the situation was beginning to be tenuous, Yan Xiu urgently rushed over and let out a loud furious roar. The chain bound around his arm shook out with a thunderous noise.
The broad axe with a long chain tied around it was suffused with a crystalline white light as it flew forth. With two reverberating clangs, it deflected two weapons, sneakily hurled straight at Miao Yi’s back, that would’ve almost sent him flying.
Grabbing back the hurled broad axe, Yan Xiu swiftly turned his body around to pursue Miao Yi from behind. At times, he would glanced back to look around, keeping the twin axes ready in his hand to strike back at all times.
Although Charcoal’s ‘çharacter’ was poor, he made up for it in being quick-witted. He knew that this was a life and death struggle and, as though his life depended on it, he broke into a violent gallop with all his might, dragging the distance from the mass of pursuing troops behind further and further apart.
Qin Weiwei was severely injured. Even the light in her eyes was becoming quite faint. She was simply being carried in Miao Yi’s arms.
The fluttering snowflakes were thrown into discord by the mounts charging along the path. A bloodstained white skirt, and a head of beautiful, scattered hair were dancing about in the arms of a silver armored cavalryman.
With her face covered in blood, Qin Weiwei opened her eyes to weakly glance at Miao Yi, who had blood dribbling out of his mouth at times. The snowflakes hitting her face felt icy cold.
Never would she have imaged that even until now, he hadn’t abandoned a burden like her and made his escape alone…
The retreating blue treasured sword returned back into Zhang Decheng’s grasp. He stared at the fleeing Miao Yi breaking free from the entrapment. Zhang Decheng was caught by surprise. He never expected Miao Yi to actually be able to ward off an attack from his second grade transcendent artifact. He had originally thought that just this one attack alone was enough to kill Miao Yi and knock him down.
The crucial point was that Miao Yi’s lion helm had staked everything on defusing a large portion of the blue treasured sword’s might. And again after forcibly taking on the attack with the Inversed-Scales Spear, the enemy’s follow-up attack power was defused by twenty-percent. Thus, Miao Yi’s life was fortunately saved. However despite that, the attack had inflicted serious injuries on Miao Yi.
The distance between the two parties had already pulled far apart. Based on Zhang Decheng’s cultivation and the capability of the transcendent artifact in his hand, he could only manage an attack within a one kilometre range. Exceeding that one kilometer would also mean going beyond his own ability, and thus, he was unable to deliver a second blow to Miao Yi. He was also incapable of commanding his transcendent artifact to fight a battle in as fluid and nimble a manner as Yao Ruoxian. Otherwise, Miao Yi would already be dead.
Truth be told, utilizing this sort of combat technique was slightly risky. When going against a cultivator of Miao Yi’s rank, there wouldn’t be any issues. But when clashing with someone who had a higher cultivation level, he could kiss his transcendent artifact goodbye.
Although this form of killing technique, where the artifact could be sent flying and return, had a one kilometer range. Once the transcendent artifact left one’s hand, it couldn’t be nimbly controlled from a distance and would be easily intercepted by others.
A large number of men had failed to detain Qin Weiwei, allowing just a single man to barge in and rescue her. Even his own weren’t able to stop the other party from doing so. It made Zhang Decheng lose his temper from the shame. Humiliated, he flew into a rage and ordered, “Everyone attack! Order the four ambush units up ahead to stop him!”
As soon as he voiced out the order, he himself, together with the troops behind him, all charged down the mountain with a loud rumble. Several hundred of the cavalry’s thundering hooves echoed throughout the mountain forest.
Just because a single Miao Yi had appeared, their entire plan had been disrupted. Those men were originally meant to be waiting in ambush for Yang Qing. But now, if they couldn’t even detain Qin Weiwei and allowed her to escape, Yang Qing would never come here and send himself to his death.
Now, all they could do was try their best to stop Qin Weiwei. If they couldn’t, then they could still seize the opportunity to fight Yang Qing head on, while he still had yet to completely assemble his forces. Since their troops outnumbered Yang Qing’s, they could still expend more resources to eliminate Yang Qing.
Yet in order to avoid arousing Yang Qing’s suspicions earlier, Zhang Decheng had commanded his four subordinate Mountain Chieftains to make the encirclement too wide.
After the four Mountain Chieftains received the message sent by the spiritual eagles, they urgently pressed forth to stop them but were unable to. They stared on helplessly as countless mounted soldiers broke through the entrapment up ahead, and could only closely pursue them from behind.
Now for the sake of fleeing with his life, Miao Yi spared no effort. The armors on his and Charcoal’s body were squirming. He immediately grabbed sixteen First Grade Yao Cores out and fed them to the sixteen transcendent artifacts to replenish their energy that had been almost completely exhausted. He intended to quickly recover his transcendent artifacts’ defensive ability.
The soldiers were hot on their trail. He couldn’t calm himself down enough to recover his depleted transcendence energy and wounds. Carrying Qin Weiwei in his arms, he would occasionally glance behind. On seeing that there was still a massive army charging out from either side, he spat out a mouthful of blood and yelled out behind him, “KEEP UP!”
Leaning in his arms, Qin Weiwei occasionally opened her eyes weakly. She would gaze dazedly for a while at Miao Yi, who had blood trickling down his chin, before eventually shutting her eyes once more due to exhaustion with a perplexed expression on her face.
Gongsun Yu and the rest frantically urged their mounts to follow closely from behind. At the same time, they shouldered the task of defending against the attacks from behind.
They realized that Miao Yi’s mount ran at a terrifying speed whilst dragging a body of heavy armor that were now temporarily unable to help; there was another person’s weight on him as well. And yet, he was actually faster than them riding alone. Thus, they had to do their utmost to urge their steeds onwards just to barely keep up with him.
Initially when Gongsun Yu saw Miao Yi carrying Qin Weiwei in his arms, he was quite perturbed. However, after witnessing the leg strength of Miao Yi’s mount, he could only let it be.
They made their escape down the path with a large mass of troops chasing closely from behind. The sounds of hooves thundered about, causing dust to fly in its wake.
Half a day later, the sounds of thundering hooves closing in came from up ahead. Miao Yi and the rest were overjoyed upon catching sight of Yang Qing already urgently leading his men to rush to their rescue.
The moment they ran into each other, Yang Qing swept his gaze over Miao Yi, before dropping onto Qin Weiwei’s face in Miao Yi’s arms. After seeing that his daughter had been rescued and was no longer held hostage, his spirits lifted instantly. The worried look on his face was long gone, and a nasty grin flashed past instead. “He Yunye you old scum, you dare to double cross me. Do you seriously think that I, Yang Qing, am made out of clay? You want to devour me? I would love to see whether your mouth is up for it!”
His subordinates were already in formation to meet the enemy in battle. Nobody expected Yang Qing to make a sudden decision. He didn’t care why Miao Yi had returned, and didn’t spare any thought on the commanding armor that Miao Yi and his mount donned. He even didn’t care about Qin Weiwei’s injuries. Without even a single line of unnecessary words, he brandished his spear and ordered, “Retreat!”
His subordinates’ troops immediately turned around and headed back with him without engaging themselves with Zhang Decheng’s army, allowing Zhang Decheng’s troops to pursue them from behind.
Thereafter, Yang Qing swiftly wrote down orders on jade archives before passing it to Qing Mei and Qing Ju. Using the spiritual eagles, they swiftly sent the decree to the other mountains’ troops who had not assembled with him yet.
After traveling at speed for a hundred li, Yang Qing saw that the pursuing troops were still latched onto them without any intention of letting them go. He suddenly brandished his spear, pointing it ahead to a fork in the road. Brazenly, he ordered, “Every division, listen to my order! Follow me to charge through the boundary of Thriving Ten-Thousand Manor. When meeting with a cave, quickly destroy it! When we come across a mountain, topple it! We’ll launch a direct assault at Thriving Ten-Thousand Manor!”
Everyone was shocked beyond measure. Attacking Thriving Ten-Thousand Manor under Suppressing Third Hall?
Even Miao Yi was also stunned as he continued holding onto Qin Weiwei. Had the Manor Head been driven to madness? Thriving Ten-Thousand Manor territory did not belonged to Suppressing Second Hall. With the current situation, a mere insignificant Manor Head like you still dared to wreck havoc on Suppressing Third Hall’s territory?
