“Leave?” sniffed Shan Congyi with a sneer on his hideous face, his eyes staring fixedly at Ling Zhang who was galloping at him. “The one I want to kill is coming to meet his doom on his own initiative. Why would I leave? Move aside, all of you. Anybody who tries to block my path shall die where he stands!”
Shan Congyi’s deformed, contorting face, coupled with his menacing tone, frightened his bodyguards who were eager to make their escape immediately. As their eyes met Shan Congyi’s icy ones, they broke out in a cold sweat and made way for him in spite of themselves.
“Follow me. We’ll fight our way through and kill Ling Zhang!” enunciated Shan Congyi, releasing his reins and whipping his saber out of its sheath fastened to his belt with his only hand.
At this moment, Ling Zhang in the distance was also shocked, not by the fact that Shan Congyi had the guts to stay to fight a losing fight, but by Shan Congyi’s appearance.
Shan Congyi’s face was terribly disfigured and mutilated, bearing no resemblance to the face Shan Congyi used to have. Back at the time when Ling Zhang had first met Shan Congyi in the capital of the Great Wen, the latter had appeared quite mild and vulnerable. Even when the two of them had been in a standoff outside Xiaofeng Village, Shan Congyi had been very different from what he looked like now – he seemed more like a ghost than a human being.
Ling Zhang had all along been baffled as to how Shan Congyi had managed to survive that explosion. He had heard people talk about what Shan Congyi looked like after recovering from his serious injuries, and he had also been informed that Shan Congyi had lost an arm, but none of those descriptions were as shocking as the sighting of Shan Congyi he was having at this moment, and he couldn’t help but wonder how on earth Shan Congyi had survived.
“Ling Zhang, I was in no hurry to look for you, but here you are, coming here to seek your death. Today I’ll have you pay for what you did to me five years ago – with your life!” Shan Congyi raised his saber and pushed the spurs on his boots into the side of his horse, ordering it to charge. He had lost an arm and his only hand was holding the saber, so he was unable to hold the reins. His horse, intimated by the air Ling Zhang was emanating, didn’t move, but Shan Congyi somehow stimulated it and it let out a pained neigh and abruptly galloped towards Ling Zhang!
At the sight of this, Shan Congyi’s bodyguards had no choice but to clench their teeth and follow in his wake.
Ling Zhang in the distance narrowed his eyes, looking at Shan Congyi charging at him, feeling that not only did Shan Congyi not look like a human being any more, but he was also soft in the head, given that Shan Congyi was really charging at him suicidally, saving him chasing.
The sword in his hand, just like his armor, was blood-spattered. Ling Zhang held it firmly, waiting for Shan Congyi to arrive to seek his own death.
Shan Congyi’s gaze was heavy with hate. His hatred towards Ling Zhang had clouded his judgement, keeping him from seeing sense. He didn’t even have any room in his head to think about his own life. In his mind was only one thought – kill Ling Zhang!
As Shan Congyi approached, his lips actually curved in a grin, which was even more terrifying than a ghost.
Naturally Ling Zhang wasn’t scared by him. He was just even more confused as to why Shan Congyi was charging at him so confidently when what he was doing was apparently suicide.
“DIE!”
Shan Congyi raised his saber high and slashed at Ling Zhang as he got close enough.
At the sight of Shan Congyi’s act, a hint of speechlessness, which was rather uncharacteristic of Ling Zhang, appeared in his eyes that were somewhat scarily red from intense bloodthirstiness. He could dodge Shan Congyi’s blow hands down. Snowflake moved aside and helped him sidestep the attack without him doing anything.
Ling Zhang patted Snowflake’s neck and said, “You don’t have to dodge. I’ll handle it.”
Since Shan Congyi was so anxious to die by his sword, how could he not grant his wish?
Ling Zhang raised his sword, lightly smacked his hand down on to the saddle and leaped upwards from Snowflake’s back like a swift bird, his sharp sword turning into a blur of movement which formed a pattern reflecting light like snow, but which harbored life-threatening danger and directly shrouded Shan Congyi in it.
At the sight of Ling Zhang leaping up from his horse, Shan Congyi’s face finally registered a suggestion of astonishment, but he still stubbornly galloped towards Ling Zhang with the intention to hack Ling Zhang down with his saber. However, before he could approach his target, Ling Zhang’s Sword-light got to him. Driven by Ling Zhang’s internal energy, each Sword-light was powerful enough to halve a gigantic mountain rock instantaneously. Shan Congyi, who was only human, naturally was unable to defend against this sword strike. Without any resistance – without even him noticing, actually – he was cloaked in the sheet of snow-white Sword-light which quickly went through his body one after another. At first there was nothing out of the ordinary, and Shan Congyi, raising his saber high, was muttering, “Today I’ll get revenge for what you did five years ago. Only your death can quench the flames of hate in my mind. Die! Ha-ha…”
Before he could finish laughing, his face suddenly stiffened and he paused with an odd expression, and with that blood spewed from his mouth. After a brief moment, his whole body, along with his armor, abruptly divided up into numerous pieces which shot outwards in all directions as though something exploded violently inside him. There was nothing left of him.
It was a gory and astounding sight. Shan Congyi’s bodyguards following in his wake were scared to such an extent that they all stiffened on their horses, open-mouthed, their teeth chattering, unable to utter a word as if there was a lump in each of their throats.
When Shan Congyi split into countless pieces, Ling Zhang took a flying leap and landed lightly on top of a nearby tent. At the sight of Shan Congyi being blasted, his first thought was that five years ago Shan Congyi had detonated a weird iron ball, which nearly killed them both. At that time, the whole scene had been shrouded in dust and smoke so thick that he hadn’t seen whether Shan Congyi had died or not. He had thought that Shan Congyi had been reduced to ashes in the explosion. Now he had killed Shan Congyi by himself, and Shan Congyi had died right in front of him. Surely Shan Congyi couldn’t have faked his death this time? He didn’t believe that Shan Congyi could rise from the dead.
When this thought was dismissed from his head, Ling Zhang blinked his eyes, which then alighted on those around him who were horrified by him, and who were tremulously looking at him. Suddenly, something refreshing crossed his mind and dissolved his desire for blood, and with that his eyes became clear. Looking at the pieces of Shan Congyi who couldn’t be more dead, he came to realize what he had just done.
This was the first time that Ling Zhang had gone to war. He and the North-western Army under his command, with unstoppable momentum, had forced the Wan army into retreating again and again. He, followed by his twenty-four bodyguards, had been in the vanguard all along and naturally had taken the brunt of the enemy’s attack. He had been killing for a whole afternoon, claiming countless lives with his sword and palms, which was why he had gradually been blinded by his thirst for more blood. It was as though his eyes had been veiled by some kind of enchantment; he could distinguish his own men from the enemies, but all he could think of was killing. After taking so many lives, he had almost turned himself into a killing machine who could kill without batting an eye…
Because of his internal energy which had been growing more and more powerful, and his palm techniques and swordcraft which were unequaled on the battlefield, he had been killing without any difficulty. In his eyes, all resistance was like a childish game. He could easily kill any of the enemies with a single sword strike. When something is too easy for you to do, you tend to ignore a lot, and slowly you become desensitized to it and take it for granted.
All these had been in Ling Zhang’s mind a moment ago. It was not until this moment that he suddenly came to himself. Furrowing his brows, he glanced at Shan Congyi’s “body” on the ground. Shan Congyi was the one who had died the most violent death by his sword, and was also the main reason why he had come to realize he had been on the verge of losing control. He stood still on top of the tent with a frown on his face.
Down below, his twenty-four bodyguards had killed the whole team of bodyguards of Shan Congyi’s. They noticed Ling Zhang’s silence and also sensed the fairly unusual aura Ling Zhang was giving off, but they didn’t think there was anything wrong with the way Ling Zhang had killed Shan Congyi. They seemed to believe that Ling Zhang had every reason to kill Shan Congyi. The method Ling Zhang had adopted struck them as somewhat surprising, but there were bodies and blood everywhere on the battleground, so killing an enemy in a strange way seemed to be no big deal. The only thing that concerned them was that Ling Zhang for some unknown reason had suddenly lapsed into silence and was standing still.
“Young Master!” called Wang Dashan aloud. “Did something happen?” he asked.
Ling Zhang jerked out of his trance and silently shook his head. Then he replied, “Nothing. Gather the pieces of Shan Congyi’s body and burn them with the other corpses on the ground.”
“Yes, General!”
The battle was coming to an end. Shan Congyi was dead. Xue Chi, severely injured, was retreating with his surviving soldiers, but Jiang Xi and his men were pursuing them hotly. Given that Xue Chi had only several thousand men left and was grievously wounded, it wouldn’t be long before Jiang Xi and his men caught up with them and finished them off, so it was unnecessary for Ling Zhang to join the pursuit.
The next step was to deal with the surviving Wan soldiers who were still in the encampment. Those who surrendered themselves would be gathered together, and those who refused to yield would be killed. And then there was the cleaning of the whole battlefield and the matter of statistics of the dead and injured. Jiang Ke and the other officers would handle all that, and Ling Zhang didn’t have to do anything about it. Therefore, he just gave the order for his bodyguards to help clear the nearby area of the dead, found himself a spot which was barely fit to sit, sat down, produced a piece of cloth to wipe the blood off his sword, and then started thinking about the reason why he had lost control of himself during the fight.
He had never had such experiences before. He wondered if similar things had ever happened to any of the others on the battlefield: Jiang Ke, Jiang Xi, Yuwen Tong and his bodyguards – all of them were also top-notch kung fu masters, especially Yuwen Tong. His kung fu couldn’t hold a candle to Yuwen Tong’s. Had any of them ever been in this kind of situation?
“Young Master?” Wang Dashan and the others, after helping clear the nearby battleground of the dead, left the remainder of the clearing up to the soldiers. After all, their duty was to protect Ling Zhang, and they were supposed to keep Ling Zhang in sight at all times. Wang Dashan couldn’t help but call Ling Zhang as he saw that Ling Zhang was sitting there and seemed to be thinking about something, a slight frown and a seemingly confused expression on his face.
“Are you hurt, Young Master? Would you mind if I take a look?” Qiu Bing walked over.
Ling Zhang shook his head. “I’m fine. Are any of you wounded?”
Wang Dashan and all the others had suffered some minor injuries, but it was nothing serious, so they all shook their heads.
Ling Zhang inclined his head. After a while, he added, “It’ll take them some time to finish clearing the battlefield. Liuzi, take some men and find Jiang Ke. See if he needs any help.”
Yang Liuzi gave a nod. All threats neutralized, Wang Dashan and the others were enough to keep Ling Zhang safe, so it was okay if they left. As a result, Yang Liuzi took a team and went to Jiang Ke’s help.
