13 swords emerged in unison.
They were directed at the allied forces of Mount Shu and the Judicature. In a flash, five died and eight were injured.
Blood sprayed liberally. Meanwhile, the troops of the Demon Race and the allied forces also met at this point in time. Their respective leaders might have an indescribable rapport but not the frontline soldiers and warriors. The Orthodox Path slew demons and rid of evil, while the Demon Race slew members of the Orthodox Path—this was heaven"s law and earth"s principle itself. The moment both sides met was the moment of a b.l.o.o.d.y battle began. No words were necessary; one only had to unsheathe his sword and attack.
In a split second, the battle reached its peak.
It was certain that large-scale sword skills couldn"t be employed at such close proximity. The only thing that both sides could fight over was control over the details.
The Demon Race had the number of their wolves for their advantage while the allied forces relied on the coordinated and large legion of black-armored soldiers of the Judicature. The strength of both sides was almost on par.
The only difference was that the Demon Race was more focused on Ye Que. In particular, Feng Xingmo had developed an immense hatred for Ye Que. He was completely sober by now and understood the scheme of this young Rogue Cultivator.
What he didn"t understand was whether this youngster was truly so unafraid of death.
What benefit would this younger get to lure the Demon Race to fight fiercely with the allied forces? How could he escape once he was caught in this crossfire? Was he really sacrificing himself so that others could flee?
"Does such a person exist?" Feng Xingmo stared fixedly at Ye Que. "Is there still someone who wishes to be a hero in such a world? Isn"t he afraid of dying without leaving even his skeletons behind?"
Right now, it was impossible for Ye Que to continue his mad dash. He controlled his 13 Spirit Swords to continually kill the people around him without regard whether it was a Mount Shu disciple, a Demon Race warrior, or a black-armored soldier of the Judicature. All those who came close to Ye Que were attacked.
Everyone had the impression that the Demon Race was the cruelest existence in the world but at this moment, Ye Que was even more savage than demons. Every move and attack he made inevitably took someone"s life.
More and more blood seeped into the ground of the dark wasteland.
The number of times Ye Que waved his Spirit Swords became fewer and fewer. No one noticed that each time he waved his swords, the spot where blood spouted was different. Moreover, he didn"t take even a single step away from the spot he was standing the entire time.
A faint blood pattern slowly formed under his feet. The pattern was bizarre and seemed to be harboring enormous energy. However, this energy wasn"t targeted at his enemies but Ye Que himself.
10 more seconds later, the pattern was finally completed.
Meanwhile, Feng Xingmo approached Ye Que with several of his trusted aides.
Without hesitation, he launched his most powerful attack. With a biting-cold murderous aura, a gale as sharp as a blade swept Ye Que.
The cold wind abruptly made an ear-piercing whistling sound!
Unexpectedly, Ye Que who stood at the heart of this attack put down his hand and even retrieved his 13 Spirit Swords. He looked as if he had given up resistance but the smirk on his face made Feng Xingmo"s heart tremble.
There was no getting back once the attack was launched.
Even if Feng Xingmo thought something was off, he had no way of stopping his attack.
In the blink of an eye.
The blood-red radiance enveloping Ye Que flashed and subsequently died. The sharp, violent blade-like wind looked like it was about to hit him on the chest.
"Did I succeed?"
Feng Xingmo muttered to himself. However, in that brief moment, Ye Que unexpectedly vanished into thin air. Not even his breath could be detected. Meanwhile, a 10-meter-long black pike appeared in the spot in which he had disappeared. The body of the pike was filled with blood-red patterns.
If one carefully examined the pike, one would see that the blood-red patterns on the black pike were very similar to the patterns that Ye Que drew on the ground.
Those besieging Ye Que were shocked.
"Where did he go?"
"Did he disappear?"
"You must be kidding me! Is there something wrong with my eyes?"
Several kilometers away, a girl had appeared in the spot where Ye Que had thrown his black pike at the west blockade line of the Demon Race.
The girl was dressed in white and carried an oil-paper umbrella. One moment, she was observing the black pike on the ground and carefully examining the patterns on its body. The next moment, she was able to detect the faint Divine Energy in it. "How could there be someone capable of controlling the breath of the Celestial World in the ley lines of sovereignty of the Imperial Mausoleum?!"
The white-clothed girl frowned. Following a summoning motion, the black pike fell on her palm. She gently brushed across the body of the pike with her tender hand and faint Primordial Desolate Force came to surface. It was neither the True Energy of the Cultivation World, Divine Energy of the Celestial World, nor the Demonic Origin of the Demon World.
It was right then that the blood-red patterns on the black pike glowed. In the blink of an eye, the pike disappeared and a youngster appeared in its place.
The youngster crashed into the white-clothed girl"s embrace. For some reason, the girl didn"t move. It was as if his body was made out of cotton.
Evidently, this youngster wasn"t fully conscious and his vision wasn"t all together focused. He muttered to himself, "It"s a bit of a challenge to use the Tantric Buddhism"s Object Swap skill as a Physic Realm cultivator."
He subsequently fainted.
The youngster was Ye Que.
For a brief moment before he lost consciousness, he was flabbergasted. "The ground in the dark wasteland should be full of sand! Why is it so soft? And why can I smell a faint fragrance?"
"That"s weird!"
How could it not be strange?
If someone was here to hear his thoughts, he would spit on Ye Que for being a fool who didn"t know how to appreciate what he had!
"How can it be anything but soft when you"re in the girl"s embrace? How could there not be any fragrance? Stop acting so demure when you"ve taken advantage of the girl! I"ve never seen such a hooligan before!"
The girl looked astonished as well. For a moment, she didn"t know how to react.
It was her first time experiencing something like this. For nearly one hundred years since she was born, no man had ever touched her skin, never mind lying in her embrace!
Moreover, she didn"t know what did this mean. She only knew that she had a strange feeling about all of this. She began pondering how she should react. Should she immediately kill this man who fell into her embrace? Or should she wait for him to wake up and inflict a cruel trial on him until his Primordial Spirit dies? Or perhaps, should she pretend that nothing happened?
Her information bank contained many of the secret rumors she had heard, long-lost martial arts techniques, as well as various languages from different countries. Unexpectedly, she discovered that no one had ever taught her how to solve her current predicament in all of her memories.
Perhaps, no one ever thought that a man would be able to approach a girl of her status and even touch her!
She lowered her head to look at Ye Que.
"Where have I seen him before?"
The white-clothed girl continued pondering with a frown but no matter how she racked her brain, it felt wrong to her. Why wouldn"t she let go of him?
"Thud!"
The moment the thought struck her, she let go of her hands and Ye Que fell to the ground, causing a layer of dust to rise. The strands of hair covering his forehead also flopped over at the same time, revealing his face in its entirety.
The girl finally recalled something after looking at his face. She was also sure that she had seen Ye Que before, and not for the first or second time.
The first time.
On the Luo River, she stared at the armored dragon ship in the distance and saw a youngster following up his sword skills with martial arts techniques. She watched as he killed a ship full of Devious Iguanas. Those unbelievably ugly creatures had always been something she detested the most. Never mind touching them, she wasn"t even willing to spare them a glance so as not to strain her eyes.
Thus, she viewed the youngster"s actions favorably.
The second time.
She was in Luoyang City then. Back then, it was her first time entering the city and traveling in the Human World. However, everywhere she went was auspicious and peaceful, making her feel incredibly bored. That night, she saw someone brandishing his sword and scaring away a group of useless men with a sword skill at an incredible speed.
Back then, that person stood at the head of the stone bridge while she stood at the tail. She found the person to be an interesting character.
The third time.
The day she prepared to leave Luoyang was a sunny and beautiful day. It was also the day that a seminary opened its business for the first time and many went to look around. Out of boredom, she went as well. In the arena, someone dressed in white performed a series of boxing skills and said something. His speech was long and she was unable to remember the whole of it. But she remembered his first sentence: "The way of the Tao is natural for all living things in the world; all humans are born equal." She was particularly fond of that last sentence: "All humans are born equal."
That day, she thought that the person in the arena made a lot of sense.
To the white-clothed girl, everyone she encountered in the Human World was the same. Due to her status, her view of the ordinary person was equivalent to the view of an ordinary person toward an ant. To humans, all ants were the same regardless of their number. There was no difference.
Yet, the protagonist of these three memories had left a vague impression on her. She simply never thought too deeply about them before. The three faces turned out to belong to the same person, this youngster in front of her. Unexpectedly, he was the first one who entered her embrace, the first "person" to do so!
The three faces in her memories gradually fused with the face of Ye Que, who was lying on the ground, and froze.
She never thought that a "person" would reside in her memories or that she would remember a person. However, that was the truth and not even she could control this.
The white-clothed girl"s straight brows gathered into a frown as she stared fixedly at Ye Que"s face. Then, she heaved an unprecedented sigh. She knew she wasn"t intended to kill this person anymore, not now.
She thought, "I"ll refrain from killing him so I can ask him a few questions."
"What are those patterns on the pike?"
"How did you exchange positions with an object?"
"And is it true what you said in the arena that day—that all humans are equal?"
"Oh, another thing..."
These thoughts swiftly convinced her.
There were still so many things that she hadn"t clarify, so the person lying on the ground mustn"t die. What a pity it would be if he died just like this. Who would give her answers to the questions she mentioned earlier?
The cracking on the ground in the dark wasteland gradually ceased and the earth regained stability. Even the cold wind had stopped raging. However, the battle continued, consuming the attention of more than one hundred Demon Race warriors, pack of wolves, Mount Shu disciples, and the Judicature soldiers. From the moment the first drop of blood was shed, both sides were determined to clinch a victory.
Even though Ye Que had mysteriously disappeared, both sides subconsciously thought he had something to do with the other and that they had fallen for the other"s trap.
Meanwhile, Nalan Rongruo"s group had regained freedom after breaking out of the siege without a hair out of place.
"Shouldn"t we go back and find Ye Que?" Li Jianqi asked softly.
"I think we should. He did it; he lured all the Demon Race warriors away," Nalan Rongruo replied. The words had just left her mouth when next to her, Qi Shenghua tugged on her sleeve.
"There"s no need, is there? I"m not willing to say it, but obviously, he"s gone. There"s no chance for anyone to survive such a ma.s.sive demon hunt." The Eldest Senior Brother of the Seven Sabers Sect of Qingqiu coughed. "We should thank him, not dig our own graves."
"The world is small; if we"re fated, we"ll meet again."