60 – Remaining Hatred
The rain stopped unwittingly.
Under the escort of the captors, Shui Yuner, the Nangong siblings, and three other martial pract.i.tioners left the village.
At curve in the road, the young disciple from the Lion Mountain School suddenly slowed down his pace and moved closer to Shui Yuner.
“Let"s work together?” He looked around carefully first. The moment he found out that the captors are looking away, he uttered a short question.
If you want to resist, then why didn"t you do so earlier?
Shui Yuner quickly thought of the reason why – probably because it would implicate innocent people in the inn. After all, swords have no eyes [1].
If her conjecture is correct, then this disciples from the Lion Mountain School has a sense of chivalry.
Shui Yuner glanced at the chief captor – the man she fears – at he very front.
After confirming that he hasn"t noticed their conversation, Shui Yuner asked softly, “You want to run?”
The boy nodded slightly, “We don"t know their real purpose. It"s too dangerous.”
The boy apparently also finds the whole thing strange. He doesn"t seem to be dumb.
“The other two have agreed.”
He appears to have already notified the other two martial pract.i.tioners.
“What about the crossbows.” Shui Yuner reminded.
Once they open the distance, the opponent is sure to fire at them from the crossbows.
Although it"s far from being a curtain of bolts, but 10 people firing crossbows at the same time is already enough to cause a lot of damage.
The threat of crossbows cannot be underestimated, especially when your weapons were seized.
“Let"s take them down?”
“No.” Shui Yuner glanced at the chief captor, “He is a martial pract.i.tioner.”
Regarding Shui Yuner"s concern, the boy only said two words, “Human Realm.”
“Are you sure?”
“I can tie him down.”
Can he really tie the chief captor down? Shui Yuner has her doubts. The scene when the chief captor subdued the boy in one move is still vivid in her mind.
“He just drew his sword quicker.” The boy snorted coldly.
In other words, when the two sides have their swords drawn, he is confident that he can tie down the other party.
But can I believe him?
“There is only one Human Realm expert. I can take a hostage.”
I see, let the other party spare the rat to save the plates [2]? Shui Yuner who has come around glanced at the other two martial pract.i.tioners – a middle aged man and woman.
They noticed the girl"s look and nodded in response.
They shouldn"t be at the Human Realm, but aren"t far away either. Shui Yun"er came to a conclusion about the cultivation base of the two.
Then, she looked at Nangong Mingming walking on the other side of her and used her eyes to seek confirmation, and the latter answered with a resolute gaze.
“Alright.” Shui Yuner agreed, which prompted the boy to breath a sigh of relief.
“Wait for my signal.” After leaving this sentence, the boy pulled away from Shui Yuner, feigning to be casual.
Once they covered a certain distance, the group turned and entered a forest path.
At this moment…
“Ah!” The Lion Mountain School disciple walking in front suddenly exclaimed and tumbled forward.
Apparently, he tripped over something.
It"s coming! Shui Yuner and Nangong Mingming looked at each other, and their muscles stretched taut.
This is probably the “signal”, because the boy didn"t fall towards the ground, but a captor.
“Hey, are you okay?” The captor supported the boy.
“Sorry, I was distracted.” The boy thanked him and kicked the stone that has “apparently” tripped him, indignant, “You scoundrel!”
The boy looked very comical, and the captor couldn"t help but shake his head and laugh out loud.
… He lowered his guard.
As if a snake that emerged from its hole, the boy sprang into motion swiftly.
Shwing…! The Hengdao left the sheath, flipped in the air, and drew a silver orbit as it closed in on the neck of the captor.
“n.o.body moves.” Holding the Hengdao against the captor"s neck, the boy went behind the captor. At the same time, he pressed one of the other party"s hands behind their back.
This successfully attracted the attention of the captors.
Now! Shui Yuner and Nangong Mingming exchanged a look and acted at the same time.
While the girl in purple lunged at a captor, Shui Yuner pulled back her right foot and placed it between the legs of a captor behind her.
The other party widened his eyes, which reflected Shui Yuner"s movements – she lowered her body slightly, turned sideways, and entered the horse stance.
Thump! The girl"s right elbow hit the captor in the chest, who in turn took a few steps back.
She pressed forward without pause. Seeing the girl approaching, the captor quickly drew his sword and slashed out, yet Shui Yuner didn"t dodge immediately.
As the captor thought that his strike would be the deciding blow, Shui Yuner looking like a blue disc dancing gracefully walked in circle according to a queer footwork, and disappeared from the other party"s sight.
“Parlor tricks!” The captor quickly adjusted his sword, turn back, and slashed horizontally.
A ray stinging the eyes approached.
Shui Yuner turned, traced a semi-circle, and changed her attack direction. The sword tip swept past her waist and sliced open her clothes, but that didn"t stopped her next attack.
“Ah!”
After she got close to the opponent, she fired a barrage of palm strikes, overwhelming the other party.
However, no matter how sharp and intense her offensive is, the opponent keeps evading, and even occasionally strikes back.
Although the captor"s martial arts aren"t superb. But by relying on the insights honed by his rich combat experience, the battle fell into a stalemate.
The two exchanged dozens of moves, until the captor forced the girl back with a wave of his sword.
When Shui Yuner retreated, the captor didn"t pursue her. He probably is aware that he can"t deal with the girl who has a tender const.i.tution in front of him.
“… You are rather good.” Staring fixedly at Shui Yuner, the captor suddenly praised.
Shui Yuner was taken aback, and then said with a light smile, “You aren"t bad yourself.”
As the two confronted each other silently, they got a respite.
Taking advantage of this gap, Shui Yuner inspected the battlefield.
Nangong Mingming got a dagger from G.o.d knows where. Fighting against two people, she perseveres. As for the man and woman martial pract.i.tioners, they teamed up and are tying down four captors. From the looks of it, both sides are evenly matched. But if you look closely, it"s not difficult to tell that the captors hold the advantage, because the wounds are gradually piling up on the two martial pract.i.tioners.
As for the Lion Mountain School disciple, holding a captor under duress, he is confronting the chief captor. They aren"t fighting. Presumably sparing the rat to save the plates, the chief captor hasn"t attacked yet.
What about Nangong Mingye? Shui Yuner couldn"t find him.
… There are fighting sounds coming from behind.
The little boy should be fighting with the last captor behind her.
Is he really okay? Shui Yuner worried about Nangong Mingye.
But considering that his sister doesn"t worry about him, Shui Yuner knows that her worries are groundless.
If the little boy really gets into a tough spot, Nangong Mingming will be more anxious than her.
It seems that the battlefield is in a fragile balance.
Even minor changes are enough to break this balance.
“You don"t want to continue?” The captor broke the silence between the two.
Shui Yuner pulled back her gaze and chuckled, “Isn"t it okay to be lazy on the sly?”
“…” The captor"s face froze. Judging from his expression, he should be thinking “isn"t this a matte of life a death, yet you still are in the mood for jokes?”
“We can"t deal with one another, right?” Shui Yuner glanced around quickly, “And the same is true for them.”
She turned to the captor again and uttered softly, “Let"s talk.”
The captor is silent, probably because he doesn"t know how to respond.
Not waiting for the other party"s reply, Shui Yuner made an a.s.sertion, “You aren"t captors.”
The captor still didn"t respond.
“You are soldiers.” After a pause, Shui Yuner added, “At least, you were once.”
They definitely aren"t soldiers now. Otherwise, why would soldiers disguise themselves as captors? Soldiers are responsible for national defense, not arresting criminals – if that"s really what they are after.
However, Shui Yuner doesn"t think that they are just bandits who got military equipment from some place.
Because they carry a thick smell of blood, as if they emerged from a mountain of corpses.
That is the scent from a battlefield full of death and killing.
They must have been soldiers, soldiers who have survived a disastrous war.
In recent years, there has been only one such disastrous war…
“You have something to do with the war from five years ago?” Shui Yuner expressed her conjecture.
Five years ago is when the war between the Five Great Sects and the Imperial Court took place.
“… How did you know?” The captor finally spoke, indirectly admitting to Shui Yuner"s conjecture.
“I guessed.”
He showed a look of incredulity at once.
“So, you guys hate martial pract.i.tioners. You are using this method to take revenge.” Shui Yuner emphasized the word “revenge” with complex emotions.
Why did these fake captors only take away martial pract.i.tioners? They must have a reason for targeting martial pract.i.tioners.
If they are really soldiers who survived the war from five years ago, then the reason is obvious. It"s because of the hatred that remained from the ordeal.
Shui Yuner doesn"t know if her guess is correct, but…
When she just mentioned the war from five years ago, she saw a mixture of nostalgia, sorrow, and anger in the opponent"s eyes.
“… Have you talked enough.” The captor narrowed his eyes and pointed at Shui Yuner with the Hengdao in his hand.
This dialogue that cannot be regarded as a dialogue is about to come to an end. But before that, the balance on the battlefield collapsed first.
A heartbreaking scream resounded in the air.
Shui Yuner searched for the source of the scream subconsciously, and saw that the middle-aged man martial pract.i.tioner who has teamed up with a companion to tie down four captors has a b.l.o.o.d.y wound on the back. It"s a sword wound.
However, the worst is yet to come.
The boy with a hostage was distracted by the scream. Taking advantage of this momentary flaw, the chief captor rushed forward, and the Hengdao in his hand turned into a stream of light and stabbed towards the boy"s face.
Unable to block this extremely fast strike, the boy could only release the hostage and quickly retreat. Instead of engaging with the chief captor, he retreated to the side of the pair of martial pract.i.tioners who are caught in a bitter struggle.
Before the chief captor could provide a.s.sistance, the three of them broke out of the siege and came to Shui Yuner.
“Things don"t look good…” Cold sweat on his forehead, the boy glanced at the injured man martial pract.i.tioner.
At this time, Nangong Mingming gave up her fight with the captors and came back.
“Older Sister Shui, what do we do?”
The enemy has already surrounded the six of them and aimed their crossbows at them.
Nangong Mingye grabbed a big sleeve of the girl"s purple dress and said with a pout, “Older Sister Mingming, I"m scared.”.
What do we do? As she watched the numerous bolt tips reflecting cold light, Shui Yuner"s mind revolved lightning fast.
The chief captain took a step forward and glanced at them coldly, “I said, if anyone resists, shoot to kill.”
“Even if we don"t resist, you still have no intention of letting us go, right?” Shui Yuner finally revealed a dignified expression.
“You are very clever. With just some scattered clues, you got to the bottom of it.”
For the first time, an emotion – the emotion of admiration – appeared in the eyes of the chief captor, but then it quickly vanished.
“Unfortunately, you are a martial pract.i.tioner.” He spoke in a powerful and resonating voice.
“What happened five years ago has nothing to do with us.”
“So what? You martial pract.i.tioners deserve to die.”
Blind hatred.
“Do you know how many people we lost five years ago?”
Suddenly, the chief captor"s eyes became bloodshot, as if he has gone mad.
“5,000 people!” He shouted with grief and indignation, “No less than 5,000 people!”
As someone who hasn"t experienced that war, Shui Yuner can"t understand how the chief captain feels.
But she feels like she can imagine it, because she has also experience loss.
As if the calm after a storm, the expression of the chief captor became indifferent again.
“They weren"t unneeded, they shouldn"t have died.” The chief captain raised his Hengdao, “But you are unneeded.”
Intense hatred poured out.
Then, he swung the Hengdao down.
As if in slow motion, the mechanisms went off, the bolts left, and the strings vibrated – everything is clearly captured by Shui Yuner.
In her eyes, more than 10 bolts tracing dark trajectories are slowly shooting towards them.
They look very slow.
In the next moment, the slow motion was broken, and the bolts accelerated in an instant.
However, none of them hit Shui Yuner, nor any of the others.
Because…
“Impudent!” A charming shout erupted in the air
Next, a deep whistling sound shook everyone"s eardrums, and a dark shadow broke through the night.
Rumble…! As if a meteor, the dark shadow blasted into the ground.
The impact raised a sand storm and blew the bolts away, and a loud blare made everyone"s ears ring.
Who"s that? Covering her face with a sleeve in order to block the strong wind, Shui Yuner looked out from the side of the sleeve.
The outline of a sword was revealed as the sand storm cleared.
It is a large sword, a frighteningly large sword.
It is inserted obliquely in the middle of the cracked ground, leaving only half of its body exposed. There is a pair of blue embroidered shoes staying atop the hilt and the guard.
“You dare attack my people?”
Large blue and white sleeves are flying in the wind, hair that has a part tied into two buns is fluttering in the air.
… A pet.i.te figure is standing on the large sword.
This back is familiar to Shui Yuner.
[1] – Swords have no eyes – once weapons are drawn, it is inevitable that someone is going to get hurt [2] – spare the rat to save the plates – to hold back from taking action against an evildoer for fear of involving innocent people