Chapter 364 Battling the Emperor’s Broadsword
Li Mu stood still in the air. His 24 flying broadswords fused into one colossal blade. He gripped the handle with his right hand and rested the broadsword horizontally over his chest.
Facing several thousand experts and more than ten thousand trained soldiers, Li Mu showed no sign of fear.
He intended to challenge Yingshan Snow-eagle, the Emperor’s Broadsword, to boost the morale of his league.
Yet, on the Flying Whale Shuttle, that old eunuch with snow-white hair and brows still stood there, wobbling. He gave no response to Li Mu’s gauntlet with a direct mention on his name, nor bothered to widen his eyes and look at his challenger.
Yan Ruyun, Commander in Chief of the Flying Eagle Batallion, let out a cold laugh instead and barked, “Li Mu, as Lord Taibai, you have been enjoying a wide range of privileges the empire endowed you with. But instead of working hard to pay the emperor back, you dare to gang up with the Yue Mountain Faction, the evil remainders of the Great Moon Empire, and join in the league of Qiu Yin, a rebel who has betrayed his own master. Are you aware of your sins?”
Li Mu brandished his broadsword and snapped, “Supporting roles, be a doll and screw off!”
“You…” Yan Ruyun was too angry to answer back.
As a member of a n.o.ble family and the peer tutor of the crown prince, when had he ever been offended like that?
But judging by Li Mu’s dignified demeanor, Lord Taibai did not just do that to provoke him but sincerely treated him like dirt.
Yan Ruyun made to argue more, but the crown prince waved him down and took a step forward. Then, the crown prince remarked, “Li Mu, the reason that I made an exception to confer the t.i.tle Lord Taibai upon you is I hope you can continue to serve the empire and the royal family. You were a humble county magistrate at first. But after I gave you that t.i.tle, you soared to the moon. Being a lord is indeed a supreme glory. Now, numerous people envy you. However, I never knew you could be so deficient in self-respect as to team up with the rogues. You do have wasted my mind of cheris.h.i.+ng the talents. I feel…”
Before he could finish his words, Li Mu wielded his Samsara Knife again and yelled, “Supporting role, off you go!”
The crown prince instantly stiffened, his face written with incredulity.
“I… am also a supporting role?”
At that moment, Li Mu withdrew the broadsword and a new idea suddenly popped into his mind.
He never wished he could defeat Yingshan Snow-eagle, the Emperor’s Broadsword. The purpose of the challenge was to slightly hearten his men by staying alive within Yingshan Snow-eagle’s three strikes and escaping back in one piece. But on second thought, Li Mu doubted if that could really solve the problem. So, why not…
Li Mu locked his eyes on the crown prince.
If he captured such an important royal member, he would be able to hold the opponents back from taking action for fear of hurting the crown prince, and that would allow him to play for some time.
At the moment, the thing that the Yue Mountain Faction was in want most was time.
“Haha, I’m finally back on the battleground after spending half a year refining my broadsword. Since I haven’t gotten anybody to try out my new weapon, Your Highness, would you lend me some blood in your throat to sharpen my new blade?”
With that thought stirring in his mind, Li Mu wasted no time to launch his strike.
The Samsara Knife shone brightly. The broadsword qi surged up to the sky.
Seizing the Samsara Knife, Li Mu combined himself with the broadsword in a twinkle of light. Next, he lunged toward the Flying Whale Shuttle like a bolt of lightning.
Moving fast than the speed of sound, Li Mu left a string of air ripples in his tracks. As if a stone being tossed into a smooth lake, layers of ripples surfaced one after another from the spot where he had stood.
The broadsword light was peerlessly dazzling.
The crown prince only sensed a stream of potent energy sweeping at him. He turned pale at once and staggered backward, then he yelled in panic, “Stop him!”
Whiz! Whiz! Whiz!
Numerous experts suspending in midair instinctively pressed forward in swarms.
“That’s in vain… Blaze me a path!” Li Mu roared.
The Samsara Knife in his hand froze for a second before stretching out. Instantly, beams of broadsword light bloomed, suffusing the entire place like whirling snowflakes.
That was the Eight-directional Hack.
Next, the void was filled with wails and screams.
Blood squirted.
Mist of blood clouded the vision.
Those experts charging at Li Mu were sent flying backward at a faster speed and crushed in piles, grievously injured or killed.
Since Li Mu and his broadsword had completely united as one, Li Mu zoomed through the air in the twinkling of an eye and penetrated the multi-layered barricades in a trice. Miraculously, he soared near the Flying Whale Shuttle in a trice like a flash of lightning.
“Drop dead!”
Yan Ruyun had been prepared for this. He drew a golden bow without hesitation as his natural qi began to circulate. When the string vibrated, an enormous gold arrow shot out.
Divine light swirled in Li Mu’s eyes.
“It’s way out of your league!”
He flipped the broadsword and smacked it against the ma.s.sive gold arrow. With a burst of sparks, the arrow was deflected backward.
“Ah…” Yan Ruyun, a Celestial Being, had no time to dodge but let loose a shriek of pain. The arrow he fired himself had doubled back and pierced his left shoulder. The overwhelming impact threw him backward before pinning him to a mast at the far rear, the tail of the arrow still buzzing violently. Then, with a loud crack, the huge iron mast that was one meter in diameter snapped from the middle part and collapsed…
Everyone on the Flying Whale Shuttle was in a panic.
The power Li Mu had demonstrated was almost like a deity’s.
Within a second, Li Mu already reached the deck of the Flying Whale Shuttle.
As the broadsword light and the broadsword qi burst out, the guards closing on him fell over the shuttle’s side like wheat husks in a storm.
Li Mu leaped up and landed right before the crown prince, the tip of his broadsword directed at his face.
Shrouded by his broadsword qi, the crown prince had lost the protection of his energy zone. He was rooted to the spot, dumbstruck.
Just as Li Mu’s broadsword was about to cut into crown prince’s throat, Li Mu reined his killing intent in and prepared to draw back his broadsword and stretch out a hand to seize the crown prince…
At that precise moment, an unexpected change occurred.
Li Mu was blinded for a fraction of a second.
Then, a hand wedged its way in Li Mu’s sight and blocked the broadsword.
That was an aged hand. The skin on it looked like dried orange peels. The pallid nails bore the faint air of death. At first sight, the hand appeared to belong to a dead man who just climbed out of his coffin. It was a seemingly stiff, lifeless… fragile hand.
Nevertheless, that hand slowly and ethereally grabbed Li Mu’s unstoppable Samsara Knife. How unbelievable was that?
The aged palm closed around the s.h.i.+ning blade.
The contrast in that scene was striking.
But to Li Mu’s astonishment, the instant the hand touched the Samsara Knife, the broadsword could not move an inch forward or shake off that hand as though it had been cast into an iron block.
That faltering old eunuch who looked so fragile that his bones might fall to pieces in a blast of wind anytime had somehow darted towards them and s.h.i.+elded the crown prince behind him. His bleary eyes opened slightly. Wisps of blood were wriggling in his grayish eyeb.a.l.l.s. The pupils did not seem to belong to a living man but a corpse, and they were fastened to Li Mu rather spookily.
Yingshan Snow-eagle, the Emperor’s Broadsword… had finally made a move.
“Shake it off!”
Li Mu bellowed. His strength spiked as he attempted to yank the Samsara Knife out.
Even a mountain a thousand feet high would crumble under such incredible force.
Li Mu was most confident in his physical strength.
Still… the blade merely vibrated feebly.
The Samsara Knife could never be wrenched out like that.
“Eh?” Sensing the vibration of the blade, Yingshan Snow-eagle’s seemingly dead pupils finally reflected a hint of thrill showing that he was alive after all.
But that was merely a small hint of it.
“Interesting.” The old eunuch appeared to be a little intrigued. In his cold laughs, the Spiritual Qi within several kilometers suddenly gathered around him.
Through his Third Eye, Li Mu saw that the sea of clouds raged as countless invisible energy grids flew to and landed on Yingshan Snow-eagle. Compared to the invisible energy grids with holes large as large-sized fis.h.i.+ng nets some other pract.i.tioners conjured from the surrounding Spiritual Qi, those Yingshan Snow-eagle extracted were as thick and dense as gauze. Those energy grids gradually covered his body, arms, and fingers. He seemed to have fully combined himself into the world.
As if inlaid in that world, the Samsara Knife could no longer move a bit.
“Boy… I’ve killed at least 1,000 deemed talents like you.”
Yingshan Snow-eagle remarked. His voice was broken, which sound as horrible as rubbing two decayed chunks of wood against each other.
A film of the intangible energy grid rolled out like a poisonous serpent. It slithered down the Samsara Knife and wound its way towards Li Mu’s arm, hoping to pin him down thoroughly.
Li Mu swiftly withdrew that hand.
After he let go of the handle of the broadsword, Li Mu leaped to the bow of the shuttle and adopted a Horse Stance.
Since he had practiced the Lifting Pole Style of the Zhenwu Boxing for a million times, that move was completed in an instant. Li Mu then lifted a hand and took a swing. That was precisely the strike called the Rocking-sky Hammer.
“Humph.” Yingshan Snow-eagle thrust his shaky, lifeless palm forward and cast the Great Tablet Smas.h.i.+ng Hand.
Boom!
The whole Flying Whale Shuttle trembled.
The deck at Li Mu’s feet cracked open.
He was under the impression that the old eunuch just punched the whole world and the immense counter-force bore down on him relentlessly. Half of his body went numb. Still, having no time for hesitation, Li Mu launched the Sky Hammer, the second style of the Zhenwu Boxing. A horrifying power roared inside him. As his fist shoved forward, a stream of inconceivable force broke out.
“Humph.” Yingshan Snow-eagle’s elongated white brows fluttered to the back of his head. His eyes were wide open now. Then, another Great Tablet Smas.h.i.+ng Hand was thrown at Li Mu.
Crack!
The floor Li Mu was standing crumbled, while he was tossed to the sky.
Pain shot through his arm. He reckoned the bones were broken.
However, while he was in midair, he managed to adjust his postures and launched two more blows.
He performed the Cracking Sky and the Grasping the Bird’s Tail of the Zhenwu Boxing without any reserve. Two opaque fist beams tore the void apart like two divine swords. The air was driven apart, too. As if fired by a super cannon, the energy beams he produced charged right at the Yingshan Snow-eagle standing on the bow of the shuttle.
The old eunuch, however, did not flinch or duck at all. He just raised a palm and pushed it forward.
The Spiritual Qi whirled. A wall const.i.tuted by the invisible energy grids appeared before him and took the blows of the two fist beams for him.
The deck beneath him cracked noiselessly.
By that time, the crown prince was already surrounded by throngs of guards, several of whom were Imperial Executives in the Celestial Being Realm.
At that sight, Li Mu knew it was basically impossible to capture the crown prince alive.
The Emperor’s Broadsword also turned out to be extremely powerful. His strength was deep as a bottomless abyss. Li Mu had exercised almost all of his best skills. Now that he had failed stir up a ripple in the abyss even with his ace card, the Zhenwu Boxing, he had to admit that Yingshan Snow-eagle, the G.o.d of killing who had made Xu Sheng and the other pract.i.tioners tremble in fear, did live up to his reputation.
In truth, Li Mu was well aware of his own strength.
He knew it was purely a fluke that he had killed Huang Shengyi with his cultivation in the first stage of the Celestial Being Ream.
If he had not mastered the Taoist True Fire recorded in the Mental Scripture of Fire Emperor of the Five Emperors’ Immortality Scriptures, he could at most draw a tie with Huang Shengyi in that battle. Li Mu himself was actually very surprised to see that he had beaten and killed that Semi-Sage. He knew he should impute the natural checking relation in the five elements to that victory. In fact, Huang Shengyi had died from playing with fire.
Although Li Mu’s current cultivation was only in the first stage of the Celestial Being Realm, he was way stronger than normal Celestial Beings. He sure had the combat ability to confront a Sage.