Chapter 414 Ode to the Gallant
“Your Highness, you can’t do that. Let me, the old Zhang, do it.”
“The two of us can stay and hold off the pursuing forces. That way we can die without regrets. Your Highness, you are carrying the spark of the Great Moon Empire. We can’t let anything bad happen to you!”
Zhang San and Mu Qing hopped anxiously on the spot.
At that time, to stay there and fight Emperor Qin Ming was basically committing suicide.
Yu Hualong countered, “But will you be able to hold him off if you two stay here?”
Both of them were dumbfounded upon hearing that question.
Yes, they could not stop Emperor Qin Ming even if they stayed on the battlefield.
Indeed, Semi-Sages could easily triumph over most of the other pract.i.tioners in the world. However, in the face of Emperor Qin Ming, the number one expert on that planet, they could be killed in a fraction of a second. Therefore, if the two stayed, they would just be offering their lives to the enemy.
“But I know how to block him.” Yu Hualong said, griping his long sword. A glow that no one had before appeared in his face.
Smiling unrestrained, Yu Hualong said, “I’ve heard a poem called Ode to the Gallantry. That day, Li Mu merely told me the first three lines. Today, I will complete the rest of it. Haha. The real gallant devotes his life to defend his country and folks. I will have no regrets if I can guard the way to life. Old brothers, you organize those fighters to pack light and go to the Yue Mountain Faction along the route we designated. The Yue Mountain Faction will definitely take you in.”Read more at L isnovel
Hearing that speech, Zhang San and Mu Qing knew the crown prince was resolute to save the others even though he would sacrifice himself.
The two made to say something more, but Yu Hualong said imperiously, “Still want to stay here? Do you want me to beg? Bear this in mind. You lead the others to survive this. Someday, Li Mu will come and avenge me. The spark of the Great Moon Empire must be preserved and pa.s.sed on.”
The two trembled uncontrollably but neither of them managed to utter a word. They both gave a deep bow to Yu Hualong and then took their leave.
They could just pray that Li Mu had already learned the situation and would rush there as soon as possible.
The rest of the army galloped towards the mountains like thunderbolts.
Yu Hualong smiled with relief, as though he had just taken off the heavy load on his shoulder.
Since he realized his mission, he had been shouldering a heavy load. Every second, every minute, he was living under great pressure. He had too much to think about, too much to weigh. But at that moment, he finally got rid of those concerns.
All that he needed to do was seize his sword and fight.
He used to be a chivalrous man traveling freely across the Great Tang.
His sword had earned him praises and admiration from countless martial arts experts in the Tang Dynasty.
After following his master onto the Path, it had been a long time since he had a good fight with someone.
So, on that today, he yearned for another thorough blossom of his combat skill.
Grasping the sword in the right hand, he bent the fingers of his left hand to form the shape of a sword.
That was the starting posture the combatant in the Tang Dynasty did before a deadly battle. They called it the Life and Death Step. Once a man took the Life and Death Step, he was determined to fight until he was killed.
Ahead of him, ten columns of pitch-black clouds dived like wicked dragons that had ruined the heavens. They almost ripped the sky and the earth open. Under that kind of impact, the world seemed to be shaking.
Yu Hualong slowly looked up.
His black hair fluttered at the back of his head. His handsome face was lightened with a smile.
“You want to extinguish the spark of our Great Moon Empire? Then, you should get past the sword in my hand first.”
The sword in his hand slightly vibrated. Layers of cyan Sword Qi burst out from the sword and expanded in all directions, as though cyan lotus leaves slowly unfurling with peerless elegance.
His master, Li Bai, also went with the name Cyan Lotus Hermit. He was a peerless professional in both poetry and swordsmans.h.i.+p. The entire Tang Dynasty regarded him as the number one swordsman. And what the Tang’s numerous swordsmen envied most was his invincible sword art—the Song of the Cyan Lotus Sword.
As Li Bai’s disciple, Yu Hualong naturally had learned the gist of that art.
The black dragons had swooped down from the sky, as if they would swallow down the whole land.
“Today, the Song of the Cyan Lotus Sword will resound on this land again.”
As Yu Hualong smiling, cyan lotus leaves spread around him layer after layer.
His sword pointed skyward and shot up.
A streak of dazzling cyan light zoomed out to meet the ten columns of black clouds shaped like dragons that shadowed the sky.
“Kill!”
Rasping sound as though rubbing rusty iron pieces came out from one of the black dragons, which charged straight at Yu Hualong. It disrupted the air in its vicinity. The power in the Sage Realm abruptly broke out.
“Haha, today, I’ll present the Ode to the Gallant… ‘Knights from the Song Dynasty wore unadorned hatbands and carried s.h.i.+ning machetes!"”
Yu Hualong burst out laughing. He just sang the Ode to the Gallant composed by Li Bai, the greatest poet in the Tang Dynasty. As if heartened by that poem, the brilliance of the cyan sword light suddenly shone resplendently like the sun.
The cyan light brazed past the black dragon.
It shone glamorously.
Like snow being splashed by boiling water, the ink-colored dragon melted away at the touch of that cyan light and instantly dissolved into the air. Thousands of black pieces of his body burst out. A Sage had been killed in just a second.
“Huh?” Overlooking the battle from the Flying Whale Shuttle, Emperor Qin Ming showed a hint of surprise.
“His silver broadsword showed against his white coat, and the horse galloped forward as fast as a shooting star!”
Yu Hualong’s booming singing reverberated between heaven and earth. The quiet buzzing of the Cyan Lotus Sword was mingled in his singing and echoed for a long time.
Another jet of cyan sword light zoomed by.
One more black dragon fell down, disintegrated, and evaporated!
Like the slashed vile, his broken iron armor plummeted to the ground.
Angry roars sounded between heaven and earth.
The other eight inky dragons that had flung upon the remnants of the Great Moon Empire’s army swiftly veered away from the army, ripped open the sky, stirred the Spiritual Qi in the surroundings, and galloped at lightning speed toward Yu Hualong.
“Hahaha! I’m enjoying the time of my life!”
He floated in the void. Gleaming rings of the cyan sword light spread out from him, as though thick lotus leaves were unrolling. Yu Hualong’s black hair fluttering behind him. Wearing the pa.s.sionate smile of a free knight from the great Tang Dynasty, he seemed to have transformed into the G.o.d of Swords.
“I kill one person with every ten steps. I leave no trace even I traveled thousands of miles. I walked away when my mission is completed. My name and esteem are known to few.”
The song echoed. It appeared to have triggered a mysterious force between heaven and earth.
Yu Hualong thrust his sword again.
The cyan lotus leaves kept growing and unfurling. The sword light seemed to have penetrated time. Moments later, four more inky dragons were killed. The cyan sword light effortlessly cleaved those dragons in half from the middle, and numerous fragments of iron armors rained down.
“When I drank with the great Lord Xin Ling, I drew the sword out and raised it high. I shared my roasted meat with Zhu Hai, and I held the wine vessel to urge Hou Ying to drink…”
The singing started again and became more and more coherent, as if it was gathering something.
A mysterious force between heaven and earth seemed to have crossed several thousand years and converged toward Yu Hualong nonstop, making the cyan light around him s.h.i.+ne brighter and brighter.
The cyan light was just the size of a ball at the beginning. But by then, it had become a sea of glinting cyan.
The sword light continued flas.h.i.+ng.
The remaining four inky dragons still failed to fend off the opponent in spite of their wrath and desperate counterattack. In an instant, they were cut into pieces and disappeared from the world.
On the Flying Whale Shuttle, all the colors drained from the faces of the ministers of the Western Qin.
Li Yuanba, the Domineeringly Demonic Halberd, and the other military officers had once been astonished by the eruption of overwhelming Sage aura from Emperor Qin Ming’s ten black-armored demonic guards. But on that day, the crown prince of the Great Moon Empire just killed the ten black-armored demonic guards in the Sage Realm with a few sword styles?
They had to admit that the world had changed.
In the past, Li Yuanba, Li Gang, and the other two at the peak of the Celestial Being Realm were acknowledged as the Four Great Legends and regarded as the awe-inspiring idol of countless martial arts pract.i.tioners. However, now, any random guard serving Emperor Qin Ming had the strength to take out the so-called Four Great Legends within seconds.
Nonetheless, in front of the crown prince of the Great Moon Empire, those strong black-armored guards died even faster than the weeds on the road…
Li Yuanba and the others felt an inexplicable sorrow for themselves.
With the advent of a new era, were they gradually falling behind?
As Emperor Qin Ming could easily summon ten guards in the Sage Realm, only heaven knew how many such guards he still had and how horrible his forces that had hidden in dark were.
Moreover, Li Yuanba had also noted some other clues from what had happened by far.
For instance, the power His Majesty displayed after coming out of the closed-door training was no longer the Dragon-commanding Skill, the orthodox cultivation method of the royal family of the Western Qin. Instead, it was a totally different kind of overbearing power. And those black-armored demonic guards did not seem to be real people, either, but some kind of puppets… with rich sinister aura.
What on earth had happened in the royal family of the Western Qin?
Li Yuanba didn’t dare to think further.
From some point, the imperial military man known for his toughness and shrewdness began to consider leaving his work and lead a more retiring life. As the tide of a new era rushed over, gradually, he felt his ability was no longer equal to his ambition.
Still, Emperor Qin Ming was staring at Yu Hualong with scorching eyes a distance away.
“Interesting. That’s what a sinner from the Path ought to look like. He is performing that old Sword Whiz’s sword-using method. It’s driven by his vigor, but its power is only one-tenth of that man’s. If I can obtain the sword-using method called Ode to the Gallant…”
His lips bent into a ruthless curve.
“After three cups of wine, a vow would be taken, and even if the Five Sacred Mountains crumbled it could not be unmade. When the eyes went blur and the ears grew warm, the heroic spirit would appear like a rainbow…”
Yu Hualong’s singing rang in every corner of that patch of land.
“To save the Zhao Kingdom by brandis.h.i.+ng a gold hammer, the city of Handan would first tremble. The two brave warriors of a thousand epoch, they might grace the city of Daliang!”
The singing constantly evoked the mysterious power in the void. Above the clouds, as if being attracted by the song, the brightness of the stars overlaid, and Yu Hualong’s power kept soaring.
The Ode to the Gallant was a poem popular for ages on Earth. But when Yu Hualong sang it, the song appeared to possess an immense magic power which inspired a mighty righteous force between heaven and earth.
As he chanted the lines, the sea of cyan lotus leaves around him grew increasingly larger and firmer!
Yu Hualong himself also seemed to be about to become a real immortal and ascends to heaven. His flesh melted into the splendid cyan lotus and he turned more and more transparent. A holy, virtuous aura began to flow out from him.
“Kill!”
A jet of sword light streaked across the sky and darted directly toward Emperor Qin Ming.
Turning a little nervous, Emperor Qin Ming rapidly pulled out the Imperial Sword from his waist. A black dragon wriggled fervently in his palm, and then slithered onto his sword along his wrist. Next, Emperor Qin Ming hacked the void in half with a swing of that sword.
The black and the cyan sword light collided in midair.
Like a diamond cut into another diamond.
At the tip of the swords, layers of glowing rings spread out.
It turned out that the cyan sword light had shattered the black one, and the remnant of the light continued speeding toward Emperor Qin Ming.
“Humph!” Emperor Qin Ming snorted and thrust his sword the second time, which directly smashed the cyan light.
However, at that precise moment—
“Hahaha! Even in death their bones remained fragrant, and never would they feel ashamed in front of all the heroes in the realm.”
Looking unperturbed and resolute, Yu Hualong seized the end of his sword with both hands. He and the sword combined into one, which turned into a shot of cyan light das.h.i.+ng straight at Emperor Qin Ming. That strike embodied all the styles of the Ode to the Gallant. In a flash, it already approached the target. Before the sword light descended, the Flying Whale Shuttle where Emperor Qin Ming was riding already started to disintegrate under the great pressure produced by that Sword Qi…