Chapter 295: No One Gains The Upper Hand
The sight of an ordinary man in anger is terrifying, especially for someone like He Junnian at that level.
With no way to dodge, he took a heavy hammer blow head-on. His free left hand transformed into a claw, and three gleaming white like jade fingers tore open the throat of a Panxing Tower assassin, ripping out a section of windpipe along with it. His body was airborne as he used his right hand to block Liu Changsheng’s fire chain, while his raised left leg kicked the neck of another knife-wielding assassin with such force that it actually kicked the assassin’s head clean off the neck.
As soon as his legs touched the ground, he tore at Liu Changsheng’s fire chain while darting around. Liu Changsheng was furious too, clasping his hands together to merge the two fire chains into one. At the same time, the ancestral fire flames in the Dragon God Hall surged high again, like a giant hand erupting from within the hall, enveloping Liu Changsheng’s body in flames.
“He Junnian, prepare to die!”
As Liu Changsheng roared, that flame, now more than twice as thick, suddenly turned from orange-yellow to blue. The fire chain instantly wrapped around He Junnian’s wrist and climbed up along his arm.
He Junnian chuckled darkly. A bright yellow flame suddenly rose from his chest, then draped over him like a bright yellow feather robe. When the bright yellow flame collided with the ancestral fire, it made a ‘pop’ sound, and his arm snapped off abruptly at the point of collision between the two flames.
Wu Tong transformed into a blade ball again, spinning as it crashed toward He Junnian. The other assassins followed up on the momentum, while Yun Ce seized the chance to pull a new meteor hammer from the Dragon Pearl, with its hammer head trailing behind Wu Tong’s blade ball, waiting for Wu Tong to be repelled so he could swoop in for the cheap kill.
Freed from the fire chain’s control, He Junnian—despite losing half an arm—grew even fiercer in his attacks. His remaining right hand seemed truly indestructible. The Panxing Tower assassins with thousand-man general strength were like infants before him. They dodged his hand but couldn’t escape his leg; they evaded the leg but not his elbow, knee, or shoulder. He even smashed one assassin’s head to pieces with his own head.
In just one breath, those assassins who had rushed at He Junnian swiftly retreated even faster. But many of those retreating assassins had already turned from living people into corpses.
Wu Tong’s blade ball shattered after He Junnian’s right hand pierced it. Wu Tong hurriedly retreated, but it was too late. The shattered blades caught up to him, burrowing into his body, with several even piercing through his back.
1 Yun Ce chose not to save Wu Tong. The meteor hammer grazed Wu Tong’s ear as it smashed toward the pursuing He Junnian with the force of ten thousand catties. He Junnian spread his right hand open and chose to clash with Yun Ce’s meteor hammer once more. With a ‘bang,’ a clear palm print was imprinted on the meteor hammer again, rendering it powerless to harm, and it fell limply to the ground.
1 However, this killing move successfully repelled He Junnian’s pursuit. Wu Tong staggered to the ground, and in the moment of falling, he tossed a bomb at He Junnian.
1 The bomb exploded as soon as it reached He Junnian. Having anticipated this move, He Junnian crossed his intact right arm and mangled left arm in front of his face to shield his eyes. The explosion’s shockwave erupted again, sending countless fragments scattering in all directions. Yun Ce let out a strange yell, yanked Wu Tong’s body, and flipped behind a boulder.
1 After the explosion, before He Junnian could lower his arms, the meteor hammer that had fallen at his feet suddenly exploded. The fragments from the meteor hammer forced He Junnian, who had just blocked the bomb’s fragments, to retreat rapidly. Unfortunately, no matter how fast he retreated, he couldn’t outpace the flying fragments. Over a dozen fragments finally broke through his energy field and burrowed into his body.
1 Liu Changsheng in the distance flicked his sleeve to brush away the fragments. His hand emerged from the dark robe sleeve again, sending another fire chain flying toward He Junnian, who was still enduring the explosion’s baptism.
1 Yun Ce, hiding behind the boulder, saw He Junnian still retreating. He flicked his finger lightly, and a black stone the size of a peanut landed on a wine pot he had previously scattered there. The wine pot was rolling outward with the explosion’s shockwave. Struck by the black stone just as the shockwave hadn’t fully spread, a new explosion erupted.
1 After the wine pot exploded, it produced no fragments but a sheet of white blazing flame. The blazing flame landed on He Junnian’s left leg, immediately igniting a fire that firmly enveloped him in the white blazing flame.
1 “Boom boom…”
1 Two massive blasts arrived as expected, hurling He Junnian, at the center of the explosions, high into the air like a ragged doll.
1 Liu Changsheng’s fire chain wrapped around his left leg again. Before He Junnian could land, it yanked him back fiercely. At the same time, his long-charged right hand extended from the pitch-black robe sleeve. Once He Junnian was pulled over, this palm would strike.
2 Just as a smile crept onto Yun Ce’s lips, He Junnian’s left leg suddenly detached from his body. His body dropped like lightning. In one breath, his right hand hooked out, instantly killing the four remaining Panxing Tower assassins. As he hopped on one leg to Wu Tong’s side on the ground and raised his right palm to kill Wu Tong, Yun Ce reached out from behind Wu Tong and solidly clashed palms with He Junnian.
2 In that instant, Yun Ce realized He Junnian was in an utterly miserable state: missing half his left arm, one right leg gone, his originally lean and anciently elegant face riddled with meteor hammer fragments, and his right eye reduced to a bloody, mangled black hole.
2 With a “bang,” their palms met. Yun Ce had put nearly all his strength into it, but the palm didn’t land solidly—it felt insubstantial. His heart sank with a bad feeling as He Junnian’s body vaulted over the steps, flipping into the nearby mountain stream.
2 “Liu Changsheng, since you’ve started the war, this old man will return war to you.”
2 Hearing He Junnian’s voice fading farther away, Yun Ce, who had wanted to pursue, stopped in his tracks. He turned to Liu Changsheng and said, “High Priest, will He Junnian die?”
2 Liu Changsheng didn’t answer. He turned expressionlessly and returned to the Dragon God Hall.
2 Wu Tong, spitting blood, asked Yun Ce intermittently.
2 “He… Junnian… dead?”
2 Yun Ce shook his head and said, “From the sounds of it, this guy will live.”
2 Wu Tong spat out a mouthful of blood and screamed at Yun Ce in anguish, “Kill him—”
3 Yun Ce spat blood too and said, “You think I can still kill him now?”
3 After speaking, he turned and descended from the Dragon God Hall, step by step down the Imperial Palace Mountain called Dragon Mountain.
3 Chang’an City was ablaze with firelight once more, cavalry everywhere, indulging in utmost burning, killing, and looting.
3 With every step Yun Ce took, blood trickled from his mouth. After a quick inner observation, he found his internal organs displaced, lungs filled with blood, liver somewhat ruptured, two blood vessels broken inside his body, four broken ribs, and basically no intact bones in his feet.
3 At this moment, he immensely missed Doggy…
3 Everyone in the city had seen the anomaly at the Dragon God Hall, so the cavalry deliberately avoided the Imperial City area.
3 When Yun Ce staggered down from the Imperial City, he saw a little girl leading a Thunder Smoke Beast.
3 The Thunder Smoke Beast looked familiar—it should be the red date horse. The little girl’s clothes were odd: an outer robe of bear skin, and the inner clothes seemed like someone’s underpants modified.
3 “You’re back?”
3 Yun Ce shook his dazed head and said, “I’m back.”
4 The red date horse lay on the ground, then carried him slowly back after he mounted.
4 Yun Ce barely opened his eyes and said, “I need a safe corner to rest, rest.”
4 Huo Wudi, leading the red date horse, looked up at Yun Ce and said, “The original second-floor little building is gone—burned down by a group of cavalry just now.”
4 “But I have another hideout. We’re almost there.”
4 The red date horse carried Yun Ce through a desolate garden, then under Huo Wudi’s guidance, leaped over a high wall with both of them. It watched as Huo Wudi moved a stone from a fake mountain, revealing a dark cave entrance. The entrance wasn’t large, and the red date horse was too big to enter. Yun Ce dismounted and walked step by step into the cave.
4 Huo Wudi whispered something in the red date horse’s drooping ear. The red date horse immediately lost its majestic steed appearance and squalidly hid in a patch of withered grapevines.
4 The air in the cave was fairly fresh, though passing barred rooms gave off a faint corpse stench—unavoidable, since structurally, this had originally been a dungeon.
4 After Huo Wudi closed the cave gate, it was pitch black inside, impossible to see one’s hand. When she lit an oil lamp hanging on the wall, a fire line extended along a rope deep into the cave, illuminating the entire space as bright as day.
4 “What is this place?” Yun Ce asked, taking a new tent from the Dragon Pearl and tossing it on the ground while Huo Wudi lit the fire.
4 “My home.”
5 “Your home? Oh, right, Heng Ji’s home.”
5 “Don’t worry, Heng Ji won’t come.”
5 “Oh? Where’d she go?”
5 “She said she’s going to find my dad.”
5 Huo Qubing was still being alive. Though Yun Ce didn’t quite believe the legend, the existence of those diagrams forced him to take this news seriously—after all, he was the one who had obtained the news that Huo Qubing was still being alive.
5 No time to dwell on that now. Shehuo was already burning into a fireball inside the Dragon Pearl, continuously infusing heat into his weakened body.
5 Though this heat couldn’t quickly restore his body, it steadily provided him energy, driving his internal breath to repeatedly purge impurities from his body.
5 He had actually wanted to ask Liu Changsheng for help, but Liu Changsheng’s utterly ruthless turn away extinguished any thought of entering the Dragon God Hall.
5 What good would going in now do anyway? E Ji and the others couldn’t help, and he might even bring them danger.
5 Yun Ce thought and thought, then collapsed onto the mat in the tent.
6 Huo Wudi seemed very scared, because Yun Ce was spitting out black blood mouthful by mouthful, his body curled into a fetal position inside the tent, as if he were about to die.
