Chapter 208: A Man’s Success Should Not Be Questioned For Its Process
Yun Ce had just slit the throat of a Hundred-man General with his saber. As he held the man’s damaged neck for Doggy to collect the Inner Breath Essence, Zhou Cheng, with fifty attendants, stepped into the recently concluded fighting arena.
He saw a bloodied figure drinking blood.
Enraged, he swung the chain hammer in his hand, whistling sharply, directly at the back of the bloodied figure’s head. As if its blood-drinking process had been interrupted, the figure turned around in extreme anger, opening its mouth in a silent roar. Its blood-stained teeth were particularly striking in the moonlight.
The chain hammer landed in the figure’s open left hand. Zhou Cheng tugged hard, trying to retrieve the chain hammer, but found that it was as if it had grown into the figure’s hand, unmoving.
Yun Ce squeezed hard, wanting to crush the thing. Only by doing this could he give the other party the strongest shock. Unfortunately, the chain hammer couldn’t be crushed, and it made his fingers ache.
So, he threw the chain hammer back. As it was about to hit Zhou Cheng, the man had already shaken the iron chain in advance, changing the hammer’s direction. It bounced off a tree and once again struck towards Yun Ce.
Yun Ce found it amusing. The other man’s understanding and control of force had reached a certain level. After catching the hammerhead again, Yun Ce applied a spinning force to it. The chain hammer spun, twisting the iron chain, and struck towards Zhou Cheng once more.
Zhou Cheng still wanted to control the hammer via the iron chain, but the chain couldn’t withstand the force applied to it simultaneously by two sources. It suddenly snapped, breaking into six pieces and flying in all directions with a piercing shriek.
Yun Ce stepped to a spot not far from Zhou Cheng, picked up the dropped hammerhead from the ground, and looked at Zhou Cheng, asking, “Why isn’t Yan Fei here?”
“There’s no need for a general to deal with mere insects like you.”
Yun Ce sighed and said, “Failing to establish a reputation early enough to be underestimated by nobodies is my fault. However, after the battle of Xiangcheng, the heroes of the world should no longer make such a mistake.”
As his words fell, Yun Ce lunged towards Zhou Cheng like the wind. Zhou Cheng decisively discarded the remaining meteor hammer and drew a horse spear from his side, thrusting it directly at Yun Ce.
The expected collision didn’t happen. Yun Ce didn’t target him but turned halfway and lunged at the leftmost cavalryman. The gleam of his saber flashed under the moonlight, and a bloodline appeared on the cavalryman’s neck. Yun Ce chuckled and stepped off the Great Horned Horse’s back, lunging at the next cavalryman.
Perhaps due to the excessive force, the Great Horned Horse collapsed to the ground before it could even whinny. Yun Ce dodged the cavalryman’s thrusting long saber and landed on the horse’s back. He circled his saber around the man’s neck, taking his head. Simultaneously, he used one foot to kick the short spears on the horse’s back. The four throwing short spears left their scabbards and shot towards the other cavalrymen. Caught off guard, the cavalrymen had to dismount.
In the blink of an eye, Yun Ce had killed two men and scattered Zhou Cheng’s organized formation with a few short spears. Zhou Cheng, ignoring the military formation, roared, and the Thunder Smoke Beast beneath him charged through two Great Horned Horses riderless. His horse spear once again chopped down at Yun Ce.
Yun Ce didn’t meet the blow head-on but dodged Zhou Cheng’s horse spear and continued to pursue the scattered cavalrymen. Seeing that his few remaining personal guards were once again killed by Yun Ce, Zhou Cheng shouted, “Disperse!”
Yun Ce killed two more in the chaos and regretfully discovered that the cavalrymen had fled far away, leaving only him and Zhou Cheng on the battlefield.
“Who are you?” Zhou Cheng asked, concentrating his gaze.
“You’re not calling me an insect anymore? I won’t answer you yet. When you have a deeper impression of me, I’ll tell you then.”
Zhou Cheng, his sword unable to be sheathed, charged forward with his horse. Yun Ce leaped high into the air. From above, over ten arrows rained down. He slashed them down one by one with his saber. Zhou Cheng’s horse spear had already reached Yun Ce’s chest.
Yun Ce grabbed the horse spear with his left hand and used Zhou Cheng’s force to leap high into the air again. A short spear, carrying the whistling sound of wind, struck Yun Ce’s left arm. The short spear couldn’t penetrate his left arm. Enraged, Yun Ce abandoned Zhou Cheng. Upon landing, he quickly strode forward, slashing left and right amidst the chaos, until he found the cavalryman who had sneakily attacked him with the short spear. He grabbed one of the man’s legs and pulled him off his horse. Facing Zhou Cheng, who was charging towards him, Yun Ce exerted his strength with both arms. With a tearing sound, the cavalryman who had ambushed him was ripped apart from the middle.
The description of being torn apart from the middle is not entirely accurate, as at the waist, due to the structure of the body, one leg and half the torso separated from the body. The act of tearing a person in half did not occur. The description in “Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties” of Li Yuanba doing this is likely fictional and unreliable.
Yun Ce’s cruel actions made even Zhou Cheng, who was no stranger to killing, tremble in his heart. He no longer dared to be careless. With a wave of his hand, the remaining guards charged forward.
The battle returned to its initial state. Yun Ce darted back and forth, up and down within the forest, while Zhou Cheng and his men, riding their horses, encircled and pursued him in the sparsely wooded forest.
After another half hour, Zhou Cheng, looking at the corpses of guards scattered everywhere, began to feel the urge to retreat.
Just then, the remaining troops of Xiangcheng finally found the subordinates Yun Ce had hidden. This time, they did not kill the scarred Cao Clan cavalrymen but instead bound them all and sent them to the battlefield where Zhou Cheng and Yun Ce were.
Zhou Cheng, already enraged, swung his saber and killed a captive. He turned to Yun Ce and said, “Surrender, or I’ll kill them all.”
Yun Ce stifled a laugh, quickly grabbed a Xiangcheng cavalryman, and with a sweep of his saber, decapitated him, throwing the head before Zhou Cheng. “What nonsense are you talking about?”
The Cao Clan Centurion, who was about to be dragged out and beheaded, shouted loudly, “General Yun, we have already achieved a great victory in this battle. Why don’t we stop here?”
Yun Ce, smiling, poked his head out from behind a tree and said to Zhou Cheng, “Do you admit my victory?”
Zhou Cheng, his face ashen as he looked at his remaining force of less than three hundred men, gritted his teeth and said, “Today, you and I will not rest until one of us dies.”
Seeing that the negotiation was about to collapse, the Cao Clan Centurion quickly said, “General Yun, if all of us are annihilated here, how will you explain this to our Young Master?”
Yun Ce sighed, “That’s because your Young Master lent me too few troops. As you can see, if your Young Master were willing to give me another five hundred men, we could have wiped out these people completely.
Don’t worry, after you die, I will tell your Young Master that you all fought valiantly and died heroically.”
With that, Yun Ce’s figure disappeared from behind the big tree again. The next moment, he leaped down from the treetop, his saber aimed directly at Zhou Cheng’s head.
Zhou Cheng blocked with his horse spear but didn’t hear the familiar sound of weapons clashing. He rolled off the Thunder Smoke Beast’s back. The next moment, a brilliant sword light slashed across his horse’s back. Zhou Cheng, still shaken, swung his horse spear into a blur of light. His body, lying on the ground, kept wriggling backward. Only when he felt he had escaped Yun Ce’s attack range did he suddenly jump up and steady himself.
His eyes scanned for Yun Ce’s figure and he was shocked to find him a dozen meters away. He suddenly remembered his own embarrassed actions, which his subordinates had clearly witnessed. For the first time, Zhou Cheng felt the urge to retreat and realized for the first time that Yun Ce was not someone he could handle.
As a general, his greatest strength wasn’t his martial prowess but his ability to make accurate decisions at the right moment. Seeing that Yun Ce had no horse, Zhou Cheng immediately mounted his Thunder Smoke Beast and shouted to his subordinates, “Go!”
With that, he turned his horse and was the first to gallop out of the forest.
The rest of the troops, already terrified by Yun Ce’s slaughter, saw their general flee and also turned and ran. Those without horses jumped onto their comrades’ warhorses and fled, demonstrating remarkable discipline.
The Cao Clan cavalrymen, whom the enemy hadn’t managed to kill, breathed a long sigh of relief. Regardless, this hellish ordeal was finally over.
It wasn’t until they saw their general’s strange Thunder Smoke Beast, its head peeking out suspiciously, appear beside the general that the Cao Clan Centurion knew instantly that the battle was far from over.
The Red Date Horse’s movement trajectory was peculiar. It didn’t pursue the fleeing cavalrymen closely but, like a carnivorous beast, suddenly charged from the side. Yun Ce was its fangs and claws. After killing the cavalrymen within reach, it once again burrowed into the tall grass or sparse woods.
Then, at the cavalrymen’s most terrified moments, it would appear from an unexpected direction, allowing Yun Ce to use his horse spear, saber, short spears, and even the chain hammer to kill the enemy according to their numbers and distribution.
The Red Date Horse paid no mind to Zhou Cheng, who had fled ahead. From the battlefield to Xiangcheng was a full forty li. Such a long distance was enough for it and Yun Ce to kill all the cavalrymen and intercept Zhou Cheng before he entered the city gate.
Zhou Cheng, crouched on the back of the Thunder Smoke Beast, galloped wildly. The faint cries from behind him made him want to run even faster. As a general, once a decision was made, it had to be carried through to the end.
Yun Ce felt that the Red Date Horse, having been through Shehuo, should no longer be called a horse. If it weren’t still in the form of a horse, Yun Ce would have called it a brother.
Others needed to control their horses when riding, but he didn’t. Often, it was the Red Date Horse that carried him to kill enemies. Even enemies who had jumped off their warhorses midway and hidden in the grass were trampled into a bloody mess by its hooves as it passed by.
Zhou Cheng was finally stopped by the Red Date Horse just as he saw Xiangcheng…
After a long time, a Thunder Smoke Beast carried Zhou Cheng to the city gate. The guards cautiously welcomed him into Xiangcheng.
Yun Ce lay on a patch of grass, recovering his breath.
Doggy’s voice of admiration echoed in his mind.
“Such pure Thousand-man General Inner Breath Essence, far superior to that fake Yu Zhu.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Let me tell you, it’s probably related to Shehuo. While searching Zhou Cheng’s Inner Breath, I found traces of Shehuo. This fellow’s Inner Breath should have also been refined by Shehuo, but the refinement was not clean or thorough.
Yun Ce, you need to be careful. It seems you’re not the only one in this world who knows that Shehuo can aid in Inner Breath Evolution. After all, they have coexisted with Shehuo for thousands of years. Your understanding of this world is still too superficial.”
Yesterday was very lively. More than twenty online writers from Gansu came to visit me. A group of very, very good people. They didn’t laugh at me for failing, they just asked me to treat them to mutton.
If any brothers pass by Baiyin in the future, you’ll receive the same reception. As long as you don’t laugh at me for failing, you are my esteemed guests with whom I can talk about anything.
The bonus chapter will have the location posted.
