Flying Sword

Flying sword!

Qin Sang's eyes flew open, only for the vicious sunlight to dazzle him. He hurriedly shut them again.

His throat was unbearably dry, and pain surged through every part of his body like a tide. Bracing himself against the ground with his arms, Qin Sang forced himself upright and discovered that he had somehow fallen from the prison cart and passed out on the ground. His right leg was pinned beneath a broken cage. No wonder his calf hurt so badly—it might have been smashed and broken.

How had the prison cart overturned?

Qin Sang struggled to recall what had happened before he lost consciousness. His head felt as though it would split apart. He barely managed to sit up, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a scene of utter devastation in the distance.

The ancient trees along the riverbank had either fallen or snapped in half. Some looked as though they had been struck by lightning. Flames climbed one tree, and the thick smoke carried over by the wind choked him.

That vast stretch of yellow grassland had been utterly ruined, as if a herd of wild boars had rooted through it. Countless deep ravines lay exposed in the earth, pale grass roots tangled and crisscrossed within them.

When the convoy had come through, the riverbank had clearly been perfectly flat.

Qin Sang stared blankly at it all, and at last, fragments of memory surfaced.

A man in white had descended from the heavens, and the bandits had all dropped to their knees, shouting "Immortal Master"...

A flying sword had stabbed toward that black-cloth carriage. The carriage exploded with a boom, and a black-robed man flew out. The two seemed to have a grudge against each other and started fighting the moment they met. Then he seemed to have heard a strange sound, and he had passed out.

What had happened after he lost consciousness?

Those two could actually fly. That was clearly abnormal. The bandits had called them Immortal Masters—could they truly have been immortals?

Qin Sanwa had heard many tales of immortals as a child. Qin Sang had assumed they were superstition, just like in his previous life, but now it seemed that might not be the case.

Which of the two Immortal Masters had won?

Qin Sang saw no sign of either Immortal Master. Sweeping his gaze around, he found the prison carts overturned in all directions, their cages mostly smashed apart. The fellow sufferers who had once been trapped within lay scattered across the ground in every direction.

No wonder the ground beneath his hand had felt so soft—his palm was pressing against someone's stomach.

Qin Sang hurriedly lifted his hand, then froze slightly. He cautiously reached out and placed his fingers on the person's wrist. There was no pulse.

Dead...

Perhaps because he had died once before, Qin Sang was much braver than in his previous life. A corpse lay right beside him, yet he felt little fear.

Was anyone else still alive?

Qin Sang hurriedly looked at the others. Everyone lay motionless on the ground, even the horses that had pulled the carts. Not a single body rose or fell. The scene was eerie to the extreme.

Suddenly, Qin Sang caught sight of a group of people lying by the riverbank as well. The bandits had originally been chopping trees to build rafts. After the man in white appeared, they had all knelt and called him Immortal Master. For some reason, they too had fallen unconscious.

Qin Sang's expression abruptly changed. Those bandits were strong and sturdy, and they had not been thrown from the carts. Like him, they might only be unconscious, not dead!

With that thought, Qin Sang urgently leaned forward and laboriously lifted the wooden cage pinning his leg. He suddenly sucked in a breath of cold air and could not help groaning in pain, but afraid of alerting the bandits, he forcibly swallowed it back down.

My leg must not be broken. Otherwise, even if I escape, it will be hard to leave these desolate mountains alive.

Qin Sang prayed silently and pulled out his leg to inspect it.

Fortunately, the bone was not broken.

But when he tried to exert strength, another wave of agony struck him. At the very least, the bone was cracked. Walking would be impossible for some time.

Even if he had to crawl, Qin Sang would crawl over. He found a knife at a bandit's waist, first cut the ropes binding his hands and feet, then went down the line checking them one by one. At first, he tried stabbing their hearts, but one blow was blocked by a breastbone and numbed his hand. So he cut their throats first, then delivered another stab to the heart.

Qin Sang stared at his blood-covered hands for a long while before realizing that the bandits had not made a single sound when he stabbed them. They had already been dead, yet he had acted like a madman, stabbing again and again.

He felt a little afraid—not of the corpses, but of himself.

He flung away the knife, turned and crawled to the riverbank, then buried his face in the water. Only when he was nearly suffocating did he jerk his head up, gasping for air. His emotions gradually settled.

If I don't kill them, they'll kill me!

If I'd understood that in my previous life, would I have ended up like this?

No!

There's still one more!

Qin Sang jolted violently, cold sweat nearly pouring down his back. Only when he saw a corpse riddled with wooden splinters did he relax and collapse to the ground. When the black-cloth carriage had exploded, the leader had been beside it. He had died on the spot.

All the bandits were dead, but Qin Sang still did not dare relax. Using a wooden stick to prop himself up, he rose to his feet.

When he saw the full extent of the grassland's destruction in the distance, Qin Sang could not help clicking his tongue in amazement. Had this really been caused by the battle between the two Immortal Masters? The power was simply too terrifying.

Amid the wild grass, two people lay sprawled on the ground, one in black and one in white.

Reason told Qin Sang that these two Immortal Masters were not normal people, unlike the bandits. Now was the best time to flee. Though his leg could not walk, the river current was not swift, and a nearly finished raft stood nearby. If he tied the last two vines in place, he could leave this land of trouble and strife.

After an intense battle between heaven and man, Qin Sang picked up the knife and crawled over.

Only upon drawing close did he see clearly that the black-robed man had been cut cleanly in two at the waist by a single sword strike. That flying sword must have been incomparably sharp; the cut was smooth, making for a rather horrifying sight.

There was a shocking bloody hole in the white-robed man's chest, as though something had fiercely clawed into his chest and scooped out a handful. The flesh within was mangled, and his organs had been stirred into a pot of porridge.

They had actually perished together.

Qin Sang secretly rejoiced, though he also felt somewhat disappointed.

Carefully lifting the black-robed man's robe, Qin Sang was startled by an old, ugly, monstrous face. Then he searched the body. This Immortal Master seemed exceptionally poor; he did not have a single coin of silver on him. In the end, Qin Sang found only a piece of something like sheepskin against his chest, along with a book.

He flipped through it. He could recognize more than half the words in the book, but they were obscure and difficult to understand. There was nothing on the sheepskin. Aside from being unusually soft, it was entirely an ordinary piece of hide.

"Huh?"

Qin Sang suddenly saw something beneath the black-robed man's body. After moving aside his upper half, he found a black banner lying on the ground.

The banner was not large. Its pole was only the length of his palm, pointed at the top and polished smooth and round at the bottom. Qin Sang picked it up and examined it carefully. He had no idea what material the pole was made from, but it felt icy cold in his hand. Three tiny characters were engraved upon it—Yanluo Banner!

It did not sound like anything good. Combined with the scene of that Demon Lord sucking people dry earlier, Qin Sang nearly threw the Yanluo Banner away.

The banner cloth was a long, narrow strip of rag, slightly shorter than the pole and riddled with holes. He could vaguely make out the image of a vicious ghost on it.

After looking at it twice more, Qin Sang felt as if even his consciousness were about to be sucked inside. He hurriedly looked away.

It truly was sinister!

That Demon Lord did not have a single good thing on him!

Qin Sang carelessly wrapped up the Yanluo Banner, bundled it together with the book in the sheepskin, then turned to look at the white-robed man, his expression somewhat complicated.