Bears Exist (Please Bookmark)

"Er Ha? Er Ha! I have a name, I have a name! Thank you, Lord Su!"

Er Ha bounced about in excitement, thrusting his dog head before Zhong Shenxiu and sticking out his tongue as he fawned, "Lord Su, as the saying goes, one matter should not trouble two masters. I still don't have a courtesy name. Could you give me one too...?"

Smack!

Before he finished speaking, Huang Xie slapped him on the head. "You Second Brat, having a name is enough. What do you need a courtesy name for?"

Zhong Shenxiu could not help but laugh, but he said nothing. Looking over the surrounding fields, he turned to Er Qi. "How has the village's harvest been?"

"The year hasn't been bad, and the taxes aren't too heavy, so we can scrape by... If each household raises some livestock too, there'll always be meat to eat a few times during the New Year..."

Er Qi rambled on in reply.

Ancient productivity was only this much... and this was a world with the extraordinary... No, perhaps I should say that when it came to widespread adoption and benefiting the common people, a technological path built upon gathering everyone's strength was far superior to a cultivation path of individual transcendence...

Zhong Shenxiu was suddenly filled with emotion.

But it had nothing to do with him. After the group discussed matters briefly, they began patrolling along the road.

It was not that they did not want to track it down, but venturing too far from the village meant they might encounter the Black Mist. That was simply too dangerous.

Every soldier in this squad was an old hand. Naturally, staying alive came first, and they secretly prayed that no wild beasts would appear, lest a bout of killing leave them with casualties.

Zhong Shenxiu was quite curious about the so-called Monsters and the Black Mist, but he could not leave the squad to investigate alone.

Three red suns blazed fiercely overhead, and before they knew it, afternoon had arrived.

Zhong Shenxiu raised a hand to shade his eyes and looked into the distance. Suddenly, unease welled up in his heart, and he wondered inwardly, Could that thing be acting up again? No, something's wrong... What Vengeful Spirit would haunt people in broad daylight, beneath the sun? Then again, perhaps Western Vengeful Spirits don't follow that rule...

Just as he was still pondering this, several cries suddenly rang out from nearby.

"Something happened!"

Huang Xie, Xue San, and the others all tensed, gripping the hilts of the Wild Goose Feather Sabers at their waists.

The five of them rushed over a small hill and saw a stretch of green wheat below. Several corpses lay on the ground to the east, blood flowing everywhere.

The culprit behind it all was not some Monster, but a Bearman—tall and powerfully built, covered in black fur, with a hulking face and an enormous black bear's head!

"The Bear Barbarians? Wasn't the largest Bear Barbarian tribe near Black Mountain Fortress already wiped out?" Xue San cried out.

"Woof... It's probably surviving Bear Barbarians, here to plunder Supplies for the winter."

Huang Xie drew his Wild Goose Feather Saber and charged straight down the slope.

Bear Barbarians was the Yan Han name for them. Zhong Shenxiu felt Bearman Tribe was a more fitting description.

The Bear Barbarians were huge and brawny. Once grown, they possessed the strength of savage bears; ordinary Yan Han people could never match them. But Zhong Shenxiu and the others were not afraid.

Besides, this one was no elite warrior. He was alone, and his weapon was hardly anything impressive.

"Woof woof!"

It was Er Ha's first time on a battlefield, yet he was thrilled beyond measure. Brandishing a spear, he rushed at the front, making Huang Xie shout after him without pause.

"Kill!"

He charged like a boar straight at the Bearman, gripping his spear in both hands and viciously thrusting its tip forward with the force of his charge.

The Bearman merely shifted slightly aside. Er Ha shot straight past him, then with a smack, tripped and fell flat on the ground.

The Bearman raised the white Bone Hammer in his hand high, seemingly about to smash open Er Ha's head.

"Don't hurt my nephew!"

Huang Xie hurriedly attacked from the side. Displaying the Wild Goose Feather Saber Technique passed down through the army, he rolled across the ground, and a flash of blade light slashed toward the Bearman's ankle.

"Yan Han soldiers!"

The Bearman dodged the slash. Looking at Zhong Shenxiu and the others closing in around him, his bear face grew even more savage. "It was all of you! All of you!"

Its eyes were blood-red, as though it bore an irreconcilable hatred toward Yan Han.

Back then, the Yanhan Empire had fallen. In the ruins left behind, vast numbers of foreign races migrated in, and Hestings County was established during that time.

The Bear Barbarians had once cooperated with Earl Hestings and thrived upon the lands that had once belonged to the county.

Later, the Second Yanhan Empire was founded. Once its national strength had grown formidable, it gradually expanded its territory and destroyed Hestings County as well.

As for the surrounding foreign races?

The Dog Rong Tribe was loyal and warm-hearted, friendly toward the Human Race, and was accepted as an ally.

But tribes with more savage customs, such as the Bear Barbarians, were exterminated. The occasional survivors either fled into the Black Mist or wandered alone outside, clinging desperately to life, and they hated the Human Race all the more bitterly.

"The victor becomes king and the loser becomes bandit—what is there left to say? You dared invade our territory, so die!"

Xue San roared. Exchanging glances with Zhong Shenxiu and the others, they formed a saber formation and pounced, one slash hacking toward the Bearman's head.

At the same time, Zhong Shenxiu circled around the battlefield, stabbing his saber toward the Bearman's waist, while Huang Xie rolled along the ground, his blade light spreading low across the earth.

The three each struck once, their coordination flawless. They looked like a supreme expert unleashing three saber strikes at once in a single instant.

The Bearman tilted his head aside, evading the fatal slash, while the Bone Hammer smashed fiercely downward.

With a clang, the Bearman's arm strength proved terrifying. Huang Xie's hands were jolted numb, and his saber nearly flew from his grasp.

But though it blocked two attacks, it could not block the third.

The Wild Goose Feather Saber in Zhong Shenxiu's hand moved like a swimming dragon, slipping through a gap in the Bearman's tattered leather armor and plunging straight into its heart.

The Bearman roared, throwing aside the Bone Hammer as its fan-sized hands reached for Zhong Shenxiu.

Naturally, Zhong Shenxiu was not foolish enough to stand there and die together with it. He pulled out his saber and leaped back.

A great gush of blood sprayed from the Bearman's wound. It collapsed limply, still twitching without end.

"Nicely done."

Huang Xie climbed to his feet and shouted his praise.

Er Ha also approached the battlefield then, dusty and disheveled. He sniffed the Bearman's body and said strangely, "This smell isn't right... It's not the Monster I smelled before, the one that ruined the crops."

"No matter what, killing a Bearman is a great merit!" Xue San said excitedly. Stepping forward, he cut off the Bearman's ear as proof.

At that moment, the sound of gongs and drums rang out. A group of villagers came running from the direction of the village, each carrying tools such as pitchforks.

Clearly, they had heard the news and come to lend a hand.

Seeing that the Bearman was already dead, they all relaxed and began gathering up the corpses.

People of the borderlands had seen life and death often enough. Beyond their hot-blooded courage and valor, they also possessed a certain indifference that had learned to take everything lightly.