Ambush

The war drums sounded at a quarter past five.

These weren't the short, urgent beats of a routine raid. They were deep and drawn-out, pounding again and again against everyone's chest.

Everyone to the walls.

When Li Jinshui led his squad onto the wall, the Northern Di army formation swept over the horizon like a black tide.

This time was different.

There weren't a thousand men, or two or three thousand. The open ground north of North-Rejecting City was blanketed with Di soldiers as far as the eye could see. Battle standards of every color snapped in the morning wind, and siege towers, scaling ladders, and battering rams filled the field.

A full-scale assault.

The veterans on the wall went pale.

Li Jinshui gripped his saber hilt as the force of the sixth layer of Iron Shirt circulated slowly through his body.

He glanced back at Squad Jia. Er Gou was pale, but his hands were steady. Zhang Shuan'er bit his lip and clutched his saber tightly. The other three young men breathed heavily, but none of them retreated.

"Stay close," he said.

The next moment, a rain of arrows blotted out the sky.

When the first volley fell, Li Jinshui shielded Zhang Shuan'er with a wooden shield and took an arrow in his own left shoulder. With Iron Shirt at the sixth layer, the arrowhead sank barely an inch before it got stuck. He yanked it out and tossed it to the ground. The blood clotted quickly.

When the second volley fell, scaling ladders had already reached the wall.

"Kill! Kill! Kill...!"

The first Di soldier appeared over the wall. Li Jinshui swept his saber upward, driving the blade in beneath the man's jaw and out through his crown. Warm blood sprayed across half his face, but he had no time to wipe it away. His second strike was already cleaving into the Barbarian Soldier climbing up behind him.

[Defeated Northern Di soldier, points +1]

[Points +1]

[Points +2, defeated Northern Di Squad Leader]

The wall became a meat grinder.

Li Jinshui had no idea how long he'd been fighting. He only knew that he swung his saber, drew it back, and swung again. In his hands, Perfected Saber Technique had become instinct. Each strike followed the most direct path, splitting leather armor, cutting through flesh, and breaking bone.

He deliberately held back from spending his points, saving them up.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

Er Gou fought desperately at his right. A Barbarian Soldier struck him across the shoulder blade, and he stumbled back with a scream. Li Jinshui took a long step and swept his saber across. The Barbarian Soldier's head flew three feet into the air.

"Stay close!"

Er Gou gritted his teeth, switched his saber to his left hand, and pressed in behind him again.

Another Di Squad Leader charged up. He was at the seventh layer of Body Forging, and his war hammer smashed the bricks underfoot to pieces. Li Jinshui met him in a fierce exchange of thirteen blows. His palm split open, and his saber's edge curled. At last, on the fourteenth blow, he found an opening and drove the tip into the man's eye socket.

[Defeated Northern Di Squad Leader, seventh layer of Body Forging, points +10]

[Current points: 37]

Enough.

"Put it all into Iron Shirt!"

[Spent 25 points, Iron Shirt proficiency +25]

[Iron Shirt: sixth layer → seventh layer]

Boom—

The door inside him burst open.

A torrent of heat erupted from his dantian like lava, coursing through every meridian, every inch of bone and blood. A dark golden glow blazed across his skin and lasted a full six breaths. The muscle around the arrow wound in his left shoulder writhed rapidly, squeezing the arrowhead lodged deep inside him free. It clinked onto the bricks.

[Current realm: seventh layer of Body Forging]

Strength.

Even more savage strength.

Li Jinshui gripped his saber. Even the blade, its edge curled, seemed lighter. He swept it across, and the three Di soldiers rushing toward him were cut in half at the waist. Their blood and guts splattered across the ground.

[Points +3]

Add to my saber technique!

[Army-Breaking Saber Technique is perfected and cannot be upgraded further]

The panel's response was cold and unfeeling.

Li Jinshui had no time for regret. The next Di soldier was already charging at him.

He didn't know how long he'd been killing.

The daylight faded from a ghastly white to dusky yellow, then from dusky yellow to bloodred. Corpses piled layer upon layer on the wall—Zhou Army and Di Army alike, indistinguishable by now.

Fewer and fewer people were left alive.

Li Jinshui realized he'd been separated from his squad.

He looked back. Somehow, Er Gou and the others had been cut off thirty paces away and were surrounded by seven or eight Di soldiers. He wanted to fight his way back, but more Di soldiers surged through the breach like sharks scenting blood, blocking his path in wave after wave.

He could only fight forward.

Forward.

And further forward.

One strike, one kill.

Two strikes, two kills.

[+1, +2, +1, +2]

Perfected Saber Technique had become a blur in his hands. He didn't even need to think; his body knew where the blade had to fall.

Just as another head flew into the air, he suddenly sensed something.

[Points +1]

Behind him.

Someone was watching him.

This wasn't the brief eye contact of men fighting on a battlefield. It was a fixed, deliberate gaze, one that had been waiting for a long time.

After reaching the seventh layer of Body Forging, Li Jinshui's senses had become astonishingly sharp. He didn't turn around. He simply leaned aside to avoid a blow and glanced behind him out of the corner of his eye—

Twenty paces away.

Wang De.

At some point, he'd crept around to Li Jinshui's rear flank. He was hiding behind two Zhou Army soldiers, slowly closing in under cover of the melee. The saber with the Green Jade Hilt was already drawn. Its tip hung low, like a snake hiding its fangs.

For an instant, their eyes met. A flicker of surprise crossed Wang De's face—he hadn't expected Li Jinshui to suddenly look his way.

But the surprise lasted only half a breath.

He grinned, raised his saber, and quickened his pace.

Li Jinshui suddenly understood.

Wang De had been waiting.

Waiting for him to be tangled up with the Di soldiers and unable to escape, waiting for him to show an opening, waiting for the perfect moment to strike while he was distracted by the chaos.

Just as Li Jinshui had been waiting, too.

He turned his gaze away and kept cutting down the Di soldiers in front of him.

One strike, two strikes, three strikes.

An opening.

He deliberately left a gap, his back exposed, as if the Di soldier charging from his left had forced him to devote all his strength to blocking.

Footsteps behind him suddenly quickened.

The hiss of a blade cutting through the air came at his back.

Li Jinshui didn't turn around.

This was exactly what he'd been waiting for.

He drove the power of the seventh layer of Iron Shirt to its limit. The muscles in his back became as hard as steel. At the same time, he pivoted on his left foot and twisted around, his right hand sweeping his saber upward in a perfect arc—

Army-Breaking Saber Technique · Upward Slash.

Perfected.

He struck later, but arrived first.

"Clang—!"

Wang De's saber struck Li Jinshui in the back. The tip pierced his leather armor and sank an inch into his flesh—then got stuck.

At the seventh layer of Iron Shirt, Li Jinshui couldn't be pierced through with one strike.

At that same instant, Li Jinshui's blade swept across Wang De's throat.

Wang De's eyes went wide.

He dropped his saber and desperately clutched at his neck, but blood still bubbled through the gaps between his fingers. He opened his mouth to shout, but only a wheezing, rattling sound escaped his throat.

"You..."

Li Jinshui looked at him.

There was no triumph, no satisfaction, only a quiet stare, as if he were looking at a stone that happened to bleed.

Wang De slumped to his knees and tilted his head back. His eyes held not only terror, but also a deep, venomous resentment. Summoning his last strength, he forced broken words from his torn throat:

"My... elder brother... Wang Tiezhu..."

"Ninth layer... of Body Forging... Squad Leader..."

"You... can't..."

Li Jinshui crouched down.

He leaned close to Wang De's ear, his voice as soft as a dead leaf falling onto snow.

"I know."

"But you still have to die."

The last light in Wang De's eyes went out.

Li Jinshui stood and wiped the blood from his blade on Wang De's lapel.

[Defeated Third Battalion Squad Leader Wang De, fifth layer of Body Forging, 5 points]

He dragged Wang De's body a few steps to the side and propped it against a fallen Di soldier. Then he shoved the saber into the Di soldier's hand. The ground was covered with corpses. No one would notice how a lowly Squad Leader had died.

Then he turned and fought his way back to Er Gou and the others.

The Di Army finally retreated before sunset.

The wall was still standing.

Less than a third of its defenders were still alive.

Li Jinshui led the three survivors of Squad Jia down from the wall. Zhang Shuan'er was dead, half his head crushed by a Bone Hammer. Er Gou had injured one arm. The other two were covered in blood, but they were alive.

After the battle, they tallied the merits.

Li Jinshui ranked first in the Third Battalion.

Camp Commander Zhou Kui personally verified the tally. He looked at Li Jinshui as if his gaze were weighed down with lead.

"You've got what it takes, kid."

Li Jinshui clasped his hands and said nothing.

That night, he received his reward: ten taels of military silver, three Blood-Qi Pills, and a wooden token engraved with the character "Armory."

"The General's Mansion Armory," the messenger said. "General Xu has ordered that, in recognition of Squad Leader Li's outstanding service, you may enter the armory and choose one martial skill and one footwork technique."

Li Jinshui took the token. It felt cool against his palm.

The armory.

He stood by the barracks window. The moon was mostly obscured by clouds, letting only a few ghastly white rays through.

Er Gou groaned in the next barracks—his arm would take a while to heal. In the distance, old soldiers feasted on their celebratory meat, shouting and laughing. Some were playing drinking games; others were cursing.

He called up the panel:

[Technique: Iron Shirt (seventh layer 0/40), Army-Breaking Saber Technique (perfected)]

[Realm: seventh layer of Body Forging]

[Points: 27]

The name Wang De had spoken before dying still rang in his ears.

Wang Tiezhu.

At the peak of the ninth layer of Body Forging.

A Squad Leader.

His enemy's elder brother.

Now he had one more person he had to kill.

The moon wasn't bright tonight.

But Li Jinshui slept deeply.