Staying Alive

Roar—!

The tiger's roar was like a mountain collapsing.

When that sound exploded from the depths of the dense forest, the entire mountain seemed to jump an inch upward from the shock.

Leaves rustled down, loose stones rolled along the slope, and even the air grew heavier beneath that roar, pressing against everyone's eardrums with a buzzing hum.

The warhorse beneath Wei He suddenly reared up, letting out a terrified neigh. Its hooves stamped wildly in every direction for several steps before Wei He hauled hard on the reins and forced it under control.

That roar was not merely a roar. It was some kind of signal.

From deep within the forest, responses rang out from every direction at once. First from the left flank, then the right, then from the shadowy darkness directly ahead beneath the trees. Strange beasts of all shapes poured out from every direction, as though someone had opened every cage at once. Their eyes were red, drool streamed from their mouths, and their panting merged into a deep, dense drumbeat that made the earth beneath their feet tremble faintly.

Cheng Yang saw it.

That strange beast was commanding the hundred beasts!

"Cover me!" Wei He's voice overwhelmed the beast roars. His long blade pointed straight at the tiger-like beast slowly emerging from the forest's edge. "To capture thieves, first capture their king. Let this general take down that beast!"

"Cover the commander!"

"Clear a path for the commander!"

The City Guard soldiers shouted in unison. Their iron shields pushed forward, blades and spears crossing as they tore open a passage through the beast horde.

Wei He spurred his horse into that opening. The warhorse crushed the spines of two mountain demons beneath its hooves, and wherever his blade flashed, bloody mist flew.

Cheng Yang moved through the narrow gap between the crowd and the strange beasts, his long blade whirling as he drove back every beast that tried to approach him.

He had held back his strength.

Everyone was fighting for their lives now. No one had the leisure to watch how much strength he used. That gave him the perfect crack to work within.

He had not gone all out, but he had still displayed strength far beyond what a Muscle Tempering Realm martial artist should possess.

Sixty or seventy percent of his strength was neither conspicuous on this battlefield nor insufficient to let him keep his footing amid the chaos.

As he slaughtered the strange beasts closing in, he kept watching Wei He from the corner of his eye.

The tiger-like beast stood on a gentle slope at the forest's edge. Its fur was dark gold, ink-black stripes running across its entire body, while a pair of dark-red eyes stared fixedly at Wei He as he charged toward it on horseback.

The distance between man and tiger rapidly shrank. The City Guard's blade formations cleared a path for Wei He on both sides, while strange beast corpses piled into low walls along the passage.

Cheng Yang kept an occasional eye on Wei He's movements.

If Wei He could take down that tiger, this beast tide would most likely collapse where it stood.

But if he could not, Cheng Yang swept his gaze over the battlefield. Then it would be every bird for itself when calamity struck, and everyone would have to rely on their own abilities to escape.

Those dozen-odd minutes stretched into an entire year.

The stench of blood in the air was thick enough to choke on. Every breath felt as if he were inhaling rust and scraps of raw meat into his lungs.

When Cheng Yang's blade split open the third Grey-Scaled Python, he caught sight of the City Guard's iron-armored ranks out of the corner of his eye. They had thinned by an entire ring.

Of the more than a hundred men who had come, only half remained. Their banners had been torn into scraps and hung from the wooden stakes of the stockade walls.

Of the Chen Clan Martial Hall's ten men, only two remained behind him. One of them had lost his left arm at the shoulder. The wound had been hastily wrapped, but the cloth was already soaked through with blood and still dripping.

The scent of death weighed on everyone's shoulders like an invisible cloud of lead.

Then, at last, a voice rang out over the battlefield. "They're retreating! The strange beasts are retreating!"

Cheng Yang whipped his head around. The beast horde in the direction of the forest really was withdrawing. Those massive figures were retreating layer by layer into the shadows beneath the trees. They were not moving quickly, but they truly were retreating.

He quickly saw why. At the forest's edge, the dark-gold tiger-like beast was dragging one hind leg as it retreated into the woods. A wound deep enough to expose bone split its shoulder blade, its fur peeled back to reveal the flesh beneath.

Wei He's blade had been left in its body.

But Wei He himself could no longer stand.

He knelt halfway in the mud, his left arm dangling unnaturally at his side. The left shoulder of his iron armor had been completely caved in, its plates shattered and curled outward as blood continuously poured from the cracks.

His saber had broken into two pieces. Half the blade was embedded in the mud two zhang away.

When two City Guard soldiers rushed over and supported him, he could barely remain standing. His whole body went limp as if all the bones had been pulled from him.

"Quick! Take the commander back to Qinglin County! Hurry!"

Cheng Yang let out a long breath. The string in his chest that had been taut for so long finally loosened a little, but heavier exhaustion and an inescapable sense of oppression followed in its wake.

Looking at the corpses strewn across the battlefield and the slowly moving line of wounded, the first thought that rose in his heart was not relief, but a deep vigilance.

Something was far too wrong.

None of the Big-Ears Gang's three leaders had been in the bandit camp.

The tiger-like beast's behavior radiated a profound strangeness.

This chain of events did not look like coincidence no matter how he viewed it. It seemed more like someone had laid out a net and was simply waiting for them to walk into it.

He turned to look at Wei He's back as he was supported onto a horse. The iron-armored commander who had once sat high atop his horse and barked orders at him was now covered in blood from the waist down, lying motionless over the saddle.

Cheng Yang held resentment toward Wei He. If Wei He had not forcibly conscripted him, he would never have waded into this muddy water.

But now, seeing the traces of Wei He's bloody battle, several indescribably complicated emotions mixed into that resentment.

Without Wei He risking his life against that tiger, many of them likely would not even have had a chance to retreat.

The group began moving down the mountain.

No strange beasts pursued them, but no one spoke.

There was only the sound of breathing, footsteps, and the occasional low groan leaking from the wounded.

The road back seemed twice as long as the road there.

Cheng Yang walked in the middle of the procession, supporting the fellow disciple with the severed arm in one hand and gripping his blade in the other.

The man's weight pressed against his shoulder. He staggered with every step, nearly falling several times, but Cheng Yang caught him in time each time.

The moment they entered the city gate, the sight before him made Cheng Yang daze for an instant.

The city was too quiet. The shops along the street were open as usual. A woman selling vegetables squatted at her doorway trimming green beans. Steam rose from the pancake stall. Two children chased a tabby cat past the mouth of an alley, their laughter as clear as silver bells.

Someone was hanging laundry from a window, someone squatted by the roadside smoking a pipe. Everything was no different from usual. It was as though the bloody battle outside the city, the corpses and severed limbs carpeting the ground, had happened in another world.

"We're back..." someone in the group said hoarsely, their voice thick with choking sobs they could not suppress. "We're back."

Cheng Yang said nothing.

Together with the other surviving disciple, he supported their severed-armed fellow disciple and hurried through the city gate toward the nearest medical hall.

Behind them, the blood-soaked procession slowly dispersed inside the gate. Some leaned against the walls and sat down at once. Some dropped to their knees and dry-heaved. Some lowered their heads to stare at their empty scabbards, standing there for a long time without moving.

When Cheng Yang entered the medical hall, the physician came forward. Cheng Yang handed the severed-armed fellow disciple over to him.

He retreated outside and leaned against the wall for a moment.

He lowered his head and looked at his blood-soaked lapels and the dried blood on his scabbard. Then he raised his eyes toward the skyline, where dusk was gradually deepening, and spoke silently to himself.

Who was it? Who planned all of this?

Don't let me find you... you bastard...