Slaying a Half-step Innate, Mission Complete

"Boss, save us!"

Li Dao was focused on killing enemies and destroying arrows when he suddenly heard a familiar voice.

He turned and saw Shen San supporting Xu Hu as they ran toward him from a distance.

Behind them, a figure pursued relentlessly, drawing closer and closer.

"Still trying to run? Die!"

Although Shen San excelled at lightness techniques, he fell short against a half-step Innate expert and was soon caught.

Lie Xin raised his staff and smashed it down at the two men.

Bang!

Just as the blow was about to strike them, a long saber suddenly blocked the staff.

"Boss!"

Shen San's face lit up at the sight of him.

"Reinforcements?"

Lie Xin's expression grew even uglier when he saw someone block his strike.

One after another, someone always got in his way.

His killing intent surged, and he decisively raised his staff and struck again.

"Blazing Staff Technique!"

As the staff swung, a layer of flames appeared out of thin air and wrapped around it, hurtling straight toward Li Dao.

"Boss, watch out!"

The sight gave Shen San a fright.

But a moment later, someone kicked him, sending both him and Xu Hu flying.

Facing the attack, Li Dao raised his saber to block.

A sly gleam appeared in Lie Xin's eyes.

When the Black Iron Saber collided with the iron staff, the flames on the staff flew off and shot straight toward Li Dao's face.

Li Dao's pupils tightened, and he raised his hand to shield his face.

"Hahaha! My Blazing True Qi isn't so easy to block!"

Lie Xin laughed confidently.

The flames gradually dispersed, revealing Li Dao's figure.

Once Lie Xin got a clear look at Li Dao, the smile slowly froze on his face.

"Impossible!"

Lie Xin stared in disbelief at Li Dao, whose arm had suffered nothing more than slightly reddened skin.

These were no ordinary flames. They were ignited by a portion of Innate True Qi. Even though they lasted only a moment, their destructive power was tremendous. An ordinary person would be burned to charcoal at the slightest touch, yet they had only reddened this man's skin.

Li Dao glanced down at his arm. There was a burning sensation, but it was nothing serious.

It seemed his skin had acquired other properties after its transformation that he had yet to discover.

Taking advantage of his opponent's distraction, he decisively slashed straight at his face.

But a half-step Innate lived up to the name. Lie Xin recovered in time and still blocked Li Dao's slash.

Even so, Li Dao's terrifying strength forced even a half-step Innate back several steps.

"You..."

Lie Xin's earlier confidence vanished completely, and his gaze turned wary.

Li Dao gave his opponent no time to hesitate. He raised his saber and charged.

To him, time was attributes. He could not afford to waste it.

Lie Xin likewise raised his staff without hesitation and struck back.

The two were soon locked in fierce combat.

"Nameless Slash!"

"Blazing Staff Technique!"

The Black Iron Saber collided with the iron staff, throwing off showers of sparks and flames.

Against Lie Xin's flaming attacks, however, Li Dao only occasionally blocked the flames heading toward his face. He ignored the rest, since they could not burn through his transformed skin anyway.

Still, he could not finish his opponent off anytime soon either.

I can't let this go on.

Li Dao thought to himself.

After all, if this stalemate continued, he would lose out whether he won or lost the fight.

So he silently called, Panel.

[Master: Li Dao]

[Physique: 22.70]

[Available attributes: 8.36]

As his physique grew stronger, Li Dao killed faster and faster. In a sprawling melee like this, especially, he was a fish in water.

Thus, he had quickly accumulated a considerable number of attribute points.

With a thought, he added them all to Physique.

A moment later, his panel changed.

[Master: Li Dao]

[Physique: 31.06]

[Available attributes: 0]

Once the points were allocated, a surge of strength instantly flooded Li Dao's body.

His saber strikes grew faster and faster, and each blow grew heavier.

If anyone could clearly feel Li Dao's sudden increase in strength, it was naturally Lie Xin, who was fighting him.

As time passed, Lie Xin's expression shifted from solemn concentration to surprise, then finally to disbelief.

He had never seen someone grow stronger and faster the longer they fought.

At first, he could still keep up with his opponent's rhythm, but eventually, he found himself gradually falling behind.

Rip!

Suddenly, Lie Xin felt pain across his chest. He realized he had failed to block a strike and had taken a slash directly across it.

Li Dao's killing intent surged at the sight, and he pressed the attack without mercy.

"I-"

Lie Xin tried to say something, only to be interrupted by another sudden attack.

Li Dao kept swinging his saber while rapidly studying Lie Xin's movements.

After fighting him for a while, his opponent's movements gradually broke down before his eyes. With thirty times an ordinary person's mental capacity, he quickly analyzed the staff technique and identified patterns within it.

Once he understood those patterns, he could find openings in the technique.

Finally, the moment his opponent raised his hand, Li Dao spotted an opening and swiftly reached a decision.

This time, instead of blocking the incoming staff with his saber, Li Dao raised his right hand and grabbed for it.

To Lie Xin, however, he was courting death.

Bang!

With a dull thud, Lie Xin's blazing iron staff slammed heavily into Li Dao's palm.

But the scene he had imagined never materialized. Under Lie Xin's disbelieving gaze, that hand firmly caught the iron staff, heedless of the flames burning along it.

"Nameless Slash!"

At that very moment, Lie Xin noticed his opponent's saber sweeping toward him too.

No!

Alarm bells rang in Lie Xin's mind, and he instinctively tried to raise his staff to block.

Only then did he realize his iron staff was already trapped in his opponent's hand.

Shhk!

The Black Iron Saber sliced straight through Lie Xin's neck.

Half-step Innate martial artists were powerful, powerful enough to deal with ordinary people as easily as mowing grass or crushing ants.

Their bodies, however, were not much stronger than those of ordinary people.

In short, they died when killed.

Compared with that, Li Dao felt his own "horizontal tempering" system was a little safer.

Stack armor before hitting anyone. Staying alive mattered more.

He withdrew his saber, and blood gushed from the wound in Lie Xin's neck.

Lie Xin pointed a hand at Li Dao, his eyes filled with agony.

He was a dignified half-step Innate, someone who might someday become a Xiantian Martial Artist, yet he was dying in obscurity at the hands of a rank-and-file soldier. To him, it was an immense humiliation.

"All right, if you're going to die, hurry up. Aren't you tired of forcing yourself to stay upright?"

Seeing that his opponent still refused to fall, Li Dao mercifully stepped forward and gently patted his shoulder.

Thud!

Lie Xin collapsed into a pool of blood and drew his final breath with his eyes still open, unable to rest in peace even in death.

The system notification sounded at that moment.

[One enemy killed. Attributes gained: 3.14]

As expected of an expert who had nearly injured him, the attribute reward was substantial.

Though it looked like a lot, Li Dao knew most of it probably came from the so-called True Qi attributes.

If the reward were based solely on a person's physical constitution, these dropped attributes would probably shrink considerably.

Having considered this, Li Dao glanced down at his left hand.

Because he had caught that staff head-on, his skin had suffered a layer of burns despite its tremendous resistance after transforming.

It hardly mattered, though. With his recovery ability, such a minor injury would heal quickly.

The clash between Li Dao and Lie Xin was second only to the fight between Wei Yun and another Xiantian Martial Artist.

Thus, many people in the three-way melee had been drawn to their battle.

When they saw Lie Xin die and Li Dao emerge victorious, the members of the Blazing Fire Tribe and the Tamu Tribe all wore expressions of disbelief.

The Great Qian soldiers, on the other hand, were a different story. Every one of them was on the verge of cheering aloud.

"Hahaha! Nine Five Two Seven, I knew we'd pull it off if we followed you!"

Squad Leader Liu had been watching their fight all along. Seeing the half-step Innate Lie Xin die, he was both shocked by Li Dao's strength and unable to keep himself from laughing aloud.

Looking at the Northern Barbarian soldiers still standing around in a daze, he shouted, "Boys, kill them!"

"Kill!"

The Great Qian soldiers threw themselves into the slaughter as though pumped full of chicken blood.

Li Dao's face darkened at the sight. They were enjoying their killing, but what about him?

Without a second thought, he raised his saber and plunged back into the crowd.

Now that they knew how formidable Li Dao was, the soldiers of the Tamu Tribe and the Blazing Fire Tribe scattered wherever he went. After all, no one wanted to be casually cut down like an ant by someone passing by.

Ta Shan and Wei Yun, fighting nearby, soon noticed what was happening as well.

"What? Lie Xin is dead!"

Faintly hearing someone from the tribes mention Lie Xin's death, Ta Shan's eyes filled with disbelief.

That was a half-step Innate martial artist, not some rotten fish or worthless shrimp. How could he have died so easily?

Across from him, Wei Yun was delighted to learn that the half-step Innate had died. He also had a good idea who had eliminated that major threat for him and felt grateful he had not chosen to give up at the start.

"Ta Shan, let's see what you have to say now."

Overjoyed, Wei Yun shook off his earlier strain. Even his saber strikes felt much smoother.

"You deserve to die!"

Ta Shan had nowhere to vent the fury filling his chest.

Seeing his own men retreat steadily under the Great Qian soldiers' attacks only made the flames of anger burn fiercer within him.

He could not help cursing, "Lie Xin, you useless bastard!"

But no matter how much he cursed, it was futile. He still could not change the course of the battle.

As time passed.

Morale on the Great Qian side rose ever higher, and their soldiers destroyed large quantities of arrows under the direction of Squad Leader Liu and the others.

Meanwhile, most of the Tamu Tribe and Blazing Fire Tribe warriors had already abandoned their efforts to protect the arrows. If their Grand Commander Ta Shan had not still been there, they would probably have fled long ago.

Finally, a short while later, the arrows on the last wagon were destroyed.

Squad Leader Liu took the whistle hanging around his neck and blew it immediately.

Nearby, Wei Yun's face brightened at the sound. He understood that the whistle meant the mission was complete.

After driving Ta Shan back with a strike, he blew his own whistle as well.

Elsewhere.

Hearing the whistle, Squad Leader Liu immediately ordered, "All troops, the mission is complete. Prepare to retreat!"

"Yes!"

The Great Qian soldiers answered one after another.

Since they had completed their mission, there was no need to keep fighting. If they fought until the soldiers of the two Northern Barbarian tribes fell into despair, those men would lash back, only increasing Great Qian's casualties.

Li Dao cut down a Northern Barbarian soldier who failed to dodge in time. Hearing Squad Leader Liu's command, he felt reluctant to stop, but did not continue killing.

He understood that military orders stood firm as mountains. He also knew that continuing would do their side no good.

Since Great Qian already held the advantage, their retreat went smoothly. The Tamu Tribe and Blazing Fire Tribe warriors were eager for them to leave, so naturally, no one tried to stop them.

Seeing that all the Great Qian troops had withdrawn, Wei Yun knew he no longer needed to stall.

After one last strike, he decisively darted away from the enraged Ta Shan.

"Don't you run!"

Consumed by berserk fury, Ta Shan immediately moved to pursue and kill them.

The sight of the retreating Great Qian troops only fanned the flames of his rage.

But he was already too late. Under Wei Yun's cover, the Great Qian troops had already put some distance between themselves and him.

Against Wei Yun, a Xiantian Martial Artist intent on leaving, he clearly had no way to stop him.

In the end, all that remained for Ta Shan was a scene of devastation.