Behind him, a group of Northern Barbarians cavalry charged at their enemy under their commander's lead, their momentum unstoppable.
With their commander at the front, they would surely be fine. They might even pick up a few enemy heads along the way and earn themselves a reward.
But the next sight left them all dumbfounded.
Their commander charged forward.
And was cut down with a single stroke!
What were they supposed to do?
Keep charging or not?
Almost all of them had only one thought: turn around and flee.
Anyone who kept charging now was an idiot. Their Third Grade Houtian commander had been killed in one stroke-how many blows could they possibly withstand?
Thus, all the remaining Northern Barbarians cavalry made the same move, hauling back on their reins to stop at the cliff's edge, then turning around to reach the shore of safety.
But every one of them had underestimated the speed of their charge.
When Li Dao had learned to drive in his previous life, he had learned one thing: if you slammed on the brakes at high speed, you had better have your seat belt fastened.
What if you had no seat belt?
Then you could just wait to go flying.
None of these Northern Barbarians cavalry had seat belts on, so most of them promptly put on a spectacle of men and horses tumbling over.
Li Dao saw what they were trying to do.
But how could he give up meat already at his lips?
Without hesitation, he grabbed the Black Iron Saber and rushed forward to reap the lives of the Northern Barbarians cavalry.
One slash swept through, blood spraying everywhere.
[Four enemies killed. Attributes gained: 0.75]
Two slashes swept through, severed limbs flying.
[Six enemies killed. Attributes gained: 1.12]
Three slashes swept through, heads dropping to the ground.
[Enemies killed...]
Amid the slaughter, Li Dao heard nothing but the system notifications ringing incessantly in his ears.
Finally, an incense stick's worth of time later.
The chaotic street fell silent.
Corpses littered the ground. Not a single Northern Barbarians cavalryman had escaped.
"Save me... I... I don't want to die!"
Just then, a blood-covered hand reached out from the heap of corpses. A Northern Barbarians cavalryman who had lost both legs and an arm struggled and groaned.
Slash!
Li Dao mercilessly ended him with a stroke of his saber.
There was no need to show these people any mercy.
Just like that, an entire troop of Northern Barbarians cavalry fell at Li Dao's hands.
Corpses and severed limbs covered the ground for dozens of meters around him, a particularly bloody and horrifying sight.
"Phew."
Li Dao let out a long breath, slowly calming the agitation in his chest.
This time, he had truly slaughtered to his heart's content. There had been over a hundred of them, and every single one had given him at least a little over 0.1 attribute points.
"Status Panel."
[Master: Li Dao] [Physique: 96.89] [Available attributes: 29.14]
Looking at the available attributes field, Li Dao felt immensely satisfied.
He had harvested nearly thirty attribute points in one go, almost a third of his total attributes.
More importantly, these attribute points would let him raise his Physique to one hundred.
"Young master."
Just then, Jiu'er's call brought Li Dao back to his senses.
He looked up, only to discover that Jiu'er had gotten off the carriage at some point and come to his side. She was watching him with concern written all over her face.
Looking at the gruesome jumble of corpses around them, Li Dao could not help asking, "Aren't you scared, girl?"
"Scared of what?"
"These corpses."
Jiu'er glanced down at the surrounding corpses, then suddenly kicked one of them. There really wasn't a trace of fear on her face as she said bluntly, "I'm not scared of them. I'm much more scared of you getting hurt, young master."
With that, she could not help feeling him over.
"Young master, let me check whether you're hurt."
"Stop, stop, stop. I'm not hurt."
"I don't believe you. Look, you're covered in blood."
"None of it is mine."
The scene looked rather bizarre, especially with the two of them standing amid the corpses.
If the corpses could move, they would probably have wanted to crawl up and find somewhere else to lie down. They certainly would not have wanted to lie right under this man and woman's noses.
A few minutes later.
Only after checking him over and confirming that her young master was fine did Jiu'er breathe a sigh of relief.
Suddenly, a scattering of footsteps reached their ears.
They turned to see a group of disheveled women approaching together.
Thud!
All the women dropped to their knees in unison.
"Thank you, benefactor."
The women kowtowed as they spoke.
Like Jiu'er, they showed no fear whatsoever before the corpses strewn across the ground.
The difference was that Jiu'er had eyes only for her young master, so she ignored the corpses.
These women's hearts, however, were already filled entirely with hatred. Rather than fearing the corpses, they wanted to swallow these men alive and strip off their skin.
These were the very men who had killed their loved ones and destroyed their homes.
Looking at the women, Li Dao felt pity rise in his heart.
But such was reality.
This place was far too close to Great Qian's eastern border. It was already mid-autumn, and the weather was turning cold, so friction had been constant lately between Great Qian and the many tribes along the Northern Barbarians border.
Almost every day, small detachments of soldiers from the Northern Barbarians Dynasty slipped into Great Qian to sow chaos and plunder supplies.
This was friction between nations. Ordinary civilians had no power to influence it and could only resign themselves to their fate.
And everything he had done so far had been for the sake of not having to resign himself to fate like these people.
That afternoon, near dusk.
Li Dao did not leave. Instead, he took the opportunity to stay overnight in Peach Spring Village with Jiu'er.
Partly, he wanted to guard against any remaining Northern Barbarians soldiers.
He also wanted to give these innocent women a temporary sense of security.
All the men in the village had died. For now, the women could only look to Li Dao as their emotional anchor.
At the entrance to a courtyard, he sat on a chair and watched the surviving women of Peach Spring Village put things in order.
At first, he had wanted to help, but the women refused.
As they put it, they already had no way to repay him for saving their lives and avenging their families. How could they bear to make their benefactor work?
Seeing how adamant they were, Li Dao did not insist.
At the same time, he saw clearly how different the women of this era were from the modern women of his previous life.
Faced with bloody corpses and severed limbs, they could clear them away without their expressions changing.
Faced with the family tragedies that had just befallen them and the pain of losing their loved ones, they could grit their teeth and keep living, never giving up hope of survival.
In short, these women looked weak on the outside, but their inner strength was almost frightening.
"Young master, it's time to eat."
Beside him, Jiu'er suddenly brought over a basin filled with a sumptuous meal.
Li Dao glanced at the abundant food. "Where did this come from?"
Jiu'er smiled. "Big Sister Liu made it especially for you to thank you for being their benefactor."
Li Dao shook his head, but accepted it anyway. "Just this once. If it happens again, I'll deduct it from your monthly allowance."
Jiu'er's pretty face immediately fell.
Night soon arrived.
Because of what they had experienced during the day, the women had specifically found a relatively large courtyard in the village and given Li Dao the main bedroom, while they crowded together into the other guest rooms.
Although they had shown nothing while working during the day, their hearts were still filled with fear.
Sharing a courtyard with their benefactor, Li Dao, gave them some peace of mind.
After everyone had fallen asleep.
Li Dao suddenly rose in the darkness.
Glancing at Jiu'er, who was sleeping soundly in the other bed, he quietly opened the door and stepped outside, entering the courtyard alone.
After making sure no one was around, he silently said, Status Panel.
[Master: Li Dao] [Physique: 96.89] [Available attributes: 29.14]
After a quick glance, he said to himself again, Allocate points.
Instantly, all the available attribute points on the Status Panel were added to his Physique.
[Master: Li Dao] [Physique: 126.03 (Transformation available)] [Available attributes: 0]
When he saw the change on the Status Panel, Li Dao thought, Just as I expected.
The transformation he had previously speculated about had appeared again.
Several dozen breaths later.
Only after the warm current strengthening his Physique had faded from his body did Li Dao turn his attention to the words "Transformation available."
"I wonder which bodily function will transform this time."
With that curiosity in mind, Li Dao decisively selected "Transformation available" on the Status Panel with his thoughts.
The next second, the familiar tearing sensation arose within his body.
Unlike last time, however, Li Dao's expression was not quite so contorted, perhaps because he had already experienced this pain once.
Moreover, perhaps because his increased bodily strength gave him complete control over his own body, this time he noticed from the outset that a particular bodily function was changing.
"Is this... my blood?"
In Li Dao's perception, something similar to what happened during Physique enhancement was occurring inside him.
But when his Physique was enhanced, an unknown warm current supplied by the system appeared within his body.
This time, he could sense his blood undergoing some kind of change inside him.
Enduring the intense pain within his body, he lowered his head. Sure enough, all his veins were bulging, with blood constantly circulating through them.
He also noticed that as the blood flowed through his body, a red substance was being squeezed out through his pores. It was like the last transformation, when his skin had shed a layer, except this time it was his blood.
If his guess was correct, this red substance should be the waste blood being replaced.
As time passed, more and more of the red substance appeared on Li Dao's body, eventually forming a layer of hardened blood crust on his skin.
Finally, perhaps because the blood transformation was complete, the tearing sensation inside him began to slowly disappear.
Once that tearing sensation had vanished entirely, Li Dao tried moving a little.
Crack!
After the crisp sound, fine cracks appeared in the blood crust covering his body.
Li Dao casually pinched it, and all the blood crust in his palm turned to dust and fell to the ground.
With a slight, controlled shudder of his body, all the blood crust peeled off and dropped to the ground. It was like a cicada shedding its shell, a remarkably wondrous sight.
"I wonder what effects transforming my blood will bring."
His skin transformation had already been absurdly powerful, making him immune to many kinds of damage. The importance of blood to a person went without saying, so this should bring him a few surprises.
For now, the first thing to do was get a little of his own blood.
That left Li Dao in a bind. His transformed skin had continued to strengthen along with the constant enhancement of his Physique.
Now that his Physique had surpassed one hundred, he even wondered whether those Xiantian Martial Artists he had fought before could still break his skin if they faced him again.
He picked up the Black Iron Saber he had casually brought outside and set it against his finger.
Ten percent of his strength... not enough.
Thirty percent... still not enough.
Fifty percent...
Finally, using nearly half his strength, he barely managed to cut the Black Iron Saber's sharp edge into his skin.
Although it was only a shallow cut, it should be enough to squeeze out some blood.
At the same time.
Li Dao's keen sense of smell picked up a peculiar fragrance.
His gaze fell straight onto the blood seeping from beneath his skin. If there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell, that fragrance was coming entirely from the blood on his finger.
Could the transformation of his blood have simply turned it into perfume?
Li Dao shook that thought out of his head. Aside from that, his blood surely had other effects.
For now, though, he had no idea how to test the effects of his transformed blood.
"Squeak, squeak."
Just then, a sound caught Li Dao's attention.
He looked down and saw a large black rat that had come out under cover of night to get up to no good, sniffing around his feet.
Suddenly, the large black rat seemed to catch a scent.
Even through the darkness, Li Dao could see its eyes light up.
The rat immediately tried to climb up his leg, and he instinctively stepped on its tail to stop it.
He was not afraid of rats, but having one crawl onto him would still give him the creeps.
"Squeak, squeak!"
Normally, given a rat's nature, having its tail stepped on would most likely send it struggling in panic to escape.
But the rat beneath Li Dao's foot showed no panic. It kept trying to find a way to climb onto him, as though he had something it desperately craved.
Li Dao soon noticed this peculiar behavior.
Could it be...
He lowered his gaze to the drop of strangely fragrant blood on his fingertip.
At present, that drop of blood was the only thing on him that could possibly attract the rat.
Surely the rat had not fallen in love with him across the species barrier.
"Why not give it a try?"
He had wanted to test what effects his blood had acquired after its transformation anyway, and here was a "lab rat" delivering itself right to his doorstep-even if this particular "lab rat" looked rather black.
No longer minding how dirty the large black rat was, Li Dao picked it up with his bare hand.
After all, the conditions back in the Death Row Camp had been far filthier than this little creature.
If one of these had appeared back then, everyone would have fought over it. It was a piece of meat, after all. How could anyone turn up their nose at it for being dirty?
It was only because he had lacked the ability to catch rats before the system appeared. Otherwise, given his circumstances at the time, he probably would have eaten one raw.
Once he had the rat in his hand, he tentatively brought the finger bearing his blood toward it.
Perhaps sensing something, the rat twitched its nose, then suddenly began struggling madly in his grip, stretching its neck toward his bloodstained finger.
Had Li Dao not held it firmly, it probably would have launched itself out of his hand already.
Li Dao applied a little pressure with his fingers and pried the rat's mouth open.
He held his bloodstained finger above its mouth and gave a gentle squeeze, letting the drop fall inside.
Then he loosened his grip and set the rat on the stone table beside him.
After being put down, the rat did not flee in panic. Instead, it lay quietly where it was.
After waiting a while, Li Dao frowned slightly.
Could his transformed blood really just smell nice, with no other effect at all?
Just as that thought arose, he suddenly noticed the rat stir.
"Squeak, squeak!"
A cry came from the rat's mouth, and it suddenly began rolling around on the stone table, twitching from time to time. It looked to be in terrible pain.
Li Dao frowned, keeping his gaze fixed on the rat.
A dozen or so breaths later, his gaze sharpened.
The rat suddenly stopped struggling, and a miraculous sight unfolded.
Its body actually began to swell, while its limbs and tail grew thicker and stronger, as though it had mutated.
What surprised Li Dao even more was that he actually sensed an inexplicable feeling of closeness toward a rat.
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