A Single Stroke to Take His Head

Zhong Qi slammed back against the wall, pain shooting through the base of his neck.

But all he could do was endure it and keep swinging his saber...

The little archer before him was holding that iron sword backward in one hand, using a tricky, bizarre saber technique to attack his lower body relentlessly.

...Wang Qi did not want all his moves to target the man below the waist either, but he was so used to helping the villagers cut grass in the fields during the busy farming season that this Grass-Cutting Saber Technique came far too naturally to him.

He did not dare change his moves, either. He knew Zhong Qi was a skilled fighter, and any hitch in his movements might give the man a chance to turn the tables.

He struck swiftly with his sword, but whenever it met the other man's large saber, he withdrew at the first touch, then attacked from another angle even faster.

Internal qi circulated through his body, continuously turning into inner force to reinforce his arm. It increased the strength and speed of his sword strikes while also resisting the inner force transmitted through the other man's saber.

His qi sustained him for a long time. After ten breaths of rapid sword strikes, he had Zhong Qi scrambling to cover himself, leaving an opening.

Riiip!

Soon, a cut opened across Zhong Qi's thigh.

But Wang Qi's sword was light, and the cut was not particularly deep.

Still, the pain slowed Zhong Qi's reactions by half a beat. Wang Qi's swift sword grew swifter still, slipping through every gap as his opponent struggled to defend himself, adding five or six wounds to each of his calves and thighs.

Wound after wound appeared on Zhong Qi's legs, and in some places, entire slices of flesh were shaved away.

The searing pain savaged Zhong Qi's nerves. He simply abandoned his defense and unleashed a vicious saber strike...

The instant his opponent suddenly left himself open, Wang Qi sensed something was wrong. Pressing his advantage now would very likely let him kill Zhong Qi outright, but he instinctively sensed danger and shot backward...

This time, he played it safe.

Zhong Qi gathered all the inner force in his body into a savage slash, actually projecting an attack resembling a blade of saber light.

Wang Qi hurriedly gripped his sword with both hands, converting his internal qi into force to reinforce the blade and holding it before his chest. With the iron sword's blade, he finally blocked... the aftershock of that outward burst of saber force.

He had spotted the danger early and fled quickly, already moving out of its path.

The projected saber force struck the ground with a boom, carving out a trench five meters long...

Wang Qi's scalp tingled at the sight. Could a martial artist at this level already accomplish something like that with an all-out strike?

He hurriedly retreated farther, only stopping again twenty paces away.

But Zhong Qi did not pursue him... Both his legs had nearly been hacked to pieces. Naturally, he could no longer give chase.

After that fright, Wang Qi did not dare approach again. Reaching behind him, he took down his own hunting bow, drew five arrows, and raised the bow...

Zhong Qi drew a deep breath at the sight, but it felt as though all he inhaled was bitter frustration.

He roared, "Come on, then! You despicable wretch!"

Wang Qi considered this nothing more than the distant barking of a beaten dog. It could do no harm.

He decided to grant the man's wish...

The next moment, bowstring twangs blended into one... With his familiar hunting bow and twenty meters of ideal killing distance, he shot even faster than before!

Five arrows flew in a chain.

Zhong Qi's expression tightened. Leaning against the wall to barely keep himself upright, he swung his saber repeatedly, trying to deflect Wang Qi's arrows.

But Wang Qi's arrows were fast and true. After blocking three in succession, he could no longer swing his saber to defend himself and could only raise an arm across his chest...

Thud! Thud!

Both arrows struck his arm, burying themselves in his forearm.

Enduring the agonizing pain, he looked toward Wang Qi, intending to taunt him... But that glance left him wanting only to flee.

He saw Wang Qi switch quivers, revealing an "ammunition capacity" of twenty whole arrows inside.

Of his four limbs, only his saber-wielding arm remained more or less intact. How could he possibly defend himself?

He had just challenged Wang Qi with bold, furious bravado, but that did not stop him from looking for a way to escape once things turned bad.

With no other choice, he began rolling along the ground in a "humiliating posture" he would never ordinarily have adopted, trying to make himself a smaller target as he headed toward the gate of the Chen Family compound.

As long as he reached it, he believed his men would still find a way to save him.

But Wang Qi's swift arrows were already coming one after another, striking him repeatedly.

Before long, he looked like a hedgehog. His long saber flew from his grasp, and he finally collapsed helplessly at the gate of the Chen Family compound...

Wang Qi relaxed a little at the sight. He put away his hunting bow, went to the foot of the wall to retrieve the war bow he had dropped earlier, and secured that as well. Only then did he approach Zhong Qi with the iron sword in hand to finish him off.

He looked at Zhong Qi's wide, glaring eyes, as though the man had died with grievances unresolved, and swung his sword straight toward his head...

But at that very moment, Zhong Qi, who had looked dead with his eyes open, suddenly focused his gaze again. He shot upright and drove his only intact hand, his right, toward Wang Qi's chest in a palm strike!

Although the strike seemed weak and unsteady, it still carried the foundation of formidable external martial training. A hit to a vital spot would be enough to kill anyone...

Even at this point, he was still trying to feign death and launch a counterattack. He truly was a desperate outlaw.

But Wang Qi kept swinging his sword with his right hand while striking out with his left palm to meet the attack...

Boom!

Their palms collided with an explosive crack of air.

Zhong Qi stared at Wang Qi in utter astonishment, as though he could not believe the man before him also possessed such proficiency in the Mighty Stele-Crushing Palm.

But in the next instant, he had no need to think any further. Wang Qi's sword swept past and took his head... This time, he was thoroughly dead.

Hardly any blood spurted out after Zhong Qi was beheaded. His battered body, with scarcely an intact patch left, had already lost nearly all its blood.

He looked as though an entire group of archers had surrounded and slaughtered him. It was truly a miserable sight.

The head that fell to the ground still wore an expression of astonishment and bitter frustration. Clearly, he must have been railing against something in his heart as he died...

"That felt good."

Putting on a bold, heroic air, Wang Qi offered himself a word of praise.

It was not empty posturing, either. From his perspective, being able to employ so many combat skills in a single fight really had felt exhilarating.

But the dead Zhong Qi could no longer lodge a complaint. He could only "watch with open eyes" as Wang Qi struck his brave, heroic pose.

The assorted troops in the courtyard had also witnessed Wang Qi exchange a palm strike with Zhong Qi and then take his head with a single stroke. They felt certain he must be a peerless powerhouse... Every one of them backed away in horror, afraid that beheading Zhong Qi had not satisfied Wang Qi and that he would charge at them for some "one-man-army" slaughter.

At that moment, Wang Qi felt a little full of himself.

So he carried Zhong Qi's head inside. The household guards and assorted troops around him parted in turn, revealing the battle in the main hall of the great house...

They had already won over there, too.

He arrived just in time to see Chen Shi working with several of the more skilled household soldiers to kill the last desperate outlaw. Ran Jiao stood quietly behind the Chen Family Head, looking like a loyal bodyguard.

The two exchanged another glance with perfect understanding, each giving the other's performance a silent nod of approval.

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