"Is this your answer?"
As the rain of arrows came at him, Xu Xiao's expression remained unchanged.
The three women beside him had long since turned pale with fright and closed their eyes, but the pain they expected never came.
The quick-witted A Zhu opened her eyes and saw that the arrows had been stopped several zhang in front of Xu Xiao.
"What? Did that scare you?" Seeing A Zhu open her eyes, Xu Xiao asked with concern.
A Zhu nodded, then spoke with a hint of wonder:
"I thought we'd be shot into hedgehogs. I didn't expect... I didn't expect you to be so formidable."
For the first time, A Zhu praised Xu Xiao.
She hadn't wanted to, but the sight before her was simply too shocking.
Hundreds upon thousands of arrows aimed at Xu Xiao had been frozen in midair, forming a wall of arrows.
Their sharp arrowheads gleamed in the sunlight. At the thought that even such an attack had been blocked, A Zhu couldn't help clicking her tongue.
This man really is just as he said. No one under heaven can stop him!
Beauty loved a hero. Though Xu Xiao's conduct and methods were hardly heroic, his power far surpassed that of any hero.
After a day together had given A Zhu, who had been bent on living or dying, time to adjust, she looked at the increasingly mysterious man before her and felt her curiosity rise despite herself.
"This is the first time you've praised me, but you haven't seen everything I'm capable of yet."
"What comes next will be extremely bloody. If you're scared, remember to close your eyes."
Xu Xiao warned her with a smile, then looked down.
Because he had wanted to speak to the soldiers guarding the city, he had been flying only thirty meters above the city wall, so they had chosen to greet him with a rain of arrows.
But it was useless. If they wanted to use cold weapons to break through Xu Xiao's Telekinesis defense, they couldn't do it even if they brought Xiang Yu back to life to draw the bow and loose the arrows himself.
Now that the officers and soldiers below had seen that arrows were useless, some immediately went to move the great weapon atop the wall-a siege crossbow!
This revolutionary weapon among the cold weapons of the Song dynasty had an astonishing range of a thousand paces, or over a thousand meters. Its power rivaled that of certain heavy sniper weapons, making it the nightmare of any expert in the martial world.
But Xu Xiao was no child. Why would he stand there and take a beating without fighting back, much less give them a chance to use their great weapon?
The rain of arrows just now had made their attitude clear. All he had to do now was start killing!
He would kill until heads rolled, until not a scrap of armor remained!
"Since you've chosen to fight, then fight!"
Xu Xiao's gaze sharpened. The arrows frozen in midair flew back faster than they had come, scattering toward the ground like pear blossoms in a rainstorm.
"Take them back!"
For a moment, the sounds of arrows piercing flesh and screams filled the area before Xuande Gate. Many soldiers were turned into hedgehogs before they even had time to dodge.
But Xu Xiao's retaliation didn't end there. A buzzing sound followed close behind.
Five sharp iron pieces flew out of Xu Xiao's pocket, then abruptly accelerated under the control of his Telekinesis, becoming divine tools for mowing down men.
These five iron pieces were a hard alloy Xu Xiao had casually brought from America when he left the world of Chronicle. Driven by his Telekinesis, they became divine weapons capable of cutting through anything.
Flesh or armor, it made no difference: brush against them and you died, touch them and you were wounded. In less than two minutes, not a single soldier remained alive before Xuande Gate.
Corpses littered the ground, and the thick stench of blood soared into the clouds. Far from satisfying Xu Xiao, the brutal scene stirred his killing intent.
The three women beside him opened their eyes for only one look before covering them tightly in fright, not daring to look again. With the five sharp iron pieces circling at his side, Xu Xiao flew straight into the imperial city.
"Into the palace. If the emperor doesn't come out today, I'll slaughter everyone in his palace."
And so, beginning at Xuande Gate, a bloody road was paved through the imperial city, leading straight into the depths of the palace.
Meanwhile, two old eunuchs, a monk, a Daoist, and an elderly man in a military commander's armor received the news and emerged from a corner of the imperial palace.
The five were retainers of the Zhao-Song Imperial Family, assigned specifically to guard against martial artists of the jianghu whose skills were so astonishing that they could penetrate deep into the palace.
Upon receiving the news, they immediately headed toward Xuande Gate, where it had come from.
All five were among the greatest experts under heaven. Even the so-called Shaolin Sweeping Monk might not be able to say he could defeat them for certain.
Now, all five summoned the full strength of their Internal Energy as they rushed to the battlefield. With a touch of their toes, their figures appeared several zhang away, moving no slower than Xu Xiao as he flew through the air.
At last, they encountered Palace Front Army soldiers fleeing for their lives in front of Daqing Hall. Looking closely, they could see Xu Xiao in the distant sky, wildly slaughtering the soldiers below.
Dark shapes flashed past, and soldiers fell in swathes. Blood filled every crack in the square before Daqing Hall!
More than a thousand soldiers of the Palace Front Army within the imperial city had been scattered in a single encounter. The clever ones fled in the chaos, while all those who resisted out of loyalty died beneath Xu Xiao's butcher's blade.
The ability to fly really was an enormous advantage!
Xu Xiao's Telekinesis could now support him in controlling the iron pieces to attack as he pleased within a hundred meters, while at that height, the power of arrows was already greatly weakened.
"You insolent madman! How dare you act so outrageously at the Son of Heaven's feet!"
The first to strike was the white-haired old general. He had come up through the ranks, trained in formidable external arts and Internal Energy, and was also skilled in the art of battlefield slaughter.
The sight of Xu Xiao massacring the soldiers was enough to turn his eyes red.
"How dare you, villain!"
His Internal Energy surged, and he shot forward in an instant. He picked up a bloodstained spear from the ground, roused his Internal Energy, and hurled it fiercely at Xu Xiao in the sky.
The howling wind alerted Xu Xiao that this attack was different. The five iron pieces instantly returned to defend him and collided with the spear.
Clang!
Metal rang crisply against metal, and then the iron pieces sliced the spear apart inch by inch.
Industrial-age alloy was far tougher than the iron of this era. Under the force of the collision, the more fragile wrought-iron spear shattered.
"Villain, take another arrow!"
At some point, the old general below had picked up a longbow from the battlefield. He drew it like a full moon and loosed three arrows at once.
Fast, precise, ruthless!
"I don't believe your hidden weapons can block these the same way!"
The old general was immensely experienced. The moment the spear shattered, he had already drawn his bow and fired, sending three arrows streaking like lightning straight at Xu Xiao's face.
He had mistaken Xu Xiao's use of Telekinesis to control objects for a sophisticated hidden-weapon technique. Such were the limitations of the era.
Preconceived judgments often led to defeat in battle.
The arrows whistled toward Xu Xiao, bringing a howling wind with them. They could cover the distance of more than a hundred meters in less than a second.
Had it been an expert of the martial world, this would surely have thrown them into a flurry. Unfortunately, it was completely useless against Xu Xiao.
"You're courting death."
This time, Xu Xiao didn't send the iron pieces to knock down the arrows. Instead, he swiftly sent them around the arrows to attack the old man below.
As for the three arrows, the moment they were fired, Xu Xiao moved them with a thought.
His invisible Telekinesis applied a push to the sides of the arrows, and the three of them changed direction and swept past Xu Xiao.
Against ranged attacks in the age of cold weapons, arrows fired by ordinary people could be stopped with Telekinesis and sent back, while those fired by experts only needed to be nudged off course.
It took less effort and was safer. The strength of these Internal Energy experts was far more terrifying than that of any renowned general.
Meeting them head-on would increase the Telekinesis expended to block them. Xu Xiao would have to be a fool to do that.
At Xu Xiao's current level of Telekinesis, he could instantly exert ten tons of force within a radius of one hundred meters. With a single thought, he could prevent any ranged attack from hitting him.
As for the old man below, having attacked first, it remained to be seen whether he could dodge Xu Xiao's counterattack.