Bandit Assault
Seeing his disciples so enthralled by the story that they looked ready to trade places with its hero, Kang Dabao, who was always quick to pour cold water on things, changed his tune again:
"We probably won't encounter anything like a Golden Core remnant spirit in our lifetimes. If we do, even if your own father, mother, and master are behind you, your first reaction can only be to run. Though in all likelihood, you won't get away."
"That's true. All of you, focus on your cultivation and don't reach for the sky," Yuan Jin chimed in with a smile.
"Rumor has it that Lord Shan's contamination by the demon spirit obstructed his path to immortality, but also extended his life by sixty years. In that case, I'm afraid he too..." Jiang Qing sighed. He had grown up hearing stories about Lord Yin Shan.
"A virtuous true cultivator like Lord Shan will have his blessings in the next life. We mortals needn't trouble ourselves over it." With western teachings spreading east, Kang Dabao took a more open view, even using Buddhist expressions rarely heard in Cloud Horn Prefecture to offer comfort.
After seeing Lord Yin Shan off, the senior brothers spent several more lively days drinking in the cramped little courtyard. Then Yuan Jin returned to Xuanwei City one morning. In just over a year, he would formally complete his apprenticeship under Master Qi, and the Chongming Sect would have an artifact refiner of its own.
Yuan Jin had traveled light this time, leaving his family in Xuanwei City. His departure was just as simple: he took two Storage Bags Jiang Qing had stuffed full and set off on the return journey.
Unexpectedly, Yuan Jin had been gone only a day before he hurried back.
"The Ye Household on Heng Mountain is under attack?" Kang Dabao exclaimed in alarm.
"Several groups of Evil Cultivators, thirty-odd people, are besieging Heng Mountain's formation. Half the mortal settlement outside the formation has been destroyed, and the Ye Household doesn't dare come out to rescue anyone." Yuan Jin still looked shaken. If that gang of desperadoes had spotted him, he might not have made it back.
"Doesn't the Ye Household have ten cultivators of its own?" Jiang Qing looked puzzled. Couldn't they win even with that? No one paid him any attention.
"I'm afraid they won't be satisfied with just that," Pei Yi said, deepening the worry on Kang Dabao's face.
"We've barely had a few peaceful days." Kang Dabao pulled a long face. Ever since Second Sister Song had tricked him into fighting the Four Ghosts of the Liu Household, why did it feel as though things had never stopped? Wouldn't it be nice to let me lie low in peace until I reach Golden Core completion?
"Let me go, senior brother!" Jiang Qing looked eager to try.
"Are you asking for a scolding?" Kang Dabao shot him a sideways glance. "Fine, you can go. Send word to the Lu Household on Fangshi Mountain and the Xue Household in Zither Leaf Forest. Ask them to send reinforcements here so we can join forces and help the Ye Household. When the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold. There's no need to explain that. Go and return quickly, and remember, don't act on your own."
Beyond Cold Crow Mountain, the Spirit Veins were fractured, and even a decent first-tier Spirit Vein was hard to find. Only four forces were of any size: the Ye Household, the Lu Household, the Xue Household, and the Chongming Sect.
When the Chongming Sect's previous leader had still been alive, the sect had shown some signs of flourishing and had been the leading power in all of Cold Crow Mountain. The other three households had been loosely considered its vassals, bound to it by marriage. At the very least, they had shared an understanding that they would watch over and help one another.
Although the Chongming Sect had now fallen into decline, some old ties remained. Otherwise, whether the seven members of the Lu Household could have walked out of the Chongming Sect alive last time would have been a real question.
Thus, Kang Dabao thought there should be no problem with each of them sending people to help.
By nightfall, Jiang Qing returned with three cultivators from the Lu Household and one from the Xue Household.
The people sent by the Lu Household were decent enough. Their leader was the second household head, at the Qi Refining Fifth Layer, while the other two were also in their prime and at the Third Layer of Qi Refinement. Sending almost half of their seven cultivators was doing their utmost. It was hard to say whether Jiang Qing had beaten them into submission last time.
The man from the Xue Household had cloudy old eyes and hair and a beard as white as snow. A first-tier Law Artifact with a dim spiritual glow hung at his waist, and the air of death clung to his whole body.
Leaving everything else aside, it was rare to see someone still at the Qi Refining Second Layer at such an age.
"The Xue household head said this nephew of his is an old steed in the stable, but still has ambition. His methods are seasoned and ruthless, and he can shoulder a great responsibility." As Jiang Qing spoke, he could barely hold back his laughter.
"You and this fellow Daoist Xue guard the sect. The rest of us will go with our fellow Daoists from the Lu Household to see what's happening at the Ye Household." Kang Dabao had no time to get angry. With that single sentence, he made Jiang Qing's face fall. Then the six of them hurried off toward Heng Mountain.
By then, Heng Mountain had become a vision of hell on earth.
"Mother, Mother..." A little boy with his hair in braids whimpered as he watched his father, who had taken up a weapon to resist, beheaded with one stroke by an armored soldier drenched in black blood. Scalding blood splashed across the boy's face. Before he could burst into tears, he saw the laughing soldier carry his mother into the house over his shoulder. Before long, a woman's sobs and pleas for mercy came from within.
"Bastards!" A member of the Ye Household swung a pair of axes through a narrow alley like a madman, chopping one attacker after another into chunks of flesh. Only after he had fought his way through the alley and sent the armored soldiers retreating in terror did the man let out a breath. A fireball flew from the other side of the alley's far end. The eight-foot-tall man could not dodge, and he and his great axes were burned to charcoal.
The white-robed cultivator who had cast the spell looked at the soldiers under him with disgust and waved them onward to continue looting. Holding a black banner, he set about absorbing every wronged soul in the settlement.
Half the settlement, hundreds of households, had been plunged into a sea of blood. Men's heads were chopped off one after another, women's clothes were torn away piece by piece, and children were loaded into carts already full of gold and silver. The treasures in their parents' eyes were now no different from those lifeless things: they were all just wealth.
"Listen up, men of the Ye Household! Guard the ancestral hall! As long as we hold on until the immortal elders of our clan can free their hands, they'll make sure these villains die without a place to be buried!" A wiry old man brandished a longsword as he rode a gelded ox with spirit beast blood through the armored ranks of able-bodied Ye clansmen, shouting to bolster their spirits.
The men answered in deep voices. This was the last line of defense.
Behind them were their families and the direct blood relatives of the clan's immortal elders. They had to protect them; nothing could be allowed to go wrong. As for the ordinary clansfolk in the settlement, no one could do anything for them.
Their opponents were a gang of fearsome villains, fully equipped with armor and weapons.
"Loose!" The thick strings of the Ten-Ox Crossbows snapped back, the sound making the ears of the men firing them ache.
The three Ten-Ox Crossbows had been modified by the Ye Household's cultivators, and their power was such that even ordinary Qi Refinement cultivators had to avoid their edge. The sharp bolts pierced the villains' shield wall, drawing a chorus of screams.
The shield wall fell into disarray. Spotting an opening, the old man took the lead, driving his ox hard into the shields. His longsword flashed, flipping up countless villains' faceplates, while the ox's two thick horns were drenched in blood. Before long, he had cleared an open space.
"Attack!" The armored men formed ranks, leveled their spears, and charged into the villains. They easily punched through the shield wall, then broke it apart into scattered pieces.
"Kill!" Ye clansmen skilled in martial arts leaped into the ranks with weapons of every kind, pairing off against the villains' own skilled fighters.
"Loose!" The Ye clansmen operating the crossbows had the daring born of great skill. Bolts from the three Ten-Ox Crossbows skimmed past the Ye battle formation and buried themselves accurately in several small groups of villains that had yet to break.
A bolt as thick as an adult's arm grazed one villain's ear. The fierce wind it carried tore away half his ear and a palm-sized patch of skin from his face. Before he could cry out in pain, he was showered with bits of flesh and bloody foam from a comrade who burst apart behind him. For a moment, he could not tell which of the blood covering his face was his and which belonged to his old comrade. Terrified, he wept uncontrollably, threw down his saber, shield, and leather armor, and turned to leave.
"I'm done fighting! We of Azure Wolf Mountain were the ones who broke into the settlement, so why does the Black Tiger Battalion get to have all the fun inside while we're left gnawing on the bones? I'm done, I tell you!"
"It's the same every time! Where's the chief? Where is he? That son of a bitch, I won't stand for it! I'm not fighting! Let the Black Tiger Battalion do it!"
"Fuck, the Black Tiger Battalion's probably nearly finished making babies in the settlement by now. I'm done."
Less than a quarter of an hour into the battle, the villains' shield wall began to collapse. A middle-aged cultivator watching from behind the formation wore a sinister expression. He snorted coldly at Azure Wolf Mountain's chief, a scar-faced giant clad in golden armor.
"I'll give you half an hour. Get your men in order and charge again. If you still can't break through, die in the formation."
The giant fearfully assented. Wielding a nine-ring saber, he killed a pile of the fleeing soldiers who had turned their backs and come running. Several chiefs, great and small, then rode out to gather the scattered troops, shouting reprimands.
"Those Azure Wolf Mountain men are getting more and more useless," the middle-aged cultivator muttered. And they think they can compare with the Black Tiger Battalion? Those men are the blood kin of us cultivators. Are lowborn wretches like you worthy? If we didn't want to stain our hands with too many mortal lives and risk drawing the attention of those meddlesome righteous cultivators, why would we bother keeping you useless trash?
Before Azure Wolf Mountain's men had finished regrouping, the Ye Household's spear formation advanced at a quick march, frightening the newly formed shield wall into nearly falling apart.
A bunch of useless cowards scared out of their wits. The giant cursed them without stopping, but still could not quell the chaos. Ten-Ox Crossbow bolts came flying in, bursting into several sprays of blood in the middle of the shield wall.
"Those who retreat die!" A Black Tiger Battalion enforcement squad chopped every routed soldier who fled back to pieces. Then those tin cans pressed forward step by step with horse-slaying sabers. The villains of Azure Wolf Mountain cursed them roundly, but could only face the Ye Household's spear formation and serve as the Black Tiger Battalion's meat shields.
The giant's nine-ring saber clashed with the old man's longsword, neither gaining the upper hand. But the ox thrust its long horns forward, driving them hard into the head of the giant's mount. Terror had only just appeared in the giant's eyes when the old man gave a light sweep of his sword, about to slice through his throat. A wind blade suddenly flashed in. The old man had no time even to react before he and his remarkably intelligent ox were sliced cleanly apart.
Having strolled back from the gates of hell, the giant slumped to the ground. He looked up and saw the middle-aged cultivator's sinister gaze, startling him into scrambling to his feet. He swung his saber wildly as if his life depended on it.
The steadfast Ye fighters did not retreat. Instead, the old man's sacrifice stirred the grief and fury in their hearts. Facing an army in mourning, even a top Martial Ancestor as powerful as the giant could only be like a tiny boat, parting the oncoming tide of soldiers by the smallest margin.
"Loose!" This time, the bolts flew toward the Black Tiger Battalion. The middle-aged cultivator no longer stood by and watched. He waved his horsetail whisk, and several wind blades sliced the incoming bolts to powder.
Two Martial Ancestor experts covered in bloodstains emerged from the Ye formation. The Black Tiger Battalion's thick ranks could not stop them at all. In a few strides, they easily fought through and charged straight at the middle-aged cultivator.
The middle-aged cultivator showed no fear. He raised his whisk, and hundreds of silver strands shot out. Both Martial Ancestors' weapons could be called divine arms, yet they could do nothing to the silver strands. The cultivator changed the spiritual hand seal in his hand, and the strands wrapped the two Martial Ancestors tightly in cocoons. He gave a soft shout, and before either could voice his defiance, the hundreds of silver strands easily cut them into pieces.
Having done that, the middle-aged cultivator frowned and flicked his whisk. The flesh and blood caught among the silver strands shook loose like a light shower of rain.
"Black Tiger Battalion, advance! Break into the Ye ancestral hall, and the whole settlement is yours. No sheathing your blades for seven days!"
The armored soldiers' morale soared at once, their fighting spirit surging into the clouds. Every one of them had blood-red eyes, like a human butcher.
This book has officially been renamed "The Sect Leader's Journey."
Like Kang Dabao, before one has enough strength, one should sacrifice some things to gain good things, so as to develop in a good direction. I hope everyone will continue to support me.
I hope that one day, Old Bai's name alone will draw many readers.
Readers who have the time, please keep up with the chapters, vote, and comment. You can even throw some coins at me. Brothers who are busy, please stay on the last page of each day's update for twenty seconds. Thank you, everyone.