Wang Chong, too, was briefly taken aback. He had seen this scholar flanked by a crowd of attendants and assumed he must be an important figure whose martial arts were surely formidable—which was why he had brought out Plucking Flower and Leaf Hand for a sneak attack, with an endless stream of killing moves ready to follow. He had never expected the man to be utterly unskilled in martial arts, dead the moment they crossed.
When Yaglakar Yehu saw the scholar slain, he flew into a fury and let out a tiger's roar, but he had no way to lend a hand. He could only vent his wrath on Monk Xuan Gang's bald head, unleashing killing move after killing move. Great Monk Xuan Gang surged with the full force of his cultivation, meeting force with force and stance planted like iron, taking every blow head-on and still coming out on top. The two fought with a tremendous din, sand and rocks flying everywhere.
Wang Chong lashed out with a stroke of Diamond Prajna Palm Strength: Flying Dragon Eighteen Forms, splitting it across six opponents. At that instant, with everything hanging by a hair, there was no time to bring out Nine-Headed Fire Dragon Flash, and he dared not use the hugely draining Holding-Candle Swordplay either.
A thick-waisted, swarthy-faced general fixed his concentration at once and answered with a palm blow of fierce, precipitous force. He took Wang Chong's palm head-on and somehow did not come off the worse for it.
A tall, gaunt man with an enormous frame, monstrous to look at, robed in plain hemp cloth, thrust out a claw that tore the air with a shriek. The two traded one head-on blow, and Wang Chong used the force to spin toward a third opponent; this man merely swayed on his feet, as though nothing at all had happened.
The third was very young, and the finger he flicked out was Ice-Soul Divine Finger. One palm strike sent him tumbling off his horse, though a chill seeped unbidden into Wang Chong's own internal force. The rest each practiced different martial arts, yet all of them caught Wang Chong's palm force without wavering.
One probing exchange was enough to leave Wang Chong groaning inwardly. These dozen-odd men were all eminent figures of the Yaglakar clan: the first two he had struck were no less skilled than Nalihai, and three or four of the others seemed to stand even with Yaglakar Wen Ducheng. If such men joined forces, he could forget about killing even one or two quickly—if he let himself be surrounded, he would likely be beaten to death in the press. He did not hesitate for an instant. In a single breath he charged through the dozen-plus men, and with a backhand sweep knocked the last man in the file from his saddle. It was one of the exquisite strokes of Wind-Cloud Hundred Styles. Seizing the moment, he took the man's horse and weapon, wheeled the mount around, slapped its rump—and still remembered to bellow, "Master Xuan Gang, guard me with your life! Whatever you do, don't let anyone come after me!"
Great Monk Xuan Gang was long familiar with his ways, and at those words he roared at once, "My lord, go!"—though he eased off his attacks just slightly.
Yaglakar Yehu had long since passed the point of containing his rage. Scorning to waste time turning his horse, he pressed a hand to the saddle and launched himself into the air with peerless lightness skill, catching up to Wang Chong in an instant. His palm came down, and before its force even arrived a biting cold already assailed flesh and bone.
Wang Chong drew a deep breath and struck out with Diamond Prajna Palm Force: Nine-Headed Fire Dragon Flash. The two palm forces, one ice and one blazing, clashed in midair.
Yaglakar Yehu was, after all, a veteran of the Innate Realm, a bare thread from master rank. His palm shattered all nine layers of Wang Chong's force outright, and its remaining power scarcely waned as it cleaved straight for Wang Chong's face.
Wang Chong had also commandeered a horse along the way, and this was the chance he had been waiting for. He flipped over and hid beneath the animal, laying a long sword across its back. Almost everyone knows this from experience: stand a stick or the like upright on the ground and it topples at once, but in the moment before it falls, poised on the edge, there is an extremely brief span. That subtle instant was what Wang Chong was gambling on. It was no martial technique at all, a notion fantastic to the extreme, with timing gauged to the finest hair.
Had Yaglakar Yehu driven his stroke on downward, he would surely have hammered a long sword inverted into a horse's body, but he too would not have escaped injury. Though his fury knew no bounds, he changed his move in haste. Yet the moment he pulled his hand back, Wang Chong had flipped onto the horse's back again, nimble as a monkey, long sword in hand, and thrust out the form "Sword Candle Sun and Moon" with a fearless spirit that held life and death in contempt.
Holding-Candle Swordplay was a superior sword art of the Orthodox Xuanmen! It drew its meaning from the ancient Torch Dragon who held a candle-flame in his mouth. This move, however, came from a Wudang elder's sudden flight of fancy: a sword intent in which a candle-flame contends in brilliance with the sun and moon. What it sought was not the sweeping, overarching intent of Holding-Candle Swordplay—open, and it is broad daylight; closed, and it is black night—but this: beneath the radiance of sun and moon, a candle-flame is negligible, worth no one's notice. The sword's momentum was faint and hidden to the extreme. It was a killing stroke, a blade made for assassination.
This move carried, moreover, an unmatched killing intent that recked nothing of life and death and drove onward without turning back.
Yaglakar Yehu had never expected that a slight change of his own move would let this young man from the Central Plains find an opening. Facing so savage a killing stroke, he forced up his true qi and struck out with a palm.
The two exchanged another blow in midair, and Wang Chong turned a somersault to land back on the horse's back. It was the first time in his life that Holding-Candle Swordplay had gone out and failed to kill. He let out a long, ringing cry: "Since I came down from the mountain, I have used Holding-Candle Swordplay only three times. The first killed Nalihai, the second killed the commander of this cavalry. That you can take one blow of mine is boast enough for you!"
As for the fact that his Sword Candle Mountain Sea had only ever fought Qian Luo Yi to a draw—that he did not mention at all.
Yaglakar Yehu was so enraged his nose nearly twisted askew. A veteran of the Innate Realm, half a step from stepping into the master realm, and someone had actually said to him, "That you can take one blow of mine is boast enough for you!" What kind of devil's joke was this?
He gathered his focus and barked, "Now take another—" A thought flashed through his mind, and his whole body felt as though plunged into an ice pit. He roared wildly, "You killed Pishaluo!" Seeing Wang Chong galloping away, already far off, he gave chase at once with lightness skill, his blood boiling.
The dozen-odd men who followed Yaglakar Yehu, afraid the great chieftain might fall into a trap, hurriedly spurred their horses after him.
Monk Xuan Gang sighed. He knew Wang Chong had drawn the enemy away so that he might clean up the aftermath, and so he did not follow. Instead he hurried the men of the main camp into withdrawal, his heart heavy with gloom.
Had Yaglakar Yehu not returned, then even as remnant troops came trickling back one after another, he and Wang Chong could still have held, and swallowed this baggage train whole, gaining for nothing countless weapons and suits of armor—all of it the Yaglakar clan's hoard of years, nothing that could be readied in a mere few years. But Yaglakar Yehu had come back. He needed only to gather a few hundred remnant soldiers for one charge, and the ordinary men under Xuan Gang's hand would surely be unable to hold, with casualties certain to be grievous.
Wang Chong had not ridden far when the warhorse beneath him was shot dead by an arrow. He could only work his lightness skill and dart straight for the dense woods nearby, clawing his way up the slope.
Yaglakar Yehu led his subordinates in close pursuit. Several men joining hands could multiply their killing power, but lightness skill could not be stacked in any way; once Wang Chong brought out his Riding Clouds and Treading Wind, the pursuers behind could never close the gap. Though several of them carried bows and loosed arrow after arrow, Wang Chong—as if gifted with foreknowledge—swept them aside with a casual wave of his hand without even turning his head, and not one hindered him in the least.
Wang Chong thought, "Where can I find a den of top fighters to fall on these brutes of the steppe?"
"The Chrysanthemum-Killing Alliance would do nicely, but they're all in Tongzhou now, guarding the Prince of Yan! It wouldn't be right to lead this lot over there, would it?"
Seeing he could not catch Wang Chong in a short time, Yaglakar Yehu bellowed, "Bow! Arrows!" Someone immediately tossed bow and arrows his way. The invincible commander beyond the frontier planted both feet firmly on the ground, drew the bow and nocked an arrow, and loosed. The shaft carried peerless ice-cold true qi; it tore through the air, trailing a wisp of cold mist.
…Xuan Gang: Damn it, I never learned the Rebirth Mantra. Ah, never mind—no need to chant it anyway…
…Wang Chong: Show off and scram—that's how you last the long haul…
Chapter 68