"What tremendous power!"
Han Mo was inwardly astonished.
The force unleashed in his opponent's strike was considerably greater than earlier in the fight.
Yet Han Mo was no pushover either.
With a flick of his wrist, Han Mo guided the spiked club downward to the right with the flat of his blade, deflecting its momentum. At the same time, he took several swift steps back and bellowed, "Form ranks!"
Hearing the command, the ten elite soldiers who had been closely following behind him moved with crisp precision. Shifting positions in an instant, they assumed a specialized formation.
It was a miniature battle array composed of ten men.
The moment the array took shape, their auras linked into a unified whole, and a terrifying killing intent flooded the air.
"Kill!"
The soldiers roared in unison, venting a dense, suffocating murderous aura. This killing intent merged with their essence, qi, and spirit, coalescing into a unique energy.
Channeled through the battle array, this energy surged into Han Mo, their commanding officer.
Vast baleful qi gathered upon him. His aura climbed rapidly, his physical strength soared, and his entire body brimmed with explosive might.
In that single instant, his combat prowess surpassed the peak of the Viscera Tempering Realm, reaching the level of the Qi and Blood Realm.
Yet Han Mo showed no fluctuations of actual qi and blood.
The specialized energy formed by the soldiers' essence, qi, spirit, and murderous intent had concentrated in his body, taking the place of qi and blood and effectively granting him the power of the Qi and Blood Realm.
"Fall back! Get the fuck back, all of you!"
"I bought you time so you could run! What are you all standing around for?!"
The burly man roared frantically.
Confronted by Han Mo, whose rising aura had broken through into the Qi and Blood Realm, he was simply no match.
*Swish!*
Han Mo gripped his saber tight, brimming with chilling killing intent.
Amidst the mountain woods, a cold flash of blade-light flickered as terrifying murderous aura accompanied the edge slashing down toward the burly man.
*Clang!*
The burly man scrambled to parry with his spiked club.
Yet before Han Mo, bolstered by the battle array, his natural-born strength proved utterly fragile. Terrifying force surged through the blade, blasting the burly man backward through the air.
*Crash!*
*Crack, crack, crack!*
*Spurt!* Only after snapping the trunks of two large trees did the burly man finally stop. He spat out a mouthful of blood.
"Fuck it, I can't look out for anyone else!"
"Charge! Charge into Lion Valley if you want to live!"
The burly man spun around and fled, abandoning the brothers trailing behind him.
"Kill!"
The soldiers' furious roars erupted once more.
They swiftly shifted formation. The aura upon Han Mo diminished slightly, while the strength in each individual soldier gradually rose.
Maintaining their formation, they pressed the pursuit.
The straggling mountain bandits were completely helpless against these fully armored elites. Under the soldiers' blades, they were cut down like weeds. In mere moments, more than twenty bandits lay dead.
After pursuing for several hundred meters, the surrounding woods grew even denser.
"Halt!"
"Pursue no further!"
Han Mo stopped in his tracks and barked the order.
"Sir, I scouted ahead earlier—there's a swamp," a soldier stepped forward to report. "If we keep pressing, we can surely wipe out this whole band of bandits!"
"I know there's a swamp ahead too," Han Mo said. "But if we know, wouldn't these bandits know as well? They know the terrain here far better than we do. Just now, they had chances to flee in other directions, yet they deliberately chose this path. They're clearly trying to lure us in deep!"
"Withdraw!"
"There will be plenty of chances to slaughter them later. There is no need to take risks," Han Mo ordered loudly. "Return to the main road and hold your posts. Have the scouts continue tracking the bandits' movements!"
"Yes, Sir!"
***
"Fuck, that guy really is cautious."
Hidden in the mountain woods, the burly man who had just suffered the loss cursed under his breath as he watched Han Mo withdraw.
"I told you Han Mo is a prudent man and wouldn't fall for it, but you wouldn't listen. Now you've taken a beating for nothing, haven't you?" the man beside him said.
Had Han Mo been here, he would have recognized him at once.
It was Xing Penghai, a fellow Centurion of the City Guard!
"Pang Yuanfeng, if you had listened to me earlier, we would have wiped out more than half his troops by now," Xing Penghai sneered.
"Hmph, you're both in the City Guard. Who knows if this was a setup?" Pang Yuanfeng snorted coldly.
He flexed his wrists, feeling a lingering numbness in both arms. When he had taken Han Mo's blow head-on moments ago, the terrifying force had torn the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.
"You've already seen our Xing clan's sincerity. If we truly wanted to harm you, we would have made our move long ago. If you had followed the plan I gave you earlier, you would have succeeded already," Xing Penghai said indifferently.
"Lads, come on out! We're heading back!"
"Damn it, I took that hit for nothing."
Ignoring Xing Penghai, Pang Yuanfeng shouted into the woods.
The moment the words left his mouth, over a hundred burly men bearing weapons rushed out from the trees, following behind Pang Yuanfeng as they headed deeper into Lion Valley.
"Greedy as a snake trying to swallow an elephant... Did you really think you could lay your hands on the secret arts of a military battle array?" Xing Penghai sneered as he watched Pang Yuanfeng's retreating figure.
With a flick of his frame, he followed them into Lion Valley.
Lion Valley was home to numerous bandit gangs. If this fellow refused to cooperate, he would simply find someone who would.
***
No. 33 Jindong Street.
The sharp whistling of blades cutting through air echoed from the courtyard.
Gripping a sharp, finely crafted saber, Lin Zheyu was practicing the Six Harmonies Saber art.
The saber was three chi and nine cun long, its blade engraved with the pattern of a coiling python, and its edge was razor-sharp.
Within Songyi City, bladed weapons were strictly controlled, out of reach for ordinary folk. This weapon had been gifted to him by Han Mo; it was registered and entirely legal.
Even so, that only ensured it would not be confiscated when entering or leaving the city; drawing and using it inside the walls remained forbidden.
The Six Harmonies Saber was Han Mo's primary martial art, which he had taught to Lin Zheyu not long ago.
After practicing diligently over this period, Lin Zheyu had made significant progress, already bringing the technique to the mastery stage.
Chapter 45