Behind the massive camphor tree, Zhou Wuji tilted his head, listening intently to the approaching footsteps.
From where he stood, he dared not stick his head out to look, nor did he need to.
With his acute hearing, Zhou Wuji could catch the faint clinking of armor and weapons against the deserters' bodies, the crunch of their boots on the gravelly dirt, and even the cadence of their breathing.
From these intricate sounds, he mapped out a clear three-dimensional image in his mind.
Seven deserters were advancing along the trail—four in front, three behind. The fifth man's breathing was the longest and steadiest, and the clatter of his armor was the most pronounced, clearly indicating a full suit of iron lamellar armor.
This man's footsteps were the heaviest, yet filled with power.
Evidently, this fifth man had to be a rank eight martial artist who had mastered hidden force; only someone of that caliber could move freely while weighed down by several dozen jin of solid iron lamellar armor.
Moreover, only an officer of squad leader rank would possess the wealth to afford such an armor set.
Aside from him, the four men walking at the very front and very rear all breathed with steady composure and strode with vigor, having reached rank nine.
Through the divine aperture between his brows, Zhou Wuji covertly drew in the astral power of Tianshu. This star power remained untouched by day or night, pervading all directions.
The circulation of qi further heightened his six senses, sharpening his hearing, smell, touch, and sight several times over.
Through that circulating qi, Zhou Wuji could even "see" the tangible blood fiend aura clinging to the deserters.
When a man slaughtered countless living beings, baleful aura naturally accumulated.
Zhou Wuji had heard his master mention that most soldiers in the army practiced the Blood Fiend Art.
The Blood Fiend Art allowed one to gather blood fiend aura through slaughter and use it to temper the physical body. It was originally an art of the Red Blood Cult, later adapted and introduced into the military.
This method was vicious, capable of rapidly elevating a practitioner's martial cultivation in the short term. However, without secret techniques or spirit medicine to disperse the fiendish aura, the stronger that aura grew, the swifter and more gruesome one's eventual death became.
For a small squad of deserters to harbor such dense fiendish aura, there was no telling how many lives they had snuffed out.
Because of this, their martial prowess far exceeded that of ordinary soldiers.
Having confirmed the true strength of this band of deserters, Zhou Wuji felt his confidence swell.
In tandem with the inhalation and exhalation of his divine aperture, true qi coursed through his entire body and flowed into the Seven Stars Sword, binding man and weapon into a seamless whole through qi.
A martial artist had to reach rank six to condense a sea of qi and perceive the existence of qi.
Zhou Wuji circulated his true qi internally as a self-contained system without releasing it outward, so even a rank six martial artist might not have detected it.
This was precisely the profound subtlety of Daoist cultivation methods.
The deserters, of course, were entirely oblivious. The forest path was dim and rugged. Clad in full armor and knowing this was merely a tiny village, they maintained virtually no vigilance toward their surroundings.
The first four men strode past the large tree, none of them noticing Zhou Wuji concealed behind its trunk.
When the squad leader walked past, Zhou Wuji tracked the rise and fall of the man's footsteps. The moment one foot lifted and had yet to come down—precisely when his center of gravity hung between shifting—Zhou Wuji flashed out and thrust his sword straight at the man's throat.
The man wore a full suit of iron lamellar armor; only his neck and face were exposed.
Striking from the man's left flank, Zhou Wuji aimed straight for the carotid vessels beneath the earlobe.
The thrust was as swift as the wind and arrived with startling suddenness, directed squarely at the man's off-hand side.
From the corner of his eye, the squad leader caught a flash of cold glint, immediately followed by a piercing screech tearing into his ears.
The squad leader knew at once that danger was upon him. Most of his combat experience had been earned in head-on clashes on the battlefield, leaving him with little familiarity with the sudden ambushes of the martial world.
Fortunately, his martial arts were well honed. He instantly ducked his neck, drew in his chest, and sprang backward to evade. This maneuver—White Ape Leaps Branches—was modeled after the sudden, startled leap of a white ape.
The squad leader had no clear idea where the incoming blade was aimed, but his instinct drove him to protect his most vulnerable neck.
His startled reaction to the unforeseen crisis inadvertently captured the true essence of White Ape Leaps Branches.
The thrusting Seven Stars Sword struck squarely against the squad leader's pauldron, the blade raking across the overlapping iron plates and kicking up a shower of sparks.
Zhou Wuji had not anticipated such exquisite adaptability from a mere soldier.
Yet his swordsmanship had reached a consummate, seamless mastery. The instant the first thrust missed, he drew the blade back and struck again.
Such rapid succession was none other than the Descending Goose Sword, relying entirely on the subtle articulation of the forearm and wrist to strike and withdraw with nimble speed.
Having lost his balance while dodging, the squad leader had evaded the initial thrust by instinct alone, but his body inevitably wobbled, causing his follow-up movement to hitch.
The left flank was his off-hand side, leaving him no time to maneuver his saber for defense.
The Seven Stars Sword exploited the opening. With a soft squelch, the gleaming cold blade skewered the squad leader's neck, blood erupting in the wake of the flashing sword light.
This thrust was both precise and merciless, severing the carotid arteries on both sides of the neck in a single stroke.
As Zhou Wuji withdrew the blade, he gave his wrist a wrenching twist, tearing a gaping hole in the man's throat.
Devastated by the wound, the squad leader's vision went black and his limbs turned to water. He swayed and crumpled to the ground.
It had happened so fast that when the four soldiers ahead heard the commotion and looked back, their squad leader was already down.
In the gloom, they could not see where he had been struck; they could only hear the wet, sputtering gush of blood.
Having seen plenty on the battlefield, they recognized the sound of a severed major vessel at once—a man would be dead within a few breaths.
They all knew the squad leader was finished!
Shock, fury, and dread seized the four soldiers. How could someone of their squad leader's high martial skill be dispatched so easily?
Before the men in front could grasp the situation, the two in the rear saw it clearly: someone had suddenly leaped out and felled the squad leader with a single thrust.
"Squad Leader!" One man, who was especially close to him, flew into a rage at the sight of him collapsing from the blade. Raising his saber, he charged straight at Zhou Wuji.
The other had no time to think and raised his saber to follow.
After slaying the squad leader, Zhou Wuji adjusted his breath and actively leveled his sword to meet the two deserters from the rear.
With four more deserters behind him, he had to eliminate the two in front as quickly as possible.
As two sabers slashed down in unison, Zhou Wuji parted his Seven Stars Sword left and right, his qi moving in concert with the blade.
The two deserters possessed formidable strength, yet it was merely the brute force of muscle and bone. True qi, by contrast, harbored hardness within softness, carrying the weight of a thousand jun.
Blades clashed. The impact sent a numbing shock through the two deserters' arms, knocking their long sabers high into the air and leaving their chests wide open.
They watched helplessly as Zhou Wuji's long sword seized the opening to dart inward, unable to make the slightest response.
The cold light of the Seven Stars Sword flared and flickered, piercing both deserters' throats in rapid succession.
Dropping their weapons, the two deserters clutched their necks and collapsed limply to the ground, choking out muffled, agonized gasps, incapable of uttering a coherent sound...
Having disposed of three deserters in a row, Zhou Wuji felt thoroughly composed; the remaining four would be far easier to manage.
Witnessing two more of their comrades cut down, the four deserters fell into greater panic. Some gripped their sabers, eager to fight to the death, while others shrank back, terrified by Zhou Wuji's swordsmanship and yearning to flee.
The leading deserter saw that the others were wavering. He barked, "We've slaughtered so many people—running won't save us wherever we go! Our only chance is to fight him to the death and cut him down!"
Those words jolted the rest back to their senses. Indeed, having butchered their way this far, there was no road back.
"Kill!" The deserters were ruthless by nature. Now that killing intent surged within them, it stoked the blood fiend aura accumulated on their bodies.
Through his perception of qi, Zhou Wuji could faintly make out a thin mist of blood clinging to them.
Seasoned by war, the four deserters knew how formidable Zhou Wuji was. While they spoke of fighting to the death, they did not simply charge blindly with drawn sabers.
Instead, two of them brandished their sabers in a threatening stance, while the other two unslung the longbows from their backs, intending to finish Zhou Wuji off with arrows.
Zhou Wuji had no intention of granting them the chance to draw their bows. Gripping his sword, he surged forward with explosive force, pushing the variations of the Flowing Cloud Sword to their peak. Qi spread and circulated beneath his feet, propelling him forward as though gliding on invisible rollers.
A mere dozen or so paces separated them. With a blur of movement, Zhou Wuji appeared right before their eyes.
The two archers had already drawn their bows and knocked their arrows. Just as they were about to loose them, Zhou Wuji raised his left palm and unleashed the Golden Light Talisman.
He had already chanted the incantation under his breath, waiting only for this moment to ignite the talisman directly with his qi.
The paper talisman instantly burst into a flare of brilliant golden light.
The Golden Light Incantation contained pure yang spiritual radiance, specialized in warding off evil and expelling ghosts; a low-grade Golden Light Incantation had no inherent offensive effect against mortals.
However, the woods were pitch-dark, and all four deserters had been staring intently at Zhou Wuji. The sudden blast of blinding golden light dazzled their vision completely.
Though the two archers had drawn their bows, they dared not loose blindly. The other two could only raise their sabers and retreat.
Zhou Wuji slipped among the four men. The Seven Stars Sword in his hand thrust in rapid succession, its cold gleam blossoming like a radiant sword flower in all directions. The two saber-wielders lashed out by instinct.
Amid the flashing sword light, the throats of all four soldiers were run through. Two fiercely slashing sabers brushed mere inches past Zhou Wuji's chest.
Zhou Wuji's face remained impassive, but his heart pounded furiously.
In that split-second exchange, he had brushed against death itself.
The sheer peril of it left him shaken.
Yet this deadly combat, where life and death were decided in a single clash of steel, stirred an indescribably potent thrill within him...
Only when all seven deserters lay dead on the ground did Zhou Wuji finally let out a breath.
Though he had cut them down with apparent ease, the battle had been fraught with hazard.
A single misstep, and the one lying dead might well have been him!
Zhou Wuji silently circulated his qi to steady his breathing. That brief engagement had consumed nearly thirty percent of his true qi.
Once his breath normalized, he carried his sword along the trail. Reaching Baishi Village, he discovered three more deserters stationed at the village entrance, gathered around a haphazard pile of plundered valuables.
Behind the trio lay over a dozen corpses strewn haphazardly across the ground; judging by their clothes, they were all villagers.
Though Zhou Wuji did not consider himself a saint, the sight stirred murderous intent in his heart.
These were merely ordinary villagers with little to their names, struggling just to survive in this world, yet a band of rogue soldiers had slaughtered them without a shred of humanity.
This time he did not hesitate, charging straight in and putting all three deserters to the sword.
When the fighting ended, Zhou Wuji looked at the ground strewn with corpses, then at the plunder the deserters had gathered—a few pieces of gold and silver jewelry, along with some copper coins, amounting to very little all told.
A night wind swept out of the woods, fluttering the hem of Zhou Wuji's robes, yet failing to disperse the heavy stench of blood.
For reasons he could not name, the exhilarating thrill of slaying rogue soldiers was gone. All he felt was a lingering chill in this late-autumn wind...
Chapter 11