The horse was galloping at full speed when it was violently yanked sideways, its head wrenched to one side. It was no prized steed, just an ordinary carriage drudge unaccustomed even to carrying a rider. Completely thrown off balance, it let out a high-pitched whinny and went sliding across the snowy ground.
Or put another way, it had been forced into a brutal slide.
The riders dropped abruptly, skimming the ground as they were thrown clear. The black silhouette’s target suddenly vanished, but its midair momentum did not slow in the least. A long, slender serpent-like appendage whipped out from it, lunging straight after He Chunhua.
If it connected, the victim would certainly meet a gruesome end.
It turned out the mastermind wanted both targets dead, having prepared fatal strikes for Ke Jihai and He Chunhua alike.
Yet by riding the momentum of their fall, He Chunhua and his wife rolled into the brush. At its closest, the snake-like thing was less than a foot from He Chunhua’s face before the distance widened once more.
Madam Ying let out a shrill scream.
When they were thrown sideways, He Chunhua had held her tight against his chest, but it was impossible to shield her completely while tumbling. A tree branch drove into her calf, piercing clean through from front to back.
The black shadow bounced upon hitting the ground, as light and weightless as a feather. With a swift twist of its body, it pursued He Chunhua again, paying no mind to anyone else.
Only during this brief pause did the onlookers finally see its true form.
"Is that... a werewolf? A leopard-man?" He Lingchuan was thoroughly astonished, never expecting the classic werewolf trope from films of his previous world to be reproduced here.
Well, mostly similar, at least.
Its head resembled a wolf's, but with a shorter muzzle and a broader face, framed by four striking fangs. Its body was human-shaped, narrow and lean, yet its knees bent backward like the hind legs of a leopard.
Strangest of all was its tail, which sprouted directly from the back of its head. Equal in length to its entire body, it was nothing like a wolf's bushy brush—it was slender as a whip, its tip gleaming with a razor-sharp glint.
The serpent-like thing that had ambushed He Chunhua moments ago was this very tail.
Standing upright, the creature could strike and throw punches like a human; dropping to all fours, it could sprint as swiftly as a tiger or leopard.
Now, its forepaws dug into the dirt. Its body whipped through an arc in the air to correct its bearing, and it charged forward once more!
It moved like an arrow shot from a bow, its trajectory nearly impossible to track with the naked eye.
Yet the moment He Lingchuan saw it leap from behind the boulder, he had drawn his broken saber and hurled it like a throwing knife.
Life and death hung in the balance; this was the moment to test the fruits of his hard work.
For the past half-month, he had practiced throwing blades tirelessly, without a single day of slack. Even on the boat traveling down the Hongchuan River, the mast had served as his target.
After persisting through thousands of throws each day, even a fool would show progress, let alone He Lingchuan.
He had even calculated the angle, aiming straight for where the monster was set to land.
In that single breath, eyes fixed forward and breath contained, he cast all extraneous thoughts aside and poured his whole heart into the throw.
True to his efforts, the broken saber flew along his plotted trajectory without the slightest deviation.
It was likely the most perfect throw he had made in over half a month of practice—strength, path, and angle were all completely flawless.
He Lingchuan held his breath, watching the cold glint of the saber streak toward the beast, and then—
It missed.
It... missed!
The beast had shifted direction at the last fraction of a second. His anticipation, his plan—all of it had come to nothing.
He Lingchuan lost his breath, so frustrated he could spit blood.
Half a month of hard work!
Fortunately, at that hairbreadth moment, the broken saber's miraculous homing ability kicked in once again. It took an abrupt turn in midair. Though the distance was minute and the angle subtle, it drove cleanly into the creature's shoulder joint!
The beast happened to be pivoting on that very arm. An unexpected burst of agony erupted in its socket. It roared, lost its footing, and skidded face-first across the ground, nearly colliding with He Yue's horse.
He Yue reined in his mount and frantically began forming hand seals and chanting an incantation.
His cultivation was meager, but he knew a few spells. He normally avoided showing off such clumsy tricks in front of his elder brother, but now that the He family faced a matter of life and death, he would contribute whatever scrap of strength he had. He refused to shrink from battle.
"Father, origin power!" He Lingchuan spurred his horse furiously, overtaking the commoner youth ahead and charging toward the edge of the forest. Before the horse could even plant its hooves, he leaped high into the air, his saber qi sweeping out like a brilliant rainbow straight for the monster's face!
The tables had turned; now it was his turn to strike from above.
Having rolled to his feet after falling from the horse, He Chunhua did not pause to tend to his wife. He produced a Yuan coin, waved it toward He Lingchuan, and bellowed urgently, "By origin power, bolster He Lingchuan!"
In the dim light, the Qingyuan on the copper coin seemed to flutter.
He was an official commissioned by the royal court, a regional magnate commanding both civil and military affairs in Xiazhou, and a leader of immense prestige within the Auxiliary Army. Though his army was not present, the unity of hearts and the backing of national destiny generated origin power!
A brilliant light flared over He Lingchuan's body.
He already held rank in the Auxiliary Army, and with He Chunhua's temporary empowerment, the origin power surging through him swelled abundantly.
Right then, an earthshaking roar echoed from not far away!
It was the raging ape.
Immediately after, the commoner youth's voice rang out in delighted surprise: "It's General Ke! General Ke is still alive!"
Back when Ke Jihai heard He Lingchuan roar "enemy attack" from the carriage behind, his heart had skipped a beat, and he had witnessed the massive boulder hurtling down with his own eyes.
The enemy's assault would not stop halfway, so Ke Jihai had leaped out of the carriage window without a second thought, aiming for the side facing the cliff.
One of his attendants had followed suit without hesitation.
That side hung over empty air, where enemies were unlikely to attack. By using the carriage as cover, he could tuck himself along the cliff's edge and slip into the enemy's blind spot. Whether they loosed arrows, hurled stones, or set fires, he could face it with composure.
Having spent years in the military and survived no fewer than seven ambushes, he had long developed an instinct for evading danger. His body reacted faster than his mind.
Yet he had still underestimated his foe.
The attacker was a rampaging behemoth that tore the carriage apart without a word. Had he leaped a breath later, he would have been smashed into paste without uttering a sound, just like the subordinate officer who had failed to escape in time.
Fortunately, the carriage lantern had gone out, and the darkness was thick. Lying flat along the cliff's edge, neither he nor his surviving attendant had been noticed by the giant ape.
The moment the ape hurled the carriage aside and left its chest wide open, Ke Jihai sprang up, conjured a long spear in his hands, and drove it with a sharp hiss straight into the ape's chest!
He no longer concealed himself as he leaped. Orange light blazed around his body—a furious strike fueled by the entirety of his origin power!
He was currently the Chariot and Cavalry General most relied upon by the sovereign, the rebellion-suppressing general in whom the common folk placed their hopes, and the commander of over a hundred thousand elite imperial troops. The purity and strength of the origin power he wielded far surpassed He Chunhua's.
Coupled with his formidable prowess and the augmentation of origin power, this spear thrust pierced into the giant ape's chest before the sound of rushing wind could even register!
A single man and a single spear drove the enormous ape demon back twenty feet, nearly knocking it off its feet.
His attendant wasted no time either, taking out a whistling arrow and casting it upward. The specially crafted arrow shot into the sky with a shrill whistle, bursting into a shower of sparks.
Ke Jihai could not bring his grand army into the capital, bringing along only a dozen or so elites as his escort. During tonight's banquet at the Zhu family estate, while Ke Jihai had gone up the mountain, they had remained waiting at the courier station at the mountain's foot.
This signal arrow screaming into the sky like a wailing ghost was meant to notify Ke Jihai's men:
The general is ambushed; come to his aid at once!
Clutching its chest, the giant ape wrenched the spear outward. Its other palm, as massive as a millstone, swung around to scoop up Ke Jihai.
If that grip landed, it could crush a man into pulp.
Ke Jihai did not even dodge. The spear tip, glowing with crimson light, twisted around to strike at the center of the ape's palm.
Forged specifically for mounted combat, this ten-foot spear was perfectly suited for dealing with a towering beast of such immense reach, though it demanded extraordinary skill from its wielder to wield it as freely on foot as in the saddle.
Having tasted its sting, the giant ape was unwilling to have its palm skewered. It leaped back, snapped a tree trunk as thick as a man's embrace, and swung it toward Ke Jihai.
Every move and stance carried clear discipline, not mere brute force.
Not far off, the commoner youth and the two coachmen watched, slack-jawed.
Ke Jihai could not be considered tall, and standing before the giant ape, he appeared smaller still. Yet the longer he fought the beast, the fiercer he grew, driving his opponent back step by step over a dozen exchanges.
Among these clashes were head-on collisions of spear against trunk, yet he held the upper hand!
The giant ape unleashed several ferocious roars with the force of a lion's roar, leaving the three watching from afar dizzy and nauseated. Yet Ke Jihai, facing it directly, did not even blink, acting as if deaf to the din.
The onlookers understood this was likely the work of origin power. For a high-ranking commander of armies like Ke Jihai, the dense origin power on his person not only enhanced his martial skills and footwork, but also exerted a potent suppressive effect against an enemy's divine abilities and demonic arts.
The specific thresholds governing strengths, increases, decreases, and counterbalances were weighed by the laws of the Heavenly Dao. But in short, if an enemy lacked origin power's protection or possessed origin power weaker than Ke Jihai's, they were bound to suffer greatly.
This was the fundamental reason human realms held demonic tribes at bay and flourished.
The ape's roar was meant to shatter enemy resolve, but because it was driven by demonic power—an innate divine gift—it was similarly suppressed by Ke Jihai's origin power.
By the time its full force reached his ears, not even twenty percent remained.
How could something like that intimidate a fierce general who had traversed battlefields for over a decade?
Though outsiders could not tell, Ke Jihai was inwardly uneasy.
His earlier spear thrust to the chest had been delivered with all his might; even an elephant would have been skewered through. How could this giant ape still fight after pulling the spearhead out?
Its bone armor was indeed shockingly hard, far more than merely imposing in appearance. Could it be the latest military gear from the northern demon kingdom?
No, it appeared to have grown directly from its own flesh.
Furthermore, Ke Jihai was certain that after puncturing the bone armor, the spearhead had sunk only a finger's depth into its chest. For an ape demon of such colossal size, that was far from a fatal blow to the heart.
This monster was unexpectedly tough—even a spear thrust imbued with origin power had failed to kill it.
Ke Jihai's eyes narrowed. Seizing an opening, he whipped out three caltrops and lodged them into the giant ape's body: one in its foreleg and two in its back.
The caltrops were ordinary iron, but infused with origin power, their bite suppressed the beast's demonic power even further.
With that, the giant ape's frame visibly shrank before their very eyes.
Chapter 176