Book 4, Chapter 150: Kill Them All
Book 4, Chapter 150: Kill Them All
Chen Chuan watched as the assistant general collapsed. He had timed his attack perfectly, and while he seemed to have used a slash, the real attack was a thrust.
The moment they got close, the spirit sense on the tip of the saber went straight into the general’s head and destroyed the vitalized brain.
So, even if the general looked like he had blocked the saber attack, he was a step too late. All that he did was meaningless and was just a reaction from before his consciousness completely faded.
Chen Chuan wasn’t surprised by this. Once he perfected his mind, he could gather much more spirit sense.
This was because his body and mind had both reached perfection, which put them in harmony and allowed him to better use his physical and mental strength. He no longer had any weaknesses that could hold him back from bringing out his full strength.
Chen Chuan looked around. He had managed to kill the strongest enemy in one hit, which made everything else much easier. If he could kill his opponents efficiently, he didn’t mind using such tricks, even if some might find it dishonorable.
As the general collapsed, the cavalrymen around him cried out in shock before riding over to kill the assassin.
If anyone looked from the sky, they would see dust and smoke rolling in waves as cavalrymen surrounded Chen Chuan from every direction.
He stood still, but his saber started shining again. Then, with a twist, he jumped forward and entered the midst of the cloud of dust in front of him.
He released his biofield and mental energy. A powerful mental attack spread seven hundred meters outward.
Even if all the cavalrymen had mental protective items, Chen Chuan’s mental energy was just too powerful. Those who were weaker or close to him could not withstand it and felt dizzy. Then, they saw a saber passing them by, and an entire row of cavalrymen and horses was cut in half.
When the general was attacked, the cavalrymen had rushed over to provide reinforcements. It was an instinctive reaction, but as Chen Chuan barged into their midst and cut them down, their enraged shouts soon became scattered. They realized that their enemy was no ordinary person.
But they showed no signs of running away. They were the absolute elites from an army of more than one hundred thousand people. Every one of them had strong willpower and was loyal to the royal family. Besides, the death of their general was a huge insult to them. If they went back like this, they were going to be blamed for it, which was unacceptable. All they could think about was to kill their enemy as penance.
Chen Chuan didn’t kill the general first just to get rid of the strongest enemy at the start. He also wanted to dissolve command and force the rest to come at him. The imperial army had a rule that if a general died, all his subordinates were to be blamed for it.
This ensured that instead of running away, they would be much more likely to surround him. He could then just wait for them to come at him instead of chasing them all over the forest.
He was right, too. No one had decided to retreat, even if it meant that they were going to die. It was precisely what he wanted.
Chen Chuan moved about so quickly that the cavalrymen couldn’t fight him at all. Wherever he passed, someone was cut down. Only the aide-de-camp was able to track Chen Chuan, and he jumped over to intercept him.
But it was useless. No matter how hard he rushed after Chen Chuan, he couldn’t catch up even when his eyes turned bloodshot and his entire body got covered in mutated tissue.
Chen Chuan stopped moving, and silence finally fell. Next moment, though, rumbling sounds pushed the sand outward.
The aide-de-camp stared at the blurry figure in the dust. After adjusting his breathing, he drew his saber from his waist, lunged forward, and swung it at Chen Chuan’s head.
Based on the starting stance, Chen Chuan could tell that this attack was part of a chain, and it was bound to be fast. The moment it was landed, it could suppress an enemy, which was why the aide-de-camp had been confident enough to use it against Chen Chuan.
However, there was an incredible disparity in strength between them, so no matter how good the aide-de-camp’s technique was, it was meaningless.
When the aide-de-camp’s attack was about to land on him, Chen Chuan turned around. The Frost King Saber pushed past the aide-de-camp’s optimal attack zone and went straight for his neck.
His instincts screamed at him that Chen Chuan’s attack would hit him before his own saber could touch its target. The threat of death made him want to pull his saber back to parry, but he could no longer do it.
The moment he launched his attack, every part of his body, including his aura, mind, and mutated tissue prepared to charge forward for a continuous stream of slashes. He couldn’t pull part of himself back, and the clash between his mind and body made him freeze.
The Frost King Saber swept past his neck mercilessly, and his head flew off.
If anyone watched from the side, it would have looked like he had strangely stopped and let Chen Chuan behead him. He seemed to have willingly marched to his own death.
With a flick of his saber, Chen Chuan watched as the head fell on the ground. It rolled a few times before exploding with a loud bang. The vitalized brain was reduced to mush.
This was due to Chen Chuan’s Heartborn Force, which prevented it from possessing another body and getting up again. Chen Chuan didn’t do this only to the aide-de-camp. All the other cavalrymen he killed got the same treatment. None of their vitalized brains stayed whole.
Regardless of whether it was the attack that killed the assistant general or the one that killed the aide-de-camp, Chen Chuan knew that he wouldn’t have been able to execute either so easily in the past. After he perfected his mind, he could summon spirit sense at will, and he felt as if he could bring out his full strength at any time. Because of it, he could use less strength and exercise more precision when he killed his enemies.
As for the others, they didn’t give him any pressure whatsoever. Elite martial artists were no different to him compared to normal martial artists.
The dust around him settled, and severed limbs and mangled bodies were revealed all around him. Only the riderless horses remained.
It had been less than three minutes since he launched his ambush, and this area returned to silence once more.
In the past, he had to work together with Chen Bitong to kill an assistant general. While that was because he had guards and an entire battalion with him, the assistant general himself was also dangerous to him.
But now, even though this assistant general was much stronger, he had no trouble killing him.
Chen Chuan examined himself. After this battle, even though his second self had improved, it wasn’t by much. Fortunately, he wasn’t going to be running out of enemies soon, so he still had plenty of chances.
He went to the place where he had laid in ambush, sheathed his saber, and walked into the forest.
In order to make the ambush go smoother, he had left his backpack behind. Dawncall was circling above it to keep watch.
Once he picked it up, he noticed a dark cloud in the sky. Was it going to rain?
Rain in the merged space was no joke. It would affect both sides, though Xu Chan and his group should be fine. They had gotten quite a lot of waterproof items from the Union, so they wouldn’t be slowed down too much.
After some thinking, Chen Chuan went back to the horses. They should have been brought as backup and packhorses. All of them were tall and strong.
Chen Chuan grabbed the reins and searched through the packs. Just as he expected, he found some raingear and put it on before securing his own backpack on one of the horses.
Then, he got on one of the backup horses.
The horses listened well and showed no intention of going against him. Even if they had been trained before, Chen Chuan’s mental energy and biofield put so much pressure on them that they could only obey him.
Once he sat still, Chen Chuan checked the sky. The birds flying above the cavalry had scattered.
While he had successfully intercepted the unit, there were a lot of birds, and they were fast. Even if he sent Dawncall after them, it wouldn’t be able to kill all of them, which made it impossible for him to get rid of all of them. The news was bound to spread quickly to the rear, and they would adjust their strategy.
That didn’t matter, though, since the back and forth would take some time. As long as Chen Chuan and Xu Chan’s group moved quickly and never stopped, their pursuers wouldn’t be able to catch up. The only danger came from people, who could be lying in wait to intercept them. Chen Chuan had to tear through them.
He tightened his grip around the reins, clamped his legs down, and the dragon-nose horse obediently dashed forth.
The scouting birds flew behind him. Around an hour later, they reached a cavalry unit who was right behind the vanguard.
These cavalrymen also served under the assistant general, but they weren’t elites and there were many of them, so they had been left behind.
When they saw the scouting birds coming to them, with one of them being their general’s messenger bird, their expressions changed drastically.
The return of scouting birds could mean various things, but this was clearly a sign that their general as well as the entire vanguard unit had died. How could they not be shocked?
They couldn’t quite believe it. After all, the vanguard unit had been meticulously picked. Even if they couldn’t defeat the enemy, there was no way that none of them would be able to retreat.
Besides, the artifact’s light was about half a day’s travel away from them. The birds needed around an hour to get back, so their general couldn’t have reached the light in that time. This meant that their general was attacked or ran into an ambush.
Which enemy did it?
Was it from the Great Shun Republic? The Union? The Linacrox Union?
Since the situation was complicated and they had no information, the soldiers couldn’t come to a decision. All they could do was to send their fastest rider forward to check and verify the situation. At the same time, they sent an emergency telegram to the rear to inform them about it.