Chapter 437: White Snow, Red Woods, Black Hair
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
A dense smattering rang out from around the carriage. This was the sound of crossbow bolts landing on the walls of the carriage, as well as the music to steal souls.
In a flash, countless bolts shot toward the carriage Fan Xian was in. In particular, the arrow fire by the hidden and terrifyingly powerful crossbow, contained with it an incomparable force that directly pierced the carriage.
There was a boom.
The black carriage helplessly bounced. Its shafts split by the power of that arrow. It jumped among the stones, looking like a frog waiting to be slaughtered. But, the carriage did not shatter into pieces.
Fan Xian lowered his body to lie on the floor of the carriage, forcefully moving the zhenqi in his body to cancel out the massive power of this attack. Looking at the big hole beneath the body of the coachman, he couldn’t help but be aghast. The power of this giant crossbow was too strong. It had actually punched a hole through the bottom of the carriage, revealing the rocks and snow beneath.
Fan Xian knew very well just how tough the Overwatch Council’s specially made carriage was. Between the inside and outside wooden boards, there was a layer of steel wool and a layer of thin, but strong, steel board. If this carriage, a combination of the collective wisdom of the third workshop of the palace treasury and the Third Bureau of the Overwatch Council, had not protected him, he would probably have died under this barrage of bolts, dense as icy rain.
He perked up his ears to listen to the whistling of the arrows outside. He knew that the enemies were definitely targeting him. Although he didn’t understand how the ambushing enemies saw through the Overwatch Council’s carriage swap, he knew that this was not the time to consider the whys and wherefores. His ears had determined, in this short amount of time, that the bolts fired into the valley in an attempt to kill him were pouring down in torrents at a great speed. It had already long surpassed the amount the Qing army used to fight against the cities of other countries.
They were using the strategy of attacking a city to kill him.
Such a powerful crossbow attack and the other party’s meticulous preparation made Fan Xian feel a glimmer of death’s aura.
It was clear that the enemies in the valley were also surprised that these carriages were so tough and able to endure the power of such strong bolts.
The rain of bolts continued. In the valley, came the tragic cries of horses. Before being attacked, the sharp cry Fan Xian made had already notified his Overwatch Council subordinates, the swordsmen of the Sixth Bureau, and the secret agents to quickly hide in the carriages when the opportunity arose. However, the coachmen left outside the carriages and provincial soldiers from Weizhou did not have such good fortune.
The crossbow bolts ruthlessly pierced into the bodies and heads of the provincial soldiers, and into the chests and eyes of the horses. They pierced and ripped, forcing live flesh away from the life they were attached to.
There was no way to hide. Over half of the hundred or so provincial soldiers died in the first wave of arrows while those horses cried out pitifully and fell onto the snowy ground. Fresh blood stained the blood in the valley. It was a horrible sight to endure.
Everywhere there were bodies, arrows, fresh blood, and death.
While the carriages had become the Overwatch Council’s last line of defense, under the storm of arrows and bolts, they wretched and pitifully endured, like a boat in a vast ocean. At any moment, they could be swallowed by a massive wave. In just a brief moment, the carriages had been shot through with countless back bolts. The bolts pierced deeply into the carriage, through the steel boards, strong and steady...the carriages in the valley looked like coffins that had suddenly sprouted countless dark feathers.
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From the woods came a few more tooth aching sounds of the powerful crossbow, which also accompanied very low panting breaths.
There was a whooshing sound.
The terrifying giant crossbow fired once again. This time, it not only aimed at the carriage Fan Xian was in, but two other bolts were aimed at the carriage in front.
The powerful bolt ruthlessly pierced into the black carriage. With a massive boom, the carriage once again jumped and then tragically began to flip toward the left side.
What incredible power this was.
Hidden in the carriage, Fan Xian felt his surroundings turn upside down in an instant. A great shock threw him from the bottom of the carriage. He could see that above him a sharp metal bolt had already broken through the walls of the carriage, piercing in sinisterly and terrifyingly, only 15 centimeters from his chest.
That was very close. Fan Xian looked at the bolt made completely from metal and at the woodchips and pieces of steel that the bolt had brought out. He knew that the carriage could not last for much longer.
The carriage couldn’t be too heavy. When it was designed, there was only a thin steel board between the two layers of wood. After all, the strange people in the Third Bureau would never have thought that when an enemy attacked, they would use the powerful crossbows used to guard the city.
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Fan Xian knew he couldn’t sit and wait for death. He quickly took two breaths of the slightly sweet air and, in the moment the carriage overturned, his entire body had already wormed out from the earlier hole in the bottom of the carriage.
Clearly, the assassins in the valley had not expected Fan Xian to find an escape that wasn’t within their considerations, so their reactions were a bit slow.
It was in this moment that the tips of Fan Xian’s feet touched the ground. Not daring to stop, his body turned forcefully and drew a few strange lines on the empty ground in the valley. Moving in a zig-zag direction, he charged toward the woods to the side of the valley.
Thwunk! Thwunk! Thwunk! Thwunk! Ten slender, long, and sharp bolts viciously landed where Fan Xian had been earlier. They shot into the bottom of the overturned carriage and into the mud and snow at the bottom of the valley.
The danger has not yet been resolved. Fan Xian let out a sharp cry. His entire person flew up. He slapped one hand on a green stone on the ground and narrowly avoided the second wave of bolts. The green stone shattered. The person vanished, The bolts landed in empty air.
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Fan Xian swept into the woods. Turning his hand and ripping, he tied the white fox fur cape around his left leg. He took out a medicinal pill and ate it. He then took off his black official robe and wore it inside out.
One hand pulled out a black dagger from inside his boot, the other held the hilt of the sword by his waist. Like a spirit, he vanished into the trees.
Before he vanished, he once again gave a sharp cry, but he did not turn his head to glance at his trusted aides in the valley who were in imminent danger.
A number of the Overwatch Council officials had already died, and those people had all died in the earlier instant.
When Fan Xian’s carriage had been overturned by the shock of the powerful bolt, his subordinates had worried about his safety. Ignoring the order Fan Xian had given out earlier through the sharp cry, they had forced open their carriage door and returned fire toward the valley with the crossbows they carried with them. They wanted to earn a moment of reprieve to rush to the side of Fan Xian’s carriage.
However, the Overwatch Council officials used handheld crossbows. It was clear that they did not have the reach of the crossbows of the people in the woods. While the swordsmen of the Sixth Bureau were trained to be like gods of death in the dark, when faced with this kind of rapid-fire, they still had little opportunity to return fire.
In just a moment, the bolts turned the Overwatch Council officials who had just opened the carriage door into hedgehogs. The eyes of the officials closed.
The quickest person only moved six steps toward the carriage Fan Xian was in before he was nailed to the ground by three bolts.
Fan Xian saw this scene, but his expression was extremely calm. In the calm, there was a glimmer of deathly white coldness. Only with calmness could there be the most effective counter-attack.
When he had come out of the carriage, he had repeatedly moved three times but was still hit by an arrow in his leg thigh. Although it was only a superficial wound, it burned like fire. The fox fur cape was soft and very suitable for tying around the wound on his thigh.
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On two side of the valley, there were snowy woods. The earliest sound Fan Xian’s ears had heard was the Shadow’s warning. He knew the Shadow was in those woods, so he chose the opposite direction.
He trusted in the Shadow’s ability. No matter how many people were in the woods over there, the Shadow could make them die or sink into the shadow of death.
While the woods on this side needed Fan Xian to handle personally.
Such dense rains of bolts had to stop, otherwise, everyone in the valley would die.
Once the bolts stopped raining down and the Overwatch Council secret agents in the carriages had an opportunity to enter the woods, Fan Xian believed that the men of the Sixth Bureau would certainly use the black swords in their hands to harvest the lives of these killers, leaving not one behind.
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A few urgent whistling breaths came from within the snowy woods. It was clear that the enemy had already discovered that Fan Xian had entered the snowy woods and were mobilizing people to try and carry out the last attack.
No one dared to underestimate a Commissioner of the Overwatch Council and a ninth-level ace, so these whistling breaths that delivered the orders seemed a bit panicked. The bolts being fired toward the valley had clearly decreased because the people firing at the carriages knew that their target was Fan Xian. If Fan Xian didn’t die, they would all have to die.
However, although the bolts being fired at decreased, they were still dense and powerful enough to force the swordsmen of the Overwatch Council to stay in the carriages.
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The search and killings continued. In the snowy grounds at the top of a neighboring mountain, the sound of a footstep in snow rang out. A man holding a crossbow gazed cautiously all around.
The snowy ground suddenly split open and a black dagger pierced deeply into his lower abdomen. The dagger twisted and then was pulled out, making the poison activate quicker.
The man lowered his head in pain and hopelessness. Looking at the young man in front of him dressed all in white, he tried to cry for help but his throat was slit by a streak of black light.
Fresh blood sprayed out with a sputtering sound. He covered his throat with his hand and knelt on the snowy ground. His right hand weakly clenched the crossbow and it fired into the ground beside his knee. The powerful rebound forced his almost-dead body to jump and then fall down onto the snowy ground with a muffled groan.
After Fan Xian cut open the man’s throat, he indifferently flew forward and hid behind a tree, watching his last moves with cold eyes and a slightly chilled heart. Even as he died, he didn’t forget to warn his colleagues of the enemy’s situation. The military of the Qing Kingdom was indeed the most valiant in the world.
All along the way, he went through the snowy woods and up the snowy mountain. Fan Xian had already killed a dozen people, and his body was feeling slightly tired. He knew clearly that a full 200 archers had attacked him this time and there had been a number of aces. He felt it would be quite strenuous for him to take on himself. The Shadow’s side seemed to also not have been completely successful.
The other party had truly paid a great price.
He had already broken through two attacking lines and came close to the top of the mountain. Fan Xian knew that the most powerful city-guarding crossbows had been installed here. Hearing his target, he didn’t care about the man’s dying warning. Subterfuge and assassination were actually more physically and mentally taxing than face-to-face combat, so he decided to change his method.
The meticulous sound of footsteps in the snow rang out in the woods. A group of archers nervously looked around. One-half of the archers had been sent off to kill Fan Xian while the other half was putting pressure on the carriages in the valley. No one had expected that Fan Xian would be able to silently break through two lines of defenses and come to the mountaintop.
Very few people in this world knew that ever since he was young, Fan Xian had learned assassination and defenses against being assassinated. This ability to move sneakily had already sunk into his bloodstream.
The snow swirled. A line of snow suddenly appeared on the ground, and a snowy shadow flashed forward from behind the trees. Using the snow falling down from the trees, he dissolved into a straight line and charged over.
So quick!
These archers only felt a flash in front of their eyes and an icy coldness on their throats. The crossbows in the hands fired randomly in their nervousness.
Schew! Schew! Schew! Schew!
Criss-crossing, hidden among the dangerous bolts, Fan Xian swept across. The slender and long black dagger in his left-hand slide across the throats of the archers. His right hand turned and pulled out the long sword lying across his back and chopped down directly.
The left hand was slender, soft, and detailed. The right hand was tyrannical and powerful. The left side was a black line. The right hand was a bright colored ball.
The crossbows flew and fired into the sky wildly, firing into the dense snowy woods. Under the outline of the black lines and the contamination of the bright colored ball, a group of archers repeatedly cried out tragically and all collapsed to the ground, dead. Fresh blood flowed in all directions.
With a clang, the sword in Fan Xian’s right hand met some powerful opposing force at the end. Fan Xian’s feet did not touch the ground, and he quickly swept back. Standing three steps in front of the other person, he looked coldly at them.
The other party held a knife in both hands. Although scared, they still valiantly looked directly into Fan Xian’s eyes. A loud cry came from their mouths to inform his neighboring colleagues.
Fan Xian still did not move. He looked at him coldly and then clucked his tongue.
As the sound fell, his black dagger had already shot while he mysteriously followed this dagger...and shot out like he was a shadow being dragged behind the dagger.
In a split second, Fan Xian had arrived in front of the person. The black dagger had also arrived.
Having his state of mind disturbed by the cluck, the person gave a wild cry and chopped down with both knives and chopped the black dagger into the snowy ground.
Fan Xian let out a strange sound as his body rose half a meter from the ground. His right wrist turned. He hovered the long sword upside down and struck it toward the persons’ undefended area.
To be able to survive already proved the person’s ability. He quickly took three steps back. His hands did not surrender the knives. Rather, he swung. Apiece of knife light flashed by. In a flash, he struck against the power of Fan Xian’s sword.
A crisp clanging rang out.
The knife broke. The person’s chest caved, and he spat out a mouthful of blood. He had little energy to care about the Tyrannical zhenqi Fan Xian had placed on the sword. But, he had successfully pushed aside Fan Xian’s strike and gave himself a chance to survive.
While Fan Xian, in order to main his strange speed and technique, had given up his sword.
His entire body was like a spirit rising up, moving toward the middle lane of the other party. Without anything fancy, he quickly and steadily slapped his palm against the chest of the other party.
With a number of cracking sounds, the man’s ribs broke into inch long pieces. His eyes bulged out, and he wretchedly died on the snowy ground.
Fan Xian turned and swept back. From the snow, he lifted the long sword and dagger. The tips of his toes skimmed the woods as he floated over the tops of the branches gracefully and could be seen anymore.
This exchange was nothing more than three slaps, the so-called “in an instant” was like so.
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Fan Xian looked at the three powerful crossbows below in the woods and couldn’t help feeling a chill in his heart. Indeed, they were city crossbows. Countless questions and a feeling of unease rose without bidding in his heart. However, at this moment, his people were still trapped in the valley. He couldn’t think about too many things.
The strangely shaped and terrifying city crossbow were installed at the top of the mountain. At the bottom, it was controlled by a wooden base and metal hinges. The pulley to nock the arrow and the lock spring needed the combined strengths of multiple people to complete. The giant bolts were placed at the side.
Fan Xian lay on top of the snowy woods and looked at this scene with narrowed eyes. He couldn’t help but think of the massive attack his carriage had endured and of the people who had died in the valley.
The city crossbows were still slowly and steadily firing. Two of the carriages in the valley had already been shattered. The Overwatch Council had suffered heavy casualties.
Even though Fan Xian found that there were three aces above the seventh-level present, he still did not hesitate at all. He morphed into a white bird and flew toward the three crossbows.
“Fire!”
The person beside the crossbows, who was clearly in charge, suddenly roared.
What fired was not the crossbow, instead, it was a sudden dense rain of arrows from the woods to the left.
It was clear that these killers were prepared. Fan Xian was in the air. Faced with this rain of arrows, it seemed like there was nowhere to hide. Then, immediately after, everyone saw a sight that shocked them and left them dumbstruck.
Fan Xian swung out with his right hand and turned his entire clothing over, covering his face and head while his body fell straight toward the ground like a stone.
He did not change qi to forcefully change his shape, rather, he directly dispersed the zhenqi in his body. He allowed himself to fall like a leaf, or like a stone, following the rules of Mother Nature, as he landed on the ground.
It looked simple, but the powerful vibrations from this kind of zhenqi conversion was enough to break the Meridians of most aces in the world. It was only Fan Xian, this talented and strange creature, who could use this method.
No one expected Fan Xian to be able to fall like this, so most of the arrows flew toward the sky and the startled birds in the woods. Only a few arrows landed on Fan Xian’s body. They were deflected by the specially made official robe the Overwatch Council had made for him and the extremely powerful Tyrannical zhenqi in his body.
However, Fan Xian still felt like he had been struck by lightning. A bone piercing pain made his eyes grow red. He knew he had suffered internal damage. The surface of his body had probably already begun to bleed.
The moment his feet touched the ground, his entire body fell down. Like a snow fox, he rapidly slid along the surface of the snow, floating toward the three city crossbows.
The arrows landed in the snow behind him, densely packed together like they were sending him off.
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A very quick knife approached him. Fan Xian’s wrist flipped, and the black dagger spread out like a ball of black shadow. In a moment, it had matched the knife 14 times.
Fourteen crisp clangs rang out. The knife-wielder suddenly retreated. His face was a greenish-white. It was clear he had suffered some hidden loss, but he had successfully trapped Fan Xian at his side.
Fan Xian narrowed his eyes and glanced at him. He knew that his knife-wielder certainly had an important position in the military. And, there were two others on this mountain who were like this ace.
What Fan Xian needed was time.
So, he retreated until he was in the embrace of an attacker who arrived later. He turned his hand to with his wrist bent and the black dagger struck out from under his armpit.
The person behind him let out a strange cry and abandoned his knife. Bringing his hands together, he risked the danger of the extreme poison on the dagger and clasped the dagger.
However, this strike of Fan Xian’s was very powerful. The dagger finally slid past the meaty palms of the person and pierced somewhere into the person’s body. They let out a roar and slammed toward the back of Fan Xian’s head with one palm.
Fan Xian did not turn his head; he turned his palm.
Immediately after, he pulled out the dagger and plunged it back in. Using the knife hilt, he struck toward the person’s face. It was like Fan Xian grew a pair of eyes on the back of his head. The knife hilt went straight into the person’s eye socket.
The person reached out with his left palm and stopped the hilt of Fan Xian’s knife before his eyes, with centimeters to spare.
Fan Xian pressed down with his thumb. A sharp blade appeared out the end of the hilt. It pierced through the person’s palm. Immediately after, it pierced through the person’s eyeball.
By the shore of the Northern Sea, even Xiao En had fallen for this trick of Fan Xian’s, much less this brute from the military.
The person did not try to cover his eye, which was spraying liquid in all directions. He let out a wretched roar. Knowing of his certain death, he unusually valiantly held onto Fan Xian from behind.
His left palm and eyeball wore Fan Xian’s dagger, and his right arm was tightly locked around Fan Xian’s throat.
The knife-wielder in front also swung down with his knife. Quick as lightning, he came down directly on Fan Xian’s face.
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Fan Xian let out a muffled grunt, with a zing sound, he pulled out his dagger from the eye of the person behind him and directly struck toward the person in front.
Who would have thought that knife-wielder cared so little about his own life. With a roar, his knife did not stop and allowed Fan Xian’s dagger to stab through the right of his chest.
It seemed like these strong warriors in the military were determined to leave Fan Xian’s body in this valley not far from Jingdou, even at the cost of their own lives.
Fan Xian’s left arm that had struck out was still rigidly extended. Holding the dagger at the front and by his wrist was a secret crossbow.
The spring lock made a tiny sound. The knife-wielder, who had killed a number of Fan Xian’s subordinates with crossbows, suddenly found his eyes had gone dark. He then felt a wave of intense pain. Only then did he know that two crossbow bolts were stuck in his eye.
Two delicate black arrows were stuck in that knife-wielder’s eyes.
Fan Xian spat out a powerful breath and took a step forward with the valiant soldier behind him. He bypassed the blade of the knife-wielder’s knife. Using his metal shoulder, he blocked the other party’s right hand. With a snap, it was still the knife-wielder’s hand that broke.
Fan Xian lifted his foot and kicked out.
With a muffled thud, the knife-wielder in front was kicked, with resentment and aggression, 3 meters away. He landed heavily against the trunk of a tree. His abdomen was split open, and his entrails flowed out. He looked wretched.
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Suddenly, the third person finally came.
But, Fan Xian’s foot had not been pulled back yet. However, he had been waiting for this person. Without paying any attention to the person holding him tightly from behind, his right hand still held the hilt of the sword extending past his shoulder.
With a tearing sound, the arms of the person behind him broke together.
Like plum blossoms welcoming a storm, like a little boat fighting against the ocean, without looking around at all, Fan Xian coldly and sternly stabbed out with the sword. The sword blade trembled slightly. It appeared soft but was tough and unbending. With single-mindedly, victory it pushed forward.
It was the strike Fan Xian hid the deepest. It was also his most powerful attack when face to face with an enemy. If it were not the most dangerous moment, he would not use it.
Sigu Sword.
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The blade of the sword went through the soldier’s throat and lifted him into the air above the snowy ground. His eyes bulged and stared at Fan Xian, while his hands hung uselessly. A pair of curved knives fell into the snow.
The eyes seemed to be speaking and expressing his fear and confusion. As if they were saying, Such a strike, how could it have come so silently?
Suddenly, another miracle happened.
Fan Xian held one person aloft on his sword and had one wrapped around his back. Beneath the snowy ground, another person appeared. A grey shadow burrowed out from under the snow. With a faint breath, he held a slender sword. Sticking close to Fan Xian’s back, he struck out.
This was the true killer.
Fan Xian had sneakily killed countless people in the snow. But right now, facing the three aces’ surround attack, he was truly both mentally and physically exhausted so he had completely not noticed the strangeness of this patch of snow.
At the moment he was about to claim victory, the enemy’s final killer finally appeared.
Fan Xian only had the time to take one step forward before he felt a thread of fiery pain from his waist all the way to the back of his neck.
The sword directly pierced through Fan Xian’s official robe that could block normal attacks and left a long wretched wound on his back. The sword did not stop. Rising into the sky, it tore apart Fan Xian’s hair ribbon.
The person behind Fan Xian had long been shocked into the snow by this strike.
While the person behind Fan Xian had already changed into that assassin, he had hidden in the snowy ground for a while.
His back had taken a grievous injury, and his long hair was spread out behind him. There was a sword that was about to come to take Fan Xian’s life. Fan Xian’s spirit and energy were almost at extreme exhaustion. It was completely impossible for him to mobilize the Tyrannical zhenqi in a flash.
He only had time to turn his head. He turn his eyes. His loose black hair swung out and weakly struck against the face of this last assassin.
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After his hair fell, a thin needle was now stuck in the man’s temple. Very slender, it trembled as if a gust of wind would be able to blow it away.
The assassin’s body froze in that instant. The sword aimed at Fan Xian’s heart did not have the time to strike out.
With the flat of his palm, Fan Xian chopped on the assassin’s throat. The back of the assassin’s neck exploded in a shower of blood.
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