Chapter 13 - Strike
A few hundred villagers from Meng village were pushing some carts down a path in the woods. They were being escorted by Zhang Hu and his fellow barbarian hunters.
There were over thirty of these push carts. The heads of the dead barbarians were piled up high in the carts. The pungent smell of blood was mixed in with some unknown herbal smell. The smell was terrible enough to drive one into unconsciousness. In order to avoid the rotten heads spreading disease, the elders of Meng village had soaked these heads in some herbal mixture, causing this horrible pungent smell.
They had nearly two thousand barbarian heads. According to the reward that was posted in Little Meng City, these would amount to a lot of money.
The barbarian hunters and the villagers of Meng village had come to an agreement. After sending these heads to Little Meng City, they would split the reward money. The payout would be large enough to make up for all the losses of Meng village and also enough for these barbarian hunters to live a few months in pleasure, being showered with booze and women.
Wu Qi was sitting on the shaft of a push cart, he was carefully trimming the end of an arrow with his dagger, making the feathered tail round and flat. Inside his beast skin bag, there are more than a hundred trimmed arrows. The tips of these arrows were shining with a lurid glow.
This is the thorn from the poisonous tree, ‘Antiaris’, which grows deep within Little Meng Mountain. The thorn is harder than metal, sharper than a blade, and carries poison naturally. Those barbarians love to use these tree thorns as their arrow tips. Wu Qi gathered hundreds of them and trimmed the tails. He planned to use them as daggers that he can throw using bare hands, which should cause serious damage.
In this world without any guns or modern weapons, Wu Qi can only use whatever he can find, making them into his own defense.
Although he inherited the Scroll of Stealing, he knew, from his conversation with Zhang Hu, that this world is a complicated place. Only being at the peak of the Houtian cultivation level, he simply can’t live the life he wanted to live.
Satisfied with the last tree thorn he trimmed, Wu Qi carefully placed it into the beast skin bag and tied up the bag with a beast tendon.
Turning his head and looking at the mountains behind him, Wu Qi raised both his hands and waved few times.
Good bye Meng village!
Wu Qi and the others had left Meng village yesterday morning. The distance from Meng village to Little Meng City was about five hundred miles. For those soldiers who were riding Raptors, it would only take them five to six hours. But with so many heavy push carts in the group, their speed simply can’t be all that fast.
The mud road came to an end. The group had officially left the mountain. After following a proper road and walking for another two hundred miles, they should arrive at Little Meng City. As he was told by Zhang Hu, Little Meng City has a population of over two hundred thousand people. It is the biggest city for several hundred miles.
Out of these two hundred thousand people, only a few thousand are permanent residents of the city, the rest are barbarian hunters, rogues, and all sorts of traders. There were even some on the run killers, bandits, thieves, con men, and scoundrels. Zhang Hu didn’t have to say anything more. Wu Qi can already imagine what kind of city it is.
The village men at the front of their convoy cheered. They had finally left the woods and were walking on the real road outside of the mountain.
The speed of their convoy became slower and slower. Wu Qi was sitting on the shaft, staring at the thick mud on the road, and his face had a dark expression. So this is the official road that connected Little Meng City to other cities? From the condition of this road, Wu Qi was a little bit disappointed in this shit place. What kind of damn world had he actually come to?
The Meng villagers and barbarian hunters were used to this road’s condition. No matter if they were barefoot or wearing boots, they just walked like on the thick mud like it was no big deal, especially those men from Meng village.
The color of the mud is really weird, it even mixed with some unknown weird stuff, like some dead rats, bugs, and other strange things. Wu Qi’s face kept getting darker and darker. His whole body was covered with goosebumps.
After he absorbed Le Xiao Bai’s soul particles, besides obtaining his insane knowledge, Wu Qi had also inherited his addiction to cleanliness. Shaking his head helplessly, Wu Qi forced himself to focus all his attention on the mud.
If he had to live in this world, then he needed to get used to everything here. If he can’t even stand this little muddy road, how will he be able to live on in this world?
Taking a deep breath, Wu Qi grabbed the beast skin bag and got off the push cart. Then he went up to those men from Meng village and walking together with them on the muddy road. The mud quickly soaked through his crude sandals, sticking to his feet. Wu Qi smiled as he recalled a scene from when he was just eleven or twelve years old, where he was fighting for his life against some wild beasts in a coliseum full of mud.
Today what Wu Qi is facing is a place a million times more dangerous than those wild beasts, but also a million times more exciting, as it is a brand new world!
Breath in, breath out, breath in again, breath out again. While Wu Qi was walking, he was chatting with those villagers with a smile on his face. The innate cold qi in the veins on his arm kept getting thicker. Without wasting any time, he silently circulated this qi according to the ‘Source of Water Chapter’ skill.
The water elemental qi hovering in the surrounding area started to flow toward Wu Qi. It went through the center of his palms and quickly entered his veins.
Other cultivation scripts required one to refining qi in order to be able to use said qi. Once these natural energies entered Wu Qi’s body, they immediately became a part of the innate water qi within his body. The Scroll of Stealing. Once you have something in your hand, then it becomes yours. Why should you have to refine the qi?
With just this special characteristic alone, the cultivation speed of the Scroll of Stealing, comparing to any other cultivation script, is at least ten times faster!
Clearly feeling his cultivation level increasing bit by bit, Wu Qi was happily listening to those men from Meng village boasting about their sexual conquests when he suddenly heard a terrible scream came from in front of them.
Dozens of horses were dashing towards them. On those rides are pale-faced men wearing luxurious clothing and armor. They were screaming like some lost mongrels, fleeing without looking at where they are heading.
These cavalrymen were dressed shabbily. Along the way, some of them were taking off their armor and throwing it away. Some even threw their weapons down, hoping to lighten their burden so they can run faster. Behind those cavalrymen, seven to eight men in black were carrying bows and arrows. Without any hesitation, like they were doing target practice, they placed arrows on their bow strings and then shot the arrows out.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of cavalrymen were struck down by the arrows, howling and falling from their rides. When these men hit the ground, mud was thrown a good distance by the heavy impacts. As if there was poison on the arrows, right after these men touched the ground, their faces became black and their bodies became motionless.
Wu Qi and his group bumped into these cavalrymen head to head, these cavalrymen were scared and had lost their minds, screaming in fear While riding fast, these cavalrymen were still cursing madly, “Outta my way, you bunch of peasants! Outta my way!”
Slowly reacting, due to shock, a few men from Meng village, who were standing in front of the convoy, got knocked down by the fleeing cavalrymen. These horses were extremely strong, thus, the force of impact was so huge that it caused the men from Meng village to fly back a few feet away and spit out blood. Their chests were obviously crushed.
“Kill them!”
The villagers from Meng village were raised within the mountains. They had a long history of fighting with barbarians and all kinds of wild beasts and poisonous bugs. In another word, they are brutal and strong. Looking at these fleeing cavalrymen, who were being so unreasonable, the leader of villagers shouted loudly, and took out his weapon.
The several hundred men from Meng village took out their blades and swords and rushed, like a tsunami, onto those cavalrymen.
Shouts of ‘hey hey’ were coming from the scene and the tens of fleeing cavalrymen fell onto the ground. The legs of their rides were chopped off by villagers. Those cavalrymen were chopped up into chunks of meat.
In just a blink of an eye, all the fleeing cavalrymen were killed by villagers from Meng village.
As the villagers raised their weapons high up and began to cheer, the man in black, who were pursuing the cavalrymen, started to shoot their arrows toward the villagers. The sound of strong bows ‘twanging’ was heard, then arrows deeply penetrated into the bodies of a few villagers.
The poison on the arrows was really strong and thus these villagers never really had a chance to make a noise. After struggling for a second, they fell down on the ground, motionless.
It all happened so quickly that the villagers had no time to prepare themselves. They stared blankly at their men who were lying on the ground, stunned.
Wu Qi was the first one who reacted. While those men in black were busy reloading their arrows, he cursed and started running toward those men in black. Wu Qi’s speed is not really all that fast but was not all that slow either. After a few leaps, he had shortened the distance between him and those men in black to no less than ten feet.
He put his hand into the beast skin bag and grabbed few trimmed arrows, placing them securely between his fingers. Wu Qi waved his hand effortlessly and the innate water qi in his arms flowed into the arrows, then a few blue ray shot out, striking at the necks of five men in black.
The approximately 1.5 meters long arrows impaled the necks of the five men in black. These men looked at Wu Qi with expressions that said they could not believe what had just happened. Holding their necks tightly with both hands, they fell down on the ground with blank expressions.
The last three men in black stared at Wu Qi in shock. One of them angrily shouted, “Peasant, you dare to hurt our men?”
Without saying a word, Wu Qi walked forward and pulled an arrow out from the neck of one of the men, and then he quickly thrust it forward at high speed a couple dozen times. The three men in black can’t see Wu Qi’s movements. They just see some fast movements and then feel a cold breeze sweep through their bodies, then the thorn had pierced through their bodies, making them be full of holes.
“Peasant? Are you calling yourself noble? A dead man is simply rotting meat!”
With a grin on his face, Wu Qi kicked the head of the man who scolded him just now.
The sounds of weapons clashing came from just around the bend of the road. Wu Qi turned his head and listened. With a frown, he started to run towards the source of the noise.
Zhuang Hu and his men had, by now, caught up. He grabbed at Wu Qi’s shoulder and said, “Brother, you should not get yourself involved in this matter.”
Zhang Hu’s fingertips had touched on Wu Qi’s shoulder, but, as if there’s a layer of oil on Wu Qi’s shoulder, his fingers slipped.
Wu Qi turned his head around and gave Zhang Wu a smile, then he sped up and leaped forward toward the source of the noise.
Zhang Hu stamped his feet, cursed in a low voice, and chased after Wu Qi.