Chapter 46 - Run for Lives
“Run!”
After everyone came out from the cave, Yan Bugui immediately shouted out loud, ordering everyone to retreat. All the warriors who were still fighting with the almost insane barbarians, began to gather up and followed closely behind Yan Bugui and the big group of men who had surrounded Wu Qi, running toward the path where they came from.
After getting hit severely by Explosive Talismans and Exorcism Crossbow of Red Flame, together with dozen rounds of arrows shower, there were only around eight hundred barbarian hunters who could remain standing. On the other side, there was only around three hundred warriors who could retreat without any wounds on their body. Although those barbarians were suffered great losses, but the warriors who came together with Yan Bugui were not much better than them, they too experienced some serious casualties.
With the help from few guards, Liu Suifeng was running for his life with somewhat quick, yet clumsy, steps. While running, he kept on staring on the three stone tablets on Wu Qi’s shoulder. It seemed as if fire was going to burst out from his eyes at any moment. Lu Quyuan had a short dagger tightly gripped within his palm. There were a few times that he almost couldn’t hold himself and wanted to throw the dagger at Wu Qi’s back, but when he looked at Yan Bugui and Lu Chengfeng, who were running close to Wu Qi, Lu Quyuan just didn’t have the courage to do it.
“Damn it! He got top credit!” Lu Quyuan complained to Liu Suifeng in a low voice.
Liu Suifeng had an awful expression and tightly clenched his fists, praying hard in his mind and hoping that a lightning bolt would come from the sky now and smite Wu Qi. He turned his head around angrily, but was immediately shocked and terrified, as he saw the dead body of Lord Flame, which was laying on the ground not far away. The body was covered with a thin layer of frost and looked quite tragic.
Liu Suifeng’s body suddenly trembled and he almost tripped over his own feet.
Old Devil was badly wounded, as his backbone was broken into pieces. If a miracle didn’t happen, he would be a disabled man for the rest of his life. Now Lord Flame was dead... How was he going to answer to his father, Lord Puyang when he returned? With his father’s status and power, their family could only worship a couple of Xiantian level cultivator, and Liu Suifeng had spent quite a bit of effort in order to bring two Embryonic Breath tier Xiantian realm cultivators with him on this trip.
[ED: As a reminder, they ‘worship’ these Xiantian realm cultivators and, in turn, retain their services. In my mind, they are just paying them a lot of money and treating them with the utmost respect.]
“I’m doomed!” Liu Suifeng’s face turned pale. He had now lost all of his strength and could only depend upon his guards to drag him along so they could run for their lives.
Sensing the evil intentions from Liu Suifeng and Lu Quyuan, Wu Qi turned his head around and bared his teeth, giving both of them a smile. Liu Suifeng was still staring blankly at the dead body of Lord Flame, and didn’t respond to Wu Qi’s smile. As for Lu Quyuan, he panicked and hid his right hand behind his back, which was still gripping the short dagger tightly.
Wu Qi narrowed his eyes and twitched his lips, a killing intention jumping on his face.
The group of men kept running for their lives. A few hundred barbarian fighters were chasing behind of them, roaring and yelling angrily. A few seriously wounded barbarian beast warriors stood up among some dead bodies, their body surrounded by strange fire-like airwaves. It seemed that they were chasing behind them with their last drops of energy. The drum beating sound kept coming closer and closer. One could even hear sound of animals running in the forest.
Run! Run for their lives! Finally, Wu Qi and the others had run past the Grand White Gold Dagger Formation,which Lu Chengfeng had set up on the sandy beach.
At this point in time, the few hundred barbarian fighters had almost caught up with them, and the sky above them had suddenly turned dark as a large flock of red feather vultures let out shrill cries. They had flown from a nearby mountain, quickly carrying a few barbarians to attack them. Each vulture had a wingspan of at least seventy to eighty feet, and was carrying three to five short bird tribe barbarians on their backs, who were pulling bowstring and preparing to strike.
“Activate the formation!” Yan Bugui roared out madly, “If we escape the attack from these bird barbarians, we will have a sixty percent of chance to get out of here alive!”
Lu Chengfeng let out a long howl, bit his tongue, and spit out an arrow of blood, which hit precisely onto one of the pillars which was buried under the sandy beach. By activating the formation with his own blood essence, the three pillars exploded with dazzling bright white lights. At the same time, they shot out a thick layer of Grand White Gold Energy a few inches above the ground. The Grand White Gold Energy gathered by the formation this time was really thick. It was at least a hundred times thicker than when it was used back in the General’s Office.
Lu Chengfeng kept forming seals with his fingers, activating the formation with his full strength and fastest speed. Also, he was using the most powerful method, which would ruin the pillars afterward to activate all the energy contained within three pillars in a single instant. Therefore, the three pillars exploded into a glaringly bright ball of light, which would blind anyone who stared into it. In the next second, all of them exploded and shattered into pieces.
An ear-splitting metal clanging sound was heard from the three foot thick Grand White Gold energy above the ground. At the same time, a few thousand palm-sized and crescent-shaped daggers appeared out of nowhere. Lu Chengfeng spit out another mouthful of blood essence toward the formation. Then he waved his hand and those few thousand daggers immediately produced a sharp swooshing sound, tearing apart the air in front of them and shooting toward the sky above, like a reverse meteor shower.
The sound of bodies being torn apart resounded through the air. As those five hundred huge vultures arrived in the sky above the group, they were immediately welcomed by the Grand White Gold Dagger. The Grand White Gold Energy was one of the fiercest energies in the world. It was razor sharp and nothing could really resist its cut. Over three hundred vultures had their bodies impaled by these daggers. These daggers traveled through the vultures bodies and came out from their backs, killing those bird tribe barbarians, who were sitting on the vultures.
Vultures were screaming and barbarians were howling and blood kept raining down from the sky above. With both eyes turning red, Lu Chengfeng pointed at the daggers in the sky and shouted, “Break!”
Following the sound of metal being torn apart, all of the daggers exploded at the same time, turning into millions of tiny sparks that shot in all directions. The rest of the vultures and bird tribe barbarians were hit by these sparks and their bodies were filled with holes, and fell down from the sky, screaming and howling all the way. Finally, all the vultures and bird tribe barbarians had been killed.
The dense sparks were like a sudden hailstorm, dropping down toward the ground at high speed, and producing a shrill swooshing sound. They ended up covering the entire group barbarian beast warriors and fighters, who were chasing behind them. The sparks covered an area of nearly a miles in diameter, and none of the barbarians could find a place to hide, not that there was any way they could hide from this attack. Their crude beastskin armor and iron armor couldn’t resist the attacks of these sparks and, in an instant, all these barbarians were hit and had been turned into meat paste.
Shrill cries resound from behind the cliff. Not long after that, from the cave where Wu Qi and the rest ran out from, countless of old and weak barbarians, together with women and children, bolted out while carrying all kinds of crude weapons in their hand. These were barbarian children, who just learned how to run, and old barbarians, who could barely move. All of them ran out from the cave while tightly clenching their teeth, chasing toward the direction of Wu Qi and the others.
But the speed of Wu Qi and his rest was fast. How could these old and weak barbarians catch up with them? However, all these old and weak barbarians had bloodshot red eyes and were unleashing a killing intent, which made Wu Qi, and the others who had fled miles away, feel as if there was some needles poking into their backs.
After exploding the formation and killed few hundred vultures and bird barbarians, Lu Chengfeng let out a satisfying laugh and tried to continue his escape, but he almost tripped on his own feet, as he had lost all his strength. By continuously spitting out blood essence, and at the same time driving the Grand White Gold Dagger with his full force, Lu Chengfeng had already drained all of his internal energy, and thus suffered from a great loss of blood essence.
Right at this moment, he was dizzy, close to fainting, and his body was empty, without even the slightest bit of internal energy. How could he continue running?
Wu Qi grabbed over Lu Chengfeng and carried him on his shoulder, pressing his left palm on Lu Chengfeng’s back and injecting the energy and blood essence that he absorbed, but never ‘digested’, into Lu Chengfeng’s body. Lu Chengfeng immediately felt his body become hot, a massive amount of energy and blood essence flowing into his body. This made his eyes brighten as he felt packed with boundless power.
“Nice!” Lu Chengfeng couldn’t hold himself and kept praising, “Wu Qi, what kind of skill are you using? This feels amazing!”
Wu Qi twisted his lips and, with a low voice, shouted, “Shut up! I am using my own energy to replenish your consumption. Of course its enjoyable for you!”
Lu Chengfeng immediately shut his mouth and then focused on the blood essence and energy being injected into his body by Wu Qi, slowly he circulated them and replenishing his consumption. Under the impact of the massive amount of energy and blood essence, a few bottlenecks on Lu Chengfeng meridians, which had stopped him from progressing further in his cultivation, had begun to loosen.
Wild excitement flooded Lu Chengfeng. He could barely feel that the natural energies surrounding him had begun to flow into his body. This was something that only existed for those at the Xiantian realm. Lu Chengfeng simply ignored everything around him and focused all his attentions on his body, circulating his internal energies and mixing them together with the hot airflow being injected by Wu Qi’s palm. Thus he started attacking the few remaining bottlenecks in his meridians, which were all that separated a person being considered to be in the Xiantian realm.
Wu Qi carried Lu Chengfeng and three stone tablets and ran into the forest.
Yan Bugui let out a few long cries and then he simply waved both hands and had all three hundred warriors divide themselves into ten small groups, each group lead by few Scouting Officers. Yan Bugui brought seven of his subordinates,Wu Qi, Lu Chengfeng, Liu Suifeng and a few other men who came here together with him, retreating by following the same road by which they came here.
No one had any objections toward Yan Bugui’s decision of separating the group into smaller groups. Even an idiot could understand that the more groups they had, the greater the chances of them escaping. if everyone stuck together in a single large group, all three hundred men running in the vast forest would just make for easy targets.
The rapid drum beating sound kept coming from far behind, and an ear-splitting horn resounded throughout the forest. It was like the entire forest and mountain had woken up.
While leading in front, Yan Bugui said, “Luckily we had slaughtered all the villages on our way here, or else, if we are blocked by these villages even just for a short time, all of us would have died here.”
Another Scouting Officer twitched his lip and, with a bitter smile, said, “Judging by their restless movements, I think dozens of the largest nearby barbarian clans sent their men here to chase us. Sigh, it is all because we took these black stone tablets! Those barbarians treat these tablets as if they were gifts given by their God!”
Yan Bugui sneered and said, “Any treasures in this world belongs to those who have the strength to keep them. These barbarians, what makes them worthy of these treasures? Increase your speed! As long as we can leave the forest alive, then we’ll have the stone tablets to submit to the Chief General. He will reward all of you handsomely! As for the promised land, we’ll split it according to your contribution!”
Once again, Yan Bugui mentioned about the reward of the land, Lu Chengfeng, Liu Suifeng, and Lu Quyuan all had their eyes brighten. That’s a piece of land given by the Great Yan Dynasty! The mission of robbing the black stone tablets, Lu Chengfeng and Liu Suifeng felt that they were both the biggest contributors. Wu Qi, who carried the stone tablets, was the right-hand man of Lu Chengfeng, and those elite guards brought by Liu Suifeng were the ones who rushed into the caves and killed the remaining barbarians who were guarding the stone tablets.
As for those warriors recruited from Little Meng City, they were just some supporting characters in this big show. For them, it would be good enough if they could be rewarded with some gold. The promised land, even if they had to share it with Yan Bugui and his Scouting Officers, was still the most valuable thing.
Liu Suifeng suddenly let out a loud shout. Then he leaped forward from where he stood and grabbing at the three stone tablets on Wu Qi’s shoulder.
“Wu Qi, the credit belongs to everyone! Don’t try to take it all for yourself!”