King of Hundred Victories Saber

Among the Seven of Wudang, Master Yuchen suddenly crouched down, his fingertip lightly touching the snow gathered on the window lattice. His brows furrowed tighter and tighter: ”No footprints on the snow, and the rear window latch hasn’t been touched.” He looked toward the incomplete sword manual on the wall, his pupils abruptly constricting. ”With Grand Squad Leader Shi’s Martial Arts, if he wished to escape, why would he need to use the door? There must be some enormous mystery in this!”

In that instant, everyone looked at one another in dismay; only the cold wind, carrying fine snow, whirled about in the empty room.

In the shadows, three figures in dark fitted garments appeared and vanished like ghosts.

Commander of the Imperial Guard Xiang Yushan rubbed the Brocade Spring Saber at his waist, a sinister smile hanging on his face: ”This Heroic Sakura Association will scatter like monkeys when the tree falls—any day now. Once they start fighting amongst themselves, we can wipe out this great scourge of the Jianghu without the slightest effort!”

Commander of the Imperial Guard Kang Fusheng turned his gilded thumb ring, cold light flickering in his eyes: ”Once they fall into internal strife, that will be the time for us to draw in the net. Then the foundation of the Heroic Sakura Association will belong entirely to the Imperial Court.”

Only Assistant Chief of the Imperial Guard Lv Yuan gazed into the distance, his expression shifting between dark and light, muttering to himself: ”A man like Shi Feiyang, how could he easily have his spear break and sink into the sands? He must be plotting something—we cannot afford to take this lightly.”

At this moment, Shi Feiyang was within the Divine Dragon Pagoda.

This pagoda was in truth a cleverly wrought ring, hidden on the middle finger of his left hand; only he could glimpse the heavens and earth within.

In the Scripture Pavilion, sandalwood incense curled through the air. Shi Feiyang sat cross-legged upon a meditation cushion, his palms breathing out and drawing in three-colored True Qi. The Nine Yin Scripture, the Tai Xuan Classic, the Holy Heart Technique and other manuals lay scattered on the ground. Each manual carried an ancient, timeworn aura, quietly recounting the rise and fall of the Martial Arts world.

Lark Fairy cradled a scroll, her voice trembling: ”Young Master, outside they’re all saying you...”

”Silence!” Shi Feiyang did not even lift his head, his fingertip gliding over the tadpole script of the Tai Xuan Classic. ”Go and bring the seventh volume of the Holy Heart Technique.”

His voice was cold and hard as iron, yet could not quite conceal a trace of weariness within.

Fairy Bi Yan’Er looked at the empty deerskin pouch at his waist—the spot where the Celestial Frost Blade’s scabbard had once rested. Now it bulged with a clump of eerie black vapor. She opened her mouth, but in the end did not dare speak further, only retreating in silence.

Suddenly the night wind swept through the pavilion, lifting up half a verse that Shi Feiyang had casually written. On the sheet of xuan paper whose ink had yet to fully dry, the two characters for ”Longing” pierced through the paper, yet had been scorched into charred marks by his profound Inner Strength. Those blackened scars were a wound in his heart that could not heal.

While everyone outside was still combing the snowy ground for tracks, from the depths of the Scripture Pavilion came the ringing clash of metal and stone.

Shi Feiyang casually picked up the paperweight on the desk. True Qi surged at his fingertips, and that block of bluish stone was sliced into Willow Leaf Flying Sabers as if it were tofu.

He gazed at the waning crescent moon outside the window, murmuring softly: ”Xiangyu, when the day comes that my Divine Skill is perfected, that will be the day I level the great desert and welcome your return. Even if it means making an enemy of the entire world, I will not hesitate!”

Just then, outside the temporary Headquarter of the Heroic Sakura Association at Bozhou Feima Pass, Guo Shuyi’s horse hooves were dwindling into the distance.

He drew in his reins, looking at the faint gleam of gold at the horizon, and pulled a secret letter from his breast. The words ”The Capital’s three great experts have already arrived in Bozhou” on the letter shone with a cold luster under the moonlight.

In the shadows, Kang Fusheng licked his lips, his Brocade Spring Saber sliding three inches from its scabbard. An even greater storm was quietly gathering in this frigid night.

The mystery of the Grand Squad Leader’s disappearance, the covetous designs of the Imperial Court’s masters, the looming crisis of war in Bozhou—these various enigmas and perils were intertwined like a vast net, casting itself over the whole of Bozhou’s Jianghu.

No sooner had Guo Shuyi’s horse hooves vanished into the howling wind and snow than thirty thousand Jinyi Guards, like black clouds pressing down upon a city, sealed Feima Pass so tightly that not a drop of water could leak out.

The vast white snow reflected the cold gleam of the Brocade Spring Sabers, and the air was thick with a grim aura of slaughter.

Commander of the Imperial Guard Kang Fusheng turned his gilded thumb ring, cold light blazing from his eyes: ”The Heroic Sakura Association is headless—this is the perfect time to root them out completely!”

Commander of the Imperial Guard Xiang Yushan stroked his Brocade Spring Saber, saying with a sinister smile: ”Alive, we must see the man; dead, we must see the corpse. Not a single one is allowed to escape!”

The twelfth month’s wind, laden with iron sand, dyed Feima Pass into a bleak silver world of slaughter.

The Jinyi Guards, having received their orders, surged toward the temporary Headquarter of the Heroic Sakura Association within Feima Pass like a tidal wave.

Heroic Sakura Association Elder Liao Pei, facing the assault of the Jinyi Guards, bellowed: ”The pacification of the rebellion isn’t even finished—has the Imperial Court already decided to kill the donkey once the mill is ground?” Hot-tempered by nature, he struck head-on at several Jinyi Guards rushing toward him. The moment his Long Arm Fist was unleashed, it was like a hidden dragon suddenly awakening. His long arms stretched out like iron chains, his punches carrying the mighty force of Mountain-Splitting Rock-Breaking. Each swing kicked up a howling gale, blasting the falling snowflakes around him into the air, sending them tumbling backward.

The overlapping shadows of his fists wove into a dense iron curtain that admitted no chink, the air shrieking shrilly wherever they passed.

Only to see his body spinning swiftly, his footwork shifting between feint and reality, like an ape leaping and twirling. In the extension and retraction of his long arms he displayed to the full the essence of Long Arm Fist—”long enough to reach far, power able to penetrate bone.” With a thunderous strike of ”Long Arm Mountain-Opening,” his entire arm swelled three inches in an instant, the fist wind hacking like a giant axe, gouging out a three-foot-deep furrow in the ground. Frozen earth flew up, mingled with snow, shooting into the sky.

When ”Horizontal Sweep” was executed, both arms spun like windmills, his punching force continuous and unbroken. Within ten feet around him, Jinyi Guards were flung away one after another, crashing into the walls with dull booms, bricks and stones cascading down.

Jinyi Guard expert Duan Kua, clad in a dark robe that snapped in the wind, raised his right index finger toward the heavens, a faint violet energy coiling at its tip. The corner of his mouth curled into a cold smile: ”The Heroic Sakura Association is nothing but chickens and dogs. Today I’ll let you witness the supreme skill of the Dali Duan Family!”

Before his words had faded, three streaks of finger force, gleaming with a dark luster, had already shot forth like meteors chasing the moon.