Chapter 161: Something Has Happened? |
Yet the moment those words fell, a voice of calm, untroubled composure came from within the carriage on the street, saying, "Keep moving."
This was naturally directed at Wu Shang and the others, and upon hearing Hu Rui'an's order, they all immediately agreed.
They each gave the old serving woman and the others a quick sweep of their gaze, then spurred their horses forward once more.
The clop of hooves and the roll of wheels echoed across the now-empty street, heading straight toward the man in the gray robe with the bronze mask who was blocking the road ahead.
Seeing this, the old serving woman and Bai Liwei standing on the rooftop both furrowed their brows.
After confirming they could not bring down Murong Feng, they had decided to shift their target, intending to get ahead of Murong Feng before he could catch up, and seize Murong Xiaoya as quickly as possible.
That way, even if they had not achieved everything on this operation, capturing Murong Xiaoya would at least serve part of their purpose and give them something to report back with.
What they had not expected, however, was that the group before them appeared to have a close connection with the Murong family.
After they had made the stakes perfectly clear, the other party had simply ignored them entirely, showing every intention of protecting Murong Xiaoya.
A cold glint flashed through Bai Liwei's eyes, and he swept his hand in a sharp gesture.
In the next instant, the two men blocking Hu Rui'an's group from front and rear suddenly shifted, charging toward each other along the open stretch of the main road at great speed.
The gray-robed man with the bronze mask raised the iron flute in his hand to his lips as his figure became a broken, flickering afterimage, closing the distance toward Wu Shang and the others at tremendous speed.
"A Thousand Kills of the Flute!"
In that instant, flute music flowed, and the sound waves bursting from the finger holes transformed into countless razor-sharp, invisible blades, slicing the roof tiles and hanging copper bells on either side of the street into dust. Every surface the sound blades passed over split apart in spreading webs of cracks, then crumbled away like ash.
Behind the carriage, the powerfully built man in bronze armor dragged his purple-bronze battle-axe along the ground as he advanced. Despite the heavy bronze armor and helmet he wore, and the axe weighing several hundred jin, his speed of advance was in no way inferior to the gray-robed man with the bronze mask.
What was more, the bronze-armored man possessed extraordinary strength. Every step he landed shattered the paving stones beneath him, the footprints blasting open into jagged, spreading cracks in every direction.
"Axe-Split City Razing!"
The purple-bronze axe dragged across the ground and threw up a line of blazing sparks, scorching molten-looking burn marks across the road surface.
Blade wind surged from the axe edge, sweeping up the shattered stones all around it into two dragons of debris several zhang in length that bore down on Hu Rui'an and the others at great speed.
At the same time, the old serving woman did not merely stand by and watch. She struck as well, with the speed of thunder.
After all, Murong Feng and the others behind them would catch up at any moment, leaving them precious little time to act. They had to join forces and end this swiftly, so they could seize Murong Xiaoya from the carriage in the shortest possible time.
The old serving woman raised a hand lightly and smoothed a strand of hair back from her temple. In an instant, her hunched back snapped rigidly upright, and the heaven and earth True Qi around her began condensing at a terrifying speed.
Her entire head of white hair shot upward like a fountain, then reversed direction and cascaded back down like a galaxy in full flood. The silver-white strands of hair moved like wire and steel cable, piercing the air with the speed of a lightning flash.
The sheer wind generated by the surging cascade of hair in that single instant sent every paving stone on the street below flying.
In the next moment, the horses and carriage carrying Hu Rui'an and the others were on the verge of being shredded into flying ash by thousands upon thousands of hair-strands shooting down on them from above.
"The White-Haired Specter, Bai Li Xue."
At the same time, inside the carriage, Hu Rui'an furrowed his brow. Feeling the overwhelming deluge of white hair coming down around them like a rain of arrows, a sharp sense of crisis prickled across his entire body from head to toe.
He immediately glanced at Li Musheng across from him and prepared to act.
But just at that moment, Li Musheng shook his head and said, "No need. It will take too long if you do it."
And at the same time, the torrent of white hair cascading down like a reversed galaxy barely drew close to Wu Shang and the others before it came to an abrupt, dead stop.
Then, as though all the force sustaining them had been stripped away at once, each strand of hair that had been stiff as wire went limp, and they fell rapidly from the air in a soft curtain.
At exactly the same moment, whether the gray-robed man with the bronze mask who had been unleashing the "Thousand Kills of the Flute," or the bronze-armored man who had been bearing down on Hu Rui'an's group with the purple-bronze battle-axe, both went silent simultaneously. The all-pervasive sound blades and the axe-driven dragon of shattered stone all ceased to exist in the same instant.
Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong riding ahead, and Cao Gaoshan seated up front on the carriage, all had expressions of stunned astonishment.
Even Shen Anran, who had a better understanding of Li Musheng than most, could not help a flicker of awe passing through her eyes.
In the space of a single instant, the entire street had gone utterly silent.
And in the field of vision of Wu Shang and the others, whether the bronze-masked man with the iron flute at the front, the powerfully built man with the purple-bronze battle-axe at the rear, or the old serving woman and Bai Liwei on the rooftop, all four of them had frozen in place at this moment like wooden figures or clay sculptures, not moving so much as a fraction.
What they could see clearly was that every one of these four people had, at some unknown moment, acquired a blood-soaked hole in the center of their foreheads, punched clean through from front to back.
For Wu Shang and the others, even though they trusted Hu Rui'an completely, being directly confronted with the attacks of the bronze-masked man and the white-haired old serving woman had still filled their hearts with a visceral sense of dread in the face of such formidable martial Dao strength.
But what they were looking at now made that feeling of being forcibly oppressed by the other side's martial aura vanish without a trace in a single instant.
The next moment, Wu Shang and Cheng Zhong both instinctively turned to look back at the carriage behind them.
In both their hearts, almost simultaneously, the same thought surfaced.
Was this the true strength of His Highness the Eighth Prince?
A strike made without a sound, without a trace, dispatching in a single instant Heaven-Human experts and half-step Heaven-Human experts alike with a single pointing of a finger, while they had not detected so much as a whisper of his making a move the entire time.
Cao Gaoshan, sitting up front on the carriage, felt a jolt run through him, and a look of sudden, clear realization spread across his face.
This ambush by Bai Liwei and the others was strikingly similar to what had happened on that rain-soaked street in the capital some time ago.
At this moment, he finally confirmed it with his own eyes.
"So it was His Highness making the move all along. That time too, it was because of His Highness that I and Sun Changyu were able to escape."
What was even more significant, that slash Li Musheng had delivered through his hand had been branded deep in his mind ever since that rainy day, never leaving him.
Perhaps to the one who had actually acted, it was a perfectly simple and ordinary slash. But deep in Cao Gaoshan's heart, he had long since come to regard that figure as something of a half-master to him.
And now, at last, he had confirmed without a doubt that the "master" who had so casually taught him that slash was none other than Li Musheng himself.
"Stop standing there. Keep moving."
At that moment, Hu Rui'an's voice came from inside the carriage.
Hu Rui'an had naturally also taken in everything that had happened outside. Though his own martial Dao cultivation was far from weak, he was no different from Wu Shang and the others in that he had absolutely not seen how Li Musheng had made his move.
In this moment, the feeling of profound, mountain-gazing awe that had been growing in his heart toward the Eighth Prince seated before him became even more overwhelming.
Hearing this, Wu Shang, Cao Gaoshan, and the others came back to themselves, withdrew their gazes, and urged their horses to continue forward once more along the silent street.
At this point, Shen Anran, sitting astride her white horse with her features as elegant as a painting, reached up and gently smoothed a strand of her raven-black hair back from her shoulder.
Her gaze drifted occasionally toward the carriage, and the admiration in her eyes only deepened with greater certainty.
Before long, the group passed through the street without a single further obstruction and disappeared at the far end of the road.
Leaving behind only the gray-robed man with the bronze mask and the bronze-armored man standing in the center of the street, just as motionless as the old serving woman and Bai Liwei standing stock-still on the rooftop, all of them nothing more than corpses drained of all life.
Inside the carriage, Murong Xiaoya was huddled in the corner of the cabin, stealing furtive glances at Li Musheng from time to time.
Though she had known far earlier through her own methods that Li Musheng was no ordinary figure, she was in fact the same as Wu Shang and the others in that today was the first time she had truly witnessed Li Musheng act.
The formidable martial Dao strength he had just displayed, eliminating Heaven-Human experts without a sound and without any fuss, had genuinely shaken her.
"Miss Murong, if I am being honest, you are far too furtive about it."
Li Musheng had naturally noticed Murong Xiaoya's gaze. He rubbed his chin and said, "You need to change that habit. If you want to look at me, you can do so openly and without shame. I am a very generous person."
Hearing this, Murong Xiaoya froze briefly, then her face turned as red as a fully ripened apple, and she grabbed at the hem of her clothing and quickly looked down in a fluster.
Hu Rui'an beside them gave her an almost imperceptible glance, then simply closed his eyes to rest.
As the saying went, heroes cherished beauties, and beauties cherished heroes.
For a martial genius as singular as Li Musheng, he only regretted not having a daughter of his own. If he had, he would have done exactly what Shen Liancheng had done.
The carriage fell quiet for a moment, and after a little while, Murong Xiaoya finally lowered her head and said in a voice barely above a whisper, "Th... thank you, Your Highness, for stepping in."
Earlier, when they had been caught in the ambush together with Murong Feng and the others, Li Musheng had not given the matter a second thought and had simply left.
But this time, Bai Liwei and his people had clearly come for her specifically, and Li Musheng had not done as he did before and simply dropped her and driven away. Instead, he had acted and killed every one of them.
If she was being honest, the difference in how those two situations had been handled moved her more than a little.
To Murong Xiaoya's thanks, Li Musheng simply shrugged and said nothing further.
After all, cutting down a few short-sighted fools who had the audacity to block the road was, quite literally, something no more demanding than a casual wave of his hand.
At this point, Hu Rui'an's expression shifted slightly, and he glanced at Murong Xiaoya once more, then sent a quiet voice transmission through condensed True Qi to Li Musheng, saying, "Your Highness, the situation within the Murong family seems somewhat off. The Sheng Province business we still need to handle ahead may well be affected to some degree."
The reason he said this was naturally that from the current state of affairs, the Murong family appeared to have its hands full with its own troubles.
As for whether they would actually be able to provide assistance as Commander Fu had suggested, he was beginning to have some doubts.
Hearing Hu Rui'an's words, Li Musheng glanced at him, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Commissioner Hu, let me make this clear from the outset. I am staying here for at most two days. Whether things get resolved satisfactorily is not my concern."
Hearing this, Hu Rui'an sighed inwardly, but still agreed at once.
This Eighth Prince had fathomlessly deep martial Dao cultivation, but was simply lazy and indifferent by temperament and disinclined to manage things.
Even so, in Hu Rui'an's view, a figure of Li Musheng's caliber was rarely going to encounter matters that would hold his attention.
About the only thing that would likely give him any real difficulty or make him take notice was the business of exterminating Falling God Peak.
...
Not long after Li Musheng and his group had gone, the common people who had been driven off in a panicked rush began creeping back, some quietly returning to the entrance of the main street, others peering out cautiously from inside the buildings on either side of the road.
But seeing that the bronze-armored man with the purple-bronze battle-axe and the old serving woman and the others were still there, every one of them stayed in place at a distance, only daring to watch from far away and not daring to come anywhere close.
Just then, a column of armored soldiers escorting an ornate carriage came advancing in great numbers from the other end of the street.
Seeing this, the common people gathered at the street entrance immediately scattered in every direction.
Sensing the commotion, Murong Feng in the carriage furrowed his brow and lifted the curtain, turning to the carriage interior to say, "I have a bad feeling about this. Could it be that Bai Liwei's people were not willing to let things go and went after little sister again?"
As he spoke, he raised his head and looked down the street ahead.
At the same time, the soldiers who had gone ahead saw the scene on the street and had their expressions change at once. They immediately turned back and hurried to report to Murong Feng.
Shortly after, Murong Feng leaped from the carriage and appeared in the deserted street ahead as a streak of movement.
Upon seeing the bronze-armored man with the purple-bronze battle-axe and the others, his expression changed abruptly.
Then Murong Feng's already furrowed brow creased even deeper.
In the next instant, he waved his hand to signal the armored soldiers to hold their positions for the time being, and turned to look at the carriage behind him.
Then he channeled his True Qi to protect every side of his body and moved forward with wary alertness toward what lay ahead.
The bronze-armored man and the others were still standing in the middle of the street without moving, but Murong Feng did not dare let down his guard in the slightest.
And it was only when he came close enough to look properly that he truly confirmed every one of them had long since gone still and silent, each with a hole punched through the center of their forehead. They were dead beyond any question.
A deeply puzzled expression spread across Murong Feng's face. His gaze swept past the face of the bronze-armored man before him, scanned slowly around the scene, and he said despite himself, saying, "The Blood-Axe City Razers, Tu Shan."
"The Iron Flute Death-Note, Lu Baiming."
Then he raised his head and looked up at the rooftop beside him.
When he saw that the old serving woman and Bai Liwei had also been killed by a single strike through the forehead and were equally lifeless, his pupils contracted slightly, and he said, "Even the White-Haired Specter and Bai Liwei have been killed."
Just at that moment, Murong Feng's expression suddenly shifted. He turned his head to look beside him.
He saw an old man whose entire body was wrapped in a crimson long robe had appeared at his side at some unknown moment, and the old man said slowly, in a voice filled with a trace of surprise, "All four killed in a single strike each. This person's technique is exceptionally sharp."
Hearing this, Murong Feng's expression shifted, and he said, "From the state of the scene, it appears Bai Liwei's people set an ambush for little sister's group, and were killed in return."
As he spoke, his gaze settled on the old serving woman, a deep, profound surprise showing in his eyes, saying, "It seems I underestimated that Commissioner Hu. His martial Dao cultivation is actually above the White-Haired Specter's."