Chapter 403
Definitely Not a Wise Ruler
Chapter 403 Definitely Not a Wise Ruler
After passing the Qingxue Pavilion on the West Mountain, you will reach the Xiangwu Cave.
After passing Xiangwu Cave, you can vaguely see Xianglu Peak at the foot of the mountain.
By the moonlight, Chen Ji raised his hand to look at the wound on his wrist. The wound had clearly healed completely, but why was the wildfire chasing behind him still burning?
The sky had turned from black to gray, and the stars were slowly disappearing behind the celestial curtain. Chen Ji didn't have time to think it through; he could only gamble that what he wanted might be on Incense Burner Peak.
The hillside gradually becomes steeper, almost touching the ground.
Chen Ji grabbed onto the sloping pine tree trunks on the mountain and climbed up using both his hands and feet.
Halfway up the mountain, he noticed three wildfires approaching.
The three hunters scurried along the mountainside like geckos, moving with ease through even the smallest cracks in the cliff face.
Hunting and exploring the mountains, they passed the old sites from both sides and climbed to higher places.
Chen Ji urged his sword to strike a wandering hunter. Just as the sword was about to hit the opponent, the wandering hunter suddenly leaped and swung from one pine tree to another.
The sword pierced the rock face, sending fragments of stone falling down the mountain.
Just as Chen Ji was about to pursue the hunters on the right, two hunters on the left hung upside down on the cliff with their legs wrapped around pine branches. At the same time, they took out bone bows and shot arrows, which came in a barrage.
Chen Ji's heart skipped a beat. He quickly jumped onto the branch he was holding, and with a powerful leap, he landed on another pine tree. The pine tree he had just been on was struck by a series of bone arrows, broke in half, and fell down the mountain.
Without a second thought, Chen Ji leaped up the mountain, stepping on the scattered pine trees, while bone arrows followed behind him, embedding themselves in the cliff face.
However, there weren't always places to grab onto the mountainside. When Chen Ji jumped onto the third tree, there was only a bare rock face above him, with no other place to grab onto.
At the critical moment, Chen Ji made a move to jump again, but he didn't put any force into his legs. He just lightly leaped up and landed back on the original tree trunk. The bone arrow barely grazed his scalp and embedded itself in the stone wall above him.
While hunting in the mountains, Yu Shan was taken aback. He saw Chen Ji standing on a bone arrow nailed to the stone wall above his head, as if someone had specially built a ladder for Chen Ji to ascend to heaven with bone arrows.
"This kid..."
Chen Ji leaped up the cliff, where the slope suddenly slowed down.
He ran wildly through the shadowy forest, but at that moment, he suddenly activated his sword and stabbed at the trunk of a pine tree in front of him. It was just an ordinary tree, and there was nothing around it.
The sword pierced through the soft tree trunk, forcing the Soul-Collecting Imprisonment hidden behind the tree to dodge. In that instant, Chen Ji suddenly changed direction, bypassing the Soul-Collecting Imprisonment from the side.
Shouhun stood behind Chen Ji, holding a white bone skull in his hand, and said sternly, "You brat, you really can see where we are! Who exactly are you?!"
Chen Ji didn't answer, and ran towards the mountaintop without looking back. The black sword seed swirled around him, like a planet.
The bugle sounded again from behind, more powerful and resonant than ever before.
Only twenty feet away from the summit!
Chen Ji suddenly saw a centurion standing on a huge rock ahead, sword in hand, blocking the way to the top. The remaining Five Witches soldiers on the road all surrounded him, leaving him nowhere to hide.
As the traces drew near, the centurion suddenly raised his sword above his head and brought it down with force.
The gale arrived in an instant from a distance of eight zhang. Chen Ji hid behind a pine tree, but the gale swept away all the pine needles. The tree trunk seemed to have been blown by wind and sand for thousands of years, and was worn down to just a stump.
Chen Ji's clothes were also tattered, and the blade's energy had cut more than ten bloody marks on his body.
But amidst this fierce wind, the black sword rose against the wind and came before the centurion.
The centurion raised his sword to strike, but suddenly a sword-shaped object split in two in front of him, dodging the blade like a nimble fish. One part pierced his eye socket, while the other flew towards the back of his head.
Two sword types?
The wildfire beneath the centurion's bone mask pulsed wildly; he had witnessed it with his own eyes and was certain that it was indeed the sword seed.
But have people ever heard of one person being able to raise two sword seeds?
In a flash, the centurion twisted his face, causing the first sword strike to hit his bone mask, leaving deep sword marks.
His eight-foot-long sword whistled as he swung it in a circle, sweeping from front to back of his head, hitting the second sword seed precisely.
In that instant, two sharp clangs rang out, and both sword seeds were sent flying far away.
The centurion was indeed the most troublesome of the Five Witches' army. Even though Chen Ji had hidden the two sword seeds for so long, he still returned empty-handed.
But the centurion had too many doubts in his mind. He saw that the wound on Chen Ji's wrist had already healed, no wonder the scent of blood and life had stopped earlier.
With a body that seemed immortal and the ability to see the movements of the Five Witches' army, everything before the centurion was in a state of utter confusion... But this person could use two sword seeds.
How could the principles of mutual generation and restraint of heaven and earth appear in the same person?
And it should never happen to the same person!
The centurion, longsword in hand, asked in a low voice, "How come you have two sword seeds? Who are you? Do you recognize us?"
Chen Ji did not answer, but took advantage of the centurion blocking the two swords to circle around to the side of the boulder.
The centurion tried to intercept Chen Ji, but the two sword seeds entangled his body, swirling and rotating nine feet away from him like twin stars. With each step he took, the sword seeds followed, waiting for an opportunity to stab at his head.
The centurion watched Chen Ji's retreating figure as he climbed the mountain and sneered, "Where did these two little flies come from?"
He casually swung his longsword, unleashing a gust of wind that swept the two sword seeds off course and flew more than ten feet away.
"Chase him, he can't escape."
The centurion led all the Five Witches' troops to surround the mountaintop.
……
……
Halfway up the mountain, Mr. Liao tucked his hands into his robe sleeves and quietly looked up at the mountaintop.
One of the assassins asked in a low voice, "Mr. Liao, should we all charge in together?"
Mr. Liao calmly said, "No need. This boy is panicking and will surely die. We just need to wait. It's strange, why did he choose to run to Incense Burner Peak when there are so many other ways to escape? Isn't he just courting death?"
The assassins fell silent.
Mr. Liao glanced at the group and asked, "How long have you been following His Highness?"
One of the assassins clasped his hands and said, "Reporting to Mr. Liao, His Highness has been following him since he was fourteen years old, and it has been thirteen years now."
Mr. Liao smiled and said, “Once this matter is settled, you can rest. When you arrive in Taiyuan, there will be merchants waiting for you. You will disguise yourselves as shop assistants and go to Guyuan. Once you leave Guyuan, you will be in a vast world. I have prepared a house and beautiful wives for you in Fengsheng Prefecture, where you can have children.”
The twelve assassins exchanged glances, and one of them whispered, "May I ask Mr. Liao, is there truly a way out prepared for us? We are not afraid to die. As long as it is for the sake of the Ning Dynasty and the unification of the two dynasties, we are willing to die to keep His Highness's secret. We only ask Mr. Liao to give us the truth and to give us a bowl of wine before we die."
Mr. Liao narrowed his eyes slightly, but smiled and comforted you, saying, "What are you saying? His Highness is so kind-hearted, how could he cut off your path to survival? Don't worry, it's not too late to drink the wine when we get to Fengsheng Prefecture."
The twelve assassins fell silent.
Mr. Liao looked up at the mountaintop and saw a ray of white morning light bursting from its outline: "It's about to get light."
Chen Ji was surrounded on the mountaintop, and there was absolutely no chance of him surviving.
The next moment, Mr. Liao suddenly flicked his sleeve, and as the sleeve brushed past his face, a red-faced, fanged mask appeared on his body. He transformed into a cloud of black smoke and pounced on one assassin after another.
The black smoke seemed to contain countless faces and hands; once it entangled a suicide assassin, the assassin would collapse to the ground in just three breaths.
As the black smoke billowed like a demonic wind towards the next assassin, it revealed the previous assassin lying in the forest, his face now devoid of features.
Only a single, smooth sheet of dough remained.
Amidst billowing black smoke, six people were instantly silenced.
One of the assassins roared, "Split up and run!"
He drew his sword and slashed at the black smoke, but the smoke bypassed the blade and enveloped the assassin. Three breaths later, the black smoke flew towards the next person at incredible speed, and even the assassins' attempts to escape were futile.
The mountainside gradually quieted down. The last assassin, knowing he had no chance of escape from a Dao Seeking Realm official, gritted his teeth and turned back to look at the black smoke: "Why the extermination?"
The black smoke settled in front of him, revealing Mr. Liao's figure.
Mr. Liao, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, calmly said, "The moment you asked that question, you already had rebellious intentions."
The assassin's face twisted in a ferocious grin. "You led twelve of us out here just to separate us so you could kill us and silence us? You old bastard, you've been plotting to kill us for a long time. Did you really think we couldn't see through you?"
Mr. Liao walked towards him step by step, calmly saying, "Your Highness is a rare and wise ruler. What he cannot bear to do, I, this old man, will naturally do for him. He need not get his hands dirty. As for you, you are also stains on the world, and I will personally wipe them away for Your Highness."
The assassin sneered, "Seven years ago, the prefect of Shanzhou, a fifth-rank official, discovered that he was privately minting copper coins and was poisoned to death by us in his concubine's private residence. Four years ago, the censor of the capital, a seventh-rank official, discovered that he was forming a clique with poor scholars and was also poisoned at home. I suppose you were the one who did this... And what about the thirty-four members of the Chen family? With such a vicious heart, what kind of wise ruler are you?"
Mr. Liao sighed and said, "To achieve anything, one cannot be bound by trivial matters. Do you think that emperors throughout history have succeeded through nothing more than open and aboveboard schemes?"
The assassin said in a deep voice, "We don't understand these grand principles; we only know that he is definitely not a wise ruler."
Mr. Liao smiled and said, "That's why I can't keep you here."
As soon as he finished speaking, he transformed into a cloud of black smoke, enveloping the assassin.
(End of this chapter)