Changning's Imperial Army Chapter 52

Chapter 52 – Depend On Oneself After All

The iron feather arrow followed closely behind Shen Leng. The arrow was precise and ruthless; its speed was extremely fast that even the most agile bird could not evade it…Just as Shen Leng was about to get shot, his body suddenly swung to one side.

Shen Leng's right hand held onto his black cord sword and his left hand was holding his scabbard. A fine string with metal hook shot out of the scabbard and hooked onto a tree branch. He swung to one side and managed to dodge the arrow.

“Horrible!”

Nie Yuan frowned. He leapt down from the roof. “Give chase! Ignore the people at the back.”

Hundreds of water bandits in disguise pursued closely. Shen Leng seemed to be bent on heading towards the hill. As he headed there, he darted and moved about, evading the arrows. The scattered trees below the hill also played a part in sheltering him.

When he got to the hill, the trees were dense and closely packed together. The arrows were practically useless.

Nie Yuan and the people that came with him were right at the front. Behind them were hundreds of water bandits that were yelling as they charged forth. They had no way out – the only thing they could do was to kill Shen Leng in order to get what they were promised, which was their future.

“Give chase!” ordered Nie Yuan in a loud voice.

His two trusted aides charged forward. As they were running, they held hands. One of them cried as he spun one round, tossing the other person forward. The person who got tossed flipped a couple of times in midair before landing onto the ground. He managed to pull the distance between him and Shen Leng to three meters or less.

The assassin took down the repeating crossbow from his waist and aimed. Before he even placed his finger on the trigger, a black figure flew over. He felt his neck stiffened before it erupted open.

The string from the scabbard hooked onto his neck. Shen Leng pulled forward and the metal hook dug into his neck. A chunk of flesh, as well as his throat, got ripped out. In an instant, blood spurted everywhere.

The assassin ran a couple of steps forward before he fell to the ground, causing a cloud of dust to fly up.

Shen Leng stopped to check if the man was dead. As a result, the people at the back approached closer and closer. He turned around and glanced over before he continued to run up the hill. That look in his eyes was very, very cold. And because he stopped briefly, Nie Yuan's trusted aides had quickly caught up.

They started shooting with their repeating crossbows. A chill ran down Shen Leng's spine. Each of the arrow could very possibly be the grim reaper's sickle.

When Shen Leng got to the bottom of the hill, he lowered his body and started to run up. The people at the back were already very close to him.

“Kill him and be rewarded with two hundred taels of gold!” yelled Nie Yuan as he pointed at him.

One trusted aide suddenly knelt down as he ran. His knee scraped the ground over a long distance. Nie Yuan leapt onto his hands and jumped into the air. As he was in midair, he lifted his bow and shot out three arrows at the same time.

Three arrows, two at the bottom and one at the top, headed straight for Shen Leng. Both people were very close to each other. In nearly a blink of an eye, the arrows were about to pierce Shen Leng.

Shen Leng turned around. The black cord sword in his right hand drew a circle…clank, clank, clank – three sounds were heard. The arrows were struck away by the black cord sword.

Nie Yuan landed onto the ground. He looked extremely furious. Nobody was clearer than him with regards to how strong the iron feather arrows were. Normally, Great Ning's standard hengdao could not withstand them. If they were to collide, the swords would be the one flying upon impact, and not the arrows.

That sword is fishy!

That was Nie Yuan's first response.

“Give chase. He can't escape. Behind the hill is a river channel!” yelled someone. It seemed like he was trying to boost his morale.

After entering the forest, Shen Leng kept the scabbard and string, and placed his black cord sword back onto his back. He took down his repeating arrow and started to counter attack. The assassin that was closest to him was shot in the face. He tilted his head back, and again, and again. Three arrows shot him in the head, nose and chin – making one straight line. When he fell to the ground, he was no longer breathing.

Nie Yuan had six trusted aides with him. As of now, more than half of them had already died in Shen Leng's hands. Most of the remaining water bandits was just a mob in his eyes. Unless they were able to surround Shen Leng, otherwise they were useless.

He had already made a huge loss and yet they were still unable to kill Shen Leng. This made Nie Yuan more and more furious. Having served General Bai Shangnian in Garrison B for so many years, this was the first time he got enraged to such an extent by a young man.

Especially when Shen Leng used blood to draw a circle on Bai Zhanyun's face outside the guest room. He felt utterly humiliated.

“Little fella, do you really think you can escape?”

Nie Yuan took a deep breath and drew out another iron feather arrow.

At this moment, all the water bandits had already charged to the bottom of the hill from the dock, and Shen Leng's subordinates were closely pursuing behind. However, for some reason, the speed of the pursuit and attack was not very fast.

When Nie Yuan was about to shoot an arrow, he suddenly thought of something. He became tensed up, as though someone was gripping his heart extremely hard.

He did not shoot the arrow; he immediately lowered his head and crouched on the ground.

In a split second, a sea of arrows came shooting from within the forest. The unprepared and defenseless water bandits wailed as they fell to the ground. More than one arrow pierced each and every single one of the dozens of people right at the front. Even though whenever the arrow pierced into one's body it did not make much of a sound, but it made one's hair stood on end.

Boom, boom boom.

That was the unique sound of the Great Ning combat soldiers conveying an order. It was akin to a war drum.

The combat soldiers decked in black armor appeared from the forest. There were five people in each team. They lowered their bodies as they walked forward. They continued to shoot with their repeating crossbows and immediately shot all the nine arrows in their quivers into the air.

“Javelin!” yelled military officer Wang Gendong.

All the soldiers quickly placed their repeating crossbows back onto their waist and took down the javelin from their backs. They lifted their arm and flung the javelins…the act of it seemed simple but it was extremely ruthless and powerful.

The numerous javelins were closely packed together and landed onto the ground, killing even more water bandits.

“Quick, run!” cried one of the water bandits, who turned around and ran.

After one of them got scared, fear quickly spread throughout the group of water bandits like the plague. They were originally already trembling with fear, but at this moment, they realized that they were not being ambushed by Shen Leng himself, but the Navy combat soldiers. Hence, they had no more courage to continue fighting. All of them turned around and ran.

However the moment they took that path, there was no way out for them.

The reason why Shen Leng's men did not pursue too closely was because they were waiting for the ambush at the hill to spring into action. Seeing that the water bandits were retreating, they immediately got into a defense formation. They specially brought their shields with them and erected a wall with them in an instant. Arrows shot from the back of the wall of shields, causing the water bandits who retreated first to collapse to the ground.

“Sword!”

Wang Gendong drew out his own black cord sword and pointed to the front. “Kill!”

Under the command of the battalion commander, two hundred odd Navy soldiers charged out of the forest. A tiger charging down a mountain could slaughter animals over three miles, but a regiment of tiger-like soldiers could stain the entire river blood red.

There was already a large disparity between their strengths in the first place. Additionally, they were hunting them down, an activity that was extremely enjoyable to those soldiers. The sound of bones cracking when the sword landed opened their pores. It was a feeling that could only be experienced on the battlefield.

A water bandit slipped and fell onto the ground. He struggled to get up and when he turned around, he saw a pair of bloodshot eyes and a red cord sword lifted up high.

“Don't kill me!” wailed a water bandit. But it was useless.

The hengdao landed and cut off his head, and even sliced into his shoulder. The soldier who beheaded him grabbed his head and sliced through his shoulder. He quickly hung the head on his waist and continued moving forward.

When the water bandits killed the commoners, they were akin to wild beasts. However, in comparison, the soldiers were wild beasts that were even more ferocious and ruthless.

Since they had no way out, the water bandits starting to charge frantically towards the defensive line set up by Shen Leng. Charging into the wall of shields was their only chance at survival.

At this point, they had already forgotten to use their swords. The group of water bandits used their shoulders to ram into the shield formation of the Navy soldiers. The soldiers behind the shield formation started tossing their swords in a frenzy. They did not even have to take aim. Every sword took a life.

Very soon, corpses started piling up in front of the shields. The people at the back continued charging frantically.

This was not a battle; it was a massacre.

The combat soldiers that charged down the hill were akin to a meat grinder, slashing every water bandit they came across. Every head was being hung on their waist as blood continued dripping onto the ground.

The night before, when Xiong Niu arrived at the dock, Shen Leng was exceptionally careful. Since the ships at the back had not caught up with them, it gave Shen Leng an opportunity to make further arrangements.

Wang Gendong followed Shen Leng's suggestions and brought 200 soldiers with him and journeyed through the night, arriving to the back of the forest in the hill behind the dock to set up an ambush. The reason why not a single person got off Xiong Niu at the pier was because there was not a single person in there.

Shen Leng deliberately lured the water bandits to run towards the hill, while his men were standing guard at the back. Attacking on both fronts, a regiment of combat soldiers easily eradicated hundreds of water bandits.

From the time the Navy soldiers started to counter attack till the battle was over, less than an hour had passed.

Wang Gendong ordered them to search and tidy up the battlefield. One by one, the Navy soldiers held onto their swords and began beheading the corpses. One of the water bandits was playing dead on the ground, but when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching, he could not help but tremble. Thereafter, he cried out and wanted to run, but he got kicked to the ground by a combat soldier.

“I beg you, please don't kill me. I'm still very young, I don't want to die.”

The water bandit struggled to kneel down and kept kowtowing. The combat soldier lifted his red cord sword up high. “When you attacked the dock, did anybody beg for their lives to be spared?”

The sword landed and his head rolled far away. The blood that spurted out rendered the soldier's armor blood red.

Shen Leng searched around for a good amount of time but could not find the fella that used the iron tire bow. He did not keep an eye on when that person made his escape. Shen Leng calculated for a bit. Earlier on, that ruthless man's martial arts skills were way better than that subordinate of Mu Xiaofeng who specialized in bow and arrow.

“Almost an eight, huh?” He muttered to himself.

Nobody understood what he meant.

However, Shen Leng was not aware that his judgment was in fact not accurate. That was because his exposure was limited. He had not encountered a single opponent that was truly worthy to be deemed strong. Nonetheless, Nie Yuan was truly strong. He was the strongest opponent Shen Leng had ever encountered thus far.

“Well done.”

Wang Gendong who was blood-soaked walked over to Shen Leng and said smilingly, “I will report everything that you had done to the commander.”

Shen Leng turned around and looked at the dock. He was somewhat out of sorts. “I wish even more that my conjecture was wrong, or that I had guessed even earlier…”

The whereabouts of at least 150 local soldiers' corpses were unknown.

Wang Gendong patted him on the shoulder. “As for this matter, I will report to the commander just as it is. He will make a fair decision as for how to deal with it. It's impossible for some people to keep covering up their bad deeds.”

Shen Leng laughed. His smile was a little bitter.

“One can only hope.”

He only said those four words.

Thereafter, he turned around and gestured to Chen Ran and the rest. His subordinates went over to him. Even though their bodies were drenched in blood, they were all very excited.

Shen Leng thought to himself: Guess even Zhuang Yong can't help me deal with this problem. I have to depend on myself after all.

Chapter end