Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan Volume 10 Chapter 5 part1

Book 10 Chapter 5 - The Actual Life and Death Situation

Xu Ziling pushed the ground with his toes; he soared to the sky to evade the arrows raining down on him. Makin a somersault in the air, he was aiming at the Four Big Bandits, when one of the four bandits, the ‘scorched earth for a thousand li' Mao Zao roared and leaped into the air in an angle, like an artillery shell he shot toward Xu Ziling with both palms extended out.

Xu Ziling cheered inwardly, because this attack saved him from receiving the second round of arrows. At the same time he felt the air around him became as cols as ice and snow. His qi spiraled violently, boosting his already strong will to fight. Seizing this opportunity, both his legs shot out, the tip of his toes happened to hit the hollow of the opponent's palms.

Mao Zao's tall and thin body was shaken violently for a moment; not only his powerful palm strength was dispersed out of the palms, part of it even burst back into his body and scattered inside his channels, which caused him unbearable pain.

What happened was that Xu Ziling's kicks were imbued with extremely strange power, one light the other heavy. The light one was so soft that not only Mao Zao's right palm was unable to send out his qi, like gossamer the opponent's true qi bored into the hollow of his palm, and dashed through into his inner organs. The heavy one was solid and violent beyond comprehension, like an unceasingly spinning drill boring into the hollow of his palm, so that his palm suddenly felt burning, and his true qi was like a rock splashing into the water and dissipated in all directions.

In all his life, Mao Zao has killed people like scything flax, and gone through countless battles, big and small, but he had never met such a strange and formidable true qi before. Letting out a muffled groan he applied the ‘thousand-catty fall' and dropped down to the ground.

Seeing Mao Zao suffered a big defeat, the ‘chicken and dogs won't remain', Fang Jianding was afraid Xu Ziling might followed up the victory and pressed home the attack, he drew the pair of wolf-teeth clubs, each weighed more than a hundred catties, from his back. His huge figure rolled diagonally, he quickly came above Xu Ziling. His wolf-teeth clubs danced to create layers upon layers of clubs' shadows, swift and fierce beyond compare shooting down toward Xu Ziling.

The ‘not even a blade of grass grows' Shang Batian's short and stout body dashed out from below to take Mao Zao's position. His two steel-tooth ring flew around at an angle from left and right, their target was Xu Ziling's flanks, who was still about a zhang away from the ground. During their flight, the steel rings created a strange high-pitch noise, carrying with it a threatening force.

Other than Cao Yinglong, who stood motionlessly with his head raised high, the rest of the bandits were also closing in toward the three people in fierce battle, forming layers upon layers of heavy siege.

As he followed Mao Zao closely as he dropped suddenly to the ground, Xu Ziling took a sudden breath of true qi, and then turning his body around, and kicked with both legs to the middle of Fang Jianding's clubs' shadows. Without missing a single hairsbreadth he kicked right at the wolf-teeth clubs, while at the same time his palms pushed down on an empty air, sending out two streams of spiraling-wildly qi, to attack Mai Zhao's thin back.

Cao Yinglong, who was about a zhang away, was shocked. Anxiously he leaped up; with his palms faced down, he swept across in cutting movement. The two sweeps of sharp qi did not attack Xu Ziling, but cutting at Xu Ziling's palm force attacking Mao Zao.

‘Tchok! Tchok!'

Xu Ziling's toes hit the wolf-teeth clubs. The vortex of qi burst via the clubs and pushed Fang Jianding's true qi back into his body. Not only Fang Jianding could not continue on to the next change of his attack, his footwork was greatly disturbed as well, forcing him to borrow the momentum to fly backward to evade. He could not help but was horrified and greatly shaken; how could such a powerful martial art master suddenly appear like this?

The falling down Mao Zao also felt the vortex of qi pressing down on him; realizing the situation was bad, he struggled hard to press down the surging qi inside his own meridians, as well as spurting out a mouthful of blood to lessen the pressure. His right palm pressed down toward the ground, his real qi spat out, he borrowed the reaction force to roll his body in the air, with the hope that he could evade these two palms that were about to take his little life.

‘Bang! Bang!' Like muffled explosion Xu Ziling's palm power met Cao Yinglong's palm wind, which although started last, but arrived first. And thus his momentum was greatly reduced, while his entire body flew backward. It was then did he know the reason Cao Yinglong was able to be the head of the Four Big Bandits; his power indeed far surpassed the other three Big Bandits.

Cao Yinglong himself was not any better; his entire body was severely shaken, he staggered back two steps, and cried inwardly, ‘how formidable!'

Because Xiang Batian's soul-snatching tooth-rings were linked with a fine thread, he was able to control the rings by transmitting his true qi via the thread. The two rings changed direction, like shadows following the shapes the rings followed Xu Ziling.

Xu Ziling let out a long whistle and fast as lightning he dropped straight to the ground to evade the flying rings.

Lances, spears, sabers and axes immediately swarmed in from all directions.

Xu Ziling knew that if he did not seize this opportunity, taking advantage while Mao Zao has not recovered his qi and joined the fight, he would not have the second opportunity tonight. The image of Kou Zhong's big head suddenly flashed in his mind, wishing that he were here with him.

Having that thought, Xu Ziling threw himself crouching on the grass in the courtyard, both legs sweeping wildly to four directions like a wheel, while the ‘flying divine escape' noiselessly shot out like lightning through the gap between the enemies' legs. ‘The gods was not aware, the ghosts did not perceive', the claw shot toward Mao Zao's right ankle, who at this time was just about to bounce up after he landed on the ground.

Seeing Xu Ziling was surrounded by a dozen or so martial art masters of their side, Xiang Batian and Fang Jianding thought that exhausting the enemy's strength first might not be a bad idea; thereupon they waited outside the formation, while catching up their breath and restoring their energy.

On the other side, Cao Yinglong slowly approached the battle arena, holding a spear in each hand. With every step he took he created an indentation on the ground about three cun deep, indicating that he was continuously amassing his energy.

By the time Mao Zao was leaping up, his strength had already been more or less recovered; the murderous intent in his heart was flaring. He was thinking of taking revenge and erasing the humiliation when suddenly a severe pain shot up from his right ankle, straight toward his heart and spleen. In his shock he looked down, only to see an exquisitely made steel claw, as if it was a living devil hand, was embedding its five fingers deep into his flesh. Not only that, it also carried a powerful pulling force.

Mao Zao was so scared that his three immortal souls and seven mortal forms [a Taoism concept] have gone for the most part. Hastily he lowered himself in a horse stance and sent his strength to his right leg to resist the pull.

On that side, Xu Ziling had just kicked two bandits on the pit of their stomachs. Seeing Mao Zhao fell into his trap, he sent his strength to pull. And then taking advantage of Mao Zao's own reaction force, his entire body shot like an arrow toward Mao Zao, who was still about three zhang away, sticking close to the ground between the crowd of thieves' legs. Not only those who were bumped by him had their bones broken and their flesh rent, the weapons coming down at him were hitting an empty space as well.

Such strange move ought to be the first since the history of the martial art world.

While Cao Yinglong, Shang Batian, Fang Jianding and the crowd of bandits were still at a loss of this shocking move, Xu Ziling consecutively knocked down seven, eight men. Like an artillery shell he shot until he was about half a zhang in front of Mao Zao.

Mao Zao knew it was a critical moment. Although all around him were the brothers from his side, he felt as if he was standing alone between the heaven and the earth, and could only rely on himself in everything.

The horsetail whisk on his back, with which he ran amuck in the world, suddenly appeared in his hand. He was just about to sweep away when the steel claw on his ankle suddenly produced five streams of spiraling energy attacking his heart and his veins.

Although Mao Zao managed to sweep his horsetail whisk, since he was using at least eighty-percent of his true qi to deal with the enemy's power from his leg creeping up toward his body, his own power was greatly diminished.

Xu Ziling's left palm strike changed direction; it turned upward at an oblique angle. In the eyes of the spectators, who were unable to see clearly, it looked like the two were brushing past each other at high speed.

Mao Zao let out an earth-shattering scream, his entire body was thrown sideways, and his horsetail whisk was flung to the ground.

Until now, Cao Yinglong and the others were still unclear on how Xu Ziling managed to get out of the siege, and how he could overcome Mao Zao that easily. Overwhelmed with shock, they pounced toward Xu Ziling.

When it looked like Xu Ziling was about to fall into another siege, he suddenly changed direction sideways. By using the divine escape, which was still attached to Mao Zao's dead body, he suddenly traversed sideways along the ground, so that Cao Yinglong, who was extremely powerful, also had to pounce on empty air.

Xu Ziling laughed aloud; adeptly pulling back the divine escape, he leaped onto a thick branch protruding horizontally from a big tree. He knew that if he did not leave now, he would not need to bother to leave at all.

While he was about to shoot the divine escape out, he heard a tender shout.

Looking down in surprise, he saw Shang Xiuxun, alone, was charging out of the small building, attacking the crowd of bandits that they suffered a crushing defeat, with blood splashed everywhere.

Xu Ziling groaned inwardly. After examining the three bleeding wounds on his own body, without the slightest hesitation he shot down toward Shang Xiuxun.

※ ※ ※

One side had imposing manner like a rainbow, the other side had their plot fell through and stood exposed, fearful and timid due to their guilty conscience. This side was growing, that side was declining; it was indeed a comparison of heaven and earth, or cloud and mud.

Added to that was Kou Zhong's first taste of the vortex of qi's astonishing power. Too bad that due to the limitation of present circumstances, he could find any worthy opponent to test the full power of his saber. But this moment murderous intent was growing in his heart, and he wanted to kill Li Tianfan, so that the political marriage between the Song Clan and the Wagang Army would die and thus ended all his troubles, while at the same time it would break Li Mi's heart. One stone to kill three birds. His imposing manner soared; for the time being nothing could match it.

The Moon in the Well swept across the air. Although it was an extremely simple saber strike, coupled with his swimming-fish shenfa, it was like the flight trajectory of a bird, or the swimming path of a fish; there was no trace. Rolling, whirling, surging saber qi followed the saber shooting toward Li Tianfan first.

Li Tianfan has mastered Li Mi's skill. These past several years he had been following his father in fighting in one place after another all over the world [reminder: tian xia, i.e. China], his real combat experience was incomparably vast, but it was the very first time that he had to deal with such a formidable saber.

By the time he saw yellow glow arriving, the opponent's long saber was already in front of his head, hidden in it was an overbearing qi that he would not be able to resist. Upon self-inspection, he realized that even if he had several sabers, it would still be very difficult to block. Thereupon, he thundered, "Attack!” while he himself leaped backward to evade.

Chapter end