The Military Sword

The moment Li Huowang drew his sword, a thick murderous aura flooded the entire hall, making everyone present feel as if they were standing in the center of a battlefield.

The sound of blades being drawn rang out one after another. Bandits armed with all sorts of weapons, struggling against the oppressive aura, charged forward from all directions.

Some of the bandits, however, could barely hold on. The fear in their eyes deepened.

When the sword was sheathed again, the chaos quickly subsided.

The bandit leader's laughter had also ceased. The three men, who had been drinking and eating, now sat with their chins raised, motionless, their eyes fixed on Li Huowang.

Just as the atmosphere grew thick enough to choke on, the bald man seated at the head of the table picked up a deep-fried peanut and popped it into his mouth.

Immediately, a round-faced bandit with a permanent smile sidled out to mediate.

“Esteemed Daoist, no need to rush. If there’s a matter, we can talk it out. Meeting like this is fate. Why not sit down and have a drink?”

Li Huowang showed no hesitation. He walked over, sat down, and picked up some of the meat they had been eating.

The round-faced man, still smiling, bent at the waist and hovered by Li Huowang’s side, attending to him like a servant. He pulled a painted fan from his bosom, gave Li Huowang a few gentle strokes of air, then closed the fan and gestured toward the bald man who sat with legs wide apart at the main table.

“This is our Great Chief, Big Golden Dragon.” “And this is our Second Chief, Mountain-Tumbling Tiger.” The bandit in the tiger-skin vest let out a cold snort.

That was all the introduction. He did not name the last man.

The final man at the table, whose expression was dark and brooding, lifted a large bowl and took a massive gulp of wine.

This man had a very distinct feature. Besides his equally ferocious appearance, the character for “prison” was tattooed on the left side of his forehead.

All three of these men had exceptionally large frames, easily a full size bigger than anyone else.

The round-faced man then tapped his own nose with the fan. “I am Liu Xiang, the scribe of this stockade. At your service, Esteemed Daoist.”

“Is that opera troupe still alive? How many are dead?” Li Huowang cut straight to the point.

The man in the tiger-skin vest bristled, about to say something, but Big Golden Dragon silenced him with a look.

With a wave of his hand, a group of disheveled, filthy people was brought out a moment later. It was the Lü family troupe, whom he hadn't seen in a long time.

The moment Lü Zhuangyuan saw Li Huowang sitting with the bandit chiefs, he fell to his knees and kowtowed repeatedly, his voice pitiful and desperate.

“Little Daoist, please! Little Daoist, save us!”

Li Huowang used his tongue to pick a strand of meat from his teeth, swept his gaze across the bandits’ faces one by one, then stood up and began to walk toward the cave entrance.

Lü Zhuangyuan immediately wept with joy, frantically pulling his son, whose head was bloodied from a beating, to follow.

“Hold on~ Who said you could leave?”

The arrogant words came from behind. The surrounding bandits immediately blocked Li Huowang's path.

When Li Huowang turned around, he saw that the speaker was not the so-called Great Chief, Big Golden Dragon, but the gloomy man with the “prison” tattoo on his forehead.

The man rapped his thick knuckles on the table. “Come, keep drinking. Put the opera troupe aside for now. What’s your connection to the Right Clan of Siqi?”

“The Right Clan of Siqi?”

Seeing Li Huowang’s blank expression, the man chuckled, cracked open a boiled peanut, and took another swig of wine.

“Don’t play dumb. That sword on your back—it’s You Zixiong’s, isn’t it? Why else would he just hand it over to you?”

Seeing the man’s gaze land on the sword at his back, Li Huowang began to catch on. It seemed this sword carried quite a bit of baggage.

After studying the faces of the three men for a moment, Li Huowang sensed something was off.

On the surface, the bandit in this stockade was the so-called Great Chief. But this man spoke with a blatant disregard for his authority, showing no respect at all.

“And who are you? The Third Chief of this stockade?”

“Third Chief my ass! I’m Wang Deqiu!”

With a sudden burst of fury, the man slammed his palm directly into Li Huowang’s chest, sending him flying backward.

The force was immense, practically launching Li Huowang through the air.

The tall, broad-shouldered Gao Zhijian lunged forward, his large hands catching Li Huowang firmly.

Li Huowang clutched his throbbing chest, a surge of rage flooding through him. He drew his sword and charged straight at the man.

Wang Deqiu stood there with a surprised expression, watching Li Huowang rush toward him. After taking a palm strike from me, his heart and liver are still intact? he thought. This one has some tricks.

“God dammit! Kill this bastard!” Big Golden Dragon kicked the eight-immortal table, sending it flying, then pulled out a spiked club and charged forward.

The moment the fight started, the room descended into utter chaos. All the bandits surged forward at once.

On the surface, the disparity in strength was obvious. Li Huowang’s group seemed destined for a beating. But when the fighting actually began, things didn’t play out that way at all.

Gao Zhijian let out a roar, swinging his staff with brutal force and sending three men flying with a single sweep.

Two bandits, daggers in hand, tried to circle around from behind, but a pair of hands with black-painted fingernails drove into their necks.

Several bandits standing at a distance raised their crossbows, but Chun Xiaoman unrolled the Thousand Greats Record with a rustle, raised her sword, and sliced off the nails of two of her own fingers, flesh and all.

With a shriek of pain from Chun Xiaoman, the severed nails flew through the air. Between her and the bandits with crossbows, every single one of them was suddenly decapitated.

Li Huowang ignored what was happening behind him. All his focus was on the three men in front of him. They were the heart of this nest of bandits.

Clang! Mountain-Tumbling Tiger’s massive broadsword crashed heavily against Li Huowang’s longsword. The sheer force drove Li Huowang back several steps.

But that was as far as it went. With a tearing sound, the razor-sharp blade in Li Huowang’s hand effortlessly cut through Mountain-Tumbling Tiger’s broadsword and slashed straight toward his face.

“Second Brother!” Big Golden Dragon roared, charging forward to help his brother, but Wang Deqiu was already there first.

He wielded an ink-black straight saber, swinging it in a blurring arc aimed directly at Li Huowang’s sword hand.

Ding! A clear metallic ring. A chip flew from the edge of the straight saber.

Li Huowang retreated and shifted his target.

These three men were clearly more skilled than Li Huowang, but they shared a fatal weakness: their weapons. In just a few exchanges, all of them had been hacked to pieces.

Realizing this, the three shifted to a defensive strategy, no longer daring to fight Li Huowang head-on.

When the pressure eased slightly, a woman draped in a red bridal veil came forward to intervene.

“Boom, boom, boom! When the whip strikes, the drum must sound. When the drum sounds, the immortals are called. To call the immortals, first summon the inner immortal. Three layers of Wolf Lord, three layers of Danger…”

From beneath the red veil, three wolf heads suddenly bulged outward, sinking their fangs deep into Big Golden Dragon’s neck. With a furious roar, the bandit chief raised his spiked club and began smashing it viciously against the wolf heads under the veil.

The wolf heads were crushed flat, only to reform an instant later and bite down again, harder this time, until Big Golden Dragon’s bones were exposed. The blood that sprayed out only stained the red veil a deeper, darker crimson.

Taking advantage of the opening, Li Huowang severed the Second Chief’s head from his shoulders. He walked toward Wang Deqiu, his sword still dripping blood.

“Everyone says the jianghu has rules,” Li Huowang said. “But I’ve realized that’s all bullshit. The only rule is the sword in your hand.”

Faced with this hopeless situation, Wang Deqiu simply smiled. “Rules exist, sure. But who you use them on matters. The men of Later Shu don’t make rules with the Right Clan of Siqi.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Right Clan of Siqi are military men. How many of our people in Later Shu have they killed? Did you really think we’d just let you waltz right through?”

Li Huowang sneered. “Ha. Since when do bandits care about national loyalty? If you were really so patriotic, why did you start a rebellion in the first place?”

Faced with Li Huowang’s contempt, Wang Deqiu just smiled and said nothing.

Li Huowang stared at that smiling face, his own expression growing cold. Suddenly, he understood the man’s true identity.

“Wait. You’re not bandits. You’re soldiers.”

“Heh. Is there really such a clear line between a soldier and a bandit? Aren’t they both just tools for killing?”