Peng Longteng

The convict-soldiers had suffered heavy losses under Li Huowang's onslaught. Peng Longteng could no longer stand by and let him continue his indiscriminate attack. She began to divide her forces.

Half of the convict-soldiers continued their siege of Bai Lingmiao, while the other half, led by Peng Longteng, turned to strike back.

“Huowang?” A hazy voice rang out beside Li Huowang’s ear as he was nearly unconscious from the pain.

He shook his head. The voice disappeared.

Li Huowang lifted his head. When he saw the cavalry bearing down on him, he laughed.

“I’ve read the military classics too. This trick of mine is called ‘Battering One’s Own Flesh to Win the Enemy’s Trust.’”

As Peng Longteng, mounted on her horse, once again towered over him, Li Huowang shouted at her, “Come on! Let’s settle this one-on-one!”

What came at him, however, was a whirling giant halberd.

“Boy! You really think I can’t handle you? I was just holding back because the cost is too high! Now… SCREECH!!”

Peng Longteng raised her heavy halberd and swept it backward. The weapons lying strewn around her clashed together in a single, brutal impact.

Then, an ear-splitting shriek instantly engulfed the entire border pass.

It was not the sound of weapons colliding. It was a dreadful, piercing roar that erupted from the throats of every convict-soldier. The Army Shriek.

With that howl, blood began to pour from the seven apertures of the convict-soldiers’ faces—only to evaporate the moment it touched the air.

The steaming, bloody mist gradually enveloped them all.

Even Peng Longteng was not spared. Blood seeped slowly from the two eyeholes of her helmet visor.

Their blood was running dry, draining them of their humanity.

Wrapped in the crimson haze, the convict-soldiers had become nothing but specters in the fog. Their eyes held no emotion—only an endless, murderous intent.

The longsword in Li Huowang’s hand suddenly reacted to the killing aura. It trembled and let out a dragon’s roar, as if answering some call.

“DRINK!!” The convict-soldiers thrust their blood-shrouded weapons at him.

Li Huowang tried to shift his position.

But this time, they had no intention of probing where he would dodge. They simply stabbed every inch of space, relying on brute force to crush his cleverness.

A single drop of Li Huowang’s blood fell to the ground, mingling with the bloody mist.

The next moment, every convict-soldier’s eyes snapped toward him. They saw him.

And what Li Huowang saw in their eyes was greed. And craving.

They had eaten human flesh—and a lot of it. Li Huowang knew this in an instant.

“Brothers! We’ve got rice-meat! Eat your fill!”

Drooling, howling like starving ghosts, the convict-soldiers lunged at Li Huowang. In that instant, his position became critical.

He tried to use the Thousand Greats Record to fight back, but they would not let him.

Every time he tried to spread the record on the ground, they interrupted him. He could not use it.

Li Huowang’s situation grew more desperate by the second. He was about to die.

“Dong-dong-dong—” The sound of a drum rang out.

A cavalryman was pulled from his horse by a woman in a red bridal veil. His head was separated from his body.

Then two Wandering Lords flew past, their bodies passing straight through a convict-soldier.

Bai Lingmiao and the others had arrived, giving Li Huowang a brief moment of respite within the encirclement.

“No! Using the Thousand Greats Record like this is too easy to counter!”

Without hesitation, Li Huowang shoved his blood-soaked sword back into its sheath.

Then he grabbed the edge of his own skin and tore it open.

Shou San had given him the idea. If he became like Shou San, he could offer sacrifices to Bashe anytime, anywhere.

Screaming in agony, Li Huowang forced the spread-out Thousand Greats Record under his skin.

The entire scroll was wedged inside his body.

“Hm?” Peng Longteng sensed something was wrong with Li Huowang. She raised the tip of her halberd and pointed it at him.

“The wind has no fixed form, yet it clings to heaven!”

As Peng Longteng’s voice rang out, the convict-soldiers—who had seemed utterly mindless—actually assembled into a Wind-Scatter Formation and charged straight at Li Huowang.

But just as they were about to reach him, a blazing inferno wreathed in black smoke engulfed both Li Huowang and his attackers.

Li Huowang’s skin was scorched black by the flames. His appearance grew more and more like the Fire God worshipped by the Ao-Jing Sect.

The flames erupted from his body, turning the surrounding convict-soldiers into living torches.

For enemies packed this tightly together, it was a deadly move.

Peng Longteng, clad in her full armor, pushed straight through the flames toward Li Huowang.

She was not afraid. On the contrary, she seemed even more excited. “Hahaha! Good one, boy! But I’ve already seen through your trick! You’re finished!”

The gale kicked up by her massive halberd blew Li Huowang’s flames backward.

As she drew closer, Li Huowang realized just how tall she really was. She was at least two heads taller than him.

“CLANG!” Li Huowang’s feet sank three inches into the ground. He managed to block her thousand-jin halberd with his sword.

The flames climbed up the halberd’s shaft, engulfing Peng Longteng’s armor. Inside the metal, her skin was blistering from the heat.

But instead of fear, her expression showed something like joy. As if she had been born for slaughter and battle.

“Hahaha! Again! How refreshing! How absolutely refreshing!”

The halberd slammed Li Huowang’s sword aside and swept toward his lower body.

In the heart of the flames, the two mad warriors clashed. Every strike aimed for the other’s death.

Watching Peng Longteng’s armor glow red-hot, a thought suddenly struck Li Huowang.

He kicked off the ground, bent low, and charged toward her feet.

“Again!”

This time, Li Huowang did not dodge the massive halberd. Instead, he raised his sword and stabbed straight into the gap beneath her visor—a direct life-for-life trade.

The halberd’s shaft slammed into him. His entire body caved in. But his sword had hit its mark.

Just as he had guessed, the red-hot armor had become much weaker.

The fire-wreathed military sword pierced straight into Peng Longteng’s neck. The same spot as before.

With a furious roar from Li Huowang, a cracking sound of breaking bone echoed out. Peng Longteng’s helmeted head flew into the air.

Silence fell.

The bloody aura around the convict-soldiers dissipated rapidly.

They cast one fearful glance in his direction, then mounted their horses and fled, vanishing before Li Huowang’s eyes.

The flames on Li Huowang’s body disappeared along with them.

Li Huowang lowered his head and looked at himself with his flame-blinded eyes.

He had no skin left. Nothing remained but a blackened, smoldering carcass, shrunken by the fire.

Plop. With no skin to hold it in, the Thousand Greats Record that had been hidden beneath his flesh fell to the ground.

Li Huowang felt an itch at his back. He turned around sluggishly and saw a round-faced man.

The man looked terrified of him. But tears still streaming down his face, he raised a small dagger wrapped in a red handkerchief and stabbed it toward Li Huowang.

Watching the dagger carve small cuts into his mummified body, a question arose in Li Huowang’s mind.

Who is this guy? What is he doing?

“Shua—” A flash of cold light.

Cao Hai was disemboweled in an instant.

He staggered backward, collapsing against Peng Longteng’s headless body. As his vision faded, he looked at her still-standing corpse, his eyes filled with deep, lingering reluctance.

“General…”

Li Huowang steadied himself and began to stagger back. His will was fraying under the torment of the pain.

“It hurts so much… Why does it have to be me who suffers like this?”

“Is living just to endure pain? I really don’t want to go on.”

“No. I can’t die. I have to survive.”

“Mom… It really hurts… Can you blow on it for me…?”

As Li Huowang babbled to himself on the verge of collapse, he suddenly heard movement behind him.

He turned around slowly.

Peng Longteng’s headless body had already hoisted her giant halberd over her shoulder. It came crashing down on him like a mountain.