Nightfall

“Are these all your tricks?”

“Do you think you can kill me just like that?”

“I haven’t shown my trump card yet. Don’t tell me you’re done.”

The shrill yell echoed around the lake. Xia Hou walked toward the southern bank of Yanming Lake. He walked slowly due to his leg injury, and his voice shook as he spoke. However, his steps were stable and his manner imposing.

Ning Que who stood on the edge of the cliff looked at Xia Hou who was walking towards him slowly. Ning Que’s face was devoid of any expression, while his emotions were all over the place. He felt the chill brought by the wind and snow.

He had used up all the Primordial Thirteen Arrows in the box. The hundreds of Fu papers that he had painstakingly accumulated over the past two years had turned into yellow waterfalls and turbulent storms. The little iron kettles buried in the lake have been detonated, and it seemed as if he had used up his trump card. However, he had not managed to kill Xia Hou and could not stop him from advancing towards the southern banks.

It was the power of a powerhouse in the Peak state of Martial Arts, wasn’t it?

The snow falling onto the city walls had thinned.

Eldest Brother worriedly looked towards Yanming Lake. His old cotton robes trembled slightly, as if it was contemplating whether to fly up or not.

Ye Su looked on solemnly. He did not think that such a situation would occur at this battle on the lake. He did not expect Xia Hou to be attacked, be stopped and even be heavily injured.

“I have to admit that Ning Que has given me many surprises. The Headmaster’s disciple is indeed extraordinary. But it is a pity that he will die tonight.”

He looked at Eldest Brother and said, “Unless you make a move.”

Eldest Brother understood what he meant by that.

The powerhouses of the world gathered in Chang’an tonight. Only Jun Mo and he had come to represent the Academy to make things fair for Ning Que. Jun Mo was responsible for watching the Tang Military while he was responsible for watching this genius from the Haotian Taoism sect. Conversely, Jun Mo and he were being watched as well.

If he made a move, Ye Su was bound to follow.

Eldest Brother’s expression gradually softened, and he calmed down as he thought of something.

“Teacher always told me to learn from Youngest Brother, and I always wondered what I should learn. As I think about it today, he wanted me to learn from his attitude in adversity.”

He looked in the direction of Yanming Lake and said, “The most admirable thing about Youngest Brother is him himself. He creates his own world and he is always willing to take challenges. When everyone in the world thinks that he can’t make it, he would still step forward and climb another step. It was so when he entered the Academy, when he entered the old library, and when he ascended the mountain path to the Second floor. Would tonight be any different?”

There were several torches lit outside the Yulin Royal guard camp, lighting up the surroundings. The bridge covered in snow outside the camp looked like a jade belt and the man with a tall crown on the bridge looked like a deity standing on the jade belt.

Time passed as the snow drifted.

The standoff on the bridge continued through the day and until late into the night.

Second Brother of the Academy, Jun Mo had been sitting on the snow-covered bridge.

Defender-general of the State, Xu Shi, and the powerful Yulin Royal Guards stayed under the bridge.

General Xu Shi leaned against the railing under the bridge and looked at Second Brother who sat cross-legged in the snow on the bridge. He coughed painfully and siad, “Ning Que’s battle against Xia Hou is a challenge against the Tang Military to me. That is why I wish to stop this battle from happening.”

Second Brother looked up and towards the leader of the Tang military. The snow that had landed on his brows fell off as he said, “Since the battle has started, you need say nothing.”

“Indeed, it is no longer necessary.”

Xu Shi’s white brows floated in the air as he said, tamping down his anger, saying, “So you want Ning Que to die, don’t you?”

Second Brother said, “Since the battle has already started, someone will survive and someone will die. You are a soldier of the Tang military, don’t you understand such simple reason?”

After a moment, he said coldly, “Furthermore, that Xia Hou isn’t anyone special. Who dare say that my Youngest Brother is bound to lose for sure?”

To Second Brother of the Academy, general Xia Hou of the Tang Empire might not be a terrifying opponent. However, It was Ning Que that Xia Hou was battling against.

Xu Shi thought so, and then, he said solemnly, “There aren’t miracles in the world.”

Second Brother looked at him and said seriously, “The Academy is a place where miracles will happen.”

“If he still cannot kill the person after 15 years of preparation, then what is left is up to fate. However, teacher has said, that there is no such thing as fate in the world.”

Ning Que stood on the cliff and thought so as well. He looked up at the sky and then down at the person walking towards him on the lake. His brows lifted slightly as he asked, “Can we… really succeed?”

Sangsang opened her eyes once the arrow box was emptied. She held the big black umbrella and looked into Ning Que’s eyes, nodding vigorously. She said, “We have to succeed.”

Ning Que smiled as he agreed with Sangsang. No matter whether fate exists in the world, or whether he could succeed, he had to succeed. He should not think of anything else other than success.

He looked at the imposing figure on the lake and said, “You are left with a pair of weak fists and a damaged body. I still have a fresh blade, so why can’t I kill you?”

On the snowy lake, Xia Hou slowed down.

At that moment, Ning Que reached out his left hand and grasped the hilt in the cold wind. His fingers felt the familiar sensation of hemp, suddenly tightening.

There was a scuffling sound as he pulled out his podao from the scabbard.

Ning Que had been used to taking along three blades with him to fight against Xia Hou’s three-man assassin team. When he no longer had to fight those assassins, he had to fight Xia Hou. As such, he had asked Sixth Brother to combine those three blades into one.

This blade was slender but heavy. Its lines were smooth but were not beautiful. The blade was not bright but practical. It was a blade that was used to kill people.

Ning Que held it in one hand and rushed down the cliff.

The cliff walls were steep and he ran faster and faster, turning into a black blur.

The trailing bit behind the black blur was his sword.

For an unknown reason, Ning Que had insisted on not carving talisman lines on the blade. Instead, he kept it in its original condition. It was extremely smooth.

Perhaps he wanted to use the simplest sword method.

Because he believed that the simplest was also the most powerful.

He rushed down the cliff walls and towards the man on the lake, bringing down his sword.

He was still more than hundred feet away from Xia Hou.

But his blade had already appeared.

He charged forward and then across. He raised the blade, and then brought it down.

Ning Que had prepared for this.

He knew that Xia Hou could see that he had prepared this.

He wanted to know how Xia Hou would react.

If Xia Hou really parried, then he believed that he his opportunity had come.

Xia Hou did not prepare to parry Ning Que’s shot. He did not react with his fists as usual, and he did not treat him like how he had treated assassins from the Yan Kingdom when he was in the military camp. Back then, he had let out a bellow that was as loud as thunder and had caused the two powerhouses in the Seethrough State to be shocked into idiots.

Xia Hou had been injured by Tang, and his armor had been torn through by the Devil’s Doctrine blood blade. The power behind Tang’s fists could still be felt on his body. He was not at his peak. Furthermore, he had also been severely injured by Ning Que’s talisman storm, arrows and flowers.

Xia Hou did not choose to avoid the blade either. As a powerhouse in the Peak state of Martial Arts, he was most skillful with close combats. How would he be afraid of a simple blade?

He had said earlier that even the most powerful tricks were useless.

He finally moved.

He stood on the lake and shut his eyes. His hands, which were still bleeding, were extended before him in the frigid cold air. His Psyche Power in his sense of perception burst forth through his Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow. It swirled with the Qi of Heaven and Earth in the Yanming Lake, kneading together to form a thread across the distance and landing on the north bank.

There was a blood-colored military flag outside the estate on the northern bank of Yanming Lake.

That was Xia Hou’s general flag.

The flag fluttered in the wind and suddenly stretched out as if it had heard an order. It waved madly at the door of the estate, leaning forward as if it was about to leap off the pole and towards the beast to kill it.

When Xia Hou had entered the estates, he had wedged the flag deeply into the stone ground. Several cracks had appeared on the pole. The crazy movements of the flag caused the pole to tremor and shake. The cracks on the stone ground widened and spread in all directions, looking like a spider web.

There were several creaking sounds as the ground beneath the flagpole cracked. Pebbles flew in all directions as the blood-colored military flag struggled to lift off the ground and flew towards Yanming Lake.

There was a sudden gust of strong wind before the courtyard.

The blood flag was torn into pieces by the wind and fell to the ground.

In the low-lying clouds above Yanming Lake, a terrifying buzz could be heard. A vague shadow could be seen.

It was as if a sage was walking in the clouds standing on his sword.

Ning Que did not know what had happened in his own yard. He did not know about the chilling scene, the sudden tearing of the blood-colored military flag, leaving behind the flagpole in the clouds.

He was rushing down the cliff walls. He only had eyes for Xia Hou, who stood a few hundred feet away. However, he suddenly felt an ominous feeling. A patch in his sense of perception suddenly brightened up.

He stepped heavily on a rock protruding from the cliff with his right foot, taking advantage of the force to turn his body in the air to face the clouds. The Great Spirit in his body flowed into his arms, and he spun the heavy and sturdy podao before him, causing the cliff rocks that came into contact with it to fly off.

The clouds above the lake were suddenly in chaos as a large rod-like shadow burst through the clouds, falling onto the edge of the cliff and smashing into his podao.

There was a loud boom.

Ning Que felt a powerful force transferring through the podao to him.

His body was still in the air, and he took a blow backwards before falling downwards quickly. He slammed into the snow lake beneath the cliff, stirring up waves of snow.

Ning Que stood up from the pile of snow and wiped away the blood at the corner of his lips. He looked at the dark rod-shaped object in Xia Hou’s hands warily.

Xia Hou looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if he had discovered something odd.

Ning Que asked, “What is this?”

Xia Hou said, “A spear.”

The blood-colored flag was only left with a pole.

The flagpole was the spear.