Chapter 891: The Plague Wretch Is Hiding Its Strength (10)

The Mongol barbarians underestimated Qing.

It was the inevitable fate of their people.

The peoples of the Central Plains had learned the hard way—by living through it—those fucked-up “martial artists who hide their strength.”

In the martial world, there was that so-called Four Hidden-Power Types Theory: be careful of a child, an elder, a woman—and then one more category, depending on who’s telling it—plus, on top of that, the disabled, the sick, beggars, monks.

So for a Central Plains person, the current lineup—Beggar Venerable, a sick beggar woman, plus a trainee-beggar kid—was basically a guaranteed symbol of a monster.

But the Mongol barbarians followed the Great Khan’s solemn teaching:

Kill everyone taller than a wagon wheel!

Meaning: kill everyone except children and women (spoils), because children and women are easy.

A precious teaching from Chinggis Khan—the ruler who came closest to unifying everything, the man who took the widest territory in human history.

It ran directly opposite to the old proverbs of the Central Plains martial world, so how easy must Qing have looked?

Bring back her head and decorate the great ger with it—call it the head of the ugliest woman under heaven. Wouldn’t that have collector value?

Two Mongol warriors kicked their horses in the ribs.

HIIIIIH! The well-trained warhorses screamed and charged straight at Qing.

Beside her, Moyong Jun let out a young, sharp shout.

“Come!”

“Green Guard!”

“Wait—me too—MMMPH!”

Green Guard scooped Moyong Jun up and, in one clean bound, carried him away.

Qing stood alone, calmly watching the cavalry rush her down.

Hmm. I left Moonlit Night buried away, so I’m empty-handed—but look at that. A weapon’s running itself over to me.

One of them has a hooked halberd. One of them has a long-handled saber.

The long-handled saber is more my taste.

In an instant, the rider closed the distance and, fearless, drove the horse’s head right at her.

Horses are naturally skittish creatures, but a well-trained, vicious warhorse will ram a person and chew them with its teeth—it has that kind of ferocity.

A beast brazen enough to charge a Harmonization Realm master could get its skull smashed in a heartbeat, but—

Qing took one step left, tilted her body, and simply let the horse’s head pass.

“ALWALA-ILALA-ILRAA-ILRAAA—!”

That distinct Mongol barbarian war-cry—swallowing down at the throat and stretching long—slammed into her ears.

No, what kind of battle shout is that?

The horse’s head swept past Qing, and the rider on top barely brushed her chest as he passed.

Then the blade followed.

A hooked halberd—beneath the spearhead, a long blade-hook set at a right angle.

The rider dragged it behind him as he galloped, and the hooked blade came surging in, aiming for Qing’s throat.

Qing folded her knees.

She lay back nearly horizontal, as if her spine would kiss the ground.

In that instant, the shining blade skimmed through.

Where her neck had been, it cut only air—leaving a long, thick afterimage in its wake.

Qing’s eyes snapped wide.

What? Blade aura? No—spear aura? Hooked-halberd aura, then?

Wait. A barbarian is using martial arts?

A horse-riding drifter savage?

Just as the Mongol barbarians underestimated Qing, Qing had underestimated them, too.

But still.

Judging by the martial pressure, he’s late First-Rate at best—barely stepping into Peak.

So basically no different from trash, isn’t he?

Right before she hit the ground, Qing’s knuckles slapped the earth hard.

She snapped her body up with her knees still bent—dropping into a deep crouch that clung to the ground.

“ULRAA!!”

The second rider, the one with the long-handled saber, raised it high—clear saber aura coiling around it.

That moment, Qing’s knees unfolded and her body launched diagonally, like a projectile.

The palm that had been coiled beside her waist surged up past her ear and over her head—fierce energy exploding from her lower abdomen, riding her channels toward the center of her palm.

Qing’s palm drove into the barbarian’s jaw.

Her long, elegant fingers clamped the lower face tight—locking it like a vise.

With one hand twisting the barbarian’s face, Qing rose—straight up.

The barbarian flailed, his long-handled saber swinging uselessly.

Then the pair—one attacker, one seized—shot up a full one-and-a-half lengths, reaching a peak around the height of a two-story roof.

They said everything that falls has wings.

Because you have to fly first, before you can fall.

Qing’s right arm drew a huge arc.

The barbarian’s jaw, trapped in her grip, drew the same arc—his torso thrown upward, his head flipped down toward the earth.

Qing’s filthy hand—soot-blackened—gleamed with a pitch-dark shine beneath the grime.

One of the Ten Great Demonic Arts Under Heaven.

Black-Killing Demon Palm.

Qing drove that seized jaw straight into the ground.

BOOM! With a thundercrack, the earth split in a circular web of fissures, a crater punched deep.

“Hoo.”

At the crater’s center, Qing landed in a perfect pose—one knee down—then slowly stood.

At her feet: a warrior’s torso twitching in tiny spasms beneath a helmet compressed into ruin.

Qing brushed dust from her knees—TAP, TAP—then, since she was already bent at the waist, casually pulled the long-handled saber from the corpse’s hand.

Ah. This heavy, cool feeling.

The blade itself was shorter than Moonlit Night, but it was broad and thick—a heavy weapon that would cut like a crush.

Qing straightened and swept an arrogant gaze over the barbarians, who still hadn’t climbed out of shock.

Then she tossed out a single word.

“Next.”

“[ODEOK SAIN!! YOU DARE!!!]”

One barbarian roared and spurred his horse forward.

But Qing stayed utterly calm.

She even had room for a stray thought.

So the friend who just gifted me a long-handled saber is Odeok Sain—and I heard his name was something weird like Oju Sureng.

How is someone’s name Oju Sureng? Sounds like it’d be great at reducing fevers.

Qing had too much composure.

Because she’d already seen their weakness.

In the martial world, there’s a reason there aren’t any divine foot techniques that rely on “kicking” as the main thing: planting your foot and taking advantage of the ground matters more than swinging your leg to hit.

A martial artist’s feet are the pivot of movement, the origin point of every attack—martial skill begins at the feet.

But if you’re on a horse?

No matter how much you talk about horse-and-man unity—me becoming the horse, the horse becoming me, communion through mutual feeling—you can’t expect the same delicate control you get from a human foot.

This time, Qing took one step right—letting the horse’s head slide past—and sprang up.

Her left hand shot out and clamped the barbarian’s jaw—CRUNCH.

Up again, into the sky.

Her left hand drew an arc.

THUD! The frozen ground cracked like a spiderweb and sank into a crater, and beneath a crushed skull, a fresh corpse added to the pile—blood spitting from the neck in wet jets.

Only left and right had changed.

The method was exactly the same.

Then, with her left hand, Qing claimed the victor’s rightful prize.

Now she stood holding a massive long-handled saber in each hand—one to the left, one to the right—

And then Qing immediately regretted it.

Ah. Right. I should’ve hidden my strength more.

Once can be luck.

From the second time on, it’s skill.

“[VILE BITCH—HIDING YOUR REALM! WARRIORS, SHE’S A MASTER! WE FORM A ROTATION FIGHT! DON’T RUSH HER FROM THE FRONT!]”

A rotation fight.

And the barbarians hurriedly hooked their weapons onto their saddles and yanked out the bows at their waists.

Qing sucked in a huge breath.

Her already massive chest swelled like it would burst the clothes stuffed over it, then became a booming voice that swept the whole square.

“[WAAAIT!!!]”

The barbarians flinched.

Qing followed with a solemn, heroic tone.

“[Long ago, I once ate booz.]”

The voice was tragic to the point of grandeur, yet the content didn’t match at all.

“[What?]”

“[Booz. The dumplings you Mongol barbarians eat. Lamb inside, lamb fat in the filling, boiled so rich juices drip and drip and drip.]”

In that moment, a sorrow settled over Qing’s face—no, over her entire body.

A loneliness, a grief, a wistfulness—an aura steeped in melancholy.

It was the kind of presence that made you listen before you meant to—maybe because that mournful, beautiful voice somehow stuck right into your ear.

To be honest, a big part of why Qing’s nonsense worked was that charming voice.

“[It was truly a magnificent taste. I think you use a thicker wrapper because it’s so intensely fatty—and together, they become something like heavenly flavor. Hmm. Now that I’m talking about it, I want booz.]”

“[What nonsense—]”

“[But!]”

Qing spread both arms wide.

“[Is booz really your Mongol barbarian food? The very name ‘booz’ comes from the Central Plains cultural treasure—steamed stuffed dumplings. Isn’t it that you stole Central Plains food and shamelessly claimed it as yours?]”

A vein popped on the Mongol barbarians’ foreheads.

It was an out-of-nowhere accusation of culinary plagiarism, yet somehow it reached in and scratched raw at something deep.

The Mongol barbarians should’ve covered their ears.

Even the Tang Clan’s Great-Grand Elder admitted it—formless poison: the moment you listen, you’re already poisoned.

How were they supposed to withstand this vicious toxin?

One hot-blooded barbarian finally exploded.

“[Then what about the noodles our great children of the grasslands created first! You Central Plains dogs make every kind of noodle and claim it’s yours, but all noodles in the world came from our grasslands—]”

“Begone!!!! [That isn’t what matters right now! I’m about to speak of something far more important! It is hurheg!]”

“[What about hurheg—hurheg is our grasslands—]”

“[Yes! I once ate hurheg and was so moved I wept! Not a scrap of vegetable anywhere—only meat, pure and proud, like the boldness of grassland men! And cooking it with heated stones—there is no method like it anywhere between heaven and earth!]”

Question marks rose over the Mongol barbarians’ heads.

Why is she suddenly praising hurheg?

Regardless, Qing kept ranting.

“[Hurheg is genuinely delicious! Even someone who has lost their taste would take one bite and recover it—this is what ‘delicious’ is! A violent flavor that slaps your tongue with a deep, commanding shout: THIS IS TASTE! It is the most delicious dish between heaven and earth!]”

The Mongol barbarians looked sour.

Hurheg is tasty, sure, but... that much?

Qing barked again.

“[You should have eaten hurheg! You should have eaten it!!!]”

At the same time—BANG! Her foot slammed down.

Qing’s body stretched out like a whipping tail.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three Steps, One Hundred—reaching maximum speed in three steps of Heavenly Demon’s Army Descending Step.

In an instant, she surged straight into the middle of the riders.

Nainporeukdeok had already raised his bow and drawn the string—then his heart dropped as he saw Qing’s form diving in among the warriors, the riders blurring behind her.

This bitch!

She emptied their heads with stupid talk, then jumped into the middle of the warriors so I can’t shoot!

A bitch who knows how to fight—no, a bitch who knows how to conduct a battle!

She’s dangerous!

“[DAMN IT! SCATTER! SCATTER! BREAK FORMATION! DON’T OVERLAP LINES OF FIRE!]”

When Qing kneels, it’s to draw out the enemy’s carelessness.

When Qing spews nonsense, it’s to draw out the enemy’s carelessness.

Her intelligence spikes exponentially right in front of slaughter—battle intelligence, a fight-brain.

“I’M COMING!”

The two long-handled sabers spun violently.

Heavy, massive weapons were meant to draw circles through rotation—especially from the waist and torso.

And she wasn’t swinging one.

She was swinging two.

Otherwise, human strength couldn’t control them.

Of course, Qing’s strength had surpassed “human” a long time ago, but even if she could do it another way, there was no reason to abandon a better method.

From the already enormous long-handled sabers—WHOOOOSH!—a monstrous saber aura surged in every direction, rising a full chi off the blade.

The handle was two and a half chi long.

The blade—counting the aura wrapped around it—reached three chi.

A vicious edge a full one-and-a-half chi wide.

Not one.

Two.

A whirlpool of rotating blades, spinning at terrifying speed, swallowed a rider who had been retreating.

Chunks of flesh burst in every direction.

Some pieces still had horsehide attached.

Some were human fingers.

Some were strips of organs.

PITTER-PATTER—wet pieces of meat, not fully ground down, fell like sparse rain.

A single skilled rider vanished without leaving a shape behind.