Chapter 892: The Plague Wretch Is Hiding Its Strength (11)

“[DIE!]”

A Mongol rider charged, whipping a crescent blade left and right with brute force.

The blade drew a path like the Western Regions’ symbol for infinity—its heavy mass carving through the air with BWOOONG, BWOOONG, like a hornet drifting right beside your ear, the ferocity so overwhelming it was hard to put into words.

If Qing dodged to either side of the rider?

That crescent blade would shred her apart.

So Qing immediately threw her weapon away and bowed her head.

Not surrender.

Emergency evasion.

She flattened herself and slipped under the charging horse, right between its two forelegs.

To be exact, Qing didn’t move—she simply stayed where she was, and the horse skimmed over her.

When Qing drops to her knees?

Momentum!

The instant the hooves passed, Qing sprang up with everything she had—straightening her back and throwing both arms up like she was cheering.

Her back slammed into the horse’s belly, and with a force even greater than the rider’s weight, she heaved upward.

HIIHIHIHING!

The horse screamed in pure panic.

Naturally. Horses aren’t creatures that can fly.

Flipping and “swimming” through midair was a once-in-a-horse’s-lifetime experience.

The rider toppled and fell off her back—AAAGH! A barbarian’s scream—

And at the same time, from the left, that bizarre battle shout again.

“ALRAL-ULLA-ULLA-ULLA—!!!”

No, what the hell kind of battle shout is that?

That was when it happened.

Something slid onto Qing’s right arm—light, almost gentle—while she was still “cheering.”

Qing turned her head.

A noose-knot had already settled onto her shoulder.

Follow the rope and you saw: a wrist bound tight in coils, then an arm, then a shoulder—

Then above it, one barbarian’s head, wearing a triumphant grin like got you at last.

But only for a moment.

Qing twisted her wrist, hooked the rope, and—HUP—drew power from her core and yanked hard.

Transcendent, absurd strength hauled the rope; instead of pulling Qing, it launched the barbarian.

He flew up in a gentle arc—right toward her.

The one being dragged was him.

His face turned into pure confusion.

If she could whip someone over a hundred and fifty geun around like this, then how strong would she have to be—

His thought ended there.

Qing surged upward—SMACK!

Like a ball sport back in her hometown, her left palm slapped the incoming barbarian’s crown.

His skull burst like it couldn’t decide whether it was a head or a watermelon.

But a tiger dies and leaves its hide.

A barbarian’s head can explode, and he still leaves a body behind.

And he also left behind the rope—still bound tight around his wrist.

Qing grabbed the rope with both hands, twisted her waist, and started spinning in place—feet moving quick and sharp.

The headless body became a weight, pulling the long rope taut.

The rope swept a wide circle, clipping horses at the ankles.

HIIIIIH! AAAGH! KKEUK! HIIIIIH!

Riders toppled one after another in the direction the sundial’s shadow pointed, horse and man screams mixing together until the square was nothing but sound.

“YAH!”

Qing released the rope.

The noose slipped cleanly off her arm, and the headless body—losing its center—shot out like a projectile, hurled by sheer centrifugal force.

It smashed into a rider, and with a glorious crash—THUD-THUD-THUD—horse, man, and corpse tangled together and rolled across the ground.

Qing nudged the long-handled saber she’d tossed earlier with her toe—FLICK—kicked it up, and caught it.

There was still another saber on the ground, but... yeah, dual-wielding is basically the symbol of defeat, isn’t it? All you can do is spin like a blender.

“[Monster! Die!]” “[DIEEEEE!]”

“[HIIIK!]” “[We’re all gonna die! Run!]”

Even facing Qing’s divine might, some barbarians still screamed for death and charged.

Others abandoned their comrades, spun their horses around, and fled.

Qing’s eyes held a color that didn’t belong in this world—her mouth split in a vicious grin that refused to close.

Her gaze swept the riders rushing in from every side, skimming the numbers above their heads.

Eighty-three. One hundred thirteen. Fifty-two. Forty-six.

Except for one, none of them crossed the line. And overall, the numbers weren’t even that high.

But these ones had to die.

Because they didn’t see people as people.

You could call it a blind spot of karmic sin.

Karmic sin and karmic virtue were ultimately just outcomes; they couldn’t perfectly represent what lived inside their owner.

Of course, outcomes don’t excuse the inside—if you did something with good intentions and it became evil, you still had to take responsibility for the result.

But these bastards?

They didn’t see humans as humans, so they called the powerless—yeah, the shameless, conscience-less commoners of Geonpyeong—“sheep” and tried to butcher them.

They said Central Plains people used to be slaves, this and that—like they still believed they had the right to decide who lived and died.

In the end, they just hadn’t set foot in the Central Plains yet.

They were already scheduled to become dogshit monsters—evil beyond measure, the worst kind because they didn’t even realize they were doing evil.

So then.

These aren’t even human, right?

Qing’s gaze deepened into a color that didn’t exist—pure, ominous malice.

If someone read Qing’s thoughts, they might ask: Who’s the one not seeing people as people?

But at the very least, the current Heaven-Slaying Star could claim she was putting careful effort into distinguishing between “human” and “not human.”

Qing grinned.

Hiding your strength is really great.

If you keep your Force Aura buried and act like you’re just brute-forcing it, they convince themselves they can still win—if they just grit their teeth harder, get angrier, try harder, pour in everything.

So they come running.

Qing ran straight at them.

She grabbed the first horse’s mane and wrapped her legs around its neck as she climbed—so naturally, two riders ended up facing each other on the same horse.

With her left fist—one, one, one—light, snapping punches—SWISH, SWISH—yellow teeth scattered into the air.

The barbarian’s eyes unfocused, and he smoothly tipped sideways and fell off the horse.

“[Brother!]”

Maybe it was his younger brother, maybe just a younger guy he knew—either way, someone charged in in a panic.

Qing kicked off the horse’s back and—

A single stroke through the air like a star’s arc—

His neck severed clean.

“[Force Aura! He’s using Force Aura! Be careful!]”

Only then did someone finally scream it out.

But it was already too late.

The truth was: the Mongol barbarians were at minimum late First-Rate—Peak-level.

And there were over thirty riders.

This wasn’t a force you could deal with casually.

But the terrain was too perfect.

Which meant, for cavalry, it was the worst battlefield possible.

The Mongol barbarians had conquered the world several times over with their particular cowardly method—ride and shoot and run, then come back when you’re tired, repeat.

Later strategists called it a “swarm.”

Half their waking lives were spent on horseback; savages who clustered and scattered and raised chaos until people gnashed their teeth and hissed, you insect bastards—and that’s the name that stuck.

Of course, there were many ways to counter a swarm.

But a tactic like “just dive straight into the middle” was unheard-of—completely insane.

Because even if they weren’t iron cavalry in full armor, cavalry was still cavalry.

Infantry jumps into cavalry?

If you want to die, surely there are better options.

But right now, it worked.

Why?

Because there was an unbridgeable gap between bad cavalry and an elite infantry master?

Because a weakling is a weakling even on a horse, and a master is a master even on foot?

Sure, that wasn’t not part of it.

But more than anything, it was because the Mongol barbarians themselves had stepped into terrain that was basically suicide for them.

A swarm is near-invincible in open ground—where every direction is available, and you can scatter, cluster, shoot, slash, repeat.

But the moment movement is boxed in, their combat power collapses.

Isn’t the best way to wipe out a swarm to lure it into a cramped space and annihilate it?

Of course, the Mongol barbarians didn’t not know that.

But they hadn’t come thinking this was a battlefield.

They’d only come to butcher sheep.

They’d only come to kill everyone taller than a wagon wheel.

How could they have known a monster was hiding here?

And most importantly:

They couldn’t use their strongest weapon—the bow.

Because Mongol archery wasn’t ordinary archery.

It was the decisive weapon of the former dynasty, a special Archery Method forbidden by the current Heavenly Court—martial arts done with bow and arrow.

The state of the arrow on Great Warrior Nainporeukdeok’s string proved that “special” part.

Wrapped in thick starlight, the arrow silently aimed at Qing.

A Force Aura–charged arrow.

A technique called a Force Aura Arrow.

The bowstring was drawn to the limit.

Before the heavy Force Aura–coated arrow, a sharp vortex formed—the flow visible as it spiraled.

If he released his fingers, the arrow would launch at the speed of light, packed with destructive rotation.

But Nainporeukdeok only stared at Qing with bloodshot eyes, saturated with venom.

A bead of sweat gathered at the tip of his nose—then dropped.

Even in March cold in northern Liaoning—colder than a Central Plains midwinter—he was sweating, and white breath smoked from every strip of exposed skin.

It meant focus.

Enormous mental strain.

Nainporeukdeok watched Qing.

Measuring her sprinting speed, burning her stops into his eyes, reading her response angles, her lead foot, her favored movement—her habits—over and over, while watching the sons of the grasslands, his sworn younger brothers, his tribe’s warriors, die in brutal ways.

How could his heart be anything but—

Blood vessels burst in his eyes until red flooded the white.

His teeth clenched until—CRACK—molars shattered, fragments grinding harshly across his tongue.

And yet, at the same time, he acknowledged the enemy.

He had never seen an opponent this hard to read—because her inborn instinct and wildness ran ahead of learned technique.

If she’d been born a man of the grasslands, she might’ve taken the khan’s seat and been a great warrior enough.

But no warrior in this world has no habits.

As the one-sided slaughter continued, Qing’s afterimages—rising off her body like mist—began to thin in Nainporeukdeok’s eyes.

He narrowed down the future paths of her movement.

Three afterimages.

Two.

Then one.

At last, a single afterimage—one fixed future—appeared, cleanly ahead of Qing.

Nainporeukdeok aimed at it.

At the path the future enemy would pass through—an arc that would pierce soft flesh beneath the ribs and churn the liver, the most lethal vital point in the human body.

Nainporeukdeok drew in a quiet breath.

Let it out.

Stopped naturally with half his air remaining.

His body’s trembling vanished.

Finally, he released the string—

PSSSHHH......

With a strangely limp sound, the starlight-dead arrow plunged into the ground like trash.

Nainporeukdeok slowly lowered his head.

In his side—beneath the ribs—a dagger handle was buried.

Following the handle to the hand gripping it, there was a man standing beside the horse.

Was that... the man who’d been behind the trainee beggar kid......

It was Nainporeukdeok’s last thought.

The Great Warrior fell from the horse—SPLAT.

Qing glanced over.

Damn it. He just killed him outright.

How could anyone miss it?

The barbarian leader’s killing intent wasn’t just poking—it was stabbing and stabbing and gouging, like he was drilling holes.

Especially not with Qing’s hypersensitive senses.

Still, she’d pretended not to notice—and she’d repeated steady movements, giving him a lane.

Partly because she was curious what that Archery Method looked like.

Partly because she wanted to dodge it beautifully with Ripple-Skimming Micro-Step and watch the man’s crushed, frustrated face—because frustration makes a man grow.

And most of all because he was the strongest one, and she wanted to savor him last—

But now... it felt like someone dumped water all over the fire.

Once the thrill drained out, the savage color in Qing’s eyes melted away, too.

All that remained was cleaning up the stragglers.

Green Guard returned alone—who knew where he’d dumped Moyong Jun—and joined in, and the remaining barbarians were wiped out in no time.

The ones who were going to run had already run.

The ones left were possessed with rage, eyes flipped white, basically choosing to die together—if anything, it made them easier to handle.

And so, the square ended up carpeted with the remains of horse and man.

Well.

Still satisfied.

It had been fun.