Chapter 353

Blood-Axe Mad Demon and the Flame-Saber Divine Demon exchanged glances.

Both men knew Kwak Yeon well by reputation.

The Cave Hermit Taoist had been making an astonishing name for himself in the martial world of late.

What made it even stranger was that he hailed from Samryeong Palace on Mount Wudang, a place said to be populated entirely by Taoists who shut themselves away in caves.

But the presence the Cave Hermit Taoist had displayed upon appearing today was more than enough to prove those rumors had not been exaggerated.

The Flame-Saber Divine Demon spoke quickly.

“Blood-Axe Mad Demon, take the Soul-Snatching Demon Unit and deal with that Cave Hermit Taoist. While you do that, my Soul-Severing Mad Demon Unit and I will wipe out these mule-headed Taoists of Wudang.”

Their orders from the Lord of the Gathering Demons Division were to exterminate Wudang’s expedition force.

If the Cave Hermit Taoist, whose martial realm was clearly anything but ordinary, entered the battlefield, there was a risk that the encirclement they had worked so hard to establish would collapse.

They would be punished even if a single Wudang Taoist escaped.

The Flame-Saber Divine Demon’s diversion was therefore perfectly timed.

“Good idea.”

Blood-Axe Mad Demon readily nodded.

Not merely because the strategy was sound.

The Cave Hermit Taoist had once interfered with a covert operation of the Gathering Demons Division in Fujian Province.

His name had been placed on the division’s list of public enemies as a result.

They now had a chance to annihilate Wudang’s expedition force and eliminate one of the Gathering Demons Division’s public enemies at the same time.

Two prizes for the price of one.

Blood-Axe Mad Demon immediately shouted to his men.

“All members of the Soul-Snatching Demon Unit! Attack that Cave Hermit Taoist!”

“Order received!”

The demonic-path fighters answered as one and charged toward Kwak Yeon.

Blood-Axe Mad Demon raised his favored Blood Axe and launched himself after them.

WHIRL!

“All members of the Soul-Severing Mad Demon Unit, attack! Erase every last one of those mule-headed Taoists of Wudang!”

Hearing the Flame-Saber Divine Demon’s attack order from behind him, Blood-Axe Mad Demon smiled to himself.

He knew why that greedy bastard had handed the Cave Hermit Taoist over to him.

Rumor had it that the Cave Hermit Taoist had reached the middle level of the Flower Realm.

The Flame-Saber Divine Demon was simply pushing the dangerous opponent onto him.

And yet Blood-Axe Mad Demon had accepted the proposal because he had confidence in his chances.

Even a middle-level Flower Realm expert had limits to his inner power and true qi.

The bastard must have sprinted across a tremendous distance to come to Wudang’s rescue.

On top of that, the moment he discovered Wudang’s desperate situation, he had unleashed an immensely powerful sound art.

It went without saying that he had overtaxed his inner power.

The fact that he had landed on the official road and remained standing motionless was proof enough.

The Cave Hermit Taoist was undoubtedly performing qi-circulation meditation while standing, trying to gather back the inner power and true qi he had expended.

But standing qi circulation could restore only so much.

And they were attacking him almost the instant he had landed.

When would they ever get another opportunity this perfect?

It was practically the military principle of waiting at ease for an exhausted enemy made real.

Blood-Axe Mad Demon was already imagining the look on the Flame-Saber Divine Demon’s face when he held up the Cave Hermit Taoist’s severed head.

Heh heh heh! Flame-Saber Divine Demon, thanks to your little scheme, I’m about to win myself a tremendous achievement.

Watching his men surge toward Kwak Yeon in a black mass, Blood-Axe Mad Demon drove his movement art even harder.

He intended to let his subordinates batter the Cave Hermit Taoist half to death, then deliver the final blow himself.

Only then would he gain the reputation of having slain a middle-level Flower Realm expert.

And he would be able to claim the full reward for eliminating a public enemy of the Gathering Demons Division.

The thought of being promoted to Unit Lord and holding sway over an entire prefecture sent an involuntary chuckle through his teeth.

“Kekeke!”

SHING!

Kwak Yeon watched as the Gathering Demons Division fighters split into two groups, one of them charging straight toward him.

He drew his Blue-Steel Sword.

But rather than charge out to meet them, he remained exactly where he was in the middle of the official road.

He wanted distance between himself and Wudang’s main force.

There was also a reason he had not plunged directly into the battlefield upon arriving.

Dealing with so many demonic-path fighters in a short span of time would be difficult.

If friend and foe were tangled together in a chaotic melee, it would take even longer.

And the longer it took, the more Wudang disciples would die.

His first priority was to reduce the enemy’s numbers as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

To do that, he needed enough distance from Wudang’s main force to deal with the demonic-path fighters alone, without interference.

Since Wudang had already constructed a wagon barricade and established a defensive formation, Kwak Yeon could proceed with his plan without worrying about them.

Just as he intended, one group of demonic-path fighters was charging directly toward him.

Demonic-path fighters steeped in evil energy.

He was not cutting down people.

He was sweeping away part of the evil energy hanging over the world.

There was no reason to hesitate.

No reason to show mercy.

He even let go of his anger over the deaths of the Wudang disciples.

He would simply sweep away evil energy with an immortal sword that would slay Buddha or Patriarch alike.

The Honwonmusang Technique surged to life, opening the major points throughout his entire body.

HMMMMM!

Inner power and true qi erupted from his dantian and raced through those points, swelling like a snowball rolling downhill.

The inner-sphere true qi from his dantian merged with the outer-sphere true qi within his major points, expanding into an immense force.

FWOOM!

His outer-body qi field manifested naturally.

Everything within more than ten zhang in every direction appeared in his mind as clearly as though he were looking directly at it.

Naturally, he could perceive every movement of the Gathering Demons Division fighters who had already come within three or four zhang.

By observing the trajectories of the qi raised by the men in the first line, he could tell exactly what angles they intended to swing their weapons from.

The sinister qi of the second line was equally obvious.

They had compressed their qi tightly, intending to launch surprise attacks through the openings created by the first line’s assault.

The men in the third line were already drawing up great quantities of inner power and true qi, preparing to follow the first and second lines with a continuous attack.

They’ve trained in coordinated group formations for a long time.

Kwak Yeon could understand why even Wudang’s elite experts had struggled against them.

These well-trained fighters could effectively unleash three attacks almost simultaneously, three men moving as though they shared a single body.

Unless the difference in martial ability was considerable, dealing with that would have been difficult.

But to Kwak Yeon, who could encompass every one of their movements at a glance through his outer-body qi field, they were no more than a swarm of mantises charging at a wagon wheel.

Behind the swarm, he sensed one comparatively powerful presence.

The bodies of the other fighters blocked the man from ordinary sight, but Kwak Yeon could tell at once that this was their leader.

“Kekeke!”

Amid the clamor of dozens of figures rushing forward came a greedy laugh.

Just as one would expect from a demon of the Gathering Demons Division, the man clearly intended to send his subordinates in first to wear Kwak Yeon down before stepping in himself.

That works perfectly for me.

Having grasped the entire situation in an instant, Kwak Yeon raised sword aura around the Blue-Steel Sword.

SHHHK!

White sword aura extended nearly half a zhang from the blade.

With Kwak Yeon’s preparations complete, the fighters of the Soul-Snatching Demon Unit surged upon him.

SHAAA!

Kwak Yeon swung his sword once at the men before him.

It was a plain horizontal stroke from left to right, the simple form known as Sweeping Away a Thousand Armies.

Blood-Axe Mad Demon stared in disbelief at the Cave Hermit Taoist’s slow, almost languid movement, as if he were an old monk lazily sweeping fallen leaves with a broom.

Is that bastard really at the middle level of the Flower Realm?

The white sword aura left no doubt about his realm.

But how could a great martial expert capable of manifesting sword aura use a sword form as elementary as Sweeping Away a Thousand Armies, something even a small child could perform?

His disbelief lasted only a moment.

What happened next was so astonishing that he could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

Everything within an arc of roughly one zhang in front of the Cave Hermit Taoist was cleanly severed and collapsed where it stood.

Flesh or steel, it made no difference.

Everything had been cut in half and dropped straight to the ground.

It was as though a section of the wave of fighters rushing toward him had simply vanished.

What was even more astonishing was that not a single sound had accompanied it.

At a stretch, Blood-Axe Mad Demon could accept that there had been no sound of flesh and bone being cut.

A sufficiently sharp masterwork sword, swung quickly enough through a human body, could sometimes make almost no noise.

But metal weapons were different.

They had to be different.

Hard steel inevitably made a sound when it broke.

Did he cut through them so quickly that the steel didn’t even have time to ring?

And yet the Cave Hermit Taoist’s Sweeping Away a Thousand Armies had looked impossibly slow.

Blood-Axe Mad Demon could make no sense of it, but he stopped questioning it there.

It was regrettable that so many of his men had died to a single stroke.

I expected casualties against a Flower Realm expert, but I never thought eight of them would drop dead from one swing.

Still, thanks to their sacrifice, they had managed to surround him.

Their original objective had been achieved.

Idiot.

He had allowed himself to be encircled in the middle of the official road.

If he had withdrawn and used the terrain, or put the wagons at his back like those Wudang Taoists, the battle would have become far more difficult.

That would have stripped away their advantage in numbers.

Differences in realm were absolute in martial combat.

But that did not mean there was no way to overcome them.

The Soul-Rending Annihilation Formation they were deploying now was one such method.

It was a coordinated assault formation specifically designed to fight supreme experts, and its members had spent years learning to move together.

That was why his men had encircled Kwak Yeon as part of their attack without needing a separate order.

Blood-Axe Mad Demon shouted to them.

“Close the space!”

The Soul-Snatching Demon Unit fighters surrounding Kwak Yeon leveled their weapons and advanced together.

STEP! STEP! STEP!

They moved in perfect order, one synchronized step at a time.

A tiger in the mountains was swift and elusive enough that even a great many hunters would struggle to catch it.

But a tiger trapped inside a cage was no longer something to fear.

The essence of the Soul-Rending Annihilation Formation was to constrict the space as much as possible and deny a master room to maneuver.

No matter how great an expert someone might be, blocking simultaneous attacks from every direction was difficult.

Of course, a Flower Realm expert could probably stop the first line.

Perhaps even the second.

But perfectly defending against the waves that continued without end after that was impossible.

There was a reason people said blades had no eyes.

Even if someone blocked ten swords, a single stray blade could still inflict a fatal wound.

STEP! STEP!

Blue-edged blades closed in from every direction, yet Kwak Yeon stood there with an indifferent expression.

Watching him through the ranks of his subordinates, Blood-Axe Mad Demon decided the man had finally become flustered.

“Kekeke! Cave Hermit Taoist, you made a grave mistake by letting yourself get trapped in our cage like a witless tiger.”

At Blood-Axe Mad Demon’s taunt, Kwak Yeon replied in an indifferent voice.

“Did I?”

“...?”

Kwak Yeon raised the Blue-Steel Sword and pointed it toward the sky.

“Now that all of you have entered the cage, it’s time to end this.”

Blood-Axe Mad Demon took the absurd remark for empty bravado and roared at his men.

“Advance! Annihilate!”

At his command, every member of the Soul-Snatching Demon Unit launched themselves toward Kwak Yeon at once.

WHISH! WHISH! WHISH! WHISH!

The first, second, third, and fourth lines all thrust their gleaming blades forward and converged on a single point.

They looked like a murder of crows descending upon prey.

At that instant, Kwak Yeon lowered the Blue-Steel Sword that had been pointed toward the heavens.

FLASH!

Streak after streak of light erupted through the flock of crows.

Kwak Yeon had unleashed the fifth sword form of the Falling Star Nine Swords.

Falling Star Rushing Thunder.