Nightfall Chapter 58

Five swords in the rainy night flew at high speed, sounding sometimes deep and low and sometimes with a sharp whistling cry like some kind of weird instrument, each occupying an empty space next to Chao XiaoShu and Ning Que’s sides, and unceasingly rotating positions. Five moving brightnesses interlaced all around, making the young branches beaten by the rainwater and the limestone tiles accumulated with water become completely woven tightly together in the empty space of the courtyard.

Amidst the rain, sometimes seen and sometimes unseen, the swords flowed gracefully as they flew, at times brushing against the floor tiles or grazing through, splashing up a plume of rain; at times cutting out a deep sword mark into the walls, and at times flying over the bodies of those four soldiers that Ning Que slew, adding several bloody sword slashes onto bodies of the still not yet dead soldiers. As they were sliced by the sword again they would have a fit of twitching.

Chao XiaoShu and Ning Que both stood within the formless sword net, each streak of the weaving of this net represented a sword tip that couldn’t be blocked, representing death. No matter if it was solid limestone tile, or the wall soaked from the rain, or the corpses of the Tang troops lying on the ground, they had no way of slowing down those streaks one bit, or softening them one bit.

The wind could enter, the rain could enter, the night could enter, but a person could not.

There wasn’t a person that dared to set foot into this formless great net with a range of 30 feet. Even the bravest of the Tang elites, wouldn’t knowingly enter death and still want to forcefully step in. As for the ascetic monk and the long-robed swordsman in the rain-listening pavilion, at the moment their pale faces were impatiently harmonizing their breathing. The copper bowl, prayer beards and the blue light short sword quietly hovered around them.

The long-robed swordsman from Nan Jin looked astonished at Chao XiaoShu amidst the rain, and bitterly he said, “I hadn’t thought that a gang leader from ChangAn City…… was an honorable, top class Great Sword Master, even…….. he’s just one step short of entering the Fate Seeker realm. Could this be the Great Tang Empire’s strength and heritage? In that case, you should be very clear, killing you is the thought of your Tang nobles. You can’t win. The nobles have said as long as you surrender, they’ll spare your life.”

Chao XiaoShu raised his left hand, pulling off a green leaf that had unknowingly landed on his lapel, and then raised his head towards the long-robed swordsman and calmly said, “You killed my brother, so whether you surrender or not, you must die.”

The long-robed swordsman was silent and wordless.

The ascetic monk wearing a bamboo rain hat looked at Ning Que beside Chao XiaoShu, looked at the black mask on his face, and looked at his familiar yet slightly strange hair style. Frowning he asked, “Youngster, are you from Yue Lun Kingdom?”

Ning Que returned the ascetic monk with silence, and hadn’t made any response, just that his brows slightly knitted together in his black mask.

Chao XiaoShu, turned his head towards those elite Tang troops on the other side of the courtyard. His eyes gradually becoming coldly stern, in a deep voice he said, “One is a Great Sword Master from Nan Jin, one is an ascetic monk from Yue Lun Kingdom, and you guys….. are soldiers from my Great Tang Dynasty. For those so-called big shots to randomly order, to unexpectedly collude with foreign peoples, that really is disgraceful.”

The leader of those Tang troops slightly lowered his head, apparently not wanting the boundless rain to confuse his eyes, but also seeming a bit ashamed, unable to face Chao XiaoShu’s cold, crushing gaze.

But all battles that have strong cultivators participating, inevitably the whole battle is controlled by the cultivators. Ordinary people like Ning Que and those elite Tang troops could only assist as support from the side, and couldn’t influence the course of the battle. When cultivators fought, their mental strength and most importantly their wear of psychic power was extremely fast. In the situation where there is no way to strike an enemy with an attack, they would typically choose to withdraw the attack and harmonize their breathing. With the previous situation, the Tang troops would use the God Targetting Crossbow – Chao XiaoShu was worried Ning Que had no way to react, gambling to recall his swords, thus having this simple conversation in the rainy night.

“Let’s end this.”

Chao XiaoShu calmly said these words, then raised his hand and pointed towards the rain-listening pavilion – the realm of his strength was above the ascetic monk of the Yue Lun Kingdom and the swordsman of Nan Jin, so he had the strength and the ability to choose when to fight.

Exactly in this instant.

The five swords within the courtyard weaving back and forth seemed to hear a clear command, their movement trajectories suddenly turned; the whistling suddenly became even more shrill, chi chi splitting open the rainy night, stabbing towards the rain-listening pavilion!

The ascetic monk’s complexion suddenly tightened, his two eyes fully widened. His two hands between his knees began to rapidly change with hand seals, and the copper bowl floating in front of him hummed flying to meet the enemy. The string of metal and wood prayer beads followed flying after, rotating around his body at high speeds.

The swordsman from Nan Jin hmphed, his complexion as white as snow, but his lips were as red as blood. His psychic power penetrated through the Snowy Mountain in the Sea of Qi, tunneling into the breath of heaven and earth in the rain-listening pavilion, controlling that blue light short sword flying up like lightning.

“Not right!”

The ascetic monk’s pupils suddenly shrunk. Those lightly gray sword shadows concealed in the boundless spring rain seemed as though they were not there, until they whistled flying towards the rain-listening pavilion, only then did he see clearly that there were only four, and not five!

Where did that last sword go?

The ascetic monk warned the Nan Jin swordsman beside him, but it was already too late.

The most faint sword shadow, silent without sound circumvented the rain-listening pavilion’s eaves, evading the perception of the two inside of the building. Following the wooden pillars slipping down, then at the position of half the height of a person, it suddenly quickened, and like a hot blade piercing snow it penetrated through the wooden pillar – in the next instant it appeared behind the Nan Jin swordsman’s head!

The Nan Jin swordsman responded to that wisp of cold behind his head, his heart birthing the greatest dread. His two hands hanging out of his sleeves madly moved, that blue light short sword in the air suddenly stopped, but it was already impossible to save its master.

With a light, muffled pu sound, the streak of sword pierced into the back of his head, then punctured through his neck bone. Hanging with blood and shredded flesh, resembling a strange worm that consumed blood, wiggling side to side to fly out!

The eyes of the Nan Jin swordsman stared, looking at Chao XiaoShu in the rain, covering the spraying blood from his throat as he heavily fell backwards face up. Until this moment of death, he finally confirmed that the reaction speed of his opponent was indeed far far beyond his own.

The master had died, losing the psychic power controlling the short sword, it slumped falling into the rainwater, flipping twice it was still. Before that blue light sword was battling two swords with a severe whistling sound, and with the remaining three swords together in one place, attacking at high speeds towards the ascetic monk. Merely five extremely dim small dots, but they resembled a violent storm!

In the middle of the rain, five sharp swords and a clumsy, heavy copper bowl incessantly collided, and at high speeds. The ironwood prayer beads in dancing movements incessantly collided, and sharp and clear ear-piercing like the sonorous ringing sounds intertwined together. As though without interruption, all over behind the ascetic monk was a small flowery golden light like a dandelion, frequently blooming and occasionally being dispersed by the cold wind.

Suddenly, that worn-down robe had countless gashes. The Buddhist School wasn’t like an ordinary cultivator’s that type was used to wearing soft armors to protect the body; blood from those gashes unceasingly flowed out, turning him into a blood soaked, bloody person.

Chao XiaoShu calmly looked inside of the rain-listening pavilion. His hands hanging outside of his sleeves didn’t have any other motions, but inside of the building, those five swords were like five invisible fingers of his, at any time playing the notes for killing people.

His face that had been washed by rainwater was paler by a portion. Chao XiaoShu’s brow slightly rose, discovering that the ascetic monk’s willpower firmly exceeded what he had estimated. Only seeing him unrestrainedly lifting the blue robe’s front lapel, unexpectedly he didn’t care about the crossbow rain all around him. With a loud shout he charged towards the elite Tang troops, in this way he sat down in the boundless rain.

He was beside his own mansion’s entrance, staring at the enemy inside of a building of his own home. His sword-like eyebrows gradually became flat, and the five slender fingers beyond his sleeve suddenly tightened. Following this movement, those five neither godly nor demonic swords speedily whistled and gathered, again merging into a single sword, without any fanciness, directly stabbing towards that copper bowl!

Just in this moment, beyond yet another surrounding wall at a secluded street opening washed by the great rain without people, one of the two carriages finally slowly began moving, heading for Chao Mansion’s main gate. The hoof sounds and the wheel sounds were concealed by the rainwater without a mark or a trace.