Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 194. The Price of the Gamble.

Seeing the wounded Lightning Devil, the five unoccupied martial masters of the fifth rank suddenly found themselves under a lot of mental pressure. Should they make use of this chance and attack Yin or should they keep rushing to capture Arslan? But, an opportunity like this one would likely not show up ever again, so if they didn’t make use of it this time, who knew if they would live long enough to regret it? Moreover, even if they were to keep rushing ahead, they would have to face the Ice Devil first and all they would be doing was giving the Lightning Devil time to recover. On the other hand, if they killed off the Lightning Devil, then the Ice Devil alone would no longer be nearly as threatening as when those two monsters cooperated and fought together.

With very little time to make a decision, those martial masters were assaulted by such thoughts. They were under heavy pressure, too, so it couldn’t be helped that with exception of one martial master of the fifth rank, the other four team-leaders made the decision Laien wanted them to make. Forgetting themselves in the heat of battle, they rushed towards their companion, wanting to help him finish Yin off. Had Laien been the one wounded, they might have had enough sense to realize that someone who wields ice and water would be able to easily heal himself. However, when Yin was singled out before their eyes, they failed to take Laien’s interference into consideration. Even the sixth of them who didn’t choose to attack Yin merely went to stall Laien and didn’t yell anything.

Yet, no joy flashed in Laien’s eyes as he sent his river-like waves of Phantasmal Essence to kill a few more martial masters of the fourth rank. If he moved his magic to interfere immediately, then the chances of killing all five of those team-leaders would decrease by a lot. So, he had to pretend that he’s moving his Phantasmal Essence towards Yin while killing those who were in the magic’s way. It was a shallow act on his part and anyone who stopped for a second to think about would see through it quite easily, but it was enough to fool those perturbed enemies. In the end, those personal elites of Yimar Maar’s that were used to scattered battles and hit-and-run tactics weren’t able to display even half of their potential in this head-on clash, in various meanings of the word.

“So infuriating,” Laien complained in his heart while pouring more Qi and spiritual energy into the streams of water flowing around him. “In the Anarchic Lands, against Yimar Furi, and even now… he keeps getting heavily wounded every time,” he thought sourly. To vent his annoyance, he used his Phantasmal Essence to skewer a few careless enemies with ice spikes all the while Yin kept tangling with the original martial master of the fifth rank. With one arm disabled and with blood constantly dying his clothes red, Yin was having a hard time even though all he had to do was to defend. This really made Laien want to screw their plan and send all three streaks of Phantasmal Essence to help Yin right away, but he held himself back and instead, he sent one pure river-like wave of insights.

When Phantasmal Essence wasn’t active, those with insufficient insights would perceive it as nothing but a wave of non-threatening ‘weird air’. Laien had confirmed this all the way back in the great forest, so he and Yin had integrated this characteristic into their battle plan. And, once again, the fact that Yimar Maar’s elites weren’t comfortable on this battlefield and were charging forward without a cool-headed leader amongst them played right into Laien and Yin’s favor. Thus, the singular pure river-like wave of insights chased after the four martial masters of the fifth rank and went unnoticed by them or their allies. As for the suddenly decreased intensity of attacks on the remaining Phantasmal Essence of Laien’s, no one paid it much attention as in the end, none of them understood much about Laien’s magic- they simply assumed he had withdrawn some of it.

“Haha.” Meanwhile, Yin laughed weakly at Laien’s thoughts, though a grimace was still present on his face. It was true that he had been getting wounded too often, but while he did get better at bearing with the pain, he by no means stopped feeling it as intensely as ever. In fact, the sensations of his bones creaking, his flesh squirming and his blood flowing out with every movement of his body was quite horrifying to him. “I might have let him hit me a bit too good. If it wasn’t for my body getting strengthened two days ago, he might have cut into my lung. I’m bleeding too much, too, eh,” he complained in his heart. If anything, it was the first time he was wounded this badly while still maintaining full clarity of mind and not obsessing over a goal of some kind. This, unfortunately, caused the entire experience to be much worse on the mental level.

“No other choice though,” he mused while jumping out of the way of a few dozen wind blades. He couldn’t show those people that he could still use Lightning Steps, but he had a hard time holding his voice in after such a reckless dodge. Thankfully, thanks to the wild attacks of this original martial master of the fifth rank, the nearby martial masters of the fourth rank opted to get out of the way. “And those four are just there,” he thought and this time, he had to suppress a slight smile. The four team-leaders went out of their way to wait for one another, so they would be coming all at once. He wasn’t looking forward to weathering down their attacks in the first instant, but he could only grit his teeth and do it. He had been the one to insist on this plan, after all, so he couldn’t lose his cool.

So, for just a little bit, Yin forced himself to ignore the burning pain in his chest and his arm alongside all the unpleasant sensations coming from such a gory wound. For just a moment, he emptied his mind of even the smallest of the casual thoughts and shifted his entire attention to his surroundings. With sparks of emerald lightning dancing all over his body, he employed his Thundercloud Sword Art to its fullest, all the while empowering his every movement with Phantasmal Essence. He didn’t quite notice because of how focused he was, but the moment his dual-element Phantasmal Essence washed over his wounds, the flow of blood lessened and the wound started closing slightly.

In turn, this accidental benefit allowed Yin’s mind to become perfectly clear as the pain he was forced to bear with suddenly decreased by a level. With the five martial masters of the fifth rank trying to attack him all at once, Yin shifted his body ever so slightly and dashed in one direction at a fairly low, seemingly unbalanced stance. His movements appeared casual and slow, but they were anything but that as the blades of the team-leaders swished past his body. Some of the attacks missed entirely as he had run away from them, others he dodged, just like the slash of the man one he was targeting, but two still landed. He would have been able to either block or dodge him in his perfect condition, but currently, this outcome was already good enough.

As such, Yin once again grit his teeth and paid no mind to two burned slashes that were added to his wounds, one on the right side of his stomach and one of the left side of his hips. The blows landed, but they didn’t hit clearly and so they failed to break his bones and couldn’t be considered critical. They still did manage to make his concentration flatter slightly, so the slash he sent at the enemy in front of him ended up giving the man a light wound, what forced him to use more Qi to achieve the desired effect. Naturally, however, since he enhanced the slash with more emerald lightning, the martial master soon had his Qi Origin shattered and his internal organs turned into charcoal.

Having killed one of the five enemies, Yin unwillingly stopped for a split-second as his body tensed up from overexertion. No matter how strong his will was, it would be hard for him to fight those four when he was so wounded and had to preserve the last bits of his Qi for Abdain. However, just before the next wave of attacks arrived, the wave of Phantasmal Essence of Laien’s snuck through the four men. It engulfed his body, then activated in full strength, drawing in the surrounding bits of natural energy and forcefully changing them into water-element spiritual energy.

Once the healing started, all three serious wounds of Yin’s stopped hurting to a large degree. They wouldn’t close in the literal blink of an eye since no Laien’s own energy was infused into the Phantasmal Essence, but this healing process was more than enough. As strength surged back to his body, Yin pushed off the ground in what should have been a forceful kick but ended up being a light movement. His wounds opened up from the exertion and his ribs creaked dangerously, but he knew he could now afford to move at full force, so he didn’t hold back. Those four team-leaders were still shocked by the events unfolding before their eyes, so it was a great opportunity to reap their lives!

After dodging a follow-up intuitive slash of the man he was attacking, Yin flipped his wrist and slashed through the man’s torso from down below. Having almost ripped the man in half, he didn’t need to use much Qi to make sure to finish him off. Instead, he employed Lightning Steps and quickly killed one more of the team-leaders, leaving only two in his immediate surroundings. He didn’t waste any time and despite every movement reopening his constantly healing wounds, he engaged one of the men and after dodging one attack, then fending off another one, he took the man’s life.

The last of the original five started to flee by this point, but since he had purposefully left fire-element martial masters for later, all he had to do was speed up and cut him down from behind. Once overtaken by fear, one bad decision was enough to make even such an elite into a headless chicken. After all, carelessly showing one’s back to an opponent like Yin couldn’t possibly end well.

Alas, having killed the fifth and last of the man, Yin couldn’t help but stagger slightly as he coughed up a mouthful of blood. “I might have overdone it a bit,” he thought bitterly. His reckless attacks put too much pressure on his body, so one of his ribs ended up piercing his right lung. Laien’s Phantasmal Essence was doing its best to heal him, but he had to use his own Qi to force the rib out of the lung to make the healing effective. Had Laien been right next to him, he would have taken care of it while doing the healing, but since they were roughly eighty meters apart, it was a bit hard to do for Laien.

“Damn,” Yin cursed silently again and coughed up blood for the second time. He had pushed the rib out and his lung was being healed, but it would take some time before he could fight properly again. Unwilling to entangle in another clash without at least having his lung and ribs taken care of, he made a decisive choice and used Lightning Steps two times in quick succession in order to get to Laien. This resulted in his ribs shifting about again, but this time, he had stifled the movements of his upper body by tensing his muscles, so apart from quite some pain, he suffered no further wounds.

“How do we stop them though?” Yin asked himself as Laien began actively healing him up. There were still over eighty martial masters of the fourth rank in front of them and it was only because of the hesitation of those enemies of theirs that the two of them hadn’t been overrun yet. With merely twenty meters separating them from those ruby-golden-robed elites, they truly didn’t have many choices. If they were to use up the rest of their energy without reserves, then it would be possible to deal with those eighty men… but they couldn’t! They kept thinking about having to preserve their strength for later whether they wanted to or not, what added to their frustration.

“Charge through!”

At this time, Yimar Maar finally pushed the last bodies of the members of the Black Sword Unit and started moving towards Arslan, too. The people of the Black Sword appeared to have done their utmost to delay Yimar Maar, to the point that the man was only able to move after killing the last one of them. They had bought the necessary time for Laien and Yin in this way, but the price they had to pay was the eradication of their entire unit. What’s worse, there were half a hundred ruby-golden-robed men coming from the side of the cliff-wall. By the looks of it, their group had sacrificed their last team-leaders to delay Casimir and Anna and were similarly charging forward.

“Should we run?” The question crossed Laien’s and Yin’s minds. If they made the choice now, they would still be able to take Arslan and prolong the end of this battle by a little bit. They weren’t ones who liked to rely on random chances, but if they bought more time, then Casimir’s predicted timing should come soon and they should all be saved. Unless, of course, their reinforcements didn’t come or were delayed for some reason… then it would be a total disaster.

“Fight!”

Just as the two of them were wavering, Reian’s yell resounded throughout the battlefield. The two of them saw Reian himself coming over, apparently aiming to entangle Yimar Maar in a fight. This recklessness would undoubtedly come at the price of dozens of lives of the men of the White Sword Unit, but once again, did they truly have any other choice but to struggle to the end by this point?

Thinking about it in this way, Laien and Yin both jumped backwards and disappeared behind the layer of icy mist. Since it was Laien who created this magic, it wouldn’t obstruct his aura and since the two of them could share senses, they would both be able to tell what was going on. They were still at a disadvantage since they had to defend those who were merely thirty or forty meters behind them, but at the same time, their enemies would most likely refuse to use any large-scale martial techniques. By this reasoning, Laien extended the reach of his icy mist as much as possible while not harming his friends and companions. Then, both he and Yin started moving within the mist and while making full use of their Phantasmal Essences and overbearing Weapon Arts, they started a massacre.

As for Yimar Maar, he at first intended to ignore Reian, but once he realized that his instincts were screaming in alarm, he looked over his shoulder again. This time, his eyes went wide and he turned around without a second thought. He didn’t know how, but Reian was moving towards him so fast that it seemed as if he was repeatedly using short-distance Wind Steps! He had no idea how Reian was capable of a feat even Mustafa had been unable to accomplish, but he felt lucky. Had his instincts not warned him, he might have been heavily wounded or even killed by Reian from behind. After all, the moment his aura sensed Reian, it would have already been too late for him to react.

Just like that, Yimar Maar and Reian entangled in a duel, causing tongues of wind and flames to explode in all directions. Reian’s immense potential and Yimar Maar’s acquired strength appeared to be fairly evenly matched, so even as the two men went all-out, neither of them was able to gain an advantage in a short period of time. Rather, it was Yimar Maar who quickly started restraining the scope of his attacks in an attempt to reduce the outwards influence of their fight. Just the collateral damage from the first few clashes had caused more than ten of his ruby-golden-robed elites to die, so he wasn’t willing to keep going at full throttle as to not kill his own subordinates needlessly.

Contrary to Yimar Maar, however, Reian had no intentions of restraining himself. Rather than that, he used his advantage in speed and agility to force the collateral damage to spread towards Yimar Maar’s people. Of course, this inefficient and crude way of fighting came at the cost of both him and Yimar Maar exhausting themselves at a very quick rate, but he didn’t mind. He had to lessen the burden on Laien and Yin even if just by a little since alone, those two wouldn’t be able to halt a hundred martial masters of the fourth rank. Well, at the very least, not when the area they had to defend was so small and not when all of those people were advancing in one huge wave.

Meanwhile, behind the thick layer of icy mist, a whole bunch of people was waiting in nervous anticipation for any enemies to appear. Sirius stood somewhat further in the back, amongst the horses, Gahar was nowhere to be seen, while the remaining six martial-oriented guards of Laien’s were in the front, forming two crescent formations. Finally, the last person present with any combat ability, the old man Rakar, was standing in the back and to the side, protecting Sarah and her family. Only Kasha and Arslan were nowhere to be seen, the two of them hiding nearby, amongst the tightly crowded and fairly restless hundreds of horses.

They could all hear the incredibly loud sounds of Reian and Yimar Maar’s clashes from further away. At the same time, they could hear the sounds of people dying and of blades clashing within the mist in front of them. Waiting like that, they could only swallow nervously. Even Sirius and Gahar, both of whom tended to be calm at all times, were finding it hard to suppress their nerves. The two of them hadn’t had a goal to strive towards for a long time, but now they had one, coincidentally almost the same one. Gahar wanted to serve under Laien, while Sirius wanted to do the same but only after helping Arslan stand on his own two feet. Thus, the two of them were unwilling to die just yet.

As all of them waited, the seconds flowed forward. For a moment, they were beginning to think that Yimar Maar’s elites would crumble and would be unable to get past Laien and Yin. However, those hopes were soon extinguished as the first, second and the third man leaped out of the icy mist.

The three men had elated looks on their faces, but one of them died with this exact expression as Gahar appeared from within the shadows at the edge of the icy mist and gnashed a short sword into the back of his neck. Then, the second of the three men fell prey to the pre-prepared ice magic of Sirius’s and despite being a fire-element practitioner, was turned into mincemeat by spikes of ice.

The third of the men, though, had more luck and immediately attacked the trio of Ruan, Liza, and Jin. He slashed out once with his sword of wind and met the broadsword of Ruan’s, who had rouse all of his Qi and gathered all bodily strength to resist the attack. The result of this singular clash was predictable, however. Precisely, the broadsword was forced out of Ruan’s hands by the immense weight behind the enemy’s blow and the remnant force of the wind mangled both of his forearms.

The ruby-golden-robed man then completely ignored the incoming attacks from Liza and Jin and followed up with another slash at Ruan. His direct defense was rather weak as he was a wind-element practitioner, but he wasn’t so worthless that he, as an elite martial master of the fourth rank, would fear attacks of rather average martial masters of the first rank. He intended to kill the only one of the three who could pose some threat to him, then move on. He had been fearing for his life throughout most of this battle, but now that he was at the finish line, his thoughts inevitably went elsewhere. What if he was the one to capture Arslan? Yimar Maar would surely reward him handsomely, maybe he would be able to advance to the fifth rank and become a Yimar in the future? What if he could leave behind a strong family with his own bloodline? How great would it be?

Such cozy thoughts were pleasant, but they caused the man to fail to notice the change in Liza’s movements. So, while in the next split-second he blocked the slash of Jin’s greatsword with his left forearm, he at the same time had the woman tackle him at the stomach. This suicidal way of fighting startled the man so much that in addition to the force behind Liza’s body, his blow against Ruan grew somewhat weaker and instead of cutting Ruan in half from shoulders downwards, it left a huge and deep cut across his chest. This wound was lethal if not treated immediately, but it at least offered a ray of hope instead of an instant tip to the world of eternal darkness.

“Damned pests!” the ruby-golden-robed man snarled and smashed the top of Liza’s head with his right elbow, causing her to fall off him and to the ground powerlessly. The next instant, he swept out with his left arm twice and using a gust of wind, he first blew Jin away, straight into the crowd of horses, then send the three weaklings running at him from the side into the rocky wall of the mine. He wasn’t about to waste time to finish off the as-good-as-dead martial master of the second rank who fell in front of him, so he rushed towards those in the back. “Where’s Arslan?” he questioned, his eyes squinting. That assassin and the spiritual master from the White Guard were busy dealing with more of his companions who were getting out of the icy mist of that Devil, but if he wasted too much time, then who knew when an ice spike would hit his back or a dagger would pierce his neck.

“Damnation, is he hiding?” the man thought angrily. Then, he tilted his head to the side and dodged an arrow, the frown on his face deepening. What was a girl who didn’t even cultivate a Martial Art doing, firing arrows at him? He would have ignored her and the rest of the kids in the back after killing that old man who was already chagrining towards him, but since she was asking for it, he would slaughter them all on the way! At the very least, he wouldn’t be wasting any time doing so, only a minuscule amount of Qi, so he thought it was perfectly fine.

“Bunch of weaklings,” he thought again, perhaps purely in order to vent his emotions. He had been fighting for his life this entire time, so with his character, it was hard for him to keep calm. Thus, when the old man in the first realm of heroes charged at him with a wide, above-head swing, he didn’t think much and slashed him at the waist. His attack slicked the old man in two without any problems and he simply swept out with his hand to push the incoming greatsword away from his head, what also happened just like he predicted.

Yet, what he didn’t expect to happen was the old man keeping his consciousness and using the momentum of the run to latch onto his shoulder with one hand. Before he had enough time to push the old man away, he saw a thick steel nail flash in the old man’s right hand. The next sensation which came to him was unbearable pain from where his left eye used to be, but what was the more terrifying that alongside pain, he could feel his thoughts darkening. As someone who had gone through many bloody battles, how could he not realize that this crazy old man injured his brain? If he wasn’t healed quickly, then even if his life was saved, he would become permanently retarded!

“Ah… Aaaah!” He yelled out in madness just as the realization hit him. There wasn’t anyone to heal him! Even if his allies broke through, all their water-element practitioners were dead and they had no light-element practitioners in their ranks! One crazy old man, he was bound to become a retard because he underestimated one crazy old man! “AHHH!” unable to restrain himself, and with his mind and soul already injured, he lost control of his remaining Qi. There was only about thirty percent of it, but it was Qi of an elite martial master of the fourth rank!

His skin started breaking apart and his body grew bloody, his stomach and chest puffing up dangerously. Then, he exploded into a mass of gore as his own wind-element Qi went berserk. This self-implosion resulted in a multitude of extremely sharp wind blades spreading in every direction. Needless to be said, a portion of it went straight at Sarah and the others.

While it took a while to describe, the time from the man’s second yell to the explosion itself was very short. Once Sarah and the others saw the mass of wind slash at the air and the ground as it spread in all directions, they had little to no time to react, especially given how low their cultivations were.

At this time, Sarah felt herself and Johan be swept up by Albert as he forced the two of them to their knees and used his own back to protect them. She wanted to cry out that she was unwilling to let him die, but the words got stuck in her throat when the person she least expected to see appeared before her eyes. As the man stood with his back to the explosion, she saw the man’s smile, the same genuinely gentle smile the man had always shown to her. At this moment, she was so shocked that she forgot to think about anything, the expression on her face turning blank.

Then, for a little bit, everything turned dark before she could once again open her eyes. She could tell that she was laying on her back and that Albert was on top of her. Moreover, as soon as she tried to get up, she saw that Albert suffered merely some superficial wounds on his legs and back. However… as her eyes moved to the right, she saw a mangled body of the man who shielded the three of them.

Finally, the voice which had been stuck in her throat rose up and escaped through her lips.

“Father!”