Mysterious Martial Arts: The Record of the Swordsman

Chapter 299: The Cliff Roars and Splits

There is hazy mist in Zhanlu Mountain.

A gust of wind blew quietly by my ears, and the chess boy who looked like a figurine stood up involuntarily and was quietly pushed to the other side of the chessboard, revealing the empty chess position directly opposite Jiang Wen. However, that spacious position seemed to have been occupied by a mysterious aura at this moment.

[What a good move, the 'cannon-crushing cinnabar killing method'. 】

Jiang Wen smiled slightly.

"Master Zhao is indeed very knowledgeable. My Cannon Rolling Cinnabar uses the Rook and Cannon to invade the opponent's bottom line, and uses the power of the Rook to sweep away the opponent's Rook and other pieces, thus killing the opponent. How do you crack this game?"

And from the darkness came a voice that seemed neither happy nor sad.

[Although this move is clever, it is too rigid. With both vehicles and artillery being deployed, there is only progress but no retreat.]

At this moment, a strange force had enveloped the chessboard, locking every chess piece. When the strong wind came again, the black and white chess pieces originally placed on the chessboard surged like waves, and suddenly swirled to form an undulating vortex, trapping the stone with the word "car" engraved on it that was moving forward, and it was instantly unable to move - it had actually controlled the black and white pieces together, turning it into a dilemma with the whole world being the enemy.

[Things in life are unpredictable. How can you know who is actually controlling the black and white chess pieces on the field? If you are surrounded by ants and swarms, fighting against the enemy, even if your chess pieces are brave, they may not be able to return.]

Jiang Wen frowned slightly. He tried to stretch out his hand to move, but was resisted by a strange force. His arm seemed to be stuck in the mud and he could not move.

"It's okay. As my disciple, you should pursue chivalry. The road to chivalry is always bumpy. But don't ask why it's bumpy."

Afterwards, Jiang Wen raised his hand with a smile, and there was a hissing sound. From an angle that ordinary people could not expect, a small stone shot over with extremely fast speed and strong force. The sound of breaking was extremely loud, and it immediately fell on a corner of the chaotic chessboard, first knocking off a piece of black and white chess pieces to create a sudden blank space, and then echoing with the "chariot" in the distance to form a corner of each other.

As the strange force on the chessboard was forcibly broken, Jiang Wen slowly put away his finger-snapping technique.

"I have already broken one of the three killing moves you set. If you don't make another move, I'm afraid you will be at a disadvantage."

Zhao Wuji's voice was ethereal, without a trace of worldly air, as if the two of them were really just old friends playing chess, cheating and regretting their moves but never hurting each other's relationship.

[Very good, but what Zhao fears least in his life is exchanging pieces.]

The situation of the black and white chess was broken, and the whole situation on the chessboard became puzzling. Jiang Wen was fully prepared, waiting for the opponent to make a move, and also waiting for the moment when this eternal night would dawn, but the facts are often so sinister that they are difficult to predict.

The chess boy did not make any move. The strange force attacked again. The empty space around the wandering chess piece was suddenly surrounded by densely packed red chess pieces, like an insurmountable wall of fire, which put the chess piece in trouble again.

[You can capture the black and white pieces as much as you want. Zhao still has this red piece in his hand.]

Jiang Wen stared at the chessboard and fell into deep thought.

………………

Falling, falling, endless falling.

Hong Wendi first felt that the city wall beneath his feet turned into a surging wave and threw him up. Then his feet lost their footing and his body fell uncontrollably. Then, a buzzing sound suddenly rang in his ears.

This is because the eardrum has been greatly shocked in a very short period of time, causing the nerves to become sluggish for protection.

The raging flames that were devouring people all around seemed particularly silent, and they threw the blue bricks that had been piled up for who knows how many years, along with Hong Wendi, who had lost control of his body, into the cold river.

Sinking, sinking, sinking endlessly.

Hong Wendi was immersed in the cold water. The river water slightly dissipated the force of the explosion, but it also prevented him from regaining control of his body.

As if looking through the river water through a cold glass, he saw the shattered wreckage of some small boats sinking to the bottom of the water. The planks were covered with hideous torn marks. Then a series of black boat shadows swam past him and quickly approached the ruins of the destroyed Watergate.

Hong Wendi seemed to have heard some noisy noises. He stretched out his hands with all his strength to climb towards the oars, then used the force to jump suddenly, and fell on the deck in a very embarrassing manner.

Rows of Qing soldiers carrying arrows and swords were looking sideways, and when they saw Hong Wendi suddenly appear, they drew their swords and stabbed him without saying a word!

Hong Wendi was about to stand up when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest and abdomen. The shock caused by the explosion had seriously damaged his Dantian Qi Sea. Every time he exerted his Qi, he felt a heart-wrenching pain. He felt a little relieved after spitting out a mouthful of dirty blood, but an intense feeling of fatigue surged into his heart.

He punched with both fists, forced himself forward, and blocked the swords of the Qing soldiers. He gathered all his strength in his shoulders and elbows, and actually pushed the lightly armored soldier five steps away. After losing his balance, he accidentally fell into the river.

Then another pair of knives came slashing at him. Hong Wendi endured the pain and turned his fists into claws. He clasped the wrist of a Qing soldier with his tiger claws and twisted it backwards. He took advantage of the situation and kicked him into the crowd, thus defusing the attack again.

But after these two moves, the bruised and battered Hong Wendi could no longer hold on. He held onto the side of the boat and gasped violently, barely able to keep his body steady. He only felt that the things in front of him were blurry and unclear, and it was obvious that his blood was boiling and difficult to control.

"There are still survivors... should we capture them or kill them?"

Someone in the crowd asked a question, and Hong Wendi seemed to realize that something was wrong, with thoughts churning in his mind.

More importantly, he finally saw clearly what Chong'an County Magistrate Guan Shengjun had done.

Guan Shengjun originally hoped to mobilize troops from other counties to suppress the civil unrest, and take advantage of the situation to eliminate the power of the Jingqi Sect and regain power. However, even if the county magistrates of other counties were all kind and noble, how could they mobilize these unprofitable soldiers? How could they give the prefect a reasonable excuse to reach out to Chong'an?
Since there isn't one, I can only make one myself...

For example, if we first have soldiers from other counties stationed there, and then blame it on the Jingqi sect for the rebellion, and then enter the city to plunder and suppress it, wouldn't that be the best of both worlds? As for the sequence of events, the cause and effect, as long as the money from above is sufficient, I'm sure the prefect won't ask too much.

However, what Guan Shengjun did not expect was that these people were not only satisfied with using the passage to quell the rebellion, but also wanted to directly create the appearance that the whole city was in rebellion - doing so also had an advantage, that is, there was no need to distinguish between the evil people of the Jingqi Sect, and they could just rush into the city and "search for three days", and how much benefit they could get depended entirely on their own ability.

Anyway, they were not unfamiliar with such experiences, and they did not care about the life or death of the magistrate of Chong'an County - if the magistrate lost the city due to war and banditry, if he was determined to have failed to guard the city properly and failed to notice the destruction of the city, he would be dismissed from office and investigated at the very least, or exiled or executed at the worst.

The county magistrate Guan Shengjun himself had condoned the Jingqi Sect's rebellion and caused great trouble. Even if his superiors investigated, he would still be to blame. Hong Wendi was afraid that he would give up at this moment, and the people of Chong'an County would inevitably be implicated, and another inevitable disaster would befall everyone.

Hong Wending thought that something was not good and that they must delay their entry into the city. This matter was so strange that it was obvious that someone was manipulating it behind the scenes. If the Jingqi Sect and the officers and soldiers from other counties met in the city, then everything would be irreversible.

"Be careful! He's going back to report!"

Amid the exclamations of the Qing soldiers, Hong Wendi suddenly slapped the side of the boat, and his body fell backwards, falling straight into the deep and dark river water. Then he struggled to climb up the water plants to hide, ready to disappear in the waves.

But not long after, Hong Wendi felt that his whole body was entangled tightly, and a thick fishing net was coming towards him. It was a large net with thick ropes specially used for catching people that was thrown into the water. It would be difficult to break free without a sharp knife in his hand.

The Qing soldiers seemed to know how difficult Hong Wendi was, so they deliberately trapped him in a fishing net and dragged him behind a canal boat, allowing the river water to wash him away and constantly wrap him up with water plants. They did not want the fishing net to be exposed to the water surface for even a moment, and they wanted to drown him.

The boat was submerged for more than a quarter of an hour. The Qing soldiers thought that even the most skilled swimmers would suffocate to death, so they ordered the boatmen to work together and use the inertia of the boat to pull the thick rope, large net and water plants to the surface of the water and hang them on the mast.

"…seems to be wearing camp clothes."

"It might be the night watchman. Maybe he saw us."

"Wait a minute... there seems to be some movement on the network?"

"...What happened in Chong'an County tonight doesn't need him."

"Little understands."

There were voices on the troop transport ship, and it seemed that two people were talking about the salvaged Hong Wendi. After a brief silence, there was the sound of a sword being unsheathed, and someone walked over in a low voice.

"Brother, you are really lucky, but it's time to let go. You are not old, and you will be able to walk quickly on the road to the underworld... I will kill you quickly, and I don't ask you to remember this favor. Just don't come after me later..."

After saying this, the man was about to draw his knife and stab it into the fishing net.

For a person like this who is tightly tied up in a fishing net, even if you have a thousand pounds of strength, you can't exert much force. Killing him is not much more difficult than killing a pig. You just need to stab him in the stomach and twist it. The knife will pierce the intestines from the bottom to the top, and then penetrate into the heart and lungs. It will be over in a few breaths.

But at the moment when the tip of the knife pierced the fishing net, the thick rope fishing net hanging on the bow of the boat suddenly shook violently. A strange force caused it to twist and turn continuously, causing the water plants and the fishing net to shrink inward. The sharp knife was suddenly swept away before it could even stab in, and even the gold and iron were twisted and creaked.

"Damn it, how come you're dead so quickly?"

"I haven't stabbed him yet! Damn it, we might not catch anyone but a water ghost!"

The people on the lead boat panicked, seeing that the fishing net had been twisted and swung repeatedly, and had turned into a giant black cocoon. Water plants and black water dripped between the planks, forming a strange rhythm like a heartbeat. The Qing soldiers tried to poke it with spears, but were weakened by an invisible force. Even if they occasionally managed to pierce the giant black cocoon, they only made muffled sounds and were completely unable to break through the shell.

The huge cocoon of fishing net hanging on the bow of the ship was constantly exerting downward force, pressing down on the thick mast so hard that it made a creaking sound. It seemed that it might break free at any time. The Qing soldiers were terrified. They ordered the boatman to quickly dock, while they surrounded the huge cocoon with long weapons in their hands, not daring to relax at all.

With a crisp click, the black cocoon was finally tightened and twisted to the limit. The large man-catching net woven with thick ropes could no longer maintain its status quo. At the moment when the mast suddenly broke, a dark crack appeared, and then the water plants and fishing nets exploded together, and a ghostly figure rushed out!

Deng!
The Qing soldiers saw a ghostly figure entangled in broken ropes of water plants, jumping from the bow to the side of the boat as fast as lightning, and using both hands to push away the forest of bullets in front of them. The huge force was hard to resist.

"Quickly bring a torch! Burn this water ghost to death!"

The leader of the Qing soldiers retreated quickly, and his men beside him took out torches and burned them, hoping to scare away the unrecognizable ghost. But the ghost did not retreat, but instead rushed towards them with a hunched body. After bumping into the two of them, it jumped over the side of the ship and onto another boat.

The Qing soldiers on another boat heard the noise and watched from afar. At this time, they found that a water ghost was rushing towards them. Their hair stood on end instantly, but they were not unprepared. They saw several people approaching with an iron pipe. One of them held the pipe with one hand, and another approached to light it. There was a loud bang, and gravel bullets shot out from the pipe, immediately hitting the water ghost that was rushing towards the boat!
"Hit! Water ghosts are most afraid of firearms, everyone, hurry up and shoot him to death!"

The muskets in the hands of the Qing soldiers were all old ones that had experienced the war in the late Ming Dynasty. When firing, they could only rely on feeling to bombard at close range. The procedure of loading gunpowder bullets was also quite cumbersome, and it was often difficult to achieve success in actual combat. However, there were no such problems under close-range scattering. They all shot at the strange shadow that fell to the bottom of the water, and loud noises came one after another.

However, Hong Wendi, who fell into the water again, seemed to wake up from a nightmare. The pain in his body was real, but the internal strength of the Tiancan in his body reached an unprecedented peak.

At this time, he was covered in wounds, the tendons of his hands and feet were broken to varying degrees, and the bones of his chest and abdomen were also severely damaged. An ordinary person would have been unable to move after such injuries, but the internal energy of the Heavenly Silkworm in his body was like a spring silkworm gnawing at his whole body, and it manipulated his entire body like a puppet. His mind was ahead of his intention, and his thoughts were in front of his body, and the movement was even smoother than usual!
Hong Wendi exhaled a breath of foul air. He vaguely guessed that he had just been to the gates of hell. If it were not for the magical function of the Heavenly Silkworm Divine Art to promote near-death transformation, even if he could barely save his life at this moment, he would not be able to display all his martial arts.

"I don't know what the situation is like over there, but I absolutely cannot let them enter the city..."

Hong Wendi's plan went around in circles but ultimately did not change. He and Xiao Shitou had to stop the government soldiers and the Jingqi Sect from advancing respectively, but they could not kill them and give the other side an excuse.

He swam in the water for a while, and suddenly climbed onto one of the troop transports. He still had a bullet stuck in his chest, but fortunately it was blocked by water plants, fishing nets and other objects. He killed the Qing soldiers on the boat like a ghost, and then jumped onto another ship, continuing to intimidate the other side and block their advance.

"Fire! Fire!"

Soon after Hong Wendi showed up, he heard a command from the other side that sounded stern but was actually weak. Then several black pipes were turned towards him, and they were ready to shoot without hesitation. Hong Wendi did not dare to confront them, so he dodged and passed under the boat, jumped onto the other side, and suddenly wanted to capture the leader who was wearing a captain's uniform at the bow and force them to stop.

But perhaps it was because Hong Wendi's current appearance was too terrifying, the captain who led the team suddenly had an idea and took off his light armor first, jumped into the water without hesitation, and ordered his men to advance at full speed in advance. Only by leaving the water could they escape the water ghost's pursuit.

Under the stimulation of supernatural powers, the Qing soldiers and boatmen suddenly burst out with amazing momentum. On one side, they fired muskets indiscriminately, and on the other side, they moved forward at a high speed. Even if their ship was destroyed and run aground, they would rush towards the broken gap in the city wall at all costs.

To make matters worse, the Qing soldiers also noticed his unarmed weakness, and they took out their hooks and sickles to fight off the enemy, waving them on the boat like snarling hedgehogs, which made it increasingly difficult for him to jump off the boat and climb up, so his moves were inevitably a little messy and awkward.

In a race against time, Hong Wendi used his fists to knock all the people on a boat into the water, and managed to stop the leading speedboat. However, several troop transports behind caught up with them, making no secret of their desire to get ashore. There were dozens of troop transports, some fast and some slow. Hong Wendi tried his best, but could only stop the dozen or so ships at the back. Obviously, there were more who escaped in the chaos, and they were more cunning and difficult to stop.

Although Hong Wendi's Heavenly Silkworm Magic Art had just broken through the bottleneck, the continuous consumption made it difficult for his internal energy circulation to continue, and it was even more difficult to control his attacks. Several times he could not help but use his killing moves to kill the enemy, but a mysterious meaning in his mind reminded him, making Hong Wendi understand that he should not kill anyone at this moment and it was not convenient to kill anyone.

It is not convenient to kill people, because the killing of soldiers from other counties will make Chong'an County solidify the reputation of rebellion, making the situation irreversible; and he should not kill people, because he has realized that the influence of the secret dragon-shaped fist has not dissipated yet. Once he has the intention to kill, this strange and bizarre martial art may devour him again at any time!

Seeing that a troop transport ship had docked between the ruins of the city wall, the Qing soldiers on the ship jumped off the ship one after another, and fled towards Chong'an County in panic with their weapons in hand. They were about to cross the water and step onto the stone slabs of the front street. Hong Wendi was anxiously wondering how to stop them, but suddenly, the soldiers in the front row who were running desperately staggered for some reason and fell to the ground, without any movement.

Such a weird situation made the Qing soldiers following behind dumbfounded. Many people stopped walking stiffly. The running crowd paused strangely. After a few seconds, some people continued to run forward in disbelief. But at the moment when they rushed out of the narrow door, they stumbled and fell to the ground without a sound. Then the Qing soldiers in the front row were like harvesting rice. As long as they came to the boundary of the front street, there would be figures falling to the ground, their lives unknown.

At the moment when the Qing soldiers held their breath in fear, Hong Wendi was unable to see clearly through the crowd. He only vaguely heard clear whispers on the narrow road where the Water Gate and Front Street intersected.

All I heard was a voice like an oriole chirping out of a valley speaking softly.

"Please remember, Master forbids you to kill anyone."

An arm vaguely appeared beside the house. It seemed to be wearing a black fur coat that was out of season, and holding a rusty hatchet in its hand. Hong Wendi looked strangely familiar with it.

He replied in a dull, stereotyped tone.

"It doesn't matter. I used the back of the knife."

The other voice paused for a moment, as if it had seen something slowly flowing out from under the fallen person, and then spoke hesitantly.

“But they are bleeding…”