He heard his friend’s glib remark: “Who invited those guys?”
Now, instead of just climbing the beast’s leg, they also had to swing from side to side, doing their best to avoid the arrows. The nomadic sectarians shouted and hooted. For them, this was practically a game, and they encouraged each other as they pointed at the two silhouettes dangling from the huge bull’s leg.
“We’re about to be turned into hedgehogs!” Nero cried out as another arrow brushed against his cheek, leaving a long cut.
“Grab my leg!”
“What?”
“My leg!”
Hadjar pulled Moon Beam partway out of the wound on the bull’s leg. His sturdy, flexible blade easily handled his weight. When the General felt Nero’s grip on his ankle, he tensed his hands, and then, straightening up, hurled himself and Nero toward the nomads.
Swearing up a storm, Nero soared through the sky. He’d once again been launched like a cannonball. After covering a good twenty yards, he pushed off again and ended up above the archers’ heads. The nomads didn’t immediately realize that the angel of death was descending upon them. Alas, they never would.
The commander of the Bear squad didn’t wait to land. He swung his heavy blade and the nomads, as well as a piece of the bull’s flesh, were cut to pieces by the giant palm crowned with powerful blades.
While this Technique easily dealt with the archers, it didn’t do much damage the monster. That’s why Hadjar was very surprised and almost lost his life when the bull roared and began to furiously jump up and down, shaking its huge head.
Apparently, Nero had accidentally hit a nerve or something to that effect.
The beast’s horns turned the fighters around it into a nightmarish mess. Fleeing in terror and paying no attention to their opponents, both the sectarians and the Moon soldiers scattered in different directions. Hadjar watched a black mountain getting closer.
The bull was moving toward it, either to rub against it or to ease its pain.
Hadjar pulled his blade out and flew away. Using the ‘Ten Ravens’ Technique, he carefully monitored the expenditure of his energy points. He flew over the black rock like a raven’s shadow. He raced along the steep slope as easily as if he were on the parade ground. He pushed off and turned in the air, landing next to Nero who was wrapped in the bull’s fur.
“What’s the plan?” Nero shouted, but all Hadjar could hear was a muffled whisper.
It was difficult to compete with the bull’s roar.
The General looked at the wooden fortification. The people there weren’t paying much attention to the beast’s unsteady gait. All of them were strapped to special poles. Apparently, they were used to it by now.
“Let’s start with that fort.”
Nero nodded. When the bull crashed into the mountain, breaking off chunks that were as big as a house, he rushed forward. Hadjar followed him. Without stopping or even slowing down, they deflected numerous arrows and even cannonballs. The enemy had also set up cannons on the bull’s back.
Again, without saying a single word, once they reached the gate of the fort, the friends exchanged places.
Moon Beam glittered, forming an impenetrable dome that arrows and cannonballs couldn’t get through. Hadjar wielded the blade with such speed that its movements merged into a silver cocoon.
He could’ve used the second stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Technique instead, but he didn’t want to waste energy. Maybe he’d need to use his most powerful and energy-consuming Techniques later.
Behind him, Nero prepared his attack. When the vortices of energy almost touched Hadjar’s back, the General jumped to the side. A couple of inches from his feet, the ship’s prow floated along the bull’s back. Ripping through the skin and plunging into the blood pouring forth from the wounds, it crashed into the gate, which shattered into splinters. The people there were hurtled into the abyss.
Hadjar and Nero rushed into the fort like hungry foxes into a henhouse. Their swords collected a rich harvest. Without hesitation, Hadjar immediately flew up the stairs to the parapet. Three sectarians got in his way. The stairwell was so narrow that they had to stand behind each other and hold on to the walls of the swaying fort.
The bull continued to rub against the rock, occasionally changing the angle at which the warriors had to fight on its massive back.
[Falling time: 17... 16... 15 seconds]
One of the sectarians swung his sickle and the black, misty face of a demon started to appear. But Hadjar was faster. Much faster. None of the practitioners had time to so much as blink before their heads and bodies fell into the abyss.
Hadjar’s strike was able to leave a deep gouge in the rock, 52 steps away.
While Nero was crushing the people on the ground floor, Hadjar was whirling around the second floor. He turned into a human tornado, striking from the most incredible angles. His body seemed to be devoid of bones and tendons with how impossible some of his contortions seemed as he flew through the air.
In less than a minute, it was all over and more than six dozen sectarians had gone to meet their forefathers.
Covered in both other people’s and their own blood, Nero and Hadjar met up in the main tower of the fort. From there, the sectarians were firing explosive charges that carried the dark, rotting disease. They didn’t seem to care that they’d infect more of their own warriors than the enemy’s.
Hadjar presumed that the sect had an antidote for the poison.
“Now will you tell me the details of your brilliant plan?”
Nero gestured toward the center of the battle. They were about a thousand yards away from the bull beginning its rampage against the Moon army. Such a titanic creature would easily get there in two, maybe three strides.
“I’m thinking.”
Hadjar used all of the neural network’s computing abilities, but it couldn’t find the best way out of the situation. There was too much input, too many variables, and too few constants.
“To the demons with your ‘thinking’!” Nero seized his comrade’s shoulder and jumped down. “Let’s improvise!”
Before the jump, the commander of the Bear squad managed to grab a rope tied around one of the powder kegs. Gripping it tightly, Nero and Hadjar flew toward the ground. They looked into the uncomprehending eyes of the bull. They were huge and black, like two bottomless pits.
As they fell, Nero spun his hand and the rope shifted, throwing the barrel in the direction of the monstrosity’s left eye.
Hadjar didn’t need any prompting.
Still falling, he sheathed his sword and then drew it abruptly. A dragon was launched from his blade and struck the barrel. The explosion scorched the bull’s oily eyes. It grunted and collapsed on the mountain. That was the last thing it did in its life.
The explosion was powerful enough to knock even eyes as huge as these out of their sockets. Not encountering any resistance, Hadjar’s Technique lodged itself deep in the beast’s brain.
The beast’s huge knees buckled and its hooves clattered against the ground, gouging out deep furrows.
Hadjar and Nero landed on one of the monster’s horns and slid down it like village children sliding down an icy hill.
To the General’s surprise, he landed at the very spot where he’d begun the battle from.
“I’ll kill you!” The Master roared, still unable to intervene in the battle.
Hadjar waved his hand imperiously and the riders circling the sectarian parted.
“Try,” he said, his voice inhuman.
Chapter 169
The Master didn’t rush in. He was like a beast that had found dangerous prey, like a wolf circling a bear, getting ready to go for its enemy’s throat.
Hadjar stood still, even looking relaxed. The wind ruffled his clothes and blood dripped down from his face and hands. Surprisingly, his sword was still clean and shining with a steely light. Not a single spot or scratch marred the blade.
Despite the Master wearing heavy armor, as
well as armored boots and gloves, his steps were light. He slid along the black sand, not leaving any footprints.
They charged forward at the same time.
The wolf and the dragon.
Ghostly fangs flashed around the Master’s gloves. Hadjar’s sword resembled a tooth of the Lord of the Heavens—sharp and ready to pierce any obstacle.
When they collided, they kicked up dirt and even crushed stones. The soldiers surrounding the General and his enemy hid behind their shields. The captured sectarians bellowed something. The Moon soldiers held sharp daggers at their necks, and they’d been gagged with filthy rags.
While the healers were carrying the wounded soldiers away from the battlefield, the General was finishing the battle.
When the first skirmish ended, Hadjar took two steps back and the Master took about ten. Even through his iron mask that looked like one of Derger’s dogs, his astonishment could clearly be seen. The Master had the second highest position in the sect’s hierarchy. He’d received orders from the Patriarch himself, after the man had come out of his long meditation.
He’d previously thought that the Mad General was no more than a myth the villagers had made up, but now he faced a truly worthy foe. The warrior seemed fragile and sleek, but had the eyes of a demon that had crawled out of the abyss.
The thin hands that gripped the sword contained an unprecedented power.
The Master held out his fist and covered it with his palm.
“Stone Robarg,” he said, introducing himself respectfully.
The General held his sword in a backwards grip and repeated his foe’s gesture, “Hadjar Traves.”
They nodded to each other. Nothing more needed to be said. Stone Robarg planted his feet wide, slightly lowered his body, and as he exhaled, pushed his palms into the air forcefully. A powerful whirlwind of energy rose up around him, then turned into a giant dog, the same one depicted on his gloves.
“South Gate Wolf!” Robarg roared.
[Threat! Energy volume: 3,4 points]
His palms struck out with such force that they created a beast which dug up the ground and crushed the stones around it; the air pressure it exuded threw the soldiers back in different directions.
The cavalrymen who’d survived the encirclement immediately realized that the Master simply hadn’t wanted to waste his energy on them, and had been saving it for a true enemy. The Mad General.
Hadjar didn’t try to dodge the blow. He met it with a hard block.
The sword versus the palm. It was a stupid match up by the standards of mere mortals, but a serious one for practitioners on the cusp of becoming true cultivators.
It was difficult for the General to stay on his feet and not get flung back.
The Master continued pushing the air forward with his hands, nourishing the wolf with his energy and strength. Hadjar kept the sword in front of him like a shield. He stayed silent, just staring into the beast’s mouth.
At some point, the pressure became so strong that it dragged him along the ground. A step, two, ten, then farther still, until the General swung his blade.
He bent at an incredible angle, almost touching the ground with his back. His sword traced a horizontal spiral, slicing the wolf into thousands of ghostly ribbons. Then Hadjar disappeared.
Everyone in the army knew that their General was so fast that his shadow could become a raven. But what they saw then looked more like magic.
Hadjar vanished, turning into three black birds which flew over the ground and took on a human form again once they were behind Robarg.
Silently, like lightning without the accompanying thunder, the sword cut through the air, crashing into the Master’s crossed gloves. Unlike Hadjar, Robarg was able to withstand the pressure for only a few seconds. Then he was flung back like a ragdoll, flew nearly fifty feet, and then kept rolling across the ground.
Hitting the black sand with his palm, the Master was able to change direction and threw himself into the air. A more experienced, or perhaps less honorable, fighter would’ve taken advantage of his defenseless position.
However, Hadjar continued to stand still.
He waited for Robarg to get back up. The Master immediately assumed a new stance—arms crossed and legs bent at the knees.
“North Gate Wolf!”
This time, two red animal silhouettes charged Hadjar, conjured by the Master’s fists. They were much smaller than their previously used counterpart, but they were faster and attacked Hadjar from different angles. Burning the sand as they ran over it, they howled and rushed toward their prey.
One attacked from the right while the other took the left.
If the General had had a shield, no one would even think to worry about his life. But a swordsman with just one sword couldn’t defend himself from two attacks coming in from different sides.
Many of the soldiers rushed to help him, but they were stopped by a menacing glare from the Commander of the Bear squad. Nero believed in his friend as much as he believed in himself, he knew that Hadjar wasn’t that easy to kill.
The General remained so motionless that it seemed like even the muscles on his face were made of stone.
When the wolves were almost at Hadjar’s neck, he moved in an odd, incomprehensible manner. A cutting wind rose up, leaving deep scratches on the armor of the nearest soldiers. However, they didn’t notice. They were watching the General.
It seemed like the wolves had frozen in midair, and at that moment, Hadjar pulled out a second sword. In reality, he’d struck twice, but had done so quickly enough that it looked like he’d swung two swords at once.
While the soldiers were shocked, the Master was truly amazed. He suspected that very few people understood what lay beneath the veil of that speed. Even if Hadjar had been ten times faster, he wouldn’t have been able to use his full strength in such a situation and the wolves would’ve ripped out his throat.
Robarg felt something odd. Something he’d felt only once before, long ago, when the Patriarch had taken him as a disciple and showed him his power. Back then, that demonstration had invoked a similar feeling—a sense of energy that was much more violent and concentrated than a man could take from the great River.
Realizing that he wasn’t dealing with a myth, Robarg intended to use his most powerful Technique. The one that had repeatedly saved his life even in the most terrible battles, his greatest kill move.
His fists and steel gloves flashed with a scarlet light. They transformed into the jaws of a wolf, ready to rip and tear, to destroy his enemy.
Robarg roared, “Wolf of Sunset-”
A gasp sounded.
The spectators couldn’t understand what had happened, either. A moment ago, their General had been standing ten yards away from the enemy, but now he was sheathing his sword, and he was behind the Master.
The powerful man fell to his knees. Robarg tried to stop the blood gushing out of his severed artery. Alas, he didn’t succeed. He shuddered as death gripped him and he froze forever.
He was dead and covered in wounds. A practitioner that had been on the verge of becoming a true cultivator, and he hadn’t even managed to seriously wound the Mad General, the only trace of their battle a large bruise on Hadjar’s right shoulder.
Hadjar turned to his army. He looked at their tired, bloodied, but enthusiastic faces. This was their first joint victory in this war. By the gods, it wouldn’t be their last one.
The General abruptly raised his fist into the sky and almost two million people responded with the same gesture, flooding the gorge with their victorious roars.
Chapter 170
“It’s already become a tradition,” Nero whispered.
Hadjar couldn’t remember how many times they’d done this—maybe five, possibly six. A shroud of twilight had enveloped the mountains, and the three of them were lying among the stones and passing the old telescope between them.
Simon could’ve gotten them a better one, but this particular telescope had already be
come a kind of talisman.
“Hush,” Serra hissed, nudging her lover’s side.
The witch handed the telescope to Hadjar, who closed his left eye and peered through the dull glass. There was a wide plateau in front of them that looked like the horseshoe of an insanely huge creature—much larger than even the bull they’d managed to bring down a few days ago.
The plateau’s base was narrow but it widened toward the edges that had high rocks atop them, where numerous pavilions and buildings stood. Along with those, there were deep caves with carved out niches and private areas.
In the courtyards, among the many training grounds, which were very different from ordinary parade grounds, thousands of sectarians trained. Wearing their standard yellow, red, and black uniforms, they moved through different stances as directed by the loud commands of the Masters.
Other training grounds were used by people who were meditating, and the Masters also walked among them. Apparently, they were instructing them or reminding them about various meditation Techniques.
These were clearly the weakest of the sect’s disciples because this kind of collective training was useless for those who’d moved beyond the level of Core Formation. Those practitioners needed a strictly individual approach. The only way forward for them was through their own efforts. The various private little nooks had been carved out specifically for these students.
The friends also spotted high towers which could’ve been any number of things: libraries, alchemists’ labs, drug labs, or something else entirely.
Hadjar had never been part of a sect and people tended not to talk about their own time in one as the Ax clan went after blabbermouths.
This frightening splendor didn’t really impress Hadjar.
Still, he was finally able to see the famous Snake Gates of the sect. They really did interest him.
The two curves of the ‘horseshoe’ were fortified, turning the plateau into an impregnable fortress.
Made from a gray material that looked like wood, the fortifications were about 230ft tall, and their width, judging by the parapet and towers, exceeded 35ft. At the edges of the fortification, two titanic sickles waited, exuding malice. Affixed to huge cogwheels, they functioned as a single mechanism, and would easily cut down any siege towers that assaulted the walls.
Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 48
