by Fat Bread
By his estimation, the weakest one among them was at the top level of the 1st rank, and the strongest enemies were at the top level of the 2nd rank. All of them had the strength to fight with Yun Xi one on one, not to mention they were rushing forward at Yun Xi trying to kill him together.
When they gathered together, they were even more dangerous than the 3rd-ranked green hippo.
At least, the green hippo's moves were full of flaws that could be caught by him. However, even if he could kill one of the stone soldiers who were transformed from the participants in the village, how is it possible for him to kill them all?
This was the first time that Yun Xi experienced the power of an army.
"No, no... are you kidding me?" Yun Xi revived again while holding the newbie iron sword in his hand. He looked at the palaces in the distance, counting the number of his enemies and showing a forlorn look on his face after that.
"How is it possible to kill them all?"
"The difference between the newbie trial and a formal trial is too big!"
Once again, Yun Xi felt how heavy and hot the star's love for him was.
"I won't give up! Even if you're the geniuses of the White Lotus Sword Domain, I will step across your corpses to see my princess!"
Yun Xi gnashed his teeth in anger. Relying on his iron-like will he practiced during the Limit Practice, his Flying Swallow Sword and Quicksilver Motion, Yun Xi took the initiative to rush toward the stone soldier army.
The first attack of the Flying Swallow Sword!
Yun Xi didn't save any of his strength. By relying on his speed, Yun Xi took the advantage to kill one of the weaker stone soldiers first.
A ball of green soul flew out from the stone soldier's corpse. It naturally flew into Yun Xi's body and improved his physical strength a little.
The second attack of the Flying Swallow Sword! After measuring the angle, Yun Xi brandished his sword. This time, he killed three stone soldiers together.
However, his luck ran out. Before Yun Xi used the last attack of the Flying Swallow Sword, the Assassin's Sword, various weapons had smashed down from the sky aiming at him from all directions.
Those childes of noble families, who were drawn into the trial by the stars and transformed into stone soldiers, weren't ordinary people.
If they didn't have enough power, how would they dare to take the test of the Sword Palace, which was conducted by the twin witches?
The stone soldiers who were killed by Yun Xi were the weakest among all the participants. They were just 16-years-old, but they were also at the top level of the 1st rank.
"Chi!" Before Yun Xi had the chance to feel his improved after his body absorbed the soul, he had been slashed through, torn apart, and cut up by weapon after weapon.
Green soul light-spots flew out from his body and flew back to the palace. Yun Xi observed that these souls were returned back to the stone soldiers again.
So that was what the rule was.
After killing his enemies, he still needed to absorb their souls. And once he was killed, the souls would fly out from his body and return back to their original bodies again.
This also meant that Yun Xi couldn't improve himself by killing the weaker enemies again and again.
That was reasonable. Equivalent exchange was the basic rule of the world. If he could improve himself by killing the soldiers again and again, the star's trial would be just a joke.
So there was just one stupid, but simple method he could choose. This was also the road the star's trial pointed out for him.
Becoming stronger bit by bit, activating his potential by wandering between life and death, and finally conquering the seemingly unconquerable road of trial!
There wasn't any shortcut. On the road to the great tower where the imprisoned princess was, he had to sprinkle countless blood. No matter what quest he chose, the road leading to the princess or the road leading to the heroine, he had to pay with the price of blood!
"Come on, let's start fighting!"
In the face of the aggressive stone soldier army, Yun Xi yelled.
Chapter 43: Blood and Death
Kill, kill, kill! Till blood flowed like a stream, till the sky became murky over the bloody earth!
How many times had he died? A hundred times or far more? Yun Xi had forgotten.
Quicksilver Motion, starting!
Zagging and brandishing his sword!
"Chi!" The sword blade cut through the first stone soldier's heart. Its blood sprayed in the air and stained Yun Xi's cloth armor.
The thirteenth!
Flying Swallow, Sixfold Attack!
Continuous Quicksilver Motioning and zagging. It was not the common Flying Swallow Triple Attack, but repeating the first move of The Flying Swallow Attack six times, bursting out the fastest and smoothest attack six times within the shortest time.
One, two, three. As the flying swallow hovered in the air, the stone soldiers it targeted fell down one by one, and out flew their green souls.
"Haa!"
With a stunning roaring, Yun Xi had used up his strength. But it was too early to change his posture as a big and tall person jumped down from a high position and cracked Yun Xi's head by using a big stone, tablet-like sword.
Yun Xi's blood winded through the ground. He also kept this guy in his mind.
****
"Boom!"
Under Yun Xi's feet, the giant weapon struck the ground into debris. Yun Xi slipped through the weapon's bombardment and the coordinated attacks of the stone soldiers.
He diverted the four swords from locking onto his heart by lifting his shield up and was going to strike back, when he suddenly felt the back of his head go cold.
Out of his sight from the high above in the sky where it obviously was beyond the reach of a human, a pair of glassy swords flew and hovered in the sky with Yun Xi's blood dripping from its blade.
It was that guy. At that moment where Yun Xi's head fell to the ground, he saw that inconspicuous but hateful enemy.
****
"Din! Din! Din!" With a stream of the tinkling sounds of weapons, Yun Xi skillfully moved the shield in his hands and blocked all their frontal attacks. Afterwards, he made a backflip and dodged the whirling twin swords that dropped down from the sky.
Flying Swallow Sixfold Attack! By using the collision size of the stone soldiers as his shield, Yun Xi played his ace, the new learned deadly skill.
One, two, three... three stone soldiers' heads were cut off and flew to the sky.
At the next second, a weird and longsword shadow flashed in the crowd. Yun Xi felt his body go cold and his heart stop. Then, only blood red remained in front of his eyes.
Again. It was that person. Out of the corner of Yun Xi's eyes, Yun Xi forced himself to look at that place, making out that person's unmatched and ethereal figure among these stone soldiers.
****
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" Yun Xi's heartbeats made a whooshing sound that echoed in the empty frontage square of the palace.
He had died 135 times.
The main reason, death under siege.
His head was cut off dozens of times; his body was torn to pieces dozens of times; he was trampled to death dozens of times due to the lost of his balance, and he was hacked dozens of times after falling to the ground due to taking an arrow to the knee.
In the past, Yun Xi thought that fighting desperately with the green hippo for 120 times was already the most violent massacre in the world.
Now, he knew that he had made a grave mistake.
He just stepped in the battlefield of his first formal trial and didn't even get through the first level. However, he had already tasted death three times more than during the newbie trial.
"Come on, there are only you three left!" Standing in the middle of a large number of broken arms and wreckage and stepping on a stone soldier's corpse, Yun Xi held his shield and provoked the last three high-level stone soldiers who were rushing out from the first palace.
Y
es, the shield. After killing enemies one after another by using Quicksilver Motion and Flying Swallow Sword, his killing record stopped at 17. Finally, Yun Xi remembered that beside the bonfire, there was a shield.
Reality taught him that the three pieces of equipment the stars prepared for him in the trial were all indispensable.
The newbie iron sword wouldn't wear and tear, so he didn't need to worry about if it would be curved in the killing.
The cloth armor didn't have a high defence but it really could reduce deadly injuries and offer him the little necessary defence.
The last one was the shield. Just like the newbie iron sword, the shield also wouldn't wear and tear. At the most critical moment, it could save Yun Xi's life.
Without the shield, Yu Xi wouldn't have been able to kill the twenty-seven stone soldiers. He finally got the opportunity to fight against the last three high-level stone soldiers.
At least till now, this was his best achievement and was also the most difficult challenge in the first level.
Yun Xi clearly remembered that he had been killed by the three high-level stone soldiers at least two hundred times.
In order to distinguish the three high-level soldiers from other common soldiers, Yun Xi marked the three people as Stone Soldier Number One, Number Two, and Number Three.
Stone Soldier Number One's strength was near the upper level of the 2nd rank. He was good at using two swords and had a high speed. His special attack skill was Whirling Two Swords.
He could throw out the two swords and have them return to his hands by themselves. Yun Xi had never seen such a sword skill.
Stone Soldier Number Two was also at the upper level of the 2nd rank. He was mighty and adept at using the heavy sword. His special attack skill was Leaping Attack.
His skill was simple and a little like the green hippo's straight-line attack, but the difference was that he often chose to attack Yun Xi when he was in a hitback motion. His deadly Leaping Attack often made Yun Xi face death directly.
Stone Soldier Number Three was at the mid level of the 2nd rank. He was good at using the snake bone soft sword, which was a pretty rare weapon. His special attack was Spirit Snake's Chaotic Dancing.
He was undoubtedly the weakest one among the three high-level stone soldiers. However, most of the time, it was him that killed Yun Xi because he was the only one who didn't fear Yun Xi's Flying Swallow Sword.
Arguably, it was his Spirit Snake Sword Skill that made Yun Xi learn how to use the shield.
Apart from this, Yun Xi had found the method to kill the other twenty-seven stone soldiers one by one.
In the end, there were only the three strongest high-level stone soldiers that Yun Xi had to deal with, who were so thorny and had completely different properties.
"..." The tallest enemy, Stone Soldier Number Two, mumbled a few words and stood up first.
Compared to Yun Xi, who was covered in bumps and bruises and was too horrible to look at, this burly guy was not harmed at all and was in his best state. The other two people were also in the same state.
They had also experienced those sanguinary battles, but the three people could keep themselves in their best state and weren't killed by Yun Xi even once. This had proved their strength.
They were at a high level, high above the twenty-seven deceased stone soldiers.
Though they were called ‘the childes of noble families’ just like all the other people, they were true elites. The geniuses like Ashen, who had felt complacent just because of their little gifts, were not at the same level with them at all.
They didn't use all their strength. They just coldly looked at Yun Xi killing the stone soldiers and had no worries because they were far weaker than them.
The reason was simple - they all had the strength to kill Yun Xi one on one. They mastered their family's inheritance. Even if Yun Xi learned how to use Quicksilver Motion and Flying Swallow Sword, he still couldn't fight against them.
For them, Yun Xi was just a toy they used to enjoy the feeling of killing.
Chapter 44: Yun Xi's Outbreak
"Hee hee, things became interesting." Stone Soldier Number Two carried his big sword, carelessly walking toward Yun Xi.
Compared to Yun Xi, who was covered in bumps and bruises while holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, Stone Soldier Number Two was in a much better state.
Most of the time Yun Xi was killed by the three stone soldiers. They were the biggest factor that caused Yun Xi's deaths.
In regards to the boys and girls of noble families who were at the 1st rank or just entered the 2nd rank in the common army, they were super elites. Every one of them was able to threaten Yun Xi's life alone.
In principle, Yun Xi had Hua Huo's seed. He shouldn't be driven to the last ditch by them.
If it were a fair battle, the winning percentage of Yun Xi against any of them would be more than 90%.
Unfortunately, fairness wasn't a thing that existed in the world. Yun Xi already knew it when he faced the star trials the first time.
If it was about talent or combat intuition, after obtaining Hua Huo's seed, he also obtained a huge advantage.
However, they had a greater advantage than him.
The biggest reason that caused his death every time: Equipment.
Yes. The reason why Yun Xi was killed by the three people was because their equipment was way better than his.
Stone Soldier Number One had a pair of whirling swords. Stone Soldier Number Two had a big sword. Stone Soldier Number Three had a Snake Bone Soft Sword. They were all weapons of the best quality, which were made by using special methods, and even had a few special abilities.
Mortals couldn't use hero-ranked weapons, so their weapons still weren't beyond the limit of the Mortal rank. However, they were still three masterpieces of skilled craftsmen.
It seemed that the whirling twin swords Stone Soldier Number One owned had a special magnetism. No matter where he threw it to, it would eventually fly back to its owner.
The big sword Stone Soldier Number Two owned weighed up to over a 100 kg. It was a heavy weapon that was only fit for people who were born with superhuman strength.
The Snake Bones Soft Sword Stone Soldier Number Three owned was the most terrible and fatal evil sword among the three weapons. It even possessed a few abilities that normally only hero-ranked weapons had. At the very moment he brandished his sword, it could cheat its enemy's sight and spatial sense.
But as for Yun Xi, he had only a newbie sword, a newbie cloth armor, and a newbie wooden shield.
The three people all had swords that fitted them the most, they had experienced the best education since their childhoods and their power was also all better than Yun Xi's.
Yun Xi could only defeat them by using his talent and his 3rd-ranked combat intuition.
Unfortunately, at the Mortal rank, weapons and equipments were more important than Yun Xi's imagination.
This was the impassable wide gap among ordinary people and Childes. It was the largest factor that couldn't be surpassed by talent.
At the Mortal rank, children of noble families had craftsmen specially making weapons for them, plus they could learn their families' sword skills. Compared to common swordsmen who were at the same rank as them, they had overwhelming advantages.
Yun Xi didn't know where the three top-level stone soldiers were from and who they were, but after experiencing battles again and again, he had clearly touched the limit that common swordsmen could reach.
Weapons were really important.
The first time, Yun Xi began to think more seriously about this point, what common swordsmen lacked most...
"You can't kill the dragon without good weapons and equipment". This was a proverb from the Western God's Domain. It implicitly told young boys who wanted to become strong, that they shouldn't ignore the importance of equipment - even if they were super geniuses.
Good equipment could play an extremely important role in battle.
Those Childes who had received the best education knew it clearer than anyone.
In that case, even though Yun Xi had killed twenty-seven stone soldiers, in the eyes of the three top-level stone soldiers, he was still just so-so.
"Pa!" Yun Xi threw away his shield, though it had protected him countless times during the battle and held his sword with one hand.
I know it. You have better weapons than me and received a better education than me. You were born with everything.
Perhaps this is just a game in your eyes. A game of chicken, a game that was named as "slaughter".
