Wulin : Martial Heroes

Chapter 21: Zhou Qingxuan

The thirteen method of the sword had help Li Xin immensely when he is using swordsmanship. The reason is simple.

Because it is basic movement, Li Xin could easily apply it to any swordplay skill that he has.

Li Xin smiles a bit thinking of this. He is still reviewing most of his skill. It has only been only a few minutes.

He averts his gaze from the status window for a while.

‘Should I prepare lunch?’ He doesn’t have to hunt. He still has a lot of meat from the rabbits and the boar that he had captured.

He also still had a lot of spices that he bought from the system store.

Li Xin could stand every inconvenience of living in the ancient world but not having the right seasoning for his food is kind of where he drew the line.

Fortunately, the system store did not only sell martial skill and there is also spices, salts and sugar that is sold in the system store

Li Xin believe that this has something to do with his Cooking skill.

‘I still have time before lunch’ he thought to himself

Li Xin then look back at his status window

At the same time while Li Xin is still looking at his status window in his hut, there is a woman that have entered the mountain.

She entered the mountain from the other side. Which means that she did not go through the mountain village on the foot of the mountain. Instead, she came from the forest near the ravine on the other side of the mountain.

This woman is fighting three men who covered the lower part of their face with black cloth. This woman is around twenty years of age.

She has a long black hair that passes her neck and she wears a light blue clothes that flutter like a wave.

Even when she is fighting she possess a certain grace and beauty. And she is a beauty that is hard to find in some villages.

The face is flawless and each movement is full of elegance, swinging her sword she is like a fairy of the Heavens.

‘Zhou Qingxuan! Hand over the manual!’ one of the men shouted as he chopped downward toward the woman

Zhou Qingxuan on the other hand is still calm even though she is surrounded by three men. The one chopping the sword is The Mad Blade Xi Kuangshan. The other two however is not someone that she knows.

They must be someone that Xi Kuangshan had recruited to deal with her.

She is not afraid. Even as the powerful blade is about to smash onto her head her eyes still shine with brilliance.

She raises her sword and deflect that blade, the tip of the sword clash with the edge of that blade. In that moment, Zhou Qingxuan attack which is always soft suddenly turns to rough and steady.

Her swordplay has the properties of being dual natured-having the element of “roughness” and “softness” at the same time

The other two also attack her at the same time.

The sound of the sword cuts through the air sound like the whistling of the wind

Zhou Qingxuan eyes narrowed. Even in that situation, she could see her surrounding clearly.

the blade is deflected but two more sword come from Zhou Qingxuan left and right.

The blade had been deflected to the side and force the Mad Blade to retreat backward a few step.

Using that gap, Zhou Qingxuan taps her feet on the ground and she launched herself in the air.

The two sword miss her and those two people nearly stabbed each other.

But the two men is not a slouch either.

As their sword nearly stab each other, they look at each other in that brief second, and they both understand what the other wanted to do.

They both tapped each other sword, the sound of the rings in the area and forces themselves to go to the side, their footwork kicks the ground beneath their feet to neutralize the impact as the glided to the side like a ghost.

Zhou Qingxuan on the other hand has escape the encirclement of the three people

She glides in the air and the three people jump into the air chasing her.

She turns back, her hand seems to shake and from her sleeve, small things flew out.

‘Anqi!’ Mad Blade Xi Kuangshan shouted. Mad Blade Xi Kuangshan put his blade forward in a horizontal position

Clang!

The sound of metal hitting with each other echoes and the moment he heard that, he swipes his blade to the side.

The powerful force is negated and redirected elsewhere

As for the other two people, they too noticed the hidden weapon thrown to them.

One of them change direction in midair, kicking a branch of a tree and using that force to swivel to the side of the tree.

The hidden weapon passes him by a breath and stuck itself in another tree.

The other one is more proficient with his sword

His eyes capture the movement of that hidden weapon and without hesitation, he swings his sword, and the hidden weapon were push toward the side.

In that moment, Zhou Qingxuan had made quite a distance from them

‘Sheesh! It didn’t work’ she said to herself. The two people did not even stop. It delayed them for about a second before they keep chasing her.

Zhou Qingxuan knows she is in bad state right now. She had injuries. Only her injuries are internal. She had been attacked by the Xuanwu Elders.

The Palm of Xuanwu is the most powerful skill of the Xuanwu Elders. If not for the fact that they were chained in the underground, she probably could not leave that place alive.

But then she is now being chased by these minions. But as long as she could learn the martial arts in this manual, it is all worth it.

The sword light shoots and the sleeve flutters, the branches of the nearby tree exploded and suddenly Zhou Qingxuan found herself being entangled again with the three people

In that moment when she thought she had an advantage, those three people suddenly burst out with great speed.

Their sword clashes with each other.

Zhou Qingxuan uses a sword and Xi Kuangshan uses a blade, the blade is heavy, the sword is light.

The impact is stronger, the two sword entangles, the sword light shoots all four directions, the sound of the blade and the sword clashing is like the roaring of tiger and dragon.

The sun in the sky shines brightly, the gleams of the sword shines, and Zhou Qingxuan sword passes one of the two men

The sleeve flutters, the wind tears apart, the neck is cut. Zhou Qingxuan kicks the ground beneath her feet, gliding five feet backward, leaving distance.

Xi Kuangshan and one of the swordsman was taken aback by the sudden breaking of momentum and pace.

Zhou Qingxuan smiles and then as their moves were halted by that sudden break of pace, she kicks the ground scooping it with her feet and launches forward, drawing the sword forward, like nature that is full of vigor, the sword strike is unleashed

and only a sword light passes the two people.

In that one moment that separates life and death Zhou Qingxuan focus all of her inner energy and her weight on the side of sword.

And she releases her sword strike right at that peak moment. This method is very ingenious and not many people could do it like her.

It requires extreme concentration. Zhou Qingxuan, this woman is not a normal woman

The attack is very simple. It lacks any variations. And there are no unpredictable moves.

It is a very straightforward move. But the power in that move is something that could break all defense

Xi Kuangshan could not even make his next move and only look in horror toward that woman.

‘Zhou Qingxuan! You…. the Und- ‘and before he could finish his word, there is a thin line that suddenly appeared on his neck

Psshu!

blood spurted out from that thin line of a wound and he kneel to the ground. His hand is still tightly holding his blade.

It might be the reaction of the body as his hand seems to stiffen because of the pain

As for the other swordsman, it was also the same. The hand where he wielded his sword falls down lifelessly. And he drops down almost immediately.

Xi Kuangshan and the other two people that he had brought all died here in this Gray Mountain.

Zhou Qingxuan then sheathed back her sword. She then walks away from the area but as she walks she could feel that her feet become heavier with each step

‘Shit. I overexerted myself’ Now, her entire body is burning up. On her left side, her entire body felt like it is being frozen

On her right beside, it was like someone is burning her skin

‘Xuanwu Palm’ she thought to herself. She then coughed up blood

‘Shit’ she curses again. When she was making that sword strike, she aggravated her injuries.

She tries to revolve her inner energy but the cold and heat in her body neutralize her inner energy

The Xuanwu Elders are two people that was on the verge of grandmaster level. But they were guardians of the Six Path Gate.

Zhou Qingxuan stole a manual from one of the strongest force in Wulin. She had expected a lot of resistance and she was confident.

And she did finally manage to get the manual

But who would have thought that she would get strike by the Xuanwu Palm.

 She walks forward even as the pain is wrecking her body. She could feel that her meridian is block one by one. Some of them is blocked by the cold. Some of them is overwhelmed by the heat

This kind of pain is hard to describe but Qingxuan did not even utter a word of pain and instead just gritted her teeth.

She follows the sound of the water and not before long she arrived in front of a stream of water. There is a tree beside the stream of water and she walk toward the tree and then sit down under the tree

Her face is entirely pale and her entire body is shaking. Her body have two force that is ravaging her with each step she takes.

Her entire body is soaked with sweat.

As she leans down her back on the tree, she coughed up blood. And then she lost her consciousness.

The wind blows her hairs as Qingxuan lay there. No one knows that there is just a great battle being fought in the Gray Mountain

Qingxuan breath is getting fainter and fainter.

>> 

Author Note

Anqi - The term translates as hidden or concealed weapons, and is commonly used to refer to projectiles. In Wuxia stories, there exists a wide variety of such projectiles too, from darts to daggers, to coins, needles, discs, etc. Some anqi could furthermore be elaborately constructed. For example, a bejeweled box that releases a storm of needles on opening.