Chapter 54: Fierce Battle (1)

With a loud boom, Xiao Jingyang charged forward first. His iron claws made metallic clashing sounds, creating sharp whistling noises as they lashed out toward Blood Rakshasa. This was the Eagle Claw Technique from Chaoyang Martial Hall.

But facing this terrifying claw attack, Blood Rakshasa only let out a light laugh. Her flexible sword had already drifted toward her opponent.

The over three-meter-long flexible sword, wielded in Blood Rakshasa’s hand, moved like countless strands of troubled thoughts, transforming into countless afterimages thrusting at Xiao Jingyang from different angles.

Before Xiao Jingyang could even reach his opponent, he let out a miserable cry. His body was slashed with countless wounds, and he frantically retreated backward.

Only then did the others close in, but Blood Rakshasa just made several evasive maneuvers, turned around, and swung her twin swords to break through their encirclement.

She moved through the courtyard like a shark swimming freely. Every time she swung her long sword, it took a life.

Just then, a fist came without a sound, carrying an eerie silence as it aimed for Blood Rakshasa’s back. It wasn’t until the slight gusts of wind from the fist reached her body that Blood Rakshasa managed to react, forcefully dodging forward. But she was still too slow to evade completely, feeling a sharp pain spread across her back.

This was the first time she had been injured since the battle began.

Propelled by the force of that punch, Blood Rakshasa turned around using the momentum and saw Master Jiang, who had somehow moved behind her. Without saying a word, he silently threw another punch at her.

A feeling of peace and tranquility enveloped Blood Rakshasa’s thoughts, slowing her movements by a beat. She barely managed to block with the flat of her sword and was forced to retreat again.

“Spirit Refining hand technique?” Blood Rakshasa was shocked inwardly but immediately realized, “No, if it were really a Spirit Refining expert, I’d be dead from that punch. Can someone at the Qi Training stage use Spirit Refining techniques?”

Blood Rakshasa let out a fierce laugh, as a surge of murderous intent erupted from her. This overwhelming killing intent filled her mind with the sole thought of killing her opponent. Master Jiang’s true self had not reached the Spirit Refining realm after all, and his forced use of the Spirit Refining hand technique no longer had any effect.

The two engaged in a series of rapid attacks. Streaks of silver light continuously flashed around Jiang Tianzheng, soon leaving a wound on his left arm.

After all, Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness had failed. Jiang Tianzheng’s strength and speed couldn’t keep up with Blood Rakshasa’s. If not for his rich experience and his Heart Mind remaining calm under the influence of Nourishing Qi with Vast Righteousness, he probably would have lost long ago.

Just then, a sharp pain came from the wound on his arm. Taking advantage of the moment when several others were surrounding Blood Rakshasa, Jiang Tianzheng immediately darted away. Remembering the wound he had gotten from her sword earlier, he shouted loudly, “Be careful! Her sword is poisoned!”

“Go get weapons!”

No one had expected that Blood Rakshasa would be so insane as to charge in alone when all eighteen martial halls were gathered.

Even more unexpected was that this woman, Blood Rakshasa, was powerful to such an extent.

When Blood Rakshasa started to fight, the entire courtyard fell into chaos. Jiang Qing wanted to go help, but Zuo Zhicheng grabbed her and pulled her firmly toward the outside of the courtyard.

She didn’t know where Zuo Zhicheng got such strength—she couldn’t break free at all.

“What are you doing? Let go of me! I need to help my father!”

But Zuo Zhicheng was like a silent machine, completely ignoring Jiang Qing’s struggles as he swiftly dragged her away from the battlefield.

At that moment, a shocking scream rang out in the courtyard. A severed arm soared into the sky along with a spray of blood.

Among the crowd, Jiang Qing could see it was the martial hall master nicknamed Iron Arhat, now holding his severed arm as he knelt on the ground. His Iron Shirt technique, reputed to be impenetrable to blades and spears, now seemed incredibly fragile before Blood Rakshasa.

As he screamed, several streaks of silver light sliced across his body, sending pieces of flesh flying in all directions.

He had been dismembered by the three-meter-long flexible sword.

And this was just one scene in the killing field. More severed limbs and broken body parts kept flying out. The over three-meter-long blade meant that with every swing Blood Rakshasa made, the speed at the tip of the sword nearly approached the speed of sound.

Ghostly whistles continuously echoed through the air, accompanied by miserable cries and wails all around, as if the gate to the Yellow Springs had been opened.

By the time Jiang Qing came to her senses, Zuo Zhicheng had gently pushed her behind a wall. She struggled to poke her head out and look into the courtyard, but could only see a fiery red figure rushing left and right, leaving trails of blood in its wake.

Gritting her teeth, she said, “Why are you running away? We need to help my father!” But her trembling legs wouldn’t let her take a single step forward.

Zuo Zhicheng didn’t speak, just watched the slaughtering Blood Rakshasa in the courtyard with a calm expression, though no one knew what he was thinking.

Just then, several workers pushed carts while shouting and yelling as they rushed over. In the carts were dozens of large, sharpened machetes.

“Everyone, grab weapons and fight her with these!”

“Be careful, her exotic weapon is very long!”

Bare-handed combat was indeed different from fighting with blades. Earlier, everyone had been caught off guard by Blood Rakshasa’s attack. One reason was naturally because Blood Rakshasa was truly formidable, but another reason was her two three-meter-long flexible swords.

Now that the martial artists had grabbed machetes, their courage swelled, and they charged at Blood Rakshasa again.

But Zuo Zhicheng narrowed his eyes. After confirming that Jiang Tianzheng had hidden inside a room and that Blood Rakshasa wasn’t immediately pursuing, he pulled Jiang Qing and ran off again. No matter how Jiang Qing struggled, he remained like a cold, hard stone, completely unchanged.

As he moved away, he always passed by some corners and edges. His hand shadows flashed—it seemed like he took something, yet it also seemed like he took nothing. In all the chaos, nobody noticed this.

Just a few seconds after Zuo Zhicheng turned away, the first martial artist to grab a machete let out a shocked cry. A silver flash cut through the air, and the blade in his hand was shattered to pieces by one strike. The broken shards shot into his face, chest, and stomach.

Seeing the two flexible swords, powerful and agile like spirit snakes, some began throwing their machetes and other objects at her.

Blood Rakshasa sneered and dodged to the side.

Jiang Qing was held in Zuo Zhicheng’s arms. With tearful eyes, she looked back at the courtyard that had turned into a slaughterhouse. Suddenly, the courtyard darkened. Like dominoes, all the lights went out one after another. In an instant, Chaoyang Martial Hall was plunged into darkness.

“Watch out, she slipped away!”

“Over here, over here! She’s hiding in the house!”

“Master! Master, where are you?”

“She jumped onto the roof!”

“Block her!”

“Help! Help me~~~~”

The sound of metal shattering, furniture breaking, human screams, and the clash of swords reverberated.

In the pitch-black Chaoyang Martial Hall, all kinds of noises never ceased. Only under the moonlight could one barely see the corpses lying on the ground, their faces twisted in various expressions.

Within this darkness covering just a few hundred square meters, Blood Rakshasa moved as if she were at home, harvesting lives in the dark.

In a corner of a room, Jiang Tianzheng revealed a bitter smile as he looked at the wound on his arm. It seemed her later sword strikes weren’t poisoned—only this initial wound was. Thinking about it, was poison applied to just one of the two swords?

Holding a machete, he directly cut out a piece of flesh from the poisoned wound. Jiang Tianzheng then began releasing the poisoned blood. His face grew even paler after this.

He never imagined that their entire group of over a hundred Martial Artists would be so completely suppressed by Blood Rakshasa alone that they could hardly breathe. She fought wherever she wanted, however she wanted, against as many as she pleased—and they could do nothing about it.

With a crashing sound, another person burst through the window.

Jiang Tianzheng was about to move but stopped.

“Master Xiao?”

“Master Jiang?”

In the pitch darkness, the two faced each other with bitter smiles. Xiao Jingyang’s condition was definitely not good either—his upper body was completely stained red with blood, and several wounds on his back nearly reached the bone, making him wince with every movement.

“Blood Rakshasa is even more terrifying than we imagined. I almost got swept to death by one of her sword strokes.”

“I don’t know how Xiao Qing is. I must go out and save her.”

Meanwhile, Jiang Qing had been shoved under a bed by Zuo Zhicheng. He said coldly, “Stay hidden here. Don’t come out no matter what.”

Zuo Zhicheng’s tone and state were vastly different from usual—it was like he had become a completely different person. But Jiang Qing couldn’t dwell on that. Her eyes were somewhat vacant. Even as the daughter of a martial hall master, even as a girl who had trained in martial arts for years, this was her first time seeing so many dead people, so much blood. Before this, she hadn’t even killed a chicken.

The phrase “upholding justice and righteousness” that she often spoke of now felt so heavy and fragile in the face of the bloody corpses.

In her mind, the scene of Iron Arhat having his arm severed by a sword and then being dismembered kept replaying like a film on loop.

Human life—it turned out to be so worthless, so fragile.

She looked at Zuo Zhicheng before her and said, “Will we die? Is Father already dead?”

“Don’t worry, no one will die.” Then came a series of rustling sounds. Zuo Zhicheng seemed to be taking something out from his chest, from the wardrobe in the room, constantly rummaging and arranging things. However, Jiang Qing, hiding under the bed, couldn’t see clearly. She could only see flickering shadows and had no idea what Zuo Zhicheng was doing.

Based on the recent murders, Zuo Zhicheng had long suspected that the madwoman might directly charge into Chaoyang Martial Hall, perhaps even intending to wipe out all the martial hall members.

So he had previously infiltrated Chaoyang Martial Hall and prepared some things. For example, the mask in his chest, some materials in the corners, and the overcoat in this guest room’s wardrobe. Along the way, he had finally collected all his preparations.

So within just these few minutes, using his prior arrangements, he had transformed into a large man wearing a pure white mask.

But the very next moment, in this darkness, a sound that nearly stopped Jiang Qing’s heart rang out.

“Two little mice.” The enchantress’s teasing voice, like an invitation to death, sounded outside the room door. In the next instant, silver light flashed in the dark. Two three-meter-long silver dragons split the door open and twisted straight toward Zuo Zhicheng.

And at the very moment Jiang Qing’s mouth opened wide, about to scream—

A murderous aura sufficient to freeze blood erupted into the sky. The man who suddenly appeared was like a ghost or god. With one hand, he continuously slapped the flat of the swords, casually batting away the twin blades thrust at him.

Then he took a step forward. Crisp cracking sounds rang through the air. Blood Rakshasa had already retreated outside the room with a piercing shriek.