Chapter 522 (1): The Great Trends of the World Are but Small Matters

There were many rivers in the Southern Thorn Nation, and the two steeds continued to travel both day and night.

However, traveling from the Southern Thorn Nation to the Northern Swallow Nation was a slightly troublesome matter, as the two nations had just engaged in a series of battles on the border not too long ago. The Northern Swallow Nation had actively incited these battles, with many units of light cavalry ranging from one hundred cavalrymen to one thousand cavalrymen wantonly breaching the borders and entering the neighboring nation to cause trouble.

Meanwhile, there was seemingly no cavalry in the northern region of the Southern Thorn Nation that it could use to defend its territory and fight with the enemy cavalry, so the soldiers could only choose to retreat and defend the cities instead. These battles caused both nations to seal their borders, so any wandering martial artist who attempted to cross the borders at this time would immediately become target practice for both sides.

However, the two steeds still decided to cross the border along a small mountain path.

Recalling the scouts of the Five Mountain Nation who had infiltrated the Southern Thorn Nation before, Sui Jingcheng seemingly came to an understanding about something.

Evening arrived, and the two steeds arrived on top of a hill, allowing Chen Ping'an and Sui Jingcheng to witness the flames tearing through a village constructed along a river.

Sui Jingcheng initially thought that the senior sword immortal would observe this from a distance before detouring around the area, but his horse was already galloping down the hill and directly charging toward the village. Sui Jingcheng faltered for a moment before hurriedly following after him.

After they entered the village, what they saw was a scene akin to hell on earth. There were mutilated corpses littered everywhere, with the clothes of the women in tatters and the limbs of the young men filled with gaping stab wounds from swords and spears, causing them to die from blood loss as they struggled to crawl away and left a trail of blood in their wake. There were many dismembered limbs and broken bodies lying on the streets, with many small children also suffering especially miserable deaths.

Sui Jingcheng jumped down from her horse and squatted down, retching from the sight.

Chen Ping'an closed his eyes and listened for a moment, after which he said, "There are no survivors."

Sui Jingcheng didn't hear him at all. Right now, she felt like she was about to vomit her intestines out.

Chen Ping'an squatted down and grabbed some blood-soaked dirt, gently squeezing it between his fingers before throwing it to the ground. He stood up and looked around, jumping onto a roof ridge and observing the footprints and hoof marks in the surroundings, with his gaze continuing to wander further and further away. He eventually jumped off the roof and gracefully landed on the ground, passing his Sword Nurturing Gourd to Sui Jingcheng before handing her the reins of his horse as well.

"Let's chase after them. We can still catch up. You won't necessarily be safe if you stay here by yourself, so remember to protect yourself and try your best to keep up with me. You can swap horses when the current one is unable to keep pace," Chen Ping'an said.

He then dashed away from the village.

Sui Jingcheng jumped onto her horse, forcefully enduring her dizziness as she chased after the senior sword immortal.

Thankfully, Chen Ping'an didn't travel as quickly as he could, still taking into account the ability of Sui Jingcheng's horse.

Approximately one hour later, they heard the sound of clip-clopping hooves near a shallow shore in a mountain valley.

Chen Ping'an didn't stop as he said, "We've already caught up to them. You don't need to worry about exhausting the horses afterward, and just do your best to keep up with me. It's best that you don't fall more than two hundred paces behind. However, you still need to be careful and guard against unexpected circumstances. Anything could happen."

Sui Jingcheng jumped onto the other horse, with the Sword Nurturing Gourd tied to her waist as she continued to gallop forward and chase after the senior sword immortal.

The elite cavalry of the border army had ironclad rules regarding how to feed horses and how to clean their noses.

The group of light cavalry had most likely stayed at the mountain valley for a moment, having just set off not too long ago.

A cavalryman near the end of the group coincidentally turned around at this moment, only to see a hovering figure in azure who had his appearance concealed. He faltered for a moment before angrily roaring at the top of his lungs, "We're being attacked by a martial artist!"

The figure in azure instantly swept down like a trail of smoke. A dozen or so elite cavalrymen who were extremely well drilled were just about to turn around their horses and raise their crossbows, yet the sabers of two soldiers mysteriously flew out from their scabbards with a clang, immediately slashing upward and throwing two heads high into the air. Two headless corpses limply slid off their steeds and thudded to the ground.

The figure in azure didn't land on the ground, and he instead twisted and turned on the saddles of the warhorses, keeping his back bent as he wielded the twin sabers in his hands.

A few seconds passed, and more than twenty cavalrymen were hacked to death, each with a single saber strike. They were either cleaved in half at the waist or split in half down the spine.

The elite cavalrymen of the Northern Swallow Nation started to rapidly retreat, abandoning their crossbows and drawing their sabers in the process. There were also some who retrieved their suits of armor and started to put them on.

An elite cavalryman who looked like a general rushed over with his lance, viciously thrusting his ranged weapon at the figure in azure. The latter had just lightly thrust the tip of his saber through a soldier's neck, and he was just about to withdraw his saber and take advantage of his backward momentum to slash down at a soldier behind him. However, the lance-wielding general had perfectly anticipated his movements.

Sui Jingcheng was just about to shout at the senior sword immortal to be careful, but she immediately shut her mouth.

In the next moment, Sui Jingcheng saw the senior sword immortal somehow twisting his body in midair before walking forward on the air and directly crashing toward the lance, allowing it to strike his chest. He then dashed forward, and the cavalry general roared in fury and refused to let go of his lance even though his hand was already bloody and mangled. The lance continued to slide back through the cavalry general's hand, with the friction so immense that it was only a matter of time before the flesh on his palm was completely ripped off to reveal bone.

The cavalry general knew that things were becoming dire, so he was just about to abandon his lance that had been passed down as a family heirloom. However, the figure in azure had already arrived atop the head of his warhorse at this moment, with his back arched down as he thrust his blade forward and pierced through the neck of the cavalry general in an instant.

Chen Ping'an suddenly straightened his back, furiously raising his saber-wielding right arm and lifting the cavalry general off his warhorse by his impaled neck.

Standing on the back of the warhorse, the Northern Swallow Nation's military cavalry saber in Chen Ping'an's hand was almost completely run through the cavalry general's neck, with a large portion of the gleaming blade sticking out through his nape. Because Chen Ping'an's thrust had been too quick and powerful, not a single drop of blood had managed to smear onto the exposed section of the blade.

Chen Ping'an furiously retracted the saber, causing the corpse of the cavalry general to tumble off the warhorse and thud to the ground.

The remaining cavalrymen of the Northern Swallow Nation seized this opportunity to unleash a volley of crossbow bolts.

With two sabers in his hands, Chen Ping'an shook his azure robe and shattered all of the crossbow bolts in the air.

The warhorse underneath him instantly fell to its knees, with its legs brutally broken from the impact. It was almost impossible to see Chen Ping'an's figure at this moment, and only the shimmering reflections from his dancing sabers were visible, appearing like the chaotic flames in the village that had left death and destruction in their wake.

Two hundred elite cavalrymen from the Northern Swallow Nation; two hundred broken corpses on the ground...

Chen Ping'an stood on the back of a warhorse and threw the two sabers in his hand to the ground, looking around and saying, "You've followed us this entire time, and you've finally come across this rare opportunity, so are you not going to step forward and show yourself?"

The stream in the mountain valley was only knee-deep, yet a head wearing a snow-white mask surprisingly popped up and sent ripples into the surroundings, with a person wearing a black robe eventually standing up and smiling faintly, with his chuckling voice seeping out from the sides of his mask as he praised, "Such remarkable saber skills."

At the same time, several assassins wearing white masks and dressed in black robes hovered down from the nearby mountain cliffs.

A shapely woman held a container of cosmetics in her hand, with the fingers of her other hand arranged in the orchid posture as she applied makeup to her smooth and pale neck.

There was a person holding his hands inside his opposite sleeves.

There was a person squatting beside the corpse of the cavalry general and pressing two fingers to the glabella of the corpse's head.

There was a brawny man who appeared like a small mountain carrying a gigantic bow on his back.

The person standing atop the water smiled faintly and instructed, "It's time to start work and earn some money. Let's make things quick, and let's not delay this sword immortal from entering the afterlife."

"Alright, alright," the female assassin who was applying makeup to her neck replied in a coquettish voice.

She placed the box of cosmetics inside her sleeve, following which she shook her sleeves and drew two dazzling short sabers in the air, with both sabers inscribed with a dense array of ancient talismanic symbols.

As she slowly dashed forward, two identical-looking women appeared on either side of her. A short moment later, another two women materialized in the air. It was as if there were no end to this.

There were one hundred or so saber-wielding women blotting out heaven and earth as they rushed toward the young man in azure from all directions.

However, a single woman left the battlefield and nimbly dashed across the stream water, continuing to change her position and move unpredictably as she made her way toward Sui Jingcheng, who was still sitting on her horse. A streak of sword light immediately erupted from the Sword Nurturing Gourd and shot through her head with a pop, causing her body to instantly disintegrate into a cloud of azure smoke.

Over at the actual battlefield...

One after another, the saber-wielding women were crushed by Chen Ping'an's fists and transformed into clouds of azure smoke.

However, each woman and each razor-sharp saber was as real as could be. They definitely weren't flimsy illusion techniques. Not only that, but the women seemingly possessed a myriad of hidden weapons that were extremely difficult to defend against.

If the young man in azure weren't a tough Vajra Body Tier martial artist, ordinary martial artists at the sixth tier would have already been killed by this overwhelming technique of hers dozens of times over.

This was the nature of immortal techniques. Even though she was only a Militarian cultivator at the Sea Observation Tier, she was still able to enjoy an innate advantage over martial artists and achieve victory through sheer volume alone.

There were all manners of strange and wonderful things in the vast world, and nothing was ever certain.

Chen Ping'an suddenly vanished, appearing before a woman standing on the outskirts of the battlefield and obliterating her heart with a single punch.

All of the saber-wielding women suddenly froze, and the woman standing in front of Chen Ping'an smiled tragically and murmured, "How did you know I was the real one? The box of cosmetics clearly isn't inside my sleeve..."

Chen Ping'an furrowed his brows slightly.

In the next moment, the woman standing in front of him laughed in a silvery voice and transformed into a cloud of azure smoke. Afterward, all of the saber-wielding women transformed into azure smoke that eventually gathered together, with a single woman slowly walking out from the thick smoke with one hand behind her back. She massaged her glabella and chuckled, "You found the right one, but it's a shame that I can't be killed unless you're able to kill all of my clones at once. Are you angry, Sword Immortal? Are you frustrated?"

The woman gave a signal with the hand behind her back.

The person nodded in approval, and a huge cloud of azure smoke erupted from the woman's body, transforming into numerous women who lunged toward Chen Ping'an.

After a single punch...

Chen Ping'an was standing where the woman had initially stood, with almost all of the lunging women shattered by the formidable fist aura of his Heavy Cavalry Formation Shattering Technique.

Only a single woman was left standing, with blood continually seeping from the seams of her snow-white mask. She raised a hand and forcefully pressed down on her mask.

The short assassin who was squatting on the ground nodded and stood up, saying, "It's done. Sure enough, relying on you is a bad idea. Our plan was almost ruined."

It was clear that the woman was severely wounded as she retorted, "Could you have finished drawing your formation if it weren't for me keeping him occupied?!"

Fifteenth flew out from the Sword Nurturing Gourd beside Sui Jingcheng's waist.

A flash of sword light directly rushed toward the temple of the short formation cultivator.

The short assassin who had kept his hands hidden inside his sleeves the entire time just then retrieved a yellow paper talisman as he spoke with the female assassin, saying with a faint smile, "We already know you're a sword cultivator, so would we have come unprepared?"

He raised two fingers, causing the talisman to hover beside him as it waited for the flying sword to ensnare itself.

Fifteenth suddenly arced back and returned to the Sword Nurturing Gourd.

A streak of white light flew out from Chen Ping'an's glabella.

There was a flash of sword light.

However, the short assassin unexpectedly raised a talisman with his other hand, and it was as if First had become stuck in mud as it sank into the talisman and disappeared in a flash.

The golden talisman shuddered slightly as it hovered in front of the short assassin, with the short assassin smiling faintly and commenting, "Thankfully, I prepared this extremely valuable Sword Suppressing Talisman, or else I would have genuinely been killed by your surprise attack. You're a sword immortal, so why are you playing sinister tricks like this? Sword immortals are already favored cultivators who possess the greatest destructive power, so why are you still resorting to schemes and trickery? How are Qi refiners like us going to make a living? This makes me very angry."

In reality, a radiant formation measuring fifteen meters in radius had already appeared beneath Chen Ping'an's feet after First was caught by the Sword Suppressing Talisman, with the light inside the talisman criss-crossing and appearing much like a Go board. The talisman continued to shrink in size, but the dazzling rays of light became increasingly brilliant, appearing like the purest essence of the sun and the moon.

The short assassin, a formation cultivator from the mountains, pursed his lips.

This formation possessed two mystical abilities. Firstly, it could slow down a cultivator's Qi circulation, and secondly, the criss-crossing rays of light could firmly attach to a person's soul and cause agonizing pain, regardless of whether the victim was a Militarian cultivator wearing an armor pellet, a pure martial artist who had refined their soul, or someone whose physique was as tough and indomitable as a mountain. This agonizing pain would transcend a physical nature, and it would be similar to the torturous pain of mortal humans or ordinary cultivators having their souls transformed into candles.

The short formation cultivator swore and retrieved another stack of yellow paper talismans, making them hover near the golden Sword Suppressing Talisman and interact with one another's spiritual light, seemingly forming another small talismanic formation.

The battle was already settled.