Chapter 86: Rolling Heads

Thud thud thud thud…

The Stranger’s quick thinking was commendable. The only problem was that the humans had already anticipated it. Squad and squad of soldiers marched out in orderly footsteps and blocked off the intersections immediately. Even the rooftops were crawling with Shenwu Defense Force soldiers.

Slam!

“Shenwu!”

Slam!

“Shenwu!”

Slam!

“Shenwu!”

Each soldier was armed with a saber and a shield. They would smack their shields with their sabers before roaring, “Shenwu!” When their fighting spirit and bloodthirst had reached its peak, they finally cried,

“KILL!”

Arrows rained down from above and turned the foremost Strangers into pincushions. It would be nice if they could annihilate the horde before they could get close, but just a few rounds later, the Strangers were almost upon them. Someone cried, “Raise shields!” and the front row immediately switched to their shields and held it firmly in front of them.

The Strangers hit the defense line and battered the soldiers with everything they got, but it was as futile as trying to punch through a solid wall bare-handed. They were unable to put even a dent on the defense line. Not a moment too soon, spears emerged from the gaps between the shields and nailed the nearest Strangers to the floor.

Not all Strangers were so easy to kill, however. Not far away, Rainbow Child stared at the floor of dead Strangers beneath his feet and giggled, “Hehehe! This is fun!” A squad of soldiers shot a hail of arrows at him, but a flash of rainbow disintegrated the projectiles instantly. He started shaking his head back and forth until his twintails grew as large as a whip. When he was ready, he whipped his head around and severed all the humans and Strangers around him into two.

“Hehehe! Kill kill kill~”

As Rainbow Child continued to shake its head, its twintails spun faster and faster. Eventually, they were fast enough to slice even the toughest human or Stranger in its range into itsy bitsy pieces.

Flutter flutter!

Near the walls, Grandpa Tree gave his body a shake and stirred all the butterflies resting on his branches awake. They took to the air and flew straight toward the Shenwu Defense Force soldiers on the walls.

Despite the torches, the sky was pitch black, and the butterflies made no noise whatsoever when they flew. By the time the soldiers took notice, some of them were already touched by the butterflies.

The black butterflies looked frail enough to be blown away by a stiff breeze, but their deadliness was no joke. Every soldier who was touched by the butterflies immediately collapsed to their feet and rolled back and forth on the floor, screaming. At the same time, tiny black balls that were shaped like fish eggs started growing out of their nose, mouth, eyes and more.

The black eggs only needed a few seconds to hatch into black butterflies. Over time, their numbers grew to the point where they resembled a cyclone instead of a swarm. Wherever the black cyclone traveled, soldiers collapsed and died in abject pain.

Thankfully, a captain realized the danger and ordered immediately, “Burn them with your fire talismans! Ready, release!” A massive ball of fire hit the cyclone of black butterflies, and they were gone just like that.

Not done yet, the captain barked out another order, “Archers! Ready! Loose!”

The soldiers immediately released a hail of Starbreaker Arrows at Grandpa Tree.

“I’ll help you, Grandpa Tree!”

It was at this moment the ground beside Grandpa Tree suddenly turned into a pool of bubbly mud. Every time a bubble was popped by an arrow, a Yin Spirit would emerge and fly straight toward the soldiers. As Yin Spirits do not have a physical body, the arrows and physical weapons in general were useless against them. They easily passed through the arrows and possessed the soldiers before they could react.

Every soldier in the Shenwu Defense Force was overflowing with vigor, yang energy and bloodthirst. Logically speaking, a Yin Spirit was the last thing they were afraid of. In reality, Granny Mud’s Yin Spirits easily extinguished their minds and puppeteered their bodies to attack the rest of the soldiers. That section of the wall was in absolute chaos for a time.

This was nothing compared to the battlefield where the Servant of Fear was rampaging, however. The Stranger was walking deeper toward the county with leisurely footsteps as if they couldn’t sense the soldiers lying in ambush all around it. The eyes on their squirming warts and tentacles kept opening and closing and releasing pulses of light at a steady pace. Every time the light washed over the soldiers, their expressions would grow increasingly dazed and horrified, and their bodies would grow warts and tentacles.Eventually, they all transformed into mindless creatures who knew nothing but death and destruction. So far, every soldier who was unfortunate enough to be stationed next to the Servant of Fear had transformed into a Stranger!

At the beginning, the battle was going completely in the favor of the Shenwu Defense Force. But after powerful Strangers such as the Servant of Fear, Grandpa Tree, Granny Mud, Rainbow Child and more had joined the battle, the tables were slowly but surely turning against the humans instead. Even the weaker Strangers who were struggling to survive earlier found various openings to batter the Shenwu Defense Force further.

“Hahaha! Puny humans!” The Bear King laughed savagely while shaking off some of the Starbreaker Arrows lodged in its fur. Although the projectiles were deadly against most Strangers, they were unable to pierce the bear Stranger’s thick hide at all. With a mighty roar, the Bear King stomped the limestone floor beneath it into pieces and charged straight toward the squad of soldiers blocking the intersection.

The Bear King was as huge as a small hill and just as strong. Every time it took a step, the ground shook like a major earthquake was going on. It was terrifying to put it mildly.

“Shield wall!”

The Shenwu Defense Force squad did not dare to treat it lightly. After the order was given, they immediately slammed their shields to the ground and formed an impenetrable shield wall.

Boom!

The shield wall held, but it wasn’t without a terrible cost. The impact was so terrible that the shields directly in the Bear King’s path crumpled like wet tissue, and the soldiers directly behind him literally exploded in a shower of gore. The soldiers behind the unfortunate souls were also knocked over and injured to a certain degree. The squad’s morale immediately deflated like a balloon.

“Hahaha! It’s feeding time!” The Bear King laughed before catching the closest soldier in a death grip and ripping them in half. Then, it shoved the dead man into its mouth and chewed vigorously.

“Oh… Tasty, so tasty! Human flesh just tastes so much better than everything else in the world! I need more!”

Absolutely soaked in blood that didn’t belong to itself, the Bear King looked beyond terrifying to put it mildly. No one was able to muster the courage to fight it even after the bloodthirsty Stranger had gobbled up their companion. The Bear King was just about to grab another soldier when a cold snort broke the spell,

“A puny Man Bear dares to invade Anyang? Die!”

A beam of sword energy bloomed from the darkness and struck the Bear King squarely in the chest. The Bear King’s laughter abruptly cut short, and it looked down to find a bloody hole where his heart should be.

“RRAAAAGGGHHH!”

However, the Bear King was even more vigorous than imagined. Not only was it still alive, it let out a full-throated roar that caused everyone to raise their weapons in alarm. Just when they were prepared for the worst, the Stranger abruptly turned tail and ran. The Bear King was vigorous, but not so vigorous that it could keep fighting without a heart!

For a moment, it looked like the Stranger would make its escape. Then, a young man ran up to its back much faster than expected and jumped onto its head. The Bear King noticed this and attempted to clap him with both hands. The size difference between the two could only be described as massive. If the attack succeeded, the young man was absolutely going to be flattened like a pancake.

The young man didn’t dodge out of the way, however. He waited until the last second before injecting a bit of strength into his right leg. The Bear King’s head abruptly exploded in a shower of blood and brains, and all strength left its body in an instant. Its hill-sized body then collapsed on the ground, kicked up a ton of dust, and finally jolted the stunned Shenwu Defense Force squad back to reality.

“This Man Bear is an exceptionally tenacious Stranger who can stay alive even if you cut off all of its limbs and crush its heart. The only way to kill it in one strike is to destroy its head,” said the young man as he leaped back down to the ground. It was only then the Shenwu Defense Force squad noticed that the young man was even younger than they expected, and he wore a charismatic smile that naturally made the heart fonder. He was, of course, Ye Qing.

The bear Stranger called itself the Bear King, but it was really just a Man Bear. A Man Bear was a Stranger with a human’s body but a bear’s face. It was cunning, capable of human speech, and loved nothing more than to hide in a mountainous forest and lure travelers to its maw by pretending to be a human. That said, it was a bonafide Malice-class Stranger despite its cowardly tactics. It sported a bear’s tremendous strength and a level of vitality that few could compare.

“Everyone already knows you’re a scholar, Joyless, so quit showing off and go help the others already!” A clear, bright voice came from above. It belonged to Yan Yufei.

After Ye Qing gave him a thumbs-up, Yan Yufei turned to Ling Jianqiu and said, “You too, Chief Ling!”

The Chief of Bureau, Ling Jianqiu shot Ye Qing a meaningful look but knew that it wasn’t time to indulge in his curiosity. After swinging his sword around and beheading all the Strangers that stood in his way, he charged straight toward the mysterious and terrifying Servant of Fear.

“Be careful, Joyless!” Yan Yufei said one last time before charging toward the battlefield where Grandpa Tree and Granny Mud were. His seal reached them first as he yelled, “You are in the realm of humans, Strangers! This is no place for you to rampage as you please!”

Just like the last time, nature bent itself to Yan Yufei’s will as he spoke. As the seal fell, the wind turned as sharp as sabers, and the sky started raining swords all of a sudden. All the Strangers close to Grandpa Tree and Granny Mud were immediately turned into pincushions or cut into many smaller pieces.

“The Seal of the Land?” Grandpa Tree exclaimed in alarm. He was clearly very wary of the seal. He waved his branches and sent his butterflies toward the seal in an attempt to stop it, but the seal responded immediately and turned golden bright like the sun, turning the black butterflies into dust before they even got close. Not only that, the pool of mud that was Granny Mud sizzled under the golden sun and caused her to screech in pain and panic. She clearly had little to no resistance against the seal’s power.

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

The Will of the Dragon and the Will of the People were the bane of all Strangers. It was why the upper hand was firmly in Yan Yufei’s grasp even Although Grandpa Tree and Granny Mud were Malice-class Strangers, and Yan Yufei’s strength was only equal to that of a middle-stage Vessel Augmentor.

Obviously, Ye Qing wasn’t going to sit idle while Ling Jianqiu and Yan Yufei were battling some of the strongest Strangers of the horde. He plowed head first into the area with the most Strangers and began swinging, sweeping, chopping, swiping, poking, cutting and slashing every enemy in his way. Although his technique was about as basic as it could get, it did not matter since he moved so fast it was like he was operating on a different time scale compared to the others. Moreover, he almost always took out a Stranger in one hit because he never failed to hit their weak spots from the most unpredictable angles.

His crescent saber went up and down again and again. It took him less than a minute to clear out an entire area and leaving dozens of Strangers dead beside his feet. Not even bothering to catch a breather since it was unnecessary, he rushed to the next area and repeated the massacre all over again. It was like he was the King of Hell himself appearing on this earth to lay judgment upon the Strangers. Absolutely no one was a match for him.

It wasn’t long before every soldier on the battlefield noticed the young and incredibly strong youngster. He was like the wind, the shadow, and the lightning bolt all at the same time. Wherever he went, heads rolled, and blood flowed like a river. He had saved countless soldiers who were on the brink of defeat and thwarted many dangerous assaults that could’ve dealt a severe blow to their efforts. It was such incredible heroism that it was impossible not to feel impressed or grateful toward him. Their biggest regret was that they weren’t able to shoot him a word of thanks because he was usually gone by the time they got the chance to do so.

Ye Qing had no idea what the others were thinking. It was because killing the Strangers and earning those sweet, sweet dragon-serpent runes was the only thought in his mind right now.

In the past, he had to look all over the place just to find one or two Strangers to kill. Now, they were trapped here with him with nowhere to run. This was the moment he had schemed and prepared so long for, so how could he not reap these walking bags of experience to his heart’s content? Sometimes, he was even tempted to say, “Don’t kill the Strangers! Let me do it!”

“Wow, you’re incredible! I’ll play with you!”

Ye Qing was in the zone when he heard a giggling voice. When his sides abruptly prickled with danger, he did not hesitate to execute Blood Sea Fragrance and dash out of the way like a phantom. The second he was gone, colorful rays of light struck the spot he was standing on and afflicted a couple of Strangers. They immediately grew colorful, aromatic mushrooms that drained them into a dry husk in just a matter of seconds.