Chapter 76: Maneuvering

The nearby pirates stared in horror at the scene, and for a moment, silence prevailed all around.

Fang Yue stood with his blade in hand, at his feet lay the headless corpse of the cyclops deputy leader. He appeared fierce and commanding, but it was a façade masking his exhaustion. He had forced himself to hurry, covering in less than half an hour a distance that should have taken a full hour, and then, with barely any rest, plunged straight into battle. He had slain seventy or eighty pirates in succession, but the drain on his stamina was immense; now he was seizing every moment to catch his breath.

The pirates were intimidated by Fang Yue’s aura, and for a time, none dared approach. Yet they were desperate men, already worked into a frenzy by the slaughter. Soon someone shouted, “Don’t be afraid, everyone! He’s wounded and can’t hold out much longer—don’t let him rest! Let’s all charge together!”

A crowd of pirates gathered, numbering over a hundred, closing in from all directions. Fang Yue sighed—these reckless men were indeed hard to deal with. He summoned the scant inner energy left in his dantian, fixed his gaze on a direction, and charged forward. With a sweeping strike of his blade, several pirates blocking his path were sent flying, blood spraying everywhere. The heavy blade, weighing eighty pounds and empowered by his inner energy, was unstoppable for ordinary pirates.

More pirates rushed in from all sides, but Fang Yue did not entangle himself with them. Inner energy surged, his toe pushed off, and he leapt agilely onto the roof of a nearby residence.

“Sacrifice,” he silently intoned, and merit points swiftly began healing the wound on his back. Having slain so many pirates, his merit points were now quite plentiful.

Fang Yue ran across the rooftop, while the hundred or so pirates below stared at each other, unable to scale the two-story height to reach him. Most pirates lacked the ability to leap such distances. Still, there were a few skilled fighters among them; two burly pirates pushed through the crowd, leaping up toward the rooftop where Fang Yue stood.

Fang Yue sneered, sweeping his blade at the two as they jumped. Suspended in midair, they had no leverage. One was cleaved cleanly in two, blood spraying into the sky. The other managed to block with his blade, but Fang Yue forced him down, sending him crashing to the ground, barely alive and unable to rise.

The pirates cried out in alarm, but could do nothing against Fang Yue on the rooftop. When they landed, they had only intended to kill, never expecting such resistance, and had left their bows and arrows aboard the ship. Now it was too late to retrieve them.

“Throw your blades at him!” a pirate shouted.

Others looked at him as if he were an idiot—not only was Fang Yue perched atop a two-story roof, making it nearly impossible to hit him, but if they threw away their blades, what would they use to defend themselves should he descend?

Subtracting the seventy or eighty pirates already slain by Fang Yue from the hundred gathered here, nearly half the pirate force was present. The other half remained at large, pillaging and killing. Hearing the screams rising and falling in the distance, Fang Yue pulled from his robe a ginseng as thick as a child's arm, chewed it up, and swallowed.

Once he had recovered enough, he ignored the crowd below, leaped lightly to another rooftop, and after a few quick jumps, hurried toward the pirates still murdering in the distance. Groups of pirates, scattered here and there, were little more than merit points waiting to be claimed. Fang Yue darted through them, cutting down one after another. By the time the hundred pirates rushed over, twenty more had fallen to his blade.

He never confronted them head-on; whenever the pirates gathered, he would leap onto a rooftop, seize the chance to recover his strength, and use the dense cluster of houses to outmaneuver them. If the pirates dared to disperse, he would jump down and slaughter them at will. Thus, the pirates dared not scatter to continue their rampage, forced to stay together and face Fang Yue.

Those who attempted to leap onto the rooftops were swiftly cut down by Fang Yue. The pirates slain by his hand now exceeded one hundred; only about two hundred remained. If not for his depleted stamina, he would have gradually wiped them out by luring them and striking from above.

For now, he had to bide his time, waiting for Ren Junlin and his men to arrive and together put an end to the invading pirates. Some clever pirates seized a seven- or eight-year-old girl, hoping to force Fang Yue down from the rooftop. Fury surged within him; he kicked up a tile and hurled it at the pirate’s forehead, splitting it open and sending him collapsing to the ground. He threw several more tiles, sowing chaos among the pirates below.

Seizing the moment, Fang Yue rushed down, slew several pirates, and rescued the little girl, carrying her up to the rooftop. However, he suffered over a dozen fresh wounds, some deep enough to expose bone. Fortunately, his hardening technique protected him; though the wounds were ghastly, they were not fatal.

“Sacrifice,” he intoned again, and with the expenditure of merit points, his wounds healed rapidly. Yet the energy required to heal them left him even more fatigued.

At that moment, a rough, booming voice rang out: “Who killed my brother? I’ll tear him to pieces!”

It was the pirate chief, Lu Qi, suddenly appearing from nowhere. He was covered in blood, as if soaked in a vat of it, holding a clay jar in his hands, surrounded by a faint aura of black mist, making him look utterly terrifying from afar.

“Chief, it’s that one!” The pirates, fearing the chief would blame them for the deputy's death, all pointed to Fang Yue atop the roof.

Fang Yue pressed down with his foot, crushing a hole in the tile roof. He picked up the little girl and, with deft strength, lowered her through the opening into the bed below. Lu Qi’s ominous arrival posed a real threat, especially with Fang Yue’s strength so depleted; he had no time to worry about the girl’s fate, leaving it to chance.

“The deputy followed me for years. Though he’d grown disloyal, he was not yours to kill. Boy, have you thought about how you’ll die?” Lu Qi’s voice sounded behind him, but Fang Yue paid him no heed. Inner energy surged, and he leapt to another rooftop.

Lu Qi followed, blade in one hand and jar in the other, giving relentless chase. The two of them, one ahead and one behind, quickly left the rest of the pirates far behind, covering several hundred yards.

Fang Yue suddenly stopped, producing a rattle-drum from his sleeve. This soul-capturing art was of a sinister nature; its power diminished greatly in daylight, and when facing hundreds of pirates, their collective vitality and murderous aura made it impossible to use. Thus, Fang Yue had deliberately lured the pirate chief away from the others, so he could wield this supernatural skill.

In his current state, Fang Yue could not afford a protracted fight; he had to end it quickly.

“Dong, dong, dong.” Fang Yue shook the rattle-drum.

Lu Qi’s movements paused, his eyes clouding over. Fang Yue rushed forward, and with a single stroke, severed Lu Qi’s head, blood spraying high into the air.

Fang Yue breathed a sigh of relief as Lu Qi’s headless body collapsed. But just then, something strange occurred.

As Lu Qi’s corpse fell, the black clay jar he had been holding dropped and shattered with a loud crack. Dense black mist poured forth, enveloping the corpse. Suddenly, the body sat upright, picked up its severed head, and pressed it back onto its neck.