Commanding Wind and Cloud

John tried hard to get away from Qian Jin’s grip, just to find that however hard he might try, he couldn’t even trigger any movement from Qian Jin’s rock-like hand.

Was this bloke a Barbarian? John took a deep breath fiercely and made up his mind to give Qian Jin a big lesson today. It didn’t matter that you were a warrior apprentice of grade one from the Punitive Expedition Academy. Unless you were a bloodline warrior, you couldn’t rival me with your brute force.

The Level 5 Demon Fighter John suddenly made his hair stand up straight and released a ball of warrior power mingled with anger and brutality, making the onlookers standing by feel like running into a wild animal in the jungle. For this moment being, they felt so throttled as if being ground against by a big rock on their chests.

Thrilling! Was this the true power of the city guarding captain? The watching commoners kept swallowing their saliva, saying to themselves that this young warrior was doomed today.

The two dozen warriors circling the carriage wore a faint smile from the corners of their lips. Their captain was a great Level 5 Demon Fighter! Was it not for his service to the mayor’s concubine, he should have long come back to a remote town like Oakland and live a cozier life as a city guarding general. Well, this bloke was doomed today.

The Level 5 Demon FIghter John suddenly withdrew one of his arms backward, while the left empty hand seized the saber tied around his waist and then unsheathed it in a glistening light.

Will I be handsomely rewarded by the mayor’s concubine if I chopped off one of this boy’s hands? John flashed a ferocious look out of his eyes, as he was dreaming about being plucked into the leading retinue.

Wield the saber? Qian Jin lifted his eyebrows, revolved his warrior heart fast and activated his Level 1 Demon Slayer warrior power. Once again Qian Jin clenched his fist hard.

Crack. With a string of bone fracturing sound, John’s wrist shielding armor inlaid with metal collapsed all of a sudden.

Pain. Biting pains which were even more severe than the chopping of swords and axes came onto John, bringing a grave distortion to his face, making it look like a piece of abstractionist oil painting doodled impromptu by a painting artist.

For the moment being, John doubted that his arm was not wrenched broken, but smashed by some heavy iron hammer.

What was this? Everyone present felt a tingling on their scalp, and couldn’t believe what they had seen. How could the powerful Captain John be wrenched by the arm? Besides, how dare this young warrior counter against the city guarding captain in the open? Did he know what he was doing now? No punishment would be incurred to the surrounding warriors if they shoot him to death in such a circumstance on the spot.

Hearing the familiar bone fracturing sound, the surrounding soldiers wondered whether there was something wrong with their eyesight. What? Their all-mighty Captain John was defeated by a young warrior? Had this young person gone crazy to punch our captain? He was...courting death.

"Ah..."

John uttered a screech and kept perspiring cold sweat on his forehead. Then he turned his head at the two crossbowmen standing not afar and growled, "what are you people waiting for?! Kill him! All responsibilities will be solely borne by me."

The two crossbowmen immediately sobered up, narrowed their eyes to the fullest and aimed at Qian Jin. Having withstood the test of the bloody human-demon battlefront, every one of them had become uncompassionate with deaths and pains.

To kill me? Qian Jin contracted his pupils and rotated his warrior heart consciousness, to feel the streaming airflow within a radius of five meters around him. For this moment being, Qian Jin seemed to have grown numerous eyes all over his body, as every little movement within the five-meter-radius distance was being minutely sensed him, including the move of the two crossbowmen’s fingers laid on the string.

Every little change of the muscles on the fingers would be transmitted from the air to Qian Jin in real-time. Such was the perception ability of the Warrior-Heart Awareness.

All of a sudden, the two crossbowmen had a strange feeling that their fingers and even their entire bodies had been enveloped in a special enchantment, where every little move they made would be immediately sensed by the enemy.

What a strange feeling it was. The two crossbowmen gazed at Qian Jin motionlessly, and daren’t release the arrows due to fear.

"You..." John growled violently while in pain. "What on earth are you waiting for?! Shoot him to death! Shoot him to death!"

The two warriors exchanged a look, by which murderous intent filled their bosom immediately. So they once again lifted their crossbows slightly and aimed at Qian Jin.

With two heavy and dull bangs, the two arrows which were capable of stabbing easily leather armor made of steel rotated and flew out rapidly.

To kill me? Qian Jin screwed his eyes, swung his wrist and stabbed at John as effortlessly as an ordinary person waving his hand, by doing which the two-hundred-pound John was forced to bounce up and fly backward at an arrow like a sandbag.

Puff. Bang.

An arrow pricked through John’s iron-inlaid leather armor hard, triggering a sea of blood to spout out along the arrow. The onlookers looked to Qian Jin in diametric astonishment, just to find that he was standing motionlessly, holding the other arrow...with his bare hand.

He pinched the arrow with his forefinger and middle finger, as effortlessly and steadily as if he was holding a child’s toy between his fingers instead of a forceful arrow intended to kill him.

"This crossbow has been exerted only forty percent of its entire killing force." Qian Jin swung the arrow softly and thought that if this crossbow was taken over by him, he could improve both its speed and penetrating capability twice with some minor adjustments and modifications.

"Speak of this arrow..." Qian Jin shook his head slightly in a scornful way. In case the arrow intended for killing someone was grasped by that designed enemy with bare hands, what use would it play? If the interior of the arrow could be modified slightly, numerous gravely poisonous needles would spring from the body of the arrow like a hedgehog, and a sneak attack would be on the way.

Fudged crossbow and arrow, and the clumsy crossbowman who only had eyes on blindly shooting.

Puff... John uttered a painful screech as he flopped hard onto the ground. Having witnessed all these "abnormal" happenings, the crowd felt definitely shocked. How come...

John propped one hand on the ground trying to stand up but was seized by heavy pains in his chest. Lowering his head, John flashed a light mingled with anger and surprised from the eyes, which then got devoid of all liveliness.

An arrow knocked onto his body and pricked through his heart the minute he was cast aside by Qian Jin. Could this be a coincidence, or...

John flopped back onto the ground, eyes filled with inquisitiveness and astonishment. Staring at Qian Jin during his lingering time, he couldn’t believe in the guts of this young warrior in killing him.

While Qian Jin didn’t cast any look at John. Undoubtedly, it would be a trouble to have killed John, but if he didn’t do so, he would get into bigger troubles in the future. Having no former contact with each other, this captain called John had been harassed him today.

One warrior suddenly picked up the whistle hanged around his neck and started blowing hard. A string of harsh and rhythmic whistle started to flow outside.

The language of the whistle. Qian Jin screwed his brows, knowing that unless he killed everyone present on site, the whistling wouldn’t be stopped. Bearing the same message spreading way as the language of the flag, this whistling language was another compulsory lesson for the warriors.

The whistle was giving the message that "come here, there are some demons"!

Standing motionlessly, Qian Jin put on a slight smile at the whistling warrior. He might be set into trouble if this warrior said accused him of being a hooligan. The Demons? It would not only beckon the city guarding army, but also the warriors of the Torrent Battle Fort.

To annihilate the Demons was the unshakable responsibility for all warriors. Though the members of the Torrent Battle Fort weren’t incorporated into the city guarding army, they would come to every site carrying threats from the Demons within no time. So would the mages.

"The Demons? Where are they?"

An atrocious growl came along with a harsh clip-clop from a warhorse. With a suite of gold armor, the general riding on the horse looked just like a ball of light under the sunlight. A silver spear enveloped by blazing warrior power was grasped in his hand, while the blue eyes cloaked by the helmet were as dark as those of a specter from the purgatory.

Bloodline Warrior Body! Bloodline Warrior! Level 9 Demon Slayer.

Qian Jin couldn’t stop the cramp of his eyes, so he narrowed his pupils to the greatest. He couldn’t believe that there was a Bloodline Warrior of Level 9 Demon Slayer in the city’s guards.

Yeti Bloodline Warrior! Noticing the white hair exposed out of the armor, Qian Jin felt greatly shocked. It was the scarcely seen Yeti Bloodline Warrior!

The blazing spear cloaked by chill warrior power was like a lightning flashing by the sky, making everyone standing by feel like jumping into a snowy late winter day.

All in a blink, the clip-clop of the warhorse, the thunderous growl and the acclamation of the watching commoners came into the face of Qian Jin.

As the Yeti Bloodline Warrior wielded his spear, a simple move of the Knight’s Prick rushed into the air with a heartrending howling sound.

Qian Jin felt the strong killing force brought about by the spear, which prodded the skin of his entire body to shiver incessantly. What was horrible was not this simple prick, but the shocking force it carried, which, by absorbing the tension of the onlookers, drew a cracking move into the air, as if everyone present had released a rush against Qian Jin.

Qian Jin felt that he was not confronted with one enemy, but an entire queue stationed on the street.

Swinging the spear in the hand, the Yeti Bloodline Warrior produced an eerie like-dragon-like-serpent hiss. It looked as if the spear had changed into a brush of an artist master, stroking smoothly yet full of vigor on the canvas.

The land trembled under the clip-clop of the warhorse. Though there was in fact only one person in the fight, the onlookers sensed the strong murderous ambiance typical of the human-demon battlefront, as well as the powerfulness of the bloodline warriors.

The oscillating spear conjured innumerable shadows from its head as if a tree had blossomed millions of flowers overnight, making people puzzled whether this spear was to pierce the neck, the waist or the legs.

Pierced by the waist, one would get cut in half. Stabbed in the legs, one would become incapacitated.

Such was the might of the impregnable spear, one of the most destructive weapons on the battlefield.

Seeing this rampant strike from the spear, the crowd of people thought nothing, including a watchtower, would escape being destroyed. The only way might be dodging and waiting for a chance to counterattack.

However, could anyone be able to escape such a permeating ferocious attack? Even if he succeeded in dodging by luck, he wouldn’t be that fortunate to survive the subsequent interminable torture from the spear

To exit? Qian Jin lifted his brows high as if having hanged two sabers above his eyelids, by doing which he accidentally gave out a blazing sword-like light.

With the warrior heart inherited from the glorious Iron-arm Mantis Bloodline, Qian Jin had no leeway to retreat, nor would he surrender the slightest until the last minute of the fight.

Jidu. Qian Jin rotated his wrist and took out the fierce-looking wide-edged Zhanmadao from the warrior dimension, and twirled the air flow with a radius of five meters using his warrior heart, just to find that the muscles on his neck and heart were convulsing incessantly, a typical reaction of being locked by an archer. Immediately he realized that his enemy had aimed at pricking his heart and neck with the spear. Well, there seemed to be another archer hidden somewhere unknown.

That archer...was hidden behind the chimney of a house fifty meters away, playing in perfect coordination with this Yeti Bloodline Warrior.

But Qian Jin didn’t give a shit to the incoming attack from the spear. He seized the handle of Zhanmadao with one hand and pressed it down while stamping on the ground with two feet to push forward. By doing so, a crescent-shaped curve emitting dazzling light drew in the sky.

Seven Bloody Strikes – [Traces of the Scarlet Moon]. What a bold and deadly move it was!

Whoosh. Mingled with the whining sound brought about by the warrior power and the air flow, Zhanmadao produced a whoosh that resembled the sabers and swords knocking with each other.

Standing in the posterior place with the sword seized closely in one hand, one could crack the peaks and mountains.

Even though he had to face a million enemies by himself, Qian Jin exerted compelling force with one move of the Zhanmadao. It appeared he was able to split a roaring tsunami with his weapon Zhanmadao.

In this showdown time on this life-or-death battlefield, even a chariot would be cracked into pieces by this long warrior-weapon spear wielded by a Level 9 Bloodline Warrior Demon Slayer, let alone a normal man’s torso.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang...

Seeing this deathly move from Qian Jin, the general couldn’t help feeling his heartbeat increase. Then he retreated and contracted his spear slightly, and took on a defensive route. As a city guarding general and a bloodline warrior, he deemed his life much more valuable than that of a mundane person.

Qian Jin screwed his lips and put on a sneer. How could you be thinking that your life was placed above the others on the battlefield? Wouldn’t you be courting death?

As the sword and spear clashed with each other, resplendent sparks looking like the celebrating firecrackers conjured by the mage apprentices splashed high into the sky. However, the murderous intent incorporated inside the sparks constituted substantive killing force.

After breaking down the attack from his enemy with just one take, Qian Jin pressed his sword down at the general’s spear, triggering it to make a harsh creaking sound. Failing to tolerate the pushing force brought about by two sides, the warhorse ridden by the general made a lamentable neigh, and collapsed onto the ground, stirring up clusters of dust to the sky. The scarlet blood mingled with white saliva spewed from the horse mouth sprayed here and there.

Bang. Whoosh.

With a crisp whistling sound, the archer hidden behind the chimney seized the crucial point where one had used up his energies after an exhausting fight and hadn’t grown new force and released a shot at Qian Jin.

"Wanting to kill me? You are courting death."

The Heart of Earthy Fire burst out fully at this moment. He cast away his Zhanmadao in the sky, which then took on the shape of a silver dragon, produced a splitting sound against the sky, and pricked through the chimney at the archer.

What an attack it was, faster than the lightning and a thunderclap! The archer was left no time to make any reactions as heavy pains came onto his lower abdomen. All he could do was gaze at the flying stones and the splashing blood in the sky blankly. Catching sight of Qian Jin who had grabbed the spear with bare hands, he finally realized that he had met his end due to this minor but grave mistake.

Generally, after the full activation of a warrior’s killing force, both his nerves and warrior power would remain in a relatively sluggish state, providing a best opportunity for the archer to shoot his powerful enemy. But it now turned out that this warrior activated the so-called full strength on purpose.

In fact, after releasing the attack on the targeted prey, the archer was of no difference from the warriors. The moment the archer released his shoot at full strength, he would also undergo a downturn.

As a predator hidden in the darkness, he became the prey to his targeted prey, what a sad joke it was. The archer looked at Qian Jin, long and firm. Though in fact, his life had already expired, his eyes were fixed on the enemy.

To grab the spear? How come? Falling off the horse, the general looked at Qian Jin unbelievably. As Yeti Bloodline Warriors, they had their unique characteristics.

What made a Yeti? Ice. Freezing cold ice. The warrior power of the Yeti Bloodline Warriors was as cold as the frozen snows, which, on the point of clashing with the warrior power of most other warriors, would immediately freeze their enemies and cause heavy frostbite.

Qian Jin grabbed the slightly distorted spear, pulled it out of the general’s hold with his arms and made it his own possession.

Level 5 warrior weapon? Qian Jin threw the spear onto the ground hard with a crisp cracking sound and made it straight again as before. He was the only who had full knowledge of the damages on this spear. Was it not for being thrown out to kill the archer, this spear would be broken by the Zhanmadao within ten chops at most.

Why? How come? The general bounced backward incessantly, with the bloodshed on his two hands frozen by warrior power and eyes locked on Qian Jin blankly.

"I was a Level 9 Demon Slayer! How could things go on like this? How did I fail to mitigate and freeze his warrior power, let alone sealing his Level 1 Demon Slayer’s warrior power? Was he using the magic conductor [Burning the Stars]? Wasn’t by becoming a Demon Extinguisher could one obtain the [Burning the Stars]? Unless he came from a prestigious bloodline family... but he is just an ordinary warrior, why my warrior power..."

Translator’s Thoughts

Udong Udong

9/10