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The two of them arched their head upward to take a look, only to see a platoon of cavalrymen charging furiously in their direction. They were so fast that it would only take moments for them to arrive at the trench hole.
Given the charging prowess of the cavalrymen, there was little doubt that they would be reduced into meat slab right away.
Zu An instinctively shone the flashlight toward the cavalrymen, only to see them raising a shield in front of them. So, he changed his target toward their steed, only to be shocked once again to see that their horses’ eyes were covered in cloth.
He was utterly dumbfounded. What the hell? You’re terracotta soldiers, beings made out of mud! Where in the world did you get the cloth from?
In any case, he had to figure out a way to resolve the crisis right before his eyes.
An idea came to his mind, and he activated Sunflower Phantasm and continuously executed ‘Pick’ of the Elementary Swordplay, digging out a small hole.
He was rather impressed by how simplistic the Elementary Swordplay of Brightmoon Academy really was. The idea of ‘pick’ was fully expressed in the movement, evidenced by how efficient his blade was picking up the rock floor and tossing them aside.
If the creator of the Elementary Swordplay were to learn that his successor was using his technique to dig a hole, he would probably be so mad that he would leap right out of his coffin.
But of course, that was none of Zu An’s concern right now. He was only glad that Poisonous Prick was incredibly sharp, or else he wouldn’t have been able to dig so efficiently.
Qiao Xueying was completely confused by Zu An’s action. Is he intending on building a hole to hide from this platoon of cavalrymen?
Hda it been in the past, she would have surely shrugged over Zu An’s action as utter nonsense, but after everything they had gone through together, she decided to aid him as well. She gathered the remnant of her ki and placed her hand on the ground. Soon, vines shot out from the ground, creating a circular hole.
As the cavalrymen were getting closer and closer, Zu An suddenly abandoned the hole and pulled Qiao Xueying away with him, retreating from the area.
“Isn’t it too late to run away right now?” Qiao Xueying was perplexed.
However, what confused her even further was that Zu An actually stopped after barely running thirty meters.
He turned around to face the charging cavalrymen with his dagger in hand, reminiscent of a panther ready to pounce at any moment.
Qiao Xueying couldn’t make sense of anything at all. Is he really intending on facing the cavalrymen head-on? That’s suicide!
But in the next moment, she witnessed a sight that slackened her lower jaw. The cavalrymen’s steeds in the front row were suddenly alarmed by something and abruptly fell over, crashing heavily onto the ground. The brittle material they were made of caused them to shatter into bits.
With the front row suddenly collapsing over, there was suddenly an obstacle for the cavalrymen behind them. In such a situation, the other cavalrymen ought to stop or divert to another pathway, but unfortunately, the inertia from their furious charge disallowed them to stop. As a result, the damage snowballed further as more and more cavalrymen fell over and collapsed.
It was then that Zu An moved. He charged toward the chaotic cavalrymen and ended the life of those who hadn’t died yet while assassinating those who were still on their steeds.
Typically speaking, even though the cavalrymen had lost the momentum of their charge, they should have still been in an advantageous position due to their higher altitude from being on the back of a horse, making them hard to deal with. However, Zu An was equipped with the Magical Flashlight. By shining the light here and there, those cavalrymen swiftly flew into chaos, creating the best setting for Zu An’s Sunflower Phantasm to shine.
He weaved amongst the cavalrymen with unpredictable footsteps, occasionally executing the ‘Bixie Swordplay’ to lop off the heads of the terracotta soldiers.
After having fought with them for a while, he had already figured out what their weakness was—their heads!
Roughly an incense’s time later, over a hundred cavalrymen returned back to the dust. Half of them died from stumbling over one another, and the other half was killed by Zu An.
“Is that fellow really a third rank cultivator?”
Looking at the Zu An flitting around the battlefield like an apparition, Qiao Xueying felt a chill running down her back. Despite Zu An’s low cultivation rank, he looked more like an assassin than the most formidable assassin she had seen. His attacks were simple and clean, devoid of any excess movement. Every time he made a strike, he would be able to reap a life with him.
Meanwhile, Zu An gasped for breath from his overexertion. He had managed to achieve fair results, but he ended up expending himself greatly too.
It was also then that the remaining members of the terracotta soldiers finally snapped out of it. The archers at the backline decided to continue firing even at the expense of shooting their own comrades, resulting in a rain of arrows swiftly falling.
“Quick, hide in the trench hole!” Qiao Xueying pulled Zu An over, afraid that he was too tired to move.
Unexpectedly, Zu An threw a shield to her and said, “What are you running for? We got a shield now.”
The best tool to deal with archers were naturally shields. It was out of desperation earlier that Zu An had to dig a trench hole in a hurry earlier, but after clearing away the cavalrymen, the battlefield was now littered with shields.
The two of them quickly set up a couple of shields in front of them to conceal their bodies. The arrows rained down on them furiously, but they couldn’t hurt them at all.
Zu An made use of this opportunity to ask Qiao Xueying, “We already have shields, but you still wanted to pull me into the trench hole. Be honest, are you hoping that I would embrace you in there once more?”
“Embrace your head!” Qiao Xueying kicked him with a reddened face. It’s all this fellow’s fault! He always brings out weird ideas that I end up getting thrown off tempo. “Speaking of which, how did you make those cavalrymen fall over just by digging those round holes?”
Zu An wagged his finger and said, “That’s a secret too. Call me big brother, and I’ll tell you.”
Qiao Xueying gritted her teeth angrily. She took a look at the battlefield and saw that there were hundreds of terracotta soldiers in front. On the other hand, she was severely injured at the moment. Given the current circumstances, it seemed unlikely that she would be able to live to the end of the ordeal.
Not wanting to die ignorant, she succumbed to her curiosity and muttered almost inaudibly, “Big… bro… ther…”
“???” Zu An.
He didn’t expect that Qiao Xueying would actually do as he said. Did the sun rise from the west today?
Seeing the utterly shocked look Zu An was directing toward her, Qiao Xueying’s face reddened. She glared back at him and said, “What are you looking at? I’ve already done what you told me to. Hurry up and tell me the answer!”
“What did you do? I didn’t hear clearly,” said Zu An with a smile creeping on his lips.
“You’re toying with me?” Qiao Xueying flew into a state of rage.
You have successfully trolled Qiao Xueying for +398 Rage!
Zu An quickly added, “I mean, I really didn’t hear it clearly. Just do it once more, and I’ll give you the answer right away.”
Qiao Xueying bit her lips and her pride clashed with her curiosity. In the end, she tilted her head sideways and murmured, “Big brother…”
“Ah, my good lil’ sister.” The gleeful smile on Zu An’s face enraged Qiao Xueying. “Alright, the theory is actually pretty simple. If you have lived in the grassfield before, you should be aware that grassland horses are afraid of rodent holes. They’re afraid that they would break their legs if they accidentally step into it. In order to avoid being affected by my flashlight, the terracotta soldiers covered the eyes of their horses, preventing them from seeing the holes on the ground. But by doing so, they ended up courting their own death.
“As long as we can get the first row to collapse over, the remaining horses behind would follow suit due to the speed of their charge and the fact that the eyes of their horses were covered. As a result, they ended up tumbling over one after another like domino tiles.”
“You’ve lived in the grassfield before? Why do you know such details?” Qiao Xueying was perplexed. Based on the intelligence she had received while infiltrating the Chu clan, she was certain that Zu An couldn’t have been to the grassfield before.
Zu An shrugged arrogantly. “Don’t you know that your big brother is a knowledgeable man well-versed in every field? Even without traveling out of the city, I still know what’s going on in the outside world!”
The internet in his previous life was filled with all sorts of weird trivia that one couldn’t earn money off. A true keyboard warrior would make sure to diligently learn such trivia so that they could utilize them in arguments to make them appear informed.
“Pui, shameless!” Qiao Xueying spat with a furious blush on her face. I must have been possessed to actually call this fellow big brother!
The rain of arrows soon ceased after the terracotta soldiers knew that their arrows weren’t working. The first row of footsoldiers began marching forward. Remaining strictly in their formations, they marched their way forward slowly but steadily. The shields in their arms remained raised in order to fend against the mysterious beam of light.
Zu An remembered reading trivias on forums mentioning that the best way to deal with footsoldiers was to strike them from the sides or the rear, messing up their formation. Otherwise, even cavalrymen would suffer heavy losses if they had to go through an army of footsoldiers in their formation.
He looked at the steeds lingering in the area. As the cavalrymen platoon has just been defeated, quite a few horses were left lying around the area.
“We’ll ride the horses to circle to their back.”
Zu An quickly leaped on top of one of the horses before urging it forward. Even though these horses were made out of mud, they really felt no different from war steeds. In fact, they looked even suaver than the steeds Zu An had seen in dramas.
“Hurry up!” Seeing that Qiao Xueying was still standing in a daze, he quickly beckoned her.
“Yes…” Qiao Xueying forced a smile as she struggled to walk over and leap on top of a horse, only for her body to waver and collapse to the ground.
It was fortunate that Zu An noticed her anomaly and quickly rushed down to catch her. “What’s wrong?”
To his astonishment, he felt something wet on his hand. When he took a closer look at his hand, he realized that it was stained in blood. He quickly flipped her around to take a look, only to see that an arrow was piercing into her back, soaking her robe in blood.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re injured? You had the time to bicker with me, but you didn’t have the time to tell me something as important as this?” Zu An tore out a piece of cloth to apply slight pressure on her wound to slow the bleeding.
Qiao Xueying opened her mouth to retort, but she found that she was too weak to mutter a word.
“Bear with it!” Zu An bellowed. He eyed the footsoldier formation, which was steadily advancing on them, and made a quick estimation of the time they had left. Then, he tore off the robe covering her back.
“W-what are you doing?!” Qiao Xueying was alarmed by his sudden action and quickly struggled.
“Stop moving! I’m helping you pull out the arrow, or else there’s no way we can stop the bleeding.” Zu An picked up a dagger from the ground and gently cut away a thin piece of flesh around the arrow. Then, he pulled out the arrow lodged inside her body.
“Ah!” Qiao Xueying’s body shuddered as sweat continued trickling down her forehead profusely.
Zu An quickly applied pressure on her wounds with a piece of cloth as he asked, “Where’s your medicine?”
He had finished his stock in the earlier battle, but he recalled that Qiao Xueying still had some.
“It’s inside my robe, but…”
Before Qiao Xueying could finish her words, Zu An had already slipped his hand into her robe to look for it.
“You!” Qiao Xueying raised her hand to slap him, but she was too frail to do anything at all.
“Stop grumbling! It’s an urgent situation here. Besides, it’s not as if I’ve never touched you before,” said Zu An.
He moved on to apply the medicine on the wound before hurriedly wrapping it up.
His words reminded Qiao Xueying of the encounter they had with one another back at the Chu clan, and her pale face tinged in red.
“It’s a pity that this fellow is unable to…”
As soon as this thought surfaced in her head, Qiao Xueying jolted in horror. What in the world am I thinking about here?!