Ch. 24
Chapter 24: They Even Know How to Use Weapons Now
“Ah!”
Luo Li let out a frightened scream. Instead of gripping the horse-cleaving saber with both hands, she threw her arms around it and hugged it to herself.
Chen Guan’s face darkened at once, and he said coldly,
“So there’s no room for negotiation after all?”
The weapons in Luo Tong’s and the others’ hands gave another sharp cry, cold light bursting from them.
If there was no room for negotiation, then the negotiation had failed, and only a fight to the death remained.
At that moment, not one of these seasoned old escorts—who ordinarily loved to put on airs—showed the slightest cowardice, nor did a single one of them retreat.
Once they had entered this trade, they had already hung their heads at their waists. Either they would earn until their bowls overflowed, or they would die without even making a sound.
As long as the escort remained, the cargo remained. That truth had long since been carved into their bones.
Boom!!
The leading Grudge-Bearing Demon Ape suddenly stomped both legs into the ground. Its feet sank into the earth, its upper body pitched forward, and its spine arched as it assumed a crouched stance poised for a headlong charge.
Boom boom boom boom boom—!
Immediately after, the densely packed Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes behind it all adopted the exact same posture in perfect unison.
The ground resonated. Pebbles trembled and danced.
Chen Guan curled his lip, feeling rather annoyed.
Ordinary little demons and fiends were not even qualified to make him open his mouth and “test the road.”
This was only the second time since his debut that a negotiation had failed.
The last thing to show him so little face had been a tiger spirit called a “Mountain Lord.”
That beast’s idiot son had fallen into the trapping pits laid by the villagers of Xiaohe Village and died miserably. Driven mad by grief, the Mountain Lord had tried to slaughter the entire village to vent its rage.
The negotiation failed, and so Chen Guan split it into two halves with a single slash. It and its son ended up neatly together as a tiger-skin rug in his room.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!
The air split apart!
The several dozen leading Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes suddenly launched themselves upward from the ground. Their heads dipped low, their arms guarded their skulls, and their entire bodies tensed into straight lines.
Like giant battering rams used to break city gates, they hurtled straight toward the defensive formation of Luo Tong and the others.
“Form up!!”
Luo Tong roared and took the lead.
Zhao Wu followed close behind him. With a low shout, he brought his weapon crosswise before him, stepped forward with one leg like an old tree putting down roots, and assumed a stance meant to absorb impact.
The other escort masters swiftly filled the gaps. Blades and shields locked together, and in an instant they built a wall of steel.
BOOM—!!
The two formations slammed into one another head-on, without the slightest flourish or maneuver.
A heavy, meaty impact burst out from the cliffside at once, echoing again and again through the chasm below.
Under the force of that collision, the five viscera and six bowels of Luo Tong and the others all shuddered. They slid back more than a zhang before barely managing to steady themselves, with only two meters left between them and the edge of the cliff.
As for those Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes, when their first charge failed to shatter the line, they borrowed the rebounding force, sprang up with a single bound, and landed lightly ten zhang behind.
The instant they touched down, they crouched again, stamped the earth again, and prepared for a second wave of plunging attacks.
“Don’t play collision against collision with them! Spread out! Break up their formation! Don’t let them gather force in place!”
Chen Guan stood inside the circle and called out a warning.
Though Li Fei and the others were far from pleased with Chen Guan, they could not deny that he understood the weaknesses of these monsters better than they did.
That single line went straight to the heart of the matter.
These demonic fiends possessed no other real ability. Everything depended on those two legs. As long as one prevented them from properly exerting force, they would not be able to stir up much trouble.
“Scatter!”
At Luo Tong’s shout, the twenty-four escort masters instantly broke apart from one cohesive unit into separate moving pieces.
Four of them remained behind with heavy shields to help Chen Guan protect Luo Li. The other twenty burst outward and rushed straight into the demon ape pack with sabers in hand.
They might have been proud and full of self-importance, but the skill they had cultivated over decades was not decorative showmanship.
Their bodies were agile. They evaded the strongest crashing blows of the apes’ skulls and targeted only the lower limbs and soft flanks. The sabers and swords in their hands carved one cold streak of light after another through the air.
Splurt!
Two demon apes had just begun gathering strength for another leap when a flash of cold steel crossed before their eyes.
The great saber in Luo Tong’s hand cut through their iron-hard ape heads as though it were slicing tofu. At once, rank black blood gushed forth and dyed the earth red.
With the breach Luo Tong carved open, Li Fei and the others quickly found their footing.
The long spear in Li Fei’s hand moved like a venomous snake emerging from its lair. The tip quivered out clusters of fatal spear-flowers, and almost every two or three breaths, another demon ape had its throat pierced through and collapsed with a shriek.
Luo Li clutched that horse-cleaving saber, which stood taller than she did.
Watching those middle-aged men who were usually greasy and slippery now fighting like war gods descended to earth, cutting the demon apes back step by step, she finally let out a long breath and patted her chest.
“Hah... that scared me to death. These old fellows may have foul tempers, but their skills are still good. Those thousand taels of silver were worth spending.”
As she spoke, she instinctively turned her head toward Chen Guan, wanting to see what this “money-grubber” was capable of.
But the fellow was standing right in front of her, perfectly still, with no intention of going forward to help.
Chen Guan paid no attention to her, nor was he even focused on the battle.
His gaze swept continuously over the dense tree canopies around them and the dark cracks in the rocks.
Because according to the records in the 《Demonic Fiend Bestiary》, what made the Grudge-Bearing Demon Ape truly dangerous was not merely this sort of brutish headlong assault.
Their real killing move... had yet to appear.
These demonic fiends were far too cunning. If he struck rashly before fully understanding them, he would only expose his own trump cards, and that would make dealing with what came next even harder.
Sure enough, the sudden change came!
From the distant tree canopies came a series of cracking sounds. Then, one by one, trees as thick as a man’s waist toppled down.
“Not good!”
Chen Guan had only just barked the warning when a group of black figures burst out from that patch of forest.
It was another troop of Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes.
And every one of them had a thick tree trunk slung across its back!
Those seemingly short little arms held the trunks firmly pinned against their backs as they charged this way with a fearlessness that bordered on insanity.
“Damn it! They even know how to use weapons now!”
Chen Guan could not stop himself from cursing inwardly.
These beasts...
What kind of demonic fiends were they?
They were more professional than siege troops assaulting a city wall.
Luo Li was also stunned by the sight.
She could still accept a bloody melee, but the sight of those demonic creatures charging while carrying tree trunks directly shattered every notion she had ever had of demonic fiends.
“Wh-what are they trying to do?”
“Watch for bombardment from the rear!”
Chen Guan had no time to explain to her. He could only shout the warning to Luo Tong and the others who were still locked in battle.
Following the sound of his voice, Luo Tong and the others looked over in that direction, and their hearts lurched.
They saw that group of Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes come skidding to an abrupt halt at a distance of roughly two hundred meters, both feet plowing two deep trenches into the earth.
Then, using the momentum, the huge trunks on their backs—each thick enough that a man would need both arms to encircle it—were flung free at once.
Those trunks were like giant arrows hurled from siege catapults, shrieking through the air as they traced parabolic arcs and rained down upon them.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
“Not good! Dodge!” Luo Tong shouted at once.
At that moment, however, two escort masters happened to be entangled with more than a dozen Grudge-Bearing Demon Apes and could not break free at all.
Four or five enormous tree trunks, each several zhang in length, descended like a dark cloud and instantly covered that patch of ground.
One of the escort masters had only just split open the demon ape before him with a single slash. When he raised his head, his field of vision was already filled by a vast black shadow smashing straight toward his face.
“Old Liu—!”
Luo Tong and the nearby escort masters cried out in alarm.