Chapter 65 : Chapter 65
Chapter 65: How Can Humans and Beasts Be Spoken of in the Same Breath?
SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!
The crack of the whip rang out again and again.
Shrill, hysterical screams echoed all around, drawing every eye.
A Steward with the strength of the Fifth Rank— a top expert who, in any other prefecture of Dragon Abyss Path, would have been enough to stand at the very peak— had actually had both hands severed and was now being whipped like a pig or a dog.
When the disciples of Sword-Forging Manor saw their Steward in such a miserable state, each of them was scared out of his wits and collapsed to the ground.
The Jinyiwei quickly subdued them.
They no longer had the courage to resist in the slightest.
Even a Fifth Rank expert had ended up like this.
What was the point in resisting for disciples like them, who were only in the Lower Three Ranks?
The Jinyiwei were not necessarily stronger than them one-on-one.
But every one of them was equipped with crossbows. If they could not win up close, they used distance to wear them down, and they also knew how to fight in coordination.
The disciples of Sword-Forging Manor were beaten until they fled in utter disarray.
The Jinyiwei dealt with the enemy with ease.
And when they saw Lord Cheng once again displaying such overawing might, deliberately targeting the strongest opponents first, the reverence in their hearts deepened even further.
"As expected of Lord Cheng!"
Even the laborers forgot to flee and merely stared blankly at the scene.
That Steward, so savage and cruel, forever lashing and beating people at will, with the blood of countless laborers on his hands— he, too, had finally lived to see the day when someone whipped him like this!
Tears that had long since run dry once again spilled from their eyes.
They all burst into loud sobs and dropped to the ground, knocking their heads against the floor again and again toward Cheng Yu.
"Heaven has blessed us! A Bodhisattva has come to save us!"
"What Bodhisattva? I prayed to the Bodhisattva day and night for three years, and the Bodhisattva never saved me! It was this lord who saved us!"
Their long torment had already extinguished the hope and faith in their hearts.
Yet at this moment, when life had returned from the brink of despair, light shone once more in their deadened hearts.
It came from the radiance they saw before their eyes— the shining light upon Cheng Yu!
The laborers turned to the Jinyiwei beside them.
"Heroes, who is that lord?"
"This is Lord Cheng Yu, Hundred-Household Commander of the Qingjiang Prefecture Jinyiwei! A once-in-a-thousand-years genius the Great Qian has never seen before!"
A Jinyiwei from Qingjiang Prefecture spoke with pride.
"Are any of you from Qingjiang Prefecture?"
"Yes! We are!" several laborers answered at once.
"We were tricked and abducted here by those vicious jianghu martial artists from Qingjiang Prefecture! We could not even die if we wanted to!"
At the mention of the jianghu martial artists who had deceived and kidnapped them in the first place, hatred filled their hearts, and they ground their teeth in fury.
But they were also terrified.
If they left this place, would they only be hunted down and retaliated against again?
The Jinyiwei Banner Captain saw the fear in their eyes and smiled, shaking his head.
"Then put your minds at ease. Under Lord Cheng's wise and mighty command, there are no longer any jianghu forces left in Qingjiang Prefecture!"
"What?"
The moment those words were spoken, the laborers froze in shock.
What did he mean, there were no longer any jianghu forces left?
In the Great Qian Dynasty, could such words even be spoken?
Seeing that they did not believe him, the Banner Captain said calmly, "You've heard of the Leaf Blade Sect, haven't you? I was the one who hung the head of their Sect Master, Bai Han, on the city wall of Qingjiang Prefecture."
"The Sect Master of the Leaf Blade Sect, Bai Han?!"
The Leaf Blade Sect was one of the three great sects of Qingjiang Prefecture, and yet even its Sect Master's head had been taken.
The laborers' eyes widened, and only then did they truly believe it.
No one could make up something like that!
"If the Jinyiwei dared strike even Sword-Forging Manor, what did those little sects of Qingjiang Prefecture amount to?"
Amid the Banner Captain's proud voice, the speed of Cheng Yu's whipping grew slower and slower.
Not because he was tired.
Because the Steward no longer had the strength to scream.
And if the man did not scream, what fun was there in it?
Cheng Yu stopped and looked at him in silence.
Seeing that Cheng Yu had paused, the Steward bared his teeth through the agony and pleaded, "Great hero, I was wrong!"
SNAP!
"AAAHH!!"
"What did you call me?"
Tears streamed down the Steward's face. "Officer..."
SNAP!
"AAAHH!!"
Cheng Yu's expression remained calm. "Does that sound good to you?"
That still was not good enough?!
The Steward felt as though his heart had been crushed. The double blow to body and mind shattered what little strength he had left.
A steady beating, he could at least brace himself for, but being questioned and then lashed without warning— that was too much!
"M-My lord, stop hitting me! Please, don't hit me anymore!!"
A dignified Fifth Rank expert broke down and wept in humiliation.
"Then one last stroke."
SNAP!
Cheng Yu put a bit more force into the final lash. It burst the man's skull open, and he collapsed to the ground, dead beyond all doubt.
At that moment, a furious shout filled with powerful breath rang out.
"Who are you people?! How dare you trespass into the forbidden ground of my Sword-Forging Manor and kill people here!"
Cheng Yu looked up.
Quite a few members of Sword-Forging Manor came rushing out of the giant cavern with weapons in hand.
Among them, the most conspicuous was an old man with white beard and white hair, radiating a formidable aura.
Cheng Yu's brows lifted slightly.
When Ai Peng had come here earlier to investigate, he had encountered a martial artist at the late Seventh Rank.
And from the interrogation of Sword-Forging Manor's people just now, Cheng Yu had learned that there was an Elder Chen overseeing the excavation here.
So this should be him.
The moment Elder Chen emerged and saw the ground strewn with corpses, with the Steward having been whipped to death on the spot, he flew into a mix of fury and shock.
"How did you get here?!"
Cheng Yu smiled. "What do you think?"
With so many of them coming here at once, it was impossible that the Manor Lord's group would not have noticed.
Then there was only one possibility...
Something had happened to them!
Elder Chen felt as though a massive boulder had crashed down on his heart. No matter what, he could not bring himself to believe it.
"Petty vermin! How dare you babble such nonsense? Watch as I kill you all!"
With that, the sword in his hand gleamed with a cold light as he lunged straight for Cheng Yu.
Cheng Yu showed not the slightest fear. "Lord Ai, I'll leave him to you. Be sure to keep him alive."
In the next instant, Ai Peng burst out of the Jinyiwei ranks like a black shadow.
"I am, at the very least, an Assistant Commissioner of the Jinyiwei. Do not question my professional standards."
Black mist like ghostly apparitions rose from the Xiuchun Saber in his hand.
A perfected Cold Ghost Fiend Saber!
The ghostly shadows pounced toward the horrified Elder Chen, smashing him back through the air and slamming him heavily to the ground.
Before he could even rise, Ai Peng's figure appeared before him, one hand closing around his throat.
Elder Chen was in unbearable pain, and stormy waves crashed through his heart.
So strong!
How could a Jinyiwei of this level have come to their Sword-Forging Manor? Could it really be that the Manor Lord and the others had already...
Elder Chen was captured in an instant.
The other disciples rushing out of the cavern all turned pale with fear, and before long they too were subdued.
Ai Peng crippled Elder Chen's Dantian and left him sprawled before Cheng Yu like a dead dog.
"You're the one in charge here?" Cheng Yu asked indifferently.
"Don't even think about prying anything out of my mouth!"
Elder Chen ground his teeth in hatred.
"You do have some backbone." Cheng Yu raised a brow. "But it makes no difference if you speak or not."
"In any case, no one will praise your integrity. They will only say that you were stubborn beyond reason."
"What do you mean by that?!" Elder Chen roared in anger.
Cheng Yu gave a cold laugh. "Your Sword-Forging Manor has caused the deaths of millions of laborers. Your crimes are already beyond count. You are a rebel force that all under heaven should destroy!"
The moment those words fell, Elder Chen immediately flew into a rage. "Imperial hound of the court! You slaughter the disciples of my Sword-Forging Manor in droves, and you still dare speak of my Sword-Forging Manor as evil?!"
Cheng Yu laughed.
"You treat the lives of the common people like pigs and dogs. If I now treat your lives like pigs and dogs, how am I any worse than you?"
"How can martial artists and commoners be spoken of in the same breath?!"
SLASH!
His head fell to the ground. Cheng Yu wiped his blade.
"Yes. They are living, breathing people. You are beasts and jackals. Naturally, the two cannot be spoken of in the same breath."
Ai Peng, standing to the side, felt a little helpless.
So the reason Cheng Yu had asked him to keep the man alive was because Cheng Yu wanted to kill him personally.
That really was his style...
【The host has utterly crushed and wiped out evil foes, greatly boosting the Jinyiwei's prestige. Reward: one Dragon-Binding Rope!】
After dealing with the last of Sword-Forging Manor's remaining strength, Cheng Yu looked toward the massive pit before him.
It was precisely the thing inside that had drawn Sword-Forging Manor on so obsessively.
...
"Lord Cheng, all the laborers inside the cavern have been taken out."
With his hands clasped behind his back, Cheng Yu nodded.
They had already reached the very end of the pit, a place where the weaker ones could not even remain standing.
Just then—
"ROAR!"
A surge of dragon-might suddenly erupted, making the earth quake and the mountain shake, so terrifying that several of the weaker Jinyiwei were knocked to the ground.
Even experts like Jian A showed wary expressions.
Ai Peng said gravely, "The thing inside is extremely terrifying. When I came here before, it happened to be just waking up. Its aura alone nearly scorched me."
"I imagine Sword-Forging Manor has been using laborers to excavate slowly because they feared that digging with Internal Energy would provoke a far greater disaster."
"They likely intended to wait until the excavation was nearly complete, then use the Dragon Abyss Sword to try to deal with whatever is inside."
At those words, everyone frowned even more deeply.
Sword-Forging Manor had not dared act rashly for five years. It would be difficult for them to change anything in a short time.
"Should we report this to the court and ask His Majesty to send someone to deal with it?"
Fan Xiu offered the suggestion.
But the moment the words left his mouth, the atmosphere turned cold.
If the Emperor had to send someone to handle it, then by the time they arrived, it would already be far too late.
Fan Xiu had said that only because he was afraid.
He wanted to leave.
"Ah..."
Jian A leaned on his cane and rubbed his aching lower back, scaring Fan Xiu into shutting his mouth at once.
Then Cheng Yu spoke.
"Since we've already come this far, we may as well break through the final rock wall and see what exactly is going on."
A chill ran down Fan Xiu's spine.
"Break through the rock... wall?"
If they stirred whatever was inside, would that not be courting death?
Cheng Yu smiled at him. "Exactly. And I think Lord Fan is perfectly suited to the task."