Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It was the 14th day of the twelfth lunar month in the 15th year of the Yuanping reign in the Great Han Empire.
The Gulang Plains was covered with snow. The northern wind was chilly and the calm white grass lake formed a thick layer of ice.
A few wild goats were searching in the snow for food. They were naturally vigilant. They were eating some dried grass stems and unique snow algae while looking around with their big eyes and upright ears watching the environment around them.
Suddenly, there was a strange sound at White Grass Lake. The few goats stopped eating and looked up vigilantly at where the sound came from.
Crack…! The sound was getting louder and it was just coming from the lake. These few goats turned to run without hesitation.
Rumble…! A fist pierced out from underneath the ice. The ice surface cracked open like a spiderweb. Then, a figure covered in water jumped out from the water surface thirty meters into the air before landing firmly on the ice.
This person was Yan Liqiang!
He had stayed in that cave for more than half a year until this morning. He found that the blade-like current had slowed down indeed. He quickly grasped the opportunity to get out from the underground river and swam to White Grass Lake.
“Hahaha…” Yan Liqiang laughed as he looked around. He had the satisfaction of seeing daylight again. After wasting so much time underground and with the leech, his clothes and shoes were ragged while his hair was messy. He looked like a beggar. Other than the Black Scale Sword, nothing he carried was in fine condition.
The water that was dripping off his clothes froze in the blink of an eye. Yan Liqiang’s hair and eyebrows were instantly covered in frost. To ordinary people, this frigidness would be bone-piercing and unbearable, but to Yan Liqiang, he didn’t care at all. What was the point of being a martial practitioner, if one couldn’t even resist against heat and cold?
After judging directions, Yan Liqiang was in a good mood. He shook off the snowflakes and headed east like an uncaged tiger. Yan Liqiang crossed ten meters with each step and dashed across the snow like lightning. Each time his feet landed on the thirty-centimeter thick snow, it only left a footprint one centimeter deep. His mobility in martial arts had reached a state of great mastery.
After running for tens of kilometers, boisterous sounds and cries of pain from behind an earth hill sounded in Yan Liqiang’s ear. There also seemed to be a fire over there. Yan Liqiang frowned and changed directions before heading to that small hill.
When he came to the hill, Yan Liqiang saw that a few hundred meters away, there were more than twenty Shatu tents. At this moment, a group of two hundred or so cavalry circulated the tents and waved their scimitars. They hacked over all the Shatu who came out of the tents regardless of gender or age.
Out on the snow, there were tens of bodies and red blood scattered over the snow. Those Shatu people wailed in pain. Every moment, there would be a Shatu person hacked or shot by the cavalry.
These twenty or so tents could at most house 70 to 80 Shatu people, but there was about a 200- person cavalry and every one of them were elite. The power difference was huge so what Yan Liqiang witnessed was slaughter.
Yan Liqiang didn’t sympathize with the Shatu Seven Tribes, but when he saw the faces of those cavalry, Yan Liqiang was shocked. Those cavalry weren’t Shatu people.
Those cavalry had dark faces and hideous cow-horned helmets. They wore pitch black armor and rode on rhinos.
In the blink of an eye, the Shatu who charged out of the tents were hacked to the ground and only a few women survived. Those cavalry jumped off their rides and in their laughter dragged those Shatu women into the tents. Some of them cut open the Shatu bodies and toof off their helmets. They used the blood of the bodies to color red their horns.
After quickly filtering the information, Yan Liqiang guessed who they were. They were from the Dark Ram Tribe and their rides were the special long-haired rhinos of the Dark Ram Tribe.
Dark Ram people were more savage, bloody and crueler than the Shatu people. Their power was huge.
Why did the cavalry of the Dark Ram appear on the Gulang Plains? Was it that during his half year of solitary cultivation? Yan Liqiang thought that the Dark Ram people couldn’t resist crossing Qiyun Mountain and reached out their claws to the Gulang Plains again. If the Dark Ram people were really brought into the fight for the Gulang Plains, then it would have a huge impact on the situation…
Just when Yan Liqiang was studying the Dark Ram cavalry, one person who just dug out a Shatu heart turned and looked at Yan Liqiang. That soldier immediately pointed at Yan Liqiang and spoke in his language. Those soldiers who were still outside all looked at Yan Liqiang.
Seeing that Yan Liqiang was by himself, they thought Yan Liqiang was an escaped Shatu. The Dark Ram cavalry weren’t worried and didn’t all come over. One head pointed at Yan Liqiang and called twice. Immediately, five soldiers rode their rhinos towards Yan Liqiang’s hill…