Chapter 127: Sudden Reversal

Zhao Qinghe suddenly pointed to the lake below: "Lu Yao wants to escape by boat!" Everyone looked, Lu Yao gathered the remnants and fought while retreating, untied the wooden boat at the pier, and it was indeed intended to escape to the center of the lake.

However, there were only thirty or forty fierce bandits left around him, and they were still losing manpower rapidly, so the seven or eight boats at the shore were enough.

By this time, Lu Yao couldn't care about his image, jumped onto the first boat and sailed to the center of the lake.

Wu Shaoyi cut down two people, and shouted angrily: "Seize the boat, stop him!"

The boat competition at the lake shore was deadlocked, and the subordinates who retreated from the west mountain by Wu Shaoyi arrived one after another, and a rain of arrows shot toward the center of the lake.

Lu Yao held the shield in front, blocking all of them, two personal guards beside him were caught off guard and fell down with arrows. Lu Yao pushed the two obstructive objects into the water, and no one found that he reached a hand into the water and released some medicine powder.

The powder turned red when it met water, but there were blood stains nearby, so its specialty didn't show.

The bandit who rowed for him was also shot and died, so Lu Yao's small boat spun around, less than a foot from the shore.

Seeing him within arm's reach and feeling that the bank slope here didn't seem very steep, Wu Shaoyi was anxious to kill his enemy, so he simply waded into the waist-deep lake water and charged directly toward Lu Yao.

A sinister smirk, however, tugged at the corners of Lu Yao's mouth: You brought this upon yourself.

Less than five feet from the small boat, Wu Shaoyi charged forward rapidly, but who would have expected the water surface to his front-left to suddenly explode.

"Splash!" A massive black shadow lunged out from beneath the water! The stirred-up waves splashed high into the air, turning into a fine, misty rain as they fell.

Rain carrying a thick, bloody stench.

He Lingchuan and the others on the hillside watched, dumbstruck. Because before the water waves had even fully vanished, they realized: Wu Shaoyi was gone.

Such a powerful rebel general, the Wu Shaoyi who had three times beheaded generals sent by the Wang Ting under his horse, had actually been dragged into the water by a black shadow in the span of a single encounter?

Mao Tao felt his back go cold and stammered, "W-what was that?"

The black shadow appeared for too short a time and moved too fast, and with the light by the lake being very dim, even with everyone's keen eyesight, they could only see a pitch-black mass that vanished in a flash.

But compared to the small boat nearby, its size was truly massive!

It was longer than two boats connected end-to-end.

This was simply not a monster that human strength could resist, not to mention that Wu Shaoyi had been ambushed while in the water; he didn't even have the strength to fight back.

The two rebel armies that had been fighting to the death were both stunned, but immediately followed by different reactions:

Lu Yao's bandits shouted and hollered, raising their weapons to launch a massive counterattack.

Looking at their enthusiasm, it was as if they had been injected with chicken blood; it seemed as though it wasn't them who had been beaten to the point of begging for mercy just a few breaths ago.

In contrast, the Wu bandits, aside from a few of Wu Shaoyi's die-hard confidants who shouted "General!" and plunged into the water to search everywhere, were all somewhat bewildered.

"Lu Yao and his men all know what that black shadow is," He Lingchuan blurted out, "It's the same one that killed Zhu Xiuer's husband!"

Zhu Xiuer mentioned her husband took a boat to escape, but the boat capsized before reaching the center of the lake, and the man was gone. Not a single person in the whole village saw how he disappeared.

Isn't that exactly the same as the situation right now?

Just as the Wu bandits were in this moment of daze, a bandit suddenly let out a scream and fell backward into the water.

Something under the water was dragging him and shaking him violently; he had no ability to resist at all.

The other bandits shouted while running toward the shore.

The distance was a bit far, and He Lingchuan couldn't hear clearly: "What are they shouting?"

"It seems to be..." Zhao Qinghe suddenly pointed, "Crocodile!"

Mao Tao also cried out: "My goodness, it's so big!"

The Wu bandits were dragged down one after another; clearly, there was something in the water biting people. One unlucky fellow had one foot on the shore, but the black shadow lunged up from behind and bit him in half!

Only when this thing crawled completely onto the shore could He Lingchuan and the others see clearly that this was unmistakably a large crocodile.

A large crocodile with a ferocious, scale-armored body, black to the point of reflecting light.

This one was probably nearly two zhang long, and another one over a zhang long rushed over from the side, competing with it for the prey.

One bite, one tear, each crocodile ate half.

Looking at the way the Wu bandits were splashing in the water, there should be more of these monsters at the bottom of the lake.

From this, it can be inferred that the one who ambushed Wu Shaoyi should also be a crocodile demon, but that thing was truly too large; these juniors aren't even fit to tie its boots.

Humans have an instinctive fear of such monsters with blood-filled maws and sharp teeth, so the Wu bandits had no heart to fight and fled toward the land, screaming. Lu Yao laughed loudly: "Little ones, get to the shore!"

He pointed his giant axe at the shore: "Listen well, you brats, Wu Shaoyi is dead. Those who submit to me now will eat meat, drink wine, and share the money together from now on; those who refuse to follow me, get lost immediately, don't let me see you again!"

Aided by the prestige of the black shadow, he instantly transformed from prey into hunter, and his men swarmed onto the shore, once again surrounding him in the center.

By this time, He Lingchuan finally understood; this fellow had deliberately feigned weakness earlier, creating the illusion of escaping by boat to lure Wu Shaoyi toward the water's edge.

Wu, greedy for merit and advancing rashly, fell into the black shadow's trap.

The situation suddenly reversed; the advantage of Wu Shaoyi's side was completely gone, and Lu Yao looked like he would have the last laugh.

It was also at this moment that Lu Yao suddenly looked toward the hillside on the west road, as if he had a telepathic connection with He Lingchuan.

There were torches on the hillside, and the figures of the government soldiers were still quite visible.

Lu Yao grinned at them, reached out and wiped his hand across his neck, making a throat-slitting gesture.

At this time, several of Wu Shaoyi's deputy generals cursed at him: "Submit to a low-class monster like you? To eat human flesh with you from now on?"

Lu Yao stopped smiling.

Mao Tao muttered: "We're in trouble now."

"Hold out as long as you can, we still have over a dozen carts, counting the villagers' too!" He Lingchuan remembered there was a sorcerer among the rearguard soldiers, so he hurriedly found him and asked a few questions.

More than an hour later.

Lu Yao wiped the blood and flesh residue off his axe and shouldered it: "Assemble, count the numbers!"

Wu Shaoyi's remnants had been scattered; those who fled fled, those who submitted submitted, those who surrendered surrendered, and the die-hards were all fed to the crocodiles.

Those few crocodiles also crawled onto the shore sluggishly, looking fully satisfied. But the largest one did not appear, which had quite the air of a boss keeping his secrets hidden.

After his men finished counting, Lu Yao's team, originally over two hundred people, had been reduced by more than half after Wu Shaoyi's surprise attack, but now it had expanded to nearly four hundred. If one counted the seven hundred ambushers at Scout Rock and the five hundred stationed in the town, the total number of his army had expanded to nearly sixteen hundred.

But Lu Yao was still very dissatisfied.

If the three parties could have met as planned, and he had secured the top chair, his army should have been far more than this.

After all, hundreds of Wu bandits were unwilling to submit to him and chose to turn and leave.

Who is to blame for this situation? Lu Yao looked toward the hillside on the west road, his eyes flashing with cold light; if one must blame someone, blame these government soldiers!

(End of chapter)