Chapter 45: One After Another

After slamming Xiao Huo away, two legs suddenly sprang out from behind the shield and stepped onto the ground.

It turned out that when the shield flew over, an entire person had curled their body up and shrunk behind it.

No wonder the impact was so fierce; even after being cushioned by the bullets, it could still send Xiao Huo flying, leaving his life or death unknown.

Above the shield, another person revealed half a face, glancing at Cai Shanjun like lightning.

That person was none other than Meng Daizong.

None of the leaders sent to hunt down Cai Shanjun were cowards afraid of death.

They only feared having no opportunity.

Killing Cai Shanjun was a golden opportunity to rise in the world.

Therefore, when Meng Daizong sent those ninjas out, he didn't just let them charge forward while he hid.

When the ninjas charged, he had already set off himself.

His weapon was a shield hidden behind the car, shaped like an iron pot, matte black and lusterless, and quite heavy.

The ninjas entered the forest, determined the general direction of the target, and attracted attention.

Meng Daizong took the opportunity to detour, infiltrating the forest via another route.

At this moment, he finally had a close-range encounter with the target.

Just from the excited expression revealed on that half of Meng Daizong's face, one would think he had at least twenty or thirty impassioned, triumphant words to say.

Cai Shanjun, you've finally fallen into my hands!

You rebel, ignorant of the times, now you're at death's door!

Cai, I'm about to take your head to achieve my future fame and fortune!

But in reality, he didn't say a word.

At the very same moment he peeked out and revealed that expression,

his body suddenly lunged over again.

Cai Shanjun's focus of vision suddenly shifted.

After all, Cai Shanjun's hand was still clutching his flute; the most convenient thing for him to move, and the most likely to be faster than Meng Daizong, was his gaze.

This gaze did not land on a person, but on the donkey.

*Hee-haw!!!! *

That donkey with large ears, short shoulders, and a love for braying suddenly lifted its body, its front hooves kicking directly onto Meng Daizong's shield.

It was just a donkey.

But when it kicked, the braying sound it emitted and the sense of power erupting from beneath its hooves

were nothing like a donkey, but rather like a magnificent wild horse over eight feet tall.

Those hooves seemed the size of bowls, and the power of a single kick felt capable of shattering a cow's skull!

Meng Daizong was kicked backward, sliding over a meter, the fallen leaves beneath his feet shattered, the mud indented.

Cai Shanjun had originally cultivated military arts, among which the "Command" character technique was the most critical.

Having had his toxins suppressed by Seeing Chu Tianshu and his poison eased by the Colorful Cloud Flute, he had already recovered a portion of his cultivation.

Just by using his gaze to project telekinesis, he could stimulate the donkey's potential to unleash such a strike.

Unfortunately, after this strike, the donkey's four hooves buckled, and its head swayed.

It was as if it had been pulling a millstone for three days and three nights, on the verge of passing out.

Meng Daizong, however, *clanged* as he drew a blade from behind his shield.

Before, when he had to shrink his body to approach a marksman like Xiao Huo, his entire focus was on the shield, and he hadn't drawn his blade.

Now, blocked by the donkey, it instead triggered his stance of being proficient with both blade and shield.

Even if that donkey were hit by his shield again, it would surely die, let alone with a blade.

But just as his blade was drawn, the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end, and with the fastest speed of his life, he turned and pushed his shield out.

*Thud!!! *

Seeing Chu Tianshu's flesh-and-blood palm slammed into the shield, the sound produced low and heavy.

The brute force of Dragon Entwining Body and the penetrating force of Palm Thunder were all combined in this one palm.

Meng Daizong's left forearm vibrated slightly, neutralizing the penetrating force, but the brute force made his wrist go slightly numb.

Even more shocking was that in the instant of their collision, he saw the ninja corpses scattered everywhere behind Seeing Chu Tianshu.

The primary target was only Cai Shanjun.

As long as Cai Shanjun was killed, it didn't matter if all the ninjas were sacrificed.

But these ninjas had died a bit too quickly!

Meng Daizong's infiltration speed should have been about the same as those ninjas.

After he infiltrated to this point, he had only launched two attacks, which, with his skill, was basically the work of two blinks of an eye.

In such a short time, those ninjas were already almost all dead?

Could it be that they died the moment they arrived?!

Meng Daizong was shocked and furious, but his body movements were not slow; his chest and abdomen contracted and expanded almost instinctively.

Exerting force from his internal organs, the shield retracted and released, slamming toward Seeing Chu Tianshu.

Seeing Chu Tianshu reached out to block, but just as his palm pressed onto the shield, the shield veered to the side, and the blade light pierced from diagonally below, aiming for his chest and abdomen.

Seeing Chu Tianshu raised his eyebrows, his figure shrinking backward.

Facing this person, he had no confidence in being able to handle the opponent's blade.

The blade light missed its target and suddenly vanished, blocked by the black shield, and came crashing over again.

Meng Daizong advanced with a low body, black shield and white blade flowing like art in his hands.

The shield slammed, and the blade followed.

The blade missed, and the shield was already in place to block.

Seeing Chu Tianshu retreated repeatedly, feeling that he couldn't find a single flaw in his opponent.

He had to block the shield, but once he did, he had to dodge the blade in the next instant.

The speed of the black and white rotation was like a two-colored spinning top, flashing wildly before his eyes, heart-stoppingly intense.

"Chen Family Village Taiji?"

Seeing Chu Tianshu had heard Zhong Jinqiu mention it.

Chen Family Village Taiji Fist had the atmosphere of the battlefield and the farmer; the part belonging to the battlefield was precisely the technique that evolved into the blade-and-shield soldier.

Both were figures who had cultivated Food for the Immortal, and both practiced Taiji Fist.

The fighting style and the intensity of the killing intent of the person before him were a full cut above Zhong Jinqiu's.

Prolonged defense leads to defeat; if he continued to retreat, his sharpness would be gone.

He had to counterattack!

Seeing Chu Tianshu gritted his teeth, a heavy sound humming from his nasal cavity, and a *gurgle* sound emerging from his stomach.

This sound was not particularly fierce, as it was just a noise from his internal organs.

But just as this sound rang out,

Seeing Chu Tianshu's feet, without specifically lifting or falling, sank straight into the ground.

It seemed as if everything around him had suddenly become more fragile and more ethereal.

His limbs were actually exerting force synchronously, it was just that the range of motion of his feet was so low it could be ignored.

So, as his ankles sank, his palms had already pushed out in the most violent posture.

The air in front *banged* and vibrated.

Only then came the thunderous sound of his palm colliding with the shield.

*Boom-clash!!!! *

It was completely different from the muffled sound before; it was a crisp, explosive crack.

Meng Daizong's shield had collided with his opponent many times, and he hadn't expected the force of this one to greatly exceed his estimates.

He only felt his left arm ache so much he was about to lose his grip on the shield, and his entire body felt like it was about to fly away.

Palm Thunder was originally a technique that used the internal organs as a primer to pry the whole body, finally transmitting power to the outside world.

Seeing Chu Tianshu's previous combination of hardness and softness referred to exerting force from the internal organs while the limbs also collided and exerted force, with two types of power surging out in parallel.

But the current method was to let the force of Palm Thunder deflect at the step of transmitting to his own muscles.

The stimulation of Palm Thunder acted on the acupuncture points within his own body.

Using the physical fitness of Dragon Entwining Body to bear it, and then erupting.

This method was similar to the Ghost Gate Counter-Catalyst Needle, but it was achieved purely through the principles of fist art, and his control over his body was on a completely different level than the Seeing Chu Tianshu of the past.

It took effect faster, had a greater effect, yet had fewer side effects!

Seeing Chu Tianshu's palm strike was intended to shatter the shield, or at least make the shield smash back to crush Meng Daizong's chest.

But Meng Daizong, at this moment, also displayed the most essential skill of Taiji Fist: "Lightning-fast soul, responsive to a touch."

Chen Family Taiji Fist's understanding of the Dao of hardness and softness was to pursue absolute sensitivity.

Even the stimulation of lightning had to be reacted to instantly.

Although the words were exaggerated, one had to speak to one hundred and twenty percent for the matter to achieve thirty percent.

A person practicing fist art had to harbor this extreme, exaggerated pursuit of atmosphere for the body to barely achieve thirty percent of the effect.

The instant the shield smashed back,

Meng Daizong's center of gravity shifted backward, his power fully pressed into his right foot, his right foot sinking into the ground.

Then his body rotated with the greatest effort of his life.

With his right foot as the center, he flung the shield, which was bearing immense force on his left hand, backward and outward, and flung the blade in his right hand forward and outward.

His previous blade-and-shield techniques had the weapons close to his body.

At this moment, however, he let the weapons be as far from his body as possible.

An extreme, high-speed grand rotation.

He could even hear his right foot, which served as the pivot, dislocate at the ankle, and the muscles in his leg being strained during the rapid spin.

But this bought him a blade strike at maximum speed, slashing toward Seeing Chu Tianshu.

The corner of Seeing Chu Tianshu's left eye seemed to be filled with silver-white blade light.

He only had time to glimpse that flash of blade light with his peripheral vision.

But his arms were already extended forward; compared to his head, his left arm was actually closer to that slash.

Seeing Chu Tianshu's left arm felt as if it had been pricked by a needle, and it raised rapidly, his vertical forearm blocking the strike.

The silver light had arrived!

Golden light exploded!

The blade edge, near the hilt, hacked into Seeing Chu Tianshu's arm.

Seeing Chu Tianshu's left sleeve shattered instantly, revealing the golden light on his forearm.

From his wrist to near his elbow, it was wrapped in ropes.

Meng Daizong's level of kung fu was actually inferior to Seeing Chu Tianshu's.

The reason he had been able to force Seeing Chu Tianshu to retreat repeatedly just now was that he had the advantage of his weapons.

But who said Seeing Chu Tianshu didn't have weapons on him?!

Those were protective ropes woven with iron wire, copper wire, and even a bit of gold thread, mixed with the fine grass tendons from the mountains, using special methods.

One long rope wrapped around one arm, with many knots on it, and therefore many copper and iron lumps on the arm.

The ancestors used knots to record events, using knots as text; special weaving methods represented different characters.

The Wu Family Stronghold meticulously crafted these rope knots into dharma artifacts; one rope was one incantation.

Seeing Chu Tianshu's force reached his entire body, and also reached this copper rope dharma artifact.

The moment the blade edge collided with the rope knot, a vibration rang out.

The entire sword body was like a piece of ice, shattering into a dozen irregular iron fragments.

Seeing Chu Tianshu tilted his head, his gaze unusually calm, only a few strands of hair at his temples were cut off by the fragments.

Meng Daizong lost the balance of his long blade, and his right foot also reached its limit, his entire body toppling over.

Like a large wooden stake, he rolled rapidly on the ground.

"Seeing Chu Tianshu!!"

A long roar came from the forest.

The heavy-armored general with fire-cloud ear protection was sprinting over, dragging his blade, and another figure was dozens of steps faster than him.

Zhong Jinqiu and Old Yu had just solved their opponents and hadn't had time to intercept the faster figure.

Zhou Fuguan's roar was intended to gain the upper hand.

As long as Seeing Chu Tianshu had a reaction, Xu Youjiang could already arrive there, and Meng Daizong would not die.

Today's battle had evolved to this point.

They were no longer just trying to protect an envoy, but also to preserve a high-level combatant on their side.

Seeing Chu Tianshu indeed turned his head to look.

Meng Daizong rolled to a tree, his body stopping, but he made no move.

When he rolled, a thick silver needle was already in the back of his head.

A direct thrust, piercing the brain!

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 46 =====