Chapter 901: Inferior military equipment reveals hidden dangers; Qifugu fights Tuoba to the death

When the second slash hit the edge of the iron shield, that horizontal saber in Qifugu's hand made a short, crisp 'click' from the hilt, the blade tilting two points to the side; something inside the hilt had loosened.

He had no leisure to think about what this crisp sound meant; his body had already been wrapped up by the rhythm of the battlefield and rushed forward.

Three steps away, one of Tuoba Lie's personal guards probed his curved saber from the gap in the circle formation, slashing toward the neck of a Qifu tribe soldier with the weight of his entire iron armor. The soldier raised his horizontal saber to block, and the moment the two blades met, a crisp sound that made everyone's scalp tingle exploded in the air.

The horizontal saber snapped directly from the connection between the hilt and the blade.

The blade flew out, spun twice in the darkness, and landed on the gravel. Before that soldier had even half a breath of time to be stunned, the personal guard's curved saber had already slashed into the gap between his arm holding the broken hilt and his neck. A line of blood sprayed from the side of his neck. He was still standing, but his head had tilted to an angle that no living person could make.

The same sound came from all over the battlefield.

A crisp sound here, a snapping sound there. The horizontal sabers in the hands of the Qifu tribe soldiers were like being cursed by someone, snapping one after another from the hilt. Some snapped when slashing, some snapped when blocking, and several flew off the hilt halfway through the swing, not even having a chance to touch their opponents.

Qifugu's horizontal saber finally fell apart on the fourth slash. When the blade slipped out of his hand, the wood shavings from the pin scratched a cut on his web space. Hot blood surged out of his palm. He glanced at the empty broken hilt in his hand. There was a hole the size of a soybean at the fracture of the hilt; that was the cross-section of the hollow wooden pin.

Hollow.

The wooden pins inside this batch of horizontal sabers sent by Great Zhou were hollow.

As this realization flashed through his mind, another more tragic collapse spread from another corner of the battlefield.

I don't know when a dense drizzle started in the sky. The silk threads slanted in the night wind and hit everyone, and the gravel road surface was already slippery, becoming like an ice slope covered with moss after being stained with rain.

The leather armor sent by Great Zhou on the Qifu tribe soldiers started to have problems.

A young herdsman rushing in the front was slashed horizontally across the chest by a Royal Court soldier's curved saber. The force of that slash was originally insufficient to cut through the leather armor, but the moment the blade touched the surface of the leather armor, the hemp rope used to sew the armor scales burst like noodles scalded by boiling water. The entire chest armor split into two halves on his body and hung around his waist, revealing his chest wearing only a thin cloth shirt inside.

The curved saber cut into the exposed flesh without any obstruction.

The second, third, fifth, tenth.

The rain became denser, and the inferior wet hemp ropes on the leather armor soaked through by sweat and blood rotted at a speed visible to the naked eye. One piece of armor scale after another peeled off from the soldiers' bodies, falling onto the gravel ground, being trampled into pieces, and soaked rotten by blood.

The casualty figures on the battlefield soared in a straight line at this moment.

The curved sabers of the Royal Court elites originally couldn't cut through the leather armor and had to find gaps to poke, but now they didn't even need to find gaps. With one slash, the leather armor split by itself, and the people inside were exposed to the sharp blades like shrimp that had been peeled of their shells.

Qifugu stood on the gravel pile, rain hitting his face and flowing down mixed with blood. He clutched that hollow broken hilt in his hand, his pupils reflecting soldiers on all sides who were also holding broken hilts or whose armor scales had fallen off.

Gao Jiong.

Great Zhou.

When these two words burned in his mind, they carried a fishy heat of being stabbed in the back. That heat surged from his chest to his temples, making the blood vessels at his temples jump until his vision went black.

But this was not the time for him to stop and hate.

Tuoba Lie's circle formation had already taken advantage of this wave of chaos in the Qifu tribe to push forward more than ten steps toward the valley tail. The corpses and broken sabers pushed aside on the gravel road surface piled up to knee height on both sides.

"Throw away the sabers! Use your hands! Use your teeth! Hold them back!"

Qifugu's voice exploded from the bottom of his chest. That roar drowned out the rain, the sound of weapons, and the screams, spreading throughout the entire Stone Valley.

The dozens of old Qifu tribe soldiers nearest to him heard this order, threw the horizontal sabers in their hands that were already broken or loose onto the ground, rushed toward the Royal Court circle formation with bare hands. Some hugged the legs of the shield soldiers and pulled them desperately, some jumped onto the backs of the iron-armored soldiers from behind and pinched their necks with both hands, and some bit the wrists of their opponents holding the sabers, blood foam mixed with broken teeth flowing from the corners of their mouths.

Tuoba Lie looked at these Qifu tribe soldiers rushing up empty-handed in the middle of the circle formation. His curved saber slashed into the shoulder of one person, pulled it out, and slashed into the top of another person's head. He slashed seven or eight in a row, his arms from the elbow joint to the shoulder all aching.

"A group of mad dogs!"

His voice carried heavy panting, and the inner garment under the iron armor had already been soaked through by sweat and stuck to his back.

Qifugu threw away the broken hilt.

He bent down and pulled a blood-stained curved saber from the waist of a Royal Court soldier's corpse at his feet. The blade was stained with already blackened coagulated blood. He wiped it twice on the robe of his thigh but didn't wipe it clean, clutched the hilt tightly, and rushed toward Tuoba Lie's direction.

Amu Ri behind him still had that arrow stuck in his lower back, and the blade of the curved saber on his right shoulder was also exposed without being pulled out. He held a captured short saber in one hand and followed behind Qifugu. After running three steps, his left leg went soft to the side and he almost knelt on the gravel, but he bit his teeth and supported himself up again.

"Great Khan, the one wearing the gold armor is Tuoba Lie!"

Qifugu's gaze passed through the blood rain splashing in the chaotic battle and locked onto the figure wearing gold-patterned iron armor in the middle of the circle formation.

Tuoba Lie also saw him.

The man wearing the silver leather crown in the middle of the circle formation was rushing toward him with a curved saber that clearly didn't belong to the Qifu tribe. The eagle feathers on the crown were soaked dark red by blood, and half of his face was covered in blood that didn't know if it was his own or someone else's. The things burning in those eyes made the skin on Tuoba Lie's back tighten for a moment.

"Qifugu! Just in time!"

Tuoba Lie stepped out of the circle formation, shaking the curved saber in his hand to shake off the blood water.

"This general just wants to see what kind of ability a shepherd slave who self-proclaimed as Khan has!"

The two collided in the pool of blood piled up by corpses and gravel.

The sound of the curved saber and curved saber hitting together was different from other metal collisions on the battlefield. This sound was crisper, louder, and carried the ferocity of wanting to split the opponent in half. Sparks burst out from the position where the two blades met, flashing once in the rain silk and then extinguishing.

Tuoba Lie's first slash was a downward hack, carrying the weight of his entire iron armor and the remaining explosive power after half an hour of fierce fighting. Qifugu dodged the blade by turning his body, but didn't dodge the blade wind. When the edge of the curved saber slid past the surface of the leather armor on his left shoulder, it tore the entire piece of the already rotted hemp rope seam, and the left shoulder piece of the leather armor fell off directly.

Qifugu didn't retreat, his right-hand curved saber backhanded toward Tuoba Lie's face. Tuoba Lie tilted his head back a distance to avoid the blade, but the tip grazed his nose bridge, cutting a shallow cut. Blood beads emerged from the nose bridge and were washed into a red line by the rain.

"Good guts!"

Tuoba Lie's second slash swept horizontally from his waist. The blade wind rolled up a layer of blood foam on the gravel ground. Qifugu jumped back half a step, but the gravel ground was too slippery, and he stumbled and didn't stand steady. The edge of the curved saber swept across his left shoulder, which had no armor protection, cutting a deep-to-the-bone cut from the shoulder to the middle of the upper arm. The two pale meat edges flipped open in the rain, and blood surged from the wound, flowing down his arm to the back of his hand, staining his fingers holding the saber slippery.

Qifugu groaned and his body tilted toward the injured direction but didn't fall. The gravel under his feet crunched as he stepped on it. He pressed his center of gravity firmly on his right leg, the wound on his left shoulder tearing every muscle and tendon. That kind of pain made his teeth clench until his bones rang.

Tuoba Lie laughed when he saw that wound. The laughter came out muffled from the chest cavity covered by iron armor. He swung the curved saber at his side, and the blood water he shook off splashed a small patch of red dots on the gravel.

"Just this little ability and you dare to call yourself Khan?"

He took a step forward, his iron boots crushing a blood-stained armor piece under his feet.

"A useless thing who can't even take one slash from this general, the Qifu tribe following you, what is the difference between following a stray dog?"

Qifugu didn't answer, clutched the hilt of his right-hand curved saber tightly, the blood on his knuckles washed pale by the rain and then covered by new blood flowing from the wound. His left arm couldn't be lifted at all, the entire arm from the shoulder to the fingertips was completely numb.

"Why don't you speak anymore?" Tuoba Lie's curved saber tip pointed at him, his tone like teasing a prey that had been trapped. "Weren't you quite imposing when you rushed over just now? This general thought you had some real ability, who knew you were just a poor wretch who couldn't even afford to wear leather armor, and you dare to stand in front of this general?"

Qifugu spat the blood foam in his mouth to the side. Rain flowed down from the edge of his eagle feather crown and poured into his eyes. He narrowed his eyes to stare at Tuoba Lie, the voice squeezed out of his throat carrying a fishy smell.

"Too much nonsense."

A flash of annoyance appeared in the bottom of Tuoba Lie's eyes. The curved saber brought back along the trend, and the third slash slashed toward Qifugu's throat from bottom to top. The sound of the blade breaking through the rain curtain was sharp and short.

Qifugu didn't retreat.

He met Tuoba Lie's third slash with his right-hand curved saber—not blocking, but risking his life, clashing blade against blade. The force of the two curved sabers hitting together made both their web spaces numb, and the crisp sound of metal collision was particularly harsh in the rain.

"You're crazy!" Tuoba Lie was shaken by this clash until his wrists were sour. Before he had time to retract the saber, Qifugu had already taken advantage of the slip of the gravel ground to rush forward a step, pressing his entire body weight onto this slash.

This collision pushed Tuoba Lie's body back two steps, the ribs under the iron armor creaking, and a rough panting was squeezed out of his throat.

"A shepherd slave is a shepherd slave, if you can't beat them, you hug!" Tuoba Lie stepped on the arm of a corpse when he retreated, his sole slipped, and his body tilted half a point to the side. His voice already carried obvious anger.

Qifugu didn't say anything. His right-hand curved saber slashed out in the gap where Tuoba Lie's body tilted half a point, and his entire body weight was pressed onto this slash.

Tuoba Lie's curved saber was too late to retract to block, and could only lift his left arm to meet this slash with the arm guard of the iron armor.

"I can block it!" He roared to himself, his left arm crashing into the blade.

But this slash of Qifugu's was not aimed at his left arm.

The curved saber changed direction at the last moment of the slash, sliding past the lower edge of the arm guard, sliding to the section of the wrist wrapped only in soft leather between the arm guard and the hand guard. That was the only gap in the entire iron armor that needed to move and couldn't be covered to death.

A short, muffled sound.

Tuoba Lie's right hand holding the saber, along with half of his forearm, flew out from the wrist position. The curved saber was still clutched in that severed hand, spun in the air, and landed on the gravel, clattering twice with a dull metallic sound.

"You..."

Tuoba Lie looked down at the bare stump at the end of his right arm. The blood at the severed wrist wasn't surging out; it was spraying out, jumping out with the rhythm of his heartbeat, spraying Qifugu's entire face, the hot liquid pouring onto his skin that had already been chilled by the rain.

Tuoba Lie's scream exploded in the entire Stone Valley. His left hand clutched the severed wrist and retreated, but couldn't stop the spraying section at all. Blood emerged from between his fingers, flowing down the patterns of the iron armor and staining the gravel under his feet dark red.

"You... you this..." All the blood color on his face was receding visibly to the naked eye. His lips were blue, his pupils dilated in pain until they almost swallowed the entire iris. All those arrogant taunts were shattered in his throat, and only the same word remained in his mouth.

Qifugu stood in place without chasing. The curved saber hung at his side, blood from Tuoba Lie's wrist dripping on the blade. Rain washed those blood into strands and gathered them on the tip of the blade, dripping from the tip onto the gravel ground.

His left shoulder was still flowing blood, and his entire left arm had completely lost sensation, hanging at the side of his body like a piece of extra meat. But his eyes stared at Tuoba Lie's eyes, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was hoarse as if it had been ground out of the cracks in the stones.

"You're right, I am a shepherd slave."

He lifted the curved saber, the tip pointing at Tuoba Lie's direction.

"The shepherd slave cut off your hand, does General Tuoba feel pain?"

Tuoba Lie's scream had turned into an intermittent hiss. His left hand clutched the severed wrist and retreated. The Royal Court personal guards beside him were already surging toward his direction. Someone tore off the cloth strip at his waist to bandage the section, and someone held up a shield to block in front of him.

Qifugu didn't rush forward again. Amu Ri had already rushed over dragging his injured leg, one hand supporting his swaying body.

"Great Khan, stand steady."

Qifugu leaned his weight over, the corners of his mouth pulling upward—not sure if it was a smile or a twitch from pain. He stared at the direction where Tuoba Lie was being protected by the personal guards and retreating, and another sentence squeezed out of his throat.

"Go back and tell your master, Qifugu is waiting for him in Stone Valley to come and take this head." ===== CHAPTER 902 =====