Chapter 104: Dragon Fin Mountain Showdown (Four)

At this moment, the fire had already burned the wooden bridge apart, leaving it in pieces, the Buried Corpses could not cross, and Wu Zhuoyue and the others could not get over either, so they could only watch helplessly as Li Bucai fought hand‑to‑hand with the Buried Corpses on the fire‑side.

From the nearby garrison watchtower, the battlefield below was fully visible; Yue Ji and the others anxiously watched this side. When Li Bucai sent Shan Ji back, he had her convey a command to Yue Ji and the others: no matter what happened, they must hold the garrison, unless a Buried Corpse crosses the creek.

Li Bucai did not want these undead to encounter the Buried Corpses, because the corpse rot toxin on them is even more lethal; even if they broke through, they would only waste their lives.

Tan Jiang's seven retainers encountered undead; among them were two Assassins, a Blade Badge Warrior, a Spear General, an Ice Mage, a Medical Officer, and a Lightning Mage. They were surrounded by more than 90 undead, and none could threaten them, especially with Yue Ji, whose reach was several times theirs. Of the seven, five died in the chaos; the remaining two, mentally dazed, were captured alive together with Cold Eagle.

Li Bucai was surrounded by more than seventy Buried Corpses. At times a group of Buried Corpses would close in, waving their tendrils to block the girls' sight so they could not see Li Bucai; just as everyone was sweating for him, the surrounding Buried Corpses suddenly scattered, and Li Bucai swept them away with his battle rifle. At other moments Li Bucai urged his mount forward, charging through the Buried Corpse Formation; his might was like a tiger, his momentum like wind, unstoppable. Yue Ji and Shan Ji exchanged a glance, having never seen anyone so brave—not even the monsters they had previously encountered matched him. His bravery differed from that of monsters, which usually rely on terrifying roars and massive bodies to charge; Li Bucai gave the impression of being still as a bell and moving as wind, his courageous aura manifesting in both motion and stillness, appearing weighty and awe‑inspiring.

No one expected that, although he was usually gentle and affable, on the battlefield his presence surpassed that of any race they had ever seen.

Li Bucai fought hand‑to‑hand with the Buried Corpses for more than half an hour. By then he had slain over thirty of them, and the flames on that side were dwindling, likely to go out. Wu Zhuoyue's archers, a cavalry unit under their command, tried to slip around from the side, but the fire wall stretched about ten li and had not yet been reached; only about forty people remained on that side. Li Bucai feared that once the fire died, the Buried Corpses would charge through. (hand‑typed, first release at www. shouda8. com)

At that moment, a sound like an avalanche suddenly came from the direction of San Shui Kou.

"Lulu Beast!" Li Bucai shouted, realizing that Shan Ji had successfully looped around to San Shui Kou and lured the Lulu Beast, hurriedly cutting a path, bursting out of the Buried Corpse Formation and sprinting toward the source of the sound.

The Buried Corpses saw him break out of the thicket and gave chase immediately.

Li Bucai led them more than two li away, and ahead he vaguely saw a huge mass of black objects moving quickly toward him. He leapt, dropping from a wolf's back; the Qingwolf Beast, following Li Bucai's orders, halted and hid in a thicket, while Li Bucai proceeded on foot toward the beast herd.

When the Lulu Beast arrived, it surged like a tide. Li Bucai mastered lightness skill, but the Qingwolf Beast did not; the Head Wolf, though much larger than an ordinary wolf, was still tiny compared with the Lulu Beast. If they rushed through, they would be trampled into mush, so Li Bucai abandoned his mount and led the Buried Corpses to meet the beast herd head‑on.

The Buried Corpses were chasing Li Bucai when they suddenly spotted a cluster of massive beings ahead. Though they feared not death, faced with such irresistible force they would not foolishly let their flesh be crushed under iron hooves; instinctively they turned and fled, causing chaos.

Seeing Shan Ji's cavalry charging ahead of the beast herd, Li Bucai shouted loudly, "I'll take this! Split quickly into two groups and scatter into the woods to avoid the beasts."

After speaking, he let the cavalry pass; the beast herd was already at his eyes. Li Bucai vaulted onto the herd's top, using the backs of several Lulu Beasts to gain leverage, searching for the tallest head beast. He jabbed its soft nose with his spear, enraging it, then leapt back to the front of the herd. At that moment the Qingwolf Beast emerged from the side, and Li Bucai jumped onto the wolf's back. Because the head Lulu Beast was enraged, it roared and ordered the herd to abandon the cavalry and chase that person, allowing the cavalry to escape from both sides. Li Bucai then led the herd to pursue the Buried Corpses.

Most of the Buried Corpses had been wounded by Li Bucai; while chasing him, the uninjured ran ahead, closest to the Lulu Beast. When they tried to turn and run, they fell behind; at their speed they normally wouldn't be caught quickly, but injured Buried Corpses blocked the path, slowing them dramatically. With Li Bucai charging in, they were further disrupted. Then the herd passed through; the herd was massive, spreading over more than a hundred meters in width, and not a single Buried Corpse could escape. By the time the last Lulu Beast ran past, the ground was left with a huge pool of sludge, so thick that even a slightly larger corpse fragment was hard to locate.

After eliminating that group of Buried Corpses, Li Bucai kept leading the herd around the White Horse Beach Garrison, guiding them through the Wolong Mountain pass beside the garrison and into the mountains, where he found a hiding spot. The herd could not locate anyone, so it lingered in a valley on the mountain side, and at daybreak it grazed the valley grass while moving toward the shadowed valley…

Li Bucai rode the Qingwolf straight toward the San Shui Kou water village. At that moment, Shan Ji's sixty cavalry and Jing Ji's one hundred eighty people were all there.

"Tan Jiang?" Li Bucai asked, knowing that one spear thrust had not hit him lightly.

Jing Ji replied, "We've searched everywhere; we only found an injured warhorse below Dragon Fin Mountain, probably the one he fled with from the river. We're sending people to continue the hunt." A servant led the horse to Li Bucai.

"It is indeed his mount. Fine, if he wants to escape, we may not be able to catch him, so let him go. How's this place? Anyone injured?" During the day, after Li Bucai had arranged this side, he went to set up the burial ground on Dragon Fin Mountain, still worried about the situation here.

Jing Ji answered, "Returning, my lord, no one is injured, but… but…"

Seeing her solemn expression, Li Bucai sensed something was wrong and asked anxiously, "But what?"

Jing Ji said in a low voice, "Our scouts… were…"

Li Bucai, about to dispatch men to support the two missing sentinels, heard that they had trouble and asked urgently, "What happened to them?"

Jing Ji gave no reply, slipped aside, and several servants brought the two sentinel corpses before Li Bucai.

Seeing the two's grim condition, Li Bucai felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck his head; his heart surged, and he rushed forward, cradling the bodies, unable to believe his eyes—such cruelty still existed in the world.

Jing Ji's heavy voice said, "Their faces are unscathed, only their bodies are torn like this. If nothing else, they were likely captured and given to the Buried Corpses as food." From their faces it was clear they did not die in combat; such wounds could only be inflicted by Buried Corpses, indicating that Tan Jiang, to bribe this group of Buried Corpses, had supplied them as food.

Li Bucai's heart jolted, his fury igniting; his eyes widened with murderous intent as he forced out two words through his teeth: "Offering food?"

The Tan family brothers, like himself, had come from a peaceful era and lived in the same city; he could not believe they could commit such inhuman acts. In a two‑army clash, casualties are normal, and ordinary battlefield deaths would not anger him so much, but they tossed living people to the continent's most evil aberrant beasts as food.

Jing Ji nodded silently, "Buried Corpses favor human flesh. I heard elders say that long ago the Daka Kingdom, to dominate these mountains and rivers, captured many elves and fed them to the Buried Corpses to bribe them, making the Corpses obey their commands, which allowed them to defeat other races. Our own race has been in decline since that war."

"So, the Tan family brothers also bribed them in the same way?"

"That seems to be the case; aside from human flesh, other animal meat hardly interests the Buried Corpses. Without live humans, they cannot be bribed."

The cruelty of the scene was easy to imagine. Li Bucai sighed deeply, first covering the two bodies with a cloth, and silently vowed, "The Tan family brothers, for the sake of the King of Ten Thousand Nations, have taken a crooked path. From today onward, the Tan family brothers and I are no longer just ordinary lords in dispute; I will stake my very life to be the first to drive you out of this world."

Li Bucai could not bear to watch the two any longer, slowly closed his eyes, and said gravely, "Carry them back and tend to them well. Tomorrow I will go to Sky City myself to apologize to their parents."

……