Chapter 438: We Are Both Women

Small city.

Murong Mansion.

A scene of misty rain, full of poetic and picturesque charm.

If a scholar or poet were to get inspired, they might well start waving a brush and splashing ink on the spot. Of course, most of the time it is just piling up flowery language, feigning sorrow to compose new verses.

Yet in the small courtyard and the long street outside, the sound of weapons clashing is incessant, filled with killing intent, and screams are heard from time to time.

In the courtyard, three figures—one green, one red, one white—are intertwined.

The Dongyue swordsman in green clothes has a form that shifts unpredictably, the long and short Gedang blades at his waist drawn. The longer Gedang Barbarian Saber carves out stunningly beautiful, large arcs, its blade Qi surging like a tide. The shorter Gedang Brocade Saber guards his entire body, constantly parrying the double blades of the beauty in the white robe, occasionally coordinating with the long saber to strike silently like a viper.

The Rune General Red Armor, covered from head to toe in bright red armor, is as steady as a mountain, barely moving his position.

But his defense is extremely high, and his strikes are like the roar of heavy artillery.

Even if the long saber strikes his fist, the tiger's mouth of the wielder is numbed by the shock. The surrounding water droplets show a faint tendency to gather toward him, causing his energy to continuously strengthen.

There are five Rune General Red Armors in total: gold, wood, water, fire, and earth; clearly, the one before them is the water armor.

Nangong Pushe transforms into a white shadow, moving through the rain, her two blade auras crisscrossing peerlessly, weaving back and forth between the Dongyue swordsman and the Rune General Red Armor, carving out mysterious arcs.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of moves have passed.

The three each have their advantages; for a short time, it seems neither can do anything to the other.

Suddenly, a burst of sharp light shoots from Nangong Pushe's pair of Peach Blossom eyes.

She taps her toes lightly, her robes fluttering, her body spinning like a top, driving her double blades. With every rotation, the force carried by the double blades grows stronger by a fraction.

In the blink of an eye, she has spun seven or eight times; having built up momentum, the double blades launch a thunderous strike at the Dongyue swordsman, as if a peal of thunder had exploded in the air.

Two arcs of light tear through the void, blooming with incredible speed.

The Dongyue swordsman feels a strong sense of danger, crossing his long and short blades to block the incoming slash.

On the other side, the Rune General Red Armor taps his toe, shattering the ground, and his iron-clad fist slams heavily toward Nangong Pushe; the rain-filled sky and the air are both pushed aside by this punch, forming a vacuum zone.

Not to mention whether Nangong Pushe's double slash will succeed, if she continues to attack, the moment she strikes the Dongyue swordsman, she herself will be struck by the Rune General Red Armor's fist. At best, she will be severely injured; at worst, she will lose her life.

The most appropriate choice for her right now is to dodge.

But she does not.

A look of determination flashes in Nangong Pushe's eyes; her blade momentum is unyielding, as if she has made up her mind to "trade injury for life." Trading her own severe injury for the life of the Dongyue swordsman.

The Dongyue swordsman sneers, his long and short blades carving out a screen of light. He does not believe that, under his full-force defense, the opponent's single strike can break through head-on.

However, just as Nangong Pushe's double blades are about to collide with the Dongyue swordsman's blades, a crescent-moon smile curls at the corners of her lips.

She twists her slender waist, performing another incredible spin. As she turns, the double blades abandon the Dongyue swordsman and suddenly slash at the Rune General Red Armor behind her.

As it turns out, the Rune General Red Armor was the target of Nangong Pushe's full-force strike all along.

The Dongyue swordsman is in the middle of full defense; it is too late for him to offer help.

And the Rune General Red Armor, in the midst of a large-scale movement, has broken his connection with the rain between heaven and earth, finally allowing Nangong Pushe to spot a flaw.

In an instant, Nangong Pushe further stimulates her True Qi; the ten-jin-nine-liang Xiudong Saber tears through the air, filled with overwhelming, massive power, as if it could cleave thunder and lightning, its momentum terrifying to the extreme.

Bang!!

The Xiudong Saber slams heavily onto the Rune General Red Armor's fist, sparks flying everywhere.

At the same time, the Spring Thunder blade—two feet four inches long, weighing only one pound and six ounces, sharp enough to cut through hair—slices through the armor like lightning, piercing into the heart of the Rune General Red Armor.

The contained True Qi surges violently into the heart meridian, wantonly destroying the meridians and internal organs.

The Rune General Red Armor stumbles backward, completely losing the feeling of being as immovable as a mountain.

Nangong Pushe taps her toe, the Spring Thunder blade carving out a silver arc, and a head instantly flies into the sky, then rolls onto the ground with a thud. The headless corpse stands on the ground, motionless.

Finally, one is dealt with.

Nangong Pushe lets out a long sigh of relief.

The Rune General Red Armor was truly too difficult to deal with; apart from lacking consciousness, it was effectively no worse than an ordinary First Grade Vajra.

Hearing the wind whistling behind her, Nangong Pushe glides away lightly, and when the opponent's blade momentum is nearly spent, she spins and casually slashes out a blade, completely neutralizing the attack.

"The two of you combined were no match for me; now that only you are left, you should flee." Nangong Pushe elegantly twirls her blade, looking at the gloomy-faced Dongyue swordsman with a calm and indifferent demeanor.

The Dongyue swordsman licks his blade, his tone icy: "The two strikes you used to kill the Rune General Red Armor just now consumed a massive amount of True Qi; it is not yet certain who will be the victor."

"Die!!"

The long and short blades cleave through the increasingly heavy rain, blade Qi crisscrossing as they slash toward Nangong Pushe, as if intending to sever this beautiful head without a shred of pity.

"Then come!" Nangong Pushe taps her toe, both blades striking out together.

Only the sounds of "ding" and "ding" are heard; as sparks fly, the four blades collide like lightning, triggering tremors, and the shattered force rolls outward, pulverizing the surrounding flowers, plants, and fallen leaves. The wind and rain filling the sky are forced back by the blade Qi, unable to approach within three zhang of the two.

The two people and four blades engage in a life-or-death struggle once more.

What a battle: green clothes against white robes, double blades killing double blades.

This fight does not last long.

After about twenty breaths, a flash of silver blade light shoots into the sky, once again carrying off a fine head. The ghastly red blood and the lightning tearing across the sky reflect each other, abruptly taking on a soul-stirring luster.

Nangong Pushe points her double blades diagonally toward the ground; the rain falling from the sky washes the blood from the Spring Thunder blade, and the blade surface glimmers with a sharp light.

Her pair of Peach Blossom eyes look at the head on the ground, which still wears an expression of shock and fear, and the woman in the white robe sighs softly: "In the past, I might have fallen to you, but now you are still far from it..."

The Dongyue swordsman had intended to exploit her exhausted True Qi, not knowing that she had learned internal martial arts from another world under Yu Liancheng; although she had only reached the Innate Realm, the True Qi within her was continuous and endless, and she could turn the power of heaven and earth to her own use, possessing miraculous power nearly akin to a Heavenly Phenomenon, far from being at her wit's end.

And by the time the Dongyue swordsman realized this, it was already too late to flee.

"I wonder how that woman is doing?"

Nangong Pushe regulates her breathing for a moment, sheathes her double blades, and walks out of the courtyard.

Outside the courtyard is a small alley that is not particularly narrow.

Previously, the sound of horse hooves in this alley was like thunder, and the sounds of killing shook the heavens.

Even though there are many martial artists in this small city who love to watch the excitement, they have all turned into shrinking turtles. Some excitement is not meant to be watched; one careless move and one's life is in danger.

As time passed, screams rang out from time to time, but the sound of hooves and battle cries gradually faded away.

When Nangong Pushe appeared in the small alley, she saw corpses covering the ground, all of them members of the Beikui Army that the Guangling King had once touted as being able to take on ten men each.

Nangong Pushe looked up and saw that there were still thirty or forty Beikui cavalrymen making a final death struggle, their battle blades dancing wildly, their expressions ferocious, bordering on madness.

A white shadow wove through the Beikui Army, moving like a Ghost.

Nangong Pushe set her mind at ease.

It was no wonder she was not worried.

The Beikui Army was already the elite among cavalry, and this particular unit was the elite of the elite.

An ordinary Second-Rank Small Grandmaster facing such a Beikui unit would likely be trampled into pulp or hacked to death by a flurry of blades.

Even a First Grade peak expert would have to be extremely cautious.

And as the situation was developing, it was very likely that the hundred Iron cavalrymen would be completely wiped out by Murong Wuzhu.

This was not because Murong Wuzhu had reached the First Grade; strictly speaking, she had not even reached the level of a Second-Rank Small Grandmaster.

The reason for such a brilliant battle record had to do with the following three factors.

First, this was an alley; although not narrow, it did not allow the hundred-plus Beikui cavalrymen to charge at will, while Murong Wuzhu's lightness skill was superb, allowing her to dodge as she pleased.

Second was the Heavenly Demon Great Art that Murong Wuzhu practiced.

Nangong Pushe had exchanged blows with Murong Wuzhu and knew that this Heavenly Demon Great Art was incredibly bizarre and followed one's own whims, capable of harming others in any situation. Moreover, it could not only draw upon the power of heaven and earth like a Heavenly Phenomenon expert, but could even absorb the True Qi energy within the opponent's body.

Third was that the Beikui Army lacked a leader, a case of a group of dragons without a head.

The Dongyue swordsman was held up by Nangong Pushe, and the cavalry leader had been killed first by the quick-witted Murong Wuzhu. Even with rigorous training, they inevitably fell into disarray at many moments.

In the small alley, a few more rounds passed.

Murong Wuzhu's cloud-like sleeves fluttered as she struck out with "Heavenly Demon" True Qi, knocking several Beikui cavalrymen off their horses and severely wounding them.

When more Beikui cavalrymen discovered that the person walking out of the courtyard was White Fox Face rather than the Dongyue swordsman, they finally collapsed; unable to even care for the corpses of their companions, they ran off and vanished in the blink of an eye.

"Hey, Murong Wuzhu, you lost." Nangong Pushe pursed her lips in a smile, her Peach Blossom eyes squinting into lines; she truly looked like a devastatingly beautiful little fox. Before the two fought, they had made a bet on who would finish their opponent first. Now it was clear she had won, though it seemed they had forgotten to set a wager.

She had expected Murong Wuzhu to argue with her, but she did not expect that after the other party drifted down from the air, that snow-jade-like face would turn deathly pale. A pair of beautiful eyes scanned the corpses on the ground, lost in a daze.

The young girl who had previously been killing like she was slaughtering chickens, flickering like a Ghost, stumbled and fell to the ground, retching.

Borrowing the reflection from the water on the ground, Murong Wuzhu vaguely saw her current appearance: her hair hanging down, her snow-white clothes stained with mud and blood, her whole person still carrying an unspent aura of slaughter.

It actually gave off a terrifying feeling.

It was completely different from the gentle and playful girl she had been before.

When the girl read novels, she always fantasized about the pugilistic world being about swift vengeance and romantic entanglements.

But only after truly entering the pugilistic world did she realize that riding a horse for a long time made one's backside ache, that heroines were always covered in dust, and that killing people was not easy at all...

At the thought of those twisted, ferocious faces, the girl who had once dreamed of making a name for herself in the pugilistic world retched again.

Just then, she suddenly felt the light dim, and the continuous raindrops seemed to stop.

Looking up, she saw White Fox Face, who had appeared at her side at some point, standing there holding an umbrella.

"Thank you," Murong Wuzhu thanked her weakly.

"Truly useless," White Fox Face chuckled.

"What did you say?" Murong Wuzhu stood up, her pretty face filled with frost, her beautiful eyes glaring at the person before her—someone whose appearance was not inferior to her own, yet possessed a unique, otherworldly, devastating beauty.

"A woman is just a woman; you vomit for ages just from killing someone." The corners of Nangong Pushe's mouth curled into a crescent smile; this smile alone was enough to make countless people fall for her.

But in Murong Wuzhu's eyes, it was as hateful as could be. She gave a delicate snort and said, "Hmph, as if you aren't a woman yourself."

White Fox Face's Peach Blossom eyes widened as she said, "I am a man."

Yet in her heart, she thought, this woman really knows; I fear that fellow told her.

Murong Wuzhu sighed leisurely, "We are both women."

White Fox Face kept a cold face and repeated, "I am a man."

"Fine, fine, fine, you are a man." Murong Wuzhu gave a perfunctory reply, then lowered her voice just enough for White Fox Face to hear: "Reasoning with a woman is, in itself, an unreasonable thing."

White Fox Face's mouth twitched, and she said coldly, "Have you said enough? If you have, let's go. The matter here is resolved, but the matter at Huishan is not yet over."

"Hey, wait for me, let me go change my clothes first."

Murong Wuzhu followed closely beside White Fox Face; both were of peerless beauty, enough to topple cities with a single glance. Walking together now, they complemented each other, a sight of breathtaking beauty.

"Thank you," Murong Wuzhu said suddenly.

"It's nothing," White Fox Face said indifferently.

It was unclear whether she was thanking White Fox Face for coming to help kill the enemy, or for helping her temporarily forget the sensations of killing, or perhaps both.

"The reason I practice martial arts is because I want to help Tonghuang, so I don't want to be left far behind by him. No matter what happens, I want to face it with him; after all, we are siblings. Today... although killing was a bit unpleasant, I am actually very happy that I could help him."

Murong Wuzhu moved her lotus steps lightly, tilted her head slightly, and looked at the gloomy sky, which seemed to show signs of clearing up.

She suddenly turned her head and said, "Nangong, why do you want to learn martial arts? Training through the coldest winter and the hottest summer, there is rarely time to catch your breath or slack off; it is truly exhausting. Don't tell me you want to be the number one person in the world."

White Fox Face was silent for a long while, then said slowly, "I want to kill four people."

Murong Wuzhu was slightly startled: "With your superb skills, it's still difficult?"

"Nonsense." White Fox Face rolled her eyes, a gesture that was incredibly charming.

Murong Wuzhu said thoughtfully: "It seems your enemies are very powerful. I will go ask Tonghuang to help you."

"No need." A brilliance flickered in White Fox Face's Peach Blossom eyes; although there were four enemies, the only one she truly had to kill was one person.

A fellow with whom she was deeply entangled and held deep hatred.

Not to mention that fellow's methods and strength, even if the fellow stood before her, would she truly be able to bring herself to strike?

Thinking of this, White Fox Face sighed leisurely.