Chapter 223

Shuntian Prefecture, Mount Tianshou.

Outside the Imperial Tombs.

Wu Zhiheng punched through the abdomen of the Xiaolingwei in front of him, then spread his five fingers, pulled him in front of him, punched to break his still-twitching neck, and then lifted the corpse to block the incoming arrows.

He first took a step back, but stepped into a pool of sticky flesh and blood. Having no choice, he took another step back to step onto solid ground.

Taking advantage of the time to regulate his breath, he looked around.

It was already a scene of corpses strewn across the field.

The Xiaolingwei were indeed tough enough, worthy of being the personal guards selected from the best of the army by the Taizu, even superior to the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The Imperial Tombs were built to be easy to defend and hard to attack, with battlements set up along the surrounding wall. The Xiaolingwei inside kept pulling their bows and crossbows, and arrows as dense as raindrops poured down.

If Wu Zhiheng had not escaped the state of the Five Decays of Heaven and Man and recovered his original strength, leading a team of elite imperial guards to charge and pull at the Xiaolingwei's defensive direction, I am afraid there would be even more corpses lying on the ground now.

But Wu Zhiheng knew that the deciding factor was not these ordinary soldiers.

He turned his head to look at the entrance of the Imperial Tombs.

A chaotic battle was taking place there.

A chaotic battle of Heaven-Man experts.

"Zhu Shoujing! You traitor! The Great Ming has treated your Xiaolingwei well, and you actually colluded with the Ming Cult rebels to rebel!"

One person roared.

Zhu Shoujing did not answer, but with a cold face, he slashed at that person with all his might!

This sword technique is called "White Blade"!

Fierce and peerless! Sharp and unmatched!

That person's pupils shrank, and he raised the iron mace in his hand to take the blow, but retreated abruptly.

Clang, clang, clang, clang—

He retreated several zhang before dissipating the force.

Looking at his hands, the blood vessels had been shattered, and the area under the skin was bright red. The iron mace in his hand had also been slashed with a deep mark.

He looked at Zhu Shoujing with an ugly expression.

"Truly difficult to deal with... Xiaolingwei!"

"I'm afraid it's too late to break through this place before His Majesty arrives!"

When the Taizu established the dynasty, he confiscated all the martial arts of the world. They were originally placed in the palace, and copies were sent to the Xiaolingwei. The reason Wang Zhi was so certain that Li Miao came from the Xiaolingwei was because the two places with the most complete martial arts manuals in the world were the Forbidden City and the Xiaolingwei.

And as the Commander of the Xiaolingwei, the martial arts Zhu Shoujing used were naturally the most profound divine skills of the entire Great Ming!

White Blade—The rooster crows and the world turns white! It is one of the most upright, fierce, and peerless blade techniques in the world!

With one slash, the opponent can only see a sheet of snow-white blade light, and then lose their head!

He looked at Zhu Shoujing's left hand again.

There was another short blade there.

Black Blade—Heaven and earth are dark with wind and rain!

The white blade is fierce, the black blade is sinister.

If he hadn't sensed the "Black Blade" hidden under the "White Blade's" light, stabbing secretly toward his waist, and borrowed the force to retreat, he would have been stabbed right into his waist and abdomen!

He glanced at his side.

A total of ten experts came on this trip, all of whom were outstanding figures among the experts.

Yet they were all trapped in a bitter battle!

It was not just the Xiaolingwei, but also the Ming Cult and the Yang family—exactly ten people, who were fighting them one-on-one.

But the imperial court's experts were all two-path Heaven-Man experts, while many of the opponents had only cultivated one path. If it were only these, it would not be enough to trap them in a bitter battle.

The truly fatal thing was the figure standing silently outside the Imperial Tombs.

The Jianwen Emperor.

The Jianwen Emperor sensed the prying gaze and turned to look over.

Their gazes met in the air.

The Jianwen Emperor's appearance was no longer as terrifying as before.

His figure was still withered and thin, but no longer like a dried corpse; he looked just like a dying young man. He was no longer wearing that rotten dragon robe, but had changed into a bright yellow martial outfit. He wore a pair of gloves woven from heavenly silkworm silk.

Although he was ambushed by the experts last night and startled away by Li Miao, he had truly "eaten" several imperial clansmen. The Xiaolingwei Heaven-Man expert who died at the hands of the imperial court's experts last night was also absorbed by him.

At this moment, the injuries he sustained while fighting Li Miao had all recovered, and his state was even better than it was then.

Thinking about it, one knows that the Jianwen Emperor, who almost wiped out the Great Ming imperial clan, could not have had only that much strength.

Before, he had been locked in the Xiaoling tomb for over a hundred years and had his Heaven-Man supply cut off by the Emperor and Yin Ruihua for over ten years. To say he was nearly exhausted when he finally escaped would not be an exaggeration.

At this moment, he was no longer the same as before.

At the moment their gazes met, the expert fighting Zhu Shoujing suddenly felt his vision blur. When his vision refocused, he found himself standing inside a great hall.

In the great hall, the Jianwen Emperor sitting on the dragon throne cast a cold gaze.

"Not good!"

He thought to himself.

Suddenly, he felt pain in his neck.

The illusion before his eyes shattered abruptly.

Zhu Shoujing had already appeared in front of him, and the "Black Blade" had cut half an inch into his neck!

"Ah!!!"

He was also a Heaven-Man expert who had fought his way through life and death. Seeing that he was in imminent danger, he used his wits and squatted down quickly.

"Ugh!!!"

He let out a suppressed cry of pain, his figure retreated violently, he raised his hand to cover his neck and side face, and used his healing technique with all his might, barely stopping the gushing blood.

Just now, he escaped the fate of being beheaded, but he traded half his neck and half his left face to Zhu Shoujing's blade.

This slash directly "dug" open his neck and skull.

The side of his left eye was already exposed to the air.

"Switch!"

He shouted abruptly.

Wu Zhiheng rushed over, struck his back with a palm, pushed him out of the battle circle, and struck Zhu Shoujing's blade with his other hand, forcing him back.

He had been patrolling the periphery, looking for an opportunity to see if he could quickly kill an enemy Heaven-Man expert. If the enemy had one less person and we had one more, the pressure would be greatly reduced immediately.

It was just that the situation was truly critical, so he could only come to save him.

Wu Zhiheng knew that the martial arts of the expert just now were not much worse than Zhu Shoujing's. The reason the situation took a turn for the worse was all because of the Jianwen Emperor.

But, knowing is one thing.

He had no way to break the situation.

The number of opponents was the same as theirs, and they were all Heaven-Man experts; even two paths against one path would be hard to win quickly. Plus, with the Jianwen Emperor's unpredictable "Jizhao," their experts were all fighting with tied hands and feet, trembling with fear, and appeared to be in precarious situations in front of opponents who were not as good as them.

They also had no way to go after the Jianwen Emperor.

Last night, ten experts couldn't stop him from tearing Huang Jin's throat, and later, eight experts couldn't stop him from escaping into the Xiaolingwei. Just looking at his appearance now, one could tell he had recovered quite a bit, so it was even harder to know how many people it would take to pose a threat to him.

Even if the Jianwen Emperor didn't make a move, they couldn't rush to the Jianwen Emperor under the interference of "Jizhao" and the enemy Heaven-Man experts.

(End of chapter)