Chapter 52 Bloody Massacre
"We followed 3rd Chief and Lord Seven after leaving the stronghold to extort money from rich families. For the first few days, everything went smoothly. Any family which failed to produce the money were massacred by us. But when we went to the Lin family in Lin village of Yu City, things started going horribly wrong. Just when we were about to break down the gates of their residence, a Huashan upper courtyard disciple appeared. We heard that he was the young master of the Lin family who had entered Huashan half a year ago."
"That Lin Yi from Huashan did not say a word and killed several of our brothers. 3rd Chief approached him but was cut into two by his sword. Lord Seven then engaged him as well, but he was killed by Lin Yi in less than three moves."
Under the questioning of Eldest Chief, the bandit described the whole incident in bits and pieces with a frightened expression, repeatedly uttering the words "evil demon".
"We escaped back to the stronghold and thought that we had escaped Lin Yi"s claws. To think that this Lin Yi actually followed behind us all along and made his appearance only when we reached the stronghold and started slaughtering us!"
Huashan upper courtyard disciple!
In half a year, turning from a defenseless weakling into a third-rate expert with internal arts.
Eldest Chief and 2nd Chief gasped and did not dare to speak.
This Huashan disciple called Lin Yi was obviously a peerless genius!
With incredible fighting ability!
No matter what, 3rd Chief had also been a third-rate expert with internal arts. Even though he was slightly weaker than the two of them, he had been killed in one move.
Not to mention Lord Seven...
Eldest Chief secretly peeked at the six emissaries from the holy cult and felt fear.
Was it possible for people from the holy cult to possess inferior martial arts?
Among the martial arts they learned, there was bound to be at least one superior martial art.
As such, they were so much stronger than bandits such as themselves.
But even then, Lord Seven was not able to survive more than 3 moves when he fought Lin Yi.
Besides, he was well aware that it was easy to defeat a person but difficult to kill someone.
Everyone had a life-preserving skill.
In Jianghu, fights between similarly classed experts mostly ended in injuries but they were rarely fatal.
Otherwise, if someone died whenever they fought, wouldn't the vast majority of the people of Jianghu already be dead from the huge number of fights in Jianghu every year?
Without absolutely overpowering strength, it was very hard to take the opponent"s life.
Thinking of this point, a chill rose up in Eldest Chief's heart.
He was definitely not a match for this Lin Yi from Huashan.
The thought of escaping rose in his heart involuntarily.
Compared to the two bandit chiefs, the six black-robed men from the holy cult were even more shocked.
Although Little Seven had been quite arrogant, he was truly skilled, having possessed the superior martial art Black Blood Divine Needles. Even if he encountered a second-rate expert, they would be wary of him and not dare to drive him to a corner, allowing him to escape with little effort.
That was why they did not worry about Little Seven and allowed him to fool around outside.
But they completely did not expect Little Seven to actually be killed by a Huashan upper courtyard disciple!
And it was even a disciple who had just Huashan half a year ago.
How talented would this Lin Yi be to be able to obtain the strength to kill Little Seven in just half a year?
What angered and frightened them most, however, was the fact that a Huashan disciple had come looking for them.
No matter what, their presence was exposed.
Huashan would surely be glad to spread the news in Jianghu that they discovered traces of demonic cult members in their territory and even issue a warrant for arrest.
When that happened, how could the Holy Maiden and Elder Xiong not be alerted?
That would be the end of their mission.
Before even actually starting their mission, they had failed.
Thinking of the cruel and terrifying punishments back in the holy cult, their hearts trembled.
But they were filled with even more anger at this Huashan disciple Lin Yi.
"Damn it, you actually foiled the plans of us brothers. Eldest brother, let me go out and slay this scoundrel to take revenge for Little Seven!" Old Six roared in great anger.
The eldest brother did not reply. After closing his eyes in deep thought for a short while, he then asked the bandit who escaped from Lin village: "Did you see clearly what sword art Lin Yi was using?"
The bandit thought for a moment before replying: "I hear Lord Seven saying that Lin Yi was using something called Deadly Celestial Swords to kill 3rd Chief?"
"Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords!" The eldest brother added on.
"Right, it's this Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords! Seeing Lord Seven's shocked expression, it seems that this sword art is quite famous, but this lowly me was unable to tell the greatness of this sword art. The techniques look very ordinary, not resembling any so-called Celestial Swords at all." The bandit nodded repeatedly.
"Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords is a superior sword art inherited from the Sword School of Huashan and is extremely well known for its power in Jianghu. A hundred years ago, a peerless swordsman who inherited sword arts from the Huashan Sword School used this sword art to slay three great elders from our holy cult. This peerless swordsman created a huge sensation in Jianghu with this feat and the Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords that he possessed spread its name far and wide in Jianghu ever since." The eldest brother suddenly said.
His words stunned Eldest Chief.
A successor of Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords from Huashan.
Could he escape safely today?
The black-robed eldest brother saw that all the bandits were frightened by his words and had lost all their fighting spirit. With a cold snort, he said: "Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords is extremely powerful. But it only has three sword techniques, nothing more or less. Now that there are eight of us third-rate experts gathered here today, what is there to fear from a rookie Huashan disciple that has only just entered the upper courtyard?"
"Eldest brother is right, there are eight of us here. Being alone by himself, he still dares to attack us. That's just looking for death! Let's kill him and avenge Little Seven!" Old Six nodded in agreement and was filled with killing intent.
"Right, let"s take revenge for Little Seven!" The remaining four brothers nodded.
The eldest brother nodded and said coldly: "Once we go out, surround him completely and don"t let him escape!"
"Yes!" Five black-robed men accepted their orders.
"Eldest Chief!" The eldest brother looked at Eldest Chief intently, the expression on his face resembling a smile yet not a smile.
"Here!" Under the intent gaze of the eldest brother, Eldest Chief's scalp tingled and he wailed in his heart. According to his opinion, he should be escaping right now instead of fighting the Huashan disciple.
However, no matter how reluctant he was, when the eldest brother looked at him in that manner, he had to force himself to nod his head and agree.
"2nd Chief, let us go as well!" Giving a quick look at 2nd Chief, he saw his eyes twinkling, and Eldest Chief was delighted. So this 2nd Chief was also a coward and thought in the same way as himself? Putting on a serious face, he followed the six black-robed men and walked out of the hall.
"Run for your lives brothers, this man is too strong, we are not a match for him!"
In the stronghold, countless bandits were running all over the place and shouting, trying to escape.
Behind them, a youth wielded a bloody sword, his face wearing a cold expression. With one leap, he reached the back of a bandit and slashed downwards.
The bandit was instantly cut into two in an explosion of flesh and blood, spraying in all directions.
Seeing that the bandits had gathered some distance from him, the youth sheathed his sword and took out his violet bow from his back. Then he placed three arrows on the bow again.
The bow was pulled into the shape of a full moon.
Bang bang bang!
The hand pulling the bowstring let go.
Three keen arrows shot off in an explosion.
They traced an abstruse trajectory, piercing through all obstacles, before landing sharply on the heads of three bandits.
Boom!
The heads of the three bandits were blasted open like watermelons, a mixture of red and white, and splattered all over the ground.
The bandits who witnessed the scene were completely horrified.
"Evil demon, it's an evil demon!"
Many bandits were scared out of their wits and started rambling, some of them even yelling like madmen.
The bandits of Crouching Tiger Hill were a bunch of motley crew in the first place, and they were so terrified by Lin Yi's bloody slaughter that they started fleeing in disorder.
Lin Yi did not let off any of these bandits.
His hands moved like a machine, incessantly repeating the same actions.
Placing the arrows, pulling the bowstring, then shooting the arrows!
Each time, three arrows were shot at once.
Bang bang bang, the exploding sounds rang out continuously.
They were followed by the terrible cries of the bandits whose heads were blasted one by one.
In just a short while, rivers of blood were flowing in Crouching Tiger Hill.
System notification:
Killing a Crouching Tiger Hill bandit, 1,000 battle experience awarded.
Killing a Crouching Tiger Hill bandit, 1,000 battle experience awarded.
Killing a Crouching Tiger Hill bandit, 1,000 battle experience awarded.
Killing a Crouching Tiger Hill bandit, 1,000 battle experience awarded.
The system panel flashed madly with a string of messages. All of them were notifications of experience earned from killing the bandits.
Lin Yi took a glance, feeling somewhat satisfied. One bandit gave a hundred battle experience points and there were hundreds of them here.
That was equivalent to tens of thousands of battle experience points!
As he thought of that, his hands' actions grew smoother.
He resembled a killing machine, shooting arrows crazily.
Every arrow resulted in an exploded head.
Now that he had internal arts, he no longer felt fatigue in his arms like he did when he killed the Black Wind Stronghold bandits.
Instead, as he killed more and more bandits, the actions of pulling the bow and shooting the arrows grew more and more fluid, resembling the floating of clouds and the flowing of water.
He had rediscovered the feeling that he had when he shot arrows back in the game.
Every arrow was akin to a divine arrow, never missing, always hitting the bull's eye.
There was nothing the bandits could do except cry out for their parents and continue trying to escape with their heads intact.
But no matter how they tried to escape, Lin Yi just kept firing three arrows at once from behind them.
One by one, the bandits' heads were blasted, and the ground was littered with corpses.
The bandits realized in horror that the number of people around them grew lesser and lesser.
When finally there were only dozens of bandits left, the gates of the assembly hall finally opened with a loud rumbling.
A row of black-robed men walked out along with two fierce-looking burly men who held large sabers.
"Ah, finally coming out?"
Lin Yi laughed coldly and halted his footsteps.
Before this, he had been chasing the bandits around the perimeter of the stronghold in circles, leaving the bandits that hid inside the assembly hall alone.
He only focused on killing the prey in front of his eyes by shooting arrows.
As a hunter, one needed to have the patience to calmly finish killing the prey in front of them before hunting the remaining prey.
Now that the prey in front of him was nearly finished, it was time to hunt the other major prey.
As he swept his gaze over, the pupils of his eyes shrank.
Six black-robed men and two fierce-looking burly men.
Eight in total.
All of them were third-rate experts!
The six black-robed men obviously belonged to the same group of people as the black-robed man that he killed in front of the Lin residence.
People from Sun Moon Holy Cult!
Lin Yi's heart was trembling, but it was not out of fear. It was trembling from excitement!
Six elite "mobs" from a demonic cult.
How much battle experience could he get from killing them?
...