Chapter Ninety-Six: The Wind of Yin That Freezes to the Bone

Yang Shengtian finished speaking, and with a single thought he drew the hundreds of mystic bows that had encircled Huang Xianlin back into the master bow. The master bow then floated behind his back and vanished.

He went on, “I promised to leave you an intact body. If I were to loose mystic arrows at you with a mere thought, I would injure you, and then you would no longer be whole. So I cannot fight you with the mystic bow. I must meet you with the golden halberd! I will use it to kill you through internal injury without spilling a single drop of blood, and in that way I can guarantee, absolutely, that I leave your body complete!”

Huang Xianlin heard the reason in this and at once put away his own mystic bow. Admiration for Yang Shengtian’s faithfulness rose in him, and he said, “General Yang is truly a man of his word! Even if I cannot defeat you, to die by your hand would still be an honor. General Yang, take this!”

With that, he wheeled his wolf-fang spear and, at more than ten times his usual speed, drove it straight at Yang Shengtian.

“Fine spear work!” Yang Shengtian praised from atop the monster beast Xiaohei when he saw the strike come so swiftly. He sprang aside, then leaped down from his mount and said, “General Huang, we are all men of honor. To be fair, I shall not remain seated upon my beast either!”

Having said that, he also raised his golden halberd in both hands to receive the spear thrust.

Thus the two of them once again waged a fierce battle in the air.

On the ground, when Huang Xianlin flew upward to fight Yang Shengtian, Yang Tianbao immediately blew his whistle to summon the wolf-lion beast, which had been soaking in a puddle in hopes of extinguishing the sparks of fire still clinging to its neck after being scorched by the qilin beast’s sacred flames. At the sound of its master’s call, it came charging at once.

Yang Tianbao ran toward his mount as well, sprang onto its back, seized the iron chain at its neck with his left hand, gripped his pair of hammers firmly in his right, clamped his legs around the beast, and raced toward his soldiers who were trapped in enemy encirclement.

Reaching the battlefield where the two armies clashed, he saw that many of his encircled men had already been cut down, while the enemy had suffered far fewer losses. He scanned the surroundings at once, searching for the weakest point in the enemy’s net.

Yang Tianbao saw that the enemy line to the west was thinner, with fewer men and weaker force, and he immediately urged the wolf-lion beast toward that side.

Arriving there, he clamped his legs and sent the beast leaping straight into the enemy ranks where the encirclement was weakest.

Yang Tianbao’s master was the same man as Yang Shengtian. He himself had a certain foundation in the cultivation of immortality and the Dao, and his mount, the wolf-lion beast, was a wild creature born of a wolf and a lion. It had been captured in the wild and tamed by his master. During the taming, the master had seen that this beast, being the offspring of two exceptionally ferocious creatures, was naturally savage beyond measure. If some demon arts and immortal techniques could be taught to it, then it would become even more fearsome. So he instructed it in certain immortal skills and demonic arts, and once it had learned them, he gave it to Yang Tianbao as a mount. Yang Tianbao was by nature bellicose and vicious, a perfect match for the wolf-lion beast. From that day on he pampered and protected it in every way, and the beast in turn obeyed him wholeheartedly, their bond growing ever deeper.

Leaping with the wolf-lion beast to the front of his trapped soldiers, Yang Tianbao shouted, “I will break through the enemy ahead; all of you follow behind me and charge out together!”

With that, he released the iron chain of his mount, raised both hammers, and spun them in a whirling assault against Huang Xianlin’s soldiers.

Wherever Yang Tianbao’s hammers swept in their circling arcs, more than a dozen of Huang Xianlin’s men fell at once.

Since the hammers could not reach farther targets, Yang Tianbao aimed them at the enemy and smashed down with all his strength. The two hammers crossed and collided, instantly sending out several flashes of white light like lightning. Anyone struck by those white flashes either died on the spot or suffered grievous injury.

As it carried its master, striking east and west, the wolf-lion beast also breathed out its cold yin wind at the soldiers blocking their way. Any soldier touched by the wind found that the place it struck was immediately coated with a white substance, and before long that white covering hardened. Soon even the flesh beneath it began to stiffen and spread. As it spread, it gave off a crackling sound. The soldier would writhe in unbearable agony and let out pitiful, anguished cries until death came. Then the whole body would harden, and in the end, like a block of ice dropped onto hard ground, it would burst apart, leaving nothing but a heap of shattered fragments, filthy and glazed like broken ice.

Thus, a soldier who had once been alive and breathing was turned, by the wolf-lion beast’s cold wind, into a pile of shattered ice.

In less than a quarter of an hour, under the furious charge of Yang Tianbao and the wolf-lion beast, the soldiers who had been trapped were swiftly broken out of the encirclement.

Zhu Hongxiu, Wang Qingjie, and He Xinzhou, Huang Xianlin’s three generals, each fought alongside their troops against the enemy in the east, south, and west.

These three men were Huang Xianlin’s trusted aides. Though they had attained great mastery in martial arts, they had never studied immortals’ arts or spells under a true expert, and in those matters they were therefore entirely unversed. When they faced an opponent with some grounding in such arts, they naturally fell short.

At first, the three generals led the slaughter against the enemy in the directions where the enemy force was strongest.

Because the enemy troops were already tightly hemmed in by Huang Xianlin’s army, they were crushed in the center, making movement extremely difficult. Added to this, when the battle had first begun, Yang Tianbao’s forces had suffered heavy casualties from Huang Xianlin’s archers, and some of the wounded soldiers were now trapped together as well. Thus the encircled army of Yang Tianbao was pressed harder and harder inward by the relentless assault of Huang Xianlin’s troops on the outside, their movement growing more and more restricted, while the number of dead at the perimeter continued to rise.

Yang Tianbao’s army fought Huang Xianlin’s men for more than two hours.

During those two hours, because Yang Tianbao’s soldiers were pinned tightly in the middle by Huang Xianlin’s forces, they could move only with great difficulty, and many of those on the outside were quickly cut down.

Moreover, being trapped made the soldiers and their mounts fearful and disordered. Some became restless and frantic, caring only to burst outward, and this led to trampling and crushing. As a result, many soldiers were injured or killed beneath the hooves of their own men and mounts.

Thus, nearly a third of Yang Tianbao’s army died in short order.

Just as Huang Xianlin’s three generals and their soldiers were locked in a life-and-death struggle, they suddenly saw Yang Tianbao arrive and quickly help his men break through the encirclement. Yang Tianbao’s soldiers surged like ants toward the opening he had torn in the enemy lines.

Seeing this, Zhu Hongxiu seized his reins and galloped toward the breach where Yang Tianbao had broken through, shouting as he rode for Wang Qingjie and He Xinzhou to hurry there as well and intercept the enemy pouring through the gap.