bâtiment - Chapitre 15
The backyard was quiet and deserted. The two assassins stopped and looked around, as if waiting for something. Since assassins were not allowed to speak while on the move, they exchanged glances and then each hid in the vertical shadows. Yu Ke followed one of them and stopped silently behind him.
And so, we waited quietly.
The moon was completely obscured by the black smoke from the burning houses, and everything was pitch black. Yu Ke could only determine the location of the two people by their scent.
Just as the two assassins were beginning to grow impatient, a third person finally appeared. The heavy footsteps, the familiar scent, the blurry silhouette in the darkness—he knew it all too well.
It is wisdom!
+: The Corpse King, the Feudal King
- Mystery Tribe
Section 39, Crazy Behavior
The entire monastery was brightly lit, as if it were daytime. Anthony and his party of seven, along with knights and palace guards, patrolled the monastery separately, searching every corner where enemies might be hiding.
The Grand Chancellor, along with many other monks, quietly remained in the Jade Buddha Hall, accompanying Huiren and chanting scriptures day and night. Two knights and two palace guards stood guard on either side, weapons firmly in their hands.
“Master, you should probably hide for a while,” Nagyan finally said to Huiren.
“My disciple, did you see how the guards and knights performed?” Huiren asked.
The Grand Councilor nodded without saying a word.
"Since they faced death without the slightest hesitation, why should I hide? Moreover, fighting for one's beliefs is worthwhile, even if it means sacrificing one's life... My disciple, you must remember this."
After listening, the Grand Councilor seemed to have grasped something, and lowered his head again to continue reciting scriptures for the Jade Buddha.
The figures of sentries could be seen pacing back and forth outside the door from time to time.
Everything seemed too quiet.
The Rakshasa army suddenly began to stir!
Before the guards on the tower could react, they saw a huge, dark mass of Rakshasa once again forming a fishing net and pressing towards the courtyard wall.
"Warning!" The piercing alarm shattered the night sky, waking weary people from their dreams once again.
"The Rakshasa have attacked!"
The patrolmen immediately ran towards the nearest tower, and there were monks running around, soldiers gathering, and refugees looking for cover everywhere.
"What's going on?" Anthony rushed up a tower and shouted.
"The Rakshasa are attacking!" The soldier in the tower, his face still etched with deep fear, answered Anthony while pointing outside the city.
As expected, the Rakshasa army suddenly rushed towards the temple wall in a chaotic manner, scrambling to get over the wall and into the temple.
"What are they doing? Have they gone mad?" Richard stared in horror at the horde of demons surging towards him like a tidal wave. They recklessly crashed into the courtyard wall, then turned into sewage amidst screams of agony.
“Should we take any action?” James asked Anthony. The latter stared in bewilderment at Rakshasa’s astonishing act of suicide. After much deliberation, he gave no definite answer.
The signal is too obvious; they must have a purpose. What is that purpose? What do they want to achieve with such frantic behavior?
A gust of wind blew from the sea of Rakshasa, carrying with it an unbearable stench that flooded the temple. Many of the soldiers on the tower could not stand it and began to vomit.
At this moment, the demons began to fight against each other at the foot of the wall. They piled on top of each other, higher and higher. As their height increased, the nauseating gale grew stronger and stronger, not only making everyone dizzy, but also blowing out all the candles and lamps in the temple.
The temple was plunged into complete darkness.
+: The Corpse King, the Feudal King
- Mystery Tribe
Chapter 40, The Shadow of Evil
“Master…” Nayan stopped chanting again and looked toward Master Huiren’s seat. He saw that the old man’s face was sallow and there were beads of sweat the size of soybeans on his forehead.
“Keep reciting…don’t stop,” Huiren said with difficulty. The candle had long since gone out in the wind, and only with the light from the jade Buddha could he continue reciting the scriptures in the book.
The situation on the tower became even more dire.
The Rakshasa stacked at the highest point began firing arrows into the city. The arrows rained down like locusts, and many soldiers and civilians who had no time to dodge were hit and fell into pools of blood.
At this moment, the shield-bearing knights rushed forward, fearlessly forming an impenetrable shield wall on the courtyard wall. Behind them, the palace guards once again unleashed a retaliatory barrage of arrows. Countless Rakshasa were struck by the arrows and fell, turning into puddles of foul water in mid-air. But new ones immediately rushed forward to fill the gaps.
The battle reached a stalemate.
"Where's Yu Ke?" Anthony suddenly noticed that someone was missing from the crowd.
"I didn't see him..." Krusen replied, casting a ball of fire into a Rakshasa tower, causing countless Rakshasa to fall from its top. While this wouldn't kill them completely, it would greatly slow down their attack speed.
Anthony suddenly felt a pang of discomfort; it was as if he had suddenly realized something:
Yu Ke is searching for a group of suspicious individuals who have infiltrated the temple.
They are most likely Huizhi's subordinates.
And then he disappeared... And then again, he had once been Huizhi's subordinate...
Anthony immediately felt ashamed of his thoughts. He had personally witnessed Yu Ke's selfless fighting among the Rakshasa, and he had seen Yu Ke's heartbroken eyes as his home was destroyed... These could not have been faked.
Although he didn't know why Yu Ke had been misled in the past, he could now be completely certain that there was no longer any evil in Yu Ke's heart.
Then he must have discovered some clues! Could he have been drawn into this conspiracy? But his disappearance can explain one thing in any case—the conspiracy has already begun.
The Jade Buddha Hall! Without a doubt, if there's anything here most deserving of destruction, it's the Jade Buddha Hall!
"Richard! Clary! Lisson!" Anthony shouted, "Get to the Jade Buddha Temple!" With that, he was the first to rush out of the tower where the battle was deafening, charging towards the Jade Buddha Temple amidst a hail of arrows.
Through the glint of swords and bloodstains on the window paper, Anthony knew that everything had begun.
The monks were so engrossed in chanting the scriptures that they didn't even notice when the assassins had infiltrated. They moved silently in the shadows of the pillars, like a gentle breeze, quietly creeping up behind the guards.
A swordsman watched helplessly as a thin line of blood appeared on his comrade's neck. Just as he was about to warn him, a poisoned dagger plunged deep into his own back. Two palace guards suffered a similar fate. The last guard saw a black cloak flash by, and when he came to his senses, he found a dagger embedded in his chest, its black hilt, adorned with snake patterns, protruding.
+: The Corpse King, the Feudal King
- Mystery Tribe
Section 41, The Radiance of the Jade Buddha
The four corpses fell silently at the same time.
It wasn't until Huizhi appeared that the people in the hall realized they were surrounded by the power of darkness.
“It feels so good to be back…” Huizhi opened the palace door and walked in, saying this as he entered.
At the same time, the assassins emerged from their hiding places and aimed their daggers and crossbows at the monks inside the hall.
“Continue chanting the sutras…” Huiren commanded with difficulty.
"Don't be so persistent, old man," Huizhi sneered, striding towards Huiren in the front row.
At this moment, a young monk suddenly leaped up and charged at Huizhi, but his body froze halfway through the air. When he fell to the ground, people found a short arrow firmly embedded in his back.
Huizhi seemed not to see anything, and continued walking without stopping. With each step he took, the darkness in the hall thickened, eventually completely obscuring the light of the jade Buddha.
"I need to borrow the jade Buddha for a moment, you don't mind, do you?" Huizhi said to Huiren, who was still chanting sutras with his eyes closed.
Hui Ren remained silent, and the other monks followed his example, simply chanting sutras.
Outside the palace, the whistling of arrows filled the air, along with the screams of the dead, the groans of the wounded, the shouts of warriors in battle, and the clash of swords.
The situation is extremely critical.
Huizhi gestured to the assassins, and immediately sixty strong assassins jumped onto the shrine, lifted the jade Buddha, and walked out of the hall.
“If you move the jade Buddha away, what’s the use of chanting scriptures? If you don’t chant scriptures, what’s the use of living…” Huizhi walked to Huiren’s side, turned around, pulled out a dagger, and pressed it against Huiren’s back.
Just as he was about to stab, he suddenly realized that something was not quite right.
Directly in front of him, near the palace gate, an assassin's face suddenly turned very strange, as if he had frozen.
Two military knives pierced the assassin's back without anyone noticing, penetrating his body and then emerging from his chest.
The other assassins also noticed this unexpected enemy, and they immediately tensed up, as they hadn't even noticed when this person had arrived. This tense atmosphere was exactly what Yu Ke had hoped for.
He knew the daggers were poisoned, but he didn't know if the arrows had been treated the same way. He didn't want to be targeted by several dangerous crossbows in the ensuing melee, so he had to deal with the crossbowmen first.
So he stood still and waited quietly.
The assassins clearly didn't need much time to wait for orders. Four assassins charged forward, daggers in hand. At the same time, two short arrows whistled through the air from the right side of the hall.
This is exactly what he wanted.
He shifted his body to the side, and two short arrows embedded themselves in the pillars of the palace gate. Then, he charged towards his target with incredible speed, his entire body transforming into a blur of blade light. As the crossbowman cursed and raised his crossbow to aim a second time, a saber descended from the sky, its cold light flashing, cleaving him and his crossbow in two. Another crossbowman seized the opportunity gained by his comrade's sacrifice, but before his finger could press the trigger, another saber flew from Yu Ke's hand, piercing his right eye and pinning his head firmly to the pillar behind him.
As the young officer pulled his sword from the corpse, he found himself surrounded by five daggers, but that wasn't what worried him.
+: The Corpse King, the Feudal King
- Mystery Tribe
Section 42, A Dance Performed with Life
Huizhi stood there, expressionless, watching Yu Ke kill three of his subordinates in five seconds, without making any spellcasting. He seemed to be simply appreciating and watching this exciting battle.
Five more assassins rushed forward.
The twin blades slid in a perfect arc in an instant, but the daggers of the five elite assassins were not to be underestimated.
This was a contest between a venomous snake and a cheetah. The only difference was that Yu Ke understood all the attack patterns of these venomous snakes. He carefully maneuvered with his twin blades against five enemies simultaneously. He knew he couldn't afford to be injured; being stabbed by a poisoned dagger would be far more serious than just a minor injury. He wasn't afraid of death; his heart was already dead. On the night Anthony pardoned him, he was now only using the rest of his life to find a decent honor for his twin blades.
He was dancing, gracefully moving between the blades of his twin swords, every movement flawless. It was the most perfect and deadliest dance of his life, for he had forgotten his own life, surrendering it entirely to the twin swords in his hands, using them to draw five perfect pauses.
When the dance ended, the five people were still standing—a second later, they all collapsed.
Even Anthony and his group, who had just arrived outside, were stunned by what they saw. It was no longer a battle; after each attack, their eyes were so calm and indifferent. It was just a dance, a dance performed with life itself.
"Get out." Yu Ke raised his twin swords and pointed them at Huizhi's face, saying each word clearly.