Chapter 212: To Catch a Thief, First Catch the King

Qin Haoxuan carefully chewed on his master’s farewell advice: A genius who cultivates to become an immortal is a true genius. A dead genius is not. Besides, I am just a weak seed; I have nothing to do with the word ‘genius.’

At this thought, Qin Haoxuan decided to be even more cautious. Just like Hao Xiu and Perfected Man Hulu, who had roamed the Soaring Dragon Nation for so many years, yet had died at his own hands when he was only at the Fourth-Leaf.

Seeing that the enemy army was about to reach the central army, Qin Haoxuan and Xing remained unhurried, but Su Wu was growing anxious. Once the central army was taken and the commander’s banner was pulled down, the soldiers would surely think their general was dead. At that point, the army would rout, morale would plummet, and it would be difficult to turn the tide.

Seeing that Qin Haoxuan still had no intention of acting, he immediately ran to his side and pleaded, “High Immortal, High Immortal… please act quickly! The enemy has reached our central army’s tents; we are about to be defeated!”

At his request, Qin Haoxuan finally stopped observing the Talisman Beast and said to him, “Go and get me a set of a lieutenant general’s armor.”

“Ah! What do you need a general’s battle robe for?”

“I will wear the armor of a mortal and charge up to the enemy cultivator, taking him by surprise,” Qin Haoxuan said as if it were a matter of course.

Su Wu was visibly stunned for a moment. He didn’t know that Qin Haoxuan was planning such a scheme, but he still immediately ordered his men to fetch a set of lieutenant general’s armor.

Qin Haoxuan wasted no words. He took the armor and immediately put it on. Then, he grabbed a large saber and a shield, mounted a horse, and charged out. Watching him ride into battle in this disguise, Su Wu was dumbfounded. In his eyes, High Immortals were all high and mighty, with unwavering integrity. He had never seen a High Immortal who needed to hide his identity. Although it was said that all is fair in war, that was for mortal armies. Did a dignified High Immortal really need to resort to such a method of hiding his identity and launching a sneak attack? Such methods were only used by the weak.

Watching his departing back, Su Wu secretly worried, To use such a spiritless method, could it be that he also has no confidence in defeating the enemy’s High Immortal?

Qin Haoxuan rode his horse out, and Xing, who was following behind him, said, “So cool, so cool! This general’s battle robe looks like it was tailor-made for you. I’m so impressed! You really have the potential to be a demon. So despicable, I like it!”

Qin Haoxuan gave a wry smile. In Xing’s eyes, he was being unscrupulous in order to kill the enemy cultivator. “I just want to live. The enemy is at least at the tenth-plus-leaf realm, and who knows what strange and wonderful killing moves he has. For me, at only the Fifth-Leaf, to foolishly fight him head-on, even if I win, it would be a tragic victory.”

Diving into the crowd of soldiers, Qin Haoxuan said, “It’s chaotic here, and no one is paying attention. Quickly, turn into a shield!”

Xing pouted but, thinking of the half-finished incantation for the Dragon Demon Golden Body that he hadn’t yet obtained, he unhesitatingly transformed into a half-man-high shield with an ancient pattern, the same size as the one Qin Haoxuan was holding. Qin Haoxuan placed Xing’s shield on the inside and covered it with the other one. This way, never mind ordinary enemy soldiers; with Xing’s defensive ability, even if he faced the enemy cultivator’s attack, he would not be in too much danger. Before cultivating the Dragon Demon Golden Body, Xing had been able to block a strike from the Spirit Tree Realm’s Master Chi Lian. Now that he had cultivated it, although he had not yet mastered the first level, it was enough to deal with an ordinary Spirit Sprout Realm cultivator.

Although he did not know the enemy cultivator’s strength, he was certain he was in the Spirit Sprout Realm. If he were a Spirit Tree Realm expert, he would have come over and crushed him long ago.

Qin Haoxuan rode his horse directly into the enemy camp. Since he wanted to launch a sneak attack, he couldn’t use a Heaven-Cleaving Slash, so he swung the large saber in his hand. The blade, forged from ordinary iron, was like the scythe of the grim reaper in his hands, cutting a path of slaughter wherever he went, unstoppable and invincible. In this battlefield, he was like a general who could stand against ten thousand men. Although he was conspicuous, no one could tell his true identity.

The half-man-high bronze shield was as light as paper in his hand. He swung it to block the vast majority of attacks. Occasionally, a stray blade or spear would strike his body, but Qin Haoxuan was already a cultivator at the Spirit Sprout Realm. Coupled with his cultivation of the Dao Heart Seed Demon Art, even if he were to use a Heaven-Cleaving Slash on himself, he would not be injured, let alone by the weapons of these mortals. When their weapons struck him, they couldn’t even break his skin.

His strange abilities quickly caught the eye of the enemy cultivator, who was in the distance, controlling his Talisman Beast to kill. The man in white swept his eagle-like eyes over him and, seeing that he was wearing the armor of a lieutenant general, assumed he was just an ordinary general who had practiced some internal martial arts and paid him no mind. It was not uncommon for mortal martial artists who had cultivated to their peak to be able to resist blades and spears, but in the eyes of a cultivator, such strength was not even worth mentioning.

Besides controlling his Talisman Beast, the man in white was not idle himself. He condensed his spiritual energy into a house-sized giant hammer. The hammer shone with a golden light, and the intense baleful aura it emitted alone made the nearby soldiers extremely uncomfortable. An attack of this level, even if it was a low-level spiritual art, was not something an ordinary mortal could withstand. This golden hammer was like the god of death on the bloody battlefield. With every swing, flesh and blood flew, like a hurricane passing through. Anyone who was hit was smashed into a pulp. And the man in white, who was killing people with this golden hammer, was completely unharmed by any strong bows, crossbows, or even flaming catapult stones.

This was a cultivator, able to turn the tide of a battle, an invincible being that could make the enemy tremble with fear and their morale collapse.

From a distance, Qin Haoxuan saw the giant hammer and immediately recognized it as the offensive spiritual art, the Golden Light Hammer. In the eyes of a mortal, it was invincible, but in reality, it was on the same level as the Heaven-Cleaving Slash. The difference was that the Heaven-Cleaving Slash was of the nimble and sharp type, while the Golden Light Hammer was of the ferocious and domineering type. Seeing that the enemy’s offensive art was not particularly advanced, Qin Haoxuan felt more at ease and spurred his horse, charging straight for him.

Seeing an ordinary mortal general actually daring to approach him, the man in white sneered and immediately commanded his Talisman Beast. The Vicious Ape, which had been in the midst of slaughter, received its master’s command. With a light push of its feet, two half-foot-deep footprints appeared on the ground, and it used the force to leap high into the air, crossing the distance in a few bounds to land in front of Qin Haoxuan. Its arm, as hard as gold and iron, swept horizontally, bringing with it a whistling sound of breaking air. The momentum was so great it seemed it could shatter a stone mountain.

Qin Haoxuan was startled. If he were hit by this Vicious Ape, even with Xing protecting him, he would at least be sent flying several hundred meters. And if he survived, the enemy would surely guess his identity, and it would be difficult to get close for a sneak attack again. I can’t let it hit me! I’ll pretend to be frightened, he quickly decided. He feigned panic and fell from his horse. The warhorse was swept by the ape’s arm, and a large hole appeared in its body. Its corpse flew several hundred meters, even killing a few soldiers.

Seeing this, the man in white did not suspect anything and sneered, “Consider yourself lucky. But you’re a dead man.” Believing him to be just a mortal martial artist, he still did not take him seriously and continued to command his beast to attack.

The Vicious Ape leaped into the air above Qin Haoxuan and then brought its foot down to stomp on him. The pressure of this single foot was like a stone mountain falling. To an ordinary mortal or cultivator, this blow would have been difficult to dodge, but for Qin Haoxuan, whose body was as nimble as a demon’s, it was not much trouble. With a nimble roll, he once again seemingly coincidentally rolled to the side. The ape’s foot slammed into the ground, and besides creating a huge crater, the ground cracked like a spider’s web, spreading for a hundred meters.

“So powerful!” Qin Haoxuan was shocked. This Vicious Ape was so formidable, its strength a hundred times greater than the Mighty Apes under Little Gold’s command. If he had been stomped on by that foot, he would have been severely injured, if not dead.

Even Xing said with a serious tone, “To catch a thief, first catch the king. Don’t get entangled with it. Go straight for the cultivator.”

Qin Haoxuan also realized this. He nimbly got to his feet and, with a quick sprint, killed a nearby enemy general, stole his warhorse, and charged towards the enemy cultivator, swinging his great saber and killing all who stood in his way. If one looked closely, they would see that the blade of this great saber was already notched in many places.

His body was covered in blood, all of it from the enemy soldiers he had slain. Covered in red, he was like a peerless fierce general, his not-so-strong body containing infinite power.

The man in white was startled. He had not expected Qin Haoxuan to be so formidable. For a mortal general to be able to dodge his Vicious Ape’s attack was truly rare. Especially after seeing him charge towards him, the man in white sneered, and with a quick leap, he met him head-on, swinging the house-sized spiritual hammer down to completely envelop him.

Before, he had been able to dodge the ape’s attacks, as it was a mindless beast. But the man in white was a genuine Fifteenth-Leaf expert. When he swung his hammer, an illusion that it was impossible to dodge rose in Qin Haoxuan’s heart, and he had no choice but to raise his shield. The man in white’s eyes grew even colder. In his eyes, a mortal general, relying on some mortal martial arts, actually dared to challenge him with a broken bronze shield. This was a grave provocation to the dignity of a cultivator. His golden hammer swung out without mercy, determined to smash Qin Haoxuan into a pulp.

“Courting death!” he thought. The difference between an immortal and a mortal, how could these mortals possibly understand?

With a single swing, the hammer struck the shield in Qin Haoxuan’s hand. With a crash, the shield shattered. If it had been a mortal, he would have surely died from this blow. But after the surface of the shield shattered, there was actually another shield inside. The golden hammer struck it, yet it was completely unharmed.