Final Battle - 6
"The bone puppets surrounded us..." Ji Wang repeated these four words, "It must be the work of Bai Gong. As expected, he didn't wait at the center of the formation, but went directly to cut off our rear."
"With Elder Mi Quan overseeing the camp, and You Hang and Gui Tiao being no ordinary men either, ordinary bone puppets could hardly exert such pressure." Huai Qing's expression was solemn. "Unless the number is extremely large, or the Hundred Craftsmen are personally controlling them. If we lose our rear, not only will our retreat be in jeopardy, but our subsequent support will also be cut off."
Bujiu's fox ears tightened as he turned toward the general direction of the camp, even though he knew he couldn't hear anything through the thick ice and the great distance.
"Someone has to go back," Ji Wang hurriedly said. Dividing the troops was a major taboo, but there was no other choice at this moment.
“Huaiqing must stay.” Ji Wang looked at Huaiqing and pointed to the scroll in his hand. “You have the deepest understanding of formations. You need to study their flaws and operating rules.”
Seeing that Huaiqing had no objection, Ji Wang turned his gaze to Bujiu: "Bujiu, go back."
“You—” Bu Jiu wanted to retort, to say “you need me here more,” to say “you can’t handle Yue Yuan and that formation alone.”
These words were stuck in Bu Jiu's throat, clenched tightly between his teeth, leaving only short breaths and a surge of resistance and panic in his heart.
"Listen to me." Ji Wang didn't give him a chance to organize his thoughts. He stepped forward and pressed his forehead against Bu Jiu's. The chill was instantly dispelled, leaving only the warm space where their breaths mingled.
"What the camp urgently needs is top-tier combat power, capable of turning the tide of battle in the shortest possible time. And here—"
He pointed to the ground beneath his feet, then to the direction where the array patterns were faintly visible deep within the ice wall: "It is a contest between arrays and deductions, my battlefield, and also Huaiqing's domain. Go back, save the camp, stabilize the rear, that is to protect our retreat, and more importantly, to give an account to Elder Mi Quan and Jie Haishan."
"Trust me," Ji Wang said, his voice trailing off. "Just like I believe you can definitely cut through those skeletons and bring everyone out."
"...And what about you? What will you do?" Bu Jiu asked in a hoarse voice.
Ji Wang forced a smile, but it wasn't exactly relaxed: "I'll work with Huai Qing to find the flaw in the formation. Then—"
His tone shifted, taking on a roguish ruthlessness: "Once you've cleared the rear, come back and provide backup. We'll join forces and beat Yueyuan's face, that face of his, who's always pretending to be a ghost, so badly that even his own mother wouldn't recognize him."
Bu Jiu gripped the fabric at Ji Wang's waist tightly, fearing that this departure would be another death.
But he also knew that this was the best choice. Faced with matters of principle, he couldn't use personal feelings to bind Ji Wang to his side.
"Okay." Bu Jiu didn't hesitate any longer. He seemed to have used all his strength to accept the separation, and his turning around was so fast that it stirred up a gust of wind.
Huaiqing had already quietly turned to the side, and with a gentle wave of the flower branch in her hand, the light of the barrier flowed and expanded silently, pushing the remaining poisonous fog to a more distant corner, thus blocking the way back for Bujiu.
Just as Bu Jiu's toes were about to leave, Ji Wang grabbed his wrist. The force was immense, his knuckles tightening instantly, almost embedding themselves into Bu Jiu's wrist bone.
Bu Jiu suddenly turned around.
“I won’t blame you…” Ji Wang’s voice trembled. “I’ve finished making the dress I promised you.”
"It's bright red, embroidered with lotus scrolls. The lining has a peace charm attached to my heart, which I infused with my spiritual power, stitch by stitch."
Ji Wang's voice became pleading: "I'm still waiting to see you wear it."
Bu Jiu opened his mouth, but all the words stuck in his throat. He nodded, then withdrew his hand, leaving a blur in his wake.
“Let’s go, Xiao Bao.” Huai Qing walked to Ji Wang’s side, twirling a flower branch between her fingers. “You’ll have to protect me, a doctor who doesn’t know martial arts, on this journey ahead.”
Ji Wang withdrew his gaze, looked at Huai Qing, and blurted out, "He—"
“What could possibly happen to him?” Huaiqing interrupted Ji Wang’s worries, her tone resolute. “If he couldn’t even handle a situation like this, how did he rise to this position, and how did he manage to protect this land, build that vast valley, and find a place for his people to thrive and multiply during the hundreds of years before your return?”
His gaze fell on the spot where Posuo had disappeared: "Right now, what we should be worried about is ourselves. Don't forget, Yueyuan is ahead, Posuo hasn't gone far, Linggu is also lying in wait, and there might even be Baigong's traps."
After listening, Ji Wang suddenly let out a soft hum through his nose, then raised the corners of his mouth.
"Wow," he exclaimed, "we're so amazing."
Huaiqing: "..."
Huaiqing seemed not to have heard clearly, or perhaps she needed to process the meaning of those words.
After a moment, Huaiqing lowered his eyes, looked at the green flower branch in his hand that posed little threat, and a helpless smile finally crept onto the corner of his lips.
“…Yes.” Huaiqing exhaled a small puff of white mist, taking the bait from Ji Wang’s teasing: “We’re so amazing.”
Ji Wang had already taken a step forward, his voice drifting over along the narrow ice path: "Huaiqing, are you afraid?"
"That's a question..." Huaiqing turned her head, "You're here, and Bujiu is here too, what do I have to be afraid of? Even if we can't go back—"
His words paused here, unfinished.
Then, he gently shook his head, as if brushing away these unpleasant thoughts. He pointed the flower branch forward, and a soft blue light dispelled the lingering stench of decay in front of him.
When Bu Jiu arrived, the camp was already in a mess.
The defensive barrier that was originally built based on the terrain has long been broken and broken, and now only a few strands of light are flickering in the cold wind.
The ice surface was riddled with potholes, broken swords and halberds were half-buried in the reddish-brown ice shards, and there were many other fragmented pieces of debris.
You Hang stood at the forefront, her usually meticulously styled hair now disheveled. Her every move was extremely precise, but the increasing number of tears in her robes and the gradually spreading bloodstains proved that she was nearing her limit.
Beside the camp, Mi Juan was completely devoid of her usual dignified composure when managing clan affairs. Demonic power surged continuously from her body, struggling to maintain a barrier that enveloped the camp.
Bone puppets occasionally charged at the outside of the barrier, each one causing Mi Quan's body to sway slightly, but she did not retreat even half a step, tightly protecting Ling Chuan, who was curled up on the ground with weak breaths, and her disciples behind her.
In the heart of the densest enemy ranks, Gui Tiao's usually bright and flamboyant outfit was now almost completely obscured by blood.
His left arm hung limply at his side, and with each swing of his right sword, it swayed weakly, clearly indicating that his bones and muscles were injured.
Yet, there was no trace of cowardice or pain on his face, only a fierce ruthlessness born of being driven to the brink of despair. He continued to weave through the gaps between the bone puppets, trying to tear a path to survival.
In front of the camp, Bai Gong was standing on the ice cliff, below which three exceptionally tall giant bone golems were constantly bombarding the ice surface.
With each punch, the ice surface trembled, and more bone golems crawled out from the cracks in the ice, seemingly endless.
Without pausing for a moment, or even reuniting with Mi Quan and the others, Bu Jiu's figure had barely fully materialized, still in mid-air, when the flames gathered around him suddenly erupted.
Under his perfect control, the flames shot directly at the one of the three giant skeletal golems that was hammering the ice the most frequently. It seeped in through the gap in its raised, about-to-fall hand, infiltrated along the joint of its arm bones, and finally exploded at the junction of its shoulder blade and torso!
The giant bone golem's raised hand froze in mid-air, and its massive body crashed to its knees.
This sudden attack brought all the sounds of fighting on the battlefield to a standstill.
"Lord Bujiu?!" You Hang was the first to react, his voice rising slightly with surprise and disbelief. Taking advantage of this, the sword light surged and shredded the two stunned bone puppets in front of him.
"Everyone, step back." The moment Bu Jiu landed, the flames around him did not subside. Instead, dozens of even faster fire lines split off from him, entangling the bone golems that were closing in on the center of the camp from all directions.
These fire bolts seemed to have eyes, specifically targeting the joints of the bone golems to burn. The bone golems that were hit instantly twisted, then their structures collapsed, scattering into a pile of lifeless bone fragments.
His efficiency in clearing the battlefield was astonishing, and the pressure decreased dramatically wherever he went: "Take Gui Tiao and go first."
The remaining two giant bone golems seemed to have received higher priority instructions and turned to attack Bu Jiu from the left and right.
The shadow that was rapidly enlarging was reflected in Bu Jiu's eyes. Instead of retreating, he went to meet the bone puppet that was the first to rush in. Just as the fist was about to hit, he twisted his body and almost brushed past the wind of the fist.
He then formed his five fingers into claws, flames condensing at his fingertips, and viciously dug towards the connection point between the bone golem's chest and abdomen.
"Pfft—!"
Bu Jiu's hand pierced through the bone armor, his fingers tightening, crushing the violently pounding core within the chest cavity. The bone golem, now without its core, halted its charge, staggering forward a few steps before crashing onto the ice.
Almost at the same moment, the bone golem's attack from the right swept across the waist, blocking Bu Jiu's retreat path, seemingly leaving him with nowhere to dodge.
At the critical moment, Bu Jiu's right foot slammed onto the remains of the fallen bone puppet, using the force to flip backward in mid-air. The sweeping fist narrowly grazed the hem of his robe.
As he flipped over, he slashed downwards with his free hand, fingers pointing like a sword. The fiery line cut into the bone puppet's wrist joint, instantly leaving a very thin red line, and half of the bone puppet's forearm was severed in the blink of an eye.
The bone golem with the severed arm lost its balance and fell forward.
Bu Jiu landed precisely at that moment, without pausing at all, and slammed it hard into its exposed back.
From breaking through the ice wall to defeating the three core bone golems and clearing out a large number of miscellaneous soldiers, the whole process took only a moment.
Without its source, the array that had been constantly spawning small bone golems quickly dimmed, shrank, and eventually disappeared completely.
The remaining bone puppets were quickly wiped out by the counterattack of You Hang and the others after the pressure on them was greatly reduced.
Just as the atmosphere eased slightly, a slender figure rapidly melted into the ice wall from the shadowy area half-hidden by the remains of the bone golem, attempting to disappear into it.
Bu Jiu didn't even turn around completely.
His peripheral vision had already locked onto that incongruous shadow. In the instant that Bai Gong's figure was about to merge, Bu Jiu's right hand, hanging by his side, reached for a broken longsword lying on the ground.
The broken sword hummed as it was lifted into the air by an invisible force. In the next instant, the broken sword transformed into a blurry afterimage, as if it had calculated Bai Gong's escape route in advance, piercing into Bai Gong's back, with half of its blood-stained tip protruding from his chest.
The movements of the craftsmen blending into the ice wall suddenly froze, and a large patch of dark red quickly seeped onto their robes.
He slowly lowered his head, trying to reach for something, but his arm fell limply halfway up, and he collapsed onto the cold pile of wreckage with a thud. His eyes, which had been filled with precise calculations, quickly became unfocused and frozen, leaving behind a trace of unfulfilled resentment.
Bu Jiu slowly withdrew his outstretched hand, his gaze sweeping across the entire room before finally settling on Mi Juan's pale face.
"Casualties?" he asked, his voice unusually calm.
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