Decisive Battle (3)
Deep in the mine, the smell of rust and corruption lingered, weighing heavily on my chest.
A few sharp whistles pierced the din. Three short whistles and one long—danger!
The three people who had just retreated to the fork in the road suddenly stopped.
"Doudou and the others are in danger too!" Sally tightened her fingers, and the Purple Cloud Sword made a low humming sound.
A cold light flashed in Lantu's eyes: "Enter the branch road!"
"Get out of the way!" Da Ben roared, slumping his shoulders and violently knocking the medicine man blocking the road away, clearing the passage. The three of them rushed into the deep branch road.
Lan Tu stopped abruptly and turned to face the pursuers. She clasped her hands around the hilt of the Ice Soul Sword, her Qi surging into it, and the sword suddenly glowed with a burst of blue brilliance.
"Seal!" She shouted, and swung her sword, emitting a round cold light.
Bitter cold poured into the passage, completely blocking the way with a thick, crystalline ice wall, isolating the roars and attacks from outside. Spider-web-like cracks spread across the ice wall as the medicine men continued to strike, and tiny "crackling" sounds echoed intermittently in the mine.
In the cave, Doudou and Dada were gradually feeling exhausted.
Doudou's Yuhua Sword slashed down, but it failed to leave even a shallow mark. The recoil made his palm numb, and he was horrified: "What kind of monsters are these!"
On the other side, Dada's whirlwind sword was still as light and agile as ever, poking, stabbing, picking, and wiping, but it was unable to break the opponent's iron skin. His brows were furrowed, and cold sweat soaked his temples.
The two men's breathing became heavier, their sword moves became disordered, and new injuries continued to appear.
At that moment, hurried footsteps could be heard from the end of the mine tunnel. Lan Tu and the other two finally arrived. However, as soon as they entered the battle zone, several medicine men roared and lunged at them.
Lan Tu spun around, swung her sword, and pushed the enemy away, saying urgently, "Be careful! These medicine men are stronger than steel, they are extraordinary!"
Su Baiwei, who was tied up high up, saw this and said hurriedly, "They are seven steps ahead!"
The three of them looked up and saw her imprisoned in the air, with bloodstains on her face, and their hearts were gripped.
Lantu tapped the stone wall with her toes and leaped up, looking down from above. She saw Doudou and Dada battling tooth and nail, wounded and battered. In the center, Hongmao, bloodied and collapsed, lay bloodied. A pang of pain surged through her heart, and she slashed with her Ice Soul Sword, its chill forcing the Medicine Man back and landing beside them. Sally and Daben simultaneously unleashed their swords, their flashes intertwining, quickly separating them from the enemy.
"Form a formation!" Lan Tuqing shouted.
The five people were in tune with each other, forming a circle with their backs to each other, with swords flashing and protecting the seriously injured Rainbow Cat in the center.
"Six swords are ready, five swords combined, there is still a glimmer of hope!" Su Baiwei's voice came from above, extremely anxious, "Hurry up!"
"We will never abandon you!" Sally said firmly, the sword flashed fiercely, and she refused to retreat.
"He still wants to use my blood to feed the Gu, so he won't kill me!" Su Baiwei almost screamed at the top of her lungs, her blood-red chains clanging. "If we don't leave now, it will be too late! Go!"
Her screams echoed high above. Chi Lian, who was leisurely sipping tea, chuckled upon hearing her words.
"Of course I won't kill you." He slowly put down his teacup, his voice low and pleasant, but every word was laced with poison. "But you know, there are many ways to 'live'."
The glare beneath the silver mask was like a knife, cutting through her forced composure. "I originally wanted to turn you into a pretty fool, which would have saved me some trouble. But now, I've thought of something even more interesting."
He paused deliberately, admiring her suddenly constricted pupils with satisfaction, then changed his tone: "How about cutting off her limbs and pulling out her tongue..."
Daben was distracted for a moment, and his shoulder was torn by the sharp claws, leaving a bloody mark deep enough to see the bone, and he groaned.
Seeing Su Baiwei tremble all over, Chi Lian raised the corner of his lips in an elegant yet cruel arc: "Then, those people you cured in the past will be made into medicine men one by one in front of you..."
Before he finished speaking, Su Baiwei saw the faces that had once smiled with gratitude at her, now twisted into mindless drugged figures, dragging their broken bodies towards her. And this despairing scene was caused by her.
A sharp buzzing sound suddenly pierced her ears. Chi Lian's voice began to fade away, and the fierce clash of weapons below and the panting of her companions blurred into a chaotic hum.
Doudou felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of such vicious and cruel words, and the Yuhua Sword in his hand faltered. In an instant, a sharp claw wind struck his chest. A flash of purple light flashed beside him, and with a crisp clang, Sally blocked the fatal blow for him.
"You are nothing more than a vessel that holds my blood. Being alive is enough." Chi Lian smiled as he glanced at the increasingly brutal battle below. He spoke leisurely, "It seems that everyone's fighting spirit has become even stronger?"
He deliberately concentrated his inner strength into his voice, allowing every word to be clearly heard by the hard-pressed warriors below. The more they couldn't let her go, the more they would shed their last drop of blood for her.
"You bastard! How dare you touch her!" Daben roared like thunder, but his movements faltered due to his injury.
"Go... please..." Su Baiwei struggled in vain, but the chains only dug deeper into her flesh.
Their swords still swung, but their sharpness had long since faded. Each strike felt heavy and numb. Sweat, blood, and ash mixed with ash streamed down their exhausted yet resolute faces. Their steps were weak, and every block left their arms numb and their knuckles cracked, yet no one retreated.
Chi Lian leaned over and stared at Su Baiwei, who was trembling slightly in the formation. The way she bit her lower lip to endure the pain was very similar to her father's expression of forbearance and unyieldingness back then.
In an instant, a memory suddenly pierced into my mind——
In the flickering flames of the Black Tiger Hall, Black Heart Tiger gently stroked the Holy Fire Hall seal, his gaze passing past the man standing expectantly below the steps to Su Yuanshan, who stood quietly beside him...
Snap!
The teacup in his hand shattered, and the porcelain fragments pierced his palm, and blood immediately oozed out.
He stood up suddenly. The indifference he felt at being completely ignored in the past, combined with the current pleasure of being in complete control, fiercely intertwined, giving rise to an even more surging malice in his heart.
"Look, every wound on their bodies was inflicted for you." His eyes were filled with a mixture of pleasure and hatred. "If it weren't for you, they would have been free and unrestrained, settling scores and taking revenge. Why would they be forced into such a desperate situation?"
Su Baiwei's breathing suddenly stopped, and her whole body felt like she was struck by lightning, and her vision began to blur.
"And," he practically squeezed the words out through his teeth, "the herbalist you nurture with three drops of your blood every month has leveled the Qinglong Gate and slaughtered seven villages." He sneered, "Your very existence is a disaster."
Su Baiwei's back completely collapsed, tears mixed with blood streaked across her pale face. Her lips moved silently, leaving only broken gasps.
"Do you remember him? The one your father saved with all his heart. And him, he..." He pointed at the medicine men who were frantically charging towards the sword formation. "The one you saved with all your heart is now desperately trying to kill you... Isn't that incredibly ironic?"
Su Baiwei looked at those familiar yet hideous faces, and felt as if her heart was being cut by a knife.
"Your father always believed that kindness could save him," he chuckled, but his eyes suddenly froze. "Today, I will show him clearly how his kindness, his medical skills, and his most cherished daughter... gradually nurtured the most hopeless flower in the world."
He leaned over and pierced her heart with every word: "Isn't this his greatest 'achievement'?"
Su Baiwei was completely still. Her distracted gaze swept across Dada's bloodstained face, Lan Tu's torn sleeves, the deep scar on Daben's shoulder... The last bit of light in her eyes was extinguished, leaving only grayness.
"For me..." She muttered, "It's not worth it..."
"We will live and die together!" Lan Tu swallowed the blood surging in his throat, his voice hoarse but firm.
Dada's arm went limp, and the sword in his hand suddenly sank downward, nearly dropping from his grasp. He stumbled sideways, narrowly avoiding a fierce attack, his five fingers tightly gripping the whirlwind sword, and rushed forward again.
Chi Lian saw the last glimmer of light in Su Baiwei's eyes, gradually devoured by fear, guilt, and boundless despair, finally condensing into a dead silence. His chest suddenly felt extremely relieved. He took a deep breath, the corners of his lips curled up, and he leisurely fell back into his seat. His servant had already brewed him a fresh cup of tea.
Ding Kui glared at the tragic scene below, a sinister grin spreading across his lips. "You deserve this day? You deserve it!" He spat, and the ringing of the bell suddenly intensified, as if to pour out all the pent-up hatred. "You're just a blood jar, why are you pretending to be so noble? Who do you think you are?" His other hand touched the bandage wrapped around his injured ear, his eyes filled with resentment. "It's a pity that the little bastard didn't come... otherwise, he would have paid back a thousandfold!"
Su Baiwei's eyes drooped weakly. Suddenly, a flash of cold light from the ground passed through her eyes. She was slightly startled, and her scattered eyes slowly focused on the bottle of fluorescent coral powder that had fallen.
In a trance, Tiao Tiao's hoarse voice seemed to penetrate time and rang in her ears: "This blood debt should not be borne by you, Su Baiwei."
Tears mixed with blood rolled down, splashing blood on the stone platform.
She lifted her eyes with difficulty. Lan Tu's arms trembled weakly as she blocked; Sally's shoulder lap was soaked with blood; Da Ben groaned with every swing of his sword; Doudou and Dada breathed heavily, their steps unsteady.
They fought hard for her, shed blood for her, and squeezed out their last bit of strength for her, but no one gave up.
A power deeper than despair surged from this tragic protection and poured back into her almost exhausted body.
"They... never gave up on me..."
This thought was like a faint spark that suddenly fell into my desolate heart.
"Then...how can I give up myself first?"
The grayness in his eyes cracked into tiny cracks, and a sense of unwillingness and tenacity, like the last spark of fire in the embers, lit up again.
At that moment, a forgotten memory suddenly flashed back: Under the candlelight, the diagrams of the formations spread across the table. Those intricate lines, drawn according to the flow of yin and yang, and the mutual generation and restraint of the five elements, resonated with my father's frequent refrain: "Medical formations share the same origin, both follow the principles of heaven and earth."
She suddenly realized: since this Dragon Trapping Formation was created by her father, its operation must follow this principle. And wasn't this the very foundation of medicine that she had diligently studied since childhood and mastered by heart? Born from the same source, perhaps she could truly decipher the key.
The will to survive and the determination to protect rose like flames. She took a deep breath, suppressed all the churning emotions, immersed all her mind in her body, and sensed the flow of the formation's energy.
Chi Lian keenly detected the change in her aura. He saw her straighten her back again, her eyes rapidly moving beneath her tightly closed lids. A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes again, then transformed into a fierce rage. He wanted to crush her immediately, but suddenly his thoughts changed.
Why rush?
They would never abandon her anyway; they would all be his possessions. It would be better to keep this little bit of hope burning in her heart, letting her watch helplessly as those who protected her were torn apart one by one, her hope crushed to ash bit by bit. When she finally realized that there was no way to break this formation from the inside—
That look... must have been wonderful.
His anger vanished, and a deeper smile appeared on the corner of his lips. He spoke leisurely, "Very good! I will see with my own eyes what this little light in your eyes will shatter into."
His words faded silently like a poisonous curse. Meanwhile, in the battle below, the Five Swords' line constantly shrank and wavered under the Medicine Man's tireless onslaught. Each strike seemed to exhaust the last of their strength, and the situation was precarious.
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