Chapter 29: Slaughtering a Bloody Path
Two orcs had their throats slit by Su Xiao. At the same time, the nearby tribal soldiers caught the pungent scent of blood and immediately went on alert.
Su Xiao charged into the tribal army, his figure weaving between one soldier after another. His attacks targeted only throats, each strike lethal.
By the time Su Xiao had taken down twelve enemies, the surrounding tribal forces had fully detected him.
"Enemy attack!!"
The tribal soldiers nearby were somewhat incredulous. If Su Xiao were a dark elf, they wouldn't be surprised, but he clearly looked human.
Su Xiao sheathed the Slaughter Shortsword, and Dragon-Slaying Flash appeared in his hand. Counter Shield activated.
Ring Break.
Clang.
A circular blade aura expanded outward. The tribal soldiers around Su Xiao froze in place, a bloodline appearing between their chests and abdomens. As for the dwarves, their skulls were cleaved clean off.
Su Xiao didn't spare a glance at the soldiers standing rigidly in place. He strode straight ahead. He needed to fight his way back to the Black Soil Fortress before the enemy high command took notice.
Ring Break cleared the area. Su Xiao plunged over a dozen meters into the tribal army. As he charged, the frozen soldiers' upper bodies crashed to the ground, wailing in agony as death awaited them.
Su Xiao stared straight ahead, ignoring all attacks from his left, right, and rear. The Counter Shield handled them all.
His long blade flashed. Due to the enemies blocking his path, Su Xiao's forward momentum slowed noticeably. He had to kill the foes in front of him before he could push through.
"Kill him!"
"Enemy in the rear!"
Roars erupted around him. Su Xiao ignored them. At this point, he couldn't afford to worry about stamina consumption. Fighting his way back to the Black Soil Fortress was the key.
With one slash, he killed the enemy before him. The descending blade didn't stop, and he activated the Cyan Steel Shadow Energy ability.
Pfft.
A dwarf in heavy armor was slain. Su Xiao rushed past the corpses of orcs and dwarves, only to find new enemies ahead.
At this moment, Su Xiao was about eight hundred meters from the Black Soil Fortress. This gave him a new appreciation for the strength of the giant race.
Eight hundred meters wasn't far for Su Xiao, but that was without enemies blocking his way. What if those eight hundred meters were packed with foes? The answer was: extremely difficult to break through.
Blood splattered, severed limbs flew. No tribal soldier could withstand a single strike from Su Xiao. He put over eighty percent of his strength into each slash, and the cost was faster stamina depletion.
Dense attacks came from all directions. The Counter Shield clanged and clattered under the barrage, its durability plummeting.
What did it mean to slaughter a bloody path? This was Su Xiao's reality. If he couldn't carve out this bloody path, he would likely die within the tribal army, swallowed by the surging tide of soldiers. As for fleeing into the tribal alliance's territory, that would indeed save his life, but his gains in this world would essentially end, and the [Sacred Oak Branch] would be out of the question.
As Su Xiao charged, a crisp cracking sound came from beside him. The Counter Shield shattered.
A broad-bladed greatsword swung toward Su Xiao's face. He didn't dodge. Instead, he met the enemy's weapon with Dragon-Slaying Flash.
With a clang, the broad-bladed greatsword was severed. So was the enemy's head. The sharpness of Dragon-Slaying Flash once again proved crucial.
Just after killing one enemy, Su Xiao tried to activate a new Counter Shield. But unfortunately, because the previous shield had just shattered, the Cyan Steel Shadow Energy within was dissipating around him. A new Counter Shield would take 0.2 to 0.8 seconds to form—this was a weakness of the ability.
Of course, if there were no dissipating Cyan Steel Shadow Energy nearby, activating the Counter Shield would be instantaneous.
The new Counter Shield began to form, but the enemies' attacks had already arrived.
Su Xiao ducked to avoid a longsword, his black short hair blown back by the force. He swung Dragon-Slaying Flash toward the various weapons coming from his right. A series of clinks rang out as several weapons were cut clean through by Dragon-Slaying Flash.
Pfft, blood sprayed.
Su Xiao felt a chill and numbness on his back—a sensation he knew all too well. He had been cut by a sharp weapon. There were four wounds: one on his right shoulder blade, one in the center of his back, and two on his left lower back. Amid the surging tide of enemies, Su Xiao, charging at full speed, was wounded.
A new Counter Shield appeared, blocking all incoming weapons.
The moment the Counter Shield materialized, Su Xiao's pace quickened. As he swung his blade, the Counter Shield in front of his strike path immediately expanded outward.
The numbness in his back wounds faded, replaced by a piercing, searing pain.
Su Xiao ignored the wounds on his back. He was used to it, and the health restored from killing enemies accelerated the healing.
"Again!"
Su Xiao roared. Several nearby tribal soldiers actually showed fear, intimidated by his overwhelming momentum.
Kill. Keep pushing forward and killing. Only by cutting through the tribal army could he survive.
A stunning scene unfolded on the battlefield. One man, one blade, charging into a sea of thousands with no one able to stop him. He wasn't here to take the enemy commander's head—he was here to cut through the tribal army to secure his own survival.
In the forest behind the tribal army, the invisible elf girl stared blankly at Su Xiao, who was drenched in blood as he fought through the crowd.
"He actually... meant it when he said he'd fight back to the Black Soil Fortress. He's really doing it. And... he's so strong!"
The elf girl grew curious. She wondered if Su Xiao could actually make it onto the Black Soil Fortress.
...
Within the crowd.
Su Xiao's chest heaved. His breathing grew rapid, and his right arm ached. Half an hour had passed since he first charged into the tribal army.
In that half hour, he had been killing enemies at full force and pushing forward relentlessly.
Su Xiao looked up. The towering Black Soil Fortress ahead was getting closer, no more than two hundred meters away at most. Fortunately, he hadn't encountered any enemy leaders along the way.
The entire battlefield spanned tens of thousands of soldiers, roughly a kilometer wide horizontally. The vertical depth was harder to calculate, but as both sides suffered casualties, it was shrinking. In a battle of this scale, the chance of running into an enemy leader was slim.
"Should be... fine."
The wounds on Su Xiao's back burned fiercely. These last two hundred meters—barring any surprises—he could make it.
A bloody footprint marked Su Xiao's steps. Fighting over six hundred meters through the enemy ranks came at a cost. During that time, he had been struck thirteen times by sharp weapons, three times by blunt instruments, and there were even two rows of teeth marks on his calf—the result of an orc biting him after Su Xiao cleaved through its chest and shattered its Counter Shield.
Su Xiao's face was pale, a normal consequence of heavy blood loss.
Under normal circumstances, fighting for half an hour on the battlefield wouldn't leave Su Xiao this badly wounded or this exhausted. But he was charging through the tribal army, killing a path as he went, which drastically increased his chances of getting hit.
Su Xiao had no time to treat his wounds. Besides, with so many injuries, the pain was somewhat numbed. The real problem was the continuous blood loss.
After another ten minutes of pushing forward, Su Xiao spotted Imperial soldiers locked in combat with the tribal forces ahead. Fifty meters—if he could cross those fifty meters, he would reach the top of the Black Soil Fortress.
The stench of blood filled his nostrils. The roars of Imperial and tribal soldiers rang in his ears. Nearby, a bottle of "Green Phosphorus Fire Bomb" landed among the Imperial troops. Su Xiao shook his head; the heavy blood loss was making it hard to concentrate.
"Form up!"
A roar came from nearby. Su Xiao killed a few orcs beside him and glanced over.
A dwarf in earth-yellow patterned armor, wielding a warhammer and riding a wild boar—a Dwarf Earth Cavalryman.