Chapter Sixty-Four: The Stench of Blood and Fog

“All of you listen to me carefully. Whether you choose to go home or follow us, that is your own decision. I am not forcing you.”
“Now, those who choose to go home might well betray us. The best way to prevent that is to silence them completely. It may sound cruel, but this is the basic rule of survival in these chaotic times.”
“Do not show mercy. Do not trust anyone lightly.”
The middle-aged man kept goading the crowd. In the eyes of some, there was nothing left but the glint of blades on the ground, and they were gradually losing their humanity.
“Aaah!”
“I don’t care anymore! I have to survive! No one is going to harm me!”
Suddenly, someone bent down, snatched a blade, and hacked at the people standing to the left. Chaos erupted instantly, and the slaughter, inevitable all along, finally began.
Caught completely off guard, several people fell under the first onslaught, while more snatched up blades and joined in the one-sided massacre.
It was a completely uneven contest. Those who had chosen to return home were timid by nature, wanting only to avoid danger and hide. They harbored no murderous intent, nor were they prepared to face life and death.
Their enemies, however, were men with festering hatred in their hearts, desperate enough to gamble everything.
The two sides became entangled. With every flash of steel, blood spattered and the stench of death thickened in the air. The thirteen led by the middle-aged man stood quietly to one side, watching the carnage unfold before them without the slightest emotion.
The middle-aged man called out loudly, “They want to kill you, so will you just stand there and let them? Blades are not just for them—you can grab them too!”
Driven to desperation, the other group finally steeled themselves at the brink of death. They understood that only by fighting back with all they had could they seize a chance at survival.
Thus, the conflict shifted. When a man is backed into a corner, he will unleash astonishing power—a force that can overcome fear and tap into his deepest potential.
A strange, hissing sound cut through the chaos of battle near the middle-aged man’s ear.
He spun around warily and saw, to his shock, that five of his own companions were already lying dead in pools of blood, not even managing to utter a warning before they died.

Enemies were upon them!
The man reacted quickly, but he could not tell how many attackers there were. To kill five of his companions at once, and with such deadly precision, was no trivial feat.
A shuffling sound came from nearby—someone was closing in. The man shouted to his remaining comrades, “Close ranks! Don’t get separated!”
His judgment was keen, yet even as the words left his lips, two more figures were cut down before they could resist. Their assailant vanished swiftly into the night.
“Is it only one person?”
He thought he glimpsed the enemy, moving as fast as lightning, but could it truly be just one?
It was unbelievable—how could a single man take out seven seasoned fighters in succession? Each of them was a battle-hardened veteran, forged in the crucible of blood and death.
Yet they had been killed so silently—how could this be?
Six remained now. Lying flat behind a slight rise, Jiang Chen watched each movement with the sharp gaze of a hawk. He had seen their formation loosen, their attention fully absorbed by the massacre.
Seizing the chance, he had struck first, felling five, then two more. With the enemy’s numbers drastically reduced, he could now control the situation with ease.
“Who are you?” the middle-aged man called out loudly. “We’ve never crossed paths before, nor do we bear any grudges. There’s no need for a fight to the death. Why not simply part ways here?”
Jiang Chen considered for a moment and replied, “But the grudge has already been formed, hasn’t it? Unless you come clean about who you are, I won’t let any of you leave alive.”
As he spoke, he sensed something was wrong. Suddenly, a few sharp twangs split the air, and in the next instant he rolled aside just in time to dodge arrows whistling down from above.
He had nearly forgotten—they were armed with powerful bows. The earlier exchange had only been to pinpoint his location.
They had loosed arrows into the sky, using the arc of flight to bypass the hill’s cover—a cunning tactic. Only seasoned warriors would have thought of such a move.

Jiang Chen found himself growing ever more curious about who these people really were. Meanwhile, the carnage on the other side was approaching its climax. There was no telling how many survivors remained—if he did not intervene soon, Li Yuanpei would surely be doomed.
Listening carefully to the sounds around him, Jiang Chen realized that the footsteps of his adversaries were quickly retreating. When he rose to look, he saw that they had indeed chosen to withdraw.
Even after he had killed seven of their number, they seemed to have no intention of seeking revenge.
With the threat gone, Jiang Chen could finally turn his attention to stopping the mutual slaughter. He separated the frenzied fighters one by one, but most had already lost all reason.
When Jiang Chen tried to intervene, they mistook him for another enemy, clutching their bloodied blades with trembling hands, slashing out with unrestrained ferocity.
Jiang Chen did not know what to make of these wretches, driven to such a state. He had no desire to kill them, so he simply knocked them unconscious.
Whether they lived or died from now on would be left to fate.
What pained him most was that all these people—and the cold corpses on the ground—might have made it home. It was that man who had destroyed their hopes and turned it all into this human tragedy.
As Jiang Chen subdued the last of the madmen, he searched for Li Yuanpei, but could not find him. Nor was his body among the dead.
After searching in vain several times, Jiang Chen had no choice but to give up. He could only hope that Li Yuanpei had escaped in the chaos and would find his way back to Shanguan Town.
Now, only a few trembling, cowering souls remained before him. These few had survived the chaos without ever raising a blade against another.
“You can go south and take refuge at Tigerhead Mountain. Wait for things to calm down before you return home.”
Jiang Chen showed these poor souls a path to survival.