Chapter 3
Chapter 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Beyond Human (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Pew!
A sound that shattered her reverie. A silver beam streaked through the air. Her eyes gleamed sharply.
Repeating crossbows. Just as she’d guessed.
The pursuers—two on each flank—gripped silver repeating crossbows in their right hands. The problem was the one in the center. He wasn’t holding a crossbow, but a bow. A massive greatbow as tall as a man, forged from gleaming metal. Its presence was utterly different. The sheer aura radiating from his entire body marked him unmistakably as the leader of the group.
Scrrrk.
He nocked an arrow aimed straight at her. The twang of the bowstring drawing taut reached her ears. Her pupils trembled violently. She shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Watch out on the left!”
Shweee!
No way to block it. Too late to leap from the carriage and intercept. It sliced through the air with terrifying speed.
Thud!
Her warning hadn’t been enough.
The guard riding alongside on the left crumpled lifelessly.
Her face darkened.
“Everyone, up to the coachman’s seat!”
That was when it happened.
Whoooosh!
Something was incoming. The moment she heard it, a chill raced up her spine.
Thwack!
Her instincts were spot on.
The projectiles piercing the night sky carried monstrous force.
The first victim of that strike was the guard who had just flung himself toward the coachman’s seat at her command.
Spluuurt!
The sound of flesh exploding. His entire shoulder disintegrated mid-air. The guard plummeted to the ground, spraying blood, never to rise again.
‘They’re up ahead too!’
A second ambush.
No, not an ambush—they’d been lying in wait, blocking the escape route.
She whipped around. Far ahead, past the carriage, a shadow darker than the night sky loomed.
‘A stronger expert…!’
She couldn’t finish the thought.
Whoooosh! The ominous hum rang out again.
Thud!
She couldn’t even see it clearly. Heavier than any arrow.
That blow felled the last guard protecting the carriage’s flanks.
Whoooosh!
The onslaught continued.
She knew there was no stopping it.
Thwack! Thuuud! Splurt!
A horse’s head shattered. The incoming strike tore through its sturdy neck, then engulfed the guard on the coachman’s seat. The three horses crashed to the ground with all their forward momentum. The carriage tilted sharply to the left. Amid the blurring world of peril, she was drenched head to toe in the blood raining from the horses and guards blotting out the night sky.
Craaaash!
The carriage overturned.
The guards were all dead. No one left to help her. Her body moved faster than ever before.
Craaack!
A split-second decision. Her movements flashed like lightning.
She hurled herself to the tipping side of the carriage and ripped the door free. With one hand, she yanked the child—who had been flattened against the seat—into her arms.
Boom!
She launched herself back into the air.
Crash! Krrrrsh!!
The wheels twisted, the carriage body scraped the ground, shattering and skidding ahead. She landed softly on the snow-covered earth.
“!!”
The child, just about to bury his face in his mother’s chest, froze and jerked his head up stiffly. Blood had soaked through her fur clothes and hat.
‘Stay still!’
“My boy, my son!”
The voices overlapped.
Both sounded like his mother’s. No, one was slightly different.
‘Damn it! The blood!’
“You’re your father’s son, after all.”
A gentle tone laced with a husky edge.
She shrugged off her blood-soaked outer garment. She tore off the long white sash binding her waist, wiped her face clean, and flung the fur hat into the snow nearby.
“There, there. Close your eyes, my son.”
Had his real mother ever said those words?
Why couldn’t he understand?
Her voice was warmer than the dreamlike memory.
As the blood stench from her body began to fade, the child’s rigid expression softened. Only then did he hesitantly press his face to her chest.
Clutching the child tightly with one arm, she raised the golden paedo high.
Her face turned icy cold as she stared at the wrecked carriage. The detached coachman’s seat faced her. It should have been oriented the other way, but the carriage had flipped completely.
‘What is that…?!’
The guard sat frozen in the coachman’s seat, still gripping the reins. Not because he was alive. He’d been impaled right there in sitting position.
‘Stakes…!’
Her eyebrows twitched faintly.
The stakes pinning the guard to the seat were hexagonal black wooden rods, precisely carved. Their tips formed flawless hexagonal points, each face intricately engraved with bizarre, twisted characters.
No ordinary weapon. One had to wonder if it even qualified as one. She’d never heard of such a grotesque tool used as a hidden projectile.
“What are you?”
She looked up.
Shadows approached.
In a voice sharp as frost, she demanded,
“Why have you done this to us!”
Among the righteous wanderers of the jianghu, some maintained decorum even after suffering outrage.
She was different.
She had no intention of showing courtesy. Face enemies charging with even greater valor. That was how she’d been taught, how she’d always lived.
“Remarkable.”
The voice drifting from ahead was as low and hollow as if from the underworld.
She turned.
“Are you their leader?”
Her blazing eyes fixed on the voice’s owner.
Crunch, crunch.
Deep footprints pressed into the snow-packed path.
A man of towering build.
Clothing she’d never seen before. Robe-like, but not reaching the knees. The black garb enveloping him was woven from some unknowable fabric.
He drew close and scanned her up and down. A glint sparked in his deep-set eyes.
“How have they not turned you into one of us? Impressive restraint.”
He spoke again.
An utterly alien accent.
High-bridged nose, skin white as snow.
No one from around here. Like the one she sought, he was from another world.
“What were they thinking? Who knows. The devils’ whims. Always the same.”
His mutterings were hard to parse. Strange pronunciation, unfamiliar words. The black-clad man took another step.
The silver-armored crossbowmen had silently flanked him. Not just them—over a dozen men in brown leather armor popped up, swiftly encircling her.
The greatbow wielder among the armored men stood beside the black-clad leader and muttered something.
Utterly incomprehensible. Not the language of the Central Plains.
The black-clad man nodded and pointed at her—at the child in her arms. The armored man nodded back and replied. The black-clad man’s expression hardened.
“That child is his?”
The black-clad man asked.
She hugged the child tighter. He didn’t wait for an answer. He commanded abruptly.
“Hand over the child.”
Absurd.
Incomprehensible, and she had no desire to ask why.
Shing.
She leveled the black-golden paedo. That was her reply. The black-clad man understood perfectly. He said,
“Pitiful soul bewitched by devils. The only path to redemption is eternal rest.”
How did he manage such words with that clumsy accent?
But the unmistakable killing intent in his voice was palpable.
Pitying her while radiating murderous fury. That alone marked him as deranged. Madness. Fanaticism.
“Collusion with devils is a sin worthy of death! Kill the sinner.”
He gestured.
The armored warriors aimed crossbows at her.
That was when she noticed. They were shaking transparent vials etched with strange symbols over the bolt tips.
Clear liquid splashed onto the crossbow bolts.
Not just them.
The brown-leather men too. Half wielded steel longswords over two cheon long; the other half gripped thorned clubs like nanga bongs. Their free hands all clutched identical vials of clear liquid.
What it was, she couldn’t guess. Poison seemed unlikely now.
Shwick!
Bolts flew, swords and clubs cleaved the air.
Calmly, child in arms, she swung the golden paedo.
Not a single bolt could land. One mistake, and the child died.
Clang! Ch-clang-clang!
The power of motherhood defied imagination. Yes, it had to be that—maternal instinct.
Clang! Clang! Cliiing!
The black-golden paedo shattered three greatswords in an instant.
Her skill surpassed even her prime.
Crack! Shrrk-shrrk!
The golden paedo cleaved a silver breastplate in two.
Splurt!
Crimson blood sprayed skyward.
Dying, they groaned in a tongue she’d never heard. Her former master had rarely spoken his homeland’s language.
Thud!
The golden blade ripped open a leather-armored foe’s side.
Splatter!
Hot blood rained to the ground.
The child’s breathing quickened sharply. The blood reek, no doubt. His tiny heart pounded. She crushed him to her chest.
“Hah!”
A triumphant shout burst from her lips.
Boom!
Her blade shook the earth, scattering snowflakes. The one who clashed head-on with the black-golden paedo now held a silver-white greatsword, greatbow slung behind. Leader of the red-caped armored men.
Clang! Cliiing!
Her body staggered.
The armored man’s swordsmanship lacked finesse. No refined sword arts. Yet she was pushed back. An unnatural energy flowed between strikes.
Not the inner energy she knew. Something alien she’d never encountered. Like the curse power of sorcerers, perhaps.
Clang! Cliiing!
Twisting her body, she poured her clan’s secret arts into the blade tip.
This time, the armored man reeled back.
Shock flashed in his deep碧眼.
Cliiing!
The black-golden paedo flung the silver-white greatsword aside. Her waist spun with ferocious speed.
Boom!
Her foot slammed the breastplate’s center. “Guh!” The armored man’s gritted teeth parted. Red blood sprayed from his gaping mouth into the air.
The might of motherhood and resolve.
But she couldn’t press forward. A chilling whoosh grazed her spine.
Whoooosh. Thud!
Blood sprayed.
The child flinched and clung tighter.
She’d barely ducked, but it grazed above her shoulder. Skin and muscle tore away. Blood gushed.
“Impossible…”
Interrupting a warrior’s duel with a sneak attack violated orthodox codes.
Foolish.
This was the outside world. The jianghu.
She’d honed her skills within the clan’s high walls, sparring only with retainers. No chance to maintain true jianghu instincts through matched practice alone.
She glanced back.
The black-clad man flicked his hand down. Another stake emerged from his sleeve into his grasp. No shame on his face. As if backstabbing were the most natural thing.
.