The Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu
The Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu
"Hraaaaat!!!"
-Boom!!!
The Eight-Zhang Serpent Spear flew in with a piercing shriek.
Lü Bu blocked it effortlessly, then whipped the Fangtian Halberd around in a fluid counter that linked defense straight into offense.
A clean, lethal strike with no wasted motion.
Yet this woman named Zhang Fei managed to evade even that, shifting her body just fast enough to parry.
Her defense wasn't without close calls, but it still held.
Lü Bu thoroughly disliked her, but she had to admit one thing: this opponent was no pushover.
"Bastard's got some muscle after all!"
"You're one to talk! Let's see how long you can keep this up!"
A formidable foe.
And on top of that, Ji Ling was glaring this way fiercely even now.
For the moment she was only watching, but Lü Bu had no intention of fighting if she entered the fray.
Her objective here was rescuing Gongsun Zan anyway.
And if she'd already broken the enemy's spirit this much, there was no need to push it.
Her will to fight had already been dampened the instant she met Ji Ling, so Lü Bu began looking for a chance to pound Zhang Fei a little more and then slip away.
And then—
'Hm? That one...'
In the middle of stealing glances at Ji Ling, a figure caught Lü Bu's eye.
The moment she saw the woman commander mounted right beside Ji Ling, the feelings Lü Bu had been ready to suppress suddenly surged.
Conspicuously large ears. A massive chest no smaller than Dong Zhuo's, whom she'd just faced.
The physical traits were unmistakable. Lü Bu recognized her in an instant.
'Big-Ears... that woman... Liu Bei!'
The very person who had killed Zhang Liao—someone Lü Bu regarded like her own sister—and routed countless troops from Bing Province.
The moment she realized her mortal enemy was standing right before her eyes, Lü Bu's reason snapped and her emotions exploded.
"Wh... what... ugh!"
-CRASH!!!
-Hiiiiiiing!!!!
A burst of overwhelming might erupted in a single instant.
Zhang Fei faltered. In that split second, the Fangtian Halberd took the head clean off Zhang Fei's horse.
"Wh... no!"
Zhang Fei tumbled off the collapsing, dying horse.
She regained her balance fast enough to avoid injury, but the next moment was the real problem.
Lü Bu seized that split-second opening and spurred her horse straight at Liu Bei.
It wasn't Red Hare, but it was still a fine steed, hand-picked in Bing Province. She closed the distance in a heartbeat.
Then.
-Clang!!!
"!"
The Green Dragon Crescent Blade cut across Lü Bu's path.
She deflected the unexpected heavy blow and her brow furrowed.
"What the hell are you? Out of my way!"
"If you want the eldest sister, you'll have to go through me first."
The woman commander with long, straight hair spoke in a voice without the slightest tremor.
But Lü Bu's mind shifted for a different reason.
"Eldest sister? Ah... so you're that woman's little sister?"
"!"
-CRASH!!!
Lü Bu's halberd swung with chilling fury.
The arrow of rage that had been aimed at Liu Bei now turned squarely onto Guan Yu standing before her.
"If I kill you... that big-eared bitch will suffer, won't she? Just like I am right now!"
"Guh!"
Lü Bu's glare burned as she drove the Fangtian Halberd with brutal violence.
Guan Yu countered with the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, but as the fight went on, she could feel it.
This woman called Lü Bu was simply stronger than her.
And every one of her blows carried a vicious murderous intent.
She'd abandoned all pretense of defense. Every strike was laden with the will to cut off her breath for good. Guan Yu, for all her skill, was struggling to defend cleanly.
Through all the countless battles she'd fought, this was the first time Guan Yu felt genuine peril creeping in.
Then.
-Clang!!
"!"
A blow intercepted the Fangtian Halberd mid-flight, batting it aside before it could reach Guan Yu.
Liu Bei stood there, the Twin Ancient Swords already drawn.
"Eldest sister!"
"I'll take the left. Second sister, strike from the right."
"Yes, sister!"
"Good! I was getting bored waiting! Now I'll send you all to the underworld together!"
Liu Bei's intervention only stoked Lü Bu's fighting spirit higher.
Radiating a horrific killing aura, she began rampaging even more savagely.
*
"... My apologies. After insisting on taking the field..."
"Hah..."
Dong Zhuo apologized from the sickbed.
I let out a small sigh, then spoke in a voice thick with concern.
"For now, just focus on your treatment. I can nag you when I get back after the battle."
"... Thank you. Gonglu..."
Despite the cold sweat of pain, Dong Zhuo managed a faint smile.
After leaving her in the physician's care for her injuries,
I set aside my worry for her, stepped back outside as commander-in-chief, and began surveying the situation.
"Hmm..."
The fierce fight between the Three Sisters and Lü Bu continued.
The scene playing out before my eyes could be called Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu, but the feeling I got watching it was far from satisfying.
'This... Lü Bu's way stronger than I expected.'
In the novel, the Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu played out similarly but with a key difference.
The story went that Zhang Fei and Lü Bu fought roughly evenly, but Lü Bu began losing ground once Guan Yu intervened, and when Liu Bei joined in, Lü Bu couldn't hold any longer and turned tail.
A three-on-one gang-up in Single Combat might look bad, but it served to show both Lü Bu's martial prowess and the fact that the Liu Bei sisters overcame even that—a testament to their own strength.
But unlike that battle, which had led step by step to the three sisters' victory, the situation here was actually tilting slightly in Lü Bu's favor.
Lü Bu had already half-retired Zhang Fei by taking her horse's head off.
And immediately after, she'd been gaining the upper hand even against Guan Yu.
Like a rampaging monster, Lü Bu had been hammering Guan Yu with terrifying momentum.
I was starting to worry that, unlike the Original Timeline, Guan Yu might actually fall here.
But my concern was soon dispelled by a single person.
Liu Bei joined in after Guan Yu's crisis.
With her intervention—and the martial force she wielded that shattered all common sense—the wildly rampaging Lü Bu at last began to look like she was being pushed back, even if just a little.
Nevertheless, watching Lü Bu radiate a murderous aura thick enough that even I could feel it while displaying such overwhelming prowess, I found myself thinking that this bastard had somehow grown stronger than her historical counterpart had been.
'Without even having Red Hare, I'd assumed she'd be somewhat weaker... Could it be that, unlike the Original Timeline, Lü Bu turned out to be a surprisingly loyal sort?'
She'd flatly refused Dong Zhuo's offer of Red Hare,
and even now she was serving Ding Yuan with unwavering loyalty.
In the Original Timeline, he had beheaded his own foster father Ding Yuan and immediately attached himself to Dong Zhuo. Compared with him, the current Lü Bu was clearly far more upright.
On top of that, according to Zhang Liao's testimony, Lü Bu cherished her subordinates and comrades from Bing Province like her own flesh and blood.
In the Original Timeline, Lü Bu had mistreated his subordinates so badly that they betrayed him and he died, and practically every commander except Gao Shun had turned their backs on him. This too was a massive change.
And I already knew that psychological factors like this, when turned on their head, inevitably affect a person's strength directly.
Do you know when a beast is most dangerous?
It isn't when it's starving, and it isn't when it's cornered.
Even a hungry predator will tuck its tail and flee from an enemy larger than itself.
Even cornered, it will look for an opening to escape; give it the slightest gap and the standard reaction is to bolt.
But even a beast ruled by pure instinct
will fight to the death, throwing away its own life, under one condition.
When its young are nearby.
When it has someone to protect, a beast will charge an opponent with no regard for its own death.
Nature and history have already proven it: someone fighting to protect something is stronger than someone fighting for themselves.
In that regard,
unlike the Original Timeline, where he had merely swung his weapon to enjoy a life of luxury as Dong Zhuo's attack dog,
the current Lü Bu was fighting to uphold her bond with her foster father and, beyond that, to protect the soldiers of Bing Province. Her resolve was bound to be different from the ground up.
The actual gap in martial ability might not be large, but the entire attitude she brought into battle was fundamentally different, making her seem that much stronger.
And yet, even with Lü Bu's combat power amplified in this way, I had no doubt about our victory itself.
Over there in the distance, Zhang Fei was already racing back with Ji Ling's help. And more than anything, right before my eyes was Liu Bei's terrifying combat ability.
She was displaying a martial prowess a full tier above Guan Yu, trading blows against Lü Bu without the slightest waver.
Watching her, I couldn't even imagine this battle being lost.
At this rate, once Zhang Fei arrived, it would go just like the Original Timeline...
No, without Red Hare, if things went well we might even capture Lü Bu.
If we managed that, this war would clearly end in our total victory.
With the enemy's morale in the dirt, we'd smash through Hulao Pass in one sweep and crush Ding Yuan, then march straight into Luoyang and exterminate Zhang Rang and the rest of those life-extended eunuch scum. That would end it.
It would slam the door shut in advance on the endless chaos of the Original Timeline.
And yet...
"Huh? Who the hell is that?"
"That person is, without a doubt... Gao Shun?"
Someone shot out of Ding Yuan's camp on horseback, racing at full speed toward where Lü Bu was fighting.
A young man with a small frame like Lü Bu's, carrying a thick sword.
Gao Shun.
The intervention of yet another person who had not been present in the Original Timeline threw me into confusion.