1076 Crossing The Great Swamp, Seeing The River (1/2)
The great black horse galloped onto the street, leaving a cloud of dust while no one dared to stop it. A dozen miles out of the city, a glimmer of haze can be seen with the wind coming from the lake. The Great Swamp was near, but the great black horse did not slow down. Its four hooves continued to step on the gra.s.s and the stones, and finally leapt high on the sh.o.r.e. After a few moments, it landed on a South Jin naval wars.h.i.+p a few feet away.
Splas.h.i.+ng sounds could be heard continually. Seeing the large horse, the South Jin sailors jumped into the lake out of fear, ignoring the cold of the lake in the early summer.
The people who could handle the s.h.i.+p were gone. How can such a large naval wars.h.i.+p move forward on the lake? The flailing South Jin sailors and some onlookers from far looked at the great black horse on the deck. The depths of their horrified eyes were also filled with antic.i.p.ation of what is to happen.
Ning Que came down from the horse and reached out to the bag beside the saddle for a few yellowish paper talismans. He then casually pasted them on both sides of the deck. By flicking his fingers, the talismans gradually faded, like being burned but also like being melted away by the winds of the lake. A somewhat weak but very stable lasting charm immediately shrouded the entire s.h.i.+p. The Qi of the Heaven and Earth surrounding the lake were summoned to blow the sail. With a slight nudge, the hull began to move.
More than ten thousand South Jin soldiers and sailors were shocked at that sight. They did not expect that there was someone in the world that could really start such a heavy s.h.i.+p alone. The next moment, they began to guess wildly on how Ning Que is going to control the draft and direction of the s.h.i.+p. In short, their emotions were wildly conflicted.
Ning Que paid no attention to the depth of the wars.h.i.+p draft. The Great Swamp was so deep that if he were to avoid the reeds and sandbanks that could be seen by the naked eye, he would basically have no problem. As for the course, he only needed the s.h.i.+p to go in the general direction of south. He did not mind, as the whole south was South Jin.
In Chang'an, he had already prepared the talismans to summon the Qi of Heaven and Earth. The wars.h.i.+p was sailing at its top speed. The heavy sails flailed unstably, shaken by the wind. Fortunately, there was no leakage on the s.h.i.+p. Boarding at the south of Qinghe Prefecture, going through the Great Swamp and finally arriving at the southern sh.o.r.e only took him half a day.
Although South Jin was affected too, it was still the second strongest country in the Central Plains after Tang. The government and the military responded quickly to his arrival. Numerous cavalry gathered around the dock called Taizhi County. There were a hundred more cultivators hidden in the woods on either side of the road, ready to attack on command.
Ning Que knew clearly what was waiting for him, but he did not intend to hide his trace. He continued riding on the great black horse to the south expressionless. Strangely, no one attacked him. Because of his name and the iron bow on his shoulder, the cavalry and the cultivators of South Jin did not dare to make any moves. The fact that they could only watch him move forward demotivated themselves.
A hundred miles to the south, a mountain that looked like a defiant and proud ancient sword could be seen faintly. It was once the holy land of cultivation: the South Jin Sword Garret. Looking at the garret, thinking of the proud swordsmen who were once his enemies, and later, companions, Ning Que reached out his hand to stop the great black horse. After a moment of silence, he looked at the watchful and uneasy South Jin cavalry and cultivators around him and said, ”I will stay here for some time.”
When the snow fell, he jumped down from Chang'an City, and disappeared from the world. Few people knew that he secretly sneaked into the North Battalion, and planned to destroy the Golden Tribe with General Xu Chi and Fourth Brother. When he, the Academy and the Tang army finally defeated the Golden Tribe in the City of Wei, he stayed for a few days to write the talismans. After that, he was constantly on the move. To the southern border of Tang, out of the Verdant Canyon, killing Hengmu and onward to Dingqing River in Yangzhou. Counting carefully, he has been killing people along ten thousand miles for over one hundred days without sleeping. His spirit and body has been exhausted to the extreme, but something seemed to be urging him to speed up the pace, as if he was racing with someone.
Today in the South Jin territory, in a place far away from the garret, he suddenly stopped and told everyone in the world he would stay here for a period of time. That was very surprising.
The cavalry and the cultivators of South Jin felt conflicted while they looked at him on the black horse. Looking at his pale face and his haggard appearance, they started to think silently, Is he finally tired? The legendary Mr. Thirteen from the Academy, the demonic one who was rumored to kill for pleasure, was finally tired of killing after taking so many lives?
Anything that lasted for too long, or happened too frequently would eventually make people sick. The only people who were not sick of it were Ning Que and Sangsang, and also Jing Tingshan.
The temperature in the south was relatively higher, and the heat on the fields and hills on both sides of the river was scorching. Even the Divine Halls Alliance and the Great River Kingdom Army, which had been facing each other for so long, were extremely tired to the extent where even the remains of their comrades who had died on the battlefield could hardly arouse their zeal and desire to fight anymore.
A slender and slightly curved sword was carefully wiped with a piece of white silk. The blood and water left by the enemy in the early morning were wiped clean. The blade reflected the green mountains behind beautifully.
Cat Girl wiped the sword quietly. That charming happy-go-lucky girl had become a wife. She then became the calmest or rather, the most cold-blooded swordswoman on the battlefield. In a terrible place like the battlefield, in addition to making people sick and tired, it could easily refine, or change people.
Zhuo Zhihua stood behind her, looking at the Divine Army a few miles outside, and frowned slightly. She didn't understand why the Great Divine Priest of South Sea would set up the troops with their backs to their river. Even if he was fis.h.i.+ng in the South Sea all year long with no military experience, the Divine Halls had many other military officers.