Chapter Ninety-Four: Huang Xianlin Trapped

Sun Tiansheng thought that when Huang Xianlin had first crossed weapons with him, he had used only ordinary fighting methods, and Sun Tiansheng had assumed that he was merely someone with a slight grasp of minor immortal arts. He had not expected that this man, like himself, could use willpower to command the weapon in his hand. It seemed he had underestimated him.

While using his mind to direct the golden halberd in his hands to block the wolf-toothed spear striking at him, Sun Tiansheng clenched his mount, Little Black, with both legs and shouted, "Little Black, jump back five or six zhang at once!"

At his master's cry, Little Black immediately quickened its attacks, striking the mythical qilin beast in a relentless flurry and forcing it to retreat several steps. Then it sprang to the right.

Once Little Black had steadied itself, Sun Tiansheng released the golden halberd in his hand and, by force of will, set it to attack Huang Xianlin on its own. Then he raised his right hand, and at once a dark bow with wings as light as cicada wings appeared in his palm.

Sun Tiansheng flung the dark bow above Huang Xianlin's head and cried, "Change!"

At once, the bow in the air transformed into more than a hundred identical dark bows.

Then those hundred bows flew of their own accord to positions above, below, and all around Huang Xianlin and the qilin beast, aiming together at the pair trapped in the middle.

"Loose arrows!" Sun Tiansheng shouted at the bows.

Instantly, the hundred bows drew their strings and released them of their own accord. At once, more than a hundred dark arrows flew toward Huang Xianlin and the qilin beast.

At first, with the golden halberd attacking him automatically, Huang Xianlin could barely fend it off by quickly manipulating the wolf-toothed spear in his hand. But now, with a hundred dark bows suddenly joining the assault, loosing arrows at him all at once, how could he possibly withstand it?

Before long, Huang Xianlin was struck by several dark arrows.

The qilin beast was also hit by three or four arrows.

Fortunately, Huang Xianlin wore armor for protection. After the dark arrows struck the armor, they left only faint marks upon it before vanishing.

The qilin beast, however, had no armor. Once it was hit by Sun Tiansheng's dark arrows, blood immediately seeped from the wounds.

The wounded qilin beast, growing weaker as the bleeding worsened, slowly descended from the sky.

Huang Xianlin also began to sink as his mount fell with him.

"Qilin beast, quickly, fly toward the ground!" Huang Xianlin said to it.

"If Sun Tiansheng were using only the golden halberd to fight me, I could at least hold him to a draw. But now he has somehow produced a dark bow! What kind of divine weapon is that? It can transform into over a hundred identical dark bows, and they can all fire dark arrows at once? And it can even encircle its target automatically from every side, then shoot arrows simultaneously from all directions? Wait... I feel as though I have seen such a wondrous bow before. Where did I see it? Why does it seem so familiar?"

As Huang Xianlin flew downward with the qilin beast, he kept searching through his memories.

When Sun Tiansheng saw the qilin beast wounded by arrows and carrying Huang Xianlin away toward the ground, he immediately shouted to Little Black, "Little Black, hurry and pursue that qilin beast. Don't let the enemy escape. I will avenge our fallen soldiers!"

At his master's command, Little Black instantly beat its wings and sped after the qilin beast.

As they pursued it, Sun Tiansheng sat upon Little Black's back and, with a thought, controlled the dark bows, which also chased after the fleeing qilin beast and Huang Xianlin.

Riding the qilin beast downward, Huang Xianlin pressed his hands and legs against some of its bleeding wounds while glancing back at Sun Tiansheng high above and behind him.

By then, the hundred-plus dark bows, guided by Sun Tiansheng's will, had drawn ever closer to Huang Xianlin and the qilin beast, and had begun to spread open their strings, flying toward Huang Xianlin from all directions.

"Qilin beast, can you fly faster toward the ground? Once we're on the ground, these dark arrows will lose one avenue of attack, which will make it easier for us to defend ourselves!" Huang Xianlin said.

After hearing his master's words, the qilin beast felt there was much truth in them. If they fought in the air, those hundred bows could attack and shoot from six directions: above, below, front, back, left, and right. It would be terribly difficult to defend against, especially the arrows fired from below, which were the hardest to notice and the hardest to block. Once they reached the ground, the bows would lose the ability to attack from underneath. More than that, there were still the generals Zhu Hongxiu, Wang Qingjie, and He Xinzhou on the ground, who could come help them resist.

Thinking this, the qilin beast endured the pain of its arrow wounds and mustered its strength to fly toward the ground.

But no matter how fast they went, once their bodies were injured, they could not match Sun Tiansheng and Little Black.

Before a blink of an eye had passed, Sun Tiansheng had already ridden Little Black to the front of the qilin beast, blocking Huang Xianlin and the qilin beast's path.

"General Huang, trying to leave? It won't be so easy! I said I would avenge my fallen soldiers. You cannot defeat me, so do not waste yourself in futile resistance. Surrender quietly, and I will leave you an intact corpse, just as you did to my beloved general Wang Chuying. Of course, I will also bury your dead soldiers!" Sun Tiansheng said.

Hearing this, Huang Xianlin turned his head and looked toward the battlefield below, where the two armies were clashing.

There he saw that the enemy force, which had originally been surrounded by his own troops shortly after the battle began, had somehow broken out, and the two armies were now thoroughly intermixed in savage combat.

His own soldiers wore golden armor, while Sun Tiansheng's soldiers wore black armor.

Across the entire battlefield, the sight of gold and black armor suggested that the number of black-armored troops far exceeded the golden-armored ones.

"How can this be? In the battle between the two armies, Sun Tianbao's soldiers were killed or wounded by our fire arrows from the very beginning, and after they were surrounded by us later, many more were slain. How, then, have so many of my own soldiers died instead?" Huang Xianlin wondered.

By then, the hundred dark bows, moved by Sun Tiansheng's will, had once again surrounded Huang Xianlin and the qilin beast from above, below, left, right, front, and back. As soon as Sun Tiansheng set his intent in motion, those bows would immediately loose their arrows at them.

"General Huang, how is it? Will you surrender, or continue fighting? Whatever you choose, in the end I will still leave you an intact corpse!" Sun Tiansheng said.

"Even if you leave no intact corpse, I still will not surrender to you!" Huang Xianlin said, leaping up from the back of the qilin beast. "Qilin beast, go! I will hold them off! Run as far as you can, and if you can make it back to the master, ask him to heal your wounds. Then find another good master to serve!"

When the qilin beast heard its master say this, it roared several times, then immediately flew back to Huang Xianlin's side and slipped beneath him, allowing him to ride it again into battle. Then it began spewing flames toward Sun Tiansheng and Little Black in front of them!

Seeing this, Sun Tiansheng said, "General Huang, your mount is truly excellent. It is willing to live and die with you. Rare indeed. If your mount is willing to leave, I am prepared to let it go. After all, such a devoted beast is hard to find in this world!"