1065 The National Master’s Array

A Da died. He was not convinced of the fact until the end. But he closed his eyes and left the world. It was exactly one year since he was transformed from a slave to a powerful warrior of the Royal Court. He was young, a real young man from the grassland. He had firm faith and genuine love for his tribe. It was indeed cruel to destroy his faith even before he died.

But Ning Que had always been ruthless. He knew how brutal this young man from the grassland was when he slaughtered the Tang people. But he was not insane enough to seek for joy in torturing the enemy to the last moment by destroying his faith. He inherited Lian Sheng's cultivation. Yet he was after all not Lian Sheng.

The reason why he said so to A Da before he died was because he always had a belief, that one might be born muddled, but he had to die with a clear mind.

He wanted that for himself, as well as for others. Furthermore, while he said so he was resetting his breath and restoring his strength. Therefore he had to do something meaningful to kill the time.

When A Da closed his eyes, Ning Que had finished resetting his breath. The tides in his ocean of psyche were gone. Crystal beads formed by Haoran Qi were shining inside his abdomen. Everything was settled.

He looked toward outside the City of Wei and grassland in the north. He bent his knees slightly while the bricks under his feet cracked. An incredible bout of strength was pushed to the ground via his legs and bounced back.

Upon a huge bang he left the street and leaped into the azure sky. He leaped as if he was jumping into a deep blue ocean. He jumped up really high, pierced through the slightly chilling air and left the ground in a blink. Reaching to over a hundred miles above the ground, he looked down and found the City of Wei like a small pile of dust, while the Wilderness turned into a huge carpet.

He could see vaguely the royal flag of the Golden Tribe afar. But he was not sure whether Chanyu was there. Throughout the fields hundreds bouts of dust were thickening, each of which was a grassland barbarian on the run. They were running blindly and desperately for survival.

Because of the height he could see further afar. He looked around and toward the furthest Tianqi Mountain that had became a dark line at the end of his sight. But he still could not find the person he was looking for. 

He was not the Headmaster who could fly freely. No matter how high he could reach he had to get back down to the earth eventually. But he could choose when and where he would land.

In the next moment he fell toward the surface of the Wilderness. He was accelerating, and his suit of Tang soldiers crackled in the wind like fireworks. But he did not even squint. He gazed right at the spot he was about to land on.

The ground was coming closer and the darting cavalrymen and carriages on the fields became clearer and clearer. He could even see the sacred looks on the cavalrymen's faces and the wooden cases in the carriages. Those carriages were his target.

The national master of the Golden Tribe Royal Court was in one of those.

As for Chanyu and the remaining cavalrymen of Golden Tribe who had fled to dozens of miles away in the north, he did not care at all. His priority now was to kill that mysterious and powerful national master.

Deafening cracking sounds were heard above the Wilderness. Someone fell toward the ground like a meteorite. Flames were formed after him because of the friction. But he was falling at such a high speed that all the flames were left far behind.

The warhorses from the grassland were scared and neighed constantly. Despite their masters' whipping they kept circling in the field. The carriages were also spinning and could no longer proceed despite the carters' yelling.

There was a huge bang, upon which a carriage was crushed. The body of the carriage was smashed into finger-sized sticks. They splashed and created countless wounds on the bodies of the nearby warhorses and cavalrymen. They screamed in the bloody scene.

When the dust settled, Ning Que showed up in front of them. He looked at the national master in front of him and said, "I guess you knew I was coming."

The national master was sitting on the ground in front of him with his legs crossed. He looked old and calm.

Ning Que jumped down from the sky and smashed a carriage, but could not hurt him a bit. The moment his foot stepped onto the carriage right above the national master's head, the national master disappeared right away and moved to the other side of the carriage. When the carriage was crushed, the national master was already sitting on the ground.

He was surrounded by wild grass and flowers in the field.

The national master did not take any but stared at one wild flower calmly while he said, "I've been expecting someone from the Academy to jump down from the sky. But I did not know it would be you."

Ning Que looked around at the seemingly scattered carriages, and sensed a weird bout of energy becoming increasingly intensive among them. It was full of a primitive smell of blood.

"Is this what you've prepared for me?" He turned to the national master and said, "You should know that no array could hurt me no matter how powerful it is."

The furrows on the national master's face were slightly flattened. He looked at Ning Que and said emotionlessly, "You have mastered Haoran Qi and acquired a firm body. But it does not mean that you are unbreakable."

Upon those words he moved to a dozen miles away instantly and stood onto another carriage. Wind on the grassland swayed his coarse clothes and the ordinary looking wooden rosary. 

He stared at Ning Que and said calmly, "The Academy is indeed impressive. I thought I've paid enough attention but still underestimated you. I assumed when you left Chang'an you would be no more than the zenith of Knowing Destiny. But I was not expecting you to kill A Da so easily. Nevertheless, I still want to trap you."

As long as I could trap you, I would have a chance to kill you.

That was something the national master did not say aloud but Ning Que read between the lines. He slightly frowned when recalling the national master's ghostly flash moves previously. He sensed something strange and abnormal. Even if the top cultivators such as the Abbey Dean and his Eldest Brother at Distanceless could not have moved at the speed of bolts in such a small scale.

He looked around at the scattering carriages, tried to read through the intensifying array intent carried by the primitive smell of blood, and vaguely figured out why. That was what the national master of Golden Tribe Royal Court had prepared for him. He used himself as the bait and lured the enemy into his array… His original position was the eye of the array, where he could leave easily but not his enemy. 

It seemed to be a simple plot, but was actually very hard to execute because he had to be powerful enough to escape from the enemy. It was particularly hard when his enemy was someone powerful like Yu Lian and Ning Que. He had to be able to break from time and almost become Distanceless.

The national master stood on top of the carriage in some distance. He closed his eyes, pressed his palms together and started chanting. It was neither from Buddhism scriptures or Taoism canons. It sounded weird like some witch prayers for a sacrificing ceremony on the grassland.

The Qi of Heaven and Earth was overturned on the grassland. Roaring wind came from all directions and started swirling around the array of carriages. It almost vacuumed the air inside the array and spread it into the sky. Ning Que felt the air around him became thin instantly. The warmth and cosiness brought by the morning breeze and glow was gone immediately.

Ning Que sensed a strong smell of blood in front of his nose. While the air around him became thin and chill, the smell of blood and chillness penetrated into his body and went further down into his ocean of psyche, Mountain of Snow and Ocean of Qi.

His psyche could not work properly, and the crystal beads formed by Haoran Qi inside his abdomen spun much slower. Most shockingly a thick layer of fresh snow had accumulated on top of the snow mountain!

Dark clouds came again above the grassland, and covered the warm sun.

Ning Que lowered his head slightly but did not sit down. He resisted the strong array intent silently and tried to find out a way to break through. He did not take any step further because there was no way out.

In the chilling array his body was immediately covered with frost and some snow fell onto his eyebrows. It looked funny and scary.

He had not figured out a way to break through. Because he could not even locate the national master in the array. The national master was indeed the most powerful in the grassland with an unfathomable level of cultivation. He was definitely not an array master. But he had applied some cultivation skills alien to the Central Plains and created such a huge array on the fields by using carriages, and trapped him.

The national master finished the scripture or mantra that no one could understand. He opened his eyes slowly and said to Ning Que calmly, "There are cases in the carriages, which carried the bones of the Tang people. Chanyu helped me collect them for years, among which there are probably some soldiers from Wei."

Ning Que looked above and gazed at the national master, with his eyes flashed like blades.

The national master seemed never get the hidden message in his look and continued, "I know you once lived in Wei. I guess there are bones of your acquaintances. But sadly… they are all dead. Only their resentment was left now. They have no feelings for you and will actually help me kill you today." 

That was the foundation of this blood sacrificing array.

The national master excelled in Buddhism, Taoism, and Devil's Doctrine. His level of cultivation and scale of knowledge was peerless. He assembled the power of faith by Buddhism, collected the souls by means of witchcraft, and applied the Qi of Heaven and Earth with the skills of Taoism. For which he was even willing to trade with his own longevity. It was because he could only achieve his goal by creating such a huge blood sacrificing array.

The Haoran Qi inside Ning Que was already frozen. And the smell of blood was overturning his ocean of psyche. But he still had a clear mind. He stared at the national master and asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

By then the frost on his eyebrows was already half meter long.

"Because what you told A Da before he died was very reasonable." The national master looked at him sympathetically and said, "One might be born muddled, but he had to die with a clear mind."

"Very well," Ning Que commented.

The national master asked, "What do you mean by very well?"

Ning Que looked at him and said, "I had been planning to wipe out the Golden Tribe Royal court no matter who tried to stop me. I do not need anything to add to my resolution. But what you've done… could at least provide me with some excuse if the Eldest Brother questions me in the future."

The national master understood what he meant and said after a pause, "Therefore it was all about finding excuses."

Ning Que stared at the carriage under his feet, the worn case on the carriage and the white bones that could be vaguely seen inside. He finally made one step further.

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