Unfortunate Transmigrator

28

Group Fighting

I

Tian Jin struck out with his sword in front of him, parrying the incoming attack from one of Du Jian’s subordinates, before continuing the swing with a vertical sweep, slashing at another one of the henchmen, who dodged to the side in order to avoid being cut.

He then jumped back just in time to avoid a stab from Du Jian, putting some distance between them. The henchman who had dodged to the side immediately launched himself at Tian Jin, and Tian Jin side-stepped on instinct, twisting his body as he did so to slash down at the enemy’s back, cutting through his robes and drawing blood. With a cry, the man dropped to the ground.

Once again, Tian Jin jumped back, and this time, neither Du Jian nor his remaining helper followed. Instead, they stood back, grim-faced. Du Jian watched him warily, whereas the other second-level redsoul had his eyes on the fallen outer disciple, who lay on the ground unmoving.

Tian Jin took in a deep breath, raising the sword in front of his body as he fell into a stance, lowering his center of gravity.

One down, two to go.

Seeing that his two opponents were hesitating, Tian Jin pushed off against the ground, propelling himself towards them. Du Jian only barely managed to raise his sword in time to block Tian Jin’s attack, and as he felt himself being pushed back, Tian Jin slid his sword against Du Jian’s, connecting the movement into a cut toward the other outer disciple, who barely managed to raise his sword in time to deflect.

Not giving either of his opponents time to breathe, Tian Jin stepped into their guard, and just as he was about to stab Du Jian, Du Jian waved his arm and a barrier of light appeared between them, and he ended up stabbing it instead.

Tian Jin easily took in the brunt of the sudden collision, taking a small step back as he reassessed the situation. After using the shield talisman, Du Jian had jumped back, the other outer disciple retreating to his side, meaning that there was now a considerable distance between them. He couldn’t see them clearly through the barrier, as it was rather opaque, making their faces vague, blurry shapes, so he couldn’t tell what they were thinking.

Tian Jin assessed the light barrier, focusing on where he had struck at it earlier. There was a crack on it, which meant that Du Jian had merely used a second-order red-grade talisman, not a third-one. He could easily destroy the barrier with another attack, and that’d be faster than walking around it.

Instead of making his move, however, Tian Jin took advantage of the temporary lull in the battle to glance around the clearing, checking how his teammates were faring.

A bit further back in the clearing, to his right, Duo Lan appeared to be faring well against her two opponents, holding them at bay. And to his left, Hao Zhen… was that a spiritual beacon?

So he did go with that plan, after all, Tian Jin thought to himself, seeing the spiritual beacon there. Well, it seemed like things were going according to Hao Zhen’s plan, at least. That was good. Tian Jin wasn’t particularly worried about Duo Lan, but whether Hao Zhen would be able to handle his own against a second-level cultivator was a different story. Hao Zhen had assured him that, should such a situation come, he’d be able to pull his own weight, which was why Tian Jin had decided to wait in this clearing for Du Jian and his henchmen to arrive, instead of running away.

Tian Jin returned his gaze to Du Jian. In any case, he had to get this fight over with as soon as possible so that he could check on Hao Zhen. It was a pity Tian Jin’s spiritual skill wasn’t of much use in this situation. Its primary use was nullifying spiritual attacks, and besides the barrier—which he’d only need another attack to break, so there wasn’t a point in wasting his spiritual power to deal with it—there wasn’t much to do.

So far, Du Jian and his ally had relied mostly on physical attacks, making little use of spiritual power. That wasn’t much of a surprise. Martial arts that made use of spiritual power—of spiritual techniques—weren’t really something outer disciples had access to, and even if they did, they were far more difficult to learn than purely physical martial arts. Tian Jin’s own fighting style, taught to him by his master, relied little on it, though that was mostly so as to conserve his spiritual stamina to use his spiritual skills.

Tian Jin tightened his grip on his sword, fully focusing on Du Jian and his helper again, before stabbing at the barrier, destroying it, and then charging at his opponents.

II

Duo Lan grit her teeth, deflecting yet another attack as the idiot to her left stumbled away. Then, with a sweep of her sword, she struck at the second nitwit, who clumsily stepped back, dodging her attack by a hair’s breadth.

She groaned, watching as the two pathetic fools took a step back, trying to distance themselves from her. She wasn’t having it, though. Tian Jin was fighting three cultivators right now, whereas she was only up against two. She’d be damned if she let him finish first.

She used her spiritual power to lift a nearby rock and throw it at one of the inept morons, and as he raised his sword to block it, she swiftly advanced on him, stabbing him in the stomach.

Finally.

Without hesitating, she pulled back the blade, and the man dropped his sword, clutching at his stomach, before keeling over. Paying the soon-to-be-corpse by her feet no mind, Duo Lan shifted her attention to her other source of annoyance, who was giving her a look of shock.

A couple of times already Duo Lan had glanced over in Tian Jin’s direction to see how his fight was going, and from what she could tell, Du Jian and the two other outer disciples Tian Jin was facing were much more coordinated and used to fighting together—not to mention individually better combatants—than the pathetic pair that had decided to target her, much to her frustration. There was absolutely no point in fighting such weaklings.

Then again, to be fair, all five of Du Jian’s goons were pathetic. Du Jian himself was one of Du Qing’s goons, making the five of them the goons of a goon. Duo Lan couldn’t imagine being someone’s minion, let alone a minion’s minion. Did these people have no self-respect at all?

Shaking her head, Duo Lan stepped back, easily dodging an attack from the remaining minion—an attack that had been so telegraphed she had seen it from a mile away even though she had only been barely paying him any attention.

She then used her spiritual power to push against his body, destabilizing him, before slashing at his throat. Then, reacting instinctively, she used her spiritual power to stop the ensuing spurt of blood from reaching her. For a moment, it hung mid-air in front of her before she pushed it away with her spiritual power.

She had managed to keep herself fairly clean so far since the start of the hunt and she wasn’t about to let that be ruined, thank you very much.

Her last opponent dropped to the ground just like the previous one, except this one did it while clutching his throat instead of his stomach, inaudibly whimpering something.

Just as she was about to turn toward Tian Jin to see how he was faring, Duo Lan paused before glancing back at the two dying disciples on the ground. She hesitated, then stabbed down with her sword at the neck of the dying disciple beside her—the one whose throat she had slit—before going back and doing the same thing with the one she had felled first.

They had been going after her life, so she wasn’t about to save them, but at the same time, that didn’t mean they had to die a slow and agonizing death. It cost her nothing to put them out of their misery.

And just like that, she had made her first two kills.

Duo Lan paused again at that thought, wondering how she felt about that, before shaking her head. She could ponder that later. There were more pressing matters she had to deal with right now.

Duo Lan turned toward Tian Jin and saw him fighting Du Jian and the other goon. It seemed like he had already managed to deal with one of them, but it was fine—she had finished her own battle earlier.

For a moment, she considered joining in to help Tian Jin out, before deciding against it. If she were in Tian Jin place’s, she wouldn’t have wanted anyone interfering in her battle—especially not a battle that would be clearly easily won. Seeing that there was no point in helping Tian Jin out, she turned her attention to the other side of the clearing, where she believed Hao Zhen was supposed to be.

Duo Lan frowned. There was already a spiritual beacon hanging in the air on top of the clearing—the one Hao Zhen had used at the start of the fight—and now there was another one in the middle of the clearing, just above the ground. Duo Lan could see neither Hao Zhen nor the outer disciple who had gone after him. Why was a spiritual beacon—

Ah, right, Duo Lan thought, suddenly remembering that Hao Zhen had mentioned using a spiritual beacon as a distraction in case they ended up facing a group of enemy cultivators. It was just that Hao Zhen had mentioned so many of his plans that she had ended up getting a bit lost in them.

Regardless of whether Hao Zhen’s plan was working, however, Duo Lan reckoned that, unlike Tian Jin, he could do with some help regardless.

Her decision made, Duo Lan started running to the red cloud of smoke, and as she did so, she took out her sound-transmission token from her spatial ring. “What’s going on?” she whispered, sending the message over.

Moments later, Hao Zhen’s voice sounded in her ears.

“He’s inside the spiritual beacon.”

He sounded exhausted. She wasn’t really surprised. If she remembered correctly, he’d need to pretty much drive himself to mental and spiritual exhaustion using Ethereal String Puppetry for his plan to work. Yeah, he could definitely use some help.

Without hesitating, Duo Lan ran into the spiritual cloud, and soon she found a bent-over form standing in the middle of it, clutching at his eyes. Duo Lan didn’t think twice, driving her sword into the man’s back. Then, after he fell to the ground, she once again dealt a finishing blow, putting him out of his misery.

With that, she walked out of the spiritual beacon, just in time to see Hao Zhen appear from behind a tree.

He looked unsteady, as if he could barely stay on his feet. His face was deathly pale and covered in sweat, and she noticed his entire frame was trembling. She frowned at him, wondering how many times he had used Ethereal String Puppetry to get to this state. It really was a good thing she had finished her fight so soon, as she didn’t think Hao Zhen would have been able to hold on for much longer. “Have you taken recovery pills?”

“Spiritual ones,” he said, weakly, leaning against the tree for support.

“Take a physical recovery one too,” she said, her frown deepening. “It won’t help too much, but it should still make you a bit less tired.”

Hao Zhen gave her a thoughtful look. The next moment, his spatial ring flashed. He then took his hand to his mouth, and she caught the glimpse of a pill before he swallowed it.

Letting out a shudder, Hao Zhen inhaled sharply. A bit more steadily, he pushed himself back against the tree and found his balance, standing on his own.

“Do you think you can get away with this?”

A shrill, scandalized voice resounded throughout the clearing—but still vaguely familiar. Duo Lan looked back and saw that Du Jian was sitting on the ground in front of Tian Jin, clutching at his shoulder, which appeared to be bleeding. The other helper lay on the ground beside them, probably either dead or dying.

Although she couldn’t clearly see Du Jian’s face from where he stood, he appeared to be glaring balefully at Tian Jin.

“Ah,” Hao Zhen’s voice reached her ears, and she turned around slightly and saw that he had walked up to her side. “So it begins.”

She gave Hao Zhen an inquisitive glance, but he didn’t seem to notice, only staring at Tian Jin and Du Jian. For a moment she considered asking him what he was talking about, deciding that it was just one of the weird stuff that Hao Zhen said every once in a while, and decided to focus on the events unfolding on the other side of the clearing.