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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 53: Anomaly Hunt (2)

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I explained it as concisely as I could. That thing was a monster called Paoxiao that imitated voices. It had an excellent sense of smell for copper and jade.

The more people it ate, the stronger it became. Since it could imitate others' voices, we had to begin with the word “Murong” when we were separated, so we could identify one another.

And...

“There’s a chance its intelligence may exceed our expectations.”

It was a cunning monster that lured each person in with a different voice and a different sentence. We could distinguish real conversations by using Murong as a password, but it might catch on to that as well.

“If that happens, we’ll begin with the names of other clans instead. Namgung, Zhuge, Peng, then Tang.”

That was our final safeguard. I met the eyes of those around me, confirming it with each of them, then turned away.

“Let’s go.”

It was time to end tonight’s hunt.

* * *

Perhaps Paoxiao instinctively sensed it would be difficult to fight us. In truth, if Iron-Headed Fire Axe had not fled and provided it with prey... no.

If it had not become more violent after devouring that Three-Headed Chicken. Assuming one was not thrown off by its voice-based feints, a Peak realm master could likely face Paoxiao head-on and win.

My standard for a Peak realm master was Peng Juhyeok. A bold lunatic already accustomed to Anomalies, with the nerve to act up even before an Embroidered Uniform Guard Commissioner.

The difference between Peng Juhyeok and Iron-Headed Fire Axe ultimately lay in that nerve, or perhaps resolve. Something that let one steady one’s intent and choose to fight again before an Anomaly capable of shaking Essence, Qi, and Spirit.

Had Iron-Headed Fire Axe, who had declared vengeance, truly made such a resolve?

I didn’t know.

It did not matter even if Iron-Headed Fire Axe could not fight properly. We had already told him.

If fear seized him while fighting Paoxiao, we would not save him this time.

When we warned him that we would use him as bait to kill Paoxiao, Iron-Headed Fire Axe said calmly,

“Do it.”

“In return,” he added.

He asked us to make sure to slit its throat.

* * *

Paoxiao’s scent had drawn closer. Yet an overpowering scent made it harder, rather than easier, to pinpoint its location.

The smell came from every direction, so from here on, we had to find it with our eyes and ears rather than our noses.

We pressed our shoulders together and formed a circular formation. With our backs to one another, we watched our surroundings and minimized our blind spots.

Iron-Headed Fire Axe found pieces of bandits’ flesh scattered throughout the forest and cursed. Murong Sung snapped that he was the one who had caused this disaster, but I raised a hand to mediate between them.

What if we exhausted ourselves over this and failed to see through Paoxiao’s ambush?

“I can see broken branches and footprints.”

The guest retainers tried to determine where Paoxiao had gone from its tracks. Several sets of footprints overlapped in the same places, though, making it difficult to tell its direction.

Without even wiping away the sweat running down his cheek, Murong Sung muttered,

“It’s erasing its tracks...”

Then a familiar voice rang out among us.

[Murong! Over there! I can see its fur!]

Just as our gazes began to turn, I sensed something wrong.

We had agreed to use “Murong” only when we were scattered and could not clearly see one another.

We were in a circular formation now. We could not see the person behind us, but we could clearly sense their presence through qi sense.

There was no reason to use Murong as a password yet.

It was Paoxiao.

As soon as I reached that chilling conclusion, I shouted.

“Namgung! Above us!”

It had said “over there.” By not specifying a direction, it intended to scatter our attention, making each of us naturally look toward somewhere the monster might be hiding.

There were only so many places people’s eyes would naturally go. Usually, somewhere just above or below eye level.

Directly above our heads. The space over one’s crown was not a place the eyes easily reached.

Everyone moved at once when they heard “Namgung.” A new password meant the previous one had been discarded.

In other words, the voice from moments ago had been Paoxiao’s trick.

Our circular formation broke apart. Without time for any other thought, everyone ran forward. At the same time, Paoxiao, which had clung to the shadows high in the trees, plunged down.

Boom!

A crater-like mark remained where we had gathered just moments ago. Paoxiao shrieked as it looked at the humans it had failed to crush beneath both hands.

“Could that be...?”

Iron-Headed Fire Axe muttered blankly. I was just as taken aback.

Until now, Paoxiao had been able to imitate other voices, but those sounds had still come from its own mouth.

This time was different. Each of us had heard the sound from behind our own head.

Put another way, the sound had come from the very center of our circular formation.

Even though Paoxiao had hidden itself among the high branches.

“That damn monster can use Six Harmonies Voice Transmission?”

Murong Sung muttered.

It was the advanced stage of voice transmission that made sound arise from all six directions, front and back, left and right, above and below. Being able to make sound come from every direction also meant it could focus sound wherever it wanted.

This was an unexpected change not written in the rulebook.

Just as Soul-Severing Mountain Villa had created a red shadow, Paoxiao’s abilities must have advanced after it devoured roughly a dozen First-rate masters.

Paoxiao tried to hide in the darkness again. Alarmed, I shouted,

“Chase it now! We can’t pursue it by sound anymore! We have to find it and kill it while it’s still in sight!”

A monster capable of creating any sound wherever it wanted was fleeing under cover of night.

The sound of branches breaking, grass being crushed, and brush rustling.

The natural sounds made by that enormous body moving rang out from every direction. There was no way to tell where it was.

[Keeeeeeeek!]

Paoxiao’s scream rang out behind us. Each of us reflexively ran in the direction we had been facing, but it was Paoxiao’s ploy.

The real Paoxiao was hiding in the brush ahead. Its muscles swelled, followed by a powerful downward strike.

And I was the one who had put my face right into its maw.

No, perhaps that had been its intention. It must have noticed that I was usually the one calling out passwords like Murong and Namgung.

Even as I faced Paoxiao’s head, I was not flustered.

Was not a battlefield, where victory and defeat were decided in one movement and life and death separated by a single step, the home of a martial artist?

I avoided the tree fragments torn apart by Paoxiao’s swipe. A few grazed my cheek and lodged in my clothes, but I ignored them.

“Namgung! It’s here!”

I shouted. The enemy that would decide life and death with us was right here.

The first to arrive was a two-person team of guest retainers holding a single silver thread together. When they rushed at Paoxiao’s legs, it leapt back.

A throwing knife cast by one of the retainers flashed past the edge of my vision. Seeing that the blade’s gleam had dulled to black, it seemed to have been coated in poison of some sort.

The Captain drew a sword and charged head-on. Paoxiao’s brute strength was certainly terrifying. Even compared to a master who had made a name through external martial arts, one would need the strength of the Transcendent Peak realm to surpass that beast’s power.

But strength was not the only principle available to a martial artist.

The Captain displayed the principle of softness. Softness Overcomes Hardness. The flat of the Captain’s slender sword clung to Paoxiao’s forepaw, larger than a human’s upper body, and bent its trajectory.

Paoxiao seemed dumbfounded that its right arm, which had clearly struck downward, was caught on the tip of a sword and flung skyward.

Murong Sung’s sword slipped in through the opening, aimed at the eye on Paoxiao’s shoulder.

[Keeeeeeeek!]

It pierced through. The moment one of its eyes burst, Paoxiao reflexively swung its right arm. Murong Sung was not swept away by that tremendous strength. He simply let go of his sword and retreated.

Blood streamed from the pierced eye. Paoxiao frantically surveyed its surroundings with its remaining eye.

The Captain and I stood before Paoxiao, while Murong Sung drew a second sword behind us.

The guest retainers circled Paoxiao’s hind legs, positioning themselves to pierce its last remaining eye.

Paoxiao’s left eye moved hurriedly. Its upper-arm muscles bulged as it desperately adjusted the eye’s position, then its pupil stopped.

Iron-Headed Fire Axe stood at the end of its gaze. We had worked together from the pursuit of Lamp-Extinguishing Executioner until now, gaining some familiarity with suitable formations and positioning, but he had fallen behind, unable to keep up with the sudden changes.

“Namgung! Iron-Headed Fire Axe! It’s targeting you! Get ready!”

Paoxiao brought both hands together and raised them high, then smashed them into the ground. A powerful vibration spread out. Two guest retainers who had not managed to use their movement techniques lost their balance.

Branches, brush, dirt, and rock fragments shot into the air like a geyser of soil and sand.

As brown dust blocked my vision, heavy footsteps rang out one after another.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

It was charging at Iron-Headed Fire Axe. The rank smell brushed past the tip of my nose. I used my eye technique, not to see through the dust, but only to watch the ground beneath my feet and pick out protruding stones and the like.

My nose gave me its direction. I ran after Paoxiao, breaking through the localized sandstorm it had created.

Whoosh. Before my eyes saw it, my nose knew. The air had cleared.

Only then did I raise my head. Iron-Headed Fire Axe was still there, standing exactly where he had been.

“You bastard!”

If that thing devoured him, there was no telling how much more monstrous Paoxiao’s abilities would become.

Yet Iron-Headed Fire Axe did not even look at me. His eyes were fixed solely on Paoxiao.

Paoxiao swung its blinded right arm. It carried the intent to turn Iron-Headed Fire Axe into pulp.

In that instant, fierce internal energy gathered in Iron-Headed Fire Axe’s arms.

“Uwooooh!”

He swung the axe he gripped firmly in both hands. He neither dodged nor wavered. It was a head-on clash of strength against strength.

Paoxiao’s attack contained power that an ordinary Peak realm master could not withstand head-on with their bare body. One had to use the principles of softness or absorption, some method of redirecting that dreadful strength.

Should one fail to redirect it, one would be reduced to minced meat.

But Iron-Headed Fire Axe was a master of external martial arts whose body was so tough that Iron-Headed was part of his epithet. Trusting in that, he wagered on mutual destruction to make certain Paoxiao died.

The axe blade he swung met the exact center of Paoxiao’s outstretched arm.

Iron-Headed Fire Axe’s arms twisted. Not only must his joints have been dislocated, but every bone from his upper arms to his fingers must have shattered. Bone fragments that had burst through his tough flesh from within were visible.

The lower half of his body, which had borne the force, was not unharmed either. Blood burst from his calves and thighs, staining his trousers red.

And Paoxiao.

Paoxiao’s right arm had been cleanly severed in two.

Even through the bone. Like meat slaughtered at a butcher’s shop, the cross-section was plainly visible, white sinew wrapped in layers of red flesh.

Thump!

Half of Paoxiao’s right arm flew through the air and struck the ground. Having never suffered such an injury in its life, Paoxiao let out a grotesque howl.

In the voices of children, old women, and young men, it cried out for someone to save it.

Overwhelming all those sounds, Iron-Headed Fire Axe shouted in a ghostly voice,

“Kill it!”

I kicked off the ground.

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