Their courage to swim against the current was especially conspicuous in the midst of the disintegrating Dongying army’s tide.
So conspicuous that it was like a bludgeon piercing right into Yang Ge’s eyeballs...
He summoned the Black Dragon in confusion, leapt onto its head, and soared into that piece of the military formation.
There, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, clad in a dark red and splendid armor, held a gleaming katana as he sat astride a warhorse of the same dark red hue, expressionless as he spurred his horse forward, slashing and killing. The splendid katana in his hand seemed like an invincible Divine Weapon, mowing down all the Dongying pirates indiscriminately who rushed to his face,
Behind him, reinforcements like ’Tiger of Kai’ Takeda Shingen, ’Lion of Sagami’ Hojo Ujiyasu, ’Dragon of Echigo’ Uesugi Kenshin, and other Kanto lords along with their bodyguards, all clad in stunning armor and wielding katanas, ferociously hacked and slashed forward.
The line of men protected the Ashikaga Shogunate’s "two lead two" battle flags, forging ahead against the tide of the retreating Dongying army, tearing through the surging wave of subordinate soldiers and Dongying slaves.
Facing an unprecedented massive defeat in Dongying, these ruling class lords of the shogunate displayed a spirit befitting their power and status, fighting desperately to uphold the samurai spirit they had propagated for two to three hundred years.
Yang Ge, riding the dragon, looked down at this group of Dongying generals in splendid armor with complex family crests that he couldn’t understand, each with dignity and power written all over their faces.
He knew he had hit a jackpot... A big one!
Below, Ashikaga Yoshiaki and others looked up at Yang Ge standing atop the fierce Black Dragon in midair.
They knew the final moment had arrived!
"Gentlemen, the end is near, we shall meet again in the divine land of the Sun Goddess!"
Ashikaga Yoshiaki lifted his katana and pointed it towards Yang Ge in the sky, slightly turning his face, solemnly calling out to the shogunate lords behind him like Takeda Shingen, Hojo Ujiyasu, Uesugi Kenshin.
The lords bowed respectfully, pressing their katanas: "Go ahead, Great General, we will follow shortly!"
"Let my name ride on the wings of the cuckoo and soar up into the clouds."
Ashikaga Yoshiaki nodded, chanted, and leaped into the air, swinging his katana in a strike toward Yang Ge, his chant turning into an exhausted roar at the end: "Ultimate Iaijutsu·Unmatched!"
As the katana was drawn, thirty meters of gleaming sword light surged forth, slicing towards Yang Ge atop the Black Dragon’s head with the force to divide rivers and cut through flows.
Yang Ge looked at the young general in surprise, thinking that the power of this sword was almost up to par with Xiang Wudi. Given time, he might very well become another peerless Sword Saint...
If it had been before, he might have needed to spend a dozen moves to dispatch this overly young swordsman general.
But now,
Yang Ge shook his head in regret and leaped into the air.
The Black Dragon roared, swinging its tail and charging headfirst at the swordsman general coming with a slash.
"Boom."
The gleaming thirty-meter sword qi slashed onto the Black Dragon’s head, and even the dragon scales splintered. Even the flames-like Evil Qi on its body trembled violently...
But that was all there was to it!
The Black Dragon withstood the blow, collided with the fierce swordsman general, and in an instant, thousands of sword fragments sliced the swordsman general into countless pieces, blood spraying across the sky.
On the ground, Takeda Shingen, Hojo Ujiyasu, Uesugi Kenshin, and other Kanto heroes, upon witnessing this, drew their swords without hesitation and charged into the sky with roars.
The Black Dragon, devoid of human emotions, did not indulge them. It immediately circled its body and dove down sharply, nimbly passing through the array adorned with various colored banners and family crests.
As the Black Dragon soared back into the sky, catching Yang Ge as he fell, all that was left on the spot were indistinguishable muddy remains... Cleaning up such a battlefield would probably require shovels.
Yang Ge looked beneath him and, dissatisfied, stomped on the Cold Moon Divine Weapon: "Look at the mess you’ve created, we’ve come all this way, we can’t leave without taking anything meaningful as spoils of war, can we?"
The Cold Moon Divine Weapon whimpered like a puppy, trembling softly, and suddenly a burst of crimson Evil Qi exploded out of the gleaming blade. A slender katana leapt from the mud below into the sky, gently falling in front of Yang Ge, quietly hovering.
"Clang, clang, clang, clang..."
The Cold Moon Treasured Saber’s trembling grew more urgent, like a small earth dog presenting treasures gleefully, "Look what I dug up, do you like it?"
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Yang Ge, puzzled, took the sword, its hilt sticky with blood, but the long, narrow, curved blade above it remained as pristine as snow. Standing the sword upright, he lightly brushed his two fingers across the narrow blade and saw it was covered with crescent-like grooves, and the edge of the blade emitted a chill akin to icy air.
Looking closer at the hilt, he noticed a family crest inlaid with a two-striped pattern; he then realized this sword was the personal weapon of the samurai general they had just faced.
"A fine sword!"
Yang Ge exclaimed in a low voice.
The hum of the Cold Moon Treasured Saber suddenly deepened.
Upon hearing it, Yang Ge chuckled softly, "Of course, you’re still nowhere near as good!"
Only then did the Cold Moon Treasured Saber ring out loud and clear once more.
Shaking his head, Yang Ge casually slid the rare treasured sword into his belt... This treasured sword was far from a match for the present Cold Moon Treasured Saber, but compared to when he first obtained the Cold Moon Treasured Saber, it was equally formidable—a sword worthy of ranking on the list of Divine Weapons of China.
No matter how strong a Divine Weapon is, it depends on who wields it!
Even the world’s number one Divine Weapon, if it falls into the hands of a third-rate martial artist, would only see neglect, its splendor fading, and eventually become no more than firewood.
On the other hand, the world’s greatest master, even if wielding a common iron weapon that a pile of which could be bought for a mere ten taels of silver, would, through long-term nurturing, eventually see the day it’s honored on the list of Divine Weapons.
The Cold Moon Treasured Saber is the best example of this.
The Cold Moon Treasured Saber was ranked eighteenth on the list of Divine Weapons when it first came into Yang Ge’s hands.
The Cold Moon Treasured Saber, soon to be prefixed with "Nation Destroyer," undoubtedly has the merit to push into the top ten of the Divine Weapons list.
If the list of Divine Weapons didn’t include the likes of Xuanyuan, Tai’a, Gan Jiang, and Mo Ye—those great weapons of mass destruction—the Cold Moon Treasured Saber would be more than qualified to vie for the top five!
Yang Ge pocketed the newly acquired Crescent Moon Treasured Saber (one of the three famed blades of Dongying, the Sun Moon Sect’s special), and turning back, he surveyed the endless plain of the battlefield, where no more stubborn Dongying forces could be seen to the naked eye.
More than a hundred thousand Dongying soldiers scrambled for their lives, frenziedly retreating over mountains and fields, stretching the battle line for miles.
The servants and slave soldiers of over fifty thousand pursued relentlessly, intercepting the panicked enemy every which way, as a few slaves dared to chase after hundreds of Dongying warriors.
The sky had cleared without notice...
The golden sunset cast a layer of gold over the bloody and brutal battlefield, and the vibrant, splendid colors made the entire scene look like a grand oil painting.
Gazing at this painting, Yang Ge slowly exhaled a breath of cloudy air, his entire presence deflating like a balloon losing its air: "So tired..."
At this moment.
At the far end of the northwest, beyond Yang Ge’s line of sight, Zhou Fu, who was leading the rear, had just received the triumphant battle report from the front when he heard a tumultuous clanging and banging.
Looking up in surprise, he saw a troop of bedraggled, dusty-faced Dongying warriors burst through the woods on one side.
The leader of the soldiers, a short and stocky figure resembling a barrel, with a large beard and clad in black armor, sat atop a Dongying warhorse as stocky and compact as himself, charging forward as he swung his weapon.
"’Owari’ Oda Nobunaga, at your service!"
"’Owari’ Hashiba Hideyoshi, at your service!"
Zhou Fu, staring at the bunch of beggar-like Dongying soldiers, first looked baffled, then his expression slowly twisted into ferocity, "Still some not afraid to die... Zodiac protectors, take the head of that barrel!"
The Zodiac protectors roared in acknowledgment, leaped forward as one, twelve men moving as a single unit.