Gegou Fei's eyes had been gouged out, and with that final shred of reason torn away, his mind collapsed into madness. He rolled and writhed on the ground, screaming hoarsely, his commands turning chaotic and senseless.
"Why are you still guarding those women and children?" he howled. "Come here! Hurry up and kill this bastard! All of you, come here!"
The last dozen fierce bandits who had been stationed to watch over the women and children hesitated for only a heartbeat. They glanced at their leader, blind and thrashing like a wounded beast, then drew their blades and rushed toward Li Daoxuan without another word.
In an instant, Li Daoxuan was surrounded.
Blades flashed from the front while footsteps thundered behind him. He leaped, twisted, ducked, and rolled, steel whistling past him from every direction as killing intent closed in like a tightening net.
Dual threads.
It was time to operate both threads at once.
A blade slashed into his side with a dull impact. Li Daoxuan grunted, forced the pain down, and stabbed backward with his sword in a single smooth motion. At the same time, his consciousness split, switching to the Puppet Heavenly Lord.
"Quickly… move," he told the women and children.
His awareness snapped back. Thwack. Another strike landed, slicing away a chunk of silicone skin. He countered with a sweeping slash, forcing his attackers back, then switched threads again.
"Hide… in the house."
Switching back, he took a massive step and vaulted over a dry well, boots striking the ground hard on the other side.
One more switch.
"The stone house."
The women heard the Puppet Heavenly Lord's broken, fragmentary commands, and at last, understanding dawned. Their eyes darted wildly, then all locked onto the same place.
The village chief's house.
He was the wealthiest man in Houjia Village, and his home was built of stone, the most solid structure in the entire village.
The strongest woman sprang to her feet and ran, skirts hitched up, heading straight for the stone house. The others scrambled up after her, clutching their children tightly as they followed.
One of the bandits who had been guarding them spun around in shock. "Huh? They're running? Weren't their feet bound?"
A bandit turned to give chase.
At that very moment, Li Daoxuan, still entangled among his attackers, suddenly shouted, "Hey!" and lowered his head, charging straight toward the entrance of the stone house.
The bandit who had just turned took Li Daoxuan's full impact squarely in the back. There was a sickening thud as blood burst from his mouth, and he was flung far away, rolling limply across the ground.
The women and children had just scrambled into the stone house when Li Daoxuan arrived behind them. He planted his feet at the doorway, arms spread wide, and stopped moving.
Seeing this, the bandits finally understood.
He had been darting and weaving all over the place, deliberately drawing their attention, dragging them away from the women and children, buying time for them to reach safety.
And now, he stood alone in the doorway.
A single figure, blocking the entrance.
One man holding the pass against ten thousand.
"Damn it, isn't he arrogant?"
"What kind of idiotic tactic is this?"
"Does he really think one man can stop all of us?"
"Kill him!"
This time, the bandits abandoned their blades. Since their enemy was no longer running, spears were the better choice.
They picked up the long spears they had discarded earlier.
Dozens of men armed with spears surrounded Li Daoxuan, forming a tight semicircle. With a unified shout of "Hey!", they lunged forward together.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
In an instant, Li Daoxuan lost count of how many spears pierced him.
He did not dodge. He did not retreat. He did not even raise his longsword to block. Spearheads punched into his body, punching hole after hole through his main frame.
Yet in that very moment, he seized the opening.
His sword flashed.
Crack. Crack.
Several spear shafts snapped in succession.
The bandits froze.
"What in the world?"
"I definitely stabbed flesh. I felt it go in."
"I think I even hit bone."
"His bones are hard. Too hard."
Li Daoxuan smiled faintly, saying nothing. He reached up, pulled the broken spear shafts from his body, and casually tossed them into the stone house behind him.
Several women picked up the half-spears with trembling hands. Fear and excitement warred on their faces as they stared at the figure standing in the doorway.
They had seen him struck again and again, yet he still stood there, unmoving, unshaken.
Handsome.
So damn handsome.
The suspension bridge effect took hold.
In that instant, several young women in the village felt that Li Daoxuan was the greatest man in the world.
"Kill him!"
"Cut him down!"
"Why? Why can't we kill this guy?"
Clang.
A blade struck Li Daoxuan's arm and slid diagonally, slicing away a large chunk of flesh. Beneath it, the structure underneath was laid bare.
"Why does it look like metal?"
"Ah… his bones are iron."
The bandits stared in horror at his arm. Where flesh should have been, metallic bone gleamed coldly in the light, a terrifying sight that sent chills straight down their spines.
Shock piled upon shock.
Li Daoxuan chuckled softly. "Ah, this? When I was younger, wandering the Jianghu, I accidentally lost a hand. So I had a prosthetic arm made and attached. Are you afraid of that?"
The bandits stiffened.
Then they roared.
"Charge!"
"Hack him to death!"
They surged forward again.
"The window! A few of you, attack the window!"
"Yes, yes! Break in through the window and kill the women!"
But the women were not fools. The moment they had fled into the house, they had already dragged every piece of furniture they could find to barricade the windows. Cabinets, tables, even a heavy stone millstone had been rolled over to block them.
The bandits hacked at the wooden window grates, only to meet solid resistance behind them. It would take a long time to clear it out.
Outside the village, in the woods, Zijing Liang suddenly received a report.
"Boss, Zhang Fengyi has moved. She's leading her troops and charging toward the village at full speed."
Zijing Liang's eyes lit up. "Excellent. Zhang Fengyi has arrived? Order the entire army to prepare to close the net. Let her enter the village first. Once Gegou Fei's men engage her, we encircle them. Gegou Fei has hostages, so she won't be able to retreat or finish things quickly. We'll trap them completely."
The bandit army began to stir.
At the same time, Zhang Fengyi was charging forward with everything she had.
Her thousand White Pole Soldiers pushed themselves to their limits, sprinting hard, breath tearing from their chests.
It was only two li. Once they began running, it would take barely ten minutes. Without armor or equipment, they could have been even faster. But armored and carrying their white pole spears, with a battle still ahead, they had to conserve some strength. Covering the distance in just over ten minutes was already brutal.
"We're here. Houjia Village is ahead!"
Zhang Fengyi urged them on, her voice tight. "Faster, faster. Li Daoxuan has held out for so long, I'm afraid…"
Her phoenix eyes shimmered with tears. In her heart, she had already prepared herself for the worst.
Yet when she led her troops into Houjia Village, she saw that Li Daoxuan was still alive.
He was still standing at the entrance of the stone house.
The battlefield, however, had taken on a grotesque, almost unreal appearance.
Large sections of his silicone outer layer had been cut away, exposing metal beneath. An iron arm bone on the left, an iron leg bone on the right, even an iron plate revealed on his chest.
Half man, half machine.
The sight alone was enough to make any ordinary person's scalp go numb.
The bandits surrounding him were terrified, fighting as though they were facing a monster. Yet they were already riding the tiger, unable to dismount, with no choice but to keep attacking.