Chapter Fifty-Four: Walking on Water, Blazing a New Trail

Lu Wu seriously underestimated his own weight.

Even Gongsun Boyang, a martial arts grandmaster of the State of Chu, had to tread carefully when coming to the State of Wu. He had never traveled with others, nor had he ever constantly guarded the Young Lord Jiu—was it because he did not know that Young Lord Jiu was of immense importance?

No.

It was because he was also afraid of being plotted against by Young Lord Jiu. If martial arts grandmasters could truly act with absolute impunity, then all the kings and lords of the world should have been replaced by martial arts grandmasters.

Even though he had come to assist Young Lord Jiu's faction, once Young Lord Jiu ascended the throne as the King of Wu, should there be an opportunity to encircle and annihilate Gongsun Boyang, Young Lord Jiu would never show the slightest bit of mercy.

Although martial arts grandmasters were terrifying, amidst the battle arrays, their lethality was still inferior to that of military generals specializing in warfare.

Each trade has its master.

A martial arts grandmaster's innate primordial Qi was unbreakable, and they could control Qi to traverse the sky for a hundred paces, resembling earthly immortals in the pugilistic world. As assassins, unless they were in a royal palace suppressed by national destiny, no one could escape their pursuit.

However, if a martial arts grandmaster unleashed their full strength, consecutively erupting their innate primordial Qi twenty or thirty times would be their limit. It was entirely possible for them to get bogged down in military formations and be surrounded and killed by armored soldiers.

Military generals, on the other hand, were different. They trained baleful Qi into their bodies, possessed bodies as solid as pig iron, wielded boundless strength, and had endless endurance. Although they fell far short of martial arts grandmasters in terms of ranged attacks and instantaneous explosive power, these iron men could genuinely swing weapons weighing over a hundred catties as if they were straws, fighting for a whole day and night without taking a heavy breath.

For military generals to carve their way into a military formation was simply a disaster.

However, on the water surface, the might of military generals would be greatly diminished. Upon receiving the news that Lu Wu was crossing the river by boat, the Chu side temporarily and urgently mobilized a number of experts to rush over and intercept him.

The two ships drew close, and arrows rained down like a storm—yet this rain of arrows was entirely concentrated around Lu Wu.

Lu Wu flew up with a kick, unceremoniously booting that female madwoman aside—if it had been a male madwoman, Lu Wu probably would have ignored him.

Then, his figure flickered and vanished like a phantom, avoiding the densest part of the arrow rain, only to appear in mid-air outside the boat.

A tall and exceptionally majestic black horse charged out like a mad tiger, crashing through the crowd all the way and dashing out from the cabin. With a resounding, piercing neigh, its four hooves exerted force as it leaped out of the gunwale, precisely catching Lu Wu.

This sudden change happened as swiftly as a rabbit startled by a falcon. The people on the ferry had not even reacted yet, and the bow of the ship was already pinned with various arrows, looking just like a patch of dense weeds.

Meanwhile, the knight bound in a golden crown was already in mid-air, his right hand having just snatched a cyan long halberd from the horse's back.

The long halberd slashed down with a deafening clang, splitting an arrow fired from a heavy siege crossbow completely in two from head to tail.

"Young, vigorous, and courting death—what a pity," said one of the five men standing at the bow of the warship.

"Indeed. Had he abandoned the boat and dived into the water to escape, we would have had quite a bit of trouble," said another.

An expert who had stepped into the Innate realm possessed a long and steady breath. If he dived into the water to escape, holding his breath to submerge for two or three quarters of an hour was not a problem at all. Furthermore, the rumors said that the golden-crowned knight opposite them was a rare military general; even if he held his breath and submerged for a full hour, no one would find it strange.

Of course, since they dared to come and ambush Lu Wu, they naturally had other arrangements underwater.

"Perhaps it was for this horse—none of you come from a military background, so you do not understand the bond between us and our warhorses," said the most robust man among the five, holding a large axe, in a deep voice.

If the target had remained cowering on the ferry, he might have been able to eke out a meager existence a little longer.

After all, the target was a military general, and these experts who had been temporarily gathered, though holding themselves in high esteem, were not arrogant enough to engage in close-quarters combat with a military general. Without sturdy and heavy weapons, they might not even be able to withstand a casual strike from him.

Yet now, the target had actually leaped off the boat and was even riding a horse—it was dashing enough, surely, but wasn't this seeking death?

The river surface was not dry land. If the general had been alone, they would have worried about him walking on water and charging across by force.

But he had jumped off the boat riding a horse; surely no one could claim that this horse could also walk on water?

Lu Wu slashed the giant crossbow bolt apart with his halberd, and Black God descended toward the river surface.

The rain of arrows on the warship continued to fly in wave after wave, ceaselessly, interspersed with several exceptionally fierce, pure iron arrows that even Lu Wu dared not take head-on.

Lu Wu whirled the long halberd in his grip into a rapid blur around his body, and in a mere instant, only the afterimage of the halberd could be seen, leaving his figure completely obscured.

Eighteen Slashes of Layered Peaks—Flying Torrent Coiling Around the Mountain!

Regardless of the ceaseless arrows from the warship, not a single one could break through the halberd's afterimage.

The five men at the bow of the ship were dumbfounded.

One had to know that in order to kill Lu Wu, the archers and crossbowmen they brought this time were no ordinary troops. Aside from regular archers, they had prepared fifty waist-cranked crossbows alone, and even transferred fifteen divine-arm bowmen, with the arrows being costly iron-tipped ones.

People often confused divine-arm bows with waist-cranked crossbows, but in reality, these were two different things.

A divine-arm bow required a tension of at least three Dan, and could not be drawn by anyone who was not a strong man; waist-cranked crossbows also required a tension of three Dan or more, but because one could use waist strength to draw the string, the requirement for raw muscle strength was not quite as high.

However, whether it was the divine-arm bow or the waist-cranked crossbow, their manufacturing costs were extremely exorbitant, and they could only be equipped by elite archers in the army—particularly divine-arm bowmen, who were exceptionally rare.

(One Dan is equivalent to thirty kilograms.)

Black God descended further, its four hooves landing upon the river.

A faint, indistinct layer of light forcefully supported Black God's four hooves, allowing it to stand steadily upon the river surface without sinking.

"Whoosh—" Whether it was the soldiers on the Chu warship or the passengers and boatmen who had boldly remained on the deck of the ferry to watch, everyone cried out in astonishment.

Black God unleashed its four hooves, while Lu Wu held his long halberd in a reverse grip. Man and horse galloped across the river surface as if treading on level ground, charging straight toward the Chu warship.

A man in a black robe drew out a bronze mace, a man in a red robe flickered a golden-silk fishing net in his hand, two swordsmen in leather armor each retreated to the side, bowing into a stance and ready to strike at a moment's notice.

The last man wielded a large axe, stepped forward, and raised a battle-axe the size of a carriage wheel high, waiting for the precise moment Lu Wu charged his horse onto the warship.

Each of these five individuals was an expert of the Innate realm. Combining their strengths, and attacking from a commanding vantage point, they did not even need to kill the opponent; as long as they could force him off the boat, it would be victory.

They were not like those ignorant soldiers, merchants, and travelers.

The fact that the warhorse could gallop across the river surface relied entirely on the black light supporting its four hooves.

And that layer of radiance was clearly pure Qi that had reached at least the realm of "the unity of heaven and man" and could be manipulated outside the physical body.

However, no matter how pure and vast the opponent's Qi was, relying on a single breath of Qi to support a warhorse galloping on water consumed an unimaginably immense amount of energy.

As long as they forced the opponent down from the boat, they refused to believe how much longer the opponent could last on the river surface.

However, the golden-crowned knight did not appear at the bow of the ship at all.

A deafening "Boom—" echoed out. The warship shuddered violently as if it had struck a reef.

The soldiers on the ship lost their footing, and more than a dozen people tumbled into the river.

The axe-wielding armored warrior felt a jolt in his heart, rushed to the ramming beak, and looked down, only to see that the thickest and sturdiest part of the bow had been shattered open, leaving a gap large enough for a man and a horse to pass through.

Azure Dragon Stirs the Ocean Halberd—Splitting the Golden Lock to Let the Flood Dragon Escape!

This particular stance excelled most at shattering solid objects and piercing through hard targets.

It was precisely this very stance that had previously slain Shi Lie, the premier strongman of the State of Wu.