The strike came so fast that I didn't have time to dodge. So I had little choice other than to raise my spear and parry the fierce blow. The impact caused my arms and knees to buckle, and the ground underneath my feet shattered from the sheer force.
Grunting, I tried to shove the general back, but he flipped his sword about and slashed at me. Twirling my spear about, I barely blocked the sword in time. Then the general dropped to a crouch and kicked me. Even though I managed to stop his foot with my elbow, the raw strength behind the blow sent me crashing to the far wall.
"Ugh!"
"Dear!"
As I slid down the wall, the wind knocked out of me, Mu Rong Shu started forward. However, I threw out my left hand to stop her.
"Don't worry, I'm fine. I've got this."
Taking over from my war spirit was already pushing it. If I allowed my wife to fight with me against the general, that would bring about a fierce backlash. I doubted the soldiers would stay still if they saw the battle turn into a two against one.
Tightening my grip on my spear, I lifted it with my right hand and used it to support myself while I shakily rose to my feet. Just in time too. The general was descending upon me, his sword swinging down to split my head into two.
Kicking off the ground, I hurled myself to the side, avoiding the nasty blow that left a fissure in the ground. The general yanked his heavy blade out of the ground and lumbered about to face me, but I was already scrambling to my feet and holding my spear in both hands to prepare another defensive stance.
Flicking my spear about, I struck swiftly, the tip of my long weapon darting in like a snake. The general deflected my spear aside before quickly reversing the trajectory of his blade and backing at me. I ducked, feeling the sharp edge of his sword breeze above my head, hair and neck, and then twisted my spear about to cut through his shoulder.
The swordsman didn't hiss in pain, didn't react. He probably couldn't, given his nonliving nature. Without any pause, he swung his sword in retaliation. The counterstrike would have cleaved me neatly in half if I hadn't pushed my foot against the ground and stumble backward. The blade missed me by a few millimeters, the very tip gouging out a chunk of granite from the ground.
Spinning my spear about, I then stabbed him in the chest…or would have, but he brought his arm up and caught the point of my spear in the thick structure of his forearm. The spear pierced through his arm but halted a few centimeters away from his chest. No blood was spilled, and he displayed no pain. Instead, he flung me aside, jarring my spear loose.
Hitting the ground, I rolled to lessen the impact. Rising to my feet, I saw the gaping hole in his arm close, the stone flowing about to restore the injured limb. So the dude had regenerative abilities too. This was going to be difficult.
To defeat him, I would need to deliver a powerful enough blow to kill him in one go, so that he wouldn't get the chance to regenerate.
Of course, I had to survive first.
The swordsman was already charging at me. He swung his sword down in a cruel arc, rupturing the wall behind me. Cornered all of a sudden, having not realized that I had backed up against a wall, I quickly switched direction and dove to the side, the massive blade cleaving the wall behind and above me. Debris showered my body as I rolled away, and I sprang up while simultaneously thrusting my spear at the core of his body.
The general batted my spear away with his sword, then he crunched the ground with a heavy stomp, leaving a small crater and plenty of cracks. I had to jump back to avoid getting pulverized, my balance slightly off when I retreated.
"Huff…"
Breathing out a sigh, I then put some distance between us. But the general came at me, swinging almost wildly. His gleaming blade was a blur of silver tearing chunks out of the floor and an adjacent wall. I readjusted my stance and met his sword with my spear, sparks scattering between us.
However, his charge had sent me skidding backward. Fumbling about, I brought my spear up to slash his neck, but he warded it off with an arm. Using his other hand, he then slashed me with his sword, forcing me to withdraw slightly.
"Ugh?!"
My arms went numb when I tried to block his next strike, the raw strength of his blow sending jolts up them. Almost crashing backward, I staggered while trying to fend him off. Flipping his sword about, the general then slammed me away. Despite successfully blocking his strike with the shaft of my spear, I was still sent hurtling several steps backward.
Dropping to a crouch, I deflected his next strike when he bounded after me. He swung about, his sword flashing toward me in another merciless arc. The power of his blow lifted me off my feet and sent me crashing against a nearby wall. Concrete cracked from the impact and my body left a shallow impression in the structure before I slid down with a pained groan.
The general wasn't going to give me time to rest, however. In one bound, he cleared the distance between us and brought his sword down. I pushed myself away from the wall and threw myself aside just before his blade pulverized the surface.
Whirling around, I rammed my spear against his shoulder, which he had lowered to absorb the blow. Shards of stone splintered off, but it did no lasting damage. Spinning about, the general hammered me in the face – or tried to, but his fist missed me because I threw my head back.
Sticking the end of my spear onto the ground, I used it to spin myself away, escaping a ruthless strike from his sword. Stumbling backward, I then picked my spear back up and countered with a swift stab that he deflected with his blade.
He then swung his sword, throwing up a spray of dust. Delivering massive sweeps that gouged debris out of the walls and floor, he almost turned into a frenzied whirlwind of death, each of his blows too heavy and powerful for me to block directly.
Instead of parrying them head-on, I dodged and evaded as best as I could. Jumping high up, I landed on the flat of his blade before he could fully swing it down. He tried to toss me off, but I propelled myself upward before throwing my spear down at his head with all my might.
The general quickly blocked the blow with his hand, having let go of his lowering sword to intercept my lethal strike. The stone gauntlet that formed his fist disappeared in an explosion of rock from the sheer force of my attack, but it was more than enough to dissipate most of the momentum behind my blow. My spear stopped a couple of centimeters from his head, my energy spent.
Then I was forced to retreat when his sword sang through the air where I occupied, dropping back to the ground and crouching to prevent myself from being beheaded.
"Phew…"
Exhaling, I then thrust my spear from below, but the general deflected it with his elbow, his remaining hand still gripping his sword. His other arm was slowly regenerating, the stone flowing about and reforming, but it hadn't fully been restored yet.
I wasn't going to give him the chance.
Carrying out a feint, I made it seem like I was going to strike his chest. As expected, the general protected his vital parts with his sword – and aware that it might be a feint, he adjusted his motion so that he would be able to deflect any blow that would go for his head when I inevitably altered the trajectory of my strike.
But my real attack wasn't aimed for his head.
Instead, I rammed my spear against the stump of his still gradually regenerating arm, shearing off the entire limb at the shoulder. The general staggered from the blow and tried to swing his sword down now that my guard was seemingly open.
Fortunately, I twisted to the side and allowed his blade to swing past me, cutting deeply into the ground. I then readjusted my spear with both my hands and attacked from the flank.
From the general's most vulnerable spot, where his arm was missing and he had no defense.
The general tried to spin around to defend himself, but my spear went through his gap in defense and scored another hit in his chest, tearing out some armor. Unfortunately, the strike was too shallow and I failed to do much damage. He then retaliated, swinging his sword. But with only one hand, the blow was slow and clumsy.
I was able to duck under it and follow up with another strike. With his guard down, my spear pierced through his chest and tore a hole in his body. The general staggered, but he brought his sword down to ensure I was killed along with him.
Right, he was little more than an automaton. He felt no pain, knew no fear. He was almost the perfect killing machine.
However, those things that made us human…were also our greatest strengths.
Pain was a warning – a warning that told us not to push too far, alerting us whenever we were in danger. Fear was natural, it restrained recklessness and instructed us not to overextend ourselves. Without these, we wouldn't be able to survive.
So, when the general carried on fighting despite being badly mutilated, it was fearlessness borne out of recklessness. His lack of pain didn't tell him that he was in a dangerous condition.
I capitalized on that.
Letting go of my spear, I sprang back so that I could avoid his sword. He lumbered forward, the damage impeding his speed and dexterity, but he carried on. Charging at me, he slashed again, his sword tearing out huge pieces from the floor.
Jumping to his left, where his missing arm had yet to fully regenerate, I stretched out my right hand. The general didn't take me seriously, thinking that I couldn't reach him from that range. Even if I could, there wasn't much I could do, not when I wasn't wielding a weapon. Surely my bare hands wouldn't be able to deal much damage to his stone-hard body?
However, I had another trick up my sleeve.
The spear that I had left embedded inside his chest vanished in a smoke of spirit particles, only to instantly reappear in my hands. It took three seconds for me to fully materialize it again in reality.
But three seconds were all the time I needed.
Thrusting my spear forward, I sought to obliterate the general's head. As expected of the highly skilled and experienced warrior automaton, he was able to notice that something was amiss and pull his head back in an incredible show of reflexes.
Unfortunately, he still wasn't fast enough.
My spear pulverized the front of his face, erasing his features and destroying half of his head. He staggered from a blow that would have been instantly fatal to a living warrior, but even an automaton could hardly survive such severe damage.
Not that I would give him a chance to recover.
I shifted my grip on my spear and continued to swing it to the side, crushing the rest of his head with the thick shaft of my weapon and destroying it completely. For a moment, the headless general teetered, almost as if he would fall over.
Noticing that something wasn't quite right, I reacted quickly, pulling back before he could cut me down with his sword.
Then I lunged forward and smashed the spear into his chest, blowing his body into bits. His right arm was sent flying across the interior of the tomb, still clutching his sword. By the time I retracted my spear, there wasn't much of him left except a pair of legs that were still standing. I pulverized them both with a single stroke of my spear, making sure there wasn't any trace left of him.
Breathing heavily, I then spun my spear around before planting it on the ground. Leaning on it, I inhaled deeply and tried to recover.
"Great work, dear!" Mu Rong Shu hurried forward to check on me. I forced a smile to assure her that I was fine, but I was too out of breath to speak.
Not that it mattered, for any words I wanted to speak would have died in my throat when I saw the stone soldiers arrayed in ranks several dozen meters away. For a moment, I thought they were going to charge at me to avenge their fallen leader, having taken up military formations and hefting up their weapons.
Then I realized that they were saluting me.
As one, the ranks upon ranks of stone soldiers dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.