From bone collectors to the supreme ruler of humanity

Qipanling is called a ridge, but it is actually a whole area of ​​rocky gullies carved out by flash floods.

Looking down from above, the ground is cracked into dozens of deep trenches, crisscrossing each other, just like an open chessboard.

Hence the name Qipanling (Chessboard Ridge).

Lin Yan stood on an eagle-beak rock at the ridge pass, and spread out his view of the mountains.

A strong, pungent smell of blood wafted from the ditch.

He pulled out Zhao Yuanlang's hundred-refined steel knife and slid it down a narrow ditch.

Three bodies lay at the bottom of the ditch.

Wearing the tattered uniform of the Great Yan border army, his chest was crushed by a heavy weapon, and his military badge was torn off, leaving only an empty iron chain hanging from his collar.

The blood on the corpse has not yet completely coagulated.

Lin Yan squatted down and touched the wrist of one of the corpses with his fingers. He was immediately shocked because he found that the corpse was still warm.

He died less than an incense stick's time ago.

Lin Yan stood up and activated his [Viewing Mountains] perception to its fullest extent.

Suddenly they discovered movement deep within the ravine.

It wasn't the sound of wind, but the sharp sound of a blade slicing through the air, and faintly, someone was laughing.

The laughter didn't sound like Da Yan's accent; the voice was very rough.

Northern barbarians.

Lin Yan's heart sank. He gripped the knife tightly and slowly moved forward, pressing himself against the ditch wall.

After turning three corners, the scene before him made him pause.

In a rocky hollow, the bodies of more than a dozen wounded soldiers of the Great Yan lay scattered about.

Some had their necks cut off, some were impaled in the cracks of rocks with spears, and several were tied to dead trees, their bodies covered in cuts, blood flowing down the trunks and accumulating into a small pool of crimson blood at the tree roots.

The ones who made the move were seven or eight scouts from the northern barbarians.

They all rode northern warhorses that were taller than the horses of the Great Yan army, with human heads still dripping blood hanging on their backs.

One of the bearded barbarians was skinning a wounded soldier alive with a dagger.

The wounded soldier wasn't quite dead yet; muffled screams escaped his throat.

His fingers dug ten bloody furrows in the mud.

Lin Yan narrowed his eyes.

He didn't rush out.

[Guanshan] quickly scanned the positions of the seven or eight people.

Two guarded the horses on the east side of the stone depression, one kept watch in the southwest corner, and the remaining five surrounded the few wounded soldiers who were still alive.

The man with the thick beard was the leader, and he carried a thick-backed dagger, twice the width of an ordinary knife, at his waist.

Just as Lin Yan was figuring out how to make his move, a whooshing sound suddenly rang out from across the stone depression.

It's not a feathered arrow.

It is a sword.

A narrow, long sword emerged from behind the stone wall and pierced directly through the back of the scout in the southwest corner.

The sword tip pierced three inches from his chest. The man looked down at the sword tip in front of his chest, his mouth opened but he didn't have time to utter a sound before the sword was withdrawn.

A woman emerged from behind the stone wall.

She was dressed in a faded blue cloth outfit with tight cuffs, and on her feet were a pair of thin-soled boots covered in mud. Her hair was casually tied back with an old silver hairpin.

Her face was very white, but not the pale white of a young lady in her boudoir; it was the kind of white that still shone brightly after being exposed to the wind and sun.

The sword in her hand was a narrow-bladed longsword, its blade half a finger thinner than an ordinary sword, with fine patterns on the edge, spreading out like snake scales.

The bearded man turned his head, saw her, and grinned.

"Women of the Great Swallow? A real bargain delivered right to our door!"

Before he could finish speaking, Ye Qingxue's sword was already piercing his face.

The bearded man parried with his sword, the tip of which struck the blade with a crisp clang, forcing him to stagger back three steps.

Ye Qingxue gave him no chance to catch his breath. With a swift movement, her sword coiled around him like a snake, striking the bearded man's blade three times. Each strike landed just as he was taking a breath, throwing his swordsmanship into complete disarray.

"What are you looking at! Help!"

Lin Yan emerged from behind the ditch wall.

A scout heard the commotion and turned around. Before he could even raise his knife, Lin Yan's blade had already slashed into his collarbone, stopping only at his chest. The knife was pulled out, and the man fell to the ground, blood splattering everywhere.

The remaining four scouts pounced at the same time.

Lin Yan slid his feet away—a sideways slide. A barbarian's axe grazed the back of his head, but he used the momentum from the side slide to get behind the man and plunge a knife into his waist.

The second scout swept his scalp across with his broadsword. Lin Yan ducked to dodge, the blade grazing his scalp and severing a few strands of hair. As he ducked, he rolled forward, slashing upwards with his sword—the fourth move of military swordsmanship, the slashing strike. The tip of the blade cut a long gash from the man's thigh to his abdomen, and his intestines spilled out.

The third scout was so frightened that he took a step back, and Lin Yan chased after him and slashed down with his sword.

The man raised his knife to block.

The two swords clashed.

With a snap, his knife broke.

Lin Yan's hundred-refined steel knife slashed at his neck, his head tilted to one side, with only a thin layer of skin connecting his neck.

The fourth scout turned to run.

Ye Qingxue's sword pierced from the side, aiming to kill him instantly.

In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, only one of the eight northern barbarian scouts remained—the bearded one.

The bearded man stood amidst the pile of corpses, his thick-backed dagger held horizontally in front of him, his eyes scanning back and forth between Ye Qingxue and Lin Yan. He suddenly grinned.

"Two martial artists from the Great Yan Dynasty. One wields a sword, the other a saber; both are at the Body Tempering Realm."

He thrust his savage knife into the ground, the blade sinking half a foot into the crevice in the rock.

Then his body began to change.

It doesn't get bigger, it gets denser.

The muscles in his arm twitched violently as if being supported by something, and dark red lines appeared on the surface of his skin, like scars from being branded with a hot iron, spreading from his wrist to his shoulder.

His eyes changed too.

The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and his pupils were shrunk to the size of pinpoints.

"The 'Berserk' technique of Northern Barbarian martial arts," Ye Qingxue's sword tip touched the ground, "uses a secret method to squeeze the body's potential, resulting in a short-term surge in strength and speed. The price is a shortened lifespan."

Lin Yan stared at the changes in the bearded man's body.

The [Shallow Imitation] skill on the skill panel started jumping wildly.

The bearded man stomped the ground, his entire body charging forward like a stone launched from a catapult. He slashed horizontally with his savage blade, sending shards of rock flying wherever the blade swept through; this strike was at least 30% more powerful than the previous one.

Lin Yan dodged the first blade to the side. The blade grazed his chest, and his clothes tore open with a ripping sound.

The second strike followed immediately.

He parried with his sword.

clang!

Lin Yan's hand jerked, and the hundred-refined steel blade nearly slipped from his grasp. The ground beneath his feet cracked open, and he was slashed backward seven or eight steps before his back slammed against the stone wall and came to a stop.

The power of this strike was even greater than Zhao Yuanlang's palm strike.

The bearded man didn't chase Lin Yan; instead, he swung his sword at Ye Qingxue. Ye Qingxue met the attack with her own sword, and sparks flew as they clashed. Ye Qingxue was also knocked back several steps.

"True Qi Realm." Ye Qingxue steadied herself. "He practices the Northern Barbarian's 'Blood Rage Technique,' which makes him stronger the more he fights."

Lin Yan took a few breaths.

He used the technique of "rough modeling" to capture the way the beard exerted its power.

The Great Yan martial arts emphasize the circulation of Qi and blood along the meridians, like water flowing through a river, in an orderly manner. The Northern Barbarians' "Berserk Transformation" is different—they don't follow the meridians, but instead force their Qi and blood directly into their flesh and bones, like forcing a bucket of water into a clay pot. The pot can't withstand the pressure and will crack, but before it cracks, the pressure inside the pot becomes extremely strong.

This method of exerting force is brutal and lacks any skill whatsoever.

But it is precisely because of its brutality that it is extremely difficult to imitate.