The thirtieth day of the first month, the night, there is no moon.

The shadow of the emperor and Zhuang Zejing flickered under the faint light of the shops along the street, and walked farther and farther away from the 'Jiuyuan blacksmith shop' to the end of the long street, and finally completely walked out of the sight of the blacksmith shop.

Green shadows, cold light, and countless golden swords shuttle through the end of the long street. There was no cursing, no screaming, no sound of talking, the cold light of Huohuo, the hissing sword qi, the buzzing sound of the sword, and the piercing sound of gold and iron were intertwined, the indistinguishable moves, the unclear figure, and the terrifying blades came and went.

'Poof!' The sound of the blade breaking through the armor and piercing the flesh sounded, accompanied by the muffled snort of the two, the figures were divided, and the four slightly taller black shadows stood at the four corners of the four corners of the cyan figure, and the cyan figure was Zhuang Zejing.

The figures moved, the short soldiers were connected, and they were divided again, and it was still four people standing in the four corners, and the black clothes on the four people were torn, revealing the golden light shining inside, and the four of them worked together to tear off the black clothes. The emperor looked through the faint light from the window lattice paper, and saw that the four men were dressed in golden armor, and each of them had a long knife in his hand, reflecting the golden light, and the emperor found that there was a person standing not far from the five people, a person who was almost integrated with the wall of the street, a person who could not be found without careful inspection.

The master is not the master of the Central Plains, the master of the Central Plains is not accustomed to wearing armor, there are not many people in the Central Plains who have reason to assassinate the emperor, and even fewer dare to fight with Zhuang Zejing with only five people; the master is not an ordinary master, the ordinary master will not let the emperor be unaware, and the ordinary master will not be able to form a situation of encirclement of Shangzhuang Zejing.

Outside of the master is the killer, a real killer, a killer who does not move, and a killer who will kill people if he moves. The lights in the shops on both sides of the street went out one after another, and the people, for fear of implicating themselves, did not say anything, let alone come forward, and the surroundings immediately fell into darkness, and they could not see their fingers.

The gold and iron resonated again, and the sound was so dense that he couldn't hear the interval in the emperor's ears, accompanied by a muffled snort, the sound stopped again, it was Zhuang Zejing's voice, Zhuang Zejing was actually injured.

'Bang!', 'Bang!' The sound of a heavy object falling to the ground came, and then there was a sound of clinging to each other, and suddenly, the emperor felt a chill quickly hit his neck, fast, life and death were not as fast as the reaction was fast, ruthless, a fatal and irresistible ruthlessness, and when the emperor felt the chill, he couldn't dodge.

The chill penetrated into the skin and disappeared suddenly, accompanied by the sound of sword qi breaking through the air in the emperor's ears, before the emperor could react, another chill fell from the top of his head, the same fast, the same ruthless, the same time to dodge, a golden and iron symphony, the chill turned to his chest, and after another golden and iron symphony, the surroundings fell into silence again, a deathly silence.

'Click~~~~~Click~~~~~~~~~ click~~~~~', the emperor heard a few sounds of beads falling to the ground, he could even feel the dirt in the ground being stirred up and splashed on his calf, a hand on his shoulder, touching his cheek, it was a slimy hand, and his neck was also slimy, the emperor moved to the side with the force of his hand, and the pain came from his neck. The emperor pressed his neck with his hand, did not speak, he knew the danger of the situation, did not dare to divide the heart of Zhuang Zejing, only calmly and quietly retreated.

"The invasion of foreign enemies, Ouchi's 'Dragon Guard' was ordered to defend against the enemy, please make it convenient for the proprietors, beat the gongs and drums, and attract the officers and soldiers who patrol the night to come and help. Zhuang Zejing's voice sounded in the silent night, but there was no response, no gong was beaten, no drums were played, and no door was opened.

'Hey!' A sneer, the chill appeared in front of the emperor again, the gold and iron resonated again, and the seeping sound of the blade cutting into the flesh accompanied, Zhuang Zejing snorted again, and at the same time, a more piercing chill crept into the bones in the spring cold, the emperor's heart palpitated, his body stiffened, and his breath was occluded.

'Bang!'—'Poof!' Two different voices rang out one after the other, but the same weight fell to the ground, followed by a clash of gold and iron, a muffled grunt, then the sound of the walls collapsing, the roof tiles falling to the ground, and then a man walking away at the sound of the hunting wind.

"It's not good to stay here for a long time, go quickly!" Just when the emperor was just conscious, Zhuang Zejing's voice sounded, and a trembling hand grabbed the emperor's arm, and at this moment, he didn't care about the courtesy of the monarch and ministers, and dragged away.

"Hmm. The emperor agreed, and was about to take a step, when suddenly an ominous premonition hit his heart.

"Oh no! The Emperor's voice was almost hoarse.

The house has collapsed.

wall, has fallen.

Blood, on the ground.

Fire, ignite.

In front of the 'Jiuyuan Blacksmith Shop', nine horses surrounded a one-armed old man, and immediately sat nine strong men with bright armor, each holding a long knife in his hand, each holding a bow and crossbow, the blade was narrow and half longer than an ordinary long knife, the bow and crossbow were small and fine, less than three points the size of an ordinary bow and crossbow, the one-armed old man held a knife in his hand, and the blood flowed down his shoulder, flowed through the handle, and slid into the soil along the bright blade. Outside the nine horses were six horses, three wounded and three corpses, two in the house and one outside.

The nine horsemen suddenly moved, there was no order, no shouting, one of the horses moved, the other eight horses followed almost without any intervals, nine horses circled around the old man quickly, the old man stared at the horse in front of him, a horse passed, the hooves of the latter horse impartially stepped on the hoof prints of the previous horse, and then the next horse stepped on the hoof prints of the previous horse and quickly made up, the horses ran faster and faster, and the circle turned more and more urgently, but no matter how fast the horses ran, the horseshoe prints did not make the slightest mistake.

The old man stared at the rapidly rotating circle in front of him, dizzy and nauseous for a while, he wanted to attack with a knife, but before the knife was raised, he suddenly felt that the distance between this circle and him was just out of reach of his knife, but other people's long knives could reach, he found that no matter which horse he started from, he would immediately be hit by the next horse that came to him, and with the speed at which the horse was filling, it was difficult for him to cause effective damage to any person or any horse, and he was likely to pay the price of his life.

Special horses, special training, special distance card positions, these people are not very clever warriors, but they just have a difficult way to play, and the old man suddenly realized that this is a formation! Simple and effective, specializing in dealing with the master's small formation, tired enemy, encircling the enemy, trapping the enemy's way of playing, the old man's heart is chilling, he knows that he has lost, in the moment of being surrounded by these nine horses, the most taboo is to be surrounded, once surrounded, you need to be several times faster than the enemy to have time to resist the offensive one by one, however, it is not easy to count the points quickly, and it is even more difficult to be several times faster, and now he is not the same as he was back then.

'Whoosh!' A horse went around the old man's back and suddenly attacked, shot a crossbow arrow, the old man flashed sideways, a long knife followed and cut over, the old man raised a knife, before he had time to fight back, a knife has been cut again, the old man hurriedly retreated, and a crossbow arrow shot on the left side, the old man moved forward to dodge, a horse rushed, a knife slashed, the old man jumped up, three knives raised the knife to the top, two knives swept to the old man's ankle, two crossbow arrows shot again, the old man raised the knife to start the top of the three-handled knife, quickly closed his feet, the body curled up in mid-air and then jumped out from between the gap between the five knives and two crossbow arrows, he was greeted by two long knives, the old man rolled on the spot to avoid, and the knife behind him arrived, dodged another crossbow from the knife leg.

The crossbow in front of him, the knife behind him, one move after another, one after another, no one is in love, no horse is stopping, suddenly in front, looking behind, once the offensive is launched round after round and round after round and then there is no gap, the old man is tired of coping with the left and right in a small circle surrounded by nine horses, each breakthrough ends with a more dangerous situation, more serious injuries, these nine people are not in a hurry, not hurrying, step-by-step attack, the old man has shown weakness several times to lure the enemy are not fooled.

The wound on his shoulder became more and more serious, the blood flowed more and more, and the repeated rapid attacks without respite made the old man's internal strength unsustainable, so that the old man's arms became more sore, and the hand holding the knife became slower and weaker, and the opponent was not fooled, and he was not in a hurry to wipe out his last chance.

The old man didn't dare to expect to find the life door of the formation, this is a life-and-death fight, the formation of a formation is to kill people and not be killed, no one will leave a life door in their own formation for the enemy to break the formation, and no one will deliberately leave a flaw in their own formation.

The horse walks eight laps, the old man has two crossbows in his legs, a knife in his back, the horse walks twelve laps, the old man sweats through the shoulders of his heavy clothes and then hits a crossbow, the horse walks sixteen laps, the blood on the shoulders of the old man is like a spring, the arrow scrapes the bones but has no time to pull out, seventeen circles, the old man's wrist in the knife has been taken off, the horse gallops, the long knife is near, the old man leads the neck to kill, only to die happily.

Suddenly, the long knife swinged, a green shadow passed through the middle of the two horses, only a sword has pierced the throat of a rider, the rider covered his neck and wanted to retreat, but found that the hand was gone, three people turned into three corpses and fell from the galloping horse, the green shadow flashed, and two people fell off the horse, the horse lost its owner, neighed and galloped away, the green shadow flashed again, Zhuang Zejing sword mercilessly, the sword passed the death, in the blink of an eye, except for a live mouth, the rest of the people have died, the only living mouth is extremely brave, the teeth bite, the mouth of the black blood flowing, it is swallowing poison and biting the tongue and died, so far, there is no one alive。

'Poof!' Chang Lao Jiu fainted and fell to the ground, the only bit of flesh attached to his wrist was torn off, and the emperor approached with his neck covered, and the hope in his heart that had been extinguished caused his anger to burn.

Under the firelight, the emperor looked at Zhuang Zejing, only to see Zhuang Zejing was stabbed in the cheek, the skin and flesh turned out, the thigh was stabbed, the ribs were stabbed, and the back of the hand was stabbed, except for the knife wounds on the back of the hand and cheek, the other two places were extremely serious.

Under the firelight, Zhuang Zejing looked at the emperor, the emperor's injuries were only two, one was on the top of the head, blood and hair were stuck together, looking at the amount of bleeding, it didn't seem to be serious, the other was the side of the neck, the emperor's hand always covered the side of the neck, and now his hand was a bloody hand, and the blood flowed down his arm to his elbow, completely dyeing half of the sleeve red, but fortunately, the blood on his hand and neck had scabbed and stuck together to stop the bleeding.

Under the firelight, three black shadows galloped from three directions, and in the blink of an eye, they were close to the front, and the three people surrounded Zhuang Zejing and the emperor in the middle in a triangle in three directions, Zhuang Zejing recognized that one of them was the black-clothed killer who had just escaped, if Zhuang Zejing was absolutely sure to take down these three people in normal times, there were two more burdens at the moment, and his other sword 'Phantom Cicada' was not on his body, and he was injured, but the situation was extremely troublesome.

Just as the three killers were about to make a move, two coughs sounded without warning, and an old man suddenly appeared behind a black-clothed killer, and a lightning flashed towards the old man, 'poof', and at the same time as the lightning flashed, the black-clothed killer turned over and fell. The emperor couldn't see the two of them making a move, only saw the result, Zhuang Zejing's eyes suddenly condensed, he had clearly seen the killer slash at the old man, the back of the old man's hand was on the plane of the knife, but the finger was already on the killer's wrist, the true qi broke through the skin and penetrated the body, and went retrograde along the meridian veins, shattering the heart in an instant, killer, death!

One of the three, the remaining two black-clothed killers retreated sharply in two directions on tiptoe, the old man did not chase it, Zhuang Zejing was here, the seriously injured emperor and Chang Laojiu were here, and they did not dare to chase, and the two black shadows disappeared in an instant.

"Thank you seniors for your help!" Zhuang Zejing hugged his fists, he may not be able to solve the previous situation, but he may not be able to solve it.

"Another group of well-trained killers, the 'Hundred Ninja Jingtang' has just been destroyed, and the 'Listening to the Rain Reading Sword Tower' has just withdrawn from the rivers and lakes, they are back so soon, and the old man has a story to tell, alas!" the old man sighed, shook his head and turned away.

'Hidden Dragon True Anger' Zhuang Zejing knew who this person was, and he also knew why the old man sighed, Zhuang Zejing also sighed, he sighed for the emperor and sighed for the master, this is a cold road, he didn't want to go, but he was forced to go on this road by the master. Torches flickered brightly and darkly on the side of the street, accompanied by the sound of laughter and fighting, and a group of officers and soldiers on night patrol staggered out.

Zhuang Zejing smiled, it was a sneer, a contemptuous smile, and a bitter smile. Wake up, guys, don't wait for the butcher's knife to be on your neck before you want to get up, and that's when you can only wet the bed.

On the last day of the first month of the new year, the person who is at the pinnacle of power in the world ushered in the first gift of the new year, a gift that he could not refuse, and he did not want to accept it but had to accept it.

This year is the first year of 'Tianlu'.

End of this volume.