Longevity by Grinding Skills

The Cavalry Commander smashed his fists together, which clanged like metal. He leaped into the air, the wind from his punch tearing through the atmosphere as he aimed straight for Xu Yunfan’s face. The force of this one blow was enough to shatter mountains and split stone!

Yet Xu Yunfan neither dodged nor evaded, merely lifting the Drumming Jar Golden Hammer in his right hand.

CLANG!

Fist and hammer collided with a deafening boom, like the toll of a great temple bell.

The Cavalry Commander’s fist was instantly reduced to a pulp of blood and flesh, his finger bones shattering to pieces. He screamed and scrambled backward, only to see that Xu Yunfan hadn’t moved an inch. Not even the hem of his robe had stirred.

Xu Yunfan could only shake his head. The man’s strength had increased, but his mind had grown dull.

In one fluid motion, the Drumming Jar Golden Hammer became a streak of crimson light.

Before the hammer even arrived, the wind it generated kicked up a storm of dust. The Cavalry Commander hastily raised his arms to block, but with a sharp CRACK, both his arms snapped at the elbows.

Its momentum unabated, the hammer struck him square in the chest.

The Profound Iron Armor shattered like paper. The Cavalry Commander’s chest caved in, and he spat out blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs. He crashed heavily to the ground as the Vitality in his eyes swiftly faded.

Xu Yunfan’s cold gaze swept over the charging cavalrymen. Their commander was dead; he had no intention of letting them escape.

Several minutes later, having hunted down the last of the fleeing soldiers, Xu Yunfan pulled his Heavy Hammer from where it was buried in the body of a Black Armored Elite Warrior and flicked the chunks of flesh from the hammer’s head.

He glanced to the side. He had wiped out the entire thirty-man squad of Black Armored Elite Warriors.

Without further hesitation, Xu Yunfan vaulted onto his horse and galloped south.

As dusk fell, staining the sky the color of blood, a black cloud of iron cavalry thundered down the main road.

Three hundred warhorses in Heavy Armor crushed the dismembered limbs littering the ground. The gold-embroidered Battle Banner of the Incense and Candle Sect snapped in the stinking, blood-filled wind.

From the black carriage at the head of the column, a purple-robed elder suddenly raised his hand, and the nine ghost-faced horses pulling it reared up in unison.

"My disciple!"

His hoarse roar shook the winter crows from the branches.

The withered hand of the Incense and Candle Sect’s Altar Master pressed down on the Cavalry Commander’s caved-in chest. The residual warmth from the Profound Iron Armor seared his palm.

The edges of the hammer wound that pierced his chest were remarkably smooth. Only a heavy weapon, wielded with incredible speed and force, could have done this.

’Who... Who in the world...?’

The purple-robed elder spun around, staring intently in the direction Xu Yunfan had gone. There, a fresh trail of hoof prints wound its way into the distance.

***

Xu Yunfan’s bay horse trod over the broken armor littering the ground, its horseshoes clinking crisply against the pebbles.

「It was the third day since he had left Dingbei City.」 The entire way was nothing but ruins and rubble.

From the locust trees lining the road hung countless nooses. A swollen corpse dangled from each one, swaying gently in the cold wind.

The clang of steel on steel rang out from the distance, and Xu Yunfan reined his horse to a halt.

From behind a nearby hill, a troop of some twenty horsemen appeared. Their black Iron Armor was spattered with flesh, and blood-soaked sacks hung from their saddles.

The standard-bearer at their head held high a Battle Banner of the Demon-Vanquishing Celestial Army—red with a gold pattern. A large Wan symbol was painted on its face in white.

The Centurion leading them prodded a woman’s corpse with the tip of his spear.

"This bitch was hiding half a wheat flatbread."

A child’s whimper came from one of the sacks, and several small legs kicked and struggled at its opening.

The horsemen roared with laughter.

Xu Yunfan stroked his horse’s neck. The bay’s warm muscles trembled beneath his hand.

He unslung his waterskin and took a deep pull of strong liquor. The Jar Gold Hammer in his hand began to swing, making the air thrum with a low hum.

The Centurion saw him and brandished his Long Spear, laughing. "You there! What are you waiting for? Come and die!"

Before his laughter had faded, Xu Yunfan spurred his horse into a charge.

He squeezed the horse’s flanks with his legs, thigh muscles taut as bowstrings. Sensing its master’s intent, the bay horse shot forward like an arrow released from a bow, its hooves digging into the earth.

The Jar Gold Hammer whistled through the air. The Centurion hastily raised his spear to parry.

Veins bulged on Xu Yunfan’s corded right arm. The instant the hammer struck the spear shaft, the web of the Centurion’s hand split open, and the Long Spear was torn from his grasp.

Putting his core into it and using his horse’s momentum, Xu Yunfan swept his left hammer out. Three horsemen burst like overripe persimmons, man and beast dissolving into a shower of gore.

As the bay horse reared, Xu Yunfan swung himself from the saddle. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

His feet hit the earth, calf muscles coiling like springs before launching him forward like a cannonball.

As he swung his Jar Gold Hammers, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippled like waves. Every strike was powered by his entire body.

When the last horseman was pinned to the ground by a blow from the hammer, the knot on one of the sacks came undone, and a boy with a blood-smeared face crawled out.

The child stared blankly as Xu Yunfan used a nearby Longsword to poke through the bodies. Suddenly, the boy lunged forward and began to tear at the corpse of one of his companions with his teeth.

"How much further to Thunder Accumulation Mountain?"

Xu Yunfan used the handle of his hammer to lift the child’s chin.

The boy let out a feral growl, his hand—smeared with brains—pointing south.

There, a column of signal smoke rose straight into the sky. Beneath it, the sprawling rooftops of a military encampment were faintly visible.

Xu Yunfan gave a slight nod. He then turned away without a second glance, mounted his horse, and vanished from the boy’s view.

「At noon on the seventh day,」 Xu Yunfan saw the first corpse of a Wuzhou Army soldier in Heavy Armor.

The headless body knelt by a stream, propped up by a Mo Saber. Seventeen broken arrows were wedged in the seams of its Iron Armor.

Further on, the stream ran dark red. The bodies of over a hundred Incense and Candle Sect light cavalrymen were piled into a low wall. It was clear a remnant of the Wuzhou Army had made a desperate last stand here.

Xu Yunfan paused for only a moment before riding on, continuing his relentless journey toward southern Wuzhou.

’Lice breed in armor, and the people perish.

White bones lie exposed in the fields; for a thousand li, no rooster crows.

Of a hundred souls, but one survives. To think of it is to feel your heart break.’

’What I see today is all this and more. Wuzhou has become a Purgatory.’

By the tenth day, after ten days of hard riding, having covered nearly five hundred miles, Xu Yunfan finally saw living people. Though their faces were sallow with hunger and their expressions numb with worry, they were at least living something akin to a normal life.

He would occasionally see Wuzhou Army scouts in light armor, who watched the tall, imposing figure of Xu Yunfan on his great horse with scrutinizing eyes.

One of their leaders even rode up to question him. Xu Yunfan explained that he was heading to Thunder Accumulation Mountain and produced his Token from the Celestial Cicada Sect.

Seeing the Token, much of the wariness left the scout captain’s face, though a flicker of doubt remained. He cupped his fist in a polite salute.

"So, you’ve come from Thunder Accumulation Mountain."

With that, he politely waved him through.

Xu Yunfan, not looking for trouble, simply nodded and prepared to ride on. But when the scout captain learned he had come from Qingzhou, he couldn’t stop himself from asking a question.

"What is it like in northern Wuzhou?"

Xu Yunfan was silent for a long time before he spoke. "Wherever the Incense and Candle Sect breaks through a city’s walls, they slaughter everyone inside. Their plunder is immeasurable. They behead all able-bodied men on sight. They impale infants on their pikes and twirl them for sport. The lands they pass through are scoured so bare that when the spring swallows return, they can only nest in the woods."

The assembled scouts began to tremble with rage. The captain’s eyes turned bloodshot as he ground his teeth.

"The Incense and Candle Sect... I swear I will drink their blood and eat their flesh!"

After leaving them, he rode to the nearest major settlement, Dayi City, to replenish his rations. Three hundred li later, Xu Yunfan finally reached the foot of Thunder Accumulation Mountain.

Xu Yunfan looked around, his expression dazed. After so many days of seeing nothing but scorched earth and blood, he had rarely witnessed a scene so peaceful.

At the foot of Thunder Accumulation Mountain, fields and paddies stretched out in a neat grid.

Lush green rice paddies stretched out like an emerald carpet, and a gentle breeze sent ripples through the sea of green stalks.