Chapter 288: Strange Ways of Dying

The bandit desperately gripped the head that was biting his neck, using all his strength to try and pry it off. It looked more like he was cradling the head.

In just a few breaths, the bandit’s limbs went limp, and the muffled “woo-woo-woo…” sounds from his mouth grew fainter.

Soon, the bandit lost all strength to struggle, merely twitching and shaking. Eventually, only a corpse with a sallow face remained on the ground.

The rain continued to fall, making the surrounding ground slick and wet. Some injured waited for the fighting to end; many, weakened, couldn’t open their eyes due to the rain washing over them. When thirsty, they simply opened their mouths to catch a little rainwater.

Another person lay uncomfortably on their side, feeling something brush against their back. As they turned to look, their neck was bitten and held.

The struggle continued not far away. Night had fully fallen, and with the rain, there were no stars or moon, making visibility extremely low.

However, most people had some martial arts training, so after adapting to the darkness, their eyes could still discern things to some extent.

The bandits were not engaging in a fight to the death. They were experienced with martial artists, using their numerical advantage to engage in prolonged combat, focusing on attrition to minimize their own casualties.

Even so, there were more injured and dead bandits than anticipated.

The group surrounded was definitely a lucrative target. More importantly, there were two women whose beauty was exceptionally striking to the bandits of this harsh land.

After not seeing women for a long time, even a sow would look beautiful. What’s more, those two women had prominent figures and outstanding looks; the bandits had been eyeing them for two days. The other two or three women weren’t bad either; though their faces might not be perfect, their figures were certainly not inferior.

Compared to the prize, the target, while thorny, was not unmanageable.

In fact, fighting since before the rain, many bandits had already noticed that the martial artists’ recovery of internal energy was not keeping up.

Several leaders, wearing straw hats, watched the martial artists fighting in the distance from horseback. The initial fierce and sharp moves were now being used less frequently.

“Heh, what if their martial arts are superior? Jianghu practitioners are still jianghu practitioners. Though skilled in combat, they don’t know how to contend with an organized military force or formation.”

Hearing his companion’s sneer, another chimed in with a scoff.

“Indeed. The moves they used initially were sharp and fierce, but they also consumed a lot of true energy. While they killed many of our brothers, it couldn’t change the overall situation. If the strongest among them tried to break out alone, there might be a slim chance…”

“Hmph, if it weren’t for this heavy rain, just our bows and crossbows would have been enough to deal with them!”

As they talked, their gaze swept over the bandit formation, noticing another heavily injured brother being dragged out. This one didn’t move at all when brought out, making it unclear how severe his injuries were.

Two bandits were specifically tasked today with dragging injured brothers out of the fight. The combat today was truly intense; they had handled at least twenty-odd brothers, not including those already dead.

The two, one on each side, dragged the unconscious man back to the other injured.

“Phew… phew… phew… So tired! Bazi is lucky, just knocked out. Don’t know if he’s faking it.”

One of them wiped his face, clearing away the blood and mud, then tilted his head back, letting the rain wash over his face.

The other simply sat on the muddy ground, panting heavily.

“Alright, what’s a little tiredness? At least we don’t have to charge in today, it’s much safer!”

“True, and we saved so many brothers, they’ll share some meat when we eat, heh heh heh…”

The bandit, who had just quenched his thirst with rainwater, stopped laughing halfway. He felt something was wrong but couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

It was his companion who first voiced the problem.

“Hey, hey, why are all our brothers lying still?”

“Yeah! Hey, hey, hey… what are you doing? Sleeping in this heavy rain? Old Que?”

The two pushed the nearest injured brother, nicknamed Old Que. He was agile in combat and rarely suffered severe injuries; today, he merely had a sprained and swollen ankle, which looked bad but wasn’t serious.

However, after several pushes, the man didn’t react. The bandit who pushed him immediately felt something was wrong and stepped over Old Que’s body to the other side.

He leaned closer to examine him. Although visibility was poor, he still noticed something was off with the injured man. Reaching out, he felt the man’s chest and found no heartbeat.

The bandit looked grimly at his companion beside him.

“He’s dead!”

“Quick, check the others!”

All trace of humor vanished from their faces. They moved among the injured, checking for breath or a heartbeat, but without exception, all were dead.

As one of them felt for a pulse on a man’s neck, he suddenly touched a wound on the corpse’s neck. Startled, he pulled aside the man’s collar to examine it closely.

“What kind of wound is this!?”

The other saw it too. They checked several more bodies, and without exception, all had similar wounds. Both their faces changed dramatically.

“Leaders… something’s very wrong! All the injured here are dead!”

“Come quickly, look! Our brothers here died strangely…!”

Their shouts drew the attention of others, and immediately, some peripheral bandits gathered to investigate.

A burly leader quickly approached the pile of bodies.

“Third Master, look at their necks, they all have bite marks!”

The Third Master looked at the speaker, then knelt beside a corpse and pulled open its collar. Due to poor visibility, he could only see the neck wound but not clearly, so he reached out to touch it.

The bite mark was wide, but two puncture holes were particularly deep.

The Third Master then felt the corpse’s forehead, pushing aside the hair covering it. He saw several deep marks on the forehead. He compared them with his hand; they were precisely at the angle of a grip.

The Third Master imagined a scene: something had bitten the deceased’s neck, and a hand with long nails pressed down on the victim’s forehead, preventing them from struggling up, while the nails also scratched the victim’s forehead.

Following this line of thought, the Third Master examined the corpse’s chest and abdomen. After tearing open the clothes, he indeed found other pressure marks and scratches, clearly indicating that the injured person had been held down, unable to get up.

‘Immense strength!’

Even the cold spring rain hadn’t made the Third Master feel particularly cold, but at that moment, a chilling dread shot through him, causing his scalp to tingle and goosebumps to rise on his skin.

‘This is no place to linger!’

This thought was exceptionally strong!

The Third Master no longer hesitated. He pulled out the small whistle from his clothing, took a deep breath, and blew it hard.

“Dii-dii!”

The sharp whistle pierced through the curtain of rain and the darkness of night, reaching the ears of all the fighting bandits and also the dozen or so martial artists.

Evidently, the bandits immediately eased their offensive. Many long spears and halberds were retracted from their thrusts, and numerous bandits pulled back.

This undoubtedly gave the martial artists a huge breathing space, but they didn’t immediately counterattack. Firstly, they truly lacked sufficient internal energy for recovery, and secondly, they feared a trap.

Many knelt on one knee, propping themselves up with their swords and blades, gasping for breath.

“Hoh… hoh… hoh… Wh-what’s going on? They, why are they all retreating?”

The burly man with the head wrap clutched two stolen long blades, propping himself on the ground to rest. He had been forcefully maintaining his position as the strongest among the martial artists, leading the charge bravely during the fighting.

But at this moment, his strong hands were actually trembling slightly. Due to the rainy night, not even his companions noticed, let alone the bandits.

“No, I don’t know. There was a whistle just now… C-could it be soldiers arriving?”

“Doesn’t seem like it! Q-quick, rest! Hoh… hoh… hoh…”

Some martial artists seized the opportunity to recover their internal energy.

“How is everyone? Are you all alright?”

“Won’t die!” “Can, can hold on…”

The martial artists were panting, while outside the bandit encirclement, two other leaders galloped their horses towards the sound of the whistle, shouting questions at the Third Master before even reaching him.

“Old San, what’s going on? They look like they can’t last much longer!”

“Yeah, why are you blowing the retreat whistle? On this dark, rainy night, could there be another variable?”

Old San stood up, wiped his face, and pointed to the surrounding corpses on the ground.

“There’s something unclean here. All the injured brothers are dead, every single one of them bitten on the neck. This place isn’t safe, run!”

As he spoke, the Third Master had already mounted his horse and pulled the reins, turning it outwards.

The two arriving leaders looked at some of their brothers nearby, then at Old San, who was twisting his neck and rubbing his hands, clearly startled.

They even dismounted to check for themselves, confirming the strange situation before their eyes.

“Retreat! Everyone retreat!”

As the leading master spoke, he and another leader pulled out their small whistles, and the Third Master also brought his whistle back to his mouth.

“Dii!” “Dii!” “Dii!”

The three blew their whistles together, and this time, the bandits who heard the sound reacted even more clearly, retreating outwards one after another, no longer even maintaining the encirclement.

Several leaders shouted from outside.

“Everyone on horseback, everyone on horseback! Those without horses ride behind someone else, two people per horse is fine!”

“Hurry, go, everyone go…”

Numerous bandits began to run, following the leaders’ calls, then fled together into the rainy night.

The group of martial artists stared blankly as this unfolded, powerless to stop them and with no desire to.

“They… ran away?”

“We repelled them? We repelled them!”

“Hahahahaha… we won!” “We drove them back!”

Cheers rose from sporadic to continuous, from disbelief to extreme excitement. The relief of surviving the ordeal swelled in everyone’s hearts.

After a short while, the martial artists calmed down from their euphoric state. Many of them were injured, some seriously, and urgently needed to find a place to shelter from the wind and rain to recover.

Seeing that the bandits had left behind numerous bodies, the man with the head wrap and two others went to search, hoping to find suitable medicines and other supplies.

“Ow, ugh…”

A bandit on the ground groaned, and immediately two blades were held to his neck.

“Oh my! Wh-what…”

The bandit with blades at his neck was terrified. He looked around; besides corpses, there were no other brothers. It seemed his side had lost!

“Heh, where are all your bandit brothers? Naturally, we drove them back!”

“Don’t bother talking to him, kill him!”

“Wait, don’t do it yet!”

The man with the head wrap walked over and looked at the bandit on the ground.

“Where here is a place to shelter from the wind and rain? You’d better tell the truth. We’ve killed and injured countless of your entire bandit group. If you want to live, cooperate!”

The bandit nodded frantically.

“I know, I, I know! There’s a village ahead, uninhabited, but some of the houses are intact!”

“Hmm, what’s your name?”

The bandit swallowed hard, then quickly answered, trembling.

“Ba, Bazi… My name is Bazi!”

In the desolate village, Ji Yuan put down the book in his hand, stood up, and opened the door a little wider, letting the wind and rain from outside wash over him.

Just now, he had heard a series of unusual whistle sounds. Although very faint, he was certain he hadn’t misheard them.