CHAPTER 16: [The curse land] - [Smell lost] - [Gu-washi's fight]

——{one day later at night}——

The moon was shining high in the sky and in the calm of the night seven shadows pasted on the walls of the buildings and were heading in the direction of the sleeping quarters of the eagle soldiers.

The shadows arrived at the closest window and entered the room. In the room was a sleeping soldier who had removed his armor and had gone to sleep still dressed. It was an order for Ying-ba, he wanted every soldier to be able to react quickly in case of an attack.

The peaceful breath of the soldier echoed in the room, he moved while talking every once in a while immersed in a dream. He was completely unaware of the people present in his room, the shadows moved calmly to the door and paid attention not to wake the soldier up.

The first shadow arrived at the door and proceeded to soundlessly open it, he silently grabbed the door handle and slowly made a downward motion while keeping the door pressed against the wall. After the handle was completely pressed down, he pulled the door open just enough to pass it without making a single sound.

The other shadows followed and they arrived in a corridor that was as dark as the night. They advanced while following the wall and headed further inside the temple.

After a while they saw a light coming in the opposite direction, it was one of the guards that were walking around the corridors to make sure no soldiers or intruders were walking around the temple during the night.

All the shadows jumped up and hung themselves on the beams on the ceiling, they then continued moving and the guard pasted them without sensing their presence. A while later another soldier came in sight of the shadows and he passed their location without seeing them, but this time he turned around and he looked at the location just below the shadows for a while before continuing on his path.

The more the shadows got closer to the center of the temple the more the guards' senses were strong and the more they risked getting discovered, so they had to move slower.

One hour later they had safely arrived before the head's room that was surrounded by the head discipline rooms that were occupied respectively by Ying-ba and his generals.

The shadows had to kill a few of the night patrol guards that were stationed in front of YIng-ba's current room as they could attain their target soundlessly with the guards in front of the doors of their rooms.

Their target wasn't Ying-ba but his generals, an army without a leader has no strength but it was also the same for an army without generals. How can one single man handle a huge army alone? In this situation strength or leadership didn't matter, even the greatest leader couldn't lead an army of this scale alone on the battlefield. They couldn't defeat Ying-ba but they could still destroy his army this way.

The shadows took off their black clothes and their figures finally appeared in the light of the candles on the wall. These shadows were the survivors of Damian's trap, the elite assassin group from the Kaan temple.

They had been left buried alive by Damian but had found another entrance to the cave system and directly resumed their primary mission. They had only arrived at this time after losing a lot of time and could not help the other monkeys from the two other temples. The seven monkeys had sworn to find Damian late and to avenge their eight fallen friends that had been crushed inside the cave tunnels after they had finished the first mission.

The assassins made two groups and entered the rooms of two generals at a time, using the same way as earlier so that they didn't wake up the generals sleeping inside.

Unluckily for them they chose the rooms of the two most difficult targets from their list from the get go, those were Gu-washi and Gu-shisan the right and left hand of Ying-ba.

The assassins went to Gu-shisan's bedside and as they were going to strike him they heard a light commotion in the adjacent room. Right outside the window was Gu-washi standing in a dooming matter with one of the assassins that entered his room heavily injured, he had been frowned through the window and had collided with the opposite wall.

Seconds earlier he was standing above Gu-washi holding a knife, but this time Ying-ba had anticipated a possible attack since last time and he had given a protective talisman that had the world safe drawn with an aura infused brush. The talisman had been made by Ying-ba himself as he had a good mastery at the art of talisman. That was also one of the reasons why he could understand formations by a small merger.

After seeing what had happened to their fellow disciple when he tried to assassinate Gu-washi the assassins stopped their attempt on Gu-shisan and jumped outside to help their friend.

Gu-washi didn't wait for them to attack him, he charged his enemies and jumped on the roof just as he was going to collide with them. As he landed on the roof the stone tiles made the sound of iron hitting a rock and the building slightly trembled.

He took out a small handle out of his dimensional bracelet and infused it with aura, seconds later the handle extended from both sides and a bow appeared in his hands. A straight and strong looking string appeared and linked the two extremities of the bow. Gu-washi then bent the bow and as it was pulled to the maximum an arrow shaped from aura appeared ready to be fired.

The assassins were extremely fast but Gu-washi was at an even higher level, in speed and strength he surpassed them by lips and bond. He was at the intermediary 6-star level, meaning he could become a 6-star aura user once he had a breakthrough. Having a breakthrough wasn't an easy thing in general, and it became harder the higher with the level of the person that wants to reach the next star.

Gu-washi had attained a wall for a couple of years and even through intense training he couldn't find a way to reach the next level, after all only practice makes perfect and he couldn't practice that much as there was no war previously. His only targets were the wild beasts that he hunted for his village before joining under Ying-ba.

They were strong beasts in the forest, but that still wasn't enough for him to progress further. He needed to fight stronger opponents so he could surpass himself, and war was a perfect opportunity for him to hated the monkeys for what they did to his kind in the past.

Gu-washi let go of the arrow, and it was shot at a terrifying speed, it was as if he had just shot a comet, his arrow zoomed to its target and attained it a couple of micro seconds later. It was his most praised technique, the *celestial shot*, he had attained the full mastery of the bow and if he wasn't restricted by the gravity his arrows could soar to space.

Gu-shisan's target was instantly obliterated and there could only be seen a small pile of ash at the location where he was previously standing. The ground didn't seem to have taken any damage from the arrow, but if one looked closer to its impact point with the ground they would have seen that the aura arrow had made a small round hole and had continued its descent into the earth. After going for five more meters, the arrow had disappeared as it couldn't maintain its form without an intake of aura.

The assassin didn't lose time to mourn their fallen comrade and quickly dispersed in a direction, they planned to attack him from different directions as they knew an archer couldn't possibly defend himself from this kind of tactic.

The assassins arrived one meter apart Gu-washi and all aimed their daggers at all his vital points. They stopped worrying about Gu-washi's previous behavior, and it's precisely at this instant that the four arrows rained down on the assassins.

Four of the assassins were all pearsted and disappeared with a blur. They reappeared on the ground unscathed as their protection talismans had been used and they were teleported in a six meter radius from the location of their supposed deaths. Those one use talismans had been given to them by the elder in charge of the assassins squad, the talismans would destroy themselves if the person in its possession dies.

Although four of the six attackers had to retreat two of them were now in a perfect distance to stab Gu-washi to his death, but he hadn't used the last trick on his list, he suddenly deactivated his bow and this time from the strange handle appeared a blade made out of aura. Making an aura blade consumed a lot more mana than using aura for coating an object and was also a lot more mentally hard to maintain. But as he was used to creating aura arrows it wasn't something very difficult for him.

Gu-washi wasn't playing anymore, he dodged one dagger that aimed his head, bent down making a circular motion with one of his legs mowing down the assassin's leg before piercing his heart once he fell flat on the roof. The over one had reacted to his attack and had jumped back and tried to strike again just as Gu-washi had finished his movement. Gu-washi hadn't been duped as he had expected one of them to react this way to his attack and before the enemy could hit him with his dagger he instantly transformed his weapon back to a bow and fired an aura arrow from clause range.

He directly jumped back on the ground while hiding from the assassins' view by using the body of the previously killed assassin that was rapidly going into oblivion. The assassins were taken by surprise and as they struck the fallen body Gu-washi appeared from behind it with his weapon transformed as a dagger. A microsecond later using a ghost like footwork he appeared next to one of the assassins and pearsted his heart before he could understand what had happened.

Once again he used the dead body by kicking it into the three last monkeys, this time the assassins had all reacted, one dogged by ducking under another jumped other it and the last one moved aside. Gu-washi didn't stop and once again moved using his bizarre footwork and jumped in the air using the body he had just kicked as a foot hold while it still hadn't touched the ground.

He arrived face to face with the assassin that had chosen to jump over the body and both their blades collided, sending Gu-washi even higher. His body started to spring from the force of the collision and he used the momentum to increase the force of his next attack, a downward slash. He fell back to the ground and at the same time cut the ground in a five meter distance, breaking the sword the assassin used to protect himself. Killing the monkey that had folded back as he had suffered injuries from going on a head on confrontation with Gu-washi.

This time the last two assassins had lost all hopes of killing him, all their senses were tensed to their maximum and their muscles contracted to the maximum. They both jumped other the temple at a speed similar to the one shown by Gu-washi earlier and disappeared in the forest.

Howether it wasn't the end, Gushisan quickly followed them, stopping on top of the outer wall. He used his bow and making a hugely arced trajectory he shot an aura arrow instantly killing the assassin that now believed to have survived to his squadron's annihilation.

He then got on top of the opposite outer wall and once again aimed his bow to shoot a long range target and sent an arrow on his target.

But to his surprise he got no signs of his arrow killing the assassin and detected the presence of a new monkey in the jungle, after a moment of reflection he quickly jumped down and entered the forest to pursue the assassin.

TO BE CONTINUED…