Beginning with the Ubume Bird Chapter 47 – Chapter 47: Chapter 1 Japanese Pirates! Skeletons! Nekomata!

Chapter 47: Chapter 1 Japanese Pirates! Skeletons! Nekomata!
Editor: Larbre Studio

“Esteemed Walker, you are about to trigger a Yan Fu event!”

“You possess an additional Yan Fu Talisman.”

“You may choose to use it to replace this Yan Fu event.”

“If you do not wish to replace it, you can choose to sacrifice it to elevate your status in this Yan Fu event.”

“After the status elevation, you will obtain more assistance.”

“Sacrifice.”

[You have sacrificed the manuscript of Lin Yutang, and you will be granted a higher status in this Yan Fu event.]

Li Yan suddenly opened his eyes!

The first thing he did was to grasp the Ring Dragon Han Sword tightly in his hand, pushing himself up from the ground, his five fingers sinking into the blood-soaked, soft earth, oozing out large amounts of slippery blood.

Li Yan looked at the bloodstain on his hand and smiled.

“A bloody start, a good omen.”

The break of dawn cast a pale light across the sky, the ground was covered with rotten and withered black leaves.

Broken flagpoles, scattered sword fragments, half-submerged cartwheels in piles of fallen leaves, and, most shockingly, the stacked, severed limbs and remains.

Li Yan himself was dressed in a close-fitting short tunic, with a waist armor that was already cracked and broken, resembling the attire of a soldier from an ancient battlefield; he felt inside his pocket, where a pistol and ammo clips lay quietly. In his left hand, he held a case with twenty hand grenades inside.

“The modern weapons you exchanged for have been delivered. You must carry them with you at all times and may not hide or transfer them to someone else by burying or any other means. All spent casings and parts will disappear if you abandon them or move more than 200 meters away.”

Li Yan couldn't help but feel relieved that he didn't purchase a rocket launcher, which would have been impossible to carry around.

On the skirt of his tunic, the blood merged with the soil, tracing out words.

Date: 1592-1593

Location: Pyongyang, at 40 degrees north latitude and 127 degrees east longitude

Having quenched the last sparks of civil strife at home, Toyotomi Hideyoshi boldly sent his forces to invade Joseon, unleashing a flood of Daimyo troops hardened by a century of incessant warfare. Within a month, the three capitals of Joseon had fallen and all eight provinces had collapsed!

King Xuan fled to Yizhou and sought aid from the suzerain state, the Ming Dynasty.

The Wanli Emperor appointed Shanxi General Li Rusong as Governor and Minister of War Song Yingchang to lead forty thousand Ming Army troops on a forced march across the ice to Pyongyang…

The Joseon called it the Renchen War for National Defence, the Japanese called it the Bunroku Keicho War, and the Ming Dynasty referred to it as,

The Renchen Japanese Disturbance.

Three-eyed guns, matchlock guns, Tiger Cask Cannons, hundred-shot firearms, strong crossbows, “wolf fang” maces, field katana, iron cannon, siege towers, watchtowers, spike carts.

This was the era when gunpowder weaponry was on the rise, but cold weapons still dominated the battlefield!

The requirements for this Yan Fu event are as follows:

1. Survive until the first trilateral negotiations tomorrow morning.

2. ~

The words written in blood suddenly turned into incomprehensible scribbles, the blood writhing like anguished snakes, and then all the characters blurred and dispersed!

After a while, the blood reformed into words, with the content drastically changed!

The requirements for this Yan Fu event are as follows:

[Acquire a Yan Fu Talisman with the Power of Yazi.]

[Kill at least three Sengoku period Japanese Exotic Beasts.]

[Kill at least one Sengoku period Daimyo leader!]

[Take down Toyotomi Hideyoshi's First Army Commander Konishi Yukinaga!]

The formal beginning of the Yan Fu event will be upon the completion of any of the aforementioned requirements.

Remark: You owe me a life; now I want you to repay it.

Li Yan's face was expressionless as though he wasn't surprised by the strange happenings in front of him; he remembered the black light that struck his forehead just before Li Jiangyu died.

You have gained a special proficiency in this Yan Fu event: Horse Riding 70%, which will be forgotten after the event ends, or you can spend 700 Yan Fu points to permanently acquire it.

Your status has increased in this Yan Fu event.

Your current military rank is: Chief Banner.

Mo's gift refresh required 12 hours, please be patient.

Li Yan stood up, tearing off his already cracked half-armor, his promotion brought with it a surge of memories like a film reel.

Li Yan's current identity was that of a Chief Flag Officer under the Great Ming General Zu Chengxun, commanding three smaller banners, roughly twenty men. Before the departure of Li Rusong's forty-thousand-strong army, due to misinformation from Joseon, the court had once sent Zu Chengxun with over three thousand men to Joseon to destroy the Japanese pirates, only to suffer a great defeat. Now, Li Yan was one of the Ming soldiers left behind on the battlefield.

Suddenly, Li Yan's ears twitched, and he held his sword with one hand as he moved stealthily towards the source of the sound.

…..

The whirling cool breeze tore at the tattered banners.

Li Yan gripped the Ring Dragon in his hand, loading his bullets. He slowly approached a dark mass.

It was a wild beast, completely rotten, buried headfirst in a pile of corpses, roughly the size of a calf. A crunching sound emanated from beneath it…

The sound suddenly stopped, and the beast fiercely turned its head. A black arrow had pierced its skull. The flesh on the upper half of its face was gone, revealing ghastly white eye sockets, from which a fierce light beamed through two gloomy green flames.

Its white teeth chewed on flesh that still steamed with warmth, and a severed human finger was clearly visible!

What a brute!

“A Fleeting Glimpse, activate”

Exotic Beast of the cat-demon category, capable of controlling corpses (incapable of using malice-based transformations). Its teeth and claws carry a rotting poison.

Threat level: Light Red.

Li Yan pulled the trigger, sending one bullet into its eye socket, another hitting its forelimb, and a third into its rotten torso.

The bullets burst into a shower of flesh with a splatter, yet the cat-demon seemed unaffected, expelling the bullets from its body with a clinking sound in the span of a single breath, the projectiles falling onto the broken blades on the ground.

Li Yan holstered the Colt Pistol and blocked with the Han Sword in front of his chest as the cat-demon pounced at him like lightning, its sharp claws aiming straight for his heart.

Dazzling sparks suddenly erupted, and an instinctive squint from Li Yan gave the cat-demon the chance to bite towards his neck with its foul-smelling teeth.

The sword blade turned like a flat boat in water, creating ripples. Kneeling, Li Yan skimmed beneath the cat-demon, his sword slicing through the soft underbelly of the beast before he kicked upwards, sending the creature flying with a Hawk Flips Over maneuver.

The Ring Dragon was positioned horizontally before him, black blood streaming along the blade.

The Twenty-Four Mother Stance,

Silver Python Emerging From the Cave Stance.

The cat-demon rolled on the ground, its underbelly intermittently oozing blackish-red organs.

Li Yan's expression darkened; even though he hadn't been bitten, his neck felt an unbearable itchiness.

The cat-demon's limbs were deeply embedded in the soil, its eyes indifferent. Its forelimbs exploded with power as it leaped away, attempting to escape.

No such luck.

Li Yan charged forward. The cat-demon's attempts to shake him off with a few leaps failed as the Ring Dragon, cleaving through the air, bifurcated the cat-demon with the force of a thunderous tempest!

Amidst the splattering of black blood, the front half of the cat-demon in midair managed to turn around, flying towards Li Yan with its gaping maw.

In Li Yan's pupils, those rows of stinking teeth were getting closer.

Draw the sword, strike again!

The ringing of the sword lasted for an eternity~

The whole process was unbelievably fast.

Hook Star: enhances the holder's burst strength and attack speed by 90%.

“Clack, clack.”

Two lumps of flesh fell to the ground, one after the other.

Cleft into three pieces by Li Yan's twin strikes, the cat-demon finally stopped moving.

“You have killed the Exotic Beast, cat-demon. Progress in the Yan Fu incident has increased.”

Li Yan covered his neck, rubbing up and down. His palm was clean, but the itching sensation lingered for a long time.

Off to a bad start!

Li Yan cursed at his misfortune and turned to leave, when suddenly a bloody hand reached out, grasping at his leg!

Just as the Ring Dragon Han Sword was about to fall, he heard a faint cry from someone nearby.

“Save… save~”

Chapter end