“H-Huo Ci?!
How—how are you here?!”
After his desperate gallop, Buren stopped so abruptly that his breathing went completely ragged—which conveniently masked the tremble in his voice, the one born from sheer terror.
“General Buren means to say that this narrow path is the only way back to the Northern Luo capital, known to no one. So how could I possibly be lying in wait here in advance?”
Jiang Xingyan let out a cold snort and shot a look at the soldiers behind her.
Two of them immediately dragged forward a Northern Luo soldier with a cloth stuffed in his mouth.
Buren recognized him in an instant—it was the very scout who had come to deliver the message earlier!
“You! You traitor!”
Jiang Xingyan raised her hand, and the scout was pulled back again.
“General Buren, do you know when a person feels the most desperate?”
Buren stared at the half-smiling gaze of “Huo Ci” across from him and felt a chill run from the crown of his head straight down to his soles.
“E-enough with the nonsense!
Huo Ci, I only lost because you ambushed me!
If you’ve got the guts, let me go back, and we’ll fight fair and square!”
Twang!
A chorus of bowstrings sang out, followed by several screams.
Buren whipped his head around in horror—the few soldiers who had fled with him were all pinned to the ground by arrows, tumbling off their horses.
His face went pale.
He saw another contingent approaching slowly from behind, led by a deputy general he didn’t recognize.
Buren licked his suddenly cracked lips, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.
“Huo Ci! You’ve got so many men ganging up on me alone—does that make you a hero or not?!
If you’re going to kill me, then kill me. If you’re going to fight, then fight!”
“But I’m inclined to let you go.”
Buren’s eyes darted, and a surge of secret joy rose in his heart. He hurriedly replied: “A true man’s word is as good as gold—once spoken, even four horses can’t chase it back.”
“However, whether you make it back alive depends on how fast General Buren can run.”
With that, Jiang Xingyan gestured, clearing a path.
Buren didn’t care what “he” meant by that—he spurred his horse and bolted.
His mount was a rare, one-in-ten-thousand Ferghana blood-sweat horse.
In a single snap of the fingers, it could cover ten zhang.
No bow, arrow, or siege weapon could ever touch him.
To be extra safe, he crouched low over the horse’s back, then with a nimble twist, slid down to hang beneath the horse’s belly.
From afar, it looked like nothing but an empty horse running wild.
His heart pounded like never before—he had never craved survival so desperately.
It felt like he had been running for ages, as if he really had escaped the devil’s clutches.
BOOM!
An explosion detonated right beside him.
The sheer force of the blast sent Buren and his precious blood-sweat horse tumbling to the ground.
The horse neighed in agony, spewed blood, and dropped dead on the spot.
Coughing, covered in dust and tattered rags, Buren crawled out from under the carcass.
“Cough, cough.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw “Huo Ci” riding toward him on horseback.
A primal fear—the deepest kind of despair—surged through his heart.
He clawed desperately toward the direction of Northern Luo, struggling to escape, to make it back.
“Now does General Buren know when a person feels the most desperate?”
Buren no longer dared to be defiant. “Huo Ci—General Huo—please, just let me go.
I swear, if I make it back, I’ll never lead troops again, never set foot across the Western Zhou border!”
“Heh, General Buren, don’t just talk about the future. What about the past—when you led your troops and butchered the people along our borders? How do we settle that?”
Buren’s hope plummeted to rock bottom.
“Back then, how did those common folk beg you to spare them?”
“AAAHHH!”
Buren let out a blood-curdling scream.
“Huo Ci” had raised a long lance and driven it straight through his calf, pinning him to the ground.
The excruciating agony seared through every nerve in Buren’s body.
At this moment, he understood the name “Huo the Demon King” far more deeply than ever before.
“AAAHHH!”
“Huo Ci” drove another spear into Buren’s other leg.
“This lance is to honor the spirits of the innocent civilians you slaughtered.
This spear is for the valiant soldiers who died—so their blood was not shed in vain!”
“Huo Ci” drew two daggers and drove them simultaneously through Buren’s palms.
His blood soaked the ground beneath him. His whole body convulsed; he no longer had the strength even to cry out in pain.
“And those who lost their sons, their fathers, their husbands—the elderly, the children, the widows—their suffering shall be borne by you, and by those Northern Luo scoundrels!”
Shing!
“Huo Ci” abruptly drew his waist sabre. A flash of cold steel—and Buren gave one last shudder.
“Don’t worry. I’ll send you home. The payment is—”
Crack!
Buren’s head rolled to the side.
“—your head!”
——–
With the bombarding machines that the soldiers had worked day and night to produce, no fortress—no matter how formidable—could hold. Every single one fell smoothly.
Every defending officer met his end.
If Buren had any awareness in the underworld, he should have counted himself lucky—he was the first, and his death was relatively merciful.
The commanders that followed suffered far worse fates.
One of them was tied to a pillar, and each of the fifty thousand Huo family army officers and commanders took turns stabbing him—one cut per man—until he bled out completely.
The Huo family army was like a sharp blade cleaving through bamboo—unstoppable, advancing straight toward the Northern Luo capital.
Northern Luo’s territory wasn’t large, but most of it was vast, endless grasslands and Gobi deserts. There were few cities to begin with, and they were spaced far apart.
Even with Jiang Xingyan’s forced marches at full speed, it took a full month just to approach the capital.
She didn’t rush to attack. After consecutive days of hard fighting, the soldiers were showing signs of fatigue.
She chose a concealed location to set up camp, took stock of supplies, and moved cautiously to avoid alerting the enemy.
Although they had seized plenty of supplies from every captured city, black powder was nowhere to be found.
By the time they attacked the last two cities, they had used up every single alchemy furnace given by Daoist Zhuihua.
“Brother Yun, do you think we could order another hundred alchemy furnaces from Daoist Zhuihua?”
The closer they got to the Northern Luo capital, the stronger Jiang Xingyan’s sense of foreboding grew.
Especially since the previous sieges had all gone too smoothly.
Yun Chunfeng furrowed his brow. “Two days ago, Brother Yun sent word.
But up until now—not a single one of my eight senior brothers has replied.”
Jiang Xingyan’s heart sank, but she clung to a sliver of hope and ventured cautiously:
“Is it—maybe—that the offering wasn’t generous enough?”
Yun Chunfeng was amused by his young lady speaking so carefully in their insider jargon.
“Does the young lady not know Brother Yun’s senior brothers well enough?
Even a piece of meat the size of a fly, they’d fight over it.”
“Then why would they—”
“Young lady.”
Yun Chunfeng suddenly schooled his features, and in a tone more serious than she had ever heard from him, said:
“Those who cultivate the Dao possess the power to defy heaven and change fate—they can easily grant the wishes of mortals.
To ordinary people, they are beings to be looked up to for a lifetime.
“But the Way of Heaven is constant. Any change, no matter how small, sets off immense ripples.
And those ripples—the consequences—must be borne by the cultivator who interfered with the original course of events.
That is why my senior brothers can only help us go with the flow of fortune, not change our fate itself.”
Yun Chunfeng paused, picking up the trebuchet model and turning it over in his hand.
“Like Fourth Senior Brother’s alchemy furnaces, and Sixth Senior Brother’s trebuchet—they only make our victory easier, under the premise that Heaven has already destined us to win.
In other words, even without their help, we would still win—it’s just that we would have to pay a heavy price.
And that price, which we would otherwise have paid, will instead be borne by Fourth and Sixth Senior Brothers.”
He explained it thoroughly, and how could Jiang Xingyan not understand?
Tomorrow’s siege—they would not win.
That was why none of her senior brothers could help.
Jiang Xingyan’s unease peaked. “Tomorrow, Brother Yun—you are not to leave my side!”
