The fierce battle raged continuously for three days and three nights. Even Qingming's elite could not sustain it without pause. Wei Yuan was forced to rotate the troops to the rear in turns for an urgent rest of one shichen.
The moment these warriors reached their designated positions, they collapsed on the spot and fell asleep in all kinds of bizarre postures; some had even fallen asleep where they stood.
Large numbers of cultivators in charge of logistics shuttled among the warriors, hanging small pouches packed with emergency elixir pills and military ration pills onto their bodies.
Hundreds more template cultivators joined hands to cast spells, conjuring a misty drizzle that showered down upon the warriors. Besides Dao arts, the threads of rain contained medicinal agents formulated to accelerate wound healing, relieve fatigue, and ease pain. Once washed by this gentle rain, the warriors would become vibrant and full of vigor once more.
After days of fierce fighting, Wei Yuan had braved the horde of Mountain Folk to battle his way near the Dao soldier pass. By now, the ground inside and outside the pass was strewn with corpses of the Mountain Folk. Of the fifty thousand Dao soldiers originally garrisoned in the fortress, only twenty thousand remained. The wounds on Wang Hu's body were beyond counting; many had not yet healed before fresh wounds were layered over them.
Beyond the pass, the Mountain Folk had piled up five hundred thousand corpses alone, and over a dozen giants had fallen.
Once Wei Yuan led the main force to the foot of the pass, the Mountain Folk could no longer split their forces. Furthermore, the million Mountain Folk sent to attack the second fortress defense line were cut off, losing contact with their main army.
Yet the pressure on Qingming surged dramatically as well. On the frontal battlefield, the Mountain Folk continued to emerge in an endless stream.
Altogether, Wei Yuan had wiped out over one and a half million Mountain Folk, but there were still five million facing them head-on!
Over the past three days, the Mountain Folk had been battered into steady retreat. Though masters of manipulating stone, earth, and timber, they had not even had time to erect a single complete defense line.
Tribe after tribe was thrown into the front lines, only to be crippled in less than a shichen. Many tribes did not even get the chance to withdraw and preserve a few embers of their bloodline; once committed to the front, their entire ranks were obliterated. Many smaller Mountain Folk tribes had lost every able-bodied adult male, leaving only the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, destined for nothing but annexation.
Wei Yuan pressed the offensive relentlessly, never giving the Mountain Folk a chance to catch their breath or regroup. Only thus could he inflict casualties several times greater than in the past. Yet this relentless assault was equally a grueling test for Qingming. Both sides gritted their teeth and held on, waiting to see who would collapse first.
Before the pass, the Mountain Folk finally amassed a sufficient numerical advantage. By hurling wave after wave of flesh and blood to plug the line, they at last halted Wei Yuan's steel torrent. Behind them, they seized every second to construct fortifications and earthworks. If given just a single day, they could erect a complete line of defense.
Within Immortal Heaven, two Mountain Folk giants stood like pillars propping up the sky, connecting earth and heaven in a pincer formation, confronting from afar a secluded courtyard graced by clear streams and flowing springs.
Within Immortal Heaven, all units of measurement from the Native Realm lost their meaning; only relative proportions held any significance.
If the small courtyard were the size of an ordinary mortal residence, then both giants were terrifying behemoths over ten thousand zhang tall—utterly disproportionate to each other.
Yet within the courtyard, all was serene and untroubled by time. Two figures were leisurely sipping tea and playing weiqi. One was Immortal Monarch Yanshi. Opposite him sat a diminutive Mountain Folk immortal who stood merely five feet tall—ugly in appearance, yet carrying an airy aura of otherworldly transcendence.
Holding a white stone, he clicked it down onto the board, capturing several of Yanshi's black stones in an instant. Then he smiled faintly. "Fellow Daoist was careless."
Yanshi, ever unconstrained and untroubled, replied, "I miscalculated this corner. At this moment, Fellow Daoist is indeed a move ahead."
The match they played was naturally a board game unique to immortals. The board had three axes—length, width, and height—and a stone was captured only when completely surrounded from all six directions.
With eighty-one spaces along each axis, this game utilized the highest grade of board known among immortals.
Yanshi's features had not changed in the slightest, yet at his temples there was a striking streak of grey. Though currently at a disadvantage on the board, Yanshi refused to yield, building his position step by step in stubborn resistance.
The diminutive Mountain Folk immortal said, "I am determined to claim this land. Besides, it was never the territory of your human race to begin with. Why cling to it so tenaciously? Countless lives are being lost in the realm below even now. Do you truly not care at all?"
Yanshi said placidly, "As I see the realm below, the Mountain Folk have suffered casualties far exceeding those of the humans. Such a trade of pieces is not unacceptable."
The Mountain Folk immortal glanced toward the room behind Yanshi and remarked, "Though your ascension to immortality was not consummate, your status is hardly low. You could have enjoyed glorious, carefree days, yet at every hour of every day you must sleep clutching your patriarch's immortal sword. Is this any way for an immortal to live?"
Yanshi smiled slightly. "I would rather not live like this either, but I have no choice. There are always people who want to see whether I truly fear death. In truth, living uselessly for ten thousand years is hardly better than killing to one's heart's content before dying—dragging someone of consequence down to the grave as a cushion! Wouldn't Fellow Daoist agree?"
The Mountain Folk immortal gave Yanshi a searching look. "If we strike now, three against one, you will surely die."
Yanshi nodded. "With Fellow Daoist to keep me company on the road to the Yellow Springs, it would hardly be lonely."
The Mountain Folk immortal frowned slightly. "The Palace of Grand Beginning should have grown ten or a hundred times grander than it is today. Yet generation after generation of Palace Masters were either framed by fellow humans or compelled by the tide of the times to throw themselves into the vortex of the Heavenly Dao, sacrificing their lives for their race. Is that mere coincidence?"
Yanshi answered, "No."
"Then why go through such trouble? The human race has so many other immortals, yet they are all ignoble cowards clinging to life, capable only of hatching schemes in the shadows and shoving your Palace of Grand Beginning to the forefront. The Academy is hypocritical, the Pure Land treacherous. Only the Sword Palace is marginally better, but even they cling obstinately to outworn ways, desperately obsessed with saving face like country squires, growing worse with each passing generation."
Faced with the Mountain Folk immortal's probing, Yanshi only smiled and did not reply.
The Mountain Folk immortal suddenly set down his stone, swept his hand across the unfinished board, and said, "This game does not count. Let the mortals below accept whatever fate decrees. Were you and I of the same race, I would surely make a friend of you. A pity that we stand on opposing sides; from now on, we can only meet on the battlefield."
Yanshi rose to see him off, walking him to the courtyard gate. "Why doesn't Fellow Daoist withdraw your army?"
The Mountain Folk immortal shook his head. "My temperament is actually somewhat similar to your patriarch's; both of us walk straight along the Great Dao. I met him once in the past. Though we spoke for less than half a shichen, I held him in deep admiration and regarded him as a kindred spirit. Alas, not long after, he ventured deep into the Wu domain and shook the heavenly pillars established by the Ancestral Shamans, which ultimately led to the birth of Ningzhou and today's Qingzhou.
"Failing to spar with him remains the regret of my life. But my holding back today exhausts that sentiment. Your ascension was incomplete, and you are no match for me; there is no need for us to spar."
Yanshi said, "So Senior is one who associated with the Patriarch as an equal. Forgive my earlier impudence."
The Mountain Folk immortal said, "My name is Di Ran. As for my coming here this time, it was actually your own human race that sent me word. Take care of yourself."
"Thank you for the warning, Senior. As for the battle below, shall we let the juniors decide it themselves?"
Di Ran smiled faintly. "Whether this round is won or lost affects me not in the least. But if it is lost, your Palace of Grand Beginning will sink into decline for another century. Very well, I grant your request: I shall not intervene in this battle for now."
"Many thanks, Senior."
Di Ran waved a hand. "You need not thank me. In truth, I too wish to know why—with his peerless brilliance, standing virtually unrivaled the moment he ascended to immortality, effortlessly dominating the world—he chose to venture into the Wu domain to clash head-on with the Ancestral Shamans. I have observed the Palace of Grand Beginning for thousands of years and gathered a few insights. Perhaps in your generation, I will find the answer."
The three Mountain Folk immortals departed. Yanshi returned to the main hall and stood before the portrait of the Patriarch. Suddenly, he recalled the figure of the Patriarch he had glimpsed during the ceremony honoring the founder when he had first entered the Palace of Grand Beginning all those years ago.
At that time, the Patriarch stood atop the peak of a mountain range. Before him lay endless black storm clouds, through which a colossal body stretching a million li spanned heaven and earth.
The storm was approaching.
The Patriarch had spoken only a single sentence: "My original aspiration in cultivating the Dao was simply to die for my people. You need not follow my example."
Then he drifted away into the distance, heading straight into the heart of the storm.
Chapter 1067