The appearance of the Lesser State Preceptor of Northern Liao had caught everyone by surprise, Wei Yuan included.
Once the Lesser State Preceptor departed, Wei Yuan immediately stowed the immortal chicken away. Even as it flapped its wings all the way, clucking furiously about showing that short fellow in the heavens what it was made of, Wei Yuan firmly caught it in hand.
As an immortal creature, the chicken possessed great innate wisdom. Though it struggled violently and squawked vicious threats, it still let itself be put away without much delay.
With the immortal chicken gone, True Monarch Chuhe faded from sight on his own. Having attained sainthood through merit, he was a True Monarch whose combat capability was likely inferior to that of many celestial idols, so he naturally could not linger on the battlefield.
By this point, the melee had drawn to a close. Seeing the defensive line they had been constructing in the rear completely leveled, the Mountain Folk fighting a bloody battle on the front suddenly lost their fighting spirit. Unable to endure the fierce artillery bombardment any longer, they broke into a rout.
The Qingming forces enjoyed a massive surge in morale, immediately pouring through the breach as their artillery barrages continued to walk deeper into enemy lines. Wang Hu led the surviving Dao soldiers charging out of the fortress as well. Wei Yuan held back no reserves whatsoever, snapping at the heels of the main Mountain Folk army like a vice.
The Mountain Folk collapsed like an avalanche. Seeing Wei Yuan stow away his Evil Sun true intent, several Scenery Command cultivators grew restless, tempted to make a move.
Right at that moment, an azure immortal sword flew down from Beyond Heaven, carrying peerless sword intent as it cleaved through the sky toward all the Mountain Folk Scenery Commands!
In an instant, every one of those Scenery Commands felt as though doom had fallen upon their heads and instinctively turned on their heels to flee. Above Immortal Heaven, Di Ran had been seated watching the battle. Seeing the sword streak across the firmament, he actually rose slightly to his feet before slowly settling back into his seat.
That sword was like a dragon, like an abyss, near as a mountain, vast as a sea, presenting ten thousand grand aspects.
The six Mountain Folk Scenery Commands scattered in flight. Only after arriving above the battlefield did the azure immortal sword single out a Mountain Folk giant and dart after him. The giant sprinted with all his might, completely unaware that the immortal sword was already closing behind his head.
High above in Immortal Heaven, a Mountain Folk giant immortal snorted. He reached out a finger to block—and it was as though a three-hundred-meter mountain peak descended from the heavens, interposing itself before the azure sword.
The azure immortal sword struck the finger-peak, emitting a metallic ringing sound, and immediately ricocheted back, vanishing without a trace.
The Mountain Folk immortal in Immortal Heaven snorted once more, though this time his voice held a trace of pain. A gash had been cut into his index finger, dripping with fresh blood.
Di Ran watched the direction in which the sword had retreated and gave a slow nod. "It seems that within this generation, we may indeed witness the answer."
Sensing a slight stir in his heart, he retrieved a jade flask and poured a cup of immortal brew. He first inhaled the fragrant aroma before slowly taking a sip.
A thousand li away, Zhang Sheng stood in midair with her hands clasped behind her back. In the distance, an azure glint flashed, and the azure immortal sword flew back into her grasp.
A chip had appeared along the blade's edge, stained with a smear of fresh blood.
Zhang Sheng ran her finger along the undamaged side of the blade. The proper procedure would have been to flick off the blood and draw the weapon back into her sea of consciousness to nourish it. But seeing no one nearby, she suddenly pulled out a small jade vial, meticulously scraped off the immortal blood clinging to the blade, and swiftly sealed it within the vial.
*Pfft!*
Di Ran spat out a full mouthful of wine.
The ten-thousand-zhang immortal towering nearby let out a heavy, furious huff.
Di Ran watched as Zhang Sheng stowed the jade vial away with lightning speed before leisurely drawing the immortal sword back into her sea of consciousness for nourishment. Her movements returned to being graceful and dignified, remarkably pleasing to the eye. Had Di Ran not witnessed the entire sequence from start to finish, he never would have imagined her to be someone who refused to let even a few drops of an immortal's blood go to waste.
Meanwhile, the giant Scenery Command was still sprinting headlong, wholly oblivious to the fact that he had just brushed shoulders with the Gates of Hell.
Though the Mountain Folk were crumbling like a landslide, several tribal commanders stepped forward at this juncture. Raising their arms, they rallied their men against the current, leading their bravest warriors to form a barrier in front of the Qingming army.
Yet with Qingming's artillery paving the way and combat chariots at the vanguard, each tribe was crushed in moments as the tide pressed relentlessly forward. Mere flesh and blood could hardly withstand a deluge of artillery and iron.
At this point, the Mountain Folk Scenery Commands returned. Casting all dignity aside, they poured out their Dharmic powers to raise towering mountains or tear deep chasms directly before the advancing Qingming host. Such violent terraforming instantly drained several of the Scenery Commands of their power and left them grievously injured.
Yet the gambit worked, finally halting the Qingming army and allowing the Mountain Folk to retreat across the rugged peaks toward the rear.
However, in the blink of an eye, the tribal commanders who had just sighed in relief grew tense once more.
A large detachment of Qingming combat engineers moved in, using explosives to blast apart the freshly raised peaks. Newly conjured mountains of this sort were actually quite fragile, and beneath repeated detonations of hundreds of tons of explosives, they were quickly shattered.
At the same time, numerous transport carriages pulled up to the edges of the fissures, assembling pontoon bridges on the spot out of steel plates. Dozens of template Dao Foundation cultivators drove support pilings into both walls of the chasms, rapidly erecting several pontoon bridges.
With thousands of template Dao Foundation cultivators working in concert, Qingming's engineering capability left the Mountain Folk utterly dumbfounded.
The Mountain Folk commanders had originally planned to re-establish a defensive line a hundred li back. But seeing that Qingming was about to breach their terrain obstacles, they decided to pull back three thousand li instead, nearly retreating all the way to the Domain of the Mountain Folk. Only there, at the periphery of their homeland, would they mobilize fresh forces and construct a new line of defense.
With the Mountain Folk in full retreat, Wei Yuan led his forces in hot pursuit. They gave chase relentlessly for a full day and night, pursuing them across fifteen hundred li and cutting down several hundred thousand more Mountain Folk before finally breaking off.
Then the army wheeled about, rolling toward the eastern front like thunder.
At the same time, Wei Yuan dispatched messengers to notify Feng Chutang and Cui Yu on the eastern front of the great victory in the north, urging them to hold out for two more days. In two days, the main host would return to fight the decisive battle against the army of Ji.
By now, the eastern front had held out for ten full days. Including the reserves, the garrison of more than two hundred thousand had dwindled to just ninety thousand, while the State of Ji's army of two million had lost four hundred thousand men. Cangwu's Dao soldiers had suffered another three hundred thousand casualties, leaving very few behind.
In the main camp of the Ji army, Sun Chao'en also received word of the Mountain Folk's crushing defeat and the Qingming army's eastward turn.
Sun Chao'en reread the battle report several times, closing his eyes in silent contemplation for the space of an incense stick. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and commanded, "Pass the order: halt the offensive, assemble all forces in camp, and withdraw three hundred li!"
Xiao Jingyuan, who had been resting with his eyes closed the entire time, opened them. The Governor of the Embroidered Uniform Office wore an even gloomier expression as he said, "To withdraw at this moment seems rather inappropriate, does it not?"
Sun Chao'en replied, "If we do not withdraw now, we will not be able to withdraw at all. While we still have our strength intact, we can rely on favorable terrain to dig in and hold fast. That way, there will still be room to negotiate."
Xiao Jingyuan's adopted son spoke up in righteous indignation. "You were the one who committed every last man, and you are the one ordering a sudden retreat! Do you even know how to fight a war?"
Sun Chao'en glanced at him and said with a smile, "This official has never led troops before, so how could I understand the art of war? But the King insists on having me lead them, so what choice is there? It is only natural for the young general to be angry. Yet when it comes to a solution, there are still only two words: endure it!"
The generals in the camp were glaring with eyes that practically spat fire, but Sun Chao'en remained completely unmoved. He placed the royal edict directly on the table, then ordered the execution of two generals whose glares burned the fiercest.
Both men were confidants of Xiao Jingyuan. In truth, they had said nothing at all; Sun Chao'en's stated reason for executing them was that staring directly at a royal decree constituted gross disrespect.
Seeing which two generals had been put to death, the Governor of the Embroidered Uniform Office remained seated quietly off to the side, not uttering a single word.
Sun Chao'en crushed all dissent and forced the retreat. The army of Ji pulled back three hundred li in a single breath, re-establishing their encampment against a mountain pass.
In attack, the armies of Ji moved slowly as a forest and stood firm as a mountain, but in retreat, they moved swift as the wind and fierce as fire. They covered the three hundred li in just half a day, maintaining their ranks and keeping their formations intact. The generals of Ji were not all incompetent fools; they knew that only by preserving their chain of command and maintaining tight battle arrays would their chances of survival remain high.
Sun Chao'en's choice of timing for the retreat impressed even Cangwu. The immortal asked himself whether he would have acted with such decisiveness had he been the one commanding the troops, breaking off combat the moment he heard of Wei Yuan's impending return.
Yet as Cangwu weighed the lightened Dao soldier gourd in his hand, he could find no cause for joy. Before this battle, he never could have imagined that a gourd holding over two million Dao soldiers, refined and accumulated across centuries, would be depleted by eighty percent!
This gourd was truly a supreme treasure of the mortal path. In the hands of an immortal skilled in warfare, it could be used to conquer and establish an entire kingdom. Now, however, not even one-tenth of its original worth remained. Dao soldiers only posed a threat when fielded in sufficient numbers; a mere three to four hundred thousand was nowhere near enough to turn the tide in a major campaign.
***
In the royal capital of Ji, the King of Ji stood motionless before a map for a long time.
Cangwu appeared at his side. Surprisingly, neither Xu Shang nor Cai Miao was present.
Cangwu let out a light cough and said, "Sun Chao'en handled the situation well. He has already pulled the army back three hundred li, suffering fewer than half a million casualties."
The King of Ji did not turn around, merely asking, "We lost?"
"The primary issue was the collapse on the Mountain Folk's front. Wei Yuan's main force remains intact and has already wheeled east."
The King of Ji said flatly, "Then all that remains is to negotiate?"
This time, Cangwu displayed an unusual degree of patience. "Negotiating is the best course. However, if talks truly break down, fighting again is not entirely out of the question."
The King of Ji finally turned around and remarked, "It seems this throne of mine may yet be mine to sit upon for a few more years."
Chapter 1069