A War of Attrition

Having received the bestowal of heaven and earth, everyone felt their spirits lift. The benefits far exceeded what was recorded in the palace records, and with heavenly merits still to follow, it was an added windfall. The gains from this single battle alone pushed the cultivation of the three disciples forward by a significant margin, sparing them years of painstaking cultivation and nourishing. Though Wei Yuan gained no direct breakthrough in cultivation, the nurturing of Qingming advanced, his Jia Wood Life-Mystic slightly strengthened, and his Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains received feedback. The tender sprout atop the jade mountain grew a fraction taller, as if a second leaf were beginning to gestate. At this moment, Wei Yuan felt keenly that his force of ordinary cultivators was far too small. At the start of the expedition, there had been seven hundred, yet in less than three days, barely over a hundred remained. Thinking of this, Wei Yuan thought of Xu Wenwu, only to realize he had no idea where the fellow had run off to. At that very moment, Xu Wenwu was still scribbling away furiously inside the small stone room. Sealed off in a world of its own, the room kept him entirely unaware that a grand battle had just been fought outside and that a Great Shaman had fallen. *** In western Ningzhou, an airship bearing the insignia of the Palace of Grand Beginning was flying slowly. Suddenly, several cultivators appeared ahead, barring its path. A middle-aged cultivator stepped onto the deck, cupped his hands, and said, "This is an airship of the Palace of Grand Beginning. Fellow Daoists, might I ask why you block our way?" Opposite him, an elderly cultivator cupped his hands in return. "We hail from the Qinjian Sect. We have come to inform you that the mountain gate of our sect lies ahead, and it is currently sealed. Please take a detour or turn back." The middle-aged cultivator frowned. "I fly this route once every month. How is it that I have never heard of your mountain gate being sealed? I am on an urgent mission—step aside at once! Otherwise, once I report back to my superiors, I fear a small sect like yours won't be able to bear the consequences!" "Very well! Since the Palace of Grand Beginning conducts itself with such arrogance, we shall not meddle further." The cultivators blocking the way exchanged subtle glances and yielded the path. The airship flew on, but an uneasy feeling gnawed at the middle-aged cultivator. All of a sudden, two unmarked airships burst from the sea of clouds above, plunging straight toward the Palace of Grand Beginning vessel! Alarmed, the middle-aged cultivator immediately sounded the warning bell. The two pursuing airships were exceptionally fast, closing the distance in no time before unleashing a volley of ballista bolts and magical artifacts. The Palace of Grand Beginning airship fought back desperately, but being merely a cargo vessel, it lacked speed and was utterly unprepared compared to its ambushers. In the blink of an eye, it was forced onto the defensive. Soon, the hostile airships pulled alongside and latched onto it with grappling lines. Seeing no way out, the middle-aged cultivator could only signal their surrender. A short while later, the three airships sailed away, leaving the middle-aged cultivator and dozens of his crew tied up, their seas of consciousness and Dao power sealed, and dumped in the barren wilderness. The middle-aged cultivator was both humiliated and furious. His journey had originally been a routine supply run to various Palace of Grand Beginning properties across Ningxi. Before departure, however, he had taken on an extra shipment bound for an outpost west of Hanyang Pass. Never could he have anticipated running into such an ambush along the way. Fortunately, the hijackers had no intention of taking lives, allowing them to escape with their skins intact. *** Hanyang Pass. The guards on the battlements were far more numerous than usual. At the western city gate, a large crowd had gathered, forming a long queue. The gate guards thoroughly interrogated every person attempting to leave, and most merchant caravans were barred from heading west, forced to turn back the way they had come. Inside the garrison commander's manor of Hanyang Pass, a burly, thick-waisted general sat in the seat of honor. To his right sat a row of military officers, led by an imposing figure radiating murderous intent—also an expert of the Dharma Idol realm. To the left sat only two Daoists, a man and a woman: Perfected Fenhai and Perfected Lanhua. The leading officer on the right slammed his hand onto the table, snapping angrily, "You two have caused trouble like this for hours! Do you hold no regard for our garrison commander's manor?" Without even lifting his eyelids, Perfected Fenhai said faintly, "We indeed hold no regard for it. What of it?" Furious, the general leaped to his feet and barked, "Don't think your Daoist arts are so formidable! No matter how skilled you are, this general has no fear of you!" Perfected Lanhua sneered. "What do I care whether you fear me or not? You can't beat me either way." The general's face turned livid. "That was merely a momentary lapse of caution!" "Lapse or no lapse, you'd still lose. Fight a few more rounds and the result would be the same. If you don't care about saving face, I don't mind taking your master's place to give you a few more pointers." At this point, the burly general in the center finally raised his eyes. A flash of divine radiance spilled from them like heavy broadswords and great axes! He fixed his gaze on Perfected Lanhua for a moment before withdrawing the light. "You two have been arguing here for more than a day. This Commander has already stated that no bulk cargo of any kind is permitted to leave the pass heading west. This order cannot be altered. Why must you keep tangling over it?" Fenhai replied, "This old Daoist finds the order improper, so it must be reasoned through. Provincial Commander Xu has a renowned reputation. If I were to fight you, I likely wouldn't win, but losing wouldn't be easy either. So why don't we simply sit here and debate until we reach a conclusion?" With a sullen expression, Provincial Commander Xu said slowly, "Wouldn't it be better to spar after the two lords in the sky have settled their duel? Trading blows right now is utterly pointless." Fenhai nodded. "This old Daoist thinks so as well. If we can avoid fighting, it's best not to fight. Isn't it wonderful for us to sit and debate like this every day? Of course, if Provincial Commander Xu insists on testing how much weight this old Daoist carries, I am happy to oblige." Provincial Commander Xu felt an enormous headache coming on. The two sides had been locked in this stalemate for two full days. Yesterday, Fenhai and Lanhua had intended to exit the pass heading west, only to be stopped by the border guards. The two had promptly made a scene all the way to the commander's manor, injuring dozens of gate guards in the process. Xu Zhongxing, the Provincial Commander of Hanyang Pass, had achieved the Dharma Idol realm two centuries ago and had spent decades leading troops against the Shamans. His cultivation and combat prowess were top-tier, and Fenhai was slightly inferior to him. The moment Xu Zhongxing heard of the incident, he knew something was amiss. Could True Persons of the Dharma Idol realm really be held back by mere border soldiers? When they met, words naturally soured, and the two traded hidden blows across the distance. Xu Zhongxing held a slight upper hand, yet he had no certainty of an outright victory. The heavenly fire that old Fenhai cultivated was exceptionally insidious, capable of corroding Dao power. Fighting him for an extended time risked permanent damage to one's Dao power—not a great amount, but extraordinarily vexing. Thus, after testing the waters, Xu Zhongxing was unwilling to fight Fenhai again unless absolutely necessary. Seeing that he could not best Xu Zhongxing, Fenhai altered his strategy and sat down to bicker instead. The leading officer on the right was named Fan Donghe; having attained the Dharma Idol realm less than fifty years ago, he was no match for Lanhua. With two Dharma Idol experts on each side, the situation turned into a complete impasse. On the first day, their squabble dragged past midnight before dispersing, during which they traded blows twice more, both ending in draws. Yet today, before the roosters even crowed—just as Xu Zhongxing and Fan Donghe had warmed their bedding—Fenhai and Lanhua came knocking again. Whenever Xu Zhongxing didn't show his face, the two old Daoists were utterly brazen and overbearing. The moment the garrison soldiers answered unsatisfactorily, more than a dozen were beaten and bruised. Fan Donghe had arrived first, but before he could finish three sentences, Fenhai fabricated several offenses out of thin air and struck him directly. Perfected Lanhua had pretended to pull them apart, but only restrained Fan Donghe. Had Xu Zhongxing not arrived in time, Fan Donghe likely would have been severely injured and bedridden. By that point, Xu Zhongxing finally realized that Fenhai and Lanhua were here solely to cause trouble, leaving him no choice but to hold down the fort in person. From before dawn, they had bickered all the way until dusk. For an entire day, Xu Zhongxing had been unable to process a single official document. With the two Daoists sitting in the commander's manor, the entire administrative office was virtually paralyzed. In no time, a towering stack of dispatches piled up on Xu Zhongxing's desk, and he could not inspect a single one. Whenever he reached for a document, Fenhai would release his Dao power to contest him. How could ordinary paper survive the clash between two great True Persons? It naturally turned to ash. With the commander's manor paralyzed, military deployments across a thousand li around Hanyang Pass ground to a halt, and all manners of business slowed to a crawl. The Xu family had originally run this region like an iron fortress, but now numerous gaps were opening up. Xu Zhongxing found himself at his wit's end. If he had Fan Donghe leave to handle the paperwork in his stead, Fenhai and Lanhua would seize the chance to gang up on him, and he might very well suffer grievous injuries. Driving the two away would require at least one more Dharma Idol cultivator, but the Xu family was stretched thin, with every Dharma Idol expert bound to critical duties and unable to break away. Weighing the situation, Xu Zhongxing knew the only solution was to find someone to replace him in wearing down these two old Daoists. But with no suitable person at hand, he could only endure, fuming silently in his heart: *Let's see how much longer you can carry on like this!* Yet fuming solved nothing; Xu Zhongxing was well aware that he was the one who could not afford this war of attrition. The two Daoists were footloose and free—to put it bluntly, they had nothing better to do all day. He, on the other hand, was in command of the frontier military affairs and bore the responsibility of coordinating the blockade along the entire border of the Shattered Lands. With such heavy duties on his shoulders, how could he waste day after day with two idlers? Yet Fenhai was no ordinary cultivator. Aside from late-stage experts with formidable combat arts like Xu Zhongxing, who else could keep him in check? Xu Zhongxing had pondered for two full days, yet failed to come up with a single good countermeasure.