Dingbian City.
Chen Dao placed a stone down gently; he already held the upper hand on the board. Across the Go board, Yue Jinshan’s brows were knitted tight. He stared hard at the layout, yet could not find a single flaw in White’s stones.
Chen Dao’s style of play was just like the man himself—neither aggressive nor stubbornly clingy. He seemed passive at every turn and pedantically obsessed with solid territory, yet somehow seized the advantage before anyone realized it.
Yue Jinshan was no novice, but compared to Chen Dao, who possessed the caliber of a national master, he was still a notch below.
Suddenly abandoning the rest of the board, Yue Jinshan dropped a stone into White’s formation, stubbornly trying to force an isolated group to live.
A faint smile appeared on Chen Dao’s face. With this move played, Yue Jinshan’s defeat was all but assured.
He responded casually. Yet Yue Jinshan played exceptionally fast this time, hell-bent on bringing that isolated group to life with all manner of reckless tenacity and unreasonable moves.
Seasoned and shrewd as he was, Chen Dao was hardly going to be thrown off by such petty tricks. Composed and steady, he tightened the noose step by step. With a final placement, he snuffed out any chance of life for the isolated group.
Chen Dao smiled faintly and said, "Old Yue, you lost rather quickly today. If not for those unreasonable overplays, your game could have advanced further."
Yue Jinshan did not resign. Instead, he said, "Failing to make that group live is merely my own lack of skill. It doesn't mean the group was doomed to die. If someone else were playing, the outcome might have been different."
Chen Dao replied, "That group should never have existed in the first place. When the broader trend has taken shape, how can anyone resist it?"
Yue Jinshan snorted. "If the so-called mandate of heaven and broader trend were truly insurmountable, then the Great Li would have endured for eternity. There wouldn't have been the dynasties that followed, much less the Great Tang."
Chen Dao frowned. "Those words border on treason."
"The ones who are truly treasonous are you hypocrites who mouth loyalty and righteousness while nudging the Great Tang inch by inch toward the abyss. What am I in comparison?"
Chen Dao's expression darkened. "Old Yue, out of our camaraderie as colleagues, I'll pretend I didn't hear what you just said. But if you keep running your mouth like this, and someone hears and reports it above, no one will be able to protect you."
Yue Jinshan placed another stone. "I am very grateful that you shielded me from the eunuch faction; I owe you a personal favor for that. But as for camaraderie, from the moment you called me over to play this game of Go, it was already just about exhausted."
"When two tigers fight, why shouldn't we sit back and reap the fisherman's spoils?"
Yue Jinshan said, "I cannot out-argue you; you always have a stack of sophistry ready. I know the noble lords at court keep saying that while Qingming is fine, it is not ours. Even if it is shattered and retains only twenty or thirty percent of its original efficacy, once brought back, it will still belong to our Western Jin as a boundary stone."
"And what is wrong with saying that?"
"For Western Jin, naturally nothing is wrong with saying that. But for the Great Tang, for the entire human race, shattering Qingming means truly losing eighty percent of a domain!"
Chen Dao sighed. "We are, after all, ministers of Jin."
"A loyal minister of Jin, but a traitor to the Tang!"
For a moment, Chen Dao was left entirely speechless.
Yue Jinshan said slowly, "I have spent my entire life on the battlefield. I was born with cheap bones. I simply cannot stand by and watch while someone fights to the death against an alien race."
Yue Jinshan reached out, plucked a white stone from the board, and tossed it into the stone bowl. Without that single white stone, the isolated group suddenly sprang to life.
"Lord Chen, if you would only raise your hand slightly, this group would live."
Chen Dao looked pensive, yet showed no sign of yielding.
Yue Jinshan stood up and said quietly, "No group of stones is born doomed to die. If a true master were playing it, it could live."
Yue Jinshan pushed open the door and departed. Chen Dao knew that the rift between them was now just like Yue Jinshan's retreating back, drifting further and further away.
***
Qingming.
The slaughter between both sides had reached its most gruesome stage.
Wei Yuan had already fallen back to the fifth defensive line. Every last grain of gunpowder and fire gun accumulated had been utterly exhausted. Now, with Ephemeral Multitude active, he was locked in hand-to-hand combat against the Shaman army, blade against blade and spear against spear.
Beneath Xuanwei Six, the life signatures of Shaman soldiers were vanishing at the speed of a burst dam. In the subterranean tunnels, Qingming warriors held heavy shields standing over half a man tall; just two men could block a corridor completely, after which they fired their guns through slits at the top and sides, and even through gaps along the bottom.
Wei Yuan could no longer count how many times he had spurred his mount into the fray and back. Across the entire battlefield, he remained the most striking presence. Wherever he went, the command banner behind him stood proud and unyielding.
With the command banner in one hand and a sword in the other, Xu Yi stayed right behind Wei Yuan. Her sole task in this battle was to protect the command banner and accompany Wei Yuan as he broke through the enemy formations.
Wei Yuan wanted everyone to see where the human commander was and what he was doing.
Watching from afar, Yanxin sneered, "Fool. As the commander-in-chief, charging the lines in person? Does he think he isn't dying fast enough?"
A Great Shaman beside him asked, "My lord, shouldn't we enter the fray as well?"
Yanxin flashed a cruel, bloodthirsty smile and said slowly, "What's the rush? Let more of the soldiers below die first. Only twenty-some percent have fallen so far; that's nowhere near enough. Weren't the tribes under Lord Hongye's rule hailed as the realm's finest elites? Losing thirty or forty percent shouldn't cause them to break, should it?"
The expressions of the several Great Shamans turned thoroughly grim. These warriors were the cream of their entire tribes; many of them were potential future Great Shamans. Yet now, they were being reduced to corpses on the battlefield.
One of the Great Shamans suddenly blenched. He sensed that the rate of casualties beneath Xuanwei Six had surpassed all expectations—more than half were already killed or wounded. He immediately ordered five thousand reinforcements from the center army to support them.
As soon as the order was given, Yanxin chimed in, "Add ten thousand more."
"What?" The Great Shaman wondered if he had misheard. Since the battle began, Yanxin had not once intervened in the command.
Yanxin said, "He stationed an elite force under the city. That's a death trap. Send more men down, and you can corner and slaughter them all. Oh, and there's a tunnel leading to the surface. I'll give you the exit's location; just send a detachment to guard it."
The Great Shaman hurried off to make the deployments.
Wei Yuan broke through the Shaman formation once again, drenched from head to toe in Shaman blood, his mount, the Azure Steed, already soaked crimson. Looking into the distance, he saw more than half of the Shaman rear guard peeling away and surging toward Xuanwei Six. His heart sank.
This time, Wei Yuan had stationed a two-thousand-strong elite force beneath Xuanwei Six, unlike the previous occasion when the defenders were mostly civilians native to the city.
Clearly, the Shamans had caught on to the underground threat and split their forces to wipe it out. But they had dispatched far too many troops; they were aiming to exterminate every single soul down there.
Fortunately, there was still that final escape tunnel. Wei Yuan felt a slight surge of relief. Though the tunnel was narrow and could only accommodate two men abreast, meaning few could escape, it was at least a glimmer of hope.
On the northern horizon, those Great Shamans continued to watch without the slightest inclination to take the field, sitting back as the foot soldiers waged bloody war on the ground.
A grinding war of attrition had originally been Wei Yuan's strategy. By relying on fire guns and Ephemeral Multitude to forcibly elevate their combat power, he sought to trade mortals who had merely begun initial Body Casting against elite Shaman warriors. It was impossible for the Great Shamans not to notice that these defenders were originally ordinary people. This was a piece-trading game with an exchange ratio of one to a dozen or even higher; they should have been feeling the sting.
Yet now, the Great Shamans remained entirely unmoved, as though the one who should be grieving was Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan suddenly felt a burning sting on his back, unaware of when he had been wounded. But he had no time to spare for the injury. Leveling his spear, he plunged into the Shaman ranks once more!
Every time Wei Yuan chose a moment and angle to charge, it was impeccably timed, rattling the Shaman formations to the greatest possible extent and repeatedly forcing their command banners to relocate.
Yet there were simply too many Shamans. The size of this host rivaled the entire population of Qingming. No matter how many Wei Yuan slew, there were always more ahead.
By this point in the battle, the Shamans had suffered over twenty thousand casualties, while Qingming had lost just under ten thousand. But from here on, there was no room for flukes; it was a pure contest of willpower and grit.
Wei Yuan broke out of the Shaman formation once again and returned to his own lines. Sweeping out with his divine sense, he located Cui Yu and flashed over to his side.
Cui Yu was gripping a saber and shield, soaked in blood, leaning on his blade to catch his breath. A nearby cultivator was tending to his latest wound.
The two looked at each other, both thinking the other had never appeared so wretched, and burst into laughter. But after just one laugh, Cui Yu aggravated his wound, and his face contorted in agony.
Without a word, he pulled out an elixir and swallowed it. This was another pill crafted by Sun Yu—one that stimulated potential, numbed pain, and granted immense strength. This was already the third one Cui Yu had taken since the battle began, and each pill's duration was shorter than the last.
Wei Yuan pointed toward the Great Shamans in the distant sky and asked, "Can you cuss them into coming down?"
Cui Yu paused. "Shamans don't even have faces. How are we supposed to cuss them?"
Wei Yuan thought for a moment. "They should be under the command of a Nether Shaman named Shu Li. Why don't we curse Shu Li instead?"
At this moment, Cui Yu hurt from head to toe, devoid of any inspiration. "May his sons be born without assholes?"
Wei Yuan pondered. "Do they even have that kind of thing?"
"Call him a coward who doesn't dare step onto the field, not even a man?"
"He was never human to begin with."
Cui Yu said in exasperation, "Nothing works with you! You do the cussing, then!"
"Forget it. I'll make another charge." Wei Yuan raised his spear and plunged back into the Shaman ranks.
***
Beneath Xuanwei Six, the garrison had been compressed into the lowest level. Within an empty hall, Yun Feifei sat with her upper body partially bared while a young lord from an aristocratic clan beside her pressed down hard on the wound on her back. Yet the gash was far too deep. Even as he frantically channeled his Daoist power, blood continued to pour out, quickly soaking through the robe pressed against the wound.
Near tears with desperation, he looked around, but all who surrounded them were severely wounded casualties unable to stand. The medicines had run out long ago.
Yun Feifei let out a groan of pain and stirred from her semi-conscious state. As her awareness returned and her Daoist power circulated, the bleeding slowed considerably. The first words out of her mouth upon waking were, "How many of us are left?"
The young lord said, "A moment ago there were still four hundred. Now there might only be three hundred and seventy, and half are lying here."
Yun Feifei listened carefully and said, "They really think highly of us—another ten thousand came down. Rest here; I'll go kill a few more!"
The young lord suddenly asked, "Aren't we going to retreat?"
Yun Feifei slowly shook her head. "If we retreat upward, those ten thousand enemies will follow us up. When that happens, the battle will be even more impossible to fight."
Watching Yun Feifei's back, the young lord suddenly summoned his courage and called out, "Sister Feifei, I... I love you! If we survive this battle, I will report to my family and marry you!"
Yun Feifei turned back, looked into the young lord's eyes, and asked softly, "Do you really love me?"
The young lord's gaze was resolute. "From the very first moment I saw you, I loved you! I know the one you love is the Domain Lord, but I was afraid that if I didn't say it now, I would never have the chance!"
Yun Feifei opened her arms, embraced him gently, and whispered in his ear, "If you truly love me, then die with me."
Yun Feifei picked up a steel pipe and hurled it into the escape tunnel.
The young lord watched the pipe roll into the depths of the tunnel. Dozens of critically injured soldiers in the hall watched as well. Their eyes held only serenity and resolve; not one moved to stop her.
With a deafening boom, the escape tunnel collapsed.
Through the dust and smoke, Yun Feifei's voice rang clear: "This is my home. I'm not leaving, not for anywhere!"
The earth suddenly convulsed as the entirety of Xuanwei Six sank ten feet into the ground. What was once a city turned into a deep pit, burying over ten thousand northern Shaman elites beneath the rubble.
Chapter 237