Was it impossible to fight a battle without artillery shells? Wei Yuan certainly did not think so. Personally leading his Dragon Wing cavalry in hot pursuit, he wiped out one rearguard force after another left behind by Lei Dong, pressing relentlessly on their heels.
Three thousand cavalrymen had driven an army of tens of thousands into headlong, panicked flight.
Several generals of the Leize Tribe could bear the disgrace no longer and clamored for battle. "My lord, let us counterattack!"
"My lord, this is too humiliating!"
"My lord, let us turn around and fight him to the death!"
Yet, resolute as the generals were in their willingness to die, Lei Dong's mind was set solely on flight. Had he not been unable to break away from the main host and travel on his own, he would have bolted back to their ancestral lands long ago.
Lei Dong vaguely sensed that his karmic luck was beginning to drain away, and sudden pangs of dread seized his heart time and again. With his arrogant, violent temperament, he normally would have clashed with Wei Yuan in a fight to the death. But now, the mere thought of Wei Yuan summoned the memory of that avian cry, instantly extinguishing any trace of fighting spirit.
At this moment, the demon blade showed no reaction whatsoever, resting as inert as a dead object. This only hardened Lei Dong’s resolve to flee.
He immediately said in a frigid voice, "You generals wish to slay the enemy? Very well! I shall give each of you two thousand warriors. You must hold the enemy back for an hour. That is all!"
The generals stared at one another in disbelief. They were willing to fight to the death, but this was sending them out purely to be slaughtered—the two were entirely different.
Wei Yuan devoured another three-thousand-man rearguard and advanced his army. Up ahead at a choke point stood several hundred Leize warriors, their faces blank and numb as they encircled a general in their midst. The general's eyes were wide with fury, but he had already taken his own life.
Seeing that these warriors had lost all will to resist, Wei Yuan drew rein and questioned them about what had happened. It turned out that the general, unwilling to suffer further humiliation and utterly disillusioned, had volunteered to command the rearguard only to kill himself immediately after.
Wei Yuan felt a twinge of pity. This was the fate of following the wrong leader. Even if one were temporarily blessed with karmic luck and usurped a high position, how could a seat remain stable when one's virtue failed to match the station? Sooner or later, someone would raise the banner of rebellion and cry out, *Are Creation Immortal Venerables born to their station?*
Startled, Wei Yuan hastily pulled back his drifting thoughts, realizing that his Dao heart had indeed been unsettled lately. It seemed that once he returned, he would need to read more history books to study how various dynasties across the ages suppressed rebellions. That sort of material, of course, would not need to be loaded into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Pointing out the direction for the Leize warriors to surrender, Wei Yuan pressed forward with the pursuit, indifferent to whether they would actually turn themselves in.
In this manner, Wei Yuan pursued them relentlessly for five hundred li. Lei Dong's center army came into view several times, yet Wei Yuan made no haste to charge their lines, merely watching at a leisurely pace as Lei Dong detached troops to form rearguards.
Whenever Lei Dong hesitated to send men back, Wei Yuan's killing intent would surge, locking squarely onto him. Only when Lei Dong dispatched another rearguard would Wei Yuan rein in his deadly aura.
Like this, Wei Yuan swallowed over a dozen of Lei Dong's rearguard detachments, totaling thirty to forty thousand warriors. Fewer than thirty thousand troops remained at Lei Dong's side. Wei Yuan was intentionally forcing Lei Dong to throw his men away; each time he did, his karmic luck drained a fraction further.
Near the end, Lei Dong had to execute Shamans just to assert authority and force out another contingent, only for those warriors to surrender the moment they met Wei Yuan.
At the five-hundred-li mark, Wei Yuan finally reined in his horse and called a halt to the pursuit. He projected his voice across the distance: "Little boy, will you remember how I chased you for five hundred li like a hare? With that pathetic character of yours, you think you deserve to inherit Hongye's realm? Get lost!"
Humiliated and furious, with no outlet for his rage, Lei Dong suddenly lashed out with his demon blade and butchered the two attendant shamanesses beside him!
Suddenly noticing the strange looks the surrounding Shaman generals cast in his direction, he felt a chill and finally regained his composure. Terrified that Wei Yuan might change his mind, he hurried his troops away.
Stationed atop a ridge, Wei Yuan watched the distant Leize army flee like a herd of cattle and sheep. He ordered, "Go fetch a few Leize captives. Have them deliver a message to that lad: surrender the demon blade, and I will let him remain master of Leize. Otherwise, my army will flatten his ancestral lands!"
Tianyu, standing nearby, asked, "How could he ever surrender the demon blade?"
Wei Yuan smiled. "Those words are meant for the demon blade to hear, and for anyone else in Leize qualified to inherit the high seat."
"And what if he actually hands it over?"
Wei Yuan chuckled. "Then naturally we let him stay master of Leize. Not only will we let him keep the post, but we will also find ways to ensure he sits firmly upon it. That will be your job."
Tianyu looked utterly baffled. "I'd already be doing well not to butcher him, and you want to keep him as master of Leize?"
Wei Yuan explained patiently, "After being hunted by me for five hundred li, most of his karmic luck has already scattered. The fellow possesses no real ability; thrust suddenly into power, a petty Shaman flush with success is bound to be arrogant and tyrannical. Inside, he is in absolute panic, terrified that someone will overthrow him any day.
"As long as he sits on the throne, Leize will never grow strong. Think about it: would you rather face an opponent like him, or a brilliant, formidable enemy?"
Tianyu pondered seriously for a long moment before answering, "Then I'd still rather face a brilliant, formidable opponent. Only with such an enemy does a Shaman's life have any meaning!"
Wei Yuan was left entirely speechless.
Had Tianyu blurted it out without thinking, it would have been one thing, but this was his answer after careful consideration. It seemed there was good reason the Desolate Ancestor Tribe had never prospered in the past, and its future prospects looked equally grim.
Clearly, every profession had its specialty; brawn was truly no match for brains—though the Hall Master of the Bright King would surely disagree.
Tianyu had also accompanied Wei Yuan throughout the pursuit of the routed army. After five hundred li of hard riding, he remained high-spirited and showed not the slightest fatigue, though the six Power Shamans at Dao Foundation perfection looked somewhat drained.
Xu Wenwu, on the other hand, was drenched in sweat and could barely lift his arms. Had the artillery shells not run out later on, he wouldn't even have had a moment to catch his breath. Yet despite his physical exhaustion, a faint spiritual light drifted around him. His origin soul was extraordinarily vibrant, his cultivation having advanced noticeably, and his Dao Foundation was now mostly consolidated.
Such progress was far swifter than Wei Yuan’s had been, which astonished Wei Yuan greatly.
In truth, once the war chariot expended its ammunition, every subsequent shell fired had been manifested by Xu Wenwu. With no shells left to shoot, Tianyu had taken on the role of designating targets for Xu Wenwu while serving as "meat armor."
Xu Wenwu had thoroughly indulged his appetite for battle, his gunnery growing smoother by the minute. With every blast that wiped out a swath of Shamans, his Dao heart improved a step, and his Dao Foundation grew firmer—almost as though he had returned to those college days when he hid in his dorm skipping class to game.
His only regret was that the fighting had moved too fast for him to dismount and loot the corpses; otherwise, he would never have spared a single pouch.
By now, seventy to eighty percent of Lei Dong's karmic luck had dispersed, but the small remainder was still troublesome. A single lapse could easily allow him to slip away.
Wei Yuan already possessed a profound understanding of karmic luck. The fastest and most bountiful way to acquire it was through war; victory in a major campaign could noticeably elevate a state fortune.
The second way was improving the people's livelihood to gather human karmic luck. That path possessed the virtue of stability, flowing steadily like a gentle stream. Once a population reached scale, the luck gained was formidable. Yet by comparison, it was also the most difficult path; history books recorded far more renowned generals than enlightened rulers.
Just as karmic luck was gained in this way, so too was it lost.
By contrast, had Lei Dong fled across ten thousand li, the karmic luck he consumed would have been far less, and Wei Yuan might not have achieved results even after hunting him for years. History held no shortage of great factions that hunted children of karmic destiny for centuries without success, only for the targets to achieve supreme cultivation, return, and tear the factions out by their roots.
Therefore, Wei Yuan intended to tether Lei Dong to the seat of Leize's ruler. So long as he remained in power, military defeat and economic ruin alike would continuously chip away at his karmic luck.
There was another reason Wei Yuan left unsaid: Tianyu might dislike an adversary like Lei Dong, but Wei Yuan fancied him immensely. Wei Yuan harbored no romantic desire to test himself against every hero under heaven; he wished nothing more than for everyone else to think with their rear ends, allowing him to simply coast to an effortless victory.
The phrase "coast to victory" was also something he had learned from Xu Wenwu, and it was exceedingly apt.
Chapter 624