Follow Me!

Before Wang Ping's words had even finished echoing, Yan Weichuan decisively wheeled his horse around. "Run!" With the commander fleeing first, the battle formation collapsed without a fight. Yet Yan Weichuan had no attention to spare for anything else, desperate only to widen the distance between himself and Wang Ping. After all, he could not afford to die here. He had just secured ties with the Imperial Academy and gained the backing of a thaumaturge; days of glory, rank, and wealth were practically within reach. How could he throw his life away like this? As for the Tabai Battalion, losing them was no great loss. Once he rose to prominence in the future, he could simply recruit another. At that thought, he spurred his mount into a frantic gallop. To his despair, however, no matter how hard he rode, the abyss before him seemed entirely boundless. All that met his eyes was impenetrable darkness. *Never mind. Even if I can't escape this place, as long as I can put distance between myself and that thaumaturge...* In the next instant, Yan Weichuan's fleeting hope was mercilessly shattered. "Hmph. Thinking of escaping?" A vast wave of sound rolled through the air. Yan Weichuan whipped his head back in terror, only to find Wang Ping still standing not far away—as though all his desperate flight had been nothing more than running in place! And in truth, it was. Though the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag possessed its own interior space, it was hardly boundless. It barely accommodated the Tabai Battalion, roughly the size of a single village. Yet within this spatial domain, Wang Ping held absolute control. That was precisely why Yan Weichuan could not flee. Every time he covered a certain distance and approached the boundary of the flag's space, Wang Ping would extract that stretch of space and splice it right back in front of him. The result was the spectacle before him. He had not merely felt like he was running in place; he truly had been. And since someone was eager to exhaust his own stamina in vain, Wang Ping was naturally pleased to let him. "Why! Why is this happening?!" "Keep running!" Yan Weichuan roared at the top of his lungs, looking entirely driven into a corner. The military formation around him continued to dwindle under the ravenous feeding of the fiends. Soon, he opened up some distance once more. Wang Ping repeated the trick, immediately cutting the space Yan Weichuan had covered and pasting it back in front of him, preparing to sit back and watch him squander his strength. Yet right at that moment— *Neigh!* With a sharp whinny, while most of the Tabai Battalion's officers and men were still fleeing blindly ahead, Yan Weichuan suddenly wheeled his mount around to face Wang Ping. Turning alongside him were several dozen personal guards who had shielded him from beginning to end. These were his true diehards, men willing to brave life and death at his side. The dozens swiftly aligned into a simple arrowhead formation and launched a countercharge straight at Wang Ping! "Kill...!" In this instant, every trace of panic and bewilderment vanished from Yan Weichuan's face, replaced by a desperate, lethal ferocity. This was his true colors! As a battalion commander, maintaining composure at all times was a fundamental instinct. Perhaps his earlier flight had indeed stemmed from shaken resolve, but his seasoned training had allowed him to swiftly recognize a fatal opening. *The space is shifting!* Yan Weichuan had caught on to Wang Ping's method. *The space behind me is being swapped to the front. If so, that means there is a single instant when the distance between me and that thaumaturge shrinks to its absolute minimum!* That was his opening. Thus, he had feigned ignorance while biding his time, waiting until this precise moment to strike, countercharging during the split second Wang Ping cut and shifted the space. To prevent being detected ahead of time, he had been unable to pass down orders. Those who followed him without hesitation in that first heartbeat were only his diehard guards, barely a few dozen men... Yet even so, they could form a compact military array and deliver a lethal strike! *Rumble!* In the next second, Yan Weichuan led his dozens of guards like an arrow loosed from a bowstring, braving the tearing bites of hundreds, thousands of fiends, hurling himself recklessly toward Wang Ping! *As long as I kill this thaumaturge, a path to life will open!* Yan Weichuan furiously spun the Spiritual Chariot of Ten Thousand Blades, fortifying the array, tearing through the dark clouds formed by the fiends until Wang Ping's figure appeared inches away. A breath, and he drew his blade. *Clang—!* A clear, ringing blade cry seemed to trace out the phantom of a towering white steed, hooves thundering like drums as it galloped along the edge of the blade, carving a white line across the void. The white line hung suspended in empty air, cleanly bisecting the blade's edge and its ringing cry into stark contrast. The sound lingered in place, while the edge surged far ahead of it, shattering the limits of sound and erupting in violent turbulence that thrust straight toward the space between Wang Ping's brows, three inches away! *I won!* At this very moment, watching the edge of his blade close to within a hair's breadth of Wang Ping's brow, Yan Weichuan could not help but entertain that thought. And yet, that thought— "Utterly idiotic." *Boom!* The sound barrier was likewise broken in an instant. Air currents detonated like crashing ocean waves as Wang Ping's bare palm cleaved through the surge, slicing across a world rendered completely silent. Seeing this, Yan Weichuan could not help thinking: *As fast as me?* In the very next instant, he understood it was merely an illusion. Because Wang Ping was faster! *Clang!* A crisp chime of colliding iron and gold rang out. Wang Ping's palm arrived later yet struck first, resting lightly against the blade tip aimed straight at his brow, his five fingers clenching tight. *Rumble!* The second explosion came from Yan Weichuan's saber. The instant Wang Ping seized the tip, all kinetic momentum was locked dead, unable to advance even an inch. Yet Yan Weichuan's reckless charge could not simply be halted. Thus, every ounce of kinetic force discharged directly into Yan Weichuan's saber. This renowned treasure, tempered countless times to embody the Tabai Battalion's military might, fractured inch by inch before shattering into pieces. Yan Weichuan himself could not arrest his momentum, hurtling helplessly toward Wang Ping. "No! No!" In that moment, Yan Weichuan could only widen his eyes in horror as Wang Ping slowly raised his other hand, while he himself crashed irrepressibly straight toward that open palm! "Spare me..." Before his plea could fully leave his lips, Wang Ping's palm had already thrust flat before his face. The center of the palm pulsed, tugging at his heart as torrential divine intent poured forth without reserve. Under the influence of that divine intent, time seemed dilated countless times over. Yan Weichuan could clearly see that fair, slender hand draw near and press against the center of his forehead, while the white steed born of the Tabai Battalion's military force crumbled away beneath the strike. Every word died in his throat. For his head was gone once more. Having lost his head a second time, Yan Weichuan's body began to twist and buckle. Faint wails drifted from the paper talisman doll, and a soul drenched in vengeful malice floated out. "You killed me? You killed me again! I will never let this rest—!" The voice cut off abruptly. Having slain Yan Weichuan with a single strike, Wang Ping closed his fingers into a claw and snatched the soul into his palm, holding it like a helpless fledgling. A soul was immaterial, something mortal hands ought never to touch. Yet clutched in Wang Ping's grasp, Yan Weichuan felt as though he had been plunged into a searing cauldron, roasted and fried, his consciousness rapidly fragmenting amidst agonizing torment. That searing agony swiftly cleared his malice-clouded mind. "No, wait..." *Crack!* Wang Ping channeled the technique of Soul Pursuing and squeezed his fingers tight. In an instant, Yan Weichuan's soul was extinguished, leaving behind only a wisp of faint blue smoke that dissolved into nothingness. At the same time, the utterly broken Tabai Battalion was swept clean by the fiends. In the end, only the Spiritual Chariot of Ten Thousand Blades fluttered down into Wang Ping's hand. It was a pity it did not even count as a dharma artifact, capable only of bullying ordinary mortals. Still, that mattered little to him; he enjoyed bullying mortals just fine. "That actually cost me a bit of effort." Wang Ping closed his eyes to examine his state and sensed that the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag's power had been depleted by nearly half a tenth—the root of which was Daoist Nun You's magical power. *My current form is, after all, an artifact.* *As an artifact spirit, whatever I do within the flag's space is inconsequential, but to interfere with the outside world requires the support of the artifact master's magical power.* *The only reason I can intervene externally right now is that Daoist Nun You infused a sufficient measure of magical power into the artifact before sending me here. But magical power is finite. Once it runs dry, I will lose the ability to affect the world outside, and my only choice then will be to start over.* At that realization, Wang Ping felt a faint chill in his heart. *Looks like I must find ways to conserve it.* With a shift of his thoughts, he separated from the flag's spatial realm and returned to the outskirts of Longxing County. His spiritual sense reached into the distance, tracking two figures. Shen Monkey and Xu Dog. Because he had swept away the Tabai Battalion earlier, the celestial disturbances had subsided, allowing the two royal consecrated masters to slip safely into the seat of Longxing County. *Well, let them serve as the vanguard.* They were royal consecrated masters, after all. Since they still dared to charge into the county seat under such circumstances, they likely had hidden trump cards left unused. They might as well save him some effort. It could be considered making good use of their value as human sacrifices... At that thought, Wang Ping wore an odd expression. Truly, one took on the color of one's surroundings; the damned immortal sects' habits had corrupted even him. Yet he soon let the thought go. *Unlike those immortal sects, I am a good person. How could we be the same?* Steeling his resolve, he watched with a clear conscience as Shen Monkey and Xu Dog vanished into the depths of Longxing County, before turning his gaze in the opposite direction. There, Wu Xintai was walking toward him with an anxious expression. He recognized Wang Ping at first glance, yet he found it impossible to reconcile the terrestrial immortal floating in midair with the gold-bearing armed cavalryman of his memory. He parted his lips several times, only managing to force out a hoarse murmur: "Greetings, my Lord..." "At ease." Wang Ping waved a hand, his gaze drifting past Wu Xintai toward the Black Armor Battalion, half of whom were wounded, and the people sheltered behind them. The vast majority were the common folk who had gathered outside the walls due to the famine. Emaciated and hollow-cheeked, some of the elderly were so frail they could no longer stand, lying motionless upon the ground to quietly await death. Beside them, he caught sight of Liu Ye and Madam Su. When the Black Armor Battalion had been plunged into crisis earlier, Liu Ye had stepped forward to speak while Madam Su bustled about, helping tend to the wounded and the elderly, barely keeping the restless common folk from descending into panic. Liu Ye had only just recovered from a severe illness, his face still pale. As for Madam Su, she had completely lost the exquisite beauty of their first meeting, looking somewhat disheveled, her limpid, autumn-water eyes streaked with fine red veins. And yet... *Madam looks even lovelier.* Wang Ping silently mouthed the words, transmitting them through his spiritual sense. The sight brought tears to the eyes of Madam Su, who had already spotted him, though she quickly wiped them away with stubborn resolve. Drawing back his gaze, Wang Ping looked once more toward the common folk. In the next instant, the fiends he had previously absorbed into the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag surged out in a swarm. As they touched down, their monstrous visages melted away, revealing the likenesses they had worn in life. "Is that... Third Uncle?" "Father! It's Father!" "Mother, how... you're still alive?" "My son... how can this be!" "Eldest Uncle is here too!" All at once, the common folk who had cowered in terror from the fiends burst into an uproar, rushing toward the assembled spirits. Fiends retained no memories of their former lives. Their past selves—the parents, kin, and children of these common folk—had long since dissolved alongside their souls and memories. What unfolded now was, generously speaking, a piece of theater; bluntly put, it was merely using fiends to bewitch mortals, offering nothing beyond hollow solace. Yet what of it? If this could grant the living a shred of comfort, why not indulge it? What was more— "The famine still remains." Wang Ping turned around, gazing toward the distant county seat of Longxing. If left unattended, even if he saved these commoners now, they would ultimately starve to death. For that, sufficient grain had to be found. Where was the grain? Inside the county seat. Every grain of rice the court had squeezed from the countryside during the autumn tax collection lay stored within the granaries. That made matters simple. Wang Ping swept his sleeve, raising the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag in a firm grip as it billowed against the wind. All the fiends rose alongside it, turning to look toward Longxing County. Following them, the gazes of the common folk shifted in turn. Finally, the eyes of the commoners fell upon Wang Ping. They heard the spirited young man raise the battle flag and proclaim to them with resolute force: "Follow me!"