Under the power of the Cloud Qi Bombs, the wind and snow vanished into thin air.
The earth saw the light of day once more. Vast expanses of azure stretched across the heavens, and warm sunlight cascaded outside Beifeng City just as it had since time immemorial.
Upon the brown earth, frozen blood and stiffened corpses bore silent witness to the war and death that had just unfolded.
With the snow clouds dispersed, a brief warmth returned, and the bloody ice began to melt, seeping into the soil as nourishment.
The flowers and grasses here next year would likely grow lush and beautiful.
Yet most of the people here would not live to see the coming year, for the war was far from over.
With its northern wall collapsed, the massive Beifeng City had become a colossal millstone of flesh and blood, endlessly devouring the lives of the living.
The Barbarians' morale surged like a rainbow, while the three hundred thousand troops of the sect border army struggled to mount their final resistance.
Yet the Barbarians' offensive came wave upon wave, unbroken like an ocean tide.
As a common grunt with no background, Li Zixiang had arrived at the Northern Border five years ago from a martial arts hall affiliated with Lingshui Palace.
Compared to the grizzled veterans who had spent a decade or even decades in the North, five years was not particularly long, but he happened to arrive just in time for the Barbarian invasion.
War brought danger, but also opportunity.
When he first encountered these tall, burly, fierce-looking foreigners on the battlefield, Li Zixiang had harbored a natural fear. But over time, he realized his fear was somewhat ridiculous.
These Barbarians were nothing more than spearheads made of pewter—flashy pretenders that shattered at the slightest touch from the Great Yan border army.
What a bunch of fools.
They couldn't win in a fight, yet insisted on invading Great Yan to the south. If they weren't fools, what were they?
Every time he took to the battlefield, he managed to reap considerable military merits from these dark-skinned simpletons.
It gave someone like him, without background or pedigree, a chance to get ahead.
In just five years, he had risen from a lowly pawn to a dubo.
It was hardly a high-ranking post in the army, but he had about fifty brothers under his command.
After setting aside enough from his monthly pay for his cultivation, he even had some left over to visit his sweetheart at the pleasure house. He had even agreed to redeem her contract once he saved enough money so she could bear him a plump, healthy son.
Yet now, all those hopes had vanished into thin air.
At the fourth watch two days ago, the generals who had previously insisted they hold their ground and await reinforcements suddenly issued orders to light the fires, cook meals, and prepare to break camp immediately.
Though bewildered, he obeyed, knowing those generals foresaw far more than an unlettered brute like him ever could.
And just as he thought,
as dawn approached,
those lofty generals once more deployed immortal arts to make the heavens open their eyes, scattering every last cursed snow cloud in the sky.
The Barbarians encircling the camp were instantly exposed within their field of view.
Very close.
Only about ten li to the east of their camp.
Li Zixiang had assumed this would be a fierce battle and even felt a thrill of excitement.
After all, these Barbarians meant military merit, and with a bit more merit, he might be promoted to tun commander next year.
As someone who had once worked as a laborer hauling cargo on the docks, this was something he had never dared dream of.
But reality rarely matched expectations.
The orders the generals handed down were not to engage the enemy, but to avoid the Barbarian main force, form ranks, break camp, and march into Beifeng.
This disappointed the merit-hungry Li Zixiang. Under clear skies, unless the Barbarians had a death wish, they would never choose to clash head-on with an army of three hundred thousand.
Yet every loss brought a gain; soon, another order from the generals stirred Li Zixiang's excitement once more.
As part of the border army subordinate to Lingshui Palace, Li Zixiang was assigned to the vanguard entering the city.
The Barbarians were certain to leave a garrison inside Beifeng City. If he could fight his way onto the battlements, that would be a major achievement.
Unfortunately,
from the very start, the script of the battlefield seemed to spiral out of control.
Countless boulders from Barbarian siege weapons rained down upon the vanguard's marching route, though for an army with its military array fully formed, this posed no real threat.
The soldiers resonated in unison, and their surging blood-qi pulverized the incoming projectiles into dust.
Yet the Barbarians had gone mad.
Beneath clear skies, they dared mount a massive pursuit against an army marching in full formation.
Countless Barbarian wolf riders threw themselves into the well-prepared rearguard like moths to a flame.
War erupted in an instant.
Li Zixiang assumed the generals would order an immediate shift in formation—
turning the vanguard into the rear, deploying the troops, and dealing a crushing blow to these reckless Barbarians.
Instead, the generals chose to fight a delaying retreat while ordering the vanguard to seize the battlements of Beifeng City as fast as possible.
Military orders were absolute. However little he understood, Li Zixiang could only obey.
After hours of bitter combat, they successfully routed the small Barbarian force holding the walls and captured the northern ramparts.
Thirty thousand vanguard elites entered the city to sweep away the remaining Barbarian forces, while a hundred thousand troops of the main center rapidly secured the walls. Quartermasters quickly set up basic defensive equipment along the parapets, preparing to receive the rearguard into the city.
As time slipped by,
as the vanguard of the vanguard, Li Zixiang fought until his eyes turned bloodshot within the city, watching his brothers fall one after another.
When his spirit blade notched and dulled against the Barbarians' tough, dark hide, he casually picked up another from a fallen comrade.
Empowered by the military array's blood-qi, even though he was only at the sixth rank, each of his strikes could not be parried head-on even by a fifth-rank Soul Condensation cultivator.
Slash after slash, Li Zixiang lost track of how many Barbarians he had slain, but black blood had completely stained his armor black.
Just as their vanguard was about to reach the southern wall and fully reclaim Beifeng City, an earth-shattering roar, like an earth dragon turning over, exploded behind them.
At that moment, time seemed to freeze.
The deafening roar sent tremors through the ground of the entire Beifeng City, and nearly everyone turned back to look toward the source of the noise.
Under the stunned gazes of the entire border army,
the great rampart of Beifeng, which had stood before the Barbarians for a thousand years, collapsed.
Earth shook and mountains cracked; shattered stone sprayed in all directions, and the dust billowed from the collapse enveloped half of Beifeng City.
What terrified all the lower-ranking officers even more was that the connection between their small military arrays and the commander-in-chief was severed at that very instant.
Morale that had been soaring was thrown into turmoil.
The collapsed wall trapped the more than one hundred thousand rearguard troops outside just as they were preparing to enter the city, and the loss of contact with the commander-in-chief left the super-large military array of the three hundred thousand border army fractured into isolated pockets.
The orderly battle descended into chaos, and at that moment, the scales of war tipped.
Two hours later, Li Zixiang successfully reached the top of the southern wall and looked back into the city.
Beneath a clear, vast sky, smoke billowed from the great city of Beifeng.
The screams of his comrades were faintly audible even from the southern ramparts.
A total rout...
"Boss Li..."
"Boss Li."
"Boss Li!"
A shout beside him jolted Li Zixiang from his memories. He instinctively looked around.
Around him was no longer the great city of Beifeng, but a vast expanse of white snowfields. Drifting flakes fell from the sky, nearly blinding their sight. A dozen-odd soldiers wrapped in heavy coats sat quietly resting, and standing beside the tree where he sat was a young man clad in standard border army armor.
Looking up at the newcomer, Li Zixiang gave a strained smile.
"Ah, Li Sha. What is it?"
The youth was not yet twenty years old, having just graduated from a martial arts hall this year and arrived at the Northern Border.
Li Sha tightened the winter coat around himself and whispered, "Boss Li, General Hou just sent word that we'll be reaching Houting County shortly. He told us to get ready to break camp and march."
Li Zixiang fell silent for a moment, glancing back at the demoralized soldiers around them. "Does this mean... we've shaken off the harassment from those Barbarian wolf riders?"
A smile appeared on Li Sha's youthful face. "Yeah. General Hou said Marquis Wucheng's reinforcements have already arrived in the vicinity of Houting County. The Barbarians most likely won't dare pursue this deep."
Hearing this, Li Zixiang felt a wave of relief wash over him. The corners of his lips curled up into a heartfelt smile.
"That's good... that's good then."
Four days had passed since the disastrous defeat at Beifeng. The armies had broken out in different directions, with Barbarian tribes pursuing relentlessly behind them.
At first, under clear skies, they were able to fight a delaying retreat. But that weather lasted only two days before a blizzard struck once more, and their remnant force of under twenty thousand men was targeted by a unit of Barbarian snow wolf riders.
Two days of pursuit had forced them to leave behind several thousand brothers' bodies in this snowfield.
Of the fifty men under his command, only these ten or so remained.
Still, thankfully, Houting County was within reach. They were finally safe.
Upon learning they were nearing Houting, the army's sunken morale began to recover slightly, and a flicker of hope returned to the bewildered eyes of the common soldiers.
Food, weapons, and safety could all be secured there.
With that conviction spurring them on, after four hours of forced marching, their remnant army finally reached the foot of Houting County's walls.
But the scene upon arrival was rather different from what Li Zixiang had imagined.
There was no hot water, no warm food, and no heated rooms; the tall, heavy gates of Houting County showed no sign of opening.
Li Zixiang instinctively assumed the defenders had mistaken them for Barbarians and hurried to the front of the ranks.
He saw General Hou and the young female general from another division standing below the city wall.
Both had their heads raised, seemingly speaking to someone atop the ramparts, though they appeared to be using voice transmission, making their conversation completely inaudible.
In contrast,
two figures clad in red stood atop Houting's walls, looking down with indifferent gazes upon this remnant force that had fled here with every ounce of strength they possessed.
Minute by minute slipped past, yet the gates still showed no intention of opening. Some high-cultivation practitioners in the army even peered through the wind and snow to see that the defensive siege engines atop the wall were already quietly aimed at them.
Just then,
a gentle, jade-smooth male voice, amplified by Source Qi, drifted down from the walls into the ears of every soldier below:
"General Hou, General Luo, as long as you agree to this condition, we will immediately open the gates and welcome your army inside. This young master does not have much patience; fifteen minutes should be ample time for you to consider."
A condition?
Hearing this, Li Zixiang grew even more bewildered. He glanced toward the two generals at the front of the ranks.
Their expressions were so dark they looked ready to drip ink.
Meanwhile, the soldiers below began murmuring among themselves. The remnant army, which had only just begun to steady, grew chaotic once more.
In his confusion, Li Zixiang channeled his technique and looked up at the two figures atop the ramparts.
The man on the wall seemed to sense his gaze, casting a smiling glance his way before casually drifting away.
Xu Yuan withdrew his gaze, pulled his heavy coat tighter around himself, and asked half-jokingly:
"Qingyan... aren't your terms a bit too harsh?"
Li Qingyan's red lips curled up in high spirits. She let out a scoffing chuckle and rolled her eyes at the man beside her.
"Handing over all their Sumeru rings and military supplies is harsh?"
Xu Yuan exhaled a breath of white mist, looked down at the remnant troops below, and remarked languidly:
"Yuan Hao sent word yesterday that he's taken in about thirty thousand routed troops one after another. All told, we can probably take in around seventy to eighty thousand remnants to reorganize. Getting something for nothing really does feel wonderful, tsk, tsk..."
Chapter 261