Golden Armor of the Northern Border

The Northern Border, Ice Spirit Palace. A colossal mountain range lay buried under boundless pristine white. A grand stairway, like a ladder ascending to the heavens, stretched from the foot of the mountain all the way to its summit, weaving through majestic palatial compounds that faded in and out of view amid the driving snow. The cold wind cut like a blade; the falling snow struck like arrows. A man clad in black armor made his way up the stairs from below. Heavy metal plates scraped with each stride, his iron boots crunching through the ice and snow underfoot. *Crack.* A crisp sound through the storm brought the black-armored man to a halt. He lowered his gaze toward the noise. Buried under the snow beneath his feet was a severed arm. The clean cut and the frozen, stiff flesh showed that its owner had been dead for quite some time. After staring at the severed arm for several breaths, Yuan Hao slowly looked down toward Ice Spirit Palace amidst the swirling snow. Beneath the firmament, wind and snow raged together, yet all was as silent as the dead of night. The once-splendid jade pavilions and jasper towers had already been reduced to ash in the flames of war. All that remained were broken walls and ruined foundations, silent testaments that a sect named Ice Spirit Palace had once existed here. Resuming his ascent, Yuan Hao encountered even more corpses. Some remains lay scattered across both sides of the stairs like shattered debris, while others were piled up like rubbish in front of the ruined jade palaces, heaped over by white snow into a massive burial mound. Building an immortal palace of this scale had taken decades, perhaps centuries. But destroying it had taken merely a single day. *Crunch... crunch, crunch...* War boots pressed into snow, each step crisp and clear. Before long, at the end of the stairway, Yuan Hao caught sight of the collapsed ruins of the Ice Spirit Main Hall, as well as a woman clad in golden armor sitting alone atop a massive boulder before the rubble. She was striking—phoenix eyes radiant as the moon, her features clear as water. At the summit of the mountain, where the wind and snow whipped violently, her supple black hair blew freely in the gale. Yet her bloodstained armor and the blade in her hand surrounded her entire being with an endless, chilling baleful aura. As Yuan Hao approached, the woman's razor-sharp gaze slowly settled upon him. *Clack, clack...* With a rustle of grinding armor, the valiant woman slowly rose to her feet. Looking at the Black Scale commander before her, she spoke with a hint of weariness: "You're late." Yuan Hao offered a respectful bow and replied with a smile, "Indeed, we have arrived late. It must have been about five days since Your Highness Wuyuan annihilated Ice Spirit Palace. I imagine the supplies and wealth within have already been fully inventoried." Hearing this, Li Qingyan stared at him for several breaths, her red lips parting slightly. "Commander Yuan came all this way just to borrow supplies? If I recall, your Black Scale Guards wiped out the Luoxian Sect not long ago. You shouldn't be short on provisions for the time being." Due to the terrifying plague that had swept across nearly all three northern provinces, official post roads across the land had been largely blocked. Consequently, the logistical supply lines for every army stationed in the Northern Border had run into varying degrees of trouble. It wasn't merely the soldiers' rations; spirit weapons, armor, and siege engines had all fallen into shortage as well. If the various armies wished to maintain peak fighting strength, they were essentially forced to sustain themselves through conquest—feeding war with war. Of course, armies that shared close ties could also assist one another. Given the relationship between Li Qingyan and Xu Yuan, and the fact that she currently held an abundance of supplies, if he wished to borrow... "Your Highness misunderstands." Yuan Hao straightened after bowing and said softly, "I have come to deliver a message to Your Highness Wuyuan." *To deliver a message...* Li Qingyan's expression instantly turned solemn, a flicker of contemplation appearing in her crimson phoenix eyes. After a few breaths, she asked in a low voice, "Are you proposing a joint operation?" Did he come all this way hoping to rope her into some major strike? The current situation of the Northern Border flashed rapidly through her mind. Because of the catastrophic blizzards and the man-made disaster brought on by the epidemic, the original plans had been completely thrown into disarray. When dealing with the surging tide of the infected, her Feather Forest Guards had collaborated with the Prime Minister's Manor's Black Qilin Army a few times. But now that the plague and the man-made chaos had been brought under control, subtle shifts had begun to emerge in the shared stance between the imperial family and the Prime Minister's Manor. On the broader front, they remained allies. After all, the Sect Alliance was doing everything in its power to sabotage the infrastructure across the three northern provinces, whereas their ultimate goal was to eradicate the northern sects while preserving their subordinate enterprises, securing a stable rear capable of producing wartime supplies for the future. Yet on the finer details, frictions and disputes had already surfaced. A new round in the slaughter race had begun. Only this time, the targets were no longer the tens of millions of infected commoners, but rather the Northern Border sects that had suffered devastating losses during the war against the Barbarians. In short, the imperial family and the Prime Minister's Manor were competing for territory. The sects conquered and industries seized by the Black Qilin Army would clearly never be handed over to the imperial court. And vice versa. At this thought, Li Qingyan looked at the man before her, a faint sigh tinging her phoenix eyes. Under her command, her Yulin Guards had strictly stayed in line. However, the other imperial armies and the Prime Minister's forces had already begun tripping each other up over these matters. Neither side wished to see the other seize too many northern industries and swell excessively in power. According to the intelligence she had gathered, both sides were still in the testing phase, engaging merely in minor harassments such as intercepting supplies and disrupting each other's logistics. Yet if such sparks were not snuffed out, the conflict would only spiral out of control. It could eventually deteriorate into open sabotage, with the imperial faction and the Prime Minister's faction destroying the production facilities held by the other. After a fleeting moment of thought, Li Qingyan's expression shifted slightly, and she said in a stern voice, "If it is reasonable, I can agree to it." As one of only three commanders representing the imperial family in the Northern Border, choosing to collaborate with the Black Scale Guards at this juncture would serve as an unmistakable stance. With the Sect Alliance still circling like wolves, how could internal strife break out within the court? Yuan Hao showed a flash of surprise in his refined eyes upon hearing this, but he quickly understood the princess's intent and offered a soft smile. "Your Highness's righteousness is admirable, and that matter can certainly be discussed. However, the message I came to deliver is not about military affairs." "..." Snow swirled through the air; silence fell in an instant. Li Qingyan's delicate brows furrowed slightly. She casually swept a stray lock of black hair behind her back and asked, "Then what are you here for?" Yuan Hao lowered his head slightly. Weighing his words, he ultimately decided to speak plainly before this princess of formidable military renown: "The Third Young Master was assassinated and perished on his journey south." "..." Li Qingyan froze for a moment, and her expression turned somewhat strange. "You're saying that fellow is dead?" Yuan Hao kept his head lowered, his voice very quiet. "Your Highness has been besieging the mountain gate of Ice Spirit Palace all these days. Under the shroud of the Sun-Blotter, no information could reach you. In another two or three days, the imperial family will likely dispatch someone to inform you as well." "..." Hearing this, Li Qingyan narrowed her phoenix eyes and unconsciously tightened her grip on the hilt of her blade.