Chapter 826: The Four Arts of the Military – Archery

"Bring my precious bow!"

Tuoba Tao ordered. When his personal guards heard this, they carefully brought out the precious bow made of ten-thousand-year iron-ribbed wood clamped with Pixiu tendons, and the horn and bone of a Great Strength Demon Ox from the bow case.

One could see Dao patterns engraved on the bow body.

On the bone bow body, the innate demonic patterns of the Great Strength Demon Ox ran through the entire bow body.

Such great strength patterns, as long as they were soaked in Qi and blood, could erupt with the innate divine ability of the Great Strength Demon Ox, bolstered by the power to move mountains.

Only the ten-thousand-year iron-ribbed wood from overseas, one inch thick, and the tendons of a prime Pixiu from the Pixiu tribe of the northern demon department used as glue, could hold it tight and bear it!

The bowstring was also made of the tendons of a deep-sea giant dragon, and ten-thousand-year cold iron from the seabed, smelted and forged with the military secret art and Heavenly River star sand, twisted into extremely tough star steel wire!

Tuoba Tao calmed his heart and spirit, and the veins on his hands bulged, only then bending the bow arms to string it.

"This Goose-Cry Bow is a precious treasure passed down in my clan!"

He said slowly: "In the past, my ancestor Tuoba Shiyijian held this bow to hunt demons in the north. He was attacked by the Lie Mountain Demon Ancestor of the Heavenly Bird Demon Department. In the moment of danger, the arrows were already shot, but many demon birds still pursued relentlessly. He fired this bow empty, the string snapping and shaking his arms, but his eyes and hands were still one, his killing intent penetrating his bones, actually scaring the Great Demon Cold Goose to death."

"The group of demons then retreated..."

"Since then, this bow has been named Goose-Cry. After my ancestor bought dragon tendons and cold iron from overseas at a high price to repair the bowstring, it has been passed down from generation to generation!"

Heita carefully took the precious bow. It was indeed incomparably heavy in his hand. Without hundreds of thousands of jin of giant strength, don't even think about pulling this bow open...

He said blankly: "Does the Commander mean that if I win, you will bestow the precious bow upon me?"

Tuoba Tao was speechless with anger. Looking at the tiger-headed Heita, he said with a dark face: "This is my family's heirloom precious bow; how can I give it to you? It's just that I see your cultivation is shallow, and I fear you won't be able to exert the subtlety of the military art of archery, so I am only lending it to you temporarily!"

He bit the sound heavily on the word "lend". Sending out a precious horse with the bloodline of a True Dragon Heavenly Horse was enough to make his heart ache for three days!

If he sent out the precious bow again, Heita wouldn't be that close even if he were his son...

He took a thumb ring from his hand and said: "That! The Bodhi Heart Wood thumb ring, blessed by a high monk for a hundred years, is also lent to you..."

"Oh!" Everyone exclaimed in unison.

Qian Chen, however, saw that these were all tests.

"Calm your heart..."

Qian Chen's voice came through Yuwen Heita's team channel: "This archery test won't be as easy to pass as the last one!"

"My archery is not bad; I could hunt foxes at six!"

"Does hunting foxes require such a precious bow?" Qian Chen pointed out: "In the last round, you relied on the subtlety of the 'Military' character seal to command everything to win. This round won't be that simple!"

"The 'Military' character seal commands everything, and the art of riding is to cultivate the command of the mount, adding all the blood Qi and divine abilities of the mount to oneself."

"Expanded like this, it means commanding the soldiers you lead, commanding all their blood Qi, malevolent Qi, divine abilities, and momentum, and returning them to yourself."

"The Kingly Way can forge a military soul, condense military momentum, with the main general as the brain and Primordial Spirit, and the army like limbs and body, turning into one person."

"The Hegemonic Way can restrain everything, swallow everything, nourish oneself, treat the army as a mount, take oneself as the master, and with various bolsterings, can fight across two or three major realms!"

"And what the art of riding tempers is the foundation. What comes after is the Dao of formations in the four arts of the military. After all, the mount is beneath your crotch, but the soldiers are scattered. Without formations to condense malevolent Qi, morale, and strength, you can never mobilize them as one body."

"And archery is another path..."

"If you use the 'Military' character seal as roughly as before, you will definitely lose!"

Heita held the Goose-Cry precious bow, sitting there, holding the precious bow with both hands, seemingly meditating and calming his heart.

Tuoba Tao nodded slightly and said to the people around him: "The bow has just been strung, we need to wait a while..."

"At the same time, meditate and calm your heart, blending your breath with it, only then can you command it slightly."

"Although our military's divine weapons are not like those of Daoist cultivators, which have various seals, if you don't get the method, you have to re-refine them to use them. But long-term scouring with Qi and blood and condensing of spirit also makes them like limbs."

"Even divine weapons truly nurtured by oneself are more exclusive to outsiders than the Daoist sect's life-bound artifacts!"

"Of course, most of them are not like this, but you still have to communicate and refine them with your own malevolent Qi, or even command and suppress them with the supreme majesty of the military, only then can you truly use them."

Pojuliuhan, who was beside him, said: "Then why did the Commander make him use this bow? Is it another test?"

"It is a test, but also a promotion. With his cultivation, without a precious bow, he won't be able to exert the essence of the military art of archery!" Tuoba Tao said calmly.

Pojuliuhan was shocked: "What essence? Isn't archery just about shooting accurately?"

"Are you a military seed?" Tuoba Tao asked back with disdain.

Pojuliuhan said submissively: "I'm just a regular soldier, I don't have your proper military inheritance..."

"It's not an inheritance either. The mystery of the military is to hide extremely profound things in extremely rough foundations."

"True natural military seeds can gradually comprehend the true meaning on the battlefield even by tempering the roughest military inheritance, and cultivate earth-shattering military divine abilities. Then they are invincible, moving forward without hesitation, and have no more rivals!"

"Of course, there are also military seeds who have obtained the best inheritance and the most luxurious resources since childhood, and lead iron cavalry in their twenties, invincible in the world!"

Heita asked Qian Chen for advice: What exactly is the essence of archery contained in the 'Military' character seal?

"First, hold the seal and command this weapon!"

Qian Chen's voice was cold.

Heita held the seal in his heart, and the Goose-Cry precious bow in his hand was instantly controlled by the 'Military' character seal.

Tuoba Tao's eyes widened on the side. In his invisible perception, the precious bow that originally belonged to him actually surrendered to Yuwen Heita in an instant.

The golden light that flashed in his pupils did not escape Tuoba Tao's eyes.

"What kind of Buddhist divine ability did Heita cultivate? It's actually so overbearing! Even a divine weapon precious bow that is above his own level can be forcibly driven!"

Tuoba Tao was suspicious in his heart, but he remained unmoved—just like this, he still had no way to pass the test.

"There is one more thing!"

Qian Chen's voice was faint.

Yuwen Heita instantly remembered the thumb ring in his hand, and he put on the Bodhi Heart Wood thumb ring, also commanding it with the 'Military' character seal.

"Now I will tell you a story; the essence of the military art of archery is in it!"

Qian Chen said gently: "In the past, the military cultivator Han Zhuo learned archery from Hou Yi, who usurped the throne of the Heavenly Xia Divine Dynasty. Hou Yi asked him to first learn 'Instant', which is the power of vision, before coming to learn divine archery from him."

"Han Zhuo hung the flying shuttle of the Weaver Girl from the Guanghan Palace before his eyes, staring at it for two hundred years, and finally could look at the ice-cold light of the flying shuttle spirit treasure without blinking."

"Even the speed of divine light could still be captured by his vision."

"When he went to ask Hou Yi again, Hou Yi said, the divine eye can capture every instant, can observe the fastest changes in time, will not blink, and vision will not ignore things that pass by at the fastest speed; this is only the foundation."

"You must also see the small as large, see the micro as the manifest, and see with your heart when your eyes do not see!"

"So Han Zhuo caught the smallest Wuxiang Yu from the Nine Netherworlds. It could change size at will. In the moment of hunting, it would expand from the most minute—so minute that even the divine sense of a Nascent Soul True Immortal could not detect it—to the size of a ball, spitting out poisonous sand to hunt gods, demons, and fierce beasts."

"Han Zhuo hunted the Ten Thousand River Divine Yak of the Arctic Heaven, used its hair to tie the expanding Wuxiang Yu, and then let it shrink to be imperceptible."

"His divine eyes stared at the Yu insect; it soaked and grew for a decade. Three hundred years later, the Yu insect was as large as a cart wheel in his eyes. A thousand years later, the Yu insect was already as large as a mountain in his eyes, covering half the sky. Only then did he untie the hair, release the Yu insect back to the Nine Netherworlds, and then stand outside the South Gate of the Heavenly Court, drawing his bow and setting his arrow..."

"That arrow pierced through the Nine Heavens, sank into the Ten Earths, and shot from the Heavenly Court into the Nine Netherworlds, shooting the original Yu insect to death among the vast darkness and infinitely hidden Yu insects!"

"Han Zhuo's archery finally reached perfection, so he returned to the Heavenly Court, shot Hou Yi to death, and established himself as the Heavenly Emperor!"

"Of course, this is just a story of the Heavenly Xia Divine Dynasty. The so-called Heavenly Emperor was just an emperor of the human world. However, Han Zhuo shooting arrows on the South Heavenly Gate is very likely true. I once looked back at the Nine Netherworlds and seemed to have seen an arrow that sank into the Nine Netherworlds..."

Qian Chen chattered on, while Yuwen Heita's heart was already terrified to the extreme.

Does the military really have such terrifying abilities?

Are we not just cattle and horses enslaved by those in power?

A kind of ambition was planted in his heart, and the various concepts and shackles that bound him quietly loosened a crack...

The 'Military' character seal in his heart, as his heart gradually became completely quiet, became more and more illusory, and finally he heard a sound: "Military!"

That sound of the true word was like the heavenly sound emitted at the time of opening the heavens, echoing infinitely in his mind.

Qian Chen perceived all this and smiled slightly: "Still teachable!"

The essence of the military art of archery is not 'shooting', but the eye!

The general is the eye of the army. When military cultivators lead troops to fight, in long-range combat, the most important thing is actually locking onto the enemy.

Standing before the army, looking with his eyes, the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths are all in his eyes. Even the minute Yu insect, the Heavenly Ghost that shuttles through, and the invisible Yin Demon are all in his eyes. Then he draws his bow and sets his arrow, guiding the army, combining the strength of the masses into one arrow; above, he can shoot and kill the gods of the Heavenly Court, and below, he can pierce through the demon souls of the Nine Netherworlds.

In the countless realms of the cosmos, the only one who has practiced archery to this realm is the Primordial Divine General—Yi!

Bai Qi commands the Stellar Warship and can use his divine sense to lock onto any living being in other great worlds across realms.

With the Capital Heavenly Divine Thunder and the Star-Annihilating Crossbow Arrows, no matter where the enemy hides in the great world, there will be a heavenly disaster, and an arrow that pierces the stars will descend.

Moreover, he has no scruples about slaughter; often the Stellar Warship fires a round at the entrance of that great world, and the seeds of cultivation, the best-protected future, and even the living beings that serve as the foundation of that world are all shot and killed, annihilated!

Directly destroying the future of that great world...

Huo Qubing led troops deep into the north, able to lock onto the hidden divine mountains of the northern demon department and the royal court of the Xiongnu that could escape into the void at any time, trampling the Dragon City with horses!

In contrast, there is another great military cultivator, Li Guang.

Although he is the ancestor of the Longxi Li family, Qian Chen says bluntly that Li Guang is a typical example of someone with exquisite archery skills but poor archery art. He could shoot and kill the demon race's Great Sage Stone Tiger, but several times he went out of the fortress, he failed to lock onto the enemy army, lost his way, and returned empty-handed.

Heita finally understood why Tuoba Tao said that with his cultivation, he couldn't exert the essence of the military art of archery at all.

Because he hadn't even cultivated divine sense...

Heita opened his eyes, and everything in his eyes was incomparably massive. The minute things in the distance were like long whips in his eyes. Wearing the Bodhi Heart Wood thumb ring, his divine sense remotely locked onto the stone wall built of black stones engraved with Buddhist scriptures in front of him.

That was the mother wall set up in the training ground to prevent people from practicing archery, piercing the shooting range, and hurting comrades in the barracks and common people in the city.

It was also a part of the entire Huaihuang Town, bolstered by the formation and Buddhist Dharma of that majestic city.

Heita drove the Goose-Cry precious bow with the 'Military' character seal, and the dense bone patterns on it suddenly erupted with divine brilliance.

Man and horse as one, driving the massive Qi and blood of the Li Dragon, he forcibly pulled open the perfectly coordinated Goose-Cry precious bow with his strength.

"The first arrow, called Strength!"

Releasing the bowstring, the arrow was like a white rainbow, instantly piercing the refined steel target, shooting out from its heart.

It didn't stop until the arrow shadow sank into the black wall behind, and only a bit of its tail feathers could be seen outside the stone, not even trembling...

"Good archery!"

Tuoba Tao couldn't help but cheer.

But Heita turned around and drew his bow again. This arrow did not land in the eyes of anyone watching, and everyone was very strange, looking left and right.

"The second arrow, called Speed!"

Someone dared to say: "Heita, are you too anxious and missed the target?"

Only Qian Chen didn't care, while Tuoba Tao stared closely at the white dot on the black wall in the distance, calling to the people around him: "Go and pull the arrow out!"

At this time, the personal guards around him ran up, and seeing the arrow on the black wall, they gasped.

"There are three arrows here... one shot here, one arrow following the previous one, splitting this arrow, and then sinking into the position where the original arrow was in the stone, piercing through it..."

At this time, the military cultivators finally saw that what Heita had shot was actually a string of arrows.

Tuoba Tao was extremely satisfied. He came to Heita, took out an iron box from his waist, and said: "But these are all minor paths. The true archery for a general is only accuracy! Only the art of the eye is the Great Dao."

"Do you know what this is?" He opened the iron box.

Heita shook his head honestly.

"This is the Dust Demon Louse of the north, an exotic louse parasite living on the demon king of the northern demon department. It moves as fast as the wind and is imperceptible when it sneaks in. In the past, the demon king of the demon department often used this louse to spy on our human race's secret military intelligence."

"It is not only as small as one ten-thousandth of a speck of dust, but also has the divine ability to sneak and hide."

"Although this one is a hybrid selected by my Tuoba tribe, it is also one-tenth as powerful as a real demon louse. I will give you a quarter of an hour now to lock onto the aura of this louse. Then I will release this insect!"

"In this Huaihuang Town, you can shoot wherever you want. If you can shoot and kill this louse within three arrows, I will let you lead a team alone!"

"Remember, the Bodhi Heart Eye and the Goose-Cry precious bow are your only possibility of shooting and killing this louse..."

Once this test came out, even Pojuliuhan couldn't sit still.

He quietly pulled Tuoba Tao's sleeve and said in a low voice: "Isn't it too much to do this! This kind of archery..."

"He who is a general carries the safety of three armies and the survival of the country on his shoulders! When he moves, blood flows and drifts, covering the wilderness for ten thousand miles; when he is quiet, he consumes the wealth of ten thousand families, mountains of gold and silver to raise them... Such a great responsibility, how can it be easily borne? Therefore, I am the military seed, and you are the personal guard under my command."

"Only if he can show the posture of a military seed can he bear my heavy responsibility."

"Otherwise, just honestly go be a regular soldier! Being commanded by others, life and death are handed over to the commander..."

Tuoba Tao said solemnly.

The Han-surname noble Gao Ao, who was beside him, heard this and could only say bitterly: "We disciples of the Liuzhen, those with high aptitude all demand this of themselves; those with low aptitude also sacrifice their lives, tempering their bodies and armor, honing their skills, and resisting the demon race and Rouran."

"But what about those people in Chang'an?"

"Between laughter, they treat us as grass, trees, cattle, and horses; in their rashness, they decide the major affairs of the country."

"We have to be like this to be generals, like this to get generals! But over there, they are on the bed, in pure conversation, ascending the general-appointing platform, and getting the title of the Four Generals..."

"How can this make our Hebei men convinced?"

"Xianbei and Han people, those trapped here are all military families, those enjoying themselves in Chang'an are the nobles. Is the distinction of race really more disparate than the origin of rank? Will those nobles and powerful people still remember our Liuzhen military families?"

"They will!" Cold light appeared in Tuoba Tao's eyes, and he said in a low voice: "One day, we will go back and make them remember firmly!"

Heita held the iron box, staring at the tiny louse in the box for a full quarter of an hour. The 'Military' character seal had completely absorbed all his accumulations, condensing into a golden true word talisman, hanging in his sea of consciousness.

The 'Military' character seal controlled the Bodhi Heart Wood, turning his spirit into a kind of invisible divine sense.

He locked onto the aura of the demon louse tightly... ===== CHAPTER 827 =====