Chapter 139: 191, 192

Within the borders of the Wanling Empire, Hanting Valley.

The remaining thousand-plus armored soldiers of the Great Shang were dying incessantly, fighting desperately against the soldiers of the Wanling Empire.

In the center of the battlefield, the man in Xuanhua armor watched quietly as the Great General of the Shang Dynasty prayed frantically.

A long life of traveling and campaigning had added a sense of fortitude and resolution to the face of Song An, who was now thirty years old by traditional reckoning—at thirty, one stands firm.

Yet Song An had already experienced the joys and sorrows of life; those who have seen much death tend toward one of two extremes: one is an extreme fear of death, the other is an indifference toward life, whether it be their own or that of others.

Song An belonged to the latter.

He did not fear death.

But he was not reconciled to it.

Even if he were to die, he at least had to let the Young Miss escape, right?

A few wisps of warm breeze drifted from afar, the sun shining so fiercely that it made one's scalp burn; Song An put down the scroll of the Xuanwu Emperor.

"Have you given up?" The man in Xuanhua armor shook his head slightly, revealing a look of disappointment; he had originally wanted to see what this "divinity" of the Great Shang would be like compared to the Molten Empire.

"Then let's end this early."

The man in Xuanhua armor said with a lack of interest; he had only come to act as a trump card, and in truth, he had not intended to reveal himself.

After all, at the beginning, no one had expected that twenty-three Great Prayer Spirit Masters would actually die here, and he had seen the entire process clearly: apart from a few who were crushed by Song An's military formation on the front lines, the rest were slaughtered by the woman called A Ting using an incredibly strange method.

He was here precisely to capture A Ting.

A Ting harbored a secret.

The Emperor had intended to obtain this secret through marriage.

Unfortunately, A Ting was clearly not among the eligible candidates for marriage.

Therefore, after repelling the Molten Empire, the Wanling Empire immediately took action, launching a surprise attack with no warning, yet even so, the casualties were heavy.

This made even the man in Xuanhua armor develop a strong interest in A Ting.

At this moment, his expression was solemn; he raised his hand, recited silently, and blew out a long wind in one breath. The wind swept past the ten-plus armored soldiers coming from the left; those soldiers felt only a bone-chilling cold, lost all their strength, and then their vision went black as their life souls departed. Bang, bang, bang! The soldiers collapsed to the ground.

Song An grabbed his blade and swept a glance at the Young Miss not far away.

A Ting was an ordinary person; on a battlefield like this, if not for someone protecting her, she would have been blasted to death by the shockwaves directly. Yet even with someone protecting her, she was in a terrible state, her face like gold paper and her breath weak.

Having reached thirty, A Ting had shed the playfulness of her childhood and the rebelliousness of her youth, appearing mature and intellectual, possessing quite a bit of the bearing of An Daxiaojie, though compared to the ruthlessness of An Daxiaojie, she leaned more toward loyalty.

Even now, she was still looking at the Tong Armor female blade-wielder who was covered in blood and protecting her.

"Yuan Yuan, run, run to the Great Shang, tell my father, my father has a way..."

Ding Yuan only shook her head.

Within her disheveled long hair, her pupils were bloodshot, and her peripheral vision swept to the many corpses not far away, but she could no longer distinguish who was who. But Xiao Feng and Zhang Ling had all died there.

A trace of tears flashed by, and her gaze met that of Song An, who stood in the distance leaning on his blade.

The two locked eyes from afar, and in that instant, a tacit understanding between Martial Artists suddenly arose.

Ding Yuan was saying: 'I will go first; I will use my life to distract him.'

Song An replied with: 'Good.'

The two moved suddenly.

"Young Miss, goodbye." Ding Yuan stomped heavily on the ground; the earth shook, gravel splashed, and a sword-wielding phantom over a zhang tall suddenly appeared.

Song An was a half-beat slower, but he also struck; he practiced the family-secret "Xuanwu True Qi." This technique was extremely difficult to learn; if not for his father's personal instruction and the big mistresses preparing medicine for him every day, he would never have been able to master it.

Yet even so, the Xuanwu True Qi was far superior to ordinary techniques; a two-zhang Xuanwu phantom suddenly erupted, arriving after the first.

"No!"

"No!!" A Ting's eyes turned red; she raised her hands toward the distance, grasping powerlessly at the void.

No one knew the terror of this world better than she did; what she had seen with her father, and what she had seen herself, all let her know that the power from the high places could not be countered by these small tricks from the low places.

"No, no... no."

She had no other words left.

Tears rolled down in large drops.

Her heart felt as if it were being pierced by a knife, yet she was powerless.

The man in Xuanhua armor looked at the two phantoms and couldn't help but twitch his lips, laughing slightly. He didn't even move; he casually flicked his hand, raising a gust of the same "soul-blowing" divine wind, while simultaneously carefully avoiding blowing it toward A Ting in the distance—after all, A Ting was to be captured alive.

Possessing mysterious power worth researching, and a great beauty to boot—how could he bear to harm such a woman? The next instant, he suddenly felt something was wrong; before he could even look up, his body lost control and flew toward the heights.

"What..."

The man in Xuanhua armor subconsciously waved his wrists while looking toward the source of the attraction, only to see that in the vast void, a high mountain formed of dust was looming in Hanting Valley.

Hanting Valley was within Hanting Mountain; the highest peak of Hanting Mountain was named "Sword Finger Peak." This peak was a full six or seven hundred zhang tall and was already considered a majestic peak wreathed in clouds and mist, but... this mountain that had suddenly appeared was much, much taller than Sword Finger Peak.

"This..."

"What is this!!!"

The man in Xuanhua armor's pupils dilated; even though his body was flying in mid-air, his thoughts turned quickly. Everything before his eyes transcended his understanding. In his peripheral vision, he saw that quite a few of the Wanling Empire's armored soldiers had also flown up, all of them being swept up like dust by a great wind, flying toward the heights.

"Ah!"

"Ahhh!!!"

"What is happening?!"

"Help!"

The soaring Wanling Empire soldiers screamed in terror, and one soldier closest to the dust mountain increased in speed; in his line of sight, the mud and dust grew closer and closer, and he collided with it.

The moment he collided, he felt an indescribable, intense pain throughout his body; in an instant, it vanished, because this soldier, along with the armor he wore, had all turned into powder.

After the first, there were more.

In just a few short moments, the thousands of Wanling Empire soldiers were like raindrops falling into the Canghai, completely dissipating and vanishing.

Perhaps the only evidence of their existence was the blood-red color with a metallic luster that stained the mud-dust mountain at that moment; it was composed of a mixture of metal fragments and flesh fragments, which now became the surface layer of the mountain, flowing along with the mountain body to cover the entire peak.

The Xuanhua man reacted, but he had already landed on a dark red palm with a thick, bloody stench.

That hand was as large as a mountain hollow.

He raised his head, meeting a pair of indifferent pupils.

He vaguely saw something clearly.

It was a head as huge as a small mountain, with a flesh bun on top.

This was a Blood Buddha!

Song Cheng stared at the Xuanhua man for a while; during this process, the armored soldiers of the Wanling Empire were still flying up, and in no time at all, they were completely wiped out, while the surviving Shang Dynasty soldiers looked up at him, yet were unable to glimpse his full appearance.

"What strange data."

Song Cheng looked suspiciously at the "220~3200" value of the Xuanhua man.

It was his first time encountering this.

However, he did not dwell on it; after a glance, he reached out and clenched his hand.

In the eyes of the "former" Xuanhua man, he saw that palm, which was like a flat valley, suddenly bend and curl, turning over to wrap him inside.

He did not utter a word, his eyes flashing with despair, and he frantically blew out a breath of divine wind, but it could not shake the Soul that existed within that palm at all.

The hand clenched shut.

The Xuanhua man burst apart, his flesh and blood collapsing, his Soul annihilated.

"The power of the Soul Fierce, interesting." Song Cheng identified the divine wind power the Xuanhua man had used before his death; it was clearly the "Soul Fierce" power that would appear in the "Four Fierce Lands."

He glanced at his feet, seeing that his children were both there and heavily wounded; looking at the surroundings, he saw that many of the surviving Shang Dynasty armored soldiers were believers of the Xuanwu Temple, so he moved his form and directly possessed one of them.

Once he left, the flesh, blood, and metal shards lost their adhesion, turning into a torrential rain of blood falling toward the distant valley.

The mountain was bathed in blood and turned red, the stench soaring into the sky.

The abrupt ending caught everyone off guard.

The blood-colored high mountain appeared and then suddenly vanished, leaving everyone not only terrified in their hearts but also at a loss.

"Is... is it over?"

Ding Yuan stood on the spot like a wooden statue.

Her pupils were still wide, looking at the sky, "What was that just now?"

No one could answer.

But no one would forget it either.

That was a mysterious power that had already surpassed their understanding.

After the terror, many Shang Dynasty soldiers quickly came over, crowding around Song An, saying urgently: "General, let's go quickly; this is not a place to stay for long."

Song An was also looking at the sky; unlike the terror of the soldiers and Ding Yuan, he had his own feelings, glanced at the portrait of the "Xuanwu Emperor" not far away, and felt somewhat confused and bewildered.

"Big sister, let's go too." Ding Yuan helped A Ting up, and seeing that A Ting's body was weak, she picked her up on her back, her gaze sweeping over the place where Zhang Ling and Xiao Feng had died, sighing sadly, but then added, "It's too dangerous here."

A Ting was also looking at the sky.

It was just that when she was a child, she looked at the sky to draw clouds.

As a young girl, she looked at the sky to find her way.

Now, she seemed to be reminiscing.

When people are extremely weak, or facing great sorrow, great joy, or life and death, wouldn't they always be like this?

Song Cheng mingled among the armored soldiers, watching his children, and after a slight perception, he knew that neither was in any serious trouble, so he felt a little relieved.

However, he had no intention of revealing his identity publicly at this time, because his appearance would cause his children's judgment to deviate, thereby relaxing their necessary vigilance, to the point where a situation that would not have had an accident might suddenly go wrong.

But he had only just arrived; he was very unfamiliar with everything here.

Moreover, after stepping into "Xuan Armor Completion," his perception had become much sharper, which made him vaguely feel that a certain place in this land was emitting a faint aura that made him wary.

"Then let's protect them first, and recognize them in secret after things stabilize." Song Cheng made his decision.

The retreat did not encounter any major trouble.

A Ting was quickly summoning nearby "Puppet Animals" to come, and Song An also encountered some soldiers who had been scattered earlier; although they met enemies, overall it went quite smoothly.

After retreating to a nearby town, Song An and A Ting finally had a chance to catch their breath.

The town doctor began to get busy, while A Ting was wrapped in a small quilt, covered in sweat, yet shivering. She was just an ordinary person; although she possessed terrifying abilities, she was still an ordinary person. Having encountered such a great battle, she had already been affected by the aftermath, and with such great emotional ups and downs, she suffered both "physical injury" and "Soul injury."

After taking some medicine, she barely managed to fall asleep.

In the middle of the night, she felt hot and cold, having nightmare after nightmare; her body in the small quilt trembled incessantly, and her eyelids jumped wildly.

"Don't! Don't!!"

Suddenly, she exclaimed, abruptly sitting up, gasping for breath, while sweat had already drenched her hair, which stuck to her pale skin in strands, like an ink wash painting.

She looked into the darkness with her chest heaving, hugging her knees, biting her lip.

Thinking of her companions who died tragically, tears suddenly fell again.

Suddenly, she missed home, missing the courtyard from her childhood.

She still remembered that the "Ting" in "A Ting" was because Father liked the peace of that courtyard.

Father liked that courtyard, and he also liked A Ting.

But she also knew that "Father" had been missing for ten years. The young woman was hugging her knees and reminiscing when she suddenly felt something; she turned her head sharply, and in a quick glance, she saw a thick, black human silhouette in the room.

Her heart jumped with terror, and without asking, she subconsciously wanted to summon the small animals to enter.

However, that voice sounded just in time.

"A Ting, it's Father."

The young woman's movements slowed by a beat, but she remained tense.

"Father came by possessing a body, possessing a Shang Dynasty soldier. Earlier, when your younger brother visualized me, I came. After killing that Xuanhua man, I have been following you in secret."

That voice continued to sound.

The woman's movements finally slowed down.

Song Cheng spoke more about things from her childhood, and only then did A Ting completely relax.

She cried and said, "Where have you been all these years?"

Song Cheng said, "Cultivating; there was no other way. Once you reach a certain realm, the moment you start practicing, the flow of time becomes very fast. Father always felt like only a short while had passed, but as it turned out, ten years had already gone by outside."

As he spoke, he also sighed softly.

Not being able to watch his daughter grow up, and even letting her fall into such a dangerous situation, he also felt regret in his heart.

But if he could not become stronger, he could not protect this home, nor could he give his family the opportunity to extend their lives.

A Ting was silent.

She understood very clearly what her father was saying.

"Let's go home," Song Cheng said suddenly.

A Ting said, "The Wanling Empire has broken its word, and Uncle Zhao's army will arrive soon. Xiao An is definitely not reconciled; he certainly wants to take this opportunity to strike at the capital of the Wanling Empire. Plus, autumn is approaching, and there is grain everywhere, so this battle might not be impossible to fight."

Song Cheng smiled in surprise, "A Ting can calculate these things now?"

A Ting said, "Father, I am not a little girl anymore; I am already thirty-one."

Thirty-one. Song Cheng looked at the frail A Ting, feeling an inexplicable sense of a world apart.

Suddenly, he realized another point: although he possessed terrifying destructive power, he could not heal A Ting's current injuries and could only let them recover slowly.

In the same darkness, he could see A Ting's maturity.

She really was a thirty-one-year-old grown woman, and was even similar to the An Daxiaojie in his memories. An Daxiaojie should have entered the Qi Realm by now; the increased lifespan would wash away the slight signs of aging from her past, but A Ting was only an ordinary person; she would slowly grow old.

"You will always be Father's little comfort," Song Cheng said softly.

A Ting replied, "Mm."

Having experienced many things, she finally understood the preciousness of family affection.

Song Cheng said, "You can leave the little animals to help Xiao An, and you come back with Father."

"Can I bring Xiao Yuan with me?"

"Of course you can. She has treated you well; Father will guide her as much as possible and then give her secret medicine to let her break through to Pseudo-Xuan."

"Thank you, Father."

Subsequently, Song Cheng reunited with Xiao An, and father and son talked for a long time; Song Cheng also gave Xiao An quite a bit of guidance.

Combining his own practice over these years, Song An suddenly felt as if his "military strategy bottleneck" and "martial arts bottleneck" were about to break through again.

Song Cheng wanted him to withdraw his troops first as well.

But Song An refused, the reason being that the Wanling Empire had also suffered heavy losses this time; if he did not take his life while he was sick, it would be trouble again once he recovered.

For these many years, he had also been learning about the Wanling Empire through various channels, and he even had a wife who was the Fourth Imperial Princess of the Wanling Empire.

After such a major event occurred this time, that princess was also extremely shocked; fortunately, Song An did not vent his anger on her, and that Fourth Imperial Princess felt extreme hatred toward the Wanling Empire.

The Wanling Empire wanted to kill her husband and had launched such a surprise attack on Great Shang without notifying her beforehand to let her escape; it was clear that they had treated her as a discarded pawn. Regardless of whether the matter succeeded or not, she was actually meant to die.

Therefore, that princess also poured out all the secrets and rumors she knew about the Wanling Empire.

The strongest people in the Wanling Empire were the Great Prayer Spirit Masters; those Great Prayer Spirit Masters each possessed power comparable to the heads of the various great clans of Great Shang, but regarding that powerful man in Xuanhua, the Fourth Imperial Princess could not be certain.

As a member of the Imperial Court, she only had some vague speculations.

"I accidentally overheard my grandfather's words; Grandfather said that the Wanling Empire has a person who guards the nation. That is the person closest to the gods; as long as he is there, everything is secure."

"As for the gods, the gods never appear, they only bless. Anyone in the Wanling Empire will receive blessings. He will not only pray for our Imperial clan, but for everyone."

"The method to become a Prayer Spirit Master is actually to consume secret medicine. Although the recipe for the secret medicine is hidden, it is not the most difficult part... The main thing is that the main ingredients for the secret medicine are very precious, and after you take the secret medicine, you need to digest it before you can use the power."

"As for the Great Prayer Spirit Masters, I do not know."

This was the word of the Fourth Imperial Princess.

It was precisely these words that made Song An decide to wait for reinforcements and then raid the capital of the Wanling Empire.

At the same time, he also cooperated with some of the "Fourth Imperial Princess's" guesses to conduct "Prayer Spirit Master" cultivation tests.

General Song was very stubborn and insisted on not returning, wanting instead to break through the Imperial Capital.

Song Cheng could not sway him either, so he could only tell his son to visualize him directly if he were in danger, and then he left.

He gave the same instructions to A Ting.

In this way, if his children encountered any crisis, he would know immediately.

One month later.

Great Shang reinforcements arrived.

Song An also mobilized many soldiers from various military camps.

After recuperating, he had swept away the disheveled state of the previous month; he was high-spirited, his gaze scanning the distant territory like a hawk.

He knew that his father had already left.

He actually did not understand before why he had to work so hard and persist like this, but now, he seemed to have some answers.

His father was too tall and too bright, like a brilliant sun hanging in the firmament. Living in such light, everything seemed insignificant; no matter what he achieved, others would think from the bottom of their hearts, "Well, he is Song Cheng's son; he should be able to achieve this."

Perhaps he just wanted to prove to the world, and also to himself: he was Song An; he was not just Song Cheng's son, he was also himself! Life is short; even if one has entered the Pseudo-Xuan, compared to the mountains and rivers, one is still like an insect or an ephemera, born in the morning and dying in the evening, barely seeing the spring and autumn.

But even if that were the case, so what? 'Father, your life is the pursuit of stronger power, the pursuit of seeing more scenery. But your son only wants to grasp the present and leave the most glorious and brilliant memories in the memories of those who come after.'

"Illustrious martial achievements, immortal and illuminating the world!"

General Song clenched his fists and looked into the distance; he wanted to earn enough fame for his life and after his death, so that even a thousand years later, when people spoke of him, they would still remember that a thousand years ago there was an arrogant general who conquered the south and fought in the north, with countless merits, whose achievements could not be concealed even by the laconic style of the Spring and Autumn Annals.

In early autumn.

Song Cheng finally returned to the Imperial Capital.

Like a prodigal son returning home, feeling timid as he neared his hometown, the bustling market was just as he remembered, but... he began to feel nervous.

When he returned to the Song Prince Mansion, it was already the end of the Hour of the Dog.

The bright moon hung in the sky; it was exactly the full moon.

Under the full moon, a young girl with pure white eyes was sitting on a small stool, head tilted back, not knowing what she was looking at, her tiny finger tapping bit by bit into the void.

The direction of that finger was the stars.

She seemed to be counting the stars.

But she was blind, born blind; how could she possibly see the stars?

"What are you counting?" A strange yet gentle voice suddenly sounded beside the girl.

After a long while, the girl replied, "Mother said there are stars up there, so I am counting them."

As she spoke, she began to mutter, "One two, one two, one two, one one, two one, two one, two one."

She had actually forgotten there was a stranger beside her, nor did she realize a stranger had broken into her home! If there were a bad person, one would think it would be very easy to abduct her; yet, the person inside the house reacted.

"Who is it?!"

The door flew open, and a delicate figure darted out from within, but upon looking outside, she stopped abruptly, looking with pleasant surprise at the person standing in the courtyard.

"Husband."

Su Ningyu ran over just as she had when they first met, throwing herself into Song Cheng's arms.

Even though she had given birth to a daughter, she was still the same as in the past, at most just a tiny bit more mature. "One two, one two, one two," the girl was still counting the invisible stars, dazed and silly.

"Xiao Mo'er, your father is back." Su Ningyu happily crouched down and took the girl's hand.

Song Cheng also crouched down, looking at his daughter with heartache, then looked at Su Ningyu and said, "I have broken through, but I am still one step away from that realm of qualitative change."

Su Ningyu said in astonishment, "Is it the Four Fierce Lands you spoke of?"

Song Cheng said, "I named this level of realm the Soul Transformation Realm, as you know;

breaking through the Reappearance Tribulation allows one to enter the Gray Membrane Realm; afterwards, practicing the Four Strong Methods allows one to condense a Dharma image, to seize a body and regenerate, which can be called the Regeneration Realm; as for experiencing the Four Fierce Lands, after successfully passing through, one can achieve Dharma Heaven and Earth, one's Soul appearing a thousand feet tall, and the Dharma image likewise, and seizing a body is no longer restricted to one; as for how many, I do not know."

Su Ningyu said with a trembling voice, "Then you..."

Song Cheng said, "I have reached the highest realm I can see, and I have a rough guess about the opportunity that lies ahead; it is on Jilei Mountain."

Su Ningyu remained silent for a long time.

She had stayed in the Soul Transformation Realm for many, many years, and only after much effort had she broken through to the so-called Gray Membrane Realm; now, she had only just stabilized her realm, while her husband... "Father?"

Song Mo's reaction time finally caught up; she responded to her mother's previous words, calling out the title, and then curiously muttered, "Father? Father?"

(End of this chapter)