Chapter 518: The Final Valor

The heavens and earth were vast and flat, all things lay in killing stillness and yet gave birth to growth.

A flying eagle swept across the vault of heaven, finally folding its wings, piercing through layer upon layer of cloud sea, and plunged down onto the earth.

After those layered clouds had all scattered apart, what appeared within the gaze of this divine eagle's two eyes was a banner that, like a long spear, tore open the firmament and pointed at the sky.

The encampments took the largest banner, the great standard, as their center, spreading out toward the four directions in layer upon layer; the arrangement of these camps faintly conformed to the ancient Eight Trigrams and Mystic Gates, yet beyond the aura of the Mystic Sect, they also displayed a kind of stern, murderous qi unique to the military.

Killing stillness, biting cold.

Solemn dignity, grave reverence.

The divine eagle spread its wings; after a clear, bright eagle's cry, it lowered its altitude, and at a distance extremely close to the ground, swept past this killing-still military formation. What met its eyes were war generals holding long spears, and elite soldiers patrolling in groups of five, clad in dark Central Plains armor.

They were the majestic, awe-inspiring heavy-armor fully-equipped cavalry, the Yue Family Army heavy riders whose killing-still aura came rushing at one's face.

The spirit and bearing of the finest army under heaven unfolded before its eyes.

The divine eagle sensed this killing-still aura rushing at its face, felt its mood lift, let out a long cry, and with a single beat of its wings, rose up on the wind; its vision tilted—from the killing-still, solemn great army, to the fierce yet calm war generals, and finally became the main camp, the vault of heaven, and that one great standard piercing the sky.

With another beat of its wings, it flew to the very top of the great standard.

The divine eagle gripped the crossbar of the great standard with a single claw.

The crimson great standard tumbled down, crimson Qilin cloud patterns surging between heaven and earth.

The divine eagle's gaze fell; in the central army of the military camp, Li Guanyi, clad in armor, was reviewing intelligence. This place was no more than a hundred li from Beicheng, already extremely close. The towns outside Beicheng, facing the razor-sharp Fire Qilin Army, had not the slightest will to resist and surrendered at the sight of them.

The Fire Qilin Army, carrying the momentum of having pacified the entire Chen Kingdom within just over a year, was such that no one dared to fight.

With an almost relaxed bearing, they had arrived near Beicheng.

Li Guanyi personally led the army, sleeping on their weapons, awaiting dawn; the enmity of his parents' death was irreconcilable, and he would not rest.

Chen Wenmian was the same. He had originally been leading the Cangwolf Guard heavy cavalry outside, serving as one of the five-route great armies. When Li Guanyi led his army to press close to Beicheng, Chen Wenmian took the initiative to lead his troops to catch up, wishing to join forces with Li Guanyi to jointly punish Chen Dingye.

For Chen Wenmian, the tragedy of his father and mother—especially his mother's suffering over those more than ten years, and her final self-immolation to find release—had all been wrought by Chen Dingye alone. The man who was his nominal father for the first dozen or so years of his life was also his true mortal enemy.

As a son or daughter, if one cannot avenge one's parents, how can one stand between heaven and earth?

The Cangwolf Guard was willing to serve as the vanguard.

Li Guanyi looked at Chen Wenmian, who was usually as gentle and warm as jade, now in a fierce and cold manner; he could find no words of refusal, nor would he refuse, and so he agreed, making Li Guanyi's own force and Chen Wenmian's the two armies that would finally punish Chen Dingye.

Beicheng was the foremost impregnable pass under heaven, founded by the strongest great patriarch of the Yin-Yang School lineage, Master Siming, and personally designed by the Mo Juzi of three hundred years ago. For these several hundred years, it had always been the Chen Kingdom's strongest defense, almost never breached head-on.

But the old Master Siming was still alive, and Pang Shuiyun had once left contingencies within Beicheng.

When Chen Dingye returned, he resolved Pang Shuiyun's contingencies.

But he did not have the ability to tear down Beicheng and rebuild it. The foundational design of this supreme pass under heaven was no different from three hundred years ago. This time, Li Guanyi had directly invited the old Master Siming to the front-line army.

He planned, under the guidance of this designer of Beicheng, to thoroughly breach this impregnable pass of the Chen Kingdom, completely unify the Chen Kingdom, and avenge his parents. The advance had been unstoppable, all-conquering—yet just yesterday, the forward scout camp had sent back urgent military intelligence.

Li Guanyi personally summoned Chen Wenmian, who served as the general of the vanguard army, back.

He handed the intelligence to him and told him to go look. After Chen Wenmian finished reading this front-line intelligence, a gloomy look appeared on his face, and for a long while he did not speak.

Li Guanyi said: "A great battle has occurred at Beicheng."

Even though the Great Khan of the Turks wished to conceal it, wishing to use the pretext of 'the steppe Turks are currently forming alliances with the four directions' to blind Li Guanyi's eyes, this battle was far too direct, and far too brutal.

It could not be hidden at all.

After the great battle occurred, the intelligence spread out at extreme speed; the general course of events was difficult for outsiders to see clearly.

Perhaps an internal strife broke out during the alliance.

Or perhaps each side had prepared traps for the other from the start.

In short, there were many possibilities, but the result was clear enough, obvious enough.

The Chen Kingdom's scythe-spear heavy armor corps and the Turkic Tie Futu engaged in an extremely vicious Bai Ren close-quarters slaughter thirty li outside Beicheng.

The Tie Futu, having lost their heavy armor, possessed the high mobility and terrifying impact force of dragon-stallion cavalry at the charge; in close quarters, fighting the scythe-spear heavy armor troops was using one's own weakness to attack the enemy's strength. Countless Tie Futu were hooked in the knees and ankles by scythe-spears, lost their balance, and crashed to the ground.

Then Chen Kingdom light-armor soldiers, skilled in ground techniques, forcibly pried open their faceplates and drove daggers into their faces.

And countless scythe-spear soldiers and Ye Chi cavalry were slain outright by the Tie Futu, dying outside Beicheng, their blood staining the yellow earth.

After the several thousand personal guards around the Mountain God Temple threw themselves into the slaughter, the two great armies, ten li from this place, detected the anomaly here and immediately set out in full.

Whether Chen Dingye or the Great Khan, each commanded an extremely powerful force; much was at stake, and neither could simply perish in a brief encounter.

How could the death of a great hero be lonely and unknown?

In the end, centered on the area where the Mountain God Temple stood, a brutal slaughter involving tens of thousands of people formed; corpses lay everywhere, murderous qi pierced the heavens, the smell of blood did not disperse for days, seeping into the mountain rocks and earth, turning the cliffs a permanent crimson.

Chen Wenmian looked at this intelligence, an indescribable expression on his face; after a long while, he set down the dossier and said: "Big brother."

"What was the outcome of the final battlefield?"

Li Guanyi gave a whistle; the divine eagle perched atop the great standard folded its wings and dropped like an arrow, landing on Li Guanyi's shoulder.

Li Guanyi took out from a small pouch beside him strips of jerky torn into strips, mixed with chili grains and cumin grains to add layers of flavor; the auspicious divine eagle ate with great relish.

It liked to eat spicy flavors.

After eating many strips of jerky.

It lowered its head and drank deeply from the place Li Guanyi had prepared; with food and drink satisfied, it only then exhaled a breath, only then content.

Satisfied!!!

That black-and-white dumpling, and what that Fire Qilin cat said, was right.

This is what an auspicious beast should be doing!

The life lived before—what kind of bitter days were those!

On the lonely, vast steppe, pouncing on prey and eating raw meat—how could that compare to flying just a little, and receiving from humans jerky specially cut into strips, dried, and seasoned with all manner of flavors?

On the steppe, the free and brave, unbound, unconstrained auspicious beast gradually grew accustomed to this life.

It attained enlightenment!

This is the life an auspicious beast should have!

Who wants to fly around the steppe hunting prey—it's gamey too!

Big Brother Red Dragon, why didn't you say so earlier!

If you'd told me earlier that being an auspicious omen was this enjoyable, wouldn't I have come sooner?! Would there have been any need to draw blades and brandish spears, to fight for our lives?

Shen Ying smacked his lips and said: "He didn't die. That Great Khan broke out of the encirclement — I saw it. His Wu Gong is extremely strong. Although he was blown up pretty badly, we couldn't keep him there…"

From Shen Ying's description, and from the written reports of frontline intelligence, they could roughly reconstruct the brutal battlefield of that day. Chen Dingye seemed to have used a formation array, or some other kind of power, attempting to control the Turkic Great Khan.

But the Great Khan broke out of the encirclement without regard for anything, tearing through the formation by sheer force.

In a manner befitting the name and methods of the Second Divine General, he successfully led his men out of the encirclement.

And because of this, Chen Dingye did not die in the self-destructive detonation of that formation either. However, when the Turkic Great Khan led his men in tearing their way out, Chen Dingye — even though heavily wounded — still chose to lead his army out in pursuit.

The two hundred thousand troops of Zhenxi Xiongcheng surged out of the city like madmen, sinking their teeth into the tail of the Turkic army, not letting them shake them off. Whenever the Turkic army tried to shake off this Chen army, they would launch an attack.

If the Turkic Great Khan refused to care about anything, then they would drive straight in and occupy the Turkic settlements.

It was the fighting style of a venomous snake — cold and lethal, a maggot on the bone.

The Great Khan had no choice but to wheel his troops around.

The Turkic Great Khan, who excelled at high-speed cavalry raid tactics, was like a venomous snake sinking its fangs in — held by Chen Dingye, by Chen Kingdom's last two hundred thousand elites, who paid with flesh and blood to drag him into the quagmire of the battlefield, unable to break free.

Li Guanyi then dispatched scouts to Beicheng to investigate and return. The scout troops were overjoyed, reporting that the defenses outside Beicheng were practically nonexistent.

Originally, outside Beicheng, facing the direction of Qin Wang, Chen Dingye had laid down layer upon layer of defensive measures, with elite soldiers and fierce generals patrolling daily. From the look of it, he seemed to be planning to have a final desperate battle with Li Guanyi and the Fire Qilin Army.

But when the scouts went to look now, they found that all the soldiers there had been transferred away.

The rear was not entirely without defense, but that little force, when facing the Tiance Prefecture Fire Qilin Army, was practically nothing.

Li Guanyi said: "Where did Chen Dingye take the troops he'd deployed to guard against us?"

The scout was silent for a moment, then answered: "It seems he has thrown all his forces onto the battlefield against the Turkics."

"Against us in the rear, and against the direction of Ying Kingdom, he has set up no defenses at all."

"Some of the brothers with guts rushed into Beicheng and asked the locals. The locals were amazed, asking if we'd already broken in. When they went up onto the city walls of Beicheng, it seemed even the mechanism crossbows originally meant to defend against heavy cavalry charges had been dismantled and taken away."

"We made estimates based on the knowledge General Fan Qing taught us."

"Even Beicheng, in a state of complete non-defense like this, is no longer any obstacle. Just a few thousand men would be enough to breach what is now the world's number one great fortress."

Li Guanyi's expression grew complicated.

Troops from all four directions, all transferred away, all thrown onto the battlefield against the Turkics.

Chen Wenmian proposed a military strategy —

If Qin Wang and Tiance Prefecture seized this opportunity to advance their army, taking advantage of the situation to attack the gates of Chen Kingdom's Beicheng, they could easily breach this number one impregnable pass that had not been broken in three hundred years, then turn the tables and take command of Beicheng.

First, occupy the enemy's home base.

When the time comes, Chen Dingye will have to face the Turkic heavy cavalry on one side, and naturally won't have the energy or the strength to resist the Qin Wang Fire Qilin Army coming from another direction.

Under such circumstances of being attacked from front and rear, Chen Dingye could be crushed with ease.

Master Siming tilted his head back to drink, casually wiped the wine from the corner of his mouth, glanced at Li Guanyi, and asked with a smile: "So, boy, with such a good opportunity, why have you become so wishy-washy?!"

"That tyrant Chen Dingye has a blood feud with you. Honestly, strike while he's down — at a time like this, what's there to talk about regarding the code of the jianghu? Isn't it just a matter of finishing that guy off first?"

"Chen Dingye's rear is empty right now — this is the perfect time to hit him hard."

"Just like this, listen to this old man. Chen Wenmian's boy's Gray Wolf Guard as the vanguard, your boy's Fire Qilin Guard pressing forward — elite troops, strong generals, fully armored heavy cavalry, just put all your strength into it and slam hard into Chen Dingye's rear. That boy is bound to die!"

Qin Wang just gazed at the vast sky, deep in thought for a long while.

The Nine Provinces Cauldron hummed and howled; within his pupils, divine essence lay hidden.

He saw, between heaven and earth, streams of vast, murderous battle-aura surging skyward, clashing and intertwining with one another. Even across such a vast distance, he could still feel that fierce, blazing energy, and hear the sound of blades and swords colliding.

What should be done?

Li Guanyi leaned against the great banner, gazing at the sky. His right hand removed the jade seal from his waist, held it up in his palm, and looked at the several large characters carved upon it. His mind, however, had long since emptied; his spirit seemed to drift upward, rising above the situation of the world, looking down upon the present changes, as one thought after another rose in his heart.

Should he, at this moment, strike in from the rear, fully borrowing the Turkic forces as aid, attacking from front and rear, to utterly annihilate Chen Dingye?

Or should he conserve his strength and watch from the sidelines?

When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits — simply wait until this great battle has ended.

Then enter the fray in due course, annihilate Chen Dingye's forces, and drive out the Turkic steppe warriors whose edge and ferocity had been worn down?

Or perhaps…

………………

The sound of heavy gasping.

The sound of blades and swords, the sound of arrows piercing the air, low moans, screams.

All these countless sounds strung together, accompanied by the smell of blood, formed one corner of the battlefield. Ye Zhongdao's Heavy Breathing.

Even for a Jibianshi Sect-level general, leading a great army in pursuit across the steppe, desperately clinging to the Tie Futu army in a fight to the death while supplies gradually dwindled, was an enormous drain. At this moment, the Turkic Great Khan had already entered the steppe, and reinforcements from the rear had arrived.

The Turkic Great Khan himself had been poisoned, had fought several bitter engagements, and had been relentlessly pursued and forced to retreat by Chen Kingdom's army clinging to his rear. This great battle, with all its disgrace and humiliation, had long since filled him with towering rage.

On top of that, Chen Dingye, heedless of everything — heedless of his own wounds, heedless of his army's casualties — clung to the Great Khan's forces like a madman, dragging them down.

Like plucking the whiskers of a tiger.

The latter, once reinforcements arrived, could no longer restrain himself.

He wheeled his army around to go fight Chen Kingdom.

At this moment, both sides had entered a great battle like a meat grinder.

At this level, there were no more stratagems, no more schemes — only a vast battlefield, only the troops both sides had committed, slaughter, casualties, blood, blades and swords; all had gone red-eyed with killing.

Chen Tianqi recklessly held back the poisoned Great Khan. Chen Dingye led the expedition in person. Ye Zhongdao and Zhou Xianping led Chen Kingdom's last elites to madly trade blows with the Tie Futu.

Yes — trade blows.

Lives, flesh and blood — on a battlefield like this, they were almost meaningless. If two men's lives could be spent to kill one Tie Futu, that was a huge gain. Even if it took five men to kill one Tie Futu, it was worth it.

The all-conquering Tie Futu, this time, failed to gain the upper hand on the battlefield again.

Chen Kingdom's army fought them to the death like madmen.

Tie Futu still had a way to retreat — behind them lay the grasslands and their tents — but these two hundred thousand, no, now only one hundred and thirty thousand troops of the Great Chen army truly had no way back.

Their homeland had already perished; behind them was no longer the road home, and ahead of them stood a fierce enemy — no logistics, no supplies, no reinforcements — only the monarch standing before them, only the simplest single breath of spirit.

Within Zhenbei Pass lay the heartland of the Central Plains.

For three hundred years, never once had the iron cavalry of foreign races been able to set foot through here.

Ye Zhongdao divided his wound medicine among the surrounding Night Charger cavalry Captains; his own injuries he merely bandaged simply. During this brief standoff and rest, he went to find Zhou Xianping.

Zhou Xianping carried a scent of blood that would not fade, and no one knew how many hooked sickles and spears had broken in his hands. When he saw Ye Zhongdao, he only nodded slightly, without the easy, laughing air of days past.

Zhou Xianping said: "Looks like you're still bouncing around."

"Don't you dare die before me."

Ye Zhongdao's expression was calm as he said:

"Rest assured, I will do my utmost to lead the Night Charger cavalry to tear apart the grassland riders. If we Night Chargers weren't there ripping and dragging, slowing down Tie Futu — those things clad in armor weighing thousands of jin, charging in packs in battle formation — even your hooked sickle and spear formation would be helpless against them, wouldn't it?"

Zhou Xianping was left speechless: "You really dare say that."

Ye Zhongdao curved a faint smile at the corner of his mouth: "Just speaking the plain truth."

Zhou Xianping did not refute him; they only gazed together at the distant sky, where baleful qi layered the clouds. Even for old generals like them, at this moment there was a vague sense of disorientation. Zhou Xianping said:

"Is a battlefield like this the end for the likes of you and me?"

Ye Zhongdao gave a response.

Then they were quiet for quite a while.

Ye Zhongdao said softly: "Lu Youxian was right."

"Great Chen — such a name, such a grand past it once had."

"Its end should not be in that absurd manner."

Ye Zhongdao looked at Zhou Xianping and smiled:

"What Your Majesty spoke of — a death grand and glorious, a death recorded for the ages — should be just this. The last breath and blood of Great Chen should not be spent in civil war within the Central Plains, but on the battlefield against foreign foes, to exhaust the last fierce spirit of our Great Chen."

"Outside Zhenbei Pass, two hundred thousand troops of the Great Chen army will fight the Turks to the death."

"From the foolish ruler above down to the rank-and-file foot soldiers, all will die in battle."

"The Night Charger cavalry, famed throughout the world, will fall together with Tie Futu into the Avici Hell, vanishing from this realm."

"In the histories of later ages, even if they despise our ilk for losing the nation, at least they will leave a measure of respect on their lips."

Zhou Xianping said in a low voice: "What a pity for these brothers-in-arms."

Ye Zhongdao said: "Of the more than two hundred thousand troops, only a hundred-some-odd thousand followed us onto this final battle, dying for the nation — is that not also a death befitting a man?"

Zhou Xianping grinned, stretched out his hand, clapped Ye Zhongdao on the shoulder, and said:

"Then, see you again in the eighteenth hell."

Ye Zhongdao clenched his fist and struck it against Zhou Xianping's armor. They each returned to their camps to lead their own corps. On the battlefield ahead, baleful qi soared to the heavens, the aura of military formations had almost become tangible, churning the firmament and pressing the entire sky downward.

Gloomy and heavy.

The Turks were being bitten dead on their rear by Chen Dingye, who spared no cost.

Chen Dingye's lone force pursued them into the grasslands, plundering the steppe for logistical supplies.

For the Great Khan, they had to be crushed — otherwise, these hundred-some-odd thousand troops of Great Chen would be like a sharp sword thrust directly into the heart of the steppe. Apart from the terror of such a tactic, there were other reasons as well.

The Great Khan still remembered that day — when he exerted every ounce of strength, enduring wounds to break out of that formation trap, Chen Tianqi swept sideways with his long spear, shattering the great array. The screams, the battle cries, the endless clash of blades rang from all directions.

Amid all this, Chen Dingye, drenched in blood, stepped out wreathed in fire, drew his sword, and hacked down toward the Khan's head.

Madmen!

Whether it was the Chen Dingye of that moment, or the deranged strategy that followed, they were all like a madman.

The Great Khan knew that such an opponent was like an old wolf that had sunk its teeth into one's leg and refused to let go — one had to act decisively and ruthlessly, killing the wolf in one stroke; otherwise, the wolf would keep biting down.

Biting through sinew and bone, biting through meridians — even beaten to death, it would not loosen its jaws. Strike a moment too slow, spare a thought for oneself, and one would be bitten into a cripple.

The Turks mobilized several hundred thousand troops, intending to use their numerical superiority to crush Chen Dingye head-on.

If you want to die for your nation, then so be it!

And then ride straight into Beicheng and occupy the city.

The great army surged with solemn killing intent; another great battle erupted.

Tie Futu became the arrowhead, charging forward, with the grassland light cavalry close behind. When the hooves struck down, the sound was muffled and murderous, rolling like muffled thunder across the vast steppe.

Ye Zhongdao roared and bellowed, leading the last of the Night Charger cavalry onto the battlefield; the two sides clashed together.

Zhou Xianping gripped his hooked sickle and spear, watching the Night Charger cavalry sweep across the battlefield like curved blades as they interlocked with Tie Futu.

Listening to the whistling and clash of blades, watching warhorses scream and fall, watching fresh blood burst open — armored warriors, in the high-speed headlong charge, struck by that terrifying force and sent flying, then trampled under the hooves of friend and foe alike.

Under such circumstances, once one fell, it meant death. The situation on the battlefield shifted too quickly; even Zhou Xianping could not tell which side was suffering more casualties. He only stared fixedly at the enemy ahead and roared:

"Strike!!!"

The Hooked Sickle and Spear Corps formed up, their military momentum merging with the general's aura.

Though clearly the homeland was no longer behind them, though they knew this battle was almost pure attrition and their end was only death — at this instant, what erupted from the Hooked Sickle and Spear Corps was an even more fierce and tragic spirit than ever before.

There was no road home behind them.

They were the ending of this one Great Chen army corps.

Behind them was not their homeland or their nation.

It was the death of their nation.

With hearts come to this, how could it not be tragic and sorrowful? And in that sorrow, where was any talk of cherishing one's life? Amid the battle cries, the Hooked Sickle and Spear Corps charged head-on into Tie Futu. The Tie Futu, having lost their speed, faced the Hooked Sickle and Spear Corps like a mountain range — both sides suffered casualties.

Zhou Xianping slew a general of Tie Futu, a commander of ten thousand.

Yet his own wounds grew heavier and heavier; old wounds burst open, distorting his movements. A strike he should have been able to block was exploited by his opponent. Zhou Xianping looked at the fierce Turk commander across from him, whose eyes had also gone red with killing frenzy.

Zhou Xianping's heart and mind were utterly calm.

Does this befit the death of a war general?

He cast aside his spear, gripped his sword, and thrust toward the gap in the armor at the flank of the man opposite him. His forehead would be smashed in by the enemy's weapon, but the enemy would also die beneath this sword.

So-called Central Plains war general, dying in the campaign against the foreign foe.

Good, very good.

Just at this moment, what seemed like a familiar great shout reached his ears; Zhou Xianping's momentary daze before death was instantly shattered. The battle's surging momentum flooded into his perception, and the passage of everything became swift.

A piercing sound of tearing through the air rang out at this moment — a thrown weapon's afterimage, crossing the vast battlefield to arrive here, plunged in just like that between Zhou Xianping and that Tujue war general. This spear erupted with a fierce, blazing aura.

It forcibly blocked the fatal strike meant for Zhou Xianping.

The long spear stabbed into the ground, extremely long, its blade perfectly straight, with a barbed edge.

Zhou Xianping froze.

A hooked-sickle spear!

Where did a Zhou family war general come from?!

Right after that, the sound of new hoofbeats appeared on the battlefield.

?? Begging for monthly votes, friends — I've gotten my schedule a little more under control (peacefully)