Dantai Qi’s force had driven sideways through the Yong Province catapult positions. In a situation like this, the Yong Province army no longer had any chance to reinforce in time.

With Dantai Qi commanding the assault, once things had reached this point, he would give the enemy no room to recover.

The Ning Army drove in with overwhelming force, destroying the catapults swiftly — especially the large ones.

At this moment, Xiahou Zuo, who had been unable to hold himself back any longer, saw the signal. When he shouted that single word, his voice came out unusually hoarse.

The remaining Ning forces boarded every last ship they had — large and small, anything that could be used was put to sea.

But just as the Ning Army’s main fleet came charging toward the southern bank, the Yong Province army dispatched a force to deal with Dantai Qi.

“I’ll hold them — you destroy the catapults!”

Dantai Qi roared, and took only his own personal guard to go meet the incoming force.

Han Feibao, seeing the catapults in trouble, could no longer hold steady.

He immediately dispatched a Geling Army unit to block the way. The general at their head was one of Han Feibao’s eight top commanders, named Sun Chong Di, leading the Bing Company — the third — with five thousand hardened soldiers.

The two forces collided head-on with no hesitation.

Sun Chong Di’s martial ability ranked in the top five among all of Han Feibao’s generals — ferociously dangerous.

Though he commanded the Bing Company, ranked third in the Geling Army, Han Feibao trusted him deeply.

By the measure of martial skill alone, the Bing Company rank was entirely justified. But this man was also extraordinarily gifted at applying strategy. In ordinary times, he served as one of Han Feibao’s chief advisors.

When he saw that the approaching Ning Army general had come with only a thousand or so men to meet him, he immediately understood the intent.

That man was using a small force to pin him down, buying time for the bulk of the Ning soldiers to destroy the catapults.

So Sun Chong Di immediately called out: “Rear ranks, go around — stop the Ning Army from destroying the catapults! Front ranks, follow me and engage!”

His force split in two. The majority of his men drove toward the catapult positions.

Sun Chong Di noted that the Ning general held a long lance, and added several additional degrees of caution to his assessment.

Anyone skilled enough to wield such an expensive weapon had certainly not come up through the bandit ranks, and would have been practicing martial arts since childhood.

Moreover, they had studied the Ning Army’s commanders in detail and knew that among the Ning King’s subordinates, those who excelled with the lance were two people: Xiahou Zuo, and the son of Dantai Qi — the only son of the great Liang Province General Dantai Qi.

In the world of military men, who had not heard the name Dantai Qi?

The common people called him the Guardian Spirit of the Northwest. Some even called him the King of Liang Province.

A man like Dantai Qi — whatever son he had trained would naturally be a formidable fighter.

So Sun Chong Di opened with full caution, not daring to underestimate his opponent, launching a lance thrust straight at Dantai Qi’s chest.

Dantai Qi saw that the enemy general also fought with a lance — and felt a surge of pride and fierce excitement.

He tilted his lance diagonally, the tip pressing against the ground, then swept the shaft sideways — a sharp ring of metal, and Sun Chong Di’s lance was knocked aside.

In the next instant, Dantai Qi kicked up against his own lance shaft. The lance tip swept upward in a flick as fast as lightning.

Sun Chong Di was startled. This technique was certainly not standard military combat form — had he misjudged his opponent?

He didn’t know that since joining Li Chi and the others, Dantai Qi’s fighting style had long since broken free of any fixed mold.

His moves had become far more fluid and unpredictable — with a distinctly unconventional edge.

This lance stroke drove Sun Chong Di back. As the lance fell nearly parallel to the ground, Dantai Qi pushed off hard and surged forward — his lance driving straight out in a full thrust.

Sun Chong Di reacted with startling speed, stepping back again.

But Dantai Qi’s lance slid forward in his grip, his hands shifting all the way to the very end of the shaft, arm extended fully — stretching the weapon’s reach to its absolute limit.

“Strike!”

Dantai Qi let out a thundering shout.

Sun Chong Di had dodged twice in succession. He had just landed his feet — no time to launch himself clear again.

So he brought his lance upright and interposed it before himself. In the split second of the exchange, Dantai Qi’s lance tip struck Sun Chong Di’s shaft.

Sun Chong Di’s shaft bowed under the impact. With the immense force driving through it, his feet lost their anchor on the ground and he was skidded backward.

Dantai Qi drove forward with a single-handed grip on his lance, eyes wide open. The muscles of his right arm erupted into relief.

“Break!”

Another thundering shout.

With a dull sound, Dantai Qi’s lance tip punched clean through the shaft. Even that formidably tough composite material was cut through.

After the tip broke through, Dantai Qi rotated his wrist — the lance tip spun, and tore Sun Chong Di’s shaft apart.

In the next instant, Dantai Qi released his right hand and drove his fist into the butt end of his own lance.

The lance spun and shot forward like a bolt. Sun Chong Di’s face went pale.

In desperation, he abandoned his own lance and pressed both palms together, throwing all his strength into a clapping strike — barely managing to clamp the lance tip between his hands and stop it dead.

He was lucky that his palms had caught the shaft just behind the tip — had they hit the tip itself, with Dantai Qi’s weapon that sharp, both palms would have been severed cleanly.

Sun Chong Di’s combined palm force somehow arrested the lance’s momentum — but in that single instant, cold sweat beaded across his forehead.

An instant later, Sun Chong Di released his grip and dodged sideways. Dantai Qi had already begun rotating the lance shaft — if Sun Chong Di had been even a fraction slower in letting go, the spinning lance tip would have ground his palms to shreds.

After dodging clear, Sun Chong Di snatched the long spear from a soldier beside him — but rather than attacking, he threw it straight at Dantai Qi.

Dantai Qi swept it aside with his lance, then pulled his lance tip back, and the broken lance shaft that had been caught on it fell to the ground.

An instant later, Dantai Qi kicked the fallen shaft. Sun Chong Di had no choice but to scramble aside again.

In a narrow encounter, the bolder fighter wins — and Dantai Qi, already pressing the advantage, had no intention of giving his enemy a moment’s respite.

After kicking the shaft, he flung his lance.

Sun Chong Di had dodged the shaft — but he could not dodge Dantai Qi’s lance.

With all the force of that full-bodied throw behind it, the lance drove through Sun Chong Di’s chest. With that terrifying force, more than half the weapon had emerged through his back in an instant.

But the lance, which should have flown onward, suddenly stopped dead…

Dantai Qi took one great stride forward and seized the shaft, single arm exerting force, lifting both lance and man together into the air.

Sun Chong Di was not yet dead. His eyes were full of terror. He let out a wretched cry as he was lifted into the sky.

Dantai Qi released his grip. The lance planted upright in the ground, and Sun Chong Di’s body slid down it and slumped to the earth.

Dantai Qi pulled the lance free. The shaft was slick and sticky with blood.

He reversed the lance and drove it downward once more, straight through the back of Sun Chong Di’s skull.

Had Han Feibao been here, he might well have refused to believe what he was seeing.

Two of his eight top commanders — one killed by Li Chi in a matter of moments. Another — defeated entirely from beginning to end by one of Li Chi’s subordinates, without even having a chance to use what Han Feibao called the peak lance technique he had mastered in thirty-six forms.

Sun Chong Di’s background was in some ways not unlike Dantai Qi’s. His father was a fourth-rank general of the Yong Province army, highly valued under the former Yong Province Military Governor’s banner.

Sun Chong Di had practiced martial arts from childhood — the lance technique his father had taught him — and his natural aptitude was exceptional. He had developed his own set of thirty-six lance killing forms. Han Feibao, upon seeing them demonstrated, had praised them greatly and called them the pinnacle of lance technique.

And yet this pinnacle of lance technique never even had a chance to be deployed.

Not because the gap between them in actual ability was truly that vast — but because Sun Chong Di was overthinking.

While his mind was still calculating how he should fight, planning how to link one form into the next, Dantai Qi had already committed everything and attacked with full force.

The more cunning the mind, the more often a fighter of that kind will lose to a simpler opponent in a fight to the death.

Especially when the two are not far apart in strength to begin with — in that case, the one with more scheming in his head often finds he cannot concentrate fully.

To be clear: in a normal sparring match, not a duel to the death, the craftier mind might well hold the advantage.

After killing his opponent, Dantai Qi actually found himself reflecting on all of this — and then spat at himself inwardly. *Pfft, pfft, pfft — I’m the one with the simple mind.*

He seized his lance and charged forward to support his personal guard, holding the Geling Army’s Bing Company in a grinding lock.

On the Ning Army’s side, eyes had long since gone red. Cutting with blades, smashing with stones, a group of soldiers clenching their teeth and throwing their bodies against catapults to topple them by sheer force.

By the time Xiahou Zuo’s fleet launched and drew near the southern bank, barely a single boulder had been flung into the sky from the Yong Province positions.

The Ning Army’s main force came ashore in waves, and under Xiahou Zuo’s command launched a furious assault against the Yong Province central command.

By now, Li Chi had been deep in the encirclement for some time. His whereabouts were completely invisible. How could Xiahou Zuo and the others not be frantic?

They could see the encircling Yong Province forces massing thicker and thicker around the area, a massive swirling vortex consuming half the battlefield.

With Li Chi pinned down like that, who could hold back their fear for the Ning King’s safety?

Especially Xie Xiu, who had driven his force in closest to him — the weight of rescuing the Ning King rested entirely on his shoulders.

His force attacked without sparing themselves, cutting through the Yong Province formation one layer at a time.

But as the fighting wore on, Xie Xiu’s force too was swallowed into the vortex.

He had not cut through to where Li Chi was — and now on all sides of him, there was nothing but Yong Province soldiers.

Xie Xiu cut down the enemy before him, raised a hand to wipe the blood off his face, and looked ahead. Dense and countless enemies in every direction.

“Just keep killing forward!”

Xie Xiu screamed, and pushed on.

But the enemy seemed inexhaustible — like a snowball, growing bigger and bigger. Xie Xiu’s force was locked inside what felt like an enormous iron barrel clamped down over them.

No matter how many they killed, an uncountable number of enemies still faced them.

This Ning Army force had no choice but to compress inward and form a defensive circle.

He had not found the Ning King. He might not be able to get out himself. Xie Xiu was furious inside, but for the moment had no solution.

This was the Yong Province army’s territory, with numbers vastly superior to their own. Being surrounded like this was in fact exactly what the situation called for.

As the enemy squeezed in tighter and tighter, the circle shrank smaller and smaller, and the sweat on Xie Xiu’s brow grew more and more.

At that moment, one side of the Yong Province encirclement suddenly erupted into chaos.

Immediately after, a group of blood-drenched fighters came cutting through from that direction. The moment Xie Xiu saw clearly that the one at the head was the Ning King, he called out with everything he had.

Li Chi had cut through one layer after another, fighting as he went — and without waiting for Xie Xiu to come rescue him, he had come and rescued Xie Xiu first.

The two Ning Army forces merged into one, and Li Chi was still out at the front.

At this moment, every soldier in this force was wearing clothes so soaked in blood that their original color could no longer be seen. Everything was red.

Every head was still helmeted — but inside those helmets, blood ran down in thin streams.

If you wrung those clothes out by force, you might wring out a surprising amount of blood.

They should have been utterly exhausted by now — yet somehow there was still endless strength in their arms. Each time it seemed like the next layer would be the one to stop them — yet somehow they tore through another one.

Li Chi looked at Xie Xiu and shouted, “Get behind me!”

Then took a step forward. “Kill!”

“Kill!”