The Princess of Wu Wang knew that even if this battle was won, in the countless days that followed, those burning men would be a nightmare she could never be rid of.

She had lived a sheltered, privileged life. She could never have imagined a scene this brutal before now.

Those men, like balls of fire — they were burned deep into her mind.

The Chu death-soldiers’ insane assault had genuinely shattered the rattan-shield formation. Dou Yong, seizing the moment, roared and led his men crashing forward, trying to widen the breach.

In fighting a dense defensive line, once a gap is torn open, not a single moment can be wasted — because this may be the only chance.

If seized now, the tens of thousands of Chu soldiers behind could punch entirely through the Ning line, and even a great victory might follow.

After the repeated failures of the previous charges, Dou Yong could not allow another. He could not disappoint the Princess of Wu Wang who had placed her trust in him.

His phoenix-beak blade swept everything before him. No one who came at him could stand. Dou Yong’s individual fighting strength was, it had to be said, extraordinary.

Ning General Zhou Ye, commanding the forward units, saw the formation begin to collapse and immediately led his personal guard into the breach to plug it.

The two sides crashed toward each other in a melee of slashing blades — everywhere the eye fell, nothing but the flash of cutting steel.

Dou Yong spotted the Ning commander fighting ferociously and instinctively headed straight for him, bringing the phoenix-beak blade crashing down.

Zhou Ye was one of Shen Shancoral’s veterans — he had been her personal guard back in the White Mountain Army days.

Years of campaigning at her side had forged him quickly: methodical in command, quick to react under pressure, deeply trusted by Shen Shancoral.

But in a personal contest of arms, he was no match for Dou Yong.

Zhou Ye raised his sabre to block the phoenix-beak blade, but the heavy, wide-backed weapon was too massive and Dou Yong’s strength too immense — it could not be held. The sabre was driven down onto Zhou Ye’s shoulder. The flat of the blade struck him — but even the flat of such a weapon, pressed down with that force, drew blood from his shoulder moments later.

Knowing he could not stand against raw power, Zhou Ye gritted his teeth and rolled sideways. The blade crashed into the earth.

Dou Yong stepped forward and drove a kick at Zhou Ye’s chest. Zhou Ye threw both arms up in front of himself — the kick caught them and lifted him off the ground.

Zhou Ye’s personal guard rushed to his rescue. Spitting blood, Zhou Ye screamed: “Don’t worry about me — this brute doesn’t matter. Go push the Chu forces back, now go!”

Part of his personal guard stayed with him; the rest threw themselves into the breach.

“All of you — go. Every last one. I can die, the formation cannot break!”

Zhou Ye was still shouting, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

Dou Yong, furious at being called a brute, pressed forward for another strike — that one word had ignited him.

Zhou Ye rolled away again, a fraction too slow this time. The blade caught his back, shearing through the armor and opening a line across it. Half a breath more and it would have severed his spine.

Zhou Ye hit the ground and kept shouting: “All of you get in there, absolutely do not let the Chu forces widen the breach! I’ll deal with this man — all of you, go!”

Had Dou Yong not been a brute, he would have turned back right then to support his troops, instead of chasing one man. A fighter of his caliber throwing his weight into the breach — scattering Zhou Ye’s personal guard, killing his way through — would have made the widening of that gap straightforward.

But Zhou Ye had made him see red. That stubborn streak took hold, and he kept hacking after him blow by blow.

Zhou Ye scrambled and dodged desperately. The Ning soldiers coming to his aid were cut down in numbers.

Dou Yong, locked into killing this one man who dared to resist him, chased further and further forward — completely separated from the Chu troops behind him.

He had charged ahead alone. The Chu forces at his back were being pushed away.

In the Chu rear, the Princess of Wu Wang stood on her high ground with her spyglass raised. Even in the dark, with torches burning brightly, she saw all of it — and erupted in furious curses.

“Dou Yong, you brute! You’ve ruined everything!”

She knew she needed his valor to crack the Ning defense, but she had never imagined the man could be so monumentally stupid.

Chasing a single Ning commander who had no bearing on the outcome, while the Ning forces plugged the gap behind him — she could have had him hacked to pieces on the spot.

The warmth and compassion she had shown him moments before evaporated entirely in that instant.

But the man was genuinely, terrifyingly brave. Alone inside the Ning ranks, with enemies all around him, that phoenix-beak blade swept in arcs and no one could stop it. Into a crowd of men as if there were none.

Zhou Ye was hit again. His sabre had long since been knocked away. He instinctively raised his left arm to block — Dou Yong’s blade took the arm off at the shoulder.

Dou Yong surged forward, driving the blade down to finish him, but a shout from behind made him instinctively turn.

Only then did he realize he was completely cut off from the main force. His men were entirely blocked behind him.

Yet even now, this brute’s first thought was: *finish this man first, then go back*. He swung at Zhou Ye.

Two Ning soldiers were dragging Zhou Ye away. The blow struck the earth. The Ning soldiers around him closed in from all sides, thrusting at him with spears nearly a zhang long.

Dou Yong spun and hacked, splitting several shafts, but his body was being struck again and again — blood was pouring freely from a dozen wounds at once.

Only then did Dou Yong know regret. *Why was I so foolish?* he thought. *The Princess placed such hope in me, and I still couldn’t stop myself when the fighting started. Next time, I won’t — next time, even the Princess would turn her back on me.*

But there would be no next time.

This brute carved his way back, and in doing so cut down at least another twenty or thirty Ning soldiers.

But there were too many spears to stop.

The holes in his body were past counting. After several spears found his abdomen, his intestines began to spill out. Dou Yong pressed his left hand over them and shoved them back in, and with his right hand kept swinging the phoenix-beak blade.

He looked up ahead. The gap between him and his own men seemed to be growing wider. *This won’t do*, he thought. *This way I’ll truly fail the Princess’s trust.*

Where he found the strength, where he found the will — no one could say. Somehow, with one hand pressed to his belly, he hacked and fought his way ten more steps toward his own lines.

The Ning spears kept stabbing into him without pause. Dou Yong at last could not hold. He went to his knees, and with his last motion swung the phoenix-beak blade one final time.

It struck no one.

The great body pitched forward. A Ning soldier stepped up and brought his blade down, taking Dou Yong’s head.

At the same time, Zhou Ye had been carried to the rear. He sat propped against something while the field surgeon worked quickly to stanch his bleeding.

“Did our men push the Chu forces back?” Zhou Ye asked. With each word, fresh blood welled from his mouth in pulses.

One of his guards answered through tears, “General — the gap has been sealed. The Chu forces did not break through.”

“Good… hahaha… good…”

Zhou Ye raised his head and looked toward the high ground in the distance, as if searching for the silhouette of his General.

He had not… he had not let her down.

The surgeon was still working. Zhou Ye slowly closed his eyes, and a sound came from his lips.

“It really hurts… I’m tired.”

The Ning army ground the Chu forces back by sheer force, rebuilt the defensive line, and held off the Chu counterattacks one after another.

On the high ground, the Princess of Wu Wang went white — then a sudden sharp pain stabbed through her chest, twisting and wrenching, and a moment later she vomited a mouthful of blood.

Zhaoluan and Cainan rushed to support her. The Princess of Wu Wang said in a voice gone hoarse: “Dou Yong failed me. He failed me.”

—

At the foot of Mangdang Mountain.

Wu Prince led the death-soldier battalion charging down from the mountain himself. From above they had seen the distant sky lit bright — they knew it was the Princess of Wu Wang, that she had crossed the Panxing River and was fighting her way to them.

Now, if not now, when?

The Chu soldiers charging down the mountain were like caged mountain tigers set loose, like a flood — they broke through the wooden barriers the Ning forces had built across the mountain path in moments.

The Ning defenders fought a retreating action and fell back. The Chu breakout looked overwhelming.

By the time they reached the foot of the mountain, the men up front began tripping and falling — the Ning forces had dug countless pits here as well.

The charge lost speed abruptly. Wu Prince immediately called for the formation to be reorganized.

In the distance, Tang Pidi raised his spyglass and watched. When he saw the Chu forces streaming down from Mangdang Mountain, he drew a slow, deep breath.

This was the great battle he had planned for two years. The final reckoning between him and Wu Prince. If it was won, Chu’s vital force would be shattered beyond recovery.

The Ning forces fought and retreated as he had ordered — fall back for a stretch, then fresh Ning troops would step up and hammer hard, then fall back again. Over and over.

In this way, the Chu forces were lured down. Once Wu Prince’s forces opened the path, the main Chu column poured down the mountain road behind him.

They dared not delay even for a moment. Every man knew this was a battle that wagered everything — every life.

And more than lives: the Left Guard’s unbroken record of victory, and Wu Prince’s pride as the God of War of Great Chu.

It was at this moment that Zhaoluan, looking north, saw it — the sky in the north blazing with fire.

“The Prince has broken out!” Zhaoluan’s voice trembled with the words.

The urgency in the Princess of Wu Wang’s heart intensified. Her husband had broken out — but she had not yet cracked the Ning line to receive him. If she could not break through in time, her husband might be trapped and destroyed at the foot of the mountain. If they could not break out, he would have been better off staying on the mountain and holding.

“Charge — press forward — order the full army to advance regardless of cost!”

The Princess of Wu Wang shouted, and with the exertion, vomited another mouthful of blood.

Zhaoluan ordered the attack horns blown. Every Chu soldier began pressing forward. That vast open space was covered, densely, with people as far as the eye could see.

“Report!”

A courier reached Shen Shancoral and clasped his fist. “General, the Chu forces trapped on Mangdang Mountain have begun their breakout.”

Shen Shancoral made a sound of acknowledgment and extended her hand. “My sword.”

Her guard handed her the long blade. Shen Shancoral seized it and strode forward. “General Zhou has fallen in battle. Come with me — we avenge him.”

*Hu!*

Wu Prince was already off the mountain. The task of luring and containing the Princess of Wu Wang’s Chu forces had been largely accomplished.

Shen Shancoral no longer needed to think about how to hold the enemy. Now she simply wanted to kill every last one of them.

What had come before was fighting for the greater campaign. Now she was fighting for her fallen brothers.

From the Chu side, the full-attack horn sounded. Answering it, from the Ning side — the full-attack horn sounded as well.

Attack. Only attack.

—