Within the narrow confines of the gate tunnel, the corpses had stacked so high they formed a wall of flesh.

The rebel fighters who tried to push into the tunnel and force the gates shut again had fallen in layer after layer.

The gate tunnel was not wide, and Liren and his people had — impossibly — held it for that long.

Once the enemy pressed in close, the archers had no room to keep firing, and this, as it happened, worked in Liren’s favor.

The rebels on Yunlai Island had assumed that with only a handful of men holding the gate, surely numbers would bring it down. How could a few dozen fighters not manage it? Then a few hundred?

That miscalculation cost the rebels dearly.

Liren and his people numbered only seven or eight who had slid from the wall — yet the men they had killed already exceeded twenty times their own number.

It was only at this point that the rebel army sensed something was terribly wrong.

Those seven or eight figures were covered head to toe in wounds, and yet they still stood. Breath came in heaving gasps; blood ran down their bodies like streams finding channels. But not one had been made to fall.

Liren glanced sideways. Standing beside him — having blocked three blows aimed at him — was the young Blade Corps soldier who had first stepped forward. He was one of the direct lineage.

He was the one who had said, when Liren announced there would be no more direct or collateral line, that such distinctions had always been the rule. And he was the one who, after Liren declared the rule abolished, had looked back at his mother — and stepped forward anyway.

“Not bad,” Liren said, still breathing hard.

The young man raised a hand to wipe away the blood threatening to blind him, and managed a smile. “You said that once you’d staked your life, you could look after whoever you wanted with a clear conscience. If I die, my mother…”

Liren cut him off. “You’re not going to die. Your mother — you take care of her yourself. I brought you all here, and I’m bringing you all back.”

Just then, realizing the ring-pommel sword fighters were far too lethal to overrun, the rebels began to pull back. They regrouped their archers and prepared to simply shoot every last man in the gate tunnel dead.

But by now there were more bodies piled before Liren and his people, giving them more to hide behind.

The bodies had already stacked up quite high, and the instant the enemy’s arrows were loosed, Liren and his people dropped flat.

Thud after thud, the arrows drove savagely into the corpses, the sound of shafts grinding against bone almost audible in the din.

“Liren-ge, we haven’t brought shame to the Sage’s name, have we?” the young man asked.

Liren said, “No. But we haven’t reached the point of making the Sage proud of us either. You should know — when the Great Zhou fell to rebellion, the Sage’s closest friend and former classmate, the sitting Prime Minister of Great Zhou, also raised his banner in revolt.”

“When the Sage heard, he took only fifty men and rode into the rebel camp in the night — fifty thousand enemy soldiers — and seized their commander alive to bring him back.”

Liren let out a slow breath. “Measured against that…”

The young man asked, “Ours isn’t worth mentioning?”

Liren shook his head. “No. What we’ve done today — it has earned the right to be written in the clan annals, for our children’s children to know.”

At this moment, the rebel general commanding the archers was beside himself with fury. He knew that if the gate weren’t retaken soon, a catastrophe was coming. But those men had taken cover behind the bodies, and arrows couldn’t reach them.

The general bellowed an order: “Archers, advance formation — walk and fire! Press forward!”

At his command, the archers began to close in together, loosing arrows as they stepped — each volley denser than the last, each growing stronger as the distance shortened.

“Our names will be written in the clan annals,” the young man said with a smile. There was no fear on his face — only a pride that belonged entirely to him.

“We may never stand beside the Sage. But in the annals, after his name, there will be mine. To live like this — it is enough.”

He drew a deep breath. “Let’s kill our way out. The archers are almost on us — every one we take down from here is a bonus.”

Liren gave a sound of agreement. “Together, then.”

They were just starting to rise when a shout erupted from behind them.

“Get down!”

The Blade Corps fighters were sharp; they reacted instantly at the cry and threw themselves flat.

Then they heard a sound like wind being born.

Whoom—

A wave of iron javelins came flying in through the open gate from outside, surging forward like a dense fog.

The javelins cleared above their heads in a rush of air.

The rebel archers pressing forward collapsed in a neat row — each one with a black iron shaft buried in their chest.

And the black tide did not come only once — there was a second volley. A third.

Round after round of iron javelins swept through the gate tunnel, clearing the rebel soldiers in wave after wave.

“Xianzhen Battalion!”

A great shout rang out, and a force of men in black armor poured in from outside the gate — appearing as one, they seemed to bring a black storm-cloud in with them.

Master Wu personally led the Xianzhen Battalion into the breach. The moment he entered, he called out, “Blade Corps brothers — rest!”

“Xianzhen Battalion — forward!”

Eight hundred elite Xianzhen soldiers took the Blade Corps’s position, and swapped the balance of attack and defense.

In pure individual martial skill, these men were far below the two hundred and forty Blade Corps soldiers. But in the art of battle — especially with the enemy already right in front of them — the current Blade Corps could not yet match the Xianzhen Battalion.

These eight hundred had been trained hand-by-hand by Master Wu. Their coordination and their courage were both at their absolute peak.

“Let the Blade Corps brothers see — the Xianzhen Battalion doesn’t flinch!”

Voice after voice rang out, and eight hundred men formed a spearhead, driving straight into the rebel mass.

Behind those eight hundred, Ning Army reinforcements were pouring ashore in an unbroken tide.

At the gate, Liren slid down against the wall and sat. Only now, in this moment, did he feel with full and unmistakable clarity that he had not one scrap of strength left.

They all gulped for breath, looked at each other, and then burst out laughing — laughing so hard it seemed they didn’t care what little energy they had left.

“So this is what battle is,” Liren murmured to himself.

He had spent years in Shu Province, had been a member of the Shu army — and yet he had never known, until now, what fighting truly looked like from the inside.

“At least now we won’t have to face the Sage one day feeling we’d let him down.”

The young man smiled, raising a hand to smear the blood away from the corner of his mouth.

“Does this count? Did we make it?”

Liren nodded. “It counts. Definitely counts.”

By now the Ning Army’s main force had begun a full assault on the rebels of Yunlai Island. With the Ning Army’s current fighting strength, once things reached this point, victory was as good as in hand.

They climbed the wall to relieve the Blade Corps soldiers still holding positions above, and one by one the Blade Corps fighters came down, found Liren, and then settled side by side along the base of the wall.

Looking roughly — of the two hundred and forty Blade Corps soldiers, more than half had fallen.

“Before… though we were always proud to be the Sage’s descendants, we never dared tell anyone openly who we were.”

Liren leaned back against the wall, his voice soft, yet every word seemed to carry a weight that pressed down and down.

Those who had survived sat quietly listening. Every head was bowed. Every heart perhaps equally tangled.

“After this battle, we can tell the whole world — we, the Sage’s descendants, stood here today and did not bring the Sage shame.”

“The brothers who died in battle — their names will be written in the clan annals. We will raise monuments to them, so that more people will know: the descendants of the Sage are made of iron.”

When Liren finished, every person remained silent. But every fist had tightened.

The feeling was good, in a way that felt almost unreal.

—

High in the mountain fortress of Yunlai Island, Yuan Zhen watched the red war banners of the Ning Army push through below, and his face went ashen.

This was something that should have been impossible. Or at least — it looked so unreal, like a dream.

And in truth, he had dreamed this nightmare more than once. Perhaps the Ning Army had pressed so heavily on his mind, perhaps their encounters had cut so deeply into his memory — and in every memory, every clash ended in his defeat.

“Advisor!”

Someone came running. “Ning Army soldiers have broken into the forward fortress! What do we do?!”

Yuan Zhen demanded at once, “Where is the General?”

“The General has already led troops up to meet them!”

Yuan Zhen said, “All of you go reinforce the General. Tell him I’m going to regroup our forces and swing around to attack the Ning Army’s flank. The Ning Army hasn’t pushed many soldiers in yet — if we hit from both sides, we can drive them back out!”

“Yes!”

The men around him gave immediate assent and called the others together, all of them running toward the forward fortress.

Yuan Zhen watched them charge ahead, and felt their complete, unquestioning trust in him.

None of them suspected anything. None of them had stopped to think: if they were all going to the front, who exactly was Yuan Zhen regrouping?

Yuan Zhen had no intention of dying alongside these broken remnants of the Yong Province army. A man like him — how could he not have prepared a way out?

He slipped out of the mountain fortress and made his way to the island’s far side.

In a secluded courtyard set apart from the rest, a man who closely resembled him in both build and features stood there, staring into nothing.

When he saw Yuan Zhen approach, the man hurried over. “Advisor, is something happening?”

Yuan Zhen said, “I’ve always told you to stay ready. This is the day I meant…”

This man was a body double Yuan Zhen had selected — found after scouring tens of thousands for someone who resembled him closely enough. The moment he had spotted this person, Yuan Zhen had made up his mind.

He said to the double, “The General has given me a secret task. I must leave quietly — no one in the fortress can know I’ve gone. So you’ll need to go to the forward fortress and impersonate me for a few days. Just stay in and don’t go out. No one will see through it.”

The man agreed, visibly nervous, clearly afraid he would give himself away.

“Go. Don’t worry — the General will cover for you.”

Yuan Zhen urged him again, and the man had no choice but to head toward the forward fortress.

Yunlai Island was large; the sounds from the front reached the rear mountain only faintly.

So the body double didn’t yet know what was happening ahead. He followed Yuan Zhen’s instructions and walked on.

Partway along, he heard the sounds of battle cries. He stopped immediately and looked back.

He turned — and let out a yelp of fright.

He hadn’t sensed Yuan Zhen at all. Yuan Zhen was right behind him.

“You shouldn’t have turned around,” Yuan Zhen said softly, and then without warning raised his hand and drew a knife across the double’s face. The double, terrified, screamed and ran.

Yuan Zhen stepped in behind him and delivered a second cut — this one to a vital point.

The double, in sheer desperation, was still running, but Yuan Zhen knew he wouldn’t last long.

Yuan Zhen turned back toward the rear mountain. Deep in the woods lay an extremely well-hidden cave, where he had secretly cached months’ worth of provisions.

Into the island — one sea passage. Out of the island — one sea passage.

There was no escape for him now. He could only hide.