Zhang Yi was a genuine Dachu standing army officer — a Dachu general forged through a thousand hammers and a hundred refinements.

The pride ground into his bones could not be erased.

No matter that the Ning Army had been sweeping through Jizhou and Yuzhou unchallenged — in Zhang Yi’s eyes they were still rebels, still brigands, still a rabble. As for Tang Pidi, whose name had grown into something almost mythical beyond the walls, he was just the head of those brigands, the chief of mountain bandits.

Dachu’s standing armies had spent years pacifying uprisings across the Central Plains. In every engagement, when had they not been devastating?

Yet today, his composure had cracked.

On both flanks — seven thousand soldiers each, more than double the Ning Army’s numbers in each case — and within less than an hour both had been torn apart.

And the style of fighting that tore them apart — that cutting charge down the center, the splitting pressure from both sides, overwhelming greater numbers with fewer…

Was that not the Dachu standing army’s own way of dealing with brigands?

When he had seen the Ning Army suddenly launch its own assault, he genuinely paused in confusion for a moment.

The next instant came a flicker of respect for the Ning Army.

Most of what followed was contempt for Tang Pidi.

That style of fighting was simply reckless.

“No reply from the left flank!”

“No reply from the right flank!”

The dispatch riders kept bringing back reports, and with each one the shadow in Zhang Yi’s heart grew a little deeper.

“Tang Pidi…”

He pronounced the name heavily.

“Both flanks have collapsed. The enemy will soon roll back from behind and close a pincer from two sides.”

Zhang Yi raised his iron spear and swept it forward: “Shift to arrow-head formation, drive straight into the enemy center, tear through their middle — there is still a path to victory.”

With that he spurred his horse forward.

Flanking him were a hundred and twenty battle-hardened veterans. These elite standing army soldiers were men who had clawed their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Every single one of them carried in their bearing a latent ferocity and dangerousness that even an ordinary person could feel.

These men needed only a glance to make others flinch.

“The enemy has shifted formation!”

Someone called out.

And then they saw that the Ning Army opposing them had also locked into the most aggressive arrow-head formation there was.

An arrow-head that does not retreat, only attacks.

Two blades, their tips driving directly at each other.

Still far apart, Zhang Yi could already see at the point of the enemy blade — Tang Pidi.

“Kill!”

Zhang Yi’s voice thundered out as he drove his horse forward at a full charge.

Yet in that very moment he saw a dark mass come flying toward them.

Like countless huge serpents suddenly hurling themselves into the air, appearing abruptly before the Cao Army.

Iron javelins.

A volley of javelins the Dachu standing army had never once issued its troops — let alone the Cao family soldiers he commanded now.

A sheet of iron javelins came sweeping in, and the cavalry at the front of the Cao Army went down in a layer.

Zhang Yi’s iron spear snapped up and deflected the javelin coming at him head-on, sending it spinning away.

In that instant he looked up — Tang Pidi was already almost upon him.

That spear thrust — like a dragon surging out of the sea, like the fury of a thunderclap.

In that lightning instant, Zhang Yi drove his long spear sharply downward. He had just sent the javelin flying, and now this same motion pressed Tang Pidi’s iron spear down and redirected it.

A sharp ring rang out, and a trail of sparks burst from the friction between the two spear shafts.

The two riders crossed past each other.

Both were inwardly startled.

Since his campaign to the south, Tang Pidi had charged at the vanguard in every single engagement — and not one Dachu commander had managed to meet this opening thrust.

This man’s reaction, his strength — both left Tang Pidi with genuine surprise.

Zhang Yi’s surprise ran deeper, because his hand was faintly trembling.

After crossing past each other, both men charged through the enemy formation a brief distance, then wheeled their horses around and drove at each other again.

This time Zhang Yi had no intention of giving Tang Pidi another opening.

He was the first to thrust — if a storm rising, if the cold of ice and snow.

This spear somehow carried with it a bone-chilling edge that evoked the biting chill of a northern winter.

If his spear was ten-thousand-year ice that would never thaw, then Tang Pidi’s was lightning crackling with surging electricity.

Both spears came in at exactly the same angle, and with extraordinary precision the two spear tips collided against each other in midair.

In the moment of impact, a piercing, needling sensation shot up both men’s hands through their spear shafts.

The sparks struck from the colliding tips seemed to match each other in stubbornness — crashing together and bursting into a shower of fire.

Both riders crossed past each other a second time.

Tang Pidi pulled his horse around. Zhang Yi wheeled his mount.

“Kill!”

Zhang Yi let out a roar and charged toward Tang Pidi a third time.

This time, he drove his spear at Tang Pidi’s heart. Tang Pidi’s spear drove straight for his heart in return.

The reaction and judgment of both men were nearly identical.

The two spears did not collide this time but crossed past each other in the blink of an eye.

Both Tang Pidi and Zhang Yi twisted aside with maximum effort in that same instant.

Both spear tips scraped across each other’s iron armor, leaving a trail of sparks.

In the moment of crossing for the third time, both spun and thrusted back simultaneously.

The difference was this: Zhang Yi forced a violent body-twist, gripping his iron spear with both hands and driving it backward.

But Tang Pidi, in that same fraction of a second, pulled both feet free of the stirrups, planted one hand on the saddle, and launched his body into the air.

In midair, he seemed to have already read the exact trajectory of Zhang Yi’s thrust.

With perfect precision, both feet landed on Zhang Yi’s spear shaft. Then with a single-hand grip he drove his own spear forward in a hard lunge.

Zhang Yi, now twisted head-around, saw this and his eyes snapped wide.

He immediately arched his body backward.

In a flash of light, Tang Pidi’s spear punched through Zhang Yi’s iron helmet and sent it spinning away.

The helmet tumbled, a hole pierced clean through it, rotating as it flew and landed in the distance.

The shock alarmed Zhang Yi — and gave Tang Pidi a moment’s surprise as well.

This man’s reaction had been so fast that even this thrust could be avoided.

Standing on Zhang Yi’s spear shaft, Tang Pidi pushed off with his feet. Zhang Yi could no longer maintain his grip on the shaft.

Besides, Zhang Yi was arching backward at that moment — the force he could put into his hands was far reduced.

His iron spear was stomped free of his grip by Tang Pidi.

Zhang Yi straightened up and looked back at Tang Pidi, who had already driven his spear through one of the veteran soldiers who had been moving to engage him, knocking the man off his horse.

In that moment, Tang Pidi’s horse had come back around.

Tang Pidi didn’t look back at his horse at all — he seemed to be gauging the position purely from the sound of the hoofbeats on the ground.

He planted his spear in the earth, used the leverage to spring upward, and landed precisely in the saddle.

Zhang Yi looked at the spear now lying on the ground. Without a weapon, he felt the courage drain from him by half.

So he immediately wheeled his horse and spurred it hard in another direction.

How could Tang Pidi possibly let him flee? He drove his horse in pursuit.

Ahead, the young general Gao Zhen had come rolling back in with his troops, cutting off Zhang Yi’s line of retreat.

“Die!”

Gao Zhen saw the enemy general coming toward him in a panicked retreat without a weapon. He shook his long spear through a spiral and drove it at Zhang Yi’s face.

Zhang Yi saw the thrust coming, tilted his head aside, and the spear grazed past his ear.

He raised his hand, grabbed the shaft, and pressed it down — pinning the spear across his own shoulder. Then he spun hard.

With the spear shaft pinned against his shoulder and that violent spin, Gao Zhen could not hold on.

The long spear was wrenched free, and the force nearly swept Gao Zhen off his horse.

The two horses crossed past each other. Zhang Yi had the shaft still pinned under his left arm. His right hand slid along it to push, his left released — the shaft whipped around his neck in a loop.

His right hand snapped to the butt end. He torqued his body back as far as it would go and drove the spear out.

Gao Zhen, young as he was, had fought on enough battlefields to know there would be a counter. So the moment the two horses crossed he had already pitched forward over his horse’s neck.

But still, just a fraction too slow. That thrust caught him on the shoulder.

With him already leaning forward, the spear failed to punch clean through — instead it sliced a long gash along his back.

The thrust had torn through iron armor and left a long wound on his body — one could well imagine the force behind it.

This was a young man as proud as they came, and never in a thousand years would he have imagined that in a single exchange his own spear had been taken from him, and that he had come within a breath of being killed with his own weapon.

At that very moment, Tang Pidi came thundering in on his horse.

The spear was still lodged in Gao Zhen’s back. Tang Pidi reached out, grabbed the shaft, and with a flick of his wrist sent it into a rapid, violent vibration.

The oscillation traveled from the tip to the butt end, growing in amplitude along the way.

With a resonant hum, the vibration shook Zhang Yi’s grip loose once more.

“Hold onto your spear.”

Tang Pidi said calmly.

Man and horse flashed past Gao Zhen’s side like a passing shadow.

And all of this had happened in a single instant.

Tang Pidi’s horse was fast, and he was closing on Zhang Yi rapidly. Zhang Yi suddenly wheeled around and called out: “You’re nothing more than a fast horse and a good spear.”

Tang Pidi gave a cold laugh and hurled his iron spear forward.

The spear drove into the rear leg of Zhang Yi’s horse. The tip then buried itself in the ground, acting as a lever that caught the leg — and with a crack, the leg snapped clean.

The horse screamed in pain and pitched forward, crumpling to the ground.

Zhang Yi launched himself off the horse’s back, hit the ground, and immediately rolled to absorb the impact.

By the time he had rolled to a stop and come to his feet, Gao Zhen’s cavalry had surrounded him on all sides.

Tang Pidi waved a hand. The Ning Army cavalry fell back.

He swung down off his horse and strode toward Zhang Yi in long steps.

Zhang Yi came upright, drew the saber at his hip, stepped forward with a large stride, and brought it down at Tang Pidi in a sweeping cut.

Tang Pidi drove forward. His shoulder slammed into Zhang Yi’s chest, then his shoulder heaved upward — Zhang Yi’s right arm was wrenched high, and the saber flew free under the shock.

The next instant, Tang Pidi stepped forward with one foot to hook Zhang Yi’s leg. The shoulder powered forward again.

With a heavy impact, Zhang Yi was thrown tumbling backward.

Expecting Tang Pidi to press the attack, he rolled and scrambled to dodge frantically after hitting the ground — cutting a thoroughly wretched figure.

When he finally got back to his feet he found Tang Pidi hadn’t followed at all — just standing there, expression composed and level, watching him.

In that moment, the pride Zhang Yi carried in his bones was crushed underfoot.

And the next instant, a single sentence shattered what remained of his dignity.

He had just told Tang Pidi: *you’re nothing more than a fast horse and a good spear.*

Yet now Tang Pidi — standing there, expression unchanged, watching him — said with quiet indifference: “And it seems you only know how to use a spear.”

Zhang Yi unleashed a roar and charged at Tang Pidi at full speed.

That fist carried all the fury of a man who had been humiliated, whistling through the air as it came.

Tang Pidi saw the fist nearly upon him, raised his own right fist, and drove it straight at Zhang Yi’s.

The crack of impact — and Zhang Yi’s forearm bone snapped.

The broken end of the bone tore through flesh, jutting out — white bone exposed, a few strands of bloody flesh still clinging to it.

Tang Pidi stepped in, elbow leading, and drove it into Zhang Yi’s face.

The blow sent Zhang Yi spinning half a rotation in place, feet leaving the ground, head snapping back — and then his face met the earth.

That strike had shattered Zhang Yi’s jaw.

He struggled to push himself up. Half his face was a smear of blood.

He spat out a mouthful of blood, and with it something — impossible to tell whether it was a tooth or a fragment of broken bone.

“Will you surrender?”

Tang Pidi asked.

Zhang Yi lifted his chin slightly. He could not speak, but his eyes were answer enough.

He reached to his side and pulled out a short knife, flicked his wrist — the scabbard flew toward Tang Pidi’s face.

As Tang Pidi sidestepped, Zhang Yi drove the single-handed knife toward Tang Pidi’s throat.

Both of Tang Pidi’s hands shot out simultaneously, seizing Zhang Yi’s wrist with perfect precision and twisting down and inward.

At the same time, his knee drove up.

As he twisted and pressed the wrist, the knife turned upward — hilt facing down — and the knee came up and struck the hilt squarely. The knife was knocked free of Zhang Yi’s hand and launched into the air.

Tang Pidi snatched it from mid-flight, spun half a turn, and swept his arm out in a horizontal arc.

*Thud.*

The knife drove into Zhang Yi’s temple.

Zhang Yi stood where he was, swaying. It seemed as though he was still trying to turn and look at Tang Pidi.

……

……

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