The Shanhai Army surged forward once more — they too had grown hollow with it by now, pressing on with no battle cries, heads lowered, just driving forward. The unbroken fighting, the failure to break through, the fact that they faced nothing but common villagers — all of it had long since drained whatever fighting spirit remained.

Charging forward now was little more than the mechanical execution of orders. To them, this assault was just one more repetition among the countless attacks of these past days.

But this time — even they had not anticipated that they would actually breach the wooden wall.

The men of Mengyuangu had been protected by the wall, fighting from the high ground — so their actual casualties had been relatively few, though the wounded were many. The growing attrition had made it inevitable that women would have to take up positions on the wall.

Not because women were less capable than men — but when faced with slaughter this brutal, they had not been prepared. They hauled stones and anything else they could find with everything they had, which commanded genuine awe. But on the battlefield, confronted with the enemy’s ferocity, with blood running in rivers, many found their reactions slowing slightly — their hearts seized for an instant by fear.

Men facing these same scenes would have been just as frightened at first. The women of Mengyuangu had been so well protected by its men that facing open battle for the first time — the first time confronting life and death, the first time watching lives vanish in an instant — some could not help but falter.

Several Shanhai Army soldiers clambered over the wall. The one who came face to face with a woman who had gone rigid with shock — both of them froze for a moment. But the Shanhai Army soldier recovered first and brought his blade slashing down.

Xiao Qi happened to be nearby. He snatched the woman out of the way with one hand, then drove his boot into the chest of the soldier who had just climbed up and sent him tumbling back over the wall.

One fell, two more came up.

Xiao Qi cut one of them down, but took a blade to the shoulder in return.

In that life-or-death instant, Xiao Qi raised his left hand and clamped it around the back of the enemy’s blade, pinning it into his own shoulder — then drove his own sword into the man’s gut.

Blood poured in all directions. The woman had gone white as a sheet.

They all knew the men on the wall were fighting in danger — but without seeing it with their own eyes, there was no way to understand what that danger truly looked like.

Xiao Qi’s shoulder wound was severe. The woman snapped back to herself and moved to bind it, but there was no time for bandaging.

“Get back now!”

Seeing her come toward him again, Xiao Qi turned and shouted.

In that brief moment of turning, a Shanhai Army soldier’s blade came arcing down — aimed straight for Xiao Qi’s head.

A dark shape came hurling from the side, heedless of safety, throwing itself around the Shanhai Army soldier’s waist and bearing him down.

Xiao Qi then saw it was Lin Huiyun.

He stepped in, grabbed the enemy by the hair, hauled him up, and drew the blade across his throat. Blood erupted, spraying Lin Huiyun full in the face.

Lin Huiyun cried out sharply — the vivid red of the blood against the pallor of her face made the contrast startling and extreme.

“Get down.”

Xiao Qi pulled Lin Huiyun by the arm. As he bent forward, another Shanhai Army soldier came leaping over the wall and drove into him, knocking him to the ground.

The enemy straddled him, pressing his blade down toward Xiao Qi’s chest.

Xiao Qi grabbed the back of the blade with one hand, groped for his own weapon with the other, and drove it into the man’s ribs.

The enemy toppled. Xiao Qi scrambled up, then brought his blade down again on the fallen man’s throat.

“All of you — fall back!”

Xiao Qi bellowed, struggling upright, launching himself at the next enemy.

The woman who had gone rigid with fear — her face, like Lin Huiyun’s, was drained of all color — hesitated for a moment. Then she picked up a rock, rushed to the edge of the wall, and hurled it down with all her strength onto someone climbing below.

The skull of the one struck seemed to cave in. Man and rock both crashed down, and the blood that welled from the broken skull quickly spread in a great dark pool across the ground.

Xiao Qi killed another Shanhai Army soldier, then straightened and looked around — in several places along the wall, the enemy had already cut their way up. If they couldn’t push the bandits back, it wouldn’t be long before the wall fell.

The wooden stockade was all that stood between the people of Mengyuangu and destruction. If it was taken, the villagers would be lambs left to the slaughter.

“All of you — die!”

Xiao Qi let out a roar, vaulted forward, and used his shoulder to knock the first man who had just clambered up off the wall. He then swept blindly with his blade, slicing off the better part of one enemy’s skull from not far away.

White matter like soft curds seeped from the gap. The man’s eyes drifted sideways, as though trying to catch a glimpse of his own brain.

Then, on the horizon, a dark serpent appeared.

Dantai Yajing and the others had arrived. Still at a distance, they could already hear the sounds of battle. They rounded the mouth of the mountain pass and the full brutality of the scene came into view.

“Sound the horn!”

Dantai Yajing’s order was only two words — brief and urgent — and as he spoke he pulled his visor down.

*Wuuu… wuuu wuuu!*

His personal guard raised the horn and blew. It was the call to attack.

Every cavalry soldier dropped their visor at the same instant, lifted their long lances from where they hung at their horses’ flanks at the same instant, and pressed their bodies low. The warhorses seemed to sense their riders’ intent — and broke into a gallop.

In that moment, Nie Datian and Nie Xiaodi — who had come with them — were left deeply shaken all over again.

In the distance, the Shanhai Army bandits were like a vast lake, surging with countless men, while Dantai Yajing’s side numbered barely over two hundred. Compared to the size of that bandit force, this cavalry unit was nothing — a thread.

“Break through the center of their command!”

Dantai Yajing shouted again — brief, beyond question — and leaned his body forward, both hands tight on his long lance, the lance tip angled downward to the diagonal.

Two hundred-plus of Prince Ning’s elite cavalry — no battle cries, no chanting — formed a wedge formation, with Dantai Yajing as its point, and drove toward that dark swarming mass.

The instant the two sides met, men and horses flew in all directions through the Shanhai Army ranks.

The long lance in Dantai Yajing’s hands was as steady as if it had been bolted into a great stone — it pierced through one man, then two, then three… bandit after bandit was skewered on the lance tip.

He threw both arms wide, and with a single sweeping motion, the lance — strung with four or five bodies — swung horizontal. The corpses were flung outward, knocking down scores of men.

Flanking him on either side were two of the Chief Adjutants of the Tingwei Army — Zaoyun Jian to the left, Yu Hongyi to the right. If Dantai Yajing was the point of the sword, these two were its cutting edges.

Behind them, the elite cavalry of Prince Ning’s forces pressed down low, thrusting their lances forward, each skewering several men — just as Dantai Yajing had — though they did not have the arm strength to then fling the bodies away.

And so the mounted lancers’ charge — using these cheaply made spears — was, for nearly all of them, a one-time weapon.

After driving through several men, they simply let go.

“Switch to sabers!”

*Hu!*

Lances released, curved sabers drawn.

This cavalry force made no move toward Mengyuangu to relieve the immediate pressure — instead, they drove straight for the Shanhai Army’s command position.

On horseback atop a rise, Xu Heihu caught sight of the cavalry force that had appeared out of nowhere, and at first he paid it little mind.

The unit’s numbers were genuinely pitiful — and that so-called wedge formation, in his eyes, was nothing but a thin, fragile black line.

But what struck him with shock was that this small cavalry force was irresistible.

They drove on without slowing — breaking through with ease. The bulk of the Shanhai Army’s strength was pressed forward at the front; this rear section still had at least two thousand troops, and yet they could not stop that cavalry charge at all.

“Archers!”

Xu Heihu called out — but it was already too late.

The archers’ formation had not yet taken shape before that cavalry force was already upon the rise where he stood.

“Defensive formation!”

Xu Heihu called again, and then noticed: that cavalry force was flying a deep crimson banner.

“Prince Ning’s Army… how can it be Prince Ning’s Army?!”

Xu Heihu’s eyes went wide.

Dantai Yajing’s long lance swept left and right, cutting a path through the Shanhai Army with nothing but his own force of arms — carving out a blood-red road.

Wherever the lance passed, all that remained were corpses with the upper half of their skulls gone.

With each swing of the lance tip, the top half of every enemy skull was swept cleanly away.

Every man fell the same way — everything above the nose, gone.

Two hundred-plus cavalry, exhausted from the long march, and yet they cut through the Shanhai Army’s ranks like a blade through soft curd — opening a straight gash of blood all the way to Xu Heihu’s position.

Xu Heihu seized a long lance from a soldier beside him and hurled it straight at the foremost figure among Prince Ning’s forces.

The lance came flying. Dantai Yajing’s lance swept sideways and deflected it away.

“Returning the favor!”

Dantai Yajing let out a battle cry. The lance in his palm became a flash of light and launched outward, arriving in the space of a single breath.

Such force, such speed — it seemed to tear through the air itself. The moment it left Dantai Yajing’s hand, the next breath it was already before Xu Heihu.

Xu Heihu’s martial skill was not poor. Though he could not dodge in time, he managed in an instant to wrench his long saber free and hold it across his body.

*Clang!* — the lance tip struck the flat of the saber. He blocked it, yes — but under the overwhelming force behind it, Xu Heihu was driven clean off his horse.

And the moment the lance left his hand, Dantai Yajing had already drawn the curved saber at his hip.

The blade swept cold light — left, right — and Shanhai Army soldier after soldier was cut down.

From a distance, Nie Datian’s eyes went wide as she watched.

Nie Xiaodi rubbed his own eyes and asked in disbelief: “Sister… he threw his spear away — how is he still this terrifying?”

Nie Datian had not merely widened her eyes — her mouth had fallen open.

After a long moment she murmured, half to herself: “Maybe… when he threw the spear, the spirit of the spear possessed him?”

Nie Xiaodi said: “So right now he’s basically just a spear?”

Nie Datian stood there dumbfounded, at a loss for words.

“Let’s go, quickly.”

Nie Hongfu called out.

“Go?”

Nie Datian heard her father shout, and snapped back. Right — wasn’t this exactly the dangerous situation she and Dantai Yajing had agreed on?

She looked toward the wooden wall and only then noticed that the few men from Mengyuangu who had ridden here with them were already galloping toward the stockade.

Their figures, set against the countless enemy soldiers ahead, looked terribly alone.

And yet not one of them hesitated — like moths hurling themselves into a fire.

“Brother!”

Nie Datian called out.

“Good!”

Nie Xiaodi answered at once.

The two of them, one behind the other, drove hard toward the wooden wall as well.

Back in the Shanhai Army’s command position, Dantai Yajing rode straight up the rise and severed the command banner’s pole with a single stroke of his saber.

The man gripping the pole was cut in half along with it.

The pole toppled. Two halves of a body toppled with it.

Xu Heihu’s eyes turned red. He snatched up a long saber and swept it at Dantai Yajing’s warhorse — aiming to take both front legs in one stroke.

Dantai Yajing pulled the reins. The warhorse reared up on its hind legs, head thrown back with a piercing cry.

—