The curtain of ring-pommel sabres falling was like a judgment descending from the heavens.

Heavier than the standard blade. Sharper. More domineering. More terrifying.

And more terrifying still than the ring-pommel sabres were the men from Yanzhou who held them.

Before this battle, Mu Huanzhi had stood before these men — handpicked by himself — and the words he used to stir their fighting spirit were not many.

“Yanzhou has always been called ‘beyond the passes.’ We have always been called savages. Countless people have said that Yanzhou men are greedy, cowardly, and quick to abandon loyalty for profit. They say we are crude, ill-mannered, and without education. And that is precisely why I singled you out to form the Blade Corps!”

He looked out at these men and shouted: “Today, let those府兵 see clearly — no one in this world holds honor more dearly than the men of Yanzhou, and no one in this world carries a sharper edge than the men of Yanzhou!”

“Blade!”

Mu Huanzhi roared.

“Blade!”

“Blade!”

“Blade!”

The sound rolled like thunder.

Three thousand six hundred Yanzhou men, ring-pommel sabres in hand, came charging back into the府兵 ranks.

Those ring-pommel sabres seemed cursed with the fury of demons. These men seemed imbued with the power of war gods.

“The northern frontier armies — those brave fighters who faced the Black Wu — seven or eight out of ten originally came from Yanzhou! Only Yanzhou men could stand against Black Wu warriors and hold their own in close combat. How is it that now they can be looked down upon?!”

Mu Huanzhi’s blade fell, and the府兵 before him was split at the waist.

Blade after blade after blade after blade — this was a forest of blades, a curtain of blades, a waterfall of blades!

The men of the Blade Corps averaged half a head taller than the opposing Dachu府兵.

Once, on battlefields fighting the Black Wu, only the heavy-armored companies formed from Yanzhou men could make the Black Wu falter and fall back.

But Dachu had collapsed into chaos, and Yanzhou had been plagued by bandits more than anywhere else — until the name Yanzhou became synonymous only with savagery and lawlessness.

“Prince Ning is carving out a new world. To take a place in the founding of that age, those who must charge first must be my Blade Corps — must be the warriors of Yanzhou!”

Mu Huanzhi slashed and hacked like a madman, howling and roaring like a madman.

His madness, his battle cries, drove these Yanzhou men to become tigers tearing down from the mountains.

The府兵, who had rarely ever felt fear facing enemies head-on, were truly afraid now.

They watched with their own eyes as one blade soldier, with half his shoulder hacked away, continued chopping with blood spraying from the wound, his eyes burning red — until the very moment he finally collapsed, he had not retreated a single step because of the pain.

A Yanzhou blade soldier who had been run through the chest by a long spear actually surged forward with every ounce of his strength, letting the spear shaft pass through his own body — and then took off the府兵 soldier’s head with a single sweep.

Another blade soldier, knocked to the ground, grabbed the enemy’s legs and dragged himself up, enduring slash after slash from a blade striking down onto his back — while his hands closed tight around the enemy’s throat. When he couldn’t squeeze hard enough in time, he bit into the府兵 soldier’s neck and locked his jaw shut.

Such ferocious fighting. Such ferocious spirit.

The Dachu府兵 — once renowned throughout the realm as the sharpest blade in existence — were, for the first time, being driven back step by step in a direct frontal engagement.

The Right Command Guard, with over thirty thousand men in the main assault, saw their first formation pushed back — and in the process had lost over eight thousand men.

The府兵 receded like a tide, and the bodies covering the entire riverbank were an entire layer deep.

Those Yanzhou men, without even armor to their names, raised their ring-pommel sabres and lifted their voices in a thunderous cry.

One cry after another, like the roar of mountain tigers.

Yet barely had they retreated, when the rear supervisory units began loosing arrows. The withdrawing府兵 were driven and forced back into the fight again.

They had spent eight thousand soldiers’ lives to break through three rows of barriers and the shield wall. If they pulled back now, all of that would have been for nothing.

So Jing Yangxu would not allow his men to retreat like this. Whether it was the duty of a commanding general or the pride of a Grand General of the Right Command Guard, neither would permit him to give up.

“Follow me — charge!”

Jing Yangxu, drenched in blood, drove forward with full force. The soldiers behind him surged forward again like a tide rushing back in.

Seeing the Right Command Guard advancing once more, Mu Huanzhi leveled his ring-pommel sabre and pointed forward: “The enemy refuses to surrender, and still dares to come again. Follow me and break them!”

The Blade Corps charged back toward the Right Command Guard.

One blade fell — an arm went flying. One blade fell — a head leapt from its shoulders. One blade fell — a body was split in two. One blade fell — a river of blood.

On the high ground, Tang Pidi lowered his spyglass and gave the order: “All archers, loft volleys — cut off the enemy rear guard. Give the Blade Corps room to work.”

As the signal horn sounded, the Ning Army archers raised their longbows in unison. With a roar, the arrows poured out like a torrential, inverted rain, blanketing the air.

The sustained lofted volleys cut off the rear sections of the Right Command Guard, leaving the several thousand men charging at the front without support.

But both sides had already killed their way into a red-eyed frenzy. The enemy would not yield, so neither would anyone else.

Jing Yangxu swept his heavy *modao*, cutting a Yanzhou man surging at him clean in half. The upper half of the body fell at his feet.

Then another sweep from low to high — the Ning Army soldier in front of him was gutted, his blood and entrails squeezed out in an instant.

But at that very moment, he saw — in the midst of the Ning Army — a blood-soaked young general howling as he charged straight toward him.

That ring-pommel sabre descended from above, swinging hard and true for Jing Yangxu’s skull.

Jing Yangxu raised his *modao* in both hands. A clang rang out as the ring-pommel sabre struck the *modao*’s shaft, the impact sending a numbing vibration rattling through the ears.

The first blow was blocked — but Mu Huanzhi didn’t stop for a single moment. Both hands gripping the hilt of his ring-pommel sabre, he kept bringing the blade down, again and again onto the same shaft.

“Block it! Block! Block! Block!”

With each cry of “block,” another blade fell.

Under such relentless assault, Jing Yangxu could find no opening to counterattack at all. Each impact drove him stumbling backward again and again.

When Mu Huanzhi’s blade came down, Jing Yangxu could only raise the shaft to receive it — both men’s arms stood out with swelling muscle.

Jing Yangxu knew he couldn’t keep this up. He suddenly dropped low into a crouch, then poured every ounce of strength into his legs as he rose, heaving the *modao* upward in a hard, two-handed parry.

A thunderous clang — and this time the ring-pommel sabre was sent flying back.

Jing Yangxu seized the moment and drove a kick straight at Mu Huanzhi’s chest — only to find that Mu Huanzhi launched a kick at the exact same moment.

Both men landed their kicks. Both men were hurled backward and fell.

But Jing Yangxu was wearing heavy armor. Getting back up was plainly slower than Mu Huanzhi, who wore nothing but a single layer of clothing.

“Can you block this one!”

Mu Huanzhi gripped his sabre in both hands and brought it sweeping down in a powerful arc. The force of it made the color drain from Jing Yangxu’s face — unable to rise in time, he could only roll to the side.

A fraction too slow. The blade carved into his shoulder plate, cleaved it open, and took a layer of flesh and muscle from the rear of his shoulder with it.

“Come on — block me again!”

Mu Huanzhi let out a battle cry and drove a kick into Jing Yangxu’s lower back. Jing Yangxu crashed to the ground face first.

Mu Huanzhi stepped over him, raising his sabre to deliver the killing blow — but in a desperate bid to save their commanding general, several府兵 soldiers to the rear loosed arrows in rapid succession. Mu Huanzhi swept his blade and knocked aside two of them, but a third punched through his shoulder.

With his left hand, Mu Huanzhi reached up and ripped the arrow free, then whipped it forward — the shaft flew straight and buried itself in the throat of the soldier who had fired it.

Mu Huanzhi glanced at Jing Yangxu, who was struggling to rise, then drove another kick into his back.

Weighed down by his heavy armor and already wounded, Jing Yangxu was kicked down to one knee. In his fury, he let out his own roar.

“Traitorous wretch!”

“Shout to your mother!”

Mu Huanzhi came in fast and swung a horizontal sweep. The ring-pommel sabre flashed like a streak of white light across Jing Yangxu’s neck.

Mu Huanzhi caught the head in one hand and raised it high: “Mu Huanzhi of the Blade Corps — I have slain an enemy Grand General!”

“HUH!”

The Yanzhou blade soldiers around him raised a single, unified cry — like a waterfall of thunder descended to earth.

Mu Huanzhi lifted that head and pressed forward again. He noticed that the Chu soldier who had caught the thrown arrow had not died — the force behind a hand-thrown arrow was not great, and the distance had been considerable — but the man had already been so frightened his legs gave out beneath him.

Mu Huanzhi walked over and kicked him flat onto his back: “Next time, aim your arrows at my head! Do you hear me?!”

One blade fell.

The soldiers under his command raised their arms and roared as one.

The several thousand府兵 cut off in that area were hunted down and slaughtered to the last man.

In this battle, three thousand six hundred blade soldiers suffered losses of over nine hundred — yet they had cut down more than four thousand soldiers of the Right Command Guard, including Grand General Jing Yangxu.

On the high ground, Tang Pidi watched this unfold and gave only a slight nod.

If he had not ordered all archers to loft volleys and blocked the Right Command Guard’s follow-up forces from coming forward, the losses among those three thousand six hundred blade soldiers would certainly have been far more than nine hundred.

He knew that the Yanzhou men all carried a fire smoldering inside them. They needed one battle — one good fight to let that fire burn free.

So he had built them a battlefield. He had let the Blade Corps brothers kill to their hearts’ content, and kept their losses to a minimum.

Once blade soldiers with the killing-fever in their eyes charge too recklessly and become engulfed by the Right Command Guard’s ranks, even if all three thousand six hundred of them cut down ten thousand, cut down twenty thousand — what would be the point?

Grand General Jing Yangxu had fallen in battle. The Right Command Guard had no choice but to pull back, leaving the ground strewn with countless bodies.

The men of the Blade Corps, one after another, beat their ring-pommel sabres against their chests — bare chests, with no armor to dampen the blows, each strike ringing out sharp and clear.

Mu Huanzhi looked down at the head in his hand, then slowly raised it high: “From this battle forward — the Blade Corps shall forge a name for itself: unstoppable, invincible, before all enemies!”

“HUH!”

“HUH!”

Cry after cry, shaking heaven and earth.

Out on the river, at the prow of that river hawk warship, Yang Xuanji had been watching through his spyglass. He watched the Right Command Guard fall back. He watched that young Ning Army general raise the head of Jing Yangxu.

His face had gone iron-grey. He was so furious that his lips trembled faintly.

“Pass down the order.”

Yang Xuanji’s voice rang out: “Bai Kaifu takes command as the new vanguard Grand General. If he cannot take the beachhead today, he need not come back to face me.”

Xun Youjiu hurried to counsel him: “My lord, the Ning Army’s morale is running high right now. If General Bai goes up, he will also suffer terrible losses. It would be better to send in additional forces, form a battle line on the riverbank, establish a foothold first, then bring up the siege equipment. Erect tower carriages along the river’s edge, have archers on the high ground suppress the Ning Army’s arrow formations, then use crossbow-carriages to shatter their shield wall — that is the proper way to defeat them.”

Yang Xuanji slowly let out a breath: “Do it according to Counselor Xun’s method then.”

He turned and walked back toward the ship’s cabin: “A pack of rabble from bandit stock — yet the Right Command Guard has been beaten like this. How does that make any sense?”

Xun Youjiu had been on the verge of saying more, but seeing Yang Xuanji’s dark and stormy expression, he chose silence in the end.

The Ning Army had waited in prepared positions, their formations intact, their weapons fully stocked. Under such conditions, one failed assault meant nothing decisive.

Yang Xuanji was simply furious because he had schemed and planned for so long, and had not achieved a clean victory in a single stroke.

Yet Yang Xuanji was not a mediocre man.

He recovered quickly, recognizing that if he gave himself over to wounded pride now, it would only damage morale.

So Yang Xuanji immediately turned back to Xun Youjiu: “Counselor Xun, go to the troops by the river on my behalf. Tell them I have seen their valor. Tell them I am proud to have men such as them. Tell them I will give General Jing a proper burial with full honors — and that every soldier who fell in battle today will receive triple the standard death compensation. Every soldier of the Right Command Guard will receive triple pay. And tell them: I am waiting for news of their victory.”

Xun Youjiu let out a quiet, private sigh of relief.

He bowed: “Your servant will go at once.”

—