That voice sounded familiar, like Da Wu’s.

Tie Ci remembered this guy’s particularly keen perception and silently groaned.

Looking up, she saw a human figure had already jumped up, vaguely looking like Da Wu.

But upon closer inspection, that figure was perfectly straight—he wasn’t jumping on his own but being dragged upward into the sky!

Watching a living person being slowly pulled up by invisible hands through the wind and sand was like watching a terrifying silent film.

In the blink of an eye he was already two zhang from the ground.

Never mind what would happen once he reached the sky—even free fall could kill Da Wu.

Xiao Wu’s screams also rang out.

Tie Ci threw off the heavy person on top of her. Her figure flashed and the next instant she appeared in mid-air, embracing Da Wu’s legs.

Da Wu’s body plummeted violently downward, but surprisingly didn’t fall.

Tie Ci felt enormous pulling force from above, as if someone had tied the other end of the wind to Da Wu, dragging her involuntarily upward.

Her legs suddenly felt heavy—looking down, Feiyu had pounced over to grab her.

The upward momentum slowed. Furious snorting came from overhead.

The wind grew stronger, howling into their ears.

Another weight below—Tie Ci struggled to look down and saw that the person grabbing Feiyu’s legs was actually Eagle Chief.

Below in the forest, soldiers knelt in various pits, kowtowing toward the sky.

Some were swept away, crashing into trees with broken bones and torn tendons.

After Eagle Chief pounced over, the upward momentum finally eased.

In the misty world, Tie Ci vaguely heard a sharp cry. A black line seemed to streak from the horizon, colliding with the dark shadow above, then falling with miserable calls to who knows where.

Tie Ci’s heart stirred.

Everyone hung in the sky like a string of grasshoppers—surely a spectacle from afar, though Tie Ci had no mood to imagine it. She climbed up Da Wu’s waist all the way to behind him, pressing down on his shoulders with both hands.

This press used all her true qi, with hot currents surging from her dantian.

Everyone immediately dropped a section.

The one above seemed to fly into a rage and pulled hard, just as Tie Ci was catching her breath.

Everyone went up another section.

Feiyu had also climbed up along Tie Ci now, pressing on her shoulders while exerting his true force.

Everyone dropped another section.

The opponent was furious and pulled upward.

Eagle Chief scrambled up, placing his hands on Feiyu’s shoulders. Together they pulled, and everyone dropped again.

The group played tug-of-war, bobbing up and down in mid-air.

But the wind and sand gradually subsided at this time, as if the person above was busy with tug-of-war and couldn’t manage the sandstorm.

People crawled out of their hiding pits, staring dumbfounded at the string playing tug-of-war in mid-air.

Both sides were at a standstill. Tie Ci looked up to see that person slowly descending—cloud-like black robes, a fluttering body.

This appearance and feeling was very similar to the shadow she’d seen in the Empress Dowager’s palace.

But it definitely wasn’t that person, since the Empress Dowager couldn’t leave that person’s protection.

Tie Ci suddenly remembered having Shadow investigate the mysterious master in the Empress Dowager’s palace. Shadow had given her several locations, including Yong Ping.

Though this wasn’t Yong Ping, it was related—within Western Rong territory. Masters couldn’t stay in one place forever; they would also wander and migrate.

If Western Rong was in great turmoil with multiple factions appearing, it wasn’t impossible for some master to be bought by one faction.

But what was his relationship to the one in the Empress Dowager’s palace?

Suddenly the pulling force above loosened.

Without counteracting force, what came next was falling. They were still at a great height. Tie Ci grabbed Da Wu with one hand and reached for Feiyu with the other.

Eagle Chief suddenly knocked Feiyu aside and lunged toward her.

Feiyu kicked Eagle Chief away.

The two who had just cooperated were now fighting as they fell.

Helpless, Tie Ci could only send Da Wu to the ground. Seeing the black robe falling diagonally toward the ground, it suddenly shrieked sharply. A huge yellow blade light swept up from the ground, devastating everything in its path as it slashed horizontally!

Wherever it passed, blood splattered. Several Western Rong soldiers who had just climbed out of pits and couldn’t dodge in time were severed at the waist.

After cutting down several people, that yellow blade light dissipated—it was actually just a thin layer of sand.

A layer of crimson blood-sand fell to the ground.

The soldiers who had climbed out crawled back into their pits, kowtowing even more frantically.

Through the haze came Eagle Chief’s roar: “Get up! All of you fucking get up! This isn’t a god! It’s not! Get up and prepare for battle!”

Someone cried out: “That is a god! The Black Sand God who rules the desert and death! Disrespecting the god will destroy our entire tribe!”

Tie Ci heard Eagle Chief’s frantic string of Western Rong curses.

Hoarse voice, familiar tone.

Seeing those fierce soldiers not daring to resist under this person’s attack, Tie Ci frowned and raised her hand.

With a crackling sound, white light flashed at her fingertips. She smoothly drew a fallen soldier’s waist blade and ran her finger along it.

The blade immediately gleamed with white light. She hurled it with a whoosh, cutting through the night like lightning striking toward the black-robed figure.

Behind the impressively loud electric blade, the jade brush silently traced across the long sky.

The black-robed person turned to see the lightning-like scene and showed a trace of surprise in his eyes, blurting: “Gui Hai…”

Suddenly feeling a chill, he realized something was wrong. Raising a finger, a large sheet of yellow sand formed a giant curtain before him while he retreated urgently.

But it was already a step too late. The jade brush silently penetrated the sand curtain and his hastily raised palm, trailing bright red blood drops. After spinning once in mid-air, it quietly returned to Tie Ci’s hand.

The black-robed person obviously hadn’t expected to be injured and flew into a rage. With a sweep of his sleeve, wind and sand rose again. Screams rang out continuously as over ten Western Rong soldiers still kowtowing in sand pits were swept up and hurled toward Tie Ci.

Tie Ci could only retreat, flashing far away in an instant.

But yellow sand columns spiraled and whirled before her, growing larger and larger like rolling yellow dragons crashing down with world-destroying momentum.

Natural forces couldn’t be resisted by human strength. She was instantly enveloped in this heavenly and earthly might.

Shouts came from all directions, but blocked by wind and sand—never mind finding people, even voices couldn’t be heard clearly.

Sand constantly struck her mask with sounds like urgent rain. Between heaven and earth only this grand sound seemed to remain.

Countless wind blades suddenly appeared around her, crisscrossing back and forth, determined to hack her to pieces.

Tie Ci’s figure had also become a beam of light, twisting and dodging in that wind, appearing and disappearing so fast her form couldn’t be distinguished.

No matter how dense or sharp the wind blades, though they tore her clothes to shreds, they couldn’t harm her in the slightest.

This greatly shocked the person controlling the wind and sand.

In such a wind and sand formation, with heaven and earth merged as one and no gaps to exploit, even if Gui Hai Sheng were here, he couldn’t avoid many small cuts.

Though this young person had some lightning power, he absolutely couldn’t compare to Gui Hai Sheng—his skill was far less profound than Gui Hai Sheng’s.

How could he remain completely unharmed?

A bronze-colored hand suddenly reached out from the yellow dragon, viciously grabbing toward Tie Ci’s chest.

Tie Ci had been waiting for this moment.

She chuckled and didn’t dodge or yield, thrusting her chest forward to meet it.

Feiyu, who had just found her in the outer circle and rushed in to see this scene, looked utterly tragic.

For a moment, he truly felt it would be better not to know about her gender.

With a tearing sound, the clothes at her chest ripped, followed by the black-robed person’s scream.

He flipped backward, one hand bloody.

An extremely fine black light grazed his chest and abdomen before disappearing into the wind and sand.

Tie Ci clicked her tongue regretfully.

The bulletproof vest had just shot out a steel wire, but unfortunately that guy escaped too quickly—only injuring his hand.

Sticking his hand into those crisscrossing fine steel wires, who knows how many fingers were severed.

The vest Feiyu made was heavy but truly useful.

She could remain unharmed under such dense sand blade attacks thanks to this treasure.

The black-robed person drifted several zhang away with the wind and sand. His hand probed the ground, seemingly grabbing something and stuffing it in his mouth.

Then his whole person seemed to dissolve into the wind and sand, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Only the lonely oasis, vast desert, and bewildered Western Rong soldiers remained.

Turning to look, Tie Ci found that what had been the oasis’s black soil was now covered with a large area of sand—desertified.

At this rate, this oasis would cease to exist in just a year or two.

So where would these people go?

As they said, if they couldn’t walk out of the desert and return to Western Rong’s grasslands, they could only enter the pass and break into Di Yiwei’s territory, fighting the Scorpion Battalion to the death.

Eagle Chief ran over. For some reason, though the sand-controlling person had left, his expression was more tense. Holding a long whip, he constantly whipped the soldiers still dazed in their pits: “Get up! Quickly get up! Prepare for battle!”

Everyone startled and leaped up, beginning to form ranks.

Tie Ci was stunned.

Were there enemies? She hadn’t detected any—how had Eagle Chief?

“While we have time to prepare, let’s take the initiative!” Eagle Chief was still urging.

Suddenly Da Wu and Xiao Wu said in unison: “I heard (smelled) movement!”

Before their words finished, whooshing sounds rang out as a rain of arrows covered the sky.

They struck and embedded in the edges of those pits.

If Eagle Chief hadn’t driven everyone up, those kneeling in the pits would have died in droves.

Eagle Chief let out a whistle.

A black horse charged out of the forest like a gale. Eagle Chief leaped up, mounted, and galloped straight out.

The other Western Rong officers and soldiers also whistled in unison. Horse herds flowed like water from the forest. Soldiers flew onto their mounts, pulled reins and galloped wildly like a black tide rolling out of the oasis and up the sand dunes.

Tie Ci suddenly remembered the paintings Dan Ye had drawn outside the Good Hall at the academy.

Young men sharpening blades and watering horses, with rolling golden sand dunes behind them.

Tie Ci leaped onto a tall tree and saw that the earlier wind and sand had changed the nearby terrain—sand mountains were shorter, sand dunes more numerous. Somehow behind those dunes hid a dark mass of troops now engaging in close combat with the Western Rong soldiers from the oasis.

It was easy to see that the attackers were also Western Rong soldiers.

With internal strife in Western Rong, this group hiding in the oasis must be the losers from the civil war.

As Crown Princess of Da Qian, she should be delighted to see Western Rong’s internal chaos.

Tie Ci sat in the tall tree, watching those bathed in blood and yellow sand, fighting desperately to the death, gradually piling up corpses. Eagle Chief charged at the front, his flying black hair dripping with bright red.

Both sides showed disparity in equipment, numbers, and strength. Though the oasis troops were no less fierce than their opponents, they lacked some sharpness.

Her small squad gathered under the tree, somewhat bewildered as they watched the Western Rong civil war, instinctively awaiting her decision.

——Author’s Note——

At the beginning of August, I had promised to take my son out to play for a few days.

But then the epidemic came again.

The high-speed rail tickets were refunded. Do you have any guaranteed monthly votes? Give me one to wipe away tears.