The impact of suddenly losing control of something previously controllable was even greater. The ground was filled with people running in disheveled clothing. Squad leaders pulled on their pants while struggling to organize their troops. The wind had arrived—in an instant many tents were lifted and thrown away, crushing a group of people running at the front.

The leader of this force was one of the Great Prince’s most capable generals. Awu Ha ran bareheaded from his tent, wanting to mount his horse, but his horse knelt on the ground in fear of the oncoming wind and sand. Awu Ha cursed loudly and beheaded the two soldiers who fled fastest. The heads were swept up by wind and smashed against the main tent, causing a rain of blood to fall all around.

Taking advantage of the moment when soldiers were shocked by the blood rain, Awu Ha shouted: “Form ranks! Ready the horses! Enemies attack!”

This general who always charged to the front in battle lacked experience dealing with strong winds and sandstorms. The backlash of heaven and earth’s power couldn’t be resisted by human strength. Under his killing, soldiers formed formations against the wind, just raising their blades when a gust swept in and the steel blades cut off their own heads.

With a whoosh, the sandstorm arrived instantly. Between heaven and earth only gray-yellow remained. People struggled desperately in the storm’s center, stabbing curved blades deep into the ground. People were constantly swept up by wind and thrown to the horizon. Awu Ha’s shouts were torn apart by wind: “Why! Why!”

In the distance, on high sand mountains, rumbling continued endlessly. The Eagle Master stood on the heights, gazing at the chaos and carnage beneath that deep yellow smoke column, his eyes cold and deep.

These had originally been his people and subordinates. Now they had all become his enemies. After countless attempts to hunt him, now they died screaming before him.

Perhaps among them were those who had once galloped with him across grasslands, dug cacti with him in the desert, wrestled with him in mud—regardless of winning or losing, getting up with hearty laughter, still good brothers.

Yet simply because of ambition and lust for power, Western Rong had fallen into endless warfare. Everyone was swept up in it, becoming flesh and blood ground up in the mouth of war, that giant beast.

He had rushed back a thousand li to see beneath high city walls a hanging woman, fresh blood flowing down blue-gray wall bricks, then congealing and darkening into deep black streaks dripping down. Swarms of mosquitoes and flies clustered along the blood channels, buzzing and humming.

He paid the price of thirteen blade wounds to leap onto the city wall. When finally taking her down, he received a cold shot from his elder brother.

Piercing from beneath his jaw, only one inch from his throat.

As he carried her down from the city wall, he saw kneeling by the wall’s edge, made into a human vessel, his most beautiful sister.

She was bound kneeling on the ground, a wedge nailed in her mouth, stretching it wide open. A rope tied around her neck pulled backward diagonally, keeping her neck arched back with all her strength. If she tried to lower her head, the rope would strangle her.

Her clothes barely covered her body, countless marks upon her flesh. Women passing by covered their faces after one glance, hiding sighs between their fingers.

She opened wide eyes looking at him, long lashes condensed with tiny crystalline tears. She seemed to still remember him, yet seemed to have forgotten the mortal world.

Because the mortal world had forgotten her.

She had once been Father King’s most beloved daughter, born bright and carefree with some small confusion, but clear about gratitude and resentment in important matters. She most loved riding her horse called Crystal across the grasslands, racing toward wind and sun.

She named her horse Crystal, her maid Glaze, and her own name was Kusuli, meaning “pearl of the grasslands” in Western Rong.

She loved exquisite, glittering Da Qian jewelry, loved hearing Da Qian merchants speak of romantic, elegant Da Qian. She said she wanted to marry a Da Qian man, but not from the academy—afraid they’d despise her for not loving study.

He had listened then and forgotten afterward. Da Qian was indeed so prosperous and magnificent, and in prosperous Da Qian there was also someone like blooming flowers whom he could never see enough of or leave.

But when he returned, father was dead and mother injured, mountains and rivers broken along with his sister.

His once dignified, stately mother lay dying in his arms, light as a withered feather.

His sister, once like crystal and glaze, knelt before him, saliva from her mouth flowing onto his knee.

Kusuli suddenly began crying out, but her throat was blocked with too much filth, making her voice strange too.

He knew she recognized him.

He reached out to pull that rope.

No one stopped him.

Everyone stood above and below the city walls, staring at his every movement. The attack had stopped. Someone on the wall seemed to be laughing expectantly.

One end of the rope was deeply embedded in the flesh of Kusuli’s throat, while the other end was embedded in the city wall. The rope’s material was blade-resistant golden wire that couldn’t be cut, only pulled. When pulled, there was a slight mechanism feel.

His heart sank, but he didn’t want to give up.

Kusuli stared at him, suddenly beginning to cry. Those hot tears mixed with filth on her face quickly pooled on the ground, then she closed her eyes.

And closed her mouth.

She used tremendous force to close her mouth.

Fresh blood accompanied by filth gushed wildly, the sharp wedge point piercing through her cheek alarmingly.

Yet her blood-streaming face showed a smile.

Finally, she could close her mouth with dignity.

Now, big brother had come.

He could give her a dignified death.

He understood her meaning and stopped trying to pull the rope.

That hand turned, in the gap between cold city wall bricks, gently stroking the back of her head once.

Kusuli closed her eyes.

That hand slowly left her fluffy long hair, falling on the small section of golden wire rope between her head and the city wall.

A moment’s pause.

In that instant, sunlight was like blood, and the frontier wind wailed and danced wildly.

He slowly tightened the golden wire.

One circle, then another.

Tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter.

Until that once-beautiful head slowly drooped down softly.

She could finally rest.

He looked up.

Deep red sunlight splashed down in great patches.

Heaven and earth were hazy in a sea of blood.

At this moment, he heard his mother in his arms make a soft murmur.

He looked down and through blurred vision saw his mother seemed to be reaching out.

Not knowing if she wanted to touch him or touch Kusuli one last time.

He stared blankly, not daring to take that hand.

This hand had just ended his sister’s life, stained with family blood—how dare it accept mother’s caress?

That hand only reached halfway before falling.

Mother stopped breathing in his arms.

Her last sound seemed to be a sigh.

He had once wandered in foreign lands, knowing only mountain flowers in full bloom, not knowing human wind and snow. Western Rong’s little wolf lord drew his bow toward the moon, even the bowstring’s shape was perfectly round.

Only one day beneath city walls did he learn what hatred and pain meant when they gnawed at one’s soul.

In just one turn, all those who loved him were gone.

Mother died in his arms, sister prostrated at his knees. After father’s death, it was kept secret. His corpse was thrown in the great hall with no one to collect it. Broken bones were picked up by spears and scattered throughout the hall.

He couldn’t even charge into the city again to collect his body.

One in each hand, he shouldered those two gradually cooling bodies.

The moment he struggled to rise, he collapsed.

Falling thunderously toward the fire-like morning sun, he thought this was also good.

When he woke again, he was on a camel.

The tribal army left by Mother Queen and part of the royal army loyal to Father had fought desperately to save him. He woke on the camel with blue sky swaying into his eyes.

Beside him were the corpses of mother and sister, ahead lay the golden desert.

He buried mother and sister at the desert’s edge without leaving monuments.

If he couldn’t take revenge, this would be his resting place too—no need to carve stone records, only seeking to quickly turn to dust.

If he took revenge, he would never forget this place either—a small stream behind babbling like flowing crystal, surrounded by Mother Queen’s beloved century plants.

Yet she didn’t live to see a century.

Time was too short, but nightmares were long.

He gripped the curved blade behind his waist.

Awu Ha’s shouts still came from afar, stubbornly asking heaven why.

Why.

Because I want to watch you all die.

…

Tie Ci stood beside him.

She gazed at the screaming and wailing below, her eyes also without fluctuation.

Though Western Rong was considered a Da Qian vassal state, this “vassal” status was maintained by large amounts of rewards allocated annually from Da Qian’s treasury. In reality, this nation had fierce customs where everyone could be a soldier—difficult to control and not a peaceful country.

She didn’t mind Western Rong fighting more civil wars. Consuming the enemy was protecting oneself.

She had never been on a battlefield, but she had read too many military and history books.

Opening history books page by page, those full pages were all the two words “white bones.”

From the corner of her eye she observed the Eagle Master. Though he didn’t move and appeared as calm as herself, she could feel a prairie fire burning within him.

That fire burned him until even his bones were sizzling.

Tie Ci turned her head, watching the storm gradually subside. That group of panicked soldiers hadn’t fully understood yet.

Now was the time.

She and the Eagle Master said almost simultaneously: “Shoot!”

Humming vibrations tore through the air. Soldiers hidden behind sand dunes emerged, and the final volley of arrows poured down on the camp like rain.

How could soldiers just struggling out of the storm expect misfortune to fall on them this time? With almost no reaction, they fell in swaths like cut grass.

The Eagle Master’s curved blade rose high, its tip flashing with cold light.

“Kill——”

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