Xiao Xueya charged forward with the white flag raised high.

Cold light swept in from all directions, the sky hummed incessantly, and at the end of the dark road, countless tall figures with bulging muscles stood silently like towering mountains, grimly awaiting the world.

This was Xiao Xueya’s first time experiencing the extreme oppression and intimidation that the otherworldly visitors and their strange weapons brought to people.

Ordinary people would cower and dare not approach at such a time; ordinary horses would surely turn and flee.

But Xiao Xueya and his horse named Xishi had seen too much blood and slaughter.

The horse’s hooves thundered rapidly.

The general had carried his long spear with red tassels all his life, with commander flags fluttering toward wind and enemy camps overhead. Never in his life had he imagined a day when he would raise a white flag.

But when that day truly came, he managed to give even raising the white flag the momentum of a battle charge.

So much so that the opposing warriors were actually overwhelmed by such momentum and didn’t think to do anything first.

While charging in surrender, Xiao Xueya had been protecting Tie Ci in his embrace, his body leaning slightly forward to ensure that when enemy weapons fired, they would hit him first.

Yet he still felt he had gone mad.

To actually agree to Tie Ci’s request and bring her along to die together.

He couldn’t even think of any way for him and Tie Ci to escape alive after these people opened fire.

Tie Ci’s earlier words echoed in his ears with the wind.

“From the methods and approaches of their pursuit along this journey, I feel the enemy commander is not Master. If she were controlling the pursuit, I couldn’t have escaped very far. This is strange—after all, conquering Daqian should be Master’s primary achievement. In such circumstances, for this pioneer who has already established a foothold in Daqian to be unable to grasp complete initiative means that either those who sent her have become wary of her, or they have conflicts with her. And this point is our lifeline.”

“Governor, it turns out that in that distant other world, no matter how powerful they are, struggles and conflicts still exist. Power is the root of all desires—power builds prosperous cities and can instantly destroy them.”

“Let’s gamble. Since Master isn’t in control, tonight someone will be unable to resist the temptation of glory and accept our surrender.”

Xiao Xueya hadn’t completely believed Tie Ci’s words at the time, but that didn’t stop him from following her words and charging fearlessly toward the enemy camp with her.

Ten zhang, five zhang, three zhang…

The moment Xiao Xueya’s horse charged into the safe distance, someone’s finger moved slightly on the trigger.

But because they never received the order to fire, those fingers ultimately stopped.

Passing this distance meant they wouldn’t strike the opponent.

Someone raised a gun and coldly commanded: “Stop!”

Blue light flashed, and a person appeared on the ground. The one shouting was attracted to this and everyone turned to salute: “Lord Xilin!”

This general’s son placed great importance on ceremony—failing to salute upon seeing him would result in severe punishment.

Because of this collective saluting, everyone’s gun barrels changed direction.

So no one noticed that Xiao Xueya’s horse hadn’t stopped at all.

It crashed into the crowd in an instant.

The moment it crashed into the crowd.

Xiao Xueya’s hands moved like sweeping snow, like brushing wind, like withered pine swept up by a gale, instantly striking toward the warriors on his left and right.

His left and right hands chopped down on their wrist pulses. Two bangs, and both men’s guns fell to the ground.

The next instant, Xiao Xueya’s hands reached toward the backs of both men, grabbing hard.

Two extremely smooth sounds, and Xiao Xueya’s palms flipped and lifted—two muscle suits were already in his hands.

All this happened in a flash of lightning. Many people’s bows to Xilin hadn’t even straightened, and Xilin’s words “I have come to accept the Daqian Emperor’s surrender” weren’t even finished.

Two bangs, and the two strong men who had lost their muscle suits collapsed.

The muscle combat suits could provide warriors with ultimate protection and greatly enhanced combat power, but they also consumed enormous energy from the body. When wearing the suits, the contained energy could help warriors continuously use them, but once removed, the aftereffects of high-intensity load and consumption would cause whole-body muscle tremors and short-term weakness. So on the battlefield, warriors never removed their muscle suits.

The sound of bodies hitting the ground startled everyone. Xilin reacted fairly quickly, shouting: “It’s a trap, open fire—”

Before he could finish, countless white and blue lights interweaved like a net in the darkness, slicing through this patch of varying black darkness.

For a moment, only ultimate white and blue remained on human retinas.

In the light, that famous steed from Dayan neighed angrily, raised its long legs, and actually kicked away the soldier closest to it.

Moments later, the white light converged, like an epiphyllum flower blooming and immediately withering.

Xishi, who had accompanied Xiao Xueya for ten years, still stood, but its entire body was riddled with holes through which muscle and bone could faintly be seen.

After a moment, great gushes of fresh blood suddenly flowed over its entire body, and the white horse instantly became a red horse.

This scene was so impactful that the warriors didn’t react immediately, their attention focused on the horse.

Even Xilin was shocked and couldn’t help stepping closer to look: “Where are the people?”

At this moment, Xishi finally crashed down thunderously.

The instant it fell, two blood-covered figures swept out from beneath Xishi’s belly.

The soldier closest to the horse instinctively raised his gun to fire.

The next moment, a spear flashed from the darkness and pierced through his abdomen with a hiss.

As he fell, his face was full of shock.

He couldn’t understand how, even in his own era, muscle suits couldn’t be penetrated by ordinary weapons, yet in this backward ancient civilization, a cold weapon had pierced through the muscle suit!

What he didn’t understand was that there was a power that transcended reality, like a miracle.

It was called hatred.

The moment the soldier fell, Xilin was standing not far from the horse’s tail.

When Xiao Xueya thrust his spear, Xilin instinctively stepped back.

But then a hand suddenly appeared on the ground.

That hand was bloody and even somewhat deformed, but this didn’t prevent it from having shocking strength—the moment it touched his ankle, it locked on like shackles.

Xilin immediately reached for his gun.

The hand gripping his ankle gave a slight shake, and Xilin was immediately slammed to the ground in a wave-like motion, raising dust half a person’s height.

Xilin was also immediately knocked unconscious by this seemingly gentle but actually ruthless slam.

The next moment, Xiao Xueya grabbed Tie Ci’s arm and swung her around.

Tie Ci still held onto Xilin, and the two bodies were spun in a circle by Xiao Xueya in midair, with Xilin blocking in front of Tie Ci.

The warriors raised their guns, following the three figures’ movements, but because Xilin was cleverly kept in front, they couldn’t find a shooting opportunity.

When Xiao Xueya released his grip, he had swung Tie Ci precisely onto his back, while Tie Ci grabbed Xilin’s ankle, dragging him on the ground.

A rumbling sound came from the darkness as a vehicle spewing black smoke from its rear charged straight toward them.

Because it was a motorcycle, though it looked somewhat broken and old, and no rider was visible, the warriors instinctively assumed it was one of their own vehicles and no one made a move.

The vehicle instantly charged up to Xiao Xueya. He lifted his leg and mounted it, Tie Ci lying on his back while keeping Xilin propped behind her as a continued shield.

Xiao Xueya twisted the throttle, the vehicle spun one hundred eighty degrees, tires grinding out sparks with a teeth-grinding squeal.

The next instant, the vehicle shot out like an arrow, the huge cloud of dust it raised hitting the dumbfounded warriors in the face.

In the tremendous wind, the dizzy and aching Xilin only heard the woman behind him whisper gently in his ear: “Thank you for personally delivering yourself to our door.”

…

On the dark forest paths and narrow roads, everyone stood dazed in the rustling autumn wind.

It took the warriors quite a while to react.

These treacherous Daqian people!

False surrender, stealing equipment, kidnapping their commander!

That was the general’s son, the heir to a Management Division boss, future Management Division leadership. Though he himself was frivolous and mediocre, he was one of the Alliance nobility.

If something happened to him, the general’s fury…

Everyone shivered and quickly mounted their vehicles to give chase.

Over a thousand flying vehicles kicked up clouds of dust on the mountain road, looking from afar like a fast-moving gray dragon chasing the tail of a small black ant ahead.

Heading toward that flat-topped low mountain.

The distance between both sides grew closer and closer.

After all, the knockoff motorcycle assembled by Rong Pu’s people, knowing nothing about modern mechanics and performance, was already a miracle that it could run at all—one really couldn’t expect it to outrun the genuine articles.

On the leopard-shaped flying vehicle at the very front, Tie Ci could already see the rider’s cold yet anxious eyes and the strange lion-headed, eagle-bodied monster totem on the vehicle.

The motorcycle beneath them grew slower and slower.

Tie Ci suddenly bent down, cold light flashing in her hand.

With a clang, the motorcycle’s rear tire rolled off, rolling down the mountain path and directly tripping several pursuing flying vehicles.

This vehicle slid and flew out, plowing into the vehicles behind. The other vehicles were all traveling at high speed and couldn’t avoid it in time, immediately becoming tangled in a pile.

Several balls of flame erupted as riders jumped from their vehicles.

Tie Ci silently swallowed a mouthful of blood.

Her illness episode hadn’t passed—she should have been completely unable to move, but she had learned a technique from Jingxu. After many days of effort, she could now move slightly.

After all, once the enemy had also grasped her weakness, this period was truly too dangerous.

But Jingxu had repeatedly warned her not to use it lightly, because it inevitably meant further harm to her body and would again shorten her lifespan.

In the end, it was just the difference between dying later and dying now.

Tie Ci had no choice.

The pursuers were temporarily blocked behind them, but the motorcycle was also unusable now.

Without motorcycles, the warriors’ muscle suits and battle armor could still give them amazing speed.

Those pursuing at the front simply abandoned their vehicles, carried guns, leaped over the wrecked flying vehicles, and ran in pursuit.

Tie Ci looked up.

A huge basket suddenly appeared in the sky.

The basket instantly slid before them. Xiao Xueya reached out and climbed up, Tie Ci entered the basket, and she immediately hung Xilin outside the basket.

The warriors were furious, chasing the basket and running onto the platform of the low mountain.

Under the illumination of the flying vehicle headlights in the distance, everyone finally saw iron wires suspended in the air, connecting caves in the surrounding high mountains. The basket was lowered directly from above using the height difference between the high and low mountains.

At this moment, in the caves of the surrounding high mountains, Yueli Academy students gripped the handles of pulley-like mechanisms, supporting the basket and nervously watching below.

They were specially selected students, specifically responsible for lowering baskets after the enemy entered the low mountain. They had been trained beforehand, but they hadn’t expected the battle with those strange people to be like this.

They also hadn’t expected it would be the Daqian Empress and Yannan South Yue Military Governor General Xiao personally taking action.

The students’ hands were trembling, their chests filled with surging excitement and guilt.

Below the basket, the warriors were filled with rage.

In the sky, following orders, drones descended and a cold beam shot down from above.

It should have hit the wire, and the basket would have crashed down instantly.

But as the cold light fired, a sharp sound pierced the blue sky.

That low-flying drone was immediately smashed by a stone from Xiao Xueya into a ball of cold fire plummeting toward the valley.

The aim was therefore off, and half the basket disappeared silently.

The basket, missing half its structure, slid toward one mountain cliff and continued tilting.

Below, the first batch of approaching warriors raised their guns, muzzles continuously following the basket’s movement.

The students on the mountain felt their hearts about to leap out.

The current situation was: either sit in the basket and be dumped over the cliff, or jump from the basket and be blasted to pieces by those strange warriors.

All watching observers broke out in cold sweat.

“Quickly, quickly!”

The pulley spun rapidly as a new basket shot down like lightning from a cave in the southeast direction.

But here, the broken basket flipped downward.

The students cried out.

But no one fell.

Xiao Xueya gripped the basket’s edge with one hand while grabbing Tie Ci’s hand with the other. Tie Ci’s other hand desperately gripped Xilin’s ankle. Somehow she had kicked Xilin’s body sideways, and Xiao Xueya extended one leg to support Xilin’s body, keeping him horizontal in front of them both.

Simply brilliant.

Everyone above and below stared in amazement.

Xiao Xueya held the basket, looking down at Tie Ci.

He was very worried but had no other choice.

He couldn’t even hold Xilin in his hands, as that would prevent him from protecting both people.

From his angle, he could see Tie Ci’s forehead gleaming brightly—that was sweat.

In this autumn night’s frost-cold deep mountains.

His heart immediately began aching, more than when he saw his ten-year companion Xishi fall in a pool of blood.

The wire vibrated as another basket passed by on another line.

Warriors below reacted, raising hands to shoot at the new basket.

The new basket would brush past in an instant—if this one was destroyed, Xiao Xueya and Tie Ci would have no support in the short term, suspended in midair at others’ mercy.

Xiao Xueya swung Tie Ci up onto the new basket with his backhand. As their bodies crossed in that instant, he lunged forward.

A soft “hiss” as he used his ribs to meet that cold beam.

A streak of blood pierced through the valley’s thick darkness, disappearing into the cliff’s depths.

Xiao Xueya’s expression remained unchanged.

He never minded necessary sacrifices.

He hadn’t chosen his more important hands or feet but took the hit with his ribs.

Having experienced countless battles and countless wounds, he knew which injuries were inconsequential and wouldn’t affect movement.

Just this delay, and the basket was about to slide past.

A hand reached out and firmly grasped Xiao Xueya’s hand.

In the cold night wind, two hands gripped tightly.

The next moment, Xiao Xueya soared upward, skillfully escaping through the gaps between several cold beams and landing in the basket.

The students in the mountain caves above, who had been nervously watching below, burst into cheers.

But for Xiao Xueya and Tie Ci in the basket, the battle wasn’t over.

The current basket’s position was rather clever, having turned to the soldiers’ rear. Unless they fired blindly, the enemy couldn’t see them.

With Xilin present, blind firing was impossible.

But once they turned around one side, they’d be directly above the soldiers. In that position, even with Xilin, it would be hard to shield both people.

“Your Majesty should leave first, taking the hostage,” Xiao Xueya indicated the third basket from above should take Tie Ci away.

“I take the hostage and leave you here to die?” Tie Ci laughed in anger.

She peered down below—more and more soldiers were arriving, but due to the narrow mountain path, the current number should be about half.

She felt some regret but still said: “We’ll leave together.”

“No.” Instead, it was Xiao Xueya who refused her. “After preparing so long and expending so much, if we don’t catch them all in one net, we’ll have wasted all our efforts.”

Tie Ci understood this principle all too well—her plan had always been to catch all these people in one net.

But this plan had only a thirty percent chance of success from the start, because the enemy was arriving somewhat slowly, while their time to maneuver with the enemy was limited—they could be killed by a single shot at any moment.

The reason for the slow arrival was the narrow mountain paths, but she couldn’t widen them. Once the enemy could travel easily and swarm up together, they could blast her before even reaching the mountain.

So it was a dead end.

Now with Xilin added, it was only fifty percent.

Tie Ci checked her watch and made a hand signal.

In caves everywhere, deeper inside, people had been crouching by ropes.

The ropes were shiny, soaked in oil.

When Tie Ci made her signal, those above received it and immediately passed the order: “Light them!”

In the bottommost cave stood Rong Pu.

Beside him were Jingxu and Pingzong, the latter extremely anxious: “We can’t light them now—she hasn’t left yet! If she can’t leave within half a quarter-hour, she’ll…”

She grabbed Rong Pu’s sleeve: “Order them not to light yet, wait until she comes up. You can order them to stop!”

Rong Pu remained silent, his face a cold white in the cave’s darkness.

Countless caves lit up, flames falling on oil ropes. Fire immediately ignited and raced down the ropes toward the darkness below.

Extending toward the dark unknown.

Only after all the fuses were lit did Rong Pu say: “As a minister, my life is devoted solely to obeying His Majesty’s commands.”

…

After Tie Ci sent the signal, Xiao Xueya took out the muscle suits and quickly helped both of them put them on.

This was the fundamental goal of the false surrender, the most important link in whether the entire plan could succeed.

Once the muscle suit was on, Tie Ci had originally thought that since the enemy soldiers were burly, she would surely swim in it. But the moment the suit was on, it immediately conformed to her body’s muscle contours, tightly wrapping around her body.

Her whole body instantly went numb, then felt heated all over. Her muscles and blood vessels seemed inflated, swelling and surging.

At this moment, she felt incredibly strong and light as a swallow, able to leap three zhang in one step and shatter stones with one punch.

If not for the continuing pain in her internal organs and boiling blood and qi in her body, she would have had the illusion that she was already healed.

After changing into the muscle suits, the basket had also turned to face that group of people.

After putting on the muscle suits, their body muscles expanded, making the basket somewhat unable to accommodate three people. Xilin alone could no longer serve as a shield for both.

Several cold beams whistled over, shattering the basket’s edge and striking sparks on Xiao Xueya and Tie Ci’s exposed arms.

Both felt their arms shake but felt no pain. Looking closely, the muscle suits on their arms were already slightly damaged.

The muscle suits could block the enemy’s own weapons but obviously couldn’t withstand multiple hits.

More warriors were still running up the mountain path.

Tie Ci and Xiao Xueya exchanged glances.

Xiao Xueya raised his hand and slapped the basket’s hook open. The entire basket fell onto the iron cable below and charged toward the crowd below.

The warriors hadn’t expected that after hiding all this time, the enemy would actually deliver themselves. They all immediately raised their guns.

Unfortunately, Xiao Xueya flipped his hand and Xilin appeared in front.

The soldiers had to stop, trapped on the narrow platform with restricted movement.

The next moment, Xiao Xueya crashed into the crowd like a fierce beast. The warrior facing him was knocked down with a tremendous impact. Xiao Xueya’s hands flipped, and two short guns shot into the opponent’s eyes.

When he pulled them out, blood spurted violently. Amid screams, Xiao Xueya held Xilin in one hand and grabbed a fallen gun with the other, firing a barrage regardless of everything.

After forcing the opponents to retreat, he concentrated fire on the front two, and after five shots, they fell in sprays of blood.

This series of operations shocked everyone into retreating. Someone cunning raised a gun toward Tie Ci in the basket, who had lost her human shield.

Before he could fire, Xiao Xueya swung his arm. With a whooshing sound, Tie Ci reached out to catch.

Xilin was back in Xiao Xueya’s hands.

Xilin: “…”

The people below had to redirect their attack toward Xiao Xueya again. Despite his rich combat experience and excellent qinggong, Xiao Xueya inevitably took two shots.

Though being shot while wearing a muscle suit wouldn’t cause immediate injury, the tremendous force would still cause severe pain and brief loss of combat ability. But this seemed to have no effect on Xiao Xueya whatsoever.

He was more like a robot—being shot didn’t slow him down. Seizing, chopping, slicing, grabbing, strangling… with a photon gun in one hand and a short gun in the other, both guns flashed like lightning, each shot inevitably splashing a trail of blood.

This was the first time Tie Ci had seen Xiao Xueya in action—his characteristic cold swagger. In a general’s eyes, human lives were like dust.

After taking two shots, the muscle suit showed faint signs of tearing. At this point, Tie Ci threw Xilin back to him.

Xiao Xueya, shielded by Xilin, charged and killed through another round, causing a large group of soldiers to activate flight mode regardless of energy consumption and directly rush up the mountain to surround him.

They were like black panthers flying through the air, cloaked in night and wind, maneuvering freely and nearly blocking all escape routes for the two.

Xilin was like an innocent ball, being tossed back and forth.

The important hostage constantly flying through the air greatly restricted these top-equipped warriors.

It must be said that these warriors from another dimension, with their overly powerful weapons, had actually degraded their own combat abilities. In a short time, no one thought to separate and attack the two individually.

By the time these people finally remembered this tactic, Xiao Xueya had already cut through twice, knocked down a large batch of people, and leaped back to the basket.

Someone took this opportunity to slap his calf, instantly creating a light rainbow under his feet as he rammed toward Xiao Xueya, trying to snatch Xilin from his hands.

Xiao Xueya swung Xilin toward him with his backhand.

The opponent hurried to catch him. Before his hands touched Xilin, Xiao Xueya also slapped his leg, kicked the man in the chest, used the reaction force to reach out and snatch Xilin back, then bounded back to the basket.

The two once again used Xilin to shield their entire bodies but inevitably each took several more shots.

By this time, most of the soldiers had reached the mountain platform.

Urgent bird calls came from above.

The last basket slid down rapidly from above.

The basket would only be lowered thirty counts before the calculated time for the fuses to reach their end.

Time was up.

If they didn’t leave now, it would be too late.

At this moment, buzzing sounds suddenly came from above as a large swarm of drones arrived overhead, opening lights to illuminate this mountain valley.

They wanted to illuminate the iron wires hanging in midair and break them, but these wires were all painted black and couldn’t be seen clearly in the dark night.

The drones and soldiers below all attacked together. White and blue lights crisscrossed like a light rain through the air. Wherever they passed, countless cables were severed and hung down, stirring up sparkling stars in the darkness.

For now, they hadn’t hit the wire holding the last basket, but it wouldn’t last much longer.

A metallic clang rang through the air as countless crossbow bolts and fire arrows shot toward the low-flying drones. Above the deep valleys and layered peaks of night, fire rain surged upward toward the sky, illuminating half the mountain valley and the low mountain platform.

Several arrows whistled fiercely, spanning the long sky with roaring flames, consecutively bringing down three drones.

In front of the mountain cave, Pingzong’s face was cold. Regardless of future arm tendon injuries, she fired five arrows from one bow—half ice, half fire.

The basket slid to their side.

But at this moment, a white beam flashed below. Both felt a shock overhead as the basket beneath them lurched violently.

The iron cable they were using had broken!

In that instant, they were half a zhang away from the last basket!

With a tremendous shout, Xiao Xueya exerted his arms and threw Tie Ci out.

Tie Ci threw Xilin back with her backhand. In midair, she flashed and stretched out her arms, barely catching that iron cable.

“Clang!” Another light sound, another shock overhead—this last iron cable had also broken!

On the severed cable, the basket thundered downward, crashing toward Tie Ci.

These baskets were made from mountain vines mixed with abyss iron wire—they weren’t light. Tie Ci hung in midair with nowhere to dodge.

The earlier basket had already overturned, and after throwing Tie Ci, Xiao Xueya couldn’t look after himself and had tumbled into the soldier crowd below.

Xilin crashed onto him and was fiercely grasped by the throat.

Soldiers swarmed up.

Tie Ci hung in midair, gripping the iron cable, with the crashing basket behind her and surging warriors below. Xiao Xueya, who had fallen into the crowd, drew all the soldiers’ attention as the crowd engulfed him like a tide.

In this moment, the mountain’s cool breeze seemed to pierce through her chest, and even shouting was soundless.