The battle on the post road, led by the frostland cavalry under Dongye, had come to an end. Soon, scouts delivered the general military situation to Ren Chunyun, the junior commander of the Southwest Northern Kingdom, and Zhu Boyu, the junior commander of the Northwest Fengqiu. The two commanders reacted very differently. Ren Chunyun, clad in bright red armor, stood with his saber at his side. Upon hearing that Ma Jinchai had suffered a setback, he burst into laughter, stroked his horse’s mane, and wore a face of schadenfreude. Serving in the same province and holding equal rank, the two naturally became rivals. Coming from a poor background, Ren Chunyun had long looked down upon Ma Jinchai, whose name he found ridiculous. All the lieutenants and battalion chiefs under Ma were scions of military families from Lingzhou. How could such men train any truly battle-hardened troops? Lingzhou’s plains contained two open areas suitable for cavalry training. Last year, Ren Chunyun had already clashed with Ma Jinchai, soundly defeating his overly showy frostland cavalry. However, Ma Jinchai soon retaliated in the political arena. While their salaries remained untouched—no one dared to meddle with the forbidden territory of official stipends—a batch of weapons and armor, lawfully distributed from the frontier stores of Youliang to local troops, ended up giving Ren Chunyun only scraps barely qualifying as second-rate equipment. Upon investigation, he learned that Ma Jinchai’s relative, a high-ranking official in charge of the Northern Liang military depot, had sabotaged him. Later, Ma Jinchai led a hundred cavalry clad in brand new armor, using the excuse of suppressing bandits to parade through Ren Chunyun’s jurisdiction, showing off his might. If not for Ren Chunyun sternly forbidding his subordinates from provoking conflict, a mutiny might have erupted.
On the other hand, Zhu Boyu remained far more composed. Though he had always held Ma Jinchai in low regard, he never showed it outwardly. When they met, they drank together and exchanged courtesies as usual. Thus, Fengqiu cavalry and Ma Jinchai’s group of young noblemen got along tolerably well. This was mainly because Zhu Boyu himself hailed from a military family, and his father’s generation had fought side by side, forging deep bonds through life-and-death struggles. Although Zhu Boyu had never served on the border to gain battlefield glory and his record of achievements was thin, he was among the rare young officers in Northern Liang who could truly manage and discipline his troops. Over the years, wielding real authority, he had often been mocked by retired generals who returned to Lingzhou after earning their merits elsewhere. These old warhorses, whose families lacked capable successors, would condescendingly flaunt their seniority, their noses perpetually in the air. Therefore, Zhu Boyu actually preferred the company of men like Ma Jinchai, for insincere toasts and banquets were still better than enduring the condescending lectures of these aging veterans. Now, Zhu Boyu worried that the young master, who had not yet begun purging Lingzhou’s bureaucracy, might use Ma Jinchai as an example to make a statement, dragging Zhu Boyu himself down with him. Did the young master care whether a Fengqiu junior officer without battlefield merits remained clean or consorted with Ma Jinchai? Sitting high atop his horse, Zhu Boyu, unfortunate to possess a baby face, rode a steed merely of second-class quality. The mere thirty-odd first-class warhorses in the Fengqiu cavalry had all been gifted to meritorious lieutenants and elite soldiers. Zhu Boyu waved off the scout, who, by Fengqiu cavalry’s self-established rules, did not need to dismount to report. Clad in ordinary armor, Zhu Boyu exhaled a puff of mist, his expression unusually grave. He could already tell that the young master had shown mercy toward Lingzhou’s bureaucracy, but military and civil affairs were different. With the precedent of General Zhong Hongwu’s downfall, Zhu Boyu was certain that the garrisons stationed across Lingzhou’s various commanderies would not be so fortunate.
A peach blossom fan gently fluttered, stirring a breeze across the face, causing strands of hair at the temples to dance lightly. A refined young nobleman in black furs gazed ahead. Three cavalry squadrons, arranged in a fan-shaped formation, charged forward in unison, clearly a world apart from the previous two hundred riders. Their hooves moved in perfect synchronization, without the slightest disorder. With his exceptional eyesight, he could already clearly see the young faces of the riders. Their gazes were firm, and clearly by prior instruction, they made no move to draw their crossbows. Northern Liang imposed strict prohibitions on powerful crossbows. While one might still evade detection for carrying a Northern Liang saber by leveraging noble family status, daring to possess even a small crossbow, no larger than one a lady might wield, would result in immediate confiscation and house arrest, with no room for negotiation.
Lezhang dashed wildly down the post road, his feet kicking up clumps of mud along the straight path, his momentum terrifying. A martial artist at the Jinguang level, tired of playing the role of a hound, now only sought to fight as wildly and freely as he pleased. In his eyes, the previous two hundred riders were like frail maidens needing support, while the two to three hundred riders before him were merely stronger women—still no match for Lezhang’s few lashes. This expert of the highest martial realm, whose temperament did not match his name, charged forward laughing. Three iron spears pierced toward him simultaneously. Lezhang grasped two icy spear tips with both hands, twisting them into twisted masses of iron. With a sharp inward pull and outward thrust, the two riders who refused to release their weapons were knocked from their saddles like ringing bells. The middle spear aimed at Lezhang’s chest failed to pierce through, instead finding itself carried forward by the grinning, towering man. The downward diagonal thrust of the spear curved dramatically through the air, revealing the rider’s immense strength and endurance—far surpassing that of Ma Jinchai’s troops. As one of the rarest of the martial world’s elite, where could Lezhang possibly care whether the ants beneath his feet bit lightly or hard? He bent his knees, diving beneath a galloping horse, and with a single shoulder, lifted the charging steed as if a king lifting a tripod. He hurled the horse toward the rear of the cavalry formation. Several trailing riders were knocked down and unable to rise, but soon enough, other riders maneuvered around the fallen steeds, two comrades sharing a mount, and thrusting spears toward Lezhang, who was impervious to blades and bullets alike. Finally somewhat intrigued, Lezhang laughed wildly, suddenly leaping into the air. His foot came crashing down on a rider’s head, and with a dragonfly-skimming-the-water motion, he danced left and right, trampling riders and horses alike, instantly rendering over a dozen cavalry completely incapacitated. Lezhang seemed to feel it was still not enough. Upon landing, he didn’t even bother striking, instead charging headlong into the formation. Wherever he went, horses collided violently, their bones shattered, and they died.
The hundred-man cavalry formation was easily pierced by Lezhang, but he didn’t get much rest. Seeing this, the left hundred-man cavalry, under the command of their lieutenant, did not recklessly charge. Instead, they continued their maneuver, throwing their hundred spears in succession. Most of the iron spears either slid or bounced off Lezhang’s body onto the road, while others missed entirely, embedding themselves into the frozen earth. Lezhang, wanting to play with them a little longer and show Northern Liang the might of his Jinguang body, stood still as the barrage of spears rained down. Next, the right hundred-man cavalry followed with a volley of arrows. The lone warrior at the pass accepted them all with laughter, emerging unscathed except for torn clothing. Though seemingly arrogant, Lezhang was secretly gathering strength, hoping to reach his peak once more for another round. Originally, he could have continued playing cat-and-mouse, but caution was the way to go. If among the cavalry there lurked a martial expert who struck at him when his energy waned, though certainly not enough to bring him down, even a slight loss of face might prompt that malicious young master behind him to take it out on him for amusement. Serving this young master was more exhausting than serving his ancestors. Lezhang, filled with hatred, had long scorned the idea of being a noble’s favorite, but now he wouldn’t mind changing his tastes if only he could surpass that handsome youth in cultivation. Yet Lezhang knew well enough that such a sweet revenge was unlikely to come to pass in this lifetime unless some sudden divine intervention brought that man crashing down, giving him a chance to kick him while he was down. But in Northern Liang, after the old sword immortal Li Chungan had appeared, and with Chen Zhibao having defected to the capital, only two remaining top experts remained: Wang Xiu’s younger brother, the spear immortal, and Yuan Zuozong, commander of the border cavalry. Could these two possibly appear together here?
The hundred-man cavalry directly facing Lezhang was pierced through, but quickly regrouped and charged again. A second hundred-man cavalry, led personally by Huang Xiao Kuai, joined the battle from the foot of the mountain. The left and right wings of the cavalry switched to crossbows and javelins respectively. Though they could not harm a Jinguang-level expert, their formation was tightly coordinated, performing far better than Ma Jinchai’s frostland cavalry. Unfazed, Lezhang exhaled a long breath, his breath curling in the cold air. He stretched his arms and twisted his wrists, as if annoyed by the clatter of hooves. He stomped his foot, and the dull boom nearly drowned out the thunder of hooves. Step by step, he strode down the post road, his momentum growing like rolling thunder across flat ground. The horses of the two hundred-man cavalry on the road bucked violently, yet none showed fear. The political infighting in Northern Liang, especially the factional struggles within the military, had long been scorned by the court officials of Liyang as mere village squabbles. If one couldn’t win in verbal duels, one simply rolled up sleeves and fought with fists. Compared to the court’s carefully planned strategies, passed down through generations of noble families, Northern Liang’s atmosphere, built in just twenty years, could never meet the standards of the court’s high officials. Yet many of these bureaucratic pillars seemed to forget that while Liyang had its lineage of capable administrators, Northern Liang had its own legacy of iron cavalry. Though Dong Yueqi failed to live up to expectations, others like Wang Zhi, Ren Chunyun, Zhu Boyu, and Huang Xiao Kuai, these junior officers who never even entered the gaze of the court’s great ministers, had done quite well.
Lezhang wanted to personally break a few of Northern Liang’s backbones. He naturally knew nothing of legacy or tradition, nor did he care to ponder deeply. But this cavalry, so different from the rest, made him deeply uncomfortable. He had finally reached the top ranks of martial experts, only to end up serving a younger master like a servant. Now that he was in Northern Liang, he had to vent this anger somehow!
Lezhang set his sights on a cavalry commander clad in dazzling armor, his saber drawn. His aura surged through his body like a flood, as if he could withstand even a sword strike from a land immortal. At his peak, Lezhang’s wild laughter echoed down the post road as he charged toward the rider. At fifty paces, he leapt high, arms wide, and struck downward with a fist. Huang Xiao Kuai, the pearl-ranked junior commander, blocked with his saber, and both man and horse were instantly forced downward. The warhorse’s hooves snapped under the thousand-jin force, and only a thin line of blood appeared on the man’s fist from the saber’s edge. Huang Xiao Kuai held the saber with one hand and supported the back with the other, yet could not halt the ferocious punch of this martial villain. Blood rising in his throat, he abandoned his horse and leapt aside, his blade scraping across the man’s fist without leaving a mark. At the same time, a lieutenant charged with his spear, aiming precisely at Lezhang’s left eye, forcing him to abandon his pursuit of their commander. A cavalryman hurled a spear, slipping through the smallest gap to strike at Lezhang’s crotch. Their coordination in that instant was ruthless and effective. For the first time, Lezhang frowned.
To kill a Jinguang-level expert, the key lay in the phrase “water recedes, stones appear.” Drain the ceaseless flow of energy, and the invincible Jinguang body would be half-defeated. If the expert were given time to recover, restoring the river-like energy within, the battle would have to begin anew. Yet energy accumulation was always easier to disperse than to gather. The legendary land immortal, whose energy could flow hundreds of miles in an instant, remained an unreachable ideal even for fellow first-tier experts like Jinguang and Zhixuan. Lezhang, having charged twice, saw his energy drop to eighty percent. Even while enduring spears and arrows without moving, he had only managed to recover to ninety percent through sheer willpower. This was why the martial world described the death of the Western Shu Sword Emperor as a tragedy—not merely for the loss of a master crushed into pulp, but for the fact that this sword grandmaster, for the sake of a worthless surname, singlehandedly defended the Western Shu palace gates against wave after wave of cavalry swarming like locusts, without even a moment to catch his breath, fighting to the bitter end with his last breath, watching his own death approach with open eyes.
Yet Lezhang merely furrowed his brow. He was only facing a hundred cavalrymen.
He casually knocked aside the lieutenant’s spear aimed at his eye, then flicked his foot onto the thrown iron spear, using the momentum to deliver a knee strike to the lieutenant’s head. Lezhang now stood atop the horse like a cuckoo in a sparrow’s nest. The horse continued forward by inertia, and Lezhang, standing proudly, happened to glance toward the mountaintop, where an inexplicable tightness gripped his chest.
A lone rider descended the mountain.
Faster and faster.
Far behind Lezhang, the peach blossom fan snapped shut with a sharp *pa*. On the young nobleman’s pale white wrist, a red rope attached to a white-sheathed saber suddenly snapped taut.
As the rider descended the mountain, the black-furred nobleman also sensed someone on the mountain locking onto him. He muttered, “Could there be such an unassuming expert in Northern Liang? Why has Zhao Gou’s archives never mentioned this?”
Lezhang’s scalp tingled, as if seeing a ghost in broad daylight, his soul nearly fleeing in terror.
The figure atop the horse descending the mountain had both sleeves fluttering. From his sleeves to his arms, countless red threads coiled and writhed like living crimson snakes.
Once, a “serpent-wrapped cat” named Renrou had ridden leisurely toward Lezhang.
Struck at his weakest point, Lezhang went mad with pain, crouching on the horse’s back, his fingers clawing at his scalp. Then he lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot, and with a snarl, clapped his hands together, killing the horse beneath him. He leapt toward the descending rider.
The pearl cavalry at the foot of the mountain and along the post road instinctively halted, leaving space for the descending rider and the unstoppable martial artist.
The rider dismounted gracefully, continuing forward.
The two, expected to engage in a fierce battle lasting several incense sticks, simply passed each other like drifting leaves.
The red threads on his sleeves grew even more vivid.
For now, he carried a fresh, dripping human skin, peeled from head to toe.
The three hundred riders on the post road watched with wide eyes as the figure, holding the fresh skin, swept past them. He stopped before the nobleman who no longer fanned himself and casually tossed the skin high into the air.
This moment would be forever etched in Huang Xiao Kuai’s memory.
The young master, wearing a common Northern Liang saber at his waist, faced off against the saber “Crossing the River,” a blade rivaling the Nanhua saber.
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