Where Immortals Once Walked

At that order, blades and spears from Baling troops came down on the Red General all at once.

Even a man of iron would be turned into a honeycomb in the face of such an onslaught.

But the instant the first spearpoint touched him, the Red General’s figure vanished.

There was neither a warning nor a blur of motion; he simply vanished.

Every stab and slash that followed struck nothing but air.

Right at the spot where he was, all that remained was a cicada shell no bigger than a pinky finger. A gust of wind caught it and sent it fluttering upward.

It was the substitution technique.

On his very first pass through the stable, the Red General had quietly planted a cicada shell there, and no one had noticed. Had He Lingchuan seen it, he would have smiled in recognition.

Swapping places with the ghost shadow cicada shell put the Red General back inside the stable.

Shao Yingyang swept the scene with his gaze and felt his scalp prickle. An extra shadow now stood in the relay station’s stable, blade flashing as it chopped down at the copper talisman plate on the ground.

Shocked, he did not stop to think. He bit the tip of his tongue, pointed a finger toward the stable, and roared, “Suppress!”

A streak of silver-white lightning appeared in midair and crashed down with a mountain’s weight straight toward the top of the Red General’s head.

The bolt lit up half of Wei City. Its force had to be terrifying; lightning was, after all, the righteous law of heaven and earth, said to disperse all evil spirits.

The Red General lifted his left hand and pinched his index and middle fingers together over his head. It looked as if he had seen this exact moment coming.

The raging lightning stopped between his fingers.

The move was casual and effortless.

The lightning still crackled and spat, writhing like a live serpent, but it could not slip free of his grip.

Meanwhile, the changdao in his right hand did not remain idle. With quick, fluid strokes, he carved a “Z” across the copper talisman.

The blade moved as light as a feather, but the gouges bit deep, nearly punching clean through the talisman.

At once, the azure glow disappeared, and the array failed.

The Three Corpses Worms that had been skittering about had scattered in terror from the lightning and thunder just now, but the moment the Red General crushed the bolt and ruined the copper talisman, they went wild, as if injected with pure frenzy. They swarmed the nearest hosts in a savage wave, like a fit of vengeful rage.

Hundreds of Three Corpses Worms were invading living bodies; there were simply no words for how vile and uncanny a sight that was. Anyone who saw it with their own eyes would never forget it.

The Baling troops who had been grappling with Xiao Maoliang’s men froze. Their pupils went glassy, while their facial muscles twisted into masks.

Then they turned, howling as they swung their weapons at the comrades behind them.

In an instant, the battle flipped; the Baling ranks collapsed across the board.

In this era, the Baling people had yet to discover a truly effective way to counter the Three Corpses Worms.

The Red General’s plan, riddled with complications though it was, had come together in the end.

With the enemy suddenly turning on itself, Xiao Maoliang and the others finally exhaled and heaved the city gate open once more.

The rolling thunder of hooves reached the walls at last.

The Gale Army had arrived. Now, those inside and those outside moved as though two blades striking as one.

Summoning a lightning snake came at a massive cost, so just seeing it be seized and snuffed in a heartbeat made Shao Yingyang cough up two mouthfuls of blood on the spot. His face went sallow and sunken, but his eyes locked on the Red General. “Impossible. Not even a divine envoy could catch lesser heavenly lightning...”

One of his subordinates grabbed his arm and said, “General, the gate has already been breached. Wei City won’t hold!”

Wei City’s gate opened wide, and the Gale Army poured in like a tide.

True, this ambush force numbered only four hundred, and the Baling garrison in Wei City still counted over a thousand. But most of those were now worm-ridden and good for little. Even the men around Shao Yingyang were only holding on by brandishing magical artifacts and activating talisman slips, guarding their minds against bewitchment.

Wei City was as good as lost.

Shao Yingyang took in the chaos around him. However unwilling, he had no choice but to give the order to withdraw through the northern gate.

He swung into the saddle and glared toward the stable, grinding his teeth. “A meter above, gods bear witness. Mitian, you won’t escape...”

He meant to spit his threat and run, but a long spear shot out of the relay station, swift as lightning, its shaft wreathed in crackling light.

Shao Yingyang had no time to dodge.

The point was about to skewer him when a hulking black figure slammed forward, planting itself between him and death.

It was the giant stone puppet.

With a single shattering crack, the spear punched through its chest. The massive body blew apart in a wash of lightning.

The Red General practically just returned the lightning bolt, with interest.

The spear did not stop there; it ripped through Shao Yingyang’s throat, carrying a handful of bright blood out the back.

The stone puppet’s intervention had not changed his fate.

He did not even cry out as he was toppled from the saddle.

Such was the might of a single spear.

Only then did people realize that what the Red General had flung was not a spear or javelin at all, but a hayfork from the stable, though its forked head had snapped off.

He used whatever came to hand.

“Too much talk.”

The remaining Baling troops were scared witless. Their will to fight broke; they gathered up Shao Yingyang’s body and fled for the northern gate.

Now it was the Gale Army’s turn to press the pursuit.

Even so, Wei City’s streets and buildings made a forest of obstacles, blunting the Gale Army’s interception. And the copper talisman array still working atop the northern gate restored the senses of many Baling troops.

In the end, more than a hundred riders burst out of Wei City’s northern gate and fled east.

Inside the city, Xiao Maoliang asked the Red General whether they were to give chase. The Red General only said, “Leave them. Their head is already cut off. There’s no need to hound the stragglers.” He had slipped into the city with only four hundred troops on the wasteland, and that was hardly ample strength. It was thus better to simply consolidate the win. Besides, forty thousand Baling troops were still roaming the wasteland and could wheel back at any time.

“Hold Wei City. The Panlong Wasteland itself will help drive off the Baling army.”

Xiao Maoliang acknowledged the order and set about organizing the defenses.

They had taken Wei City without a full-on assault. The walls were intact, the gate bore nothing worse than a few arrows. Moreover, the Baling had recently reinforced walls and gates and installed several layers of defensive works. The Gale Army found ample defensive supplies in a nearby warehouse, and the stores of grain and salt were surprisingly full.

Clearly, after Hua Mucuo captured Wei City, he meant to make it a bridgehead, cultivate it properly, and, in time, extend his reach into the Panlong Wasteland. Who knew Shao Yingyang would march in and, with his “command,” hand Wei City back to the enemy? When Hua Mucuo got word, he would probably spit blood.

The Red General walked to the stone puppet’s remains.

Rocks of all sizes lay scattered. One fist-sized stone was still trembling.

He split it with a single stroke. Inside lay a red crystal, its surface engraved with fine script.

A stripe of gold lacquer banded the crystal, a sealing charm.

If one peered closely, one would see a wisp of something like pale smoke drifting within.

The Red General scraped off the gold lacquer with his blade tip. Then he squeezed hard, and the crystal split. The wisp of smoke floated free and, before him, took the shape of a bear.

“So it was a bear’s soul driving the puppet.” The Red General waved his hand. “You’re released. Go on.”

He lifted his hand, and the smoke skittered back in fear by a bit over a meter, then dipped to him twice in a bow and faded away on the spot.

Iron and stone are lifeless by nature. For a puppet forged of such materials to move and fight, it must be driven by a living being’s soul; and the stronger that being was in life, the more solid the soul, and the more formidable the puppet.

The core of this stone puppet was the soul of a rampaging bear, one that had reached three hundred years of age. It had been slain and then trapped inside the puppet, driven at the killer’s command. Puppet cores could be reused, so if the Red General had not broken the seal, it would never have been released.

Only then did the Red General look down at his own left hand.

His palm was nearly punched through, charred to a crisp.

Let alone turning red or black, aside from the back of his hand, there was barely any meat left of his hand, and white bone showed at the bases of his fingers.

In truth, almost no one in this world could catch heavenly lightning barehanded without paying a price.

That Shao Yingyang did have some skill.

A personal guard, sharp-eyed, saw it. “General, you’re hurt! Should we—” Should we fetch a healer?

The Red General curled his fingers into a fist. “No need.”

* * *

He Lingchuan ran as fast as he could, but when he reached the passage ahead, he found his way sealed by layer upon layer of webbing.

He glanced back. The spider was already only roughly ten meters away.

Regardless of whether it had a big belly or not, its speed was terrifying.

And then the spider opened its mouth, “Little thing, where do you think you’re going?”

He Lingchuan gulped. “Zhu Erniang?”

“Who else do you think I could be?” It did not merely look like Zhu Erniang. It was Zhu Erniang.

The monster had slipped back to the den without a sound, woven a web across his escape route first, and only then gone to the cavern to block him.

As if high combat power was not enough, its mind was more meticulous than those of most humans.

“Did you set that fire?”

On her spiderlings’ report, Zhu Erniang had rushed back to find the nest blazing. Her true qi surged with rage.

She had snuffed the flames with a divine technique, but at least a third of the aphid pastures she had cultivated over the years were ruined. With autumn and winter on the way, her spiders could well face a food shortage.

“Only this burrow,” He Lingchuan said honestly. “The other fires were the work of the Baling.”

“The damage they did isn’t a tenth of yours.” Zhu Erniang let out an icy laugh. “I’ll melt your muscles, your tendons, your bones with my own hands and turn you into a skin of water. When my children eat you, you’ll be perfectly conscious.”

She paced toward him. Behind her, spiders poured out in swarms, moving across the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. Hisses and skitters filled the whole cavern, enough to freeze the marrow.

It looks like there’s no escaping this. He Lingchuan clasped his fists. “Since I can’t sprout wings and fly, may I at least ask you a question before I die?”

The boy was already meat in her pocket; he had no hope of getting out alive. Seeing his unusually sincere manner, Zhu Erniang paused. “Ask.”

She had seen plenty who were not afraid of death, and eaten plenty such people, but few could keep their composure enough to ask questions at the end.

She was a little curious.

Zhu Erniang’s progeny in Guizhen Stone Forest were beyond counting, and even she did not know how many burrow spiders dwelled here. But those dull-witted creatures had little intellect. When they saw her, they flattened themselves to the ground. Which of them would dare speak with her?

Alas, not one good conversationalist among them. And Zhu Erniang did enjoy a chat.

He Lingchuan pointed at the rock wall. “Those seven nesting doll-like spider monsters, what’s their story? Are they your ancestors?”

This place felt like a gallery. Did spider monsters have a custom of collecting forebears’ remains?

The question made Zhu Erniang hesitate visibly before she replied, “Yes and no.”

She went to stand beside the largest of the giant spiders. The difference in size was stark. “The seven husks here are all my former selves.”

The answer rocked He Lingchuan. “What? These seven are all you?”

“Ignorant human, did you take me for some nameless roadside monster?” Zhu Erniang said with regal pride. “In the Ancient Era, I roamed the Panlong Wasteland, then called the Panlong Steppe, in this very body. This is my cave abode, Qixia Residence!”

At last, He Lingchuan understood what was carved on the great stone stele outside the burrow.

“What about the husks behind it?” By husks, as he understood it, she meant the sloughed-off skins, the cast shells of a body.

“Later, as the world’s spirit qi declined rapidly, it eventually became unable to sustain my original body’s activity,” Zhu Erniang said, her voice tinged with helplessness. “And so, just as a great whale cannot live in shallow water, I had no choice but to abandon that body and shed it, transforming into a new self.”

He Lingchuan was struck with awe.

This greater monster was saying that in the ancient era, her original body had been far stronger, but when the world underwent drastic changes, she had to give it up and take on a weaker form instead.

Her wording was interesting too: “shed and transform.”

For a greater monster like her, was that not really a kind of degeneration or regression?

He ventured, “So that amounts to giving up your cultivation while preserving your own spiritual awareness?” That must be a racial gift; humans likely couldn’t manage it.

The old turtle monster’s “blade dissolution” spell was somewhat similar. He could only marvel at the strangeness of fate.

“Yes. Over that long age, I compressed my cultivation seven times before I finally found a way to survive as I do now.” Zhu Erniang let out a long sigh. “All the spores here that give off light and warmth come from the residual power in the husks.”

In such a deep, sunless burrow, without luminescent spores, there would be no moss carpet, and without moss, there would be no dairy herd—no, no giant aphid herds.

In other words, she had, by her own strength, fed the entire clan.

Who could grasp the hardship of thousands of years spent clawing for survival? She not only kept herself alive but also provided for her family.

“I’ve answered. Now, where should I take the first bite?” She started toward He Lingchuan, patience wearing thin.

“I’ve got two last questions!” He blurted, racing the clock. “Was the ancient era truly the era of immortals? And why did the spirit qi decline so sharply?”

On the great decline of spirit qi, histories and essays were all over the map; the more later generations read, the more muddled they became.

Zhu Erniang tapped the ground once. “Yes.”

She tapped again to answer the second question. “I don’t remember. In shedding those seven husks, I lost many key memories.” To pare down one’s cultivation and secretly seek long life runs counter to heaven itself, so how could there be no price?

And most of all, her patience had run out. She could not be bothered to say more.

The chatting was over; the cat-and-mouse game had reached its end. Yes, Zhu Erniang was not a patient “second lady.”

“As for the ancient times, I only recall fragments and flashes, and none of them concern you!”

With her long legs, she closed the distance in a few strides. Her mouthparts opened, revealing fangs like drawn sabers.

From He Lingchuan’s vantage, those poison fangs gleamed black, big as a pair of hooked forks, saliva beading along their surface.

Poison from those fangs did not just make prey “long for life yet be unable to live, long for death yet be unable to die”—even that was far too mild.

“You’re right. It has nothing to do with me,” He Lingchuan said with a bitter smile, and with a ringing shing drew his changdao.

This ant-sized human still wants to resist? Fine, come. Zhu Erniang relished watching prey struggle; it made the meal taste better afterward. She curled her lip only to see him flip his grip and draw the blade across his own throat in one clean stroke.

“...”

A man should die like a man, swiftly.

It’s better that than torture, at least.

* * *

Something winged swept in from the horizon and circled Wei City twice.

The Red General lifted a box of glowspores and flashed it twice; only then did the creature find his position and drop to his shoulder.

The sparrowhawk had returned.

“Panlong City’s reinforcements have reached the outskirts of Guizhen Stone Forest. They’re coordinating with General Nanke from outside while he coordinates from within, together holding off Hua Mucuo.” The sparrowhawk was spent. Its whole night had been a blur of hard, fast flight. “On the way back, I also saw Commandant Sun’s group. They’re leading the Baling main force on a merry chase across the steppe.”

That Gale Army detachment’s job was to draw off Baling’s strength so the Red General could slip in and take the city.

Beak parted, panting to shed heat, it went on, “General Nanke was losing in his duel against Zhu Erniang inside the Stone Forest. He had no choice but to torch her den to divert her attention, and only then did he manage to lead his troops out of the stone forest.”

It then recounted the whole sequence of events.

The Red General watered it by hand and smoothed its feathers. His hand was already healed. He let the sparrowhawk rest for more than a quarter hour, then instructed, “Go find Commandant Sun and tell him to return to Wei City. From this moment, we switch from offense to defense.”

Dawn had broken; the battle was moving into its latter half.

The sparrowhawk took the order, fluttered its wings with a soft whoosh, and shot off.

The Red General turned his gaze toward Guizhen Stone Forest and fell into thought.

[End of Fourth Arc]