Where Immortals Once Walked

The warhorses had already been brushed glossy, fed concentrated fodder, and given time to rest at midday. Like the men, they were brimming with energy.

Each soldier carried three days of dry rations, three days of water, and was assigned two fine mounts. The army traveled light. They had no baggage train and brought no cumbersome supplies.

They were not just racing hundreds of kilometers. They were going to strike West Ji’s capital in a surprise assault and seize its ruler.

There was no other way to go about things; they had to prioritize speed.

* * *

In the State of West Ji, the crown prince was inspecting the new robe he would wear for his coronation.

An old minister came to advise him that Dragon Throat Pass had seen beacon fires ignite on their own twice. The old minister told him that the event suggested an enemy was stirring in the shadows, planning trouble during his grand ceremony.

Huyan Zhao asked him, “Then what do you suggest we do?”

“We should postpone the ceremony,” the old minister said, blunt and sincere.

Huyan Zhao’s face went dark in an instant.

Who did not know that the longer you waited, the more things could go wrong? His father was dead. He had been counting the days, counting the hours, waiting and waiting. Finally, tomorrow, he would be crowned king. And this old man wanted him to delay?

Huyan Zhao said coldly, “Then tell me, delay until when?”

The old minister said hesitantly, “Delay it... just a few days. As long as the western mountains remain calm, then it will just be a few days.”

“And if I delay a few days, and the beacons ignite again just when I’m about to be crowned, what then? I delay again? The monkeys at Dragon Throat Pass set a fire, and I’m supposed to postpone taking the throne, hm?” Tell any crown prince to wait a few extra days before becoming king and see how he takes it. “So the State of West Ji can go without a ruler for however many days, so long as the western beacons stay dark, yes?”

That string of questions choked the old minister into prostrating himself. “My humble meaning is that Dragon Throat Pass should be reinforced...”

“Granted, reinforce Dragon Throat Pass.” Huyan Zhao waved him away. One by one, they only came to cause problems and never helped him carry burdens. “Someone, relay my command! Tomorrow, tighten security inside and outside the city, and inside and outside the palace. If anything goes wrong, you’ll answer with your heads!”

Outside, the guards responded, and the order was passed down level by level.

The Minister of the Guards summoned his own officer. “Tomorrow, security is doubled inside and outside the city, inside and outside the palace. If you fail, you answer for it.”

The officer then summoned his subordinates. “Strictly control entrances and exits for the ceremony, increase manpower. If anything goes wrong, you answer for it.”

When it reached the city gate commander, it was the same. His superior leaned in and hissed, “If anything goes wrong, you answer for it,” then left.

But with the coronation imminent, security plans were already extremely tight. Every man had a post. How exactly was he supposed to double anything? After thinking it through, the city gate commander added one extra patrol shift.

* * *

The next day, the coronation went forward as scheduled.

From beginning to end, everything went smoothly. There were no strange incidents at all.

Everyone breathed easier.

It was a night of the new moon. It was a night with wind, but no moon.

After days of being spooked, the sentries at Dragon Throat Pass had their attention fixed on the beacon tower. Every few steps, they would subconsciously look back over their shoulders, terrified that something would go wrong again.

But a person’s focus is limited. Watch behind you too closely, and you miss what’s in front of you.

The three sentries never noticed a squad quietly closing in under the cover of darkness, nor did the two outposts a hundred or so meters away give any warning at all.

A startled bird flapped through the night. One sentry leaned out to look, and an arrow flew from the darkness at his side and punched straight through his throat.

At the same instant, He Lingchuan and the others vaulted down from above the tower, silent as ghosts, and cut the throats of the remaining two.

The one struck in the throat swayed, about to fall from the high wall. He Lingchuan’s eyes were sharp. He grabbed him at once and eased him to the ground.

If the body hit the earth, the sound would be far too loud in the still night.

Two squads of the Gale Army worked in coordination. The other team was led by Commandant Sun.

He Lingchuan flashed him a hand sign indicating that the sentries had been cleared.

Commandant Sun nodded, glanced down twice to confirm the position of the winch, then tossed down two palm-sized copper puppets.

They hit the ground with a dull thump and instantly expanded into massive copper guards more than three meters tall!

They were encased head to toe in thick armor. The first thing they did after climbing to their feet was seize the winch and start turning it, lifting the gate!

Dragon Throat Pass was West Ji’s first and most important bulwark against Panlong City. Considerable effort had gone into the gate itself. It was over one and a third meters thick, built as a layered composite of ironwood, refined iron, and rhinoceros hide, controlled by a winch that raised and lowered it.

Ordinarily, it took eight strong men or four horses just to barely move that mechanism. But the copper guards’ strength was beyond anything human.

Once they put their weight into it, the winch began to creak and groan. It was obvious it had not been oiled in a while. It turned slowly at first, then faster. The gate embedded in the ground began to lift with the grinding of gears.

The garrison at Dragon Throat Pass was not dead, so how could everyone possibly miss that deep vibration and heavy sound?

A shrill cry of “enemy attack!” rang out, whistles screamed, and the garrison poured out of the camp. From the mountain peaks, a rain of arrows fell.

The Gale Army ambushers finally made their move.

At that moment, the door to the gatehouse above was kicked open from the inside so violently that it flew off its hinges. If someone had been standing outside, the door would have smashed right into their face.

The pass commander charged out, wielding a wolf’s fang mace, shouting as he ran, “Take the winch! Get up to the gatehouse!”

If they regained the winch, they held the pass. If they cleared the enemies from the gatehouse, they could deal with the army outside at their leisure.

Doorboard was right beside him and slammed forward with a shield bash.

The commander did not flinch. He swung the wolf’s fang mace down quickly three times in a row, hammering Doorboard back nearly a meter.

However, Doorboard’s job was to draw fire.

The commander was enjoying himself when a chain of arrows streaked out of the dark—one aimed at his throat, one at his ribs, one at his knee, all shot by Willow.

His reactions were sharp. He raised his arm and knocked aside two arrows, then lifted his leg, so the shot meant for the knee struck his shin instead.

He grunted, but origin energy protected his body. The arrow only sank shallowly into flesh, failing to even create an open wound.

Willow had split the strength of one arrow into three paths, so naturally, the penetration power suffered.

However, those three arrows were feints.

The real killing move came from behind.

He Lingchuan struck without a sound.

At a decisive moment on a battlefield, who wastes time on fair one-on-one duels?

The commander felt a chill crawl up his spine, as though something monstrous were pouncing. He reacted instantly, stumbling sideways and whipping the wolf’s fang mace backward in a counterstrike.

He dodged fast, yet still a fraction slower than He Lingchuan.

Saber light flashed as Fleeting Life sliced through the commander’s weapon arm.

He felt a cold sting, then pain.

His arm was severed cleanly at the wrist, the cut smooth as polished stone.

The hand and wolf’s fang mace hit the ground, and it was only then that the commander truly felt the pain, to which he then screamed in misery.

Three personal guards rushed to shield him. Willow dropped one with a precise shot. Hu Min buried a dagger in another. He Lingchuan finished the last.

The commander reached the wall and tried to leap down.

He Lingchuan raised his hand, and a sleeve arrow shot out, hooking into the commander’s shoulder and yanking him back.

Beside them, Commandant Sun was controlling the golden-armored copper guards. Seeing the opening, he surged forward and chopped off the commander’s head in a single stroke.

“Hey! Hey! That’s not yours!” Hu Min could not help but shout. This bastard’s stealing our merit!

Commandant Sun flashed him a grin with white teeth bared, and then he lifted the commander’s head and shouted down into the pass, “Hu Bin is dead! Hu Bin is dead!”

The pass commander’s name was Hu Bin.

The West Ji troops looked up, saw their leader dead, and their morale shattered.

Doorboard immediately roared, “Surrender and you won’t be killed! Open the gate and you won’t be killed!”

The West Ji soldiers had been trying to attack the two golden-armored copper guards. The copper guards were hunched over the winch, pushing like mad, not even bothering to defend themselves.

But they were copper skin, iron bones, steel armor, all wrapped in origin energy. Weapons struck and only threw sparks, and it was only their joints that were even a little vulnerable.

There were still a few fierce fighters among the West Ji troops. They swung heavy weapons and smashed the copper guards’ knees, actually doing some damage.

At the very least, the copper guards’ pushing slowed.

Meanwhile, West Ji soldiers used tents and wooden barricades as cover, firing back at the archers on the mountain peaks.

However, the gate had already risen two-thirds of a meter off the ground. Outside, Panlong City soldiers hugged their weapons and rolled underneath into the pass.

The West Ji garrison tried to counter, but then they saw that Hu Bin was dead. Their fighting spirit leaked away, and the Panlong troops who had rolled in managed to gain their footing.

After that, West Ji forces retreated step by step. The copper guards finished lifting the gate, and the main army finally came pouring in. Everything that followed was inevitable.

A quarter of an hour later, Dragon Throat Pass’ garrison threw down their weapons and surrendered.

In this battle, the beacon tower never lit once from start to finish. Some soldiers tried to haul off the sand cover and ignite it, but the thing had been plastered with mud and weighted with sand. It was thick, heavy, and impossible for one or two men to move.

The Panlong archers also made the beacon tower a priority defensive target, making sure that anyone who approached it got arrows for their trouble.

Under that arrow rain, no one could lift the cover.

The Red General walked up to He Lingchuan and Commandant Sun and nodded in approval. “Well done, you bought us at least four extra hours.”

With both squads executing their missions perfectly, the Panlong army had opened Dragon Throat Pass with minimal cost.

One should not underestimate the four hours that the two squads had bought the army, as the foundation of victory or defeat might have already been laid exactly because of that time that had been saved.

The dragon’s throat was already open, but what about the dragon’s spine?

The Red General did not waste time. She ordered the entire army forward at once, aiming to seize the last major obstacle in West Ji’s mountain region, Dragon Spine Pass.

The Gale Army already had an elite squad lying in wait, and by coordinating from inside and out, this battle took only another hour before they ultimately managed to take it.

However, Dragon Spine Pass managed to light their beacon tower!

The elite squad had sabotaged the cannons beforehand, so even at the end, the defenders did not manage to fire a single shot.

In war, you could not have zero margin for error. This slip-up had already been within the Red General’s expectations, so she did not scold anyone. She only ordered everyone to rest in place for a quarter hour, then pointed her sword at West Ji’s capital on the eastern plains.

Her declaration of advance was only five words: “We shall win this battle!”

* * *

On the first night after West Ji’s new king took the throne, he favored two beauties.

Sleeping soundly in a nest of softness, he was jolted awake by an attendant who came running in, weeping as he reported: the enemy had attacked and already broken into the capital’s gates!

“What?” Huyan Zhao’s mind rang with a deafening buzz. “How is that possible?!” What enemy? From where? How did they get in?

“The first southern gate and the second western gate have already fallen! The first eastern gate is still under fierce attack!” the attendant cried. “The western beacon towers lit up! Panlong City must be coming!”

Huyan Zhao kicked him to the ground. “Then why did no one react?!”

The moment the words left his mouth, he remembered the report from just a few hours ago that western beacons had flared again.

After two false alarms, and with today being the glorious day of his coronation, Huyan Zhao had not taken it seriously. He had only ordered scouts to investigate. Besides, the beacons had lit but no cannons fired, so he believed it likely to be another false alarm.