"Westward, the Yellow River marks its boundary; northward, it commands the great desert; eastward, it connects to Daoma and the Zijing Pass; southward, it holds back the perilous Yanmeng and Ningwu."
These words described Jizhou Hanping, the great northern stronghold.
Now the world was in chaos, with war raging year after year. Hanping, once under the jurisdiction of the Central Plains, had long since been divided and firmly held by the northern Xiongnu and Qiang tribes, standing against the nations of the Central Plains.
The Xiongnu and Qiang had established four commanderies and thirteen garrisons here, boasting a force of one hundred and thirty thousand troops and fifty thousand warhorses. These armies were all equipped with the Snow Wolf Steel Saber unique to the Xiongnu and Qiang. Their hilts bore savage wolf heads, while their blades were snowy white. When an army of ten thousand drew their sabers together, the killing intent alone, along with the sudden burst of cold light, could shake men to the core.
With the Xiongnu and Qiang heavily garrisoned here, there were no bandit raids as in other places. By count, this place had seen no war for sixteen years. Over those sixteen years, refugees, artisans, and merchant houses from all over had flooded in, creating a flourishing scene of blooming flowers and ceaseless streams of carriages and horses.
From the city gates to the heart of the stronghold ran a four-carriageway bluestone avenue. By the reckoning here, one carriageway accommodated four tall horses, so a four-carriageway avenue allowed sixteen horses to ride abreast.
A four-carriageway avenue ran straight from north to south, while countless smaller roads spread like a spider's web, linking this stronghold across a thousand li. Merchant houses of every kind had opened shops here, and even deep into the night, candlelight shimmered red; there was never a trace of desolation.
Anyone who lived here for long might forget that war raged outside, that the various states fought for supremacy, and that a great battle could erupt here at any moment.
It was late autumn. In the south, it was still the crisp, bright season for outings, but in this far northern land, the chill grew heavier by the day.
The thick layer of white frost on the rooftops each morning alone foretold that once the moisture was sufficient, a great snowstorm would arrive in a matter of days.
Within this great stronghold, as prosperous as a capital in its golden age, the largest restaurant was Zhiwei Tower in the southeast. Zhiwei Tower belonged to Wangxingji, the largest merchant house in southern Suzhou. It occupied several mu of land in Hanping, divided into three courtyards at the front and three at the rear. The pair of Taotie stone statues at its gate, each as tall as two men, the vermilion doors studded with gleaming bronze nails, and the smartly dressed, imposing servants at the entrance all showed that Wangxingji's wealth and power were at their peak.
Wang Zhiwei was the owner of Zhiwei Tower and the chief manager of Wangxingji's seventeen shops of various kinds in this stronghold.
That morning, the cold wind was bitter. Even indoors, one could hear the northern gale snapping the dead grass on the roof. Before Wang Zhiwei had risen, he heard someone in the street shouting harshly, "All of you, get lost! If you keep getting in the way here, watch out for your lives."
"Seal off the surrounding streets! No shops are allowed to open today!"
"Who are these people, to speak so arrogantly and tyrannically?" Wang Zhiwei was startled. He swiftly threw on a fur robe and pushed open the window a crack.
The eastern part of the city was the most bustling and prosperous district. Every merchant house able to set up stalls and shops along these streets had important military figures backing them. Some merchant houses even had numerous Martial Masters and Daoist Arts experts stationed there, responsible for escorting money and provisions and transporting goods along the postal roads. Great quantities of southern silk, cloth, rice, and grain, as well as northern furs and spices, circulated in this way.
"Who are you people? You think you can close things down just because you say so? Do you have a written order from the four commanders?"
Looking out through the crack in the second-floor window, he saw nine burly men stationed at each end of the street.
All nine wore identical black soft armor. No one knew what the armor was made from, but from afar, it seemed to be covered in overlapping scales that glimmered with a dim blue-black sheen. The black armor covered even their heads and faces, leaving only their eyes and nostrils exposed. They radiated a fierce, domineering air.
Looking closer, Wang Zhiwei discovered that these men all carried Black Sheath Longswords on their backs. Even the long boots on their feet gleamed with a metallic luster, as though forged from steel.
Armored and sword-bearing—this was already a blatant violation of the laws decreed by the four commanders here!
"It's Master Zhang from Wei Zihhao!"
Two middle-aged men in luxurious dark-blue robes now stood in the street. Their features could not be seen clearly from afar, but their arrogant, overbearing presence was unmistakable. They had clearly been the ones to order the surrounding streets sealed and all shops closed. Standing before them and questioning them was a lean, capable-looking man of around forty, dressed like a steward in a short goatskin jacket, with a thin long beard and a gleam of spirit in his eyes.
Wang Zhiwei recognized him. He was Master Zhang, steward of the Wei Zihhao merchant house across the street.
Wei Zihhao was a wealthy merchant house from the Heluo region, dealing chiefly in pawnshops and medicinal herbs. Its wealth and influence even surpassed Wangxingji's. Though Master Zhang looked unremarkable, Wang Zhiwei knew he was an unfathomable expert. Several years ago, Wang Zhiwei had seen Wei Zihhao contend for the road with a merchant house called Hangshengji, neither side yielding an inch. In the end, Master Zhang had sent a horse cart laden with goods and weighing several hundred jin flying with a single palm strike. Such might made even some of Wangxingji's experts feel inferior. Over the past few years, Wang Zhiwei had become acquainted with Wei Zihhao's shopkeeper and learned that Master Zhang was also skilled in Daoist Arts and knew many divine arts of ghosts and gods.
If not for Wei Zihhao's power and his own strength, he would never have dared to step out alone and question them while so many men in strange black armor had sealed off both ends of the street.
"Hm? So he is a Wangwu Sect disciple. No wonder he dared to step forward."
What Wang Zhiwei could not see was that the two richly dressed men facing Master Zhang both had fair skin, their faces faintly glowing with an ivory sheen. Upon hearing Master Zhang's harsh questioning, the sinister man on the left, with triangular eyes and a hooked nose, narrowed his eyes at once. A cold gleam burst from them. "You need not concern yourself with who we are. Retreat at once. If you insist on sticking your neck out, you will regret it beyond all remedy."
With his sect exposed in a single sentence, Master Zhang's heart jolted. Yet he had escorted Wei Zihhao's goods on the roads for more than twenty years and witnessed countless battles great and small. He also possessed considerable prestige on the roads within a thousand li. If he were frightened back at once by a few airy words, at least half of the authority he had built in others' eyes over those twenty years would collapse.
"You will not even state where you come from, yet you tell me to leave. Isn't that rather unreasonable?" Master Zhang straightened his back and spoke coldly.
The two richly dressed men looked around and saw that some peddlers and shopkeepers were still standing their ground. An incomparably sinister smile appeared on their faces. "It seems these people take you as their leader. Excellent. We can use you to kill a chicken and warn the monkeys!"
The words of the two richly dressed men were already brimming with killing intent and utter tyranny. Yet just as their voices fell, a calm voice drifted over from afar. "Too much nonsense only invites laughter. He is merely a Wangwu disciple. Kill him."
Kill him.
Though the voice was mild, its words made even Wang Zhiwei, peering through the window crack, turn cold all over.
Even the commanding general here might not so easily speak words that held life and death in his grasp.
The moment the words fell, eighteen streaks of white radiance twisted toward Master Zhang in the middle of the street.
"Flying swords!"
Master Zhang's pupils contracted sharply, and his entire body seemed to plunge into an ice pit.
He had known that the black-armored, sword-bearing men blocking both ends of the road possessed extraordinary skills, but he had never imagined that they were not ordinary Martial Masters of the world, but cultivators who wielded flying swords!
Unless cultivators had reached a realm like Yuan Tianyi's Unity of Heaven and Man, even when standing still, their bodies would naturally emit traces of magical power. Yet Master Zhang had sensed no powerful magical fluctuations until these people released their flying swords.
The scale-like black soft armor they wore had concealed all their earlier magical fluctuations!
"You are from Gouli Dao!" In that lightning-flash instant, Master Zhang recalled a sect of the northern lands. Its founding patriarch had once slain a Black-winged Sea Serpent with a thousand years of cultivation in the Northern Sea, using its flying wings and bones to refine a magical treasure, the Yin Scale Black Banner. It could release poisonous smoke and water lightning. He had also used the Black-winged Sea Serpent's hide to refine a batch of black armor. This armor could ward off blades and spears, resist water and fire, and even ordinary flying swords found it difficult to damage. Its other use was to allow cultivators to conceal their aura. Back when Gouli Dao had fought a northern sect for supremacy, a group of its disciples had worn this treasure armor and secretly infiltrated their opponent's mountain gate, catching them utterly off guard and winning a sweeping victory.
"Overestimating yourself!"
Master Zhang spoke with a faint hint of seeking peace in his tone. He merely summoned a green, silk-like magical treasure to shield himself in tight layers. But the two richly dressed men did not answer at all. They snorted and made a pulling motion through the air. Each seemed to tear a black banner, twelve feet long, out of empty space.
As the black banners unfurled, surging black qi swept down from the sky. "Yin Scale Black Banners!" Master Zhang had not known that Gouli Dao possessed two such magical treasures. Seeing that the two men would not speak further and had immediately brought out such powerful treasures, he knew there could be no peaceful end today. Gritting his teeth, he threw a golden talisman covered in lightning patterns into the air.
The moment the Golden Light Divine Thunder Talisman flew out, a thunderclap exploded in the air, transforming into a giant golden thunder hand. The already terrified merchants throughout the street were so startled that they all fell prostrate to the ground.
The Wangwu Sect chiefly cultivated talisman arts. This talisman was the Golden Light Divine Thunder Talisman of Wangwu's talisman Daoist Arts, one of the most powerful talismans of the Wangwu Sect. Master Zhang had received it from his teacher and could not refine it himself. It was one of the treasures at the bottom of his chest. Today, seeing more than a dozen flying swords forming an array and crisscrossing through the air in a murderous whirl, while the Yin Scale Black Banners before him bore down with ferocious force, Master Zhang had no choice but to throw out the Golden Light Divine Thunder Talisman.
With several sharp Rips! Rips!, just as the Golden Light Divine Thunder exploded, two tangible black feather-winged serpents suddenly surged from the black banners. The two savage serpents shook their bodies, and a vast sheet of eerie blue lightning, cold and grim, erupted forth, blasting the golden thunder hand apart.
This is bad! The Yin Scale Black Banners are so vicious!
Only then did Master Zhang realize that the Black-winged Sea Serpents slain by Gouli Dao's patriarch had not been one, but two. Moreover, Gouli Dao's patriarch had actually sealed the thousand-year serpent souls within the black banners. The instantaneous explosive power of the Yin Scale Black Banners even surpassed his sect's Golden Light Divine Thunder Talisman. A clash of Daoist Arts was more perilous than the struggle of blades and swords among worldly warriors. Master Zhang had reacted too slowly, and his attack lacked the ruthlessness of Gouli Dao's people. Once the Golden Light Divine Thunder Talisman was broken, it was already too late to release any other magical treasures. This thought became Master Zhang's final thought.
The golden light vanished, and black qi swept over him. Master Zhang's body stiffened. The green silk-like magical treasure no longer flowed smoothly, revealing only a gap of several inches. The eighteen flying swords circling and twisting outside instantly stabbed through it.
With a single twist, Master Zhang, standing in the center of the street, was shredded into dozens of scattered chunks of flesh. Primordial qi scorched over the eighteen flying swords, and Master Zhang of Wei Zihhao, who had possessed some fame on the northern roads, did not leave behind even a thread of his yin soul. His body and soul were utterly destroyed!
When had ordinary mortals ever witnessed such a dangerous and brutal battle of Daoist Arts?
Before the two richly dressed men wielding the Yin Scale Black Banners could say another word, everyone cried out and fled, scrambling and crawling away until the street was completely emptied. The once-crowded road instantly became incomparably desolate.
"Something terrible is about to happen!"
Far away in Zhiwei Tower, Wang Zhiwei was trembling uncontrollably as he watched. After slowly closing the window, he forcibly steadied himself and shouted repeatedly, "Prepare the horses! Prepare the carriages! Pack the ledgers, gold, silver, and valuables! Notify everyone in the southeast of the city—we are all withdrawing to the west!"
This well-traveled chief manager of a great merchant house had already seen that a terrible disaster was certain to occur here. Even armies might not be able to interfere in a conflict between cultivators, much less merchant houses like theirs. Though two streets still lay between him and the sealed road, Wang Zhiwei did not feel the slightest bit safe.
Wangxingji also had properties in the west of the city, and troops were stationed nearby. It was the safest place in the city.
"Who are these cultivators, who decide life and death in an instant and yet act with such great fanfare? Whom are they targeting?"
The clerks of the great merchant house worked with remarkable efficiency. Not long after Wang Zhiwei's orders were given, all the luggage had been packed and the carriages readied. As this thought circled through his mind, Wang Zhiwei climbed into the carriage in frightened unease—only to stare wide-eyed as he saw dozens of figures converging upon that street from every direction in the city at astonishing speed.