At the center of the battlefield.
Weapon Master Xiao Jin stood in black robes snapping in the wind, the Nine Nether Baleful Suppression Demon Blade in his hand, scarlet droplets of blood still slowly dripping from its pitch-black blade.
His indifferent gaze swept across the refugees and surrendered soldiers kneeling all over the ground, without the slightest trace of joy at victory on his face.
"Convey my command."
"Red-Brow Old Qu, the chief culprit, has been executed. The remaining rebel troops are all spared."
"Disband their original formations. Assign them to land-reclamation labor in the various provinces. Confiscate all weapons, and forbid them from privately keeping armor or arms for eternity."
"Any who dare gather a mob and rebel again shall be executed on the spot."
"Your subordinate obeys the General's command!"
Deputy General Chen Xuanli answered and accepted the order, immediately sending the command onward.
Soon, great numbers of government soldiers flooded into the wilderness, confiscating weapons, counting the surrendered troops, and clearing away the corpses strewn across the ground.
The monstrous calamity that had swept across Ji Province for a thousand miles had finally settled into the dust.
Yet Xiao Jin's gaze did not linger upon this land that had already been pacified.
He raised his eyes toward the north, his gaze crossing mountain ranges upon mountain ranges before settling in the direction of Cloud Province.
Though the chaos in Ji Province had been quelled, the secret reports from the Imperial Court were a thorn in every word.
The Four Great Sects of Cloud Province, along with two great Lineages, commanded the martial strength of an entire region. They kept private armies and repeatedly defied the Imperial Court's edicts in public.
When the provincial government requisitioned resources or conscripted martial soldiers, they complied on the surface while resisting