My face went pale. I never expected that even after rushing all the way here, I would still miss the remnants of Qilin Commandery. It seemed the other side had deployed its most elite soldiers, and might even have suppressed their strength. Otherwise, with the Emperor so far away across the border from Guanyu Commandery, how could he have caught up so quickly?
The golden-armored heavenly soldiers looked perfectly organized, utterly incomparable to Guanyu Commandery's forces. Even if I exhausted every effort to train our troops, they still wouldn't be a match for the mighty soldiers before me. The gap was simply too vast.
"Who goes there?" When they saw us break into the city, several golden-armored heavenly soldiers from the scouting unit called out to Senior Brother Yan and me. Senior Brother Yan's hand immediately pressed against his sword hilt, while I hurriedly pulled out a token. "We're civil officials from the capital, here to inspect the border reports."
"Inspect the reports? Hand over the token and let me see it!" The officer sized Senior Brother Yan and me up. Seeing that we were both dressed in Guanyu Commandery's clothes, he believed us halfway and came over to examine the token.
The four golden-armored heavenly soldiers regarded us with a trace of wariness. They might have grown cautious after the previous plan was exposed. I handed them the token and immediately said, "Several officers, our Guanyu Commandery received word this time that the remnants of Qilin Commandery had detoured through Qinghe Commandery in the north and secretly crossed into our territory, intending to escape the Great Wilderness. Our commandery governor found this strange, so he sent us here to investigate the truth. We just arrived and saw so many officers here. Could it be that this matter is actually