Beside him, Su Quanzhong lowered his eyes in silence. The hot blood from the battle moments ago, the fighting spirit to kill the enemy, was now largely washed thin by the chill in the depths of his heart.
Father and son stood beneath the snapping Shang banners, gazing out at the blood-soaked battlefield before them. In their hearts, they loathed Ma Yuan's cruelty even more, and felt a deeper, grieving sorrow at the helpless desolation of the human race—bodies like drifting duckweed, lives like ants.
Before Xiqi's lines, the war drums fell silent for the moment, while the smoke of battle had yet to clear.
Just now, Deng Chanyu had struck Ma Yuan back with one stone and saved her husband, Tu Xingsun. It looked as if they had clawed back a round, yet she reined in her horse before the army, her jade-like face drawn tight, her fingers clenched hard around the reins, cold sweat soaking her palms, with not the slightest intention of withdrawing the troops or falling back from the formation.
Behind her, countless armored soldiers of Xiqi stood solemnly in formation, banners cracking in the wind. The two armies still faced each other from afar, and the aura of slaughter hung in the high sky, refusing to disperse.
Others saw only that Ma Yuan had fled in defeat after being wounded, his edge utterly lost. Only in Deng Chanyu's heart had that bloody and brutal scene from moments ago carved terror and hatred deep into her bones.
Though she had long since rebelled against Great Shang and surrendered to Xiqi, though her body was in Zhou's camp and her heart inclined toward Xiqi, all the humans under heaven came from the same line. How could there be any absolute divide between enemy and self?
On the