The Battle

"By the Mandate of Heaven, may it endure forever!"

Xiao Ran stared at the eight characters, momentarily dazed.

For the Chinese people, the allure of those eight characters defied description.

There was a long-running joke online.

A fisherman was angling by a river when he accidentally hooked a jade seal. One corner was missing, and eight characters were engraved on it: "By the Mandate of Heaven, may it endure forever."

He then took out his phone, started a livestream, held up the seal, and cried, "I, the Emperor, shall present this national treasure to the state!"

At that moment, when people spoke of the last emperor, they wouldn't mean some Aisin-Gioro Puyi. They'd mean you.

Of course, it was only a joke.

It might also have been the fantasy of a fisherman just before he slipped and drowned.

Still, it showed just how astonishingly alluring those eight characters were.

Even Xiao Ran couldn't stop his mind from wandering, a thousand scenes rising in his thoughts. What if it really is the Imperial Seal...

After a moment, Xiao Ran took a deep breath and banished every stray thought. "Whether or not it's really the Imperial Seal, we should deal with this Ghost Army first."

There were far too many of them—at least tens of thousands.

A vast, dark mass flowed together like a river. From afar, it looked like a black river of Yin Qi surging toward them.

Where Yin soldiers passed, not a blade of grass remained.

Their immense Yin Qi drained the life from everything around them, turning the area into a wasteland no living thing could enter.

"That's an enormous force of Yin soldiers. Incredible."

By then, Golden Toad Son and the others had also reached the top of the city wall. They were astonished by the Yin