"What happened then..."
"It was her!"
"So that was it!"
Spring, the thirteenth year of Tianqi in the Great Tang Empire
North Mountain Pass, Min Mountain
A group of black-clad men was launching a surprise attack on another convoy. Judging by their attire, the attacked party appeared to be pieced together from several groups: soldiers in Great Tang military uniforms and guards dressed in grassland garb. Several carriages bore obvious scars—blade marks and arrow wounds. This was likely not the first time they had been attacked.
Suddenly, another group poured out of the dense woods on both sides. They wore Tang army uniforms, their faces uncovered, steel blades in hand, charging into the battlefield like a pack of wolves. Since they had made no effort to conceal their identities, they must have been prepared to stake everything on this. One side was bound to leave no survivors.
The barbarians around the convoy seemed to have once worked as bandits or the like. This slaughter stirred their savagery anew, making them even fiercer. Blade tips plunged into bodies, edges sliced across throats, and feathered arrows tore through flesh. Blood sprayed everywhere, staining this golden land red.
The fighting at North Mountain Pass was brutally intense, yet the carriage formation was eerily quiet—quiet enough to make one uneasy. Those soldiers, who should have been as ferocious as before, now knelt on the ground like stone statues.
Inside one carriage, a mild-looking old man in a tattered robe sat with his eyes closed, facing the dark woods in the distance under the guards' protection. A sword rested across his knees. Its scabbard was battered and old, just like the robe he wore.
The soldiers beside the carriage half-knelt on the ground, staring coldly into the woods. Their darkened faces were filled with