Sweeping Through

At the dock of an unnamed island in the southern waters of Shang'an Prefecture, a squad of Chu Kingdom soldiers in light armor was registering the captured prisoners. Someone beside the distant dock warehouses was cursing loudly; before they had landed, the warehouses had been reduced to nothing by a raging fire.

Sounds of fighting still drifted out from the depths of the island from time to time. Linshui Prefecture soldiers were still resisting in some narrow alleys. Suddenly, the cries of battle intensified, and nearby soldiers cursed, "Those damned bastards—when we catch them, we'll skin them alive and pull out their tendons!"

The curse made the prisoners at the dock tremble uncontrollably, drawing loud laughter from the nearby soldiers. Before long, some prisoners lost their minds and tried to run. Their Companions instinctively tried to stop them, but it was already too late.

There was no doubt that the Chu Kingdom soldiers had deliberately allowed it, simply to vent the killing intent in their hearts. Such things were most common in war. After all, war came with death, and death came with hatred. Every Chu Kingdom soldier hated Linshui Prefecture to the bone.

Amid the savage grins of several Chu Kingdom soldiers, the fleeing prisoners were hacked to death in a flurry of blades. This naturally stirred unrest among the prisoners, followed by slaughter on an even greater scale. Only after the chaos had been quelled did a military officer arrive at a leisurely pace. After asking what had happened, he calmly instructed, "A fast ship carrying prisoners will dock later. Make sure the dock is cleaned properly."

Thus, the soldiers began driving the prisoners to clean the bloodstains from the ground. The bodies of the executed prisoners were tossed directly into a nearby deep pit, already piled high