Zhu Di and all the generals behind him could only stare in stunned silence.
They watched as that black army tore through the encampment of tens of thousands, like a red-hot branding iron slicing through butter, effortlessly carving a second, then a third bloody furrow.
The courage the Mongol cavalry had always prided themselves on was crushed to pieces before overwhelming force.
They broke.
The first to break were the soldiers who had been lucky enough to survive the first charge.
They threw down their weapons and fled the camp, screaming and weeping, heedless of everything, desperate only to get as far as they could from those devils out of hell.
One man fleeing could set ten others running.
Ten men in flight were enough to shatter the military morale of an entire area.
Panic, like the fiercest plague, spread wildly through Arutai's right-wing encampment.
"Devils! They're devils!"
"Run! Run! We can't hold them!"
"Eternal Heaven! Why have you sent us such punishment!"
The encampment of tens of thousands had completely fallen out of control beneath the repeated charges of three thousand men.
The casualties from soldiers trampling one another were even greater than those directly inflicted by the Great Snow Dragon Riders.
Zhu Zhanjun reined in his horse and stopped in the middle of the camp.
The three thousand Great Snow Dragon Riders behind him stopped their charge as well, reforming into a grim square formation.
They did not pursue the fleeing soldiers.
Because those small fry had never been their target.
Zhu Zhanjun's gaze passed over the chaotic battlefield and settled precisely on the Great Ming Dragon Flag atop the high ground several miles away.
Beneath the Dragon Flag stood a figure clad in Black Iron Armor. Even from this distance, his peerless, domineering aura was unmistakable.
"Grandfather..."
Zhu Zhanjun murmured, then raised the Horse Spear in his hand high.
"Entire army! Close in on the Dragon Flag!"
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
The earth rumbled once more.
Ignoring the Mongol soldiers trembling and kneeling in supplication around them, the three thousand Great Snow Dragon Riders formed a black Steel Torrent and slowly advanced toward the high ground where Zhu Di stood.
On the high ground, Zhang Fu and the others saw the army's movements and immediately grew tense.
"Your Majesty! They're coming! Quick! Protect the throne!"
Several hundred imperial guards immediately drew their weapons and formed a wall of men, shielding Zhu Di behind them.
Tension and wariness were written on every face.
This army was terrifying. No one knew whether they were friend or foe.
"Everyone, stand down!"
Zhu Di shoved aside the guard in front of him and stepped forward, his eyes burning as he watched the black army draw ever closer.
He saw him.
At the very front of the army was his grandson, covered in blood, yet still unable to hide that familiar, swaggering look between his brows.
Closer.
Closer still.
A hundred paces from the high ground, Zhu Zhanjun reined in his horse again.
He dismounted, planted the Horse Spear in the snow, then walked alone toward the high ground, one step at a time.
His armor was already caked with blood and scraps of flesh. Crimson liquid dripped from the gaps in his armor onto the pristine snow, leaving one shocking mark after another.
Under the tense gaze of several hundred of Great Ming's most elite soldiers, he walked straight up to Zhu Di.
Then, with a thump, he dropped to one knee.
"Your unfilial grandson, Zhu Zhanjun, arrived too late to rescue you. I beg your forgiveness, Grandfather!"
His voice rang out, full and strong.
That single kneeling gesture seemed to drain the last trace of strength from everyone present.
Zhang Fu, Zhu Yong, Xue Lu... All the Great Ming generals stared at the young man before them, as though he had just been dragged from a pool of blood, then looked at the three thousand soldiers behind him, standing like iron statues and radiating boundless killing intent. Their minds could hardly take it all in.
It really was him.
It really was His Highness Prince Zheng, who did nothing in the capital but fight crickets, listen to opera, and walk his birds.
Zhu Di looked at his kneeling grandson. His lips moved for a long while, but not a single word came out.
He reached out a trembling hand to help him up, then stopped halfway.
He wanted to scold him, to demand why he had been so reckless, why he had dared to keep such a large army in secret.
But when the words reached his lips, all that came out was a choked, "You're back. That's all that matters... You're back..."
At that moment, the eyes of this Iron-Blooded Emperor, who had waged wars all his life and shed blood but never tears, turned completely red.
At the same time, more than a dozen miles away, Arutai's Golden Tent had fallen into utter silence.
Arutai, the Tatar grand preceptor who had ranged across Mobei for decades, listened with a livid face as the defeated soldiers who had made it back stammered out a jumbled account of what had just happened.
"What did you say? Say it again!"
Arutai grabbed the Commander of a Thousand by the collar and roared at him.
"Khan... Great Khan... The right-wing encampment... It's gone..."
The Commander of a Thousand trembled all over with fear. "A black cavalry force... We don't know where they came from... They... they aren't human! They're devils!"
"Bullshit!"
Arutai kicked him to the ground, his eyes bloodshot.
"An encampment of thirty thousand! You're telling me it's gone?"
"It was overrun by some army from who knows where?"
"Do you take me for a three-year-old?"
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