"Crack."
Just as that confidence filled the air, an abrupt, piercing sound suddenly tore through it. An incomparably sharp halberd swept across Xuanjia's armor at astonishing speed, producing a hard, grating clang.
Sparks burst from the fierce friction between the halberd and the armor like meteors suddenly appearing in the night sky—brief yet dazzling.
Years of battlefield experience had made Xuanjia sense the deadly strike before it arrived. His body instinctively tensed, and he subconsciously wanted to react. Yet after sensing the attacker's identity, he unexpectedly made no move at all. He simply stood there in a daze, his eyes filled with shock and confusion.
He stared in disbelief at the soldier behind him, whose halberd had not yet been withdrawn. Xuanjia could not imagine that a subordinate he trusted would betray him and strike at him.
But at that moment, he noticed that the soldier attacking him had lost all awareness in his eyes, like a puppet. Then, seemingly realizing that his attack could not harm Xuanjia, the soldier actually began swinging his halberd at the companions behind him.
The halberd tore through the air, trailing crimson blood as it pierced a companion's body.
The sight quickly snapped Xuanjia back to his senses. He immediately acted, pinning the controlled soldier to the ground to prevent him from causing further harm. But just as he brought the soldier under control, the crowd began slaughtering one another once more.
Amid muffled groans and the sharp clanging of colliding weapons, the entire battlefield descended into chaos. Before Xuanjia could even begin his own battle, he discovered that corpses and wounded soldiers already littered the area around him.
His heart was filled with rage and grief. He could not understand why his troops had suddenly fallen into such fratricidal slaughter.
"It was you!"