To make things easier, Zichuan Xiu and his companions had all dressed in Flowing Wind Clan soldiers' uniforms.
Lin Junyu had used this same trick centuries ago.
It was hardly clever, but it worked.
The soldiers guarding the camp saw them and assumed they were friendly troops. After standing watch all night, the guards were exhausted.
Without giving it much thought, they moved aside the obstacles blocking the camp entrance.
The force led by Zichuan Xiu passed smoothly through the Flowing Wind Clan's encircling camp.
Only when Zichuan Xiu led his troops toward the positions held by the Zichuan Clan's Central Army and Imperial Guard did the others realize something was wrong.
By then, Zichuan Xiu had already reached the front of the Zichuan Clan's army.
The surviving twenty thousand Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Central Army soldiers trapped there immediately braced for battle at the sight of strangers approaching.
"I am Zichuan Xiu, adopted son of the Zichuan Clan's Chief Executive. I've come to take you home!"
Zichuan Xiu rode his warhorse up before the clan's seventy thousand finest soldiers.
They had been surrounded for days and nights, cut off from food and water, and were terribly weak.
The Flowing Wind Clan also launched sporadic attacks, leaving none of them able to get any sleep.
If another day passed, these seventy thousand soldiers, still fighting for their clan's honor, would lose the strength to resist.
Then the Flowing Wind Clan could wipe them out without lifting a finger.
That would undoubtedly be an enormous loss for the clan.
These soldiers were loyal, capable, willing to fight, and unafraid of death.
"The clan hasn't forgotten us! His Excellency the Chief Executive hasn't forgotten us!"
"We're saved!"
Zichuan Xiu's arrival as the late Chief Executive's adopted son undoubtedly lifted the desperately low spirits of the seventy-thousand-strong army.
"Soldiers, grip your blades, mount your warhorses, and follow my banner!"
"Do not falter! Do not fear! Do not stop charging!"
"Stay close to the banner and swing your blades!"
"Ahead lies our way out! I, Zichuan Xiu, will drive back the Flowing Wind bandits and take you home to the Imperial Capital!"
The seventy thousand survivors rose, raised their blades, and roared together, "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"All troops, prepare! Mount up!"
Zichuan Xiu turned his horse around and ordered his great banner raised.
"Charge!"
Zichuan Xiu led the charge, plunging into battle.
The seventy thousand troops behind him followed closely.
Though utterly exhausted, their fierce desire to survive and fight sent adrenaline surging through them.
This time, either the Flowing Wind army would fall, or they would die fighting.
The Flowing Wind Clan's army had never expected the Zichuan Clan's troops, who had been hunkered down on the defensive all this time,
to launch a counterattack against them.
Flowing Wind Xishan sneered at the army charging toward them. "An abandoned, isolated force. Nothing but its final death throes."
Flowing Wind Xishan ordered his entire army forward. Since the enemy wanted to die, he would oblige them.
Did they think a mere eight hundred cavalrymen gave them the strength to stand against his army?
"Kill!"
Battle cries shook the battlefield as the eight hundred cadets led by Zichuan Xiu stabbed into the enemy ranks like the point of a blade.
Every one of those eight hundred mounted cadets was an elite handpicked by the clan, a talent fit to serve as an officer.
A force made up of such people utterly overwhelmed the enemy's rank-and-file soldiers.
Like a knife slicing through tofu, they tore straight through the enemy formation.
Close behind came seventy thousand elite soldiers, erupting with astonishing fighting spirit, every one of them fearless in the face of death.
Zichuan Xiu slaughtered his way through the front lines. His initial mastery of the Light Ripple Art had made his internal energy deep and powerful.
With the divine weapon Lin Junyu had given him, the Sunflare Moonshine Blade, his strength flowed without end.
As he kept killing, Zichuan Xiu felt his connection to the blade deepen, as though he were about to become one with it.
The blade gleamed beneath the blazing sun.
Holding the Sunflare Moonshine Blade, Zichuan Xiu felt a mighty power flow from it into his hand, then spread throughout his body.
Warmth welled up inside him, and his strength instantly increased tenfold.
Lin Junyu rode along at the rear, barely bothering to participate. Strangely, every soldier who surrounded him dropped dead upon coming within three meters of him.
He was testing the psychic domain he had recently developed through study, activating it and compressing it to a three-meter radius.
Anyone who entered that radius had their soul struck by the psychic waves within the domain and died on the spot.
Suddenly, he turned his gaze toward the front.
He noticed that Zichuan Xiu, utterly absorbed in the slaughter, had entered a peculiar state.
It resembled what people in his previous life had called becoming one with the blade.
"I never expected you to activate the Sunflare Moonshine Blade's Corona Form! It can only be entered under specific conditions!"
Empowered by the Sunflare Moonshine Blade's Corona Form, Zichuan Xiu was like a god of slaughter descending onto the battlefield.
A sweep of his hand unleashed a powerful arc of blade light. Dozens of Flowing Wind Clan soldiers who failed to dodge its path were killed instantly by its energy.
But Zichuan Xiu had not lost his head to the slaughter. Even as he killed, he kept watching his surroundings.
Leading his eight hundred cavalrymen, he drove hard at the weak points in the enemy formation, charging back and forth to throw their ranks into chaos.
Seeing the Chief Executive's adopted son fighting with such valor, charging back and forth through a hundred thousand enemy troops, the seventy thousand soldiers behind him felt their morale surge again.
They unleashed their bodies' hidden potential and hammered the Flowing Wind Clan's army back.
The tide turned instantly in the Zichuan Clan's favor.
The Flowing Wind Clan's formation had already been torn apart by Zichuan Xiu and his eight hundred mounted cadets.
With their formation shattered, the Flowing Wind Clan's soldiers milled about like headless flies, cut down at will by the seventy thousand advancing Zichuan Clan troops.
The rout had begun!
One soldier with little will to fight became terrified of the slaughter and started running toward the rear.
Once one soldier did it, a whole crowd followed his example.
Flowing Wind Xishan watched the situation crumble before his eyes, yet he could do nothing. Those eight hundred men at the front were simply too fierce.
Their commander in particular had hacked his way clean through one corner of the formation.
Then he had led those eight hundred men through the army's ranks, wreaking havoc everywhere like a swarm of pests.
Flowing Wind Xishan had sent elite cavalry to stop them, but at the very first clash, their leader had hacked his way through and scattered them!
All of Flowing Wind Xishan's initial arrogance vanished. Eight hundred men had broken through a formation of over a hundred thousand.
Throughout history, only that prince from a century ago had possessed such courage and ability.
That prince had cut through a hundred thousand elite Demons, making his name in a single battle.
Now this unknown young Zichuan Clan commander who had appeared out of nowhere possessed the same strength.
The thought that he had become nothing more than the backdrop to someone else's rise to fame left Flowing Wind Xishan's heart ice-cold.
"Heaven is unjust! Why does my Flowing Wind Clan have no such mighty general?"
Flowing Wind Xishan threw back his head and roared, venting his frustration.
"We were so close! So close! Our Flowing Wind Clan's surprise attack could have succeeded!"
Watching his army collapse, with fleeing soldiers everywhere, Flowing Wind Xishan nearly fainted from rage.
A century ago, it had been the same. One Lin Feng, with fewer than a hundred thousand troops, had chased his ancestor's army of three hundred thousand.
Now, despite every advantage of timing, terrain, and support, his army had been routed by sheer force.
Are the soldiers of my Flowing Wind Clan truly this fragile?
"Marshal, hurry! Their leader is coming this way!"
Flowing Wind Xishan's personal guards watched their marshal bow his head and sigh, blaming heaven and everyone else for his misfortune.
Then they looked at Zichuan Xiu, who was drawing steadily closer to the command banner, and grew frantic!
"Ah, let's go. Our Flowing Wind Clan has lost this battle!"
Knowing the battle was beyond saving, Flowing Wind Xishan led his three thousand personal guards in a flight to the west.
"Gu Lei!"
A sturdy man with an honest-looking face immediately stammered in reply, "M-my lord!"
"Stay here and clean up the battlefield. I'll chase them! We must capture them and bring them back!"
Seeing his prey escape just when it was within reach, Zichuan Xiu grew frantic. This was the culprit who had nearly brought disgrace upon the clan; he had to be brought back to face the clan's judgment.
"Y-yes!"
Ignoring the soldiers fleeing in every direction, Zichuan Xiu led his eight hundred cadets in pursuit of their prize, Flowing Wind Xishan.
"Ah, more running around!"
Lin Junyu followed behind, feeling helpless. Still, he had no choice but to keep up. The boy was his adopted son, after all.
This chase will probably cost me a whole day and night of decent sleep. What a miserable life!
"Still, that's my son for you. He has the same flair I did back then!"
Back then, he too had torn through enemy formations and pursued their marshal, shocking the world!
Before you continue