I, Zichuan Xiu, Will Take You Home! Sound the Horn for the Counteroffensive!

To make things easier, Zichuan Xiu and his group all wore Flowing Wind Clan soldiers' uniforms.

Lin Junyu had used this trick centuries ago.

It was not particularly clever, but it was effective.

When the sentries saw them, they assumed their own troops had arrived. Having guarded the camp all night, they were already exhausted.

Without giving it much thought, they moved aside the obstacles blocking the entrance to the main camp.

The force led by Zichuan Xiu thus passed smoothly through the Flowing Wind Clan's encircling camp.

Only when Zichuan Xiu led the army toward the territory held by the Zichuan Clan's Central Army and Imperial Guards did everyone realize something was wrong.

By then, Zichuan Xiu had already arrived before the Zichuan Clan army's lines.

Trapped here, the surviving twenty thousand Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Central Army soldiers immediately went on full alert when they saw strangers charging toward them.

"I am Zichuan Xiu, adopted son of the Zichuan Clan's Chief. I have come to take you home!"

Zichuan Xiu rode his warhorse before the seventy thousand most elite soldiers of the clan.

After being surrounded for days and nights without food or water, they were extremely weakened.

The Flowing Wind Clan also launched raids and attacks from time to time, and no one had managed to sleep even once.

If this dragged on for another day, these seventy thousand officers and soldiers who still fought for the clan's honor would lose their ability to resist.

At that point, the Flowing Wind Clan could wipe them out completely without lifting a finger.

That would undoubtedly be a tremendous loss to the clan.

Because these soldiers were loyal, capable, fearless in battle, and unafraid of death.

"The clan has not forgotten us! The Chief has not forgotten us!"

"We're saved!"

Zichuan Xiu's arrival as the former Chief's adopted son undoubtedly boosted the morale of the seventy thousand troops, whose spirits had sunk to rock bottom.

"Soldiers, grip the blades in your hands, mount your warhorses, and follow behind my banner!"

"Do not falter, do not fear, and do not stop charging!"

"Follow the banner closely and wield your blades!"

"The way out lies ahead! I, Zichuan Xiu, will drive back the Flowing Wind bandits and take you back to the Imperial Capital!"

The seventy thousand surviving soldiers rose to their feet, raised their blades, and roared as one, "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

"Prepare the entire army! Mount up!"

Zichuan Xiu turned his horse around and had the banner raised.

"Charge!"

Zichuan Xiu took the lead, charging out at full speed.

The seventy thousand troops behind him followed close behind.

Though they were utterly exhausted, their fierce desire to live and fight sent their adrenaline soaring.

This time, either the Flowing Wind army would be defeated, or they would die in battle.

At this moment, the Flowing Wind Clan army had never expected the Zichuan Clan army, which had been cowering behind its defenses all this time, to actually launch a counterattack against them.

Flowing Wind Xishan sneered at the army charging toward them. "A lone force that has been abandoned—nothing more than the final struggle of the dying."

Flowing Wind Xishan ordered the entire army to press forward. Since they were seeking death, he would grant it to them.

Did they think that with a mere eight hundred cavalrymen, they now had the strength to contend with them?

"Kill!"

Cries of battle echoed across the battlefield as the eight hundred cadets led by Zichuan Xiu plunged into the enemy ranks like a sharp blade.

Every one of those eight hundred cadet cavalrymen was an elite carefully selected by the clan, all officer-grade talents.

A force made up of such people naturally crushed the rank-and-file soldiers on the battlefield.

Like a knife through tofu, they tore straight through the enemy formation.

Close behind came the seventy thousand elite warriors. Their fighting spirit erupted with astonishing force, and every one of them fought without fear of death.

Zichuan Xiu slaughtered enemies in all directions at the front. His Light Ripple Art, which had already reached minor mastery, gave him deep and powerful inner strength.

Combined with the divine weapon Lin Junyu had given him, the Sunflare Moonshine Blade, his strength seemed inexhaustible.

As he continued killing enemies, Zichuan Xiu felt his connection with the blade growing deeper and deeper, as if he were about to merge with it.

Under the blazing sun, the blade shone with radiance.

Gripping the Sunflare Moonshine Blade, Zichuan Xiu felt an immense power flow from its body into his hand, then spread throughout his entire body.

A warm sensation surged from within him, causing his strength to increase tenfold in an instant.

Lin Junyu rode along behind, merely going through the motions. The soldiers who surrounded him died strangely the instant they came within three meters of him.

That was because Lin Junyu was testing the psychic domain he had recently learned and developed. He activated it and compressed it into a three-meter radius.

Once anyone approached within that three-meter range, their soul would be struck by the psychic waves within the domain, killing them on the spot.

Suddenly, he turned his gaze forward.

He spotted Zichuan Xiu, who had become utterly absorbed in killing, in a very peculiar state.

It was somewhat like the unity of man and blade spoken of in his previous life.

"I never expected you to activate the Corona Form, which the Sunflare Moonshine Blade could only enter under specific circumstances!"

With the Corona Form empowered by the Sunflare Moonshine Blade, Zichuan Xiu was like a god of slaughter descended upon the battlefield.

With every wave of his hand, a powerful blade light flew forth. Wherever it passed, dozens of Flowing Wind Clan soldiers who failed to evade in time were killed on the spot by its energy.

But Zichuan Xiu had not lost himself in the slaughter. Even as he killed the enemy, he was observing his surroundings.

Leading eight hundred cavalrymen, he charged fiercely at the weak points in the enemy formation, repeatedly cutting in and out, throwing their ranks into disarray.

Seeing the Commander-in-Chief's adopted son charge back and forth through an enemy formation of a hundred thousand troops with such divine might, the morale of the seventy thousand soldiers behind him surged once more.

They unleashed the potential within their bodies and pressed the Flowing Wind Clan army back.

The situation instantly swung in favor of the Zichuan Clan.

The Flowing Wind Clan army's formation had already been torn apart by the eight hundred cadet cavalry led by Zichuan Xiu.

Once the formation fell into chaos, all the Flowing Wind Clan soldiers became like headless flies, freely slaughtered by the seventy thousand Zichuan Clan soldiers pressing forward.

The rout had begun!

One soldier with weak fighting spirit had been frightened by the killing and began running to the rear.

Once one soldier did it, a whole group of soldiers began to follow suit.

Flowing Wind Xishan watched the situation crumble bit by bit before his eyes, yet he could do nothing about it, because those eight hundred men at the front were simply too ferocious.

Especially the commander of those eight hundred cavalrymen—he had forcibly carved his way through a corner of his formation.

Then, leading those eight hundred men, he wreaked havoc throughout the formation of his army like a pest.

He had also sent elite cavalry to stop them, but in a single exchange, they were hacked apart and scattered by that leading man!

Flowing Wind Xishan no longer possessed his initial arrogance. To pierce through a formation of more than a hundred thousand men with only eight hundred...

Throughout history, only that prince from a century ago had possessed such courage and ability.

Back then, that prince had carved through one hundred thousand elite demon troops, becoming famous in a single battle.

Now, this unknown young general of the Zichuan Clan who had suddenly emerged also possessed such strength.

The thought of becoming the backdrop for someone else's rise to fame sent a chill through Flowing Wind Xishan's heart.

"Heavens are unfair! Why does my Flowing Wind Clan not have such a fierce general?!"

Flowing Wind Xishan threw back his head and roared at the sky, venting the resentment in his heart.

"Just a little more, just a little more, and my Flowing Wind Clan's surprise attack would have succeeded!"

Watching his army continually 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 men, had pursued his ancestor's army of three hundred thousand.

And now, despite having every advantage in timing, terrain, and support, his army had been slaughtered into collapse.

Could it be that the soldiers of my Flowing Wind Clan are truly this fragile?

"Marshal, hurry and leave! That leader is coming this way!"

Flowing Wind Xishan's personal guard watched the marshal bow his head and sigh, looking as though he blamed heaven and everyone else.

Then he looked at Zichuan Xiu, who was steadily approaching the central command's marshal banner, and was frantic with anxiety!

"Alas, let us go. This battle has been lost by the Flowing Wind Clan!"

Knowing the tide had turned beyond recovery, Flowing Wind Xishan led the three thousand personal guards around him and fled toward the west.

"Gu Lei!"

A burly man with an honest-looking face immediately stammered, "Y-Yes, sir!"

"You stay here and help me clear the battlefield. I'm going after them! We must capture them and bring them back!"

Watching the meat that was nearly in his mouth get away, Zichuan Xiu was frantic. After all, Flowing Wind Xishan was the chief culprit who had nearly brought disgrace upon the clan this time. He had to be captured and brought back to face the clan's judgment.

"Y-Yes!"

Zichuan Xiu no longer bothered with the soldiers fleeing in all directions. Leading the eight hundred cadets, he pursued the big fish that was Flowing Wind Xishan.

"Ah, more running around..."

Lin Junyu followed behind them, utterly helpless, but he could only go along. After all, Zichuan Xiu was his adopted son.

This pursuit would probably keep him from getting a good night's sleep for an entire day and night. What a hard life!

"Still, he truly is my son. He has the bearing I had back then!"

Back then, he too had carved through an enemy formation and pursued the enemy marshal, shocking the world!