Meanwhile, the battle cries outside the tent drew ever closer.
The command tent's curtain was ripped aside, and sunlight and dust surged in together, abruptly illuminating its dim interior.
Zhao Feng charged in first, the Nine Yang Divine Sword in hand. His gaze fell on the armored corpse on the ground and lingered on Na Hachu's face, still etched with unwillingness to accept his fate.
Yue Lang, Luo Xiong, and Ba Tu rushed in right behind him.
After taking in the scene inside the command tent, Ba Tu stepped forward for a closer look, then nodded at Zhao Feng. "It's him."
Zhao Feng paused before saying, "Bury him according to the customs of the grasslands."
Then he turned and left the command tent. Sunlight traced a brilliant golden outline around his departing figure, like a silhouette frozen in a painting.
In the distance, black Bian banners rose one after another atop the walls of Zhamuer City, snapping in the grassland wind. The captured families and surviving soldiers of the Bear Tribe were being escorted in orderly groups to a temporary camp outside the city. The tribesmen who had switched sides stood in scattered groups along the streets, watching the bodies of the Bear Tribe commanders who had once lorded over them being dragged away. Their faces bore complicated expressions somewhere between relief and bewilderment.
Qin Zhongwu approached, travel-worn and dust-covered. He dropped to one knee before Zhao Feng, his voice ringing with the exhilaration of something long suppressed finally finding release. "Duke of State Support! Zhamuer City is ours! Not a single fish slipped through the net!"
Zhao Feng nodded slightly. His gaze passed over Qin Zhongwu's head, over the streets being cleared and the surrendered soldiers being gathered, over the Bian banners rising above the walls and the slowly