A deadly ambush at Soul-Severing Valley, probing the earth veins to uncover the demon formation

Once out of sight of the Great Wall Prefecture Left Route Army, Anping County's eight hundred Black-Armored Guards strode into Lingchang Prefecture through the wind and snow like an unsheathed black blade, their advance grim, silent, and resolute.

The farther they advanced, the stronger the stench of blood became amid the bone-piercing wind.

At some point, the falling snow had begun to take on a faint, nauseating gray-red hue.

It was the trace of countless mortals' and cultivators' blood, swept into the sky by fierce winds, frozen, then hurled back down upon the earth.

Everywhere they passed resembled a hell of slaughter.

They passed several once-thriving mortal market towns.

Now, not a spark of life remained. All they could see were collapsed stone houses and charred beams scorched by raging fires. Beneath the thick snow lay ghastly white bones, gnawed and mangled, everywhere they looked. A few scraps of tattered swaddling cloth still clung to some of the skeletons.

This was the cruelest brand the demons of the Hundred Thousand Mountains had left upon Southern Qingzhou. The Demon Race had no regard for prisoners or mercy. In their eyes, humans were merely two-legged sheep penned behind city walls, potent medicines of flesh and blood to nourish their vitality and advance their cultivation.

"Crunch... crunch..."

Within the Anping Army's formation, there was only the muffled sound of heavy war boots crushing snow and brittle bones.

Pang Song, Hu Hao, and the other hardened officers who had clawed their way through heaps of corpses stared at the apocalyptic devastation around them. Veins bulged on the hands gripping their Horse-Slaying Sabers, and their eyes burned red.

But without Chu Bai's command, the entire army maintained absolute restraint and silence, making not a single unnecessary sound.

Chu Bai sat upright inside his war chariot,