Mountain passes were hard to cross; rivers were hard to ford.
Mountains stretched like a sea, the dying sun red as blood.
Atop a rocky hill, a general focused his hawklike gaze, raised his bow, and nocked an arrow. A light breeze stirred, carrying faint currents of air. He slowly closed his eyes. His heart was his eyes.
The arrow vanished from the bowstring.
The sound of an arrow flying came on the wind, followed by a surge of searing pain.
Sun Jian stared in disbelief as an arrow tore through the air and pierced him. Its sharp head emerged from his body, leaving only the feathers at its tail trembling faintly.
Blood gushed from his mouth in great mouthfuls, and memories rose in his heart like a revolving lantern.
He had survived facing Zhang Jue all those years ago, and years of fierce fighting had left him unharmed. Yet today, it ended in such absurdity?
The sages said that those who became kings and hegemons had fortune upon them. Unless driven to the end of mountains and waters, unless they encountered another blessed with fortune, they could always turn calamity into good fortune. Such were those whose fortune reached the heavens.
But now, I...
Was this the end of my allotted fortune?
He struggled to hold himself upright and rasped in a low roar, "Who... killed... me?"
A general atop the rocky hill roared like tigers, wolves, and thunder. "Sun Jian, the man who killed you is Huang Zhong-nothing but an old soldier!"
An old soldier?
An arrow without a trace, piercing deep through armor-how could this be merely an old soldier?
His mighty body fell. A ten-thousand-man foe had died to a single arrow. How laughable.
Death extinguished a man like a lamp, and all his great ambitions