Outside Wind-Splitting Gorge, the Miao-Conquest Army's great encampment stood imposing and firm.
Several months slipped quietly away amid this suffocating standoff.
The thirty thousand troops under Qing Chen's command remained nailed to that strategic ridge like immovable rocks, drilling day and night.
As their formations shifted, killing intent surged into the sky, guarding the camp as securely as walls of metal and a moat of boiling water, without a single gap.
Opposite them, in the direction of Wind-Splitting Gorge County's seat, the forty thousand troops commanded by Ma Kui, Miaochong Prefecture's chief general, had also arrived.
Most of his troop deployments and formations were tightly arranged, with only a few areas somewhat loose.
Taking advantage of the county seat's rugged terrain, they established a continuous stretch of fortified camps;
Banners snapped in the wind, and scouts came and went in an unending stream, watching the Miao-Conquest Army's every move without daring to relax in the slightest.
The two sides' closest watchtowers stood only a few hundred li apart.
Through Detection Arrays, they could even see the glints flashing on the opposing cultivators' armor from afar;
The atmosphere was stretched as taut as a fully drawn bowstring, ready to snap into action at a touch.
"Several months have passed! Aside from drilling his thirty thousand recruits every day, has that Qing Chen made even the slightest move to advance?"
Ma Kui scoffed and said to the generals in his tent,
"He's holed up in his camp, wasting provisions and pay, without launching even a single decent probing attack! Does a coward like that, afraid of battle and the enemy, deserve to command an army? As far as I can see, defending a city is all he's good for."
A Gentleman of the Palace beside him agreed. "You're absolutely right, General. Word