The armored soldiers gleamed like a teeming shoal of carp crossing the river. Beneath the blazing sun, a group of men in fitted clothes and leather armor stood with folded arms in the shade beside Riverheart Islet, watching the armored troops stream endlessly through the boats on the river and along the roads on the islet. Their faces were livid. These were all leading members of the True Fire Sect, and the torrent of soldiers before them was none other than the Exorcising the Dragon Gang's new reinforcements for Great Liang!
According to what they had been told, this first contingent should merely have been troops of the Huaiyou Alliance, an outer vassal of the Exorcising the Dragon Gang. They had never expected such elite soldiers.
"Brother Lin, we've finished counting. There should be a full ten thousand, not a man short!" A young military officer came running breathlessly along the shaded paths of Riverheart Islet, reporting from a distance. His accent was unmistakably that of Wu in Jiangdong.
"What Brother Lin? Call him Protector Lin, or General Lin! What's all this big-brother, little-brother business? Have you no respect for the rules?" An older man in the group sternly rebuked him, speaking with a Jiangxi accent.
The young man looked disdainful, though whether he resented the older man's flattery or was simply reacting to the divide between Jiangxi and Jiangdong was unclear.
"It's all right. Thank you for the effort, Xiao Zhao. Take a rest." The leader finally spoke. Unexpectedly, he was quite young, which suggested either considerable cultivation or a distinguished background.
In fact, his name was Lin Shiyang, and he was Cao Shiyu's last disciple. He was said to have received personal instruction from the old Thousand Gold Sect Master as well. Thus, barely thirty, he was already