knife

Chapter 796 In a Single Moment, All is Ink

Na Wei turned around and saw that he had less than five thousand followers left behind. Overwhelmed with grief, even though he was a man who did not easily shed tears, he was now weeping uncontrollably.

Several years ago, when I first entered Danyang, the grand scene of the elephant cavalry clearing the way and the Chu chief minister and generals all coming out of the city to greet me for ten miles was still vivid in my mind. At that time, I was full of vigor and felt that the world was so big, and with my tens of thousands of strong soldiers under my command, where could I not go and what could I not do?

But now?

Of the tens of thousands of vigorous Southwest Wolf Soldiers, only a small number remained behind him. Thinking of the tragic state of Liyang City, Na Wei gritted his teeth.

A gentleman's revenge is never too late.

Jiang Qian, you just wait. When I return to the Southwest, after ten years of gathering strength and ten years of planning, I will finally make my comeback.

"Go!" With a tug on the reins, Na Wei charged out of the city gate.

Outside the west gate, all was quiet. On the high walls, only a few sentries stood guard. When they saw the horde of cavalry charging towards them, they cried out in alarm and ducked their heads, disappearing from sight.

Chu Quan led dozens of martial arts experts out of the crowd and rushed up the wall. They saw that the figures they had seen earlier had already escaped the moat outside and were now running away as fast as they could.

The group landed on the ground, braced their hands against the wall, and unleashed their full power. The wall immediately began to shake, and after a few breaths, amidst the shouts of the crowd, a section of the wall, several dozen meters long, collapsed outwards with increasing force, falling entirely into the outer moat. A towering wave of water splashed up and then fell back down.

The wall collapsed, which roughly filled in this section of the trench.

"Go!" Na Wei wiped away his tears, spurred his horse forward, and charged ahead.

Five thousand ragtag cavalrymen followed Na Wei dejectedly, looking like stray dogs or fish that had escaped a net, eager to leave this sorrowful place as soon as possible.

However, they were already trapped, and escaping was not so easy.
At the edge of the field of vision, banners suddenly appeared, and fully armed heavy infantrymen, holding large shields and long spears, stepped forward slowly like stone walls to the beat of drums.

From both flanks, the sound of hooves thundered as countless cavalrymen pressed towards them. Looking back, the western city gates were slowly closing, and another cavalry force was approaching from behind along the wall.

They were now surrounded on all sides.

Everyone looked ashen-faced. The enemy had anticipated their actions and laid a trap outside the western city, waiting for them to surrender.

Not to mention that everyone has lost their courage and has no will to fight at this moment, even when the Southwest Wolf Soldiers were at their peak, they could not gain any advantage in cavalry combat.

The infantry army split open from the middle, and Jiang Qian, dressed in white, rode out on an extremely swift white steed. Pointing her whip and halberd at Na Wei opposite her, she smiled and said, "General, if you don't surrender now, when will you?"

The two sides were still quite a distance apart, but Jiang Qian's voice seemed to be right next to his ear. Na Wei sighed. Jiang Qian was a master of the Innate Realm, much stronger than him. Not to mention that they were now surrounded, even if the two sides were evenly matched, with one side having a master of the Innate Realm leading the team and the other only having a master of the ninth rank of the Profound Origin Realm, they had already lost more than half the battle.

"Your Majesty, if I surrender, will I truly live?" Na Wei slowly spurred his horse forward.

Jiang Qian laughed, "Na Wei, if you had known this would happen, why did you do it in the first place! If you hadn't been so ambitious, but had honestly followed me from the beginning, how could you have ended up like this? Now, you still want to live? That's wishful thinking. Your subordinates can live, but you must die. If you surrender, I'll leave you with someone to burn paper money and kowtow to. If you resist stubbornly, your whole clan might be exterminated!"

"The winner takes all, the loser is nothing!" Na Wei sighed. "If you were in my position back then, you would have wanted to fight just like me. Jiang Qian, don't be so smug. I didn't lose to you, but to Li Dachui. Aren't you the same? We are both losers, so why are you laughing at me for being a hundred times worse off?"

Jiang Qian was enraged when Na Wei exposed her secret. Pointing her whip forward, she demanded, "Na Wei, shall we surrender or not?"

Na Wei drew his knife and roared, "Even if I die, I'll bite you! Kill!"

Jiang Qian smiled coldly, reached out and took a long spear from beside the saddle. She spurred her horse and charged forward alone. Countless blue sparks covered the spear, and as she swung it, the sparks danced around her like fireflies, making Jiang Qian truly appear like a fairy descended from heaven.

However, those who know the power of the Phoenix Flame know that if one gets tainted by even a single spark of such a flame, death is the only outcome.

Amidst the thunderous drumbeats, the heavy infantrymen shouted loudly, their shields, each over a meter tall, slammed heavily to the ground, and long spears, over ten feet long, emerged from behind the shields to meet the surging cavalry. Meanwhile, on both flanks, cavalry led by Kang Zhen and Ke Wuji attacked like the wind from both sides.

Na Wei, his longsword brimming with rage and resentment, filled with countless unwillingness and endless regret, met the spear wreathed in blue sparks. As the spear and blade clashed, Na Wei's hand trembled violently; the longsword nearly slipped from his grasp and flew away. The inner force of the Phoenix's Blazing Fire also surged through his body, instantly making Na Wei feel as if he were trapped in raging lava, utterly unable to move. He could only watch helplessly as the spear pierced his chest, with absolutely no chance to dodge.

The spear pierced through his chest and emerged from his back. Then, with a flick of the wrist, the massive body flew into the air like a falling leaf before crashing heavily into the very center of the battle.

Seeing Nawei fall to the ground, the last thousands of Southwest Wolf Soldiers cried out in grief. In an instant, their fighting power increased exponentially. Countless men braved the rain of arrows and charged into the heavy infantry formation in front of them.

At this point, they no longer cared about escaping; they only wanted to kill as many enemies as possible to take down with them.

However, the infantry formation was far more solid and powerful than they had imagined. They broke through the first layer, then the second, and then it was as if they were trapped in a sticky swamp, unable to move. Countless spears stabbed at them from all sides, and in the blink of an eye, they were riddled with holes.

The battle began at noon and ended at sunset. All five thousand remaining cavalrymen, from high-ranking generals like Na Weichuquan to ordinary soldiers, perished in the battle.

Jiang Qian stood in the center of the battlefield on horseback, spear in hand, accompanied by Kang Zhen, Ke Wuji, and a group of other experts.

"The reform of replacing native chieftains with centrally appointed officials in the southwest has been going on for many years, and today it can finally be considered to come to an end!" Jiang Qian said with emotion.

Ke Wuji exhaled a breath of turbid air. The elite troops of the Southwest had their spines broken after the battle of Liyang County, and were no longer able to resist the central court. For future generations, this might be a good thing, but for the Southwest at present, it was undoubtedly a tragedy.

(End of this chapter)