Hurt my loved ones? I'm not guarding this country's borders anymore!

A cold wind rushed down my neck, carrying a metallic, slightly bloody smell.

In front of the cement floor of the main camp command post, there was a pile of corpses. Standing among these dead bodies was Shen Jinglong.

A rotten watermelon was stuck in the two-zhang-long iron spear in his hand.

It was Zhao Kuo's head.

Just moments ago, he was a peak Grand Martial Master, arrogantly threatening to skin the northerners alive—the commander-in-chief of the ten-province allied forces. Now, all that's left is a mangled head. Blood drips down like urine, staining the tiger-skin mat beneath him, drip, drip.

No one dared to breathe too loudly. The Allied soldiers in their yellow woolen uniforms were trembling as if electrified. Their Mauser pistols felt like hot irons in their hands, and they could barely hold them.

Clang.

Some terrified brat dropped his firearm, which crashed onto the cement floor. The sound sent chills down one's spine.

No one went to pick it up. Everyone stared blankly at the head protruding from the spear tip. This battle was hopeless. Even someone as tough as Zhao Kuo could be taken down with a single spear thrust; sending others to their deaths wouldn't be enough to fill the hole.

"A worthless life," Shen Jinglong said.

These four words, delivered with the power of a Grandmaster, were exhaled through the mouth with internal energy. The volume wasn't loud, but it felt like a heavy iron hammer striking everyone's chest, making the lungs of these guards itch.

"He deserves to die here."

He slammed the gun barrel down hard. With a "thud," the iron tip, carrying the dead man's head, shattered the cement bricks on the ground and sank deep into them.

Shen Jinglong didn't raise his eyes, his wrist twirling in a flourish. That was a common gesture of a Grandmaster before killing someone.

"If you don't want to be skinned alive," he spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, "throw away your tools of the trade. Go squat over there."

One sentence fell to the ground. It was like pulling the valve stem out of everyone's tires.

Several soldiers in yellow woolen uniforms in the front row knelt down with a thud. They threw their swords and spears far away and plunged their heads directly into the muddy ground where urine was flowing everywhere. They were truly convinced, convinced to the core.

With someone taking the lead, the rest followed naturally. Round and round. The five hundred elite soldiers supervising the battle were all paralyzed. Several company commanders who wanted to show some backbone were just about to reach for their waists.

"Pfft. Pfft." Two muffled sounds.

Standing behind Shen Jinglong was the Hundred-Battle Yama, who casually pulled out a throwing knife from his coat and delivered two blows to the throat.

The two tough guys had air leaking from their throats and collapsed straight down without even letting out a fart.

"Dawdling, damn dawdling!" a northern swordsman cursed, wiping the intestines stuck to the sole of his military boot. "Trying to be clever, huh? Anyone else with a weapon? I'll set them on fire!"

This kind of dejected spirit among the surrendered generals spread faster than a plague. They fled westward along the central army camp.

Western flank positions.

Zhang Chengen, deputy commander of the left flank army in Yuzhou, sat on a sandbag smoking a cigarette. His eyes were glazed over. He had already figured out the details of the news coming from the firelight that was burning the sky ahead.

Zhao Kuo is dead. The venue for 100,000 people is on the verge of collapse.

"Commander, what are we going to do?" The major staff officer next to him, with his center-parted hair, was jumping up and down in frustration. "That Shen guy has really messed things up! If headquarters collapses, all 30,000 of us are just blind ducks. Let's fight them!"

Dry?

Zhang Chengen rolled his dead fish eyes. A puff of cheap cigarette made his eyes water. "Idiot. Is your head filled with shit?"

He jumped to his feet, drew his German-made dagger from under his overcoat, and slashed horizontally at the major's neck. He was also a skilled practitioner at the Meridian Opening Realm; the strike was swift, precise, and ruthless.

A crisp "snap" sounded.

Blood splattered all over the messengers around him.

The head rolled three times in the mud. The staff officer's mouth was still smacking. He died such an unjust death.

"Listen up, you all!" Zhang Chengen kicked the bloodstained knife away and jumped onto the highest mound. He grabbed a megaphone and began to howl in a gruff voice.

"That son of a bitch Zhao Kuo is utterly wicked! He used our Yuzhou men as live targets to block the foreign devils' cannons. That rotten-assed bastard deserves to die!"

With those words, the noisy crowd on the battlefield quieted down a bit.

"The Dragon Lord from the North is a true man who fought hard battles beyond the Great Wall." Veins bulged on Zhang Chengen's neck. "Purge the court of corrupt officials! Sweep away the traitors! That Zhao fellow doesn't treat us like human beings, so there's no need for us to die for him here. Our lives are our own!"

"Those who aren't ready to live, come with me, put down your guns, and go beg for food. Those with guts, keep carrying your firearms and fight to the death."

Having said that, he took the lead and ripped the Major General's star off his shoulder. In front of thousands of eyes, he threw it into a mud pit and stomped on it twice.

This act was extremely effective. The soldiers in Yuzhou hadn't received their full pay for half a year and were eating sorghum cakes every day while enduring this humiliation. Now that their superiors were also giving up, they had even less reason to stay.

A continuous clatter of gunfire erupted. The entire 30,000-strong left flank army had collapsed.

The large man's gap-toothed man revealed his true nature. The remaining troops in the central army and the right flank camp scurried around like headless flies. The supervising officers tried to stop them, but after firing only a few shots, they were brutally killed by the desperate, homeless soldiers. They even used grenades on each other. People trampled each other, flesh pressed against flesh, the deaths were gruesome and appalling.

While these people were in complete chaos, the ground began to shake.

In the northeast corner, a rumbling sound drowned out the shouts of people and the neighing of horses.

Those were the northern cavalry led by Qinglong. This group didn't have any fancy tricks up their sleeves. They were all dressed in identical black cloaks, carrying ghost-head sabers. Their horses were all blindfolded, charging at whatever they could see.

"Don't chase those reckless routs!" Qinglong rode on a large blue horse, his Grandmaster-level aura exploding, the tip of his blade pointing at the large, huddled camp.

"Cut these cowards' organization to shreds. Five hundred men, spread out like a net, and collect them bag by bag." Qinglong cursed, spittle flying everywhere. "Those who haven't seen blood yet, you'd better see some blood this time. If you don't clean up the battlefield in an hour, you're all going to eat grass!"

The cavalry plowed through the enemy lines like cutting leeks. The elite allied troops, armed with two-zhang-long chevaux-de-frise, didn't even have time to form ranks; they scattered as soon as they charged. The soldiers and officers wept and wailed, kneeling in a more uniform formation than rice seedlings being planted.

The entire mountainside was covered with a dense mass of kneeling, black backs. The 100,000-strong allied army couldn't even hold out for half a night. Their courage was shattered. They were reduced to a pile of mangled flesh.

Half an hour later. Under the dilapidated thatched shed outside the forward command post.

Shen Jinglong pulled up a crippled armchair and sat down with a swagger.

Next to it was a basin of smokeless charcoal covered in white ash. The charcoal was roasting people until their skin was taut.

Zhang Chengen was kicked in the back of the knees by two northern guards and fell to his knees in front of the brazier. He was less than five steps away from Shen Jinglong.

A chill ran down his back. He didn't dare look up. He held the mud-covered sword in his hands, supporting it above his head. His wrist trembled.

There were no other sounds in this area. Just the crackling sound of burning charcoal.

"You're practically begging to keep this wretched life," Shen Jinglong said, his heavy leather shoes slapping against the copper rim of the brazier.

On the surface, he was saying he was surrendering. But in reality, he had exposed the scheme he had used to kill his own staff officer—a classic case of using a donkey to get out of trouble.

Cold sweat trickled down Zhang Chengen's forehead, stinging his eyes. He was a shrewd man, and slammed his head against the wall: "Only a blind fool would have spent ten years in that wretched pit of Yuzhou. The northern winds are worth dying for even a single whiff. I may not understand the Dao, but brothers, we still need to save our food, don't we?"

This means trading tens of thousands of brothers for a way out. It means handing over military power.

Shen Jinglong took out a box of red tin matches. He lit a cigarette. The smoke dissipated in front of his lips.

He refused Zhang Chengen's knife. "This place in Yuzhou is pretty bad. There are no rules or regulations."

Zhang Chengen gritted his teeth and continued, "It's rotten, like a stinking ditch."

"I'll send my own people to clean it. The water's not familiar, and they might slip." Shen Jinglong exhaled a smoke ring, finally lifting his eyelids slightly. The oppressive aura of a Grand Martial Master, fully unleashed, pierced Zhang Chengen's heart through his gaze.

Zhang Chengen almost wet himself at that sight.

"Alright, take your knife. Take your left-wing brothers back to Yuzhou for a cold meal."

Zhang Chengen looked up abruptly, unable to believe his ears. His eyes were initially lifeless, but then a glimmer of life broke out: "Dragon Lord...you're keeping a sinner alive?"

"Do you even know how to drive a nail?" Shen Jinglong knocked away the ash from his cigarette and threw the glowing red cigarette butt onto the ground.

It was just one step away from landing on Zhang Chengen's brow.

The first meaning: Let him go.

The second meaning is to send him back to seize power from that chaotic group of warlords.

The third meaning: As long as there is any ulterior motive, this cigarette butt can burn his entire family to ashes.

Zhang Chengen was a veteran cop. He immediately understood everything, and kowtowed several times until his head bled. "Yuzhou is just a stepping stone for the Dragon Lord! From today onwards, as long as the route to the north is cut off, you can slaughter ten generations of my family as you please! I will have no complaints!"

Shen Jinglong ignored him. He held his chuckled saber in his hand, not even glancing at the ten-mile-long line of surrendered prisoners being escorted to their knees. He strode out the door.

"This pile of meat has no oil or fat," he said, waving at Qinglong in the cold wind.

"Gather the troops. Make sure the horses' mouths are tightly shut. They'll eat three ounces of white meat."

"It's time to pull out the knife and scare a few big flies to death."