The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

The north wind swept across the grassland, carrying snowflakes.

The sky hung extremely low, like a rusty iron plate suspended overhead. Gray clouds rolled back along the horizon, revealing a pale ray of light before quickly closing in again.

The thin layer of snow on the grassland was trampled into a muddy paste mixed with crushed ice by the horses' hooves.

Human footprints, horse hoofprints, and the traces of something heavier dragging across the ground overlapped, turning the entire valley mouth into a mess.

Outside Agula's tent, warhorses were spitting out white foam, their breath condensing into thick wisps of mist in the cold air.

The horse's hooves pawed at the ground impatiently, trampling several cracks of varying depths into the frozen turf.

Thousands of riders formed a crescent-shaped formation, their scimitars gleaming in the snow like a cold river, the reflections on their blades flashing like countless cold eyes opening and closing.

Each horse stood quietly, no one spoke, only the wind rustled the military flags, the wolf head totem on the flags flared and swayed in the wind, like a living creature tethered in mid-air.

There was a row of dark "things" standing in front of the formation.

Those things stood there, like a row of rotten wooden stakes that had been pulled out of the ground and then stuck back in.

They were wrapped in blood-soaked burlap, the bloodstains on which had long since dried into a dark brown hard shell, with the grayish-black flesh underneath exposed through the cracks.

The mouth and nose were sealed with ash from talismans. The talisman paper was folded into thin strips and sewn with thick thread between the lips and nostrils of those "things," like a seal sewn onto an inanimate object.

They were as silent as real dead things, but occasionally, though not frequently, about every seven or eight breaths, a wisp of pale green smoke would seep out from between the fabric seams, as thin as a needle tip, and drift into the air before dissipating.

The smoke wasn't foul, but it had a strange, sweet, fishy smell, like the smell of rotten honey that had been soaking in a sewer for three days in the summer.

The cavalrymen standing downwind unconsciously reined in their horses. The horses were more sensitive than the men; several of them had already shrunk back half a step, their ears pressed against their necks.

Agulalema stood at the front of the formation.

He was wearing a sheepskin cloak, the wolf fur at the collar blowing in the wind, flattening and then standing up again, like a clump of grass that had been repeatedly pressed down and bounced back.

The hem of the cloak billowed in the wind, flapping against the edge of the saddle.

He squinted, looking at the camp that was hastily gathering in the distance.

That was the camp of the Qiyan tribe, with hundreds of felt tents scattered in the valley. The gray-white tent tops looked like mushrooms half-buried in snow in the morning light.

The smoke from the cooking fires had just risen from the gaps between the felt tents when the wind tore it into wisps, which drifted horizontally in the southeast and quickly disappeared from sight.

Prince Haran of the Qiyan tribe was leading his people to herd cattle and sheep.

He was riding a grey gelding, holding a lasso in his right hand, and was herding a stray calf back into the pen.

He was seventeen years old. His face was rough and red from the wind and sand of the North, and his hands were covered with frostbite cracks. But his eyes were very bright, like two black pebbles washed by a stream.

He had just driven the calf into the pen and was about to dismount when he suddenly stopped.

What did he hear?

The sound came from deep within the earth, first with a very low, continuous vibration, as if something enormous had turned over in the distance.

Then it becomes clearer.

It was the sound of horses' hooves.

The sound of countless hooves pounding on the frozen ground merged into a continuous rumble of thunder, echoing along the ground.

He saw it.

A dark mass of riders surged out along the ridgeline like a rising tide, their banners unfurling in the wind—the wolf-head banners of the Xiutu tribe.

Harlan's expression changed drastically.

He abruptly sat bolt upright on his horse, slung the lasso over his saddle, turned, and shouted toward the camp, his voice hoarse and cracking in the wind like a broken plank: "Women and children to the ditch at the back! Men who can mount, follow me!"

He shouted and urged his horse forward, and as he passed between the felt tents, he grabbed a short spear from the tent entrance, not having had time to wipe the rust off the tip.

People started following him, first a dozen or so riders, then more and more.

However, very few people responded to him.

The Qiyan tribe was not large to begin with; including the old and the young, there were only three or four hundred able-bodied men who could ride horses.

Those people rushed out of their respective felt tents, some without even having time to put on leather armor, and others with bare arms, wearing only a sheepskin vest, and then mounted their horses.

But not a single person backed down.

Harlan heard someone behind him shouting, "Little Prince, I'll follow you!" It was an old shepherd in his fifties who couldn't even draw his bow three times.

Harlan didn't turn around, but urged the horse to go even faster, the wind blowing into his collar like a mouthful of crushed ice.

He knew that retreating meant certain death.

Behind them are their women, children, and sheep.

If we push forward, at least those hiding in the ditch can live for another half an incense stick's time.

The moment the two armies clashed, the horse archery skills of the grasslands were brought to their fullest potential.

The archers of the Qiyan tribe turned around on horseback and released their arrows. The sound of the bowstrings snapping and the whistling of the arrows cutting through the wind mingled together, like countless bees being driven out of their hive at the same time.

Arrows flew out from the Qiyan tribe's formation and crashed into the Xiutu tribe's charging ranks. Some men were hit by arrows and fell from their horses, while others had their horses hit by arrows and kneel down, throwing their riders off and rolling three times before coming to a stop.

But there were just too many people in the Xiu Tu tribe.

Their arrow rain was not as sparse and accurate as that of the Qiyan tribe; instead, it came down in large swaths, like dark clouds rolling over the mountain, darkening the sky for a moment.

More than a dozen riders from the front row of the Qiyan tribe fell, their blood spurting out and scalding the snow with steaming craters. White steam rose from the dark red holes, as if the snow itself was bleeding.

Harlan fired arrows while cursing.

He used the coarse language of the grasslands, cursing the Xiutu tribe for their betrayal, cursing Agula for forgetting the blood wine they drank at the alliance meeting, and cursing that those Yin corpses should never have appeared on the battlefield.

Every word he uttered was swept away by the wind, but his bowstring never stopped, and he fired seven arrows, felling six enemies.

People kept falling off their horses around them. Some were shot with arrows but managed to spur their horses forward a few steps before collapsing.

Someone had their throat slashed open by an enemy's scimitar, and blood splattered all over Harlan's shoulder, warm but quickly chilled by the wind.

He was also hit in the shoulder by an arrow.

The arrowhead pierced through the upper part of the left scapula, with a bloodied iron tip protruding from the front.

He clenched his teeth in pain, his mouth filled with the taste of rust, but he still gripped the horse's belly tightly, his left hand holding the reins, and his right hand switching the short spear to the one he could still use.

He knew he might not be able to go back today, but he was going to kill enough to make his money back.

The cavalry of the Xiutu tribe flanked the Qiyan tribe from both sides, pushing their formation into the valley.

The front line is retreating inch by inch, like an old door being blocked from the outside, its hinges creaking.

Harlan charged back and forth in the ranks, roaring as he tried to gather his scattered tribesmen back, but one by one they fell, and the number of riders around him dwindled and became increasingly scarce.

But what truly brought the Qiyan tribe to its knees was not the riders.

It was those dark, indistinct things that followed.

That's a corpse.

They squeezed out from the gaps in the Xiutu tribe's lines, like a herd of livestock driven out of their cages, but they were a hundred times more terrifying than livestock.

They are not afraid of knives, arrows, or death.

The knife left only a shallow white mark on them, and the arrows went in like they were going into a bag of wet sand, barely drawing any blood.

They rushed into the crowd like black walls, using their withered, black hands to pull people off their horses.

After being dragged off his horse, a warrior from the Qiyan tribe struggled to get up, but was held down by three Yin Corpses at the same time, who tore open his leather armor and flesh.

Another horse spurred itself into a corpse. The moment the horse's head struck the corpse's chest, the creature only took a half-step back before reaching out and snapping the horse's neck. The horse and rider rolled into a heap, the horse's screams sounding like a broken iron bar.

Fear spread faster than a knife.

Those Qiyan tribe riders who could still shoot arrows began to tremble, unable to fully draw their bowstrings, and their arrows missed the bullseye by several inches.

Some people have already started to retreat, not to escape, but instinctively to increase the distance between themselves and those things.

Haaland saw it from within the formation.

He was covered in blood, with an arrow still lodged in his left shoulder. He had broken off half of the arrow shaft himself, and the remaining half rubbed against the edge of the wound with each movement.

He brandished his short spear and roared through the chaos, "Agurah! Come out!"

His voice pierced through the wind, through the sounds of bowstrings, horses, and swords clashing against armor in the midst of battle, and reached the wolf-head banners behind the battle lines.

"You've even forgotten your promise to my cousin? What exactly is backing you...?"

He swung his spear again, plunging a Xiutu tribe cavalryman from his horse, then spat a mouthful of bloody saliva in the direction of the wolf-head banners: "Agula, are you still a wolf of the grasslands? You've become a dog of the Han people! You've become a slave of the demons!"

Agula gazed at the child from afar.

He saw Harlan dashing left and right among a group of black figures, saw the broken arrow on his shoulder swaying up and down with the movement of his spear, and saw more and more Qiyan riders falling behind him, denser and denser.

He didn't speak.

The muscles in his face were taut, and the lines of his jawline resembled a bowstring stretched to its limit.

He slowly turned his head and looked at the Yin Protector beside him.

The gray-robed man stood on his horse with his sleeves folded. He was tall and thin, and there was a black cloth bag hanging on each side of the saddle. The opening of the bag was tied tightly with hemp rope, and something seemed to be slowly wriggling at the bottom of the bag.

The Yin Protector's face was hidden in the shadow of his hood, revealing only a pale chin and a pair of deep, dark eyes.

Those eyes reflected the firelight of the battlefield, the charging figures, and the struggling horses, like two polished obsidian lenses that could see everything, yet contained nothing within.

A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth, a smile that wasn't one of delight, but rather the satisfied, serene curve of a cook seeing the meat in the pot stewed to perfection.

Agula lowered his voice: "Those are my people."

Yin Protector tilted his head.

His hood tilted slightly with the movement, revealing a sliver of sideburn hidden in the shadows. His gray hair clung to the edge of his cheekbone, like a piece of bark from a withered tree.

His voice was soft, like the hissing sound of wind passing through cracks in the sand: "Your Majesty, their blood..."

He raised a withered hand and pointed vaguely towards the battlefield: "It will make your tribe stronger. The Longevity Cult is sustained by the lives of these living people. The sooner the Qiyan tribe dies, the faster your Yin Corpse will take shape."

"War always results in death, and a warrior who dies on the battlefield is always more useful than a useless person who dies in a felt tent."

Agula's face twitched.

His hand gripping the reins tightened and loosened, loosened and tightened again.

The knuckles beneath the sheepskin gloves emitted a very faint sound of bone grinding together.

He saw Harlan being tackled from the side by a corpse.

The thing burst out from the side like a wall suddenly collapsing, knocking Harlan and his horse to the ground.

Harlan's horse tumbled to its side, pinning one of its legs down. It neighed and struggled for a moment before becoming still.

Harlan crawled out from under the horse's belly, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle, but he still managed to stand up, supporting himself with the broken spear, and plunged the spearhead into the chest of the infernal corpse.

The thing looked down at the spear shaft on its chest, then stretched out its withered hand, grabbed Harlan's right arm, and pulled hard.

Harlan's arm made a sickening cracking sound.

He was in so much pain that he arched his back, but he still didn't let go.

With his still-functioning hand, he pulled a short knife from his boot and plunged the tip into the eye socket of the infernal corpse before it could tear open his chest.

The corpse finally collapsed, releasing its grip on his arm.

But more corpses were surging toward him from all directions, converging like a black tide.

Harlan looked up at the sky and shouted.

There was no sobbing, no pleading in that voice; it was something muffled, squeezed out from the deepest part of the chest.

It's like calling out a person's name, or like calling out to a piece of the sky.

Agula closed his eyes behind the formation.

The muscles in his face were still twitching when he closed his eyes, but the twitching stopped when he opened them.

He watched as the undead completely obscured Harlan's view, then slowly turned his head away, no longer looking in that direction.

He stared at the outline of the valley in the distance, his voice as flat as a frozen river: "How long will it take for their blood to be refined into Yin Corpses?"

Yin, the Dharma Protector, bowed slightly on his horse: "Three days."

"Three days." Agula rolled the number on the tip of his tongue, as if tasting something he wasn't sure whether to swallow.

He didn't say anything more.

The grasslands were desolate after the war.

The wind was still blowing, but there was no sound on the battlefield.

Those who had fallen to the ground no longer cried out, and the horses no longer neighed. Only a few warhorses that refused to leave stood beside their masters' corpses, snorting softly and nudging the hands that would never move again with their wet noses.

The snow was still falling, and the snowflakes landed on those open eyes, quickly covering them with a thin layer of white, like a veil over each pair of eyes.

The snow-covered ground in the valley, soaked in blood, was slowly darkening. The blood seeped into the frozen soil and formed a layer of dark red ice, which would crack when stepped on.

Agula rode his horse through the pile of corpses.

He didn't avoid the corpses; the horses' hooves trampled over several outstretched arms, broken bows, and torn flags.

He saw several Xiutu cavalrymen rummaging through the corpses, pulling usable arrows from the dead and stuffing them into their quivers.

Someone walked up to the wounded Qiyan soldiers who were still panting, squatted down, looked down into their eyes, and then drew a short sword from his waist and swiftly finished them off.

He saw the Yin Protector slowly ride over from behind the formation, dismount, bend down, and draw out a wisp of black energy from the corpse of a Qiyan tribe centurion.

The wisp of black energy, like a wisp of smoke flowing backwards, slowly rose from the wound, condensing into an extremely thin dark line in mid-air, which was gently inhaled into the nose by the Yin Protector.

With his eyes closed, the satisfied expression on the Yin Protector's face flickered in the firelight, like a starving person finally smelling the aroma of food.

Agula reined in his horse.

He looked at the Yin Protector's slightly upturned face and watched the entire process of the black energy being drawn from the corpse, feeling an extremely cold and hard feeling well up in his chest.

It wasn't anger; it was more like a rusty knife being pulled from his heart, still warm from his body, revealing a hollow wound underneath, leaking air.

He realized he was becoming stronger than before.

Having just annexed the Qiyan tribe, dozens more Yin corpses have appeared on the battlefield, and one less tribe on the grassland that can rival him has been eliminated.

But this power is no longer what an eagle on the grassland should look like.

Eagles use their claws and wings to hunt, and after catching their prey, they will preen their feathers while landing on a tree.

And these are the things he's using now.

The breath drawn from the corpses, these immortal puppets.

They are eagles that replace their talons with iron hooks and their feathers with iron plates before hunting, and then say to the sky, "I am still an eagle."

"Your Majesty, it's time to go." Yin Hufa had somehow returned behind him, his voice like sand in the wind, low and emanating from beneath his hood. "The Left Wise King's forces will be coming to this valley tonight to clean up the mess. As agreed, we must retreat north of the White Wolf River before they arrive."

Agula did not turn around.

He continued gazing at the battlefield slowly being covered by snow, his voice neither loud nor soft, as if asking something unrelated to himself: "Would you do the same to me?"

Yin Protector remained silent for a moment.

The snow beneath his hooves was blown up by the wind, swirling and passing between his horse's legs.

His voice was softer than before, with a patient tone as if soothing a mischievous child: "Your Majesty is our King, and the Holy Church will only protect you. You are different."

Agula did not send a letter.

He certainly couldn't believe it.

He looked at the snow-soaked folds of the gray-robed man's clothes, and at those dark eyes that reflected everything but showed nothing back. The cold, hard feeling in his heart grew even thicker.

He didn't ask any more questions, tightened the reins, and urged the horse forward.

The heel of the boot gently tapped the horse's belly, and the horse strode forward, stepping onto the edge of the battlefield that was being covered in snow.

The snow fell heavier and heavier, as if trying to quietly cover everything in the valley.

The dark red ice shells are being covered layer by layer by the new snow, the open eyes are being filled with snow, and the broken bows and cleaved shields are turning into small mounds in the snow.

But some things cannot be buried by snow.

The black aura drawn from the corpses had dissipated, but the strange, sweet, and fishy smell they left behind lingered in the air, clinging to the nasal cavity of all the living people like an invisible oil film that could not be blown away no matter how hard they tried.

That night on the grassland was completely different.

Agula rode at the head of the procession, followed by silent cavalry and the dark figures walking quietly with heavy, even steps.

He didn't turn around, but he felt that cold, hard thing rising from the depths of his chest growing inch by inch upwards, reaching below his Adam's apple and the edge of his jaw.

He neither swallowed nor spat it out.

He simply rode his horse forward.