Chapter 389 – Nine Loyal Souls, One-Handed Clash, Father and Son Reunited - Part 1

Out of the mountains emerged the Emperor, Imperial Tutor, Black Lotus Cult Leader, Grand General, and the cavalry that shadowed their every step.

His scouting birds were bursting apart one after another in mid-air.

Li Yuan felt as if he were forced to blink in rapid-fire succession. Each time he managed to get a glimpse, the sky flashed white and his vision went dark again.

Even so, in those strobing instants he caught lines of information floating above the heads of his foes. Only the word

freakish

could describe what he saw.

The imperial tutor, Zhao Gutong, had combat power of only 7~8, with the contents of his equipment box hidden as if it were shrouded by a haze.

The leader of the Black Lotus Cult, Peng Mingyi, had a similar combat power of 8~9, with his equipment hidden as well.

Both men were jade husks, incapable of cultivation. It made sense they were unranked. However, anyone who mistook

unranked

for

harmless

would be digging their own grave.

Meanwhile, the Emperor and Lu Xuanxian hovered around 2,290~10,800 and 5,670~61,084 respectively. Those figures put them solidly in fourth rank, though at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Emperor was among the weakest sort of fourth ranks, while the grand general could trade blows with Qing Hancheng.

None of that shocked Li Yuan. What chilled him was the

(122,169~???)

that trailed both their names.

In the past, numbers in brackets meant the target was injured and would recover in time. This time, crimson question marks gleamed beside the number.

Li Yuan had long since stopped trembling at question marks. After all, he had slain a being marked with one and carried a pitch-black question marks of his own.

Crimson question marks were related to ghosts.

“If I’m reading this right, both the Emperor and Lu Xuanxian need a ghost to unlock an absurd power boost. Likely, this boost can’t be summoned at will either. Wait, 122,169 is exactly double Lu Xuanxian’s peak combat power. Surely, that can’t be a coincidence...” Li Yuan muttered to himself.

Finally, tagging behind was the armored cavalry numbering in the thousands.

Li Yuan hadn’t had the time for a proper headcount. Only a quick sweep put them north of 5,000, maybe upwards of 7,000-8,000..

Each rider bore a snarling bear helm and a long blade. They were broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and radiated an aura of menace as sunlight bounced off their armor.

Individually, these men hovered around 150 in combat power, nothing a proper seventh rank martial artist couldn’t handle in one-on-one combat.

Yet those countless little 150s pooled together like rivers feeding the sea, coalescing in mid-air into a single writhing total. Sometimes it was a mere 100,000; other times, it crested to a whopping 200,000.

The sight yanked Li Yuan back to the crudest form of beast taming. It was the kind that hardly deserved the name, where neither handler nor animal had stepped onto the ranking ladder. Picture an old hunter and his aging dog. Each carried his own stats, yet together they produced a higher, blended number, a fleeting

man-and-dog-as-one

.

Curiously, the stronger a beastmaster grew, the rarer that fusion became. Instead, it was replaced by a milder, mostly cosmetic synergy between man and beast.

Li Yuan had never thought twice about it.

Now, staring at these bear-masked horsemen and their merged stats, a spark flared. Perhaps true man-beast unity had merely been outlawed and erased from the martial world, preserved only in the imperial playbook.

This went beyond beast taming; it was some alien art of war, a discipline he had yet to fathom.

Li Yuan’s mind raced. He was hypersensitive to fresh power. In a heartbeat he spotted the formation’s fatal flaw. It was invincible on the battlefield but painfully fragile off it.

An army of 8,000 cavalry amassed together might be terrifying, but scatter them and they were lambs to the slaughter. If a being like himself slipped into their camp at night, the entire regiment would crumble before dawn.

On open ground, though, he would give them a wide berth; better to sidestep that tidal onrush.

Terrain was their second weakness. A fifth rank master could simply take to the air if trapped.

Li Yuan doubted these riders could fly at all; raw strength, yes. Sky legs? No.

Considering the coin, sweat, and lives needed to forge such an army, he wondered if the Great Zhou Empire had overpaid.

Yet it was precisely the existence of that ironclad cavalry that had kept the Emperor alive in this jungle of competing powers.

Then again, if that sort of cavalry wasn’t unique to him, if every high-ranking general in the bureaucracy wielded the same might, didn’t that mean each military governor commanded a similar force?

Li Yuan had plenty of information pipelines. He knew a fair bit about the Nine Military Governorships of the Great Zhou.”

The Great Zhou was divided into nine provinces. The realm faced no foreign invaders, yet every province was a hive of martial clans and heavyweight sects—the Holy Tree Temple, Sacred Fire Palace, and the like.

When the dynasty first rose, the court relied on the

Fubing System

. Local militias were kept at home, weapons were self-supplied, cultivation was practiced in house, and policy tilted in their favor. When trouble came, the Emperor summoned the troops. They fought, and rewards were handed out later.

That arrangement worked, at first. The original organizers were capable men of the court. By the time the second and third generation took over, the cracks showed.

Under pressure from the big jianghu factions, the system collapsed. The army became a sieve of sect influence. Soldiers lived far from the capital; half answered the summons under borrowed names, the rest were already in bed with the martial world.

Put bluntly, a soldier was first a disciple of some sect, only second a soldier of the crown. Why turn up? Partly lingering awe of the throne, mostly the perks.

So the Great Zhou reformed, and the provincial governors were born. Each was an imperial pick, sent to a province to build his own force, pay his own bills, keep the sects at bay, and handle local trouble. It was difficult at first, but the throne remained the strongest fist in the land, and under its shield the nine governors grew. The fiercer a province’s martial scene, the tougher its governor.

For a while a new balance settled, the imperial court versus the jianghu. Then the flavor shifted. Soon the soldiers of a province knew only their governor, not the Emperor.

That arrangement lasted until the Red Lotus Rebels cracked the Great Zhou wide open.

On paper the uprising was formidable, with the Red Lotus secretly backed by the Black, White, and Green Lotuses.

However, the nine governors weren’t lambs, and the Five Elements Alliance was still around. Yet the Red Lotus Rebels had managed to march straight into the Jade Capital, forcing the Emperor to beg for outside aid.

How was this allowed to happen? Simple. No governor was interested in blocking the route, and none were foolish enough to grind their strength to dust fighting the Lotus Cult.

Now, each governor was lying low in their respective prefectural stronghold. They all ruled a private kingdom, their troops forbidden to leave.

Both sects and factions were also polite enough not to poke the bear.

Such thoughts flashed by as Li Yuan felt the last of his scouting birds explode. Its final image was the Lu Xuanxian yanking his reins, crimson warhorse leaping skyward. The grand general shot ahead like lightning, birds bursting in his wake.

The Emperor was approaching, and Lu Xuanxian was clearing the path.

In mere moments, the man had outpaced the bear-helmed cavalry and swatted every watcher aside.

Li Yuan remained unruffled. With a pulse of intent, his shadow blood circulated, and he vanished from sight.

His perfected Phantom Body fully activated, sound and light passed through him as if he were thin air. He stood invisible in a forest about five kilometers from the mass grave. Cicadas droned, frogs croaked, and leaves hissed like surf. Insects crawled past, a snake slid by, but nothing sensed him.

Li Yuan lowered his gaze and listened. The charging grand general swung a long halberd, hacking a savage path. Trees toppled, rocks burst, and every gouge in the soil left a web of cracks. Yet no matter how he circled, he could not find his target.

Phantom Body wasn’t foolproof. But with Li Yuan standing perfectly still and completely suppressing his presence, nothing could easily pierce it.

Lu Xuanxian completed a circuit, frowning, rare caution on his face.

A few moments later, the Emperor and the cavalry reached the edge of the mass grave.

The general pulled up beside the column.

“Your Majesty, I failed to locate the spy,” Lu Xuanxian reported matter-of-factly. No frustration laced his voice, not even a hint of gloom. Failure simply meant the spy was formidable. Recognizing this fact alone was noteworthy intel.