Chapter 409 – Ocean Province’s General’s Temple; 3,000 Ghost Cavalry Surge North, Sweeping Aside All Foes; and the Son of Heaven Pays his Respects at the Xie Residence - Part 3

Late December.

An explosive rumor reached Li Yuan.

Within five days, two fortress cities had fallen. The first was Cherenhold in Silkfloss Province, and the second was Charmfall in Ocean Province.

Both cities were crammed with clans from the Five Elements Alliance, and high rank Buddhists and Daoists. Yet they toppled in less than a week.

Now, on the wall of yet another Ocean Province city, a sixth rank martial artist stared into the distance in despair.

Out of the absolute black of a choking fog rode a monstrous cavalry. It was as if an apocalyptic gate had flung wide, with creatures from mythology pouring into the world. As they neared, he could just make out their shape.

He saw beasts stitched from pig and serpent, rabbit and rat, and nameless horrors, each several meters long and reeking of dread. Creatures no human should ever tame. Yet men and women in cold green armor, faces blank, rode them as calmly as any warhorse.

The sixth rank martial artist let out a broken scream.

There was no point fighting at all.

Only a heartbeat ago, the man had seen it himself—a lone mounted rider butchered the fifth rank powerhouse who guarded this gate.

The corpse was tossed straight into the beast’s cavernous maw; wet, slurping crunches echoed while boiling source blood spattered everywhere.

One rider was strong enough to fell a fifth ranker. Yet there were

swaths

of them.

In front of such power, the sixth rank martial artist felt no larger than an ordinary man. Nowadays, with resources far richer than in the old days, a sixth rank was no longer a legend, little better than yesterday’s seventh rank.

While the man was still screaming, a monster vaulted more than thirty feet into the air. Its mouth, a gigantic boar’s bloody pit, snapped him in half at the waist, then chewed. His head and legs dangled, bobbing up and down with every bite; his eyes never shut, terror frozen inside them.

The rider perched on the beast watched with chilly indifference, as if life crushed so brutally meant nothing at all.

In those glassy, trembling eyes, a silver-haired figure came into focus. It was an exquisitely beautiful youth who looked more like a painted courtesan than a soldier. He stepped close, brushed his fingers over the dead man’s eyelids, and sighed.

“This world is so dark. You must have stood watch here every day, nerves stretched thin, carrying a burden you never deserved. Dying early...in a way, that’s a kindness. Only, too late, right? Let me help.”

No mockery colored his tone; he sounded like a friend trying to ease an old companion’s pain. Then, with a gentle tap, he knocked the mangled body the rest of the way into the monster’s throat. The savage beast behaved like a newly wedded bride in front of him, meek and docile.

Peng Mingyi stroked its flank and murmured, “Happy? Eat as much as you can while the chance is here. Only then will you feel truly content.”

He flashed a pure, almost angelic smile. “Go, my child. Go on chasing your happiness.”

The creature leapt away and melted back into the surging tide of horrors.

At the very heart of that flood rode a figure utterly at odds with the nightmare scene, a woman in a green silk dress, dark hair falling loose over her shoulders. She sat on a white horse, face dreamy, features delicately beautiful, with an air of otherworldliness about her. Blind eyes, empty sockets, seemed to sweep across the battlefield of living hell.

The steed looked like a snow-white stallion, yet its eyes whirled crazily in all directions, and the tail was half a snake’s body, coiling and twitching behind it.

Clearly this was a beast as strange as the rest, only far more elegant, and far more unsettling.

The woman in the pale green dress was none other than Ying Zhuoyao, Cult Leader of the Green Lotus Cult.

She, too, was a jade husk. And unlike most, she was a jade husk schooled in the classic arts of war.

Right now, she and Peng Mingyi shared command of the 3,000 ghost cavalry.

Ying Zhouyao directed the Green Lotus fearless soldiers, and Peng Mingyi ruled the beast cavalry.

Soldiers and exotic beasts had been forged as one, their minds moving in unison. When she created the Green Lotus fearless soldiers, she planted that single-mindedness on purpose, then welded all 3,000 into a single battle array. Split, they were unstoppable. Merged, they were also unstoppable.

City after city fell before the two of them like ants under a fingernail. Fifth rank? Sixth rank? Even a fourth rank powerhouse could be dropped with one stroke. The ghost cavalry was a blade that sliced through a 20-year stalemate as though it were paper.

Elsewhere, the Red Lotus and White Lotus Cults were moving just as fast, but in the dark, carrying out infiltration and intelligence work.

Behind the ghost cavalry came scattered Black and Green Lotus Cult lites and 8,000 armored cavalry in bear-head helmets—the Flying Bear Army, led by Lu Xuanxian.

In the center of this force, four paper effigies carried a gilt dragon palanquin.

Inside, the Son of Heaven lounged, cheek on fist, watching the inferno outside his window. A savage thrill flickered in his eyes.

Break what must be broken. When Yin and Yang unite, when strength rises like clouds, I will found an empire that never dies!

Strategy filled his thoughts. He was not foolish enough to think victory was certain; the front had to be nailed down.

His first objective was Bright Moon Prefecture. Once inside he would seal the marriage alliance and march away with Ocean Province’s fearsome 30,000 armored cavalry.

Then with 3,000 ghost cavalry and Ocean Province's 30,000 armored cavalry, he would have two hammers to pound the world flat.

The throne and Lotus Cult would eventually clash? But that wouldn’t happen until the Great Union of Yin and Yang was complete; after that...he had plans.

After another day and night’s hard ride, the ghost cavalry and Flying Bear army encamped in a city already shattered.

Its people were broken things. In warlord times, a change of banners merely meant a new tax and fresh looting; now the riders were monsters who did not merely kill, but ate.

Terror sat on every face. Yet an open tavern had barely time to shutter its doors before soldiers strolled in and ordered a feast for nightfall.

“Give us your best wine and dishes, everything you’ve got! Don’t worry. Only the garrison dies. Citizens are safe. We’ll pay in full too!”

The tavern-keeper, bent only on survival, agreed to everything with frantic smiles.

That night half the restaurants in the city hosted banquets for the conquerors.

The meals passed without incident. There was no looting, no sudden slaughter, and every coin was paid in full.

The guests explained pleasantly that the Emperor was merely borrowing divine troops to punish rebels; ordinary folk would have nothing to fear.

Since the soldiers truly did not touch a hair on civilian heads, the resident’s terror settled into wary calm.

Yet plenty of people knew the darker truth.

When the Emperor settled into his temporary quarters, he was met by all sorts of suicidal attacks. Disguised heroes of the jianghu approached him with poisoned wine, and assassins slithered through the shadows.

However, all that followed was a line of skinless corpses strung from the gate towers as a warning.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

The next day.

The army marched out to their next destination and repeated the same events of the previous day.

More and more defenders realized open battle was pointless. They attempted to turn to assassination but failed as well.

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

When even the deputy palace master of the Sacred Flame Palace, a fourth rank powerhouse, ended up flayed and hanging in the wind, the killings stopped.

Everyone saw the same writing on the wall. The Emperor’s momentum was unstoppable, the Jade Capital would fall soon, and the world was about to change.

The ghost cavalry fanned out and began targeting Ocean Province’s powerful sects, which were the Sacred Fire Palace, Moon Reflection Tower, Mountain Hall, Secret Treasure Abbey, and Shakya Monastery.

The first to fall was the Sacred Fire Palace.

The outer defenses collapsed quickly, forcing the sect to raise its grand protective array around the inner halls.

It made no difference. The ghost cavalry smashed through.

Save for a handful of disciples who fled, the Sacred Fire Palace was wiped from the map.

The Emperor’s forces didn’t come away unscathed, though. Even monsters would tire, and the riders needed somewhere safe to recuperate.

Bright Moon Prefecture was the obvious choice.

On the march, the Emperor, imperial tutor, generals and cult leaders conferred. They would break the Jade Capital first, then mop up the rats at leisure.

The destruction of the Sacred Fire Palace served more than enough as an example.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Early March.

Peach blossoms flowered outside the walls of Bright Moon Prefecture. Yet a sudden, stinking gale roared in, and the petals ripped from their branches and whirled like pink snow.

The Emperor rode in at the head of ghost cavalry and Flying Bear Army and swept through the gates. Escorted by Lu Xuanxian, Zhao Gutong, and a ring of royal guards, he turned down the avenue toward the Xie residence.