Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Chapter 1144 – Preposterous Order

The water gurgled, the wooden ladle drifting over it. The Green Leaf had still not returned. Tonight’s dinner was still very simple.

Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi were eating faster than usual. For the former, this was quite the rare occurrence.

From this detail, one could imagine just how important the documents they needed to discuss tonight were.

The plates on their desks were cleared away and An Hua brought them some green orange water for them to rinse their mouths, presented with scalding hot towels.

A small mountain of documents was piled up in the corner of the hall. The ones they needed to see had already been picked out and organized.

The hall remained silent throughout the night. Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi read the documents in their hands, saying nothing for a very long time.

They had been informed of the conclusion of that battle long ago, but it was only now that they were learning of many details.

No one could have expected that the Prince of Xiang would silently cast off the thirty thousand soldiers of the Western Army Right Camp and hide all alone near the peak of Mount Nuorilang.

With both the Demon Commander and Wang Po heavily injured, he leapt out of the sun and unleashed the strongest attack of his entire life.

If this sneak attack succeeded, his leaving the camp without being ordered naturally wouldn’t be a big deal, and he would have the greatest achievement since the start of this war.

The Prince of Xiang could exchange this achievement for Prince Chen Liu’s departure from the capital, or he could redeem it for an honor like the Iron Ticket of Redemption. Both would have been extremely easy. (TN: The Iron Ticket of Redemption, 免死铁券, was a reward bestowed during the Ming Dynasty. If a minister committed a crime, they could use the Iron Ticket of Redemption to save them from the death penalty.)

Perhaps it was precisely with these things in mind that the Prince of Xiang had taken such a risky and fearless action.

Alas, he still underestimated the strength of the Demon Commander.

Wang Po was heavily injured and unable to join in the assault.

The Demon Commander had also taken significant injuries, but she was not burned to death by that searing sun.

The darkness in the valley had served as her weapon at the crucial moment.

Those who witnessed this were so shocked that they were powerless to speak.

The Prince of Xiang was unwilling to retreat, so his sneak attack became a forceful assault.

The Demon Commander paid the Mountain-toppling Fiend as the price to escape the summit of Mount Nuorilang.

The Prince of Xiang stood on the head of the dead Mountain-toppling Fiend and watched the Demon Commander escape to the north. His confidence surging, his forceful assault became a pursuit.

He pursued for six hundred li, but he still failed to kill the Demon Commander. Black Robe had set up an array, and four high-ranking Demon Generals were waiting for him.

If not for the Mount Li Sect Master’s prompt arrival, the Prince of Xiang would have died on the spot.

Even so, the Prince of Xiang and the Mount Li Sect Master were still surrounded.

Suddenly, a massive kite had appeared in the sky.

.……

……

.……

……

No one knew if Xiao Zhang was injured or where he was now.

Similarly, no one knew where Zhexiu was or what he was doing.

Some people were used to fighting alone.

The most epic and magnificent of battles since the start of the war, this clash of experts of the Divine Domain, came to an end.

The Demon race had suffered grievous casualties. Of the four high-ranking Demon Generals who had surrounded the Prince of Xiang and the Mount Li Sect Master, only two left alive. They also lost a member of the Council of Elders and one duke.

The Human race had not lost any experts, but both Mao Qiuyu and Huai Ren were heavily injured, and the Mount Li Sect Master even more so.

Gou Hanshi said, “Master has returned to Mount Li to recover, and the other seniors must rest for a while before stepping onto the front lines again.”

It was very difficult to kill experts of the Divine Domain. They either needed to be surrounded or had to be fighting beings of higher realms, like the Tianhai Divine Empress.

But heavy injuries could still force them to halt their steps. Even Wang Po was no exception.

In Chen Changsheng’s view, this was Black Robe’s intention.

Even if he had to pay a devastating price, he wanted to momentarily deprive the human experts of the Divine Domain of the ability to fight, hoping to at least make it so that they could not fully use their strength before the winter set in.

Without experts of the Divine Domain, the human armies would find their advance greatly hindered. Their progress was already much slower than originally planned, and how much more would it be delayed now?

And when the human armies finally reached the walls of Xuelao City, would the storm of snowflakes drifting down leave them any hope of victory?

Using the deaths of two Divine Domain experts and two high-ranking Demon Generals to buy ten-some days for the overarching situation… not just anyone had such resolve.

Every time they thought of this, Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi felt a hint of wariness for that young Demon Lord, even a little respect.

Black Robe was still the most frightening.

In retrospect, she had probably long since calculated all the details around the battle between the Demon Commander and Wang Po.

She had calculated which of the human experts would appear, and even that the Prince of Xiang would leave the Western Army Camp.

They could only say that her understanding of the human mind was truly terrifying.

If the battle of Mount Nuorilang had concluded like this, Black Robe could have at least proclaimed victory in the second phase of the war.

But in reality, she had lost.

The human armies broke through the second line of demon defenses far earlier than expected.

Before the summer was even over, the three cavalrymen at the very front could already see the outline of Xuelao City in the distance.

Because while the battle of Mount Nuorilang was taking place, several unexpected changes took place on the battlefront.

The person who had made the greatest difference between victory and defeat was the Human Commander-in-Chief, Divine General He Ming.

Everyone had believed that Divine General He Ming’s assignment to the commander-in-chief position was a political compromise, or some preposterous order issued by the Emperor and Pope on a sudden impulse.

And just like it was in the war several hundred years ago, ordinary soldiers, excluding the black-armored heavy cavalry, did not have much effect on the outcome of the war, unless one was Wang Zhice.

But Divine General He Ming had played an extremely important role in this war.

At that battle’s most intense moment, the plains for several hundred li in front of the mountains had become the battlefield for the experts of the Divine Domain.

For Divine General He Ming to establish the Central Army Camp at the most forward position seemed like a most unwise decision, especially at a moment like this.

The terrifying ripples of power arising from the fights of these Divine Domain experts were also very harmful to ordinary soldiers.

Relying on the protection of the array to keep out the Qi from these experts, the soldiers continued to battle against the wolf cavalry, but the situation had become incredibly perilous. The howling winds overhead were like an invisible plow, occasionally tearing open a tent or digging up rocks which would then smash into the heads of innumerable soldiers.

A massive hole was torn through the main tent, wind and sand rushing in through it. The tallow candles had been extinguished long ago, and only the Night Pearls were still providing light. Divine General He Ming viewed his maps in this dim light as he issued order after order with absolute composure, his messengers madly rushing off to deliver them.

With each charge, the wolf cavalry got closer and closer to the main tent.

In their last assault, those massive wolves had only been two li away.

Ye Xiaolian gazed at He Ming’s face, a complex expression in her eyes.

She had already suggested retreat many times, but Divine General He Ming had never agreed.

To her even greater consternation, he had even ordered the Sacred Light crossbows tasked with suppressing the charges of the wolf cavalry to lessen their firing.

The sword array formed by three-hundred-some South Stream Temple disciples was right outside the camp at this moment.

Even if the wolf cavalry charged over, even if that Xuelao City duke battling with her martial grandaunt outside the camp came to attack, she was still confident that she could protect the Divine General.

But how many of South Stream Temple’s disciples would have to die for it?

As her mind was occupied with these questions, Divine General He Ming suddenly asked one of his own.

Everyone in the tent felt that this question was quite nonsensical.

“Where is the Demi-human race’s North-Pacifying Army?”

A staff officer stared blankly at him for a few moments before answering, “According to the report from two days ago, they just left Cong Province.”

“Just left Cong Province…”

He Ming sighed, appearing to be greatly saddened by this fact. “They’re too far away, so I guess we have to do this alone.”

Ye Xiaolian was quite confused and thought, even if the Demi-human race’s reinforcing army were already here, do you think that they would be able to show up right now and save you?

Those stories about tens of thousands of cavalry emerging in a surprise assault out of a canyon were just stories.

Unless they, like the demons, had an array set up hundreds of years ago to create a path, sneak attacks like that were very hard to produce in this world of Red Falcons and demon vultures.

“Once they finish fighting, it will be our turn.”

Divine General He Ming raised his head, his gaze piercing through the tattered canopy of the tent and into the sky.

Massive figures loomed within the heavy black smoke, and the bright sword glows seemed to be coming from another world.

That world belonged to experts of the Divine Domain.

Ye Xiaolian still did not understand the meaning of He Ming’s words.

She subconsciously turned her gaze to the gloomiest corner of the tent.