Chapter 306: The Waves Wash Away the Heroes

The battle of the left-wing army had already reached white-hot intensity.

War was like a tug-of-war.

Once you lost your footing by a single step, every step afterward became harder. Tiny disadvantages accumulated one after another until, in the end, they became a mountain crushing down on your chest.

By then, there was no strength left to overturn the heavens.

Deng Jiuru was still waving his command banner.

At this point in the battle, however, there was almost nothing left to command.

The entire camp had dissolved into one enormous melee.

Even if he wanted to issue orders, there was no longer any way to do it.

Once formations were broken apart, a commander’s orders could no longer be transmitted.

All they had left to rely on was blood courage.

Could they drive the savages back out of the camp?

That was all.

All the old general could do now was continue waving that banner.

Let the soldiers see it.

Let them know their commander was still there.

Give them enough confidence and faith to keep killing.

For a commander, this was actually the kind of battlefield he hated most.

The battle had completely escaped his control.

At a moment like this, how was he any different from some shaman jumping around in a ritual dance?

What difference could there be?

Either way, all he could do was leave the rest to fate.

The savage assault came like a tide.

Their fighting strength genuinely stunned the Yan army.

They charged forward.

Forward.

Forward again.

To tear open a breach as quickly as possible, the archers behind them did not hesitate to loose arrows directly into the tangled melee, shooting at both sides together.

And those savage warriors struck by arrows from their own people did not become angry.

They grinned viciously, snapped off the shafts buried in their bodies, held blood in their mouths, and kept fighting.

Would the stars truly shelter them?

Would their souls really be guided into the heavens after death?

Truthfully, they did not care all that much.

For centuries, the numbness of the snowfields had given birth to ignorance.

Generation after generation could do little more than immerse themselves in beautiful dreams.

Perhaps only those dreams had allowed them to endure the bitter cold of the snowfields.

But now, that man had appeared.

He had given them direction.

Their lives no longer contained only the boundless stars overhead at night.

They had rediscovered the earth beneath their feet.

And they had seen something called hope.

Their King had told them:

The future of the Holy Race was no longer in the sky.

It was ahead.

Right there ahead of them!

For the road ahead—

KILL!

KILL!

KILL!

The Savage King had never cared much for the priests of the snowfields or, as they were also called, Guides of the Stars.

One could see that clearly from the fact that he had promoted Sanghu, a man who enjoyed killing Guides, into one of the highest positions beneath him.

Because in the Savage King’s heart, he himself was the stars.

Not because he believed himself vast and radiant.

But because, like the light of the stars, he could make the warriors of the snowfields believe in him.

Submit to him.

Offer themselves for him.

Sacrifice themselves for him.

Zheng Fan and the Blind Man had once analyzed the Savage King together.

In the end, both reached the same conclusion.

The man possessed not only terrifying strategic vision, but also the kind of personal charisma that could drive his people into fanatical submission.

Emperors of other states also called themselves Sons of Heaven.

But when all was said and done, Son of Heaven was merely a title.

A supreme title.

Rather than a sacred office, it was more like the highest possible “official position,” bound to the Dragon Throne.

The Savage King, however, had already begun to merge political and spiritual authority in one body upon the snowfields.

The hastily constructed outer defenses of the Yan camp had already collapsed completely.

Savage forces poured in, compressing the Yan battle lines again and again.

Under circumstances like these, individual martial prowess became increasingly pale and meaningless.

Sometimes, it was not that you wanted to retreat.

You simply had no choice but to move backward.

And once that chain reaction began, the left-wing army started being pushed steadily toward the river.

“YOU CANNOT RETREAT!

“BROTHERS!

“YOU CANNOT RETREAT!

“YOU CANNOT RETREAT!”

Deng Jiuru screamed himself hoarse.

Behind them was the great river!

“KILL!

“KILL BACK!

“DRIVE THEM OUT!

“WE CAN STILL WAIT FOR REINFORCEMENTS!

“WE CAN STILL WAIT FOR REINFORCEMENTS!”

Though even the old general understood that the reinforcements were actually right there on the opposite bank.

But Chu’s river fleet stood between them.

A river only so wide had become an uncrossable gulf.

The slaughter continued for a long time.

What gave Deng Jiuru some relief was that his troops seemed finally to have stabilized their footing.

The blood courage of his sons, the nature of Yan men, had allowed them to withstand this sudden attack.

At least, that was how it looked.

But the problem on the Yan side was that the entire command structure had already collapsed.

The savages, by contrast, followed the arrangement prepared beforehand.

After four hours of fierce fighting, their front-line forces began withdrawing in an orderly fashion.

Fresh troops from the rear moved forward to replace them.

Old and new strength exchanged places cleanly.

That was precisely why Deng Jiuru had begun feeling as though his own army had finally held.

The ground was already carpeted with corpses.

Yan and savage alike.

In some places, bodies had piled into actual hills.

This was no metaphor.

It was a genuine mountain of corpses and sea of blood.

Then the figure in the white wolfskin robe appeared on the battlefield.

The savages erupted.

The newly committed savage warriors fought with even greater ferocity.

But the Yan soldiers had no way to rotate their own exhausted front line in an orderly fashion.

The battlefield had been compressed into too narrow a space.

Yan troops farther back could not reach the front.

Those at the front were already utterly exhausted, yet had no way to withdraw and recover.

However brave a soldier was, however little he feared death, he was still a man.

When the savage army launched its second assault, the Yan line began collapsing on a massive scale.

The front ranks fell backward.

Their retreat crushed into the comrades behind them, forcing the entire army to move back together.

At this point, even if the commander had been ruthless enough to order every fleeing soldier cut down, it would have made no difference.

The rout had already formed.

It was like a camp exploding into panic in the middle of the night.

Until dawn came, there was no way to put it back together.

Deng Jiuru, who had only just breathed a sigh of relief, soon saw Yan soldiers being shoved from the rear ranks straight into the river.

Those men were still wearing armor.

Forget the fact that few Yan soldiers knew how to swim.

Even a strong swimmer, once he fell into deep water wearing armor, would have only one fate.

Drowning.

Deng Jiuru opened his mouth.

Several bloody wounds had already appeared along his lips from where he had bitten them through.

His gaze slowly became vacant.

The savage assault continued.

If anything, it became more violent.

The collapse of the Yan army accelerated with every moment.

Gradually, soldiers began turning and running directly toward the river.

Some started stripping off their armor in hopes of swimming across.

The moment they did that, morale broke completely.

Run.

Escape.

Get back.

Those thoughts filled the minds of almost every surviving soldier.

They knew there was a river behind them.

But men already broken in battle had lost the courage to turn around and fight the savages again.

They would rather throw themselves into the water and gamble on that sliver of impossible luck than face the enemy one more time.

Deng Jiuru breathed heavily.

The screams around him, the shouts of killing at that moment, he seemed unable to hear any of them.

It was as though he had been completely separated from the battlefield.

Group after group of Yan soldiers either jumped voluntarily into the river or were driven into it.

For a time, the surface churned with struggling men.

Countless heads.

Countless reaching hands.

It did not take long before the water began filling with densely packed corpses.

Aboard Chu’s warships, Chu soldiers held bows and crossbows.

They laughed as they shot the Yan men in the water.

For them, this no longer felt like war.

It felt like entertainment.

The Black Dragon Banner had once made the entire East tremble.

And now, the men beneath it were nothing but ridiculous playthings.

Pigs fallen into the water.

Songs began rising from the decks of Chu’s warships.

Folk songs from the land of Chu.

The sight before them made the sailors jubilant.

They could not help themselves.

And when the songs mingled with the howls and screams of drowning Yan soldiers it sounded so pleasant their souls almost went numb with pleasure.

Hahaha.

Yan men?

So this was all they amounted to!

Deng Jiuru opened his mouth.

He tried to shout again.

But his voice was completely gone.

His throat tasted of blood.

He could hardly believe it.

Those men in the river they were soldiers of Great Yan.

Sons of Great Yan.

He had led them across this river.

But now, he had no way to lead them back.

This could not be real.

This could not be real!

A hundred years.

When in the last hundred years had Yan ever suffered a defeat like this?

No.

Even across several hundred years even when Yan lost—

Yan men had still faced forward.

Even in death, they fell toward the enemy.

When had they ever been reduced to something so wretched?

But now, in his hands this scene had appeared.

Tears filled Deng Jiuru’s eyes.

Humiliation.

Grief and rage.

Confusion.

The old general looked almost possessed.

Across centuries in his hands the men of Yan had lost the pride buried in their bones.

It was his fault.

His incompetence.

His unforgivable sin.

Clan inheritance?

His grandson competing for the throne?

Court struggles?

Factional fighting?

Compared with everything unfolding before him all of it was a fucking joke.

“GENERAL!

“WE WILL ESCORT YOU OUT!”

The Deng Clan’s personal guards the household retainers who had followed him into battle gathered around Deng Jiuru.

The great river behind them could not be crossed.

It truly could not.

So they intended to fight their way outward and escort Deng Jiuru through the savage lines.

Even if they could not cross the river immediately, as long as they broke free and found somewhere to hide, there would still be a chance to survive.

Deng Jiuru violently shoved away the loyal retainer beside him.

He had neither hair nor beard now, so there was no disheveled appearance to speak of.

Yet the hysteria in his eyes was painfully clear.

“I AM COMMANDER OF THE LEFT-WING ARMY!

“I WILL NOT RETREAT!”

Deng Jiuru raised the command banner again.

“I AM A MAN OF THE DENG CLAN!

“I WILL NOT RETREAT!”

The banner continued waving.

“I AM IMPERIAL KIN BY MARRIAGE!

“I WILL NOT RETREAT!”

The savages broke through.

The Deng household guards began fighting desperately around him.

The old general was already aged.

For an aging Martial Artist, qi and blood inevitably declined.

Perhaps in his youth Deng Jiuru had once been a skilled warrior in the army.

But at his present age, his qi and blood could barely be called upon for desperate combat.

He leaned against the command banner.

His gaze remained locked forward.

Around him, the Deng household guards fell one after another.

And at that moment, his old age became the thing Deng Jiuru hated most.

The commander of an army did not need to be a high-grade Martial Artist like Tian Wujing.

Even someone like the Marquis of Zhenbei could laugh and talk while directing armies to storm cities and seize fortresses.

But how Deng Jiuru wished he could be young again.

If he were still young if his qi and blood had not declined this far then at the very least, he could kill several more savages and drag them into death with him.

*Whoosh!*

An arrow struck Deng Jiuru in the chest.

The old general dropped to one knee, still bracing himself against the command banner.

His right hand gripped the shaft.

His left hand closed around the arrow buried in his chest.

Blood flowed steadily from his mouth.

A black figure flashed through several Deng retainers, killing them in an instant, and appeared directly before Deng Jiuru.

It was Sanghu, commander of the Savage King’s personal guard.

Sanghu himself was covered in wounds.

Some were so deep that bone showed through.

But he had survived to the end.

Victory was already decided.

He had reached the Yan commander first.

Like a priest conducting a rite, Sanghu began to chant:

“The stars are above.

“If you are willing to surrender, they shall grant you their warm radiance.”

It was an offer of surrender.

An offer from above.

An offer that displayed the victor’s arrogance to its fullest.

Rather than truly trying to persuade Deng Jiuru to surrender, Sanghu was satisfying something in his own heart.

Look.

The lofty Yan commander is kneeling at my feet.

He will beg for my mercy.

He will plead for my forgiveness.

Deng Jiuru grinned.

Then, using every last bit of strength remaining in his body, he said:

“One day...

“Great Yan’s iron cavalry... will sweep across the snowfields...”

Sanghu’s expression darkened.

“The savages... will be exterminated!”

The final words were roared.

And before Sanghu could move—

Deng Jiuru seized the arrow buried in his chest and drove it deeper into his own body.

*Pfft!*

Sanghu’s raised palm had not even fallen yet.

The old general had already killed himself in front of him.

Even in death, Deng Jiuru’s corpse remained propped upright against the command banner.

“Heh.”

*BANG!*

Sanghu kicked the old general’s corpse over.

Then he crouched down.

Leaning close to the dead man’s ear, he whispered:

“On the snowfields, only tribes facing extermination utter curses that empty and useless.”

Then, as though the words were still not enough, he added:

“The Holy Race will surely rise.”

And now, upon the river, the songs of Chu drifted on the wind.

Across the water, the corpses of Yan soldiers floated downstream.

[End of Chapter 306]