Chapter 56: Arrogance

Shen Qingxue didn’t waste a single breath on words.

This was her very first life-and-death clash against a trained, heavily armored warrior of the exact same cultivation base. In the past, facing such raw, murderous momentum would have triggered panic in a mortal girl.

But over the past month, she had absorbed my lessons like a sponge, forged her marrow with high-tier medicinal baths, and tempered her soul under the weight of the Indomitable Asura Dao Heart.

She shifted her wrists by a fraction of an inch. Instead of fighting his downward pressure with raw force, she executed the second form of the Mountain-Cleansing Art, flowing like mountain water around an immovable rock. She tilted her blade, guiding his massive five-foot saber to scrape harmlessly down her steel, sending his heavy momentum crashing into the gravel.

The commander staggered forward, completely overextended.

Before he could pull back his heavy weapon, Qingxue stepped into his guard. Her movement was clean, fluid, and ruthlessly efficient.

Crack!

Her left palm struck his elbow joint, shattering the bone and disabling his weapon arm. In the same fluid breath, she drew her blade back with her right hand, pivoting on the ball of her rear foot to gather rotational momentum from her hips.

FLASH.

A cold, crescent arc of steel sheared through the moonlight.

The blade bypassed his heavy iron gorget, slipping through the leather seams beneath his jaw with clinical precision.

The commander’s eyes bulged in shock. A thin, red line appeared across his throat. He dropped to his knees, his hands clutching his neck in a desperate attempt to hold his life together, before collapsing face-first into the dirt, dead before his blade even stopped vibrating.

Shen Qingxue stood over his corpse, her breathing entirely steady, her dark-green robes untouched by a single drop of blood.

She gave her blade a crisp, downward snap, flicking the crimson stain onto the rocks, and raised her cold gaze toward the surviving imperial soldiers.

"Your commander is dead," she said, her voice clear and frigid as it echoed across the spur. "Drop your weapons, or bleed with him."

Seeing their peak-stage commander killed in two moves by a veiled teenage girl, the remaining imperial infantry completely broke.

The iron discipline forged by Governor Yan evaporated into pure animal panic. Men threw down their spears, turned on their heels, and scrambled desperately toward the cliffs, only to run straight into Tie Shan’s ambush line and the hail of rebel arrows. ℯℯ𝑙.

What followed was not a battle but a systematic, ruthless mop-up.

Under Bai Ling’s sharp tactical direction, with Qingxue leading the vanguard, the outlaws moved across the camp like a scythe through wheat.

In a little over thirty-five minutes, the entire two-hundred-man imperial detachment had been wiped out.

The camp fell dead silent, save for the crackle of a few overturned torches and the wind whistling through the crags. Blood pooled in the crevices of the limestone, steaming faintly in the cold night air.

Miraculously, among the rebel fighters, not a single man had lost his life. Roughly a dozen had suffered shallow saber cuts or fractured ribs, but every single one of them was standing on their own two feet, clutching their weapons in wide-eyed disbelief.

They had just slaughtered an entire imperial vanguard wing without losing a single brother.

Bai Ling walked through the carnage, sheathing her twin blades. Her leather armor was spattered with dark gore, but her amber eyes burned with a fierce light. She stopped before Shen Qingxue, looking at the untouched, composed girl with admiration and respect.

"Sister Shen," Bai Ling breathed, bowing deeply. "Your sword saved my life, and your blade broke their spine. I will never forget this."

Qingxue shook her head, a gentle warmth returning to her eyes as she glanced back toward the high boulder. "It was Master who gave me the foundation to stand here. Praise him, not me."

Perched on the ledge above, I dusted off my sleeves, a wide, thoroughly satisfied grin spreading across my face.

A clean wipe, zero casualties, and my first disciple hadn’t picked up a single scratch.

Now, I thought, looking toward the east, where dawn was still three hours away, let’s see how Governor Yan’s main camp reacts when their flanking scouts never return.

I leaned casually against a weather-beaten limestone boulder, my hands resting comfortably inside my wide white sleeves, quietly watching the aftermath of the ambush unfold.

Under the pale moonlight, the rebel fighters moved with rapid, practiced efficiency. The dozen men who had taken shallow saber cuts or fractured ribs were immediately escorted back through the concealed gorge path, guided by two older scouts toward the subterranean infirmary to receive poultices and rest.

The remaining fighters fanned out across the blood-slicked clearing, systematically stripping the corpses of the two hundred fallen imperial soldiers.

In a prolonged guerrilla war, nothing was discarded.

They unbuckled iron scale-mail breastplates, scooped up undamaged curved sabers, bundled together bundles of iron-tipped arrows, and gathered hundreds of heavy travel rations, dried cured meat, and full water skins from the canvas tents.

To an outlaw resistance living on wild mountain roots and bitter herbs, the supplies of an elite imperial detachment were an absolute goldmine.

They even rounded up twenty sturdy pack mules tethered at the rear of the camp, loading them down with armaments and spare crossbows.

Within twenty minutes, the entire encampment had been picked clean down to the dirt.

As the fighters prepared to fall back toward the main cavern, an electric, intoxicating wave of excitement swept through their ranks.

Having wiped out two hundred trained imperial soldiers without suffering a single fatality, several of the younger men felt invincible. Their blood was boiling, their eyes wild with triumphant adrenaline as they hoisted their bloodstained weapons.

A scarred squad leader stepped up to Bai Ling, panting heavily with an eager grin.

"Leader Bai! The boys are barely warmed up!" the man rasped, his voice buzzing with bloodlust. "The other two hundred imperial infantry are patrolling the western ridge, barely three miles across the gorge! While the central camp is still fast asleep, why don’t we cross the ravines and slaughter their other flank right now? We can wipe out half their entire army before sunrise!"

Several nearby fighters nodded vigorously, shouting in hushed agreement.

"Silence! Have all of you lost your minds?!"

Bai Ling’s sharp, authoritative voice cracked through the cold night air like a lash, instantly cutting off their rowdy whispers.

Her amber eyes swept across the flushed, overeager faces of her men, colder than the mountain stone. "Do not let a single clean victory go straight to your hollow skulls! Look at yourselves! Half of you are drenched in sweat, your arms are trembling from swinging steel, and our best scouts are already limping back to the medicine caves!"

She stepped forward, jabbing a finger toward the dark western crags. "You think the western detachment will be as blind as this one? If we march across three miles of open ravines in our exhausted state, a single loose stone or a delayed strike will turn into an open brawl! At that rate, you won’t take that ridge without leaving thirty of your brothers dead in the mud! And for what?"

Her gaze hardened with absolute tactical clarity. "Tomorrow morning, the main extermination battalion of six hundred heavy troops and mounted shock troops will storm Wolf Fang Gorge! If you bleed yourselves dry on a useless night raid, who will hold the barricades when the sun rises? If we lose the main battle at dawn, our cavern falls, our families are dragged into chains, and wiping out two hundred flanking foot soldiers won’t mean a damn thing!"

The cold splash of reality hit the rebel fighters like a bucket of freezing water.

The reckless adrenaline drained from their eyes, replaced by shame and sheepish sobriety. The squad leader lowered his head, clasping his calloused fists with an embarrassed bow.

"Leader Bai is right... This subordinate spoke out of turn. We let our arrogance blind us. Please forgive me."

"Take the loot, take the mules, and get back inside the mountain," Bai Ling commanded in a softer, firmer tone. "Every man must eat a full ration, drink clean water, and sleep until the third watch of dawn. If you aren’t at your absolute peak when the morning drums sound, I will personally throw you into the vanguard!"

"Yes, Leader!"

Chastened and disciplined once more, the fifty men shouldered their heavy bundles of salvaged weapons and slipped into the shadows, disappearing through the waterfall entrance into the hidden stronghold.

The rocky spur fell completely silent once more.

The sound-dampening barrier of golden qi I had woven across the ridge still held firm, muffling the distant mountain winds into a gentle, peaceful breeze.

I stood atop the flat limestone rock, looking down at the two women standing before me.

Bai Ling was wiping a streak of dark blood from her cheek with the back of her leather vambrace, her chest heaving slightly as she recovered her breath.

Beside her, Shen Qingxue stood tall and pristine, her steel longsword resting loosely in its scabbard, her dark traveling cloak untouched by a single speck of dust.