Chapter 68: The War Ends

The icy mist clinging to the Autumn Water Frost Sword hissed as droplets of my own blood dripped along the fuller.

My left shoulder throbbed with a burning, charred ache from the lightning whip, and my ribs felt as if they were wrapped in iron bands.

Two middle-stage Qi Condensation commanders lay bisected and frozen in the limestone dust, but the cost had been agonizingly steep.

Because of my nascent breakthrough and crude, unpolished control, the roaring elemental river within my meridians had run dry. My lower dantian felt like a hollow, barren well, the liquid essence scraping against the spiritual walls with dry friction.

Commander Hu stood five paces away, gripping his massive twin-headed battleaxe. Seeing my shallow breathing, the pale pallor of my skin, and the trembling of my fingers, the terror in his scarred face curdled into desperate, predatory frenzy.

"Your spiritual well is empty, you wretched wench!" the brute roared, his veins bulging like writhing worms across his neck. "You’re out of qi! Die!"

He charged, swinging his battleaxe in a frantic, sweeping crescent that cleaved through the air with a murky, suffocating earth-attribute roar.

I didn’t try to meet his weapon head-on. Activating the remnants of my peak Body Strengthening physical power, I kicked off the shale, gliding backward like an autumn leaf skipping across water.

Whoosh!

The iron edge missed my traveling tunic by half an inch, smashing into a three-foot boulder behind me and shattering it into pulverized gravel.

As I twisted in mid-air, my right hand slipped beneath the collar of my torn robe. My fingers brushed against the cool porcelain of the small jade vials Master had tucked into my pouch before we departed Lonely Cloud Peak.

Without breaking my retreat, I flicked open two stoppers with my thumb and tipped their contents straight between my lips.

Two Great Rejuvenation Spirit Pills and three Jade-Bone Flesh-Knitting Pills melted instantly upon my tongue.

A radiant, celestial warmth flooded inside my chest.

Unlike the crude, foul-tasting draughts peddled in normal trading houses, the medicines Master bestowed were pristine, high-tier sect elixirs crafted with profound alchemical skill.

The Great Rejuvenation Pills transformed into a thundering torrent of pure spiritual mist, rushing through my dried channels and replenishing my lower dantian with refined liquid essence in the span of three breaths.

Simultaneously, the Jade-Bone pills released cool, minty waves of medicinal potency that soaked into my scorched skin. The burning agony in my shoulder subsided, the torn flesh knitted closed beneath my sleeve, and the dull cracks along my ribs sealed themselves under waves of soothing vitality.

In that breathtaking heartbeat, I realized the terrifying, insurmountable advantage of possessing a transcendent background.

In the boundless wilderness of the cultivation world, talent was only the seed, cultivation resources, heaven-grade medicines, and ancient manuals were the rain and soil that determined whether you lived or rotted.

Look at Commander Hu.

The man was bleeding from shallow sword gashes along his bicep and thighs, his breath coming in ragged, wheezing gasps, yet he had nothing to rely on save his own strained blood qi. He couldn’t casually swallow high-grade spirit elixirs worth thousands of taels of silver in the middle of a rocky ditch. He was a starved border hound fighting an immortal disciple backed by an unshakeable peak.

I dragged the battle out for another dozen breaths, deliberately adopting a defensive, fluid stance to let the medicinal rivers finish scouring my channels.

Commander Hu hacked and cleaved like an enraged demon, but his strikes grew heavier, slower, and increasingly desperate as he realized my steps were becoming lighter instead of faltering.

"Why... why aren’t you dying?!" he screamed, his eyes bloodshot with hysterical rage.

"Because my Master did not give you permission to take my life," I answered coldly.

Clang!

The Autumn Water Frost Sword flared with blinding, cerulean brilliance.

Now fully replenished with pristine liquid qi, my blade swept upward in a flawless arc of the Frost-Bending Willow Sword Scripture. In a one-on-one duel, stripped of his companions’ pincer formations, a brute with a compromised foundation was entirely out of his depth.

SHING!

I ducked beneath his clumsy horizontal cleave, stepping into his guard with ghost-like speed. The frost-infused steel hummed as it sliced cleanly through both his wrists, severing his hands from his forearms and sending the heavy battleaxe spinning into the dirt.

Before his severed nerves could even register the pain to scream, my blade pivoted.

Slash.

A thin, pale blue arc sheared through his neck. Commander Hu’s massive, scale-clad body froze mid-stride. A fountain of scarlet mist sprayed into the air before freezing into a glittering shower of red ice crystals. His severed head rolled across the shale, coming to a rest against the splintered wheel of an imperial wagon, his bulging eyes permanently locked in raw, disbelieving horror.

Silence descended upon the gorge.

I exhaled a long, shuddering plume of frosty white mist.

My knees buckled. The terrifying adrenaline of the Asura Dao Heart ebbed, leaving behind a crushing wave of spiritual and physical exhaustion that threatened to drag me into the dirt. My vision blurred with dark spots, and every muscle in my calves screamed.

Yet, as my boots touched the blood-soaked earth, I clamped my jaw shut and forcibly locked my joints, refusing to fall.

I planted the tip of my frost blade into the gravel, leaning upon the hilt to keep my spine as straight and unbending as an ancient pine. I was Master’s first disciple, I could bleed, but I would never grovel in the mud before mortal soldiers.

I slowly raised my chin and looked across the clearing.

The two hundred and fifty surviving imperial infantrymen stood completely paralyzed. Ranks of heavy shields were lowered, notched spears hung limp in trembling hands, and every single pair of eyes was glued to me in sheer, suffocating terror.

To their mortal minds, the three Qi Condensation commanders were invincible, god-like masters who could split thick boulders.

Yet, in less than twenty minutes, this lone, veiled girl had methodically slaughtered all three, standing untouched amidst their frozen blood like a primordial goddess of slaughter.

"Imperial soldiers!"

A clear, thunderous voice cracked across the cliffs like an executioner’s bell.

High atop the barricades, Bai Ling stepped to the precipice, her twin short swords dripping with dark blood as she pointed toward the headless corpses below.

"Your commanders are dead! Your vanguard is buried beneath stone! If you continue to raise steel for Governor Yan, not a single one of you will leave this canyon alive! Drop your weapons and kneel, or be slaughtered where you stand!"

Her words shattered the last fragile remnants of their courage.

The imperial soldiers knew the war was over. Even if they threw their lives forward to swarm us, the narrow funnel, the remaining traps, and the terrifying veiled cultivator standing before them meant they would merely trade a hundred lives to inflict a few shallow cuts.

Clatter! Clang! Clatter!

First one, then a dozen, then hundreds of iron broadswords, curved sabers, and heavy tower shields were discarded into the gravel.

Two hundred and fifty imperial infantrymen fell to their knees in the mud, pressing their foreheads against the stones in absolute surrender.

A small handful of fanatical retainers, ten scarred squad leaders loyal to Governor Yan’s inner house, snarled and drew hidden daggers, roaring as they lunged toward the barricade in a suicidal fury.

Before their boots covered five paces, Bai Ling leaped from the ledge with the swiftness of an eagle, her twin blades shearing through four throats, while my frost sword lashed out with a wave of razor-sharp sword-qi that cleanly reaped the remaining six.

The battlefield fell utterly still.

The war was over. Against all odds, the Iron Valley Resistance had triumphed.

High up on the cliffs, the rebel defenders stood in stunned, breathless disbelief. For ten agonizing heartbeats, nobody made a sound.

Then, a ragged cheer broke out, swelling into a deafening, euphoric roar of triumph that shook the limestone walls. Men embraced each other weeping, refugees slammed their fists against their shields, and the cavern bells began to chime across the mountains.

Yet, amidst the wild celebration, both Bai Ling and I remained completely silent.

Standing ten paces apart in the valley of corpses, our eyes were fixed upon the narrow path leading to the upper ledges.

There, lying in pools of dark crimson, were fifteen rebel fighters.

Nine veteran scouts from Tie Shan’s squad, four young militia boys who had leaped to defend the rock-drops, and two elderly refugees who had hauled the tension levers.

No matter how meticulously Master had designed the traps, and no matter how desperately I had held the commanders down, the chaos of mortal combat had extracted its inevitable price.

Fifteen human lives, snuffed out in the dawn.

A soft rustle of silk cut through the wind. Without a whisper of displaced air, Master descended from the highest cliff spire, landing lightly between Bai Ling and me. His snow-white scholar robes were pristine, untouched by a single speck of dust or a single drop of blood, looking like a celestial entity walking through an earthly cemetery.

He folded his hands into his wide sleeves, looking down at the fifteen fallen rebels with quiet, detached eyes.

"This is war," Master spoke, his voice carrying the calm, absolute weight of someone who had seen mortal dynasties rise and fall to dust. "In the mortal realm or the heavens above, there is no such thing as a conflict where blood does not flow on both sides. The moment steel is drawn and armies march, this single outcome is entirely inevitable."

He turned his head slightly, his dark eyes locking onto Bai Ling’s pale, blood-spattered face.

"Tell me, Leader Bai," Master asked calmly, his tone devoid of mockery or pity. "Do you hate me? You know as well as I do that if I had raised a single hand, I could have extinguished their entire vanguard before they crossed the riverbed. Those fifteen men would still be breathing. Do you resent me for watching them die?"

The question hung in the cold morning air like an executioner’s blade.

Bai Ling did not answer immediately.

Beside them, my heart clenched tightly, my fingers gripping the hilt of the frost sword until my knuckles ached. I desperately wanted to hear Bai Ling’s answer, because inside my own chest, my thoughts were a tangled, agonizing storm.

It was certainly not the first time I had watched people die before my eyes, my entire clan had been butchered while I cowered beneath my mother’s corpse. But this time... I had sworn to protect them. I had broken my vow, condensed my spiritual qi, and poured every drop of my blood into the battle to become their shield.

Yet, fifteen of them were dead anyway.

A bitter, familiar pang of inadequacy clawed at my soul. Was my power still too weak? Was my sword still too blunt? I couldn’t make sense of the conflicting currents raging inside me, and I silently begged for Bai Ling’s words to provide an anchor for my confusion.

Finally, Bai Ling took a long, trembling breath, closing her amber eyes.

When she opened them, the raw grief remained, but the burning confusion was gone, replaced by an iron-clad, remarkable maturity.

"If I said I did not feel a trace of hatred in my heart, Senior... I would be lying to heaven," Bai Ling spoke softly, her voice steady despite the sorrow lacing her tone. "Those fifteen men were my brothers. They bled beside me for three years, shared their last crusts of moldy bread with me, and trusted me to keep their children safe. Watching them lie cold in the dirt tears my soul to pieces."

She paused, looking up directly into Master’s transcendent eyes.

"However, I know with absolute certainty that such resentment is completely unwarranted," she continued, shaking her head with a self-deprecating, bitter smile. "Senior is an exalted immortal who owes nothing to this mountain, nothing to our rebellion, and nothing to me. You had every right to ride past our gorge and ignore our cries entirely. Yet, you deigned to descend into our muck, guided our hands to build defenses, and allowed your peerless disciple to risk her life slaughtering three Qi Condensation monsters who would have butchered us in minutes."

She bowed her head, her voice firm and resolute.

"Without you and Sister Shen, all two thousand souls in that cavern would be dead or chained in slave pits right now. To demand that an immortal stranger step onto the battlefield to act as a personal shield for my incompetence... that would be the height of shameless, ungrateful stupidity. By that same logic, Senior could have easily chosen to assist Governor Yan instead, and we would have been erased from the earth before midnight."

She looked back at the corpses of her fallen brothers, her jaw tightening.

"This war was started by our hands, fought for our freedom, and chosen by our will. We entered this gorge knowing that death walked beside us with every sunrise. I have no right to blame Senior. This is the brutal, unyielding reality of war."

Listening to her words, a heavy clarity washed over my turbulent heart.

The suffocating guilt coiled around my chest slowly unraveled, and the desperate, white-knuckled grip on my sword loosened by a fraction.

The reality of war.

Strength was not an all-powerful miracle that guaranteed a world without loss, strength was simply the weight you threw onto the scales to tilt fate in your favor.

I looked up at Master, whose lips carried a faint, inscrutable smile as he listened to Bai Ling.

"Master..." I murmured softly, my voice barely audible beneath the wind. "Is there still more to this lesson? Is this what you brought us here to understand?"

Master turned his gaze toward me, his dark eyes carrying that vast, unfathomable depth that had drawn me out of the abyss.

"Time will tell, little wildcat," he smiled gently, reaching out to lightly brush a stray strand of blood-matted hair from my cheek. "The Dao is vast, and the mortal world has many faces. You only need to wait."

Before I could ponder his words further, a loud, cheerful shout echoed from the barricades as Tie Shan and a dozen wounded scouts came limping down the path, waving their arms in triumph.

Bai Ling took another deep breath, forcefully wiping the lingering tears and blood from her face. She smoothed down her leather armor, forced a bright, triumphant commander’s smile onto her lips, and turned on her heel to walk toward her roaring men, stepping forward to lead the celebration her people had bled so desperately to earn.