THE SYSTEM IS NOT MINE

“Y... no...”

“No,” Kaizi said, clenching his fists. His hands still shook, but his eyes were firm in his answer.

“Then when can I announce it?” Long Lan’s eyes were on Kaizi, awaiting an answer. He had not come here just to get a no for an answer.

Kaizi took a breath and said, “I will tell you. Be patient.”

Long Lan raised his brows. Before he could open his mouth again, Kaizi walked away in a hurry.

After walking for a while, Kaizi entered a restaurant and sat alone at a table in a corner.

Time passed. Around evening, he finally stood up and walked back to the military base.

He saw Leo returning along with the troops. Their morale was down. He did not ask, but it was visible: today they had been defeated. He walked toward Leo and asked, “Did General Hecta by any chance arrive at the battlefield directly?”

Leo looked at him and shook his head.

“Seems like something went wrong. I will send a letter to the Royal Palace,” Leo said.

“What about this fake Mofu thing? When are we going to reveal the truth, then?” Kaizi looked at Leo expectantly, hoping he would finally agree to reveal the truth.

“Indeed, we can’t hide it forever,” Leo said, pausing. “So we will send Mofu to the capital.”

“Leo...” Kaizi raised his voice.

The troops and other commanders present there looked at them.

“Shh... What are you doing? You’re attracting unnecessary attention,” Leo said in a low voice.

“Tell me, how will adding another lie help? How is sending Mofu to the capital different from revealing the truth?” Kaizi said.

“That... it’s simple. If we reveal the truth, the troops will not only lose morale but also lose trust in us. By sending Mofu to the capital, we can bury the truth while maintaining that trust,” Leo said.

“Enough of this bullshit,” Kaizi said.

“I can no longer take this. First you hid my friend’s death, and then...”

Kaizi was immediately pushed away by a burst of wind qi.

The man reeking of wine stood beside Leo as he looked at Kaizi, who had been pushed away.

“Commander! Forgive my friend’s bad behavior.” The man reeking of wine bowed to Leo.

Kaizi, who had been pushed a few meters away, stood up, glared at the man reeking of wine, and said, “Jobu, what are you doing?”

“I should be asking that question, not you. What are you doing?” Jobu asked.

Kaizi was about to open his mouth when Mofu’s other companions came to stand beside him.

“Kaizi, calm down for now. It’s not time to erupt. We will discuss it calmly,” one of them said.

“Yes, Kaizi. We don’t have to make a scene. We don’t believe Commander Leo would be unreasonable if we requested him calmly.”

“Calm down? This guy wants to make another lie!” Kaizi shouted.

“Which friend’s death? What happened?” one of the foot soldiers whispered to another in the crowd.

“Could it be...?” one soldier wondered.

“What do you mean, ‘could it be’?” The other, who was next to him, looked at him with wide eyes.

“Kaizi’s friend? A lie...”

“I heard Shin saying our General is dead,” the soldier said.

Silence fell around them.

“But they were lying... to deceive us? There is no way the General is dead. I saw Muskaan meet the General myself, and he is recovering there.”

Leo, who was looking at the troops, sighed.

Then he looked at Kaizi.

“You have done it,” Leo said.

“Let me fulfill your wish, then.” Leo leapt into the sky.

“Listen, soldiers of Noir.”

“Today, I am going to make an important announcement.”

“We have been deceiving you.”

“First of all, I would like to apologize for that.”

“The truth is...”

Leo paused.

“General Mofu is...”

Everyone held their breath as they looked at Leo.

“Dead.”

Silence fell across the troops.

“We had no other choice but to hide the truth temporarily.”

“It’s unforgivable.”

Leo paused.

“But it was a necessity.”

Leo said, then stayed silent.

“And I request that others not ask about or disclose anything regarding the person behind the fake Mofu. He is just following my orders.”

“Also, General Hecta will be arriving soon.”

Hearing the name General Hecta, some people’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“If anyone has anything to say, come to me.” Leo looked at Kaizi and his companions as he flew back into the military base.

After Leo left, everyone looked at Kaizi.

But no one spoke.

“It’s as he said. You were all deceived,” Kaizi said.

“And the person behind the fake Mofu is Yan, a foot soldier from Han Defu Unit,” Kaizi said before leaving.

For a minute... no one spoke.

Then someone in the crowd shouted, “How could they do this to us?”

“They have fooled us. What else might they be hiding?” another added.

After going inside the military base, Leo rushed directly to the medical cabin.

Yan stood up as soon as he saw Leo enter hurriedly.

“You can stop impersonating right now. You have to leave here right now.”

“Go away from the military for a while,” Leo said.

“What happened?” Yan asked.

“Your identity as the fake Mofu has been exposed. Leave right now,” Leo said.

“I am not leaving,” Yan said.

“But...” Leo looked at Yan; however, Yan looked straight into his eyes.

“Then do as you wish,” Leo said and left the camp.

After Leo left, Yan came out of the private room.

The soldiers in the medical camp were confused as they watched Yan come out of the private room, since they had not seen him enter.

“I am Yan,” Yan declared.

Murmurs began in the medical camp. Just then, some new soldiers entered the medical camp.

“There he is...”

“The one who fooled us into believing Mofu is alive.”

They immediately pointed at Yan.

“Yan? Yan? I think I heard it somewhere...”

“Isn’t that Mysterious Senior Yan?” one of the soldiers in the camp shouted.

“What Mysterious Senior?” another asked.

“There were rumors that he killed his way through the enemy and killed many soldiers. No one knew how many,” another soldier said.

“Bullshit. I bet this is a lie as well, just like how he lied while impersonating Mofu,” the soldier said.

“It is not a lie...” a soldier said.

“I was there... along with Han Defu Unit...”

“I saw it with my own eyes. He was sitting among the corpses,” one soldier said as he recalled the events of that day.

Yan stood there but did not say anything while everyone looked at him.

Then he began to walk. Unknowingly, the soldiers moved out of his path.

He walked through them, and no one stopped him.

Somewhere in a barracks, five soldiers gathered around a female archer.

“Muskaan, I heard you met Yan and showed him archery,” one of them said.

“What was he like? Why was he the one chosen to impersonate Mofu? Why not me?” he asked.

Muskaan stared at him and said, “I don’t know...”

“All I know is that he wanted to learn archery, maybe,” she said.

“Hmph. I know that damn Leo favors him. If I had gotten closer to Leo instead of Yan, I would have been chosen.”

When Yan walked back to Han Defu Unit, hundreds of soldiers from the unit, along with the soldiers who had followed him in that battle, stood there.

Chen Yu was at the front.

Chen Yu walked forward, stopped in front of Yan, and then suddenly knelt.

Yan’s eyes widened.

Then all the other soldiers knelt behind Chen Yu.

“Welcome back,” Chen Yu said.

Then Chen Yu stood up and looked at Yan.

“One more day is left before our punishment is over, but I am going to request Commander Leo to return us to the battlefield for tomorrow’s battle.”

Chen Yu said.

Yan nodded. Then Yan and Chen Yu both walked inside the barracks.

Only after they entered the barracks did the other soldiers stand up.

Gwalior stood, looked at them, and shouted, “Tomorrow, we will fight our way through and show others what we are capable of.”

That night, everyone in the Han Defu Unit ate at the tables except Chen Yu.

Most others looked at them, specifically Yan, and murmured, “That’s the guy who pretended to be Mofu.”

At a table decorated with lanterns, a woman complained, “How can they do this to us?”

“Just why? They have lied to us, and worse, they even erased Mofu from the world without even his grave carrying his name.” Another man at the same table said while he put his hand on the table.

“Talking about the grave, I heard Kaizi and a few soldiers went there and renamed it to General Mofu and mourned there,” the woman replied.

“We missed it. Let’s go to the grave tomorrow after the battle with flowers,” the man said as they ate.

At the same time, Chen Yu approached Leo.

“Commander Leo, I request the deployment of Han Defu’s unit for tomorrow’s battle,” Chen Yu said.

“You want me to stop your punishment?” Leo glared back at Chen Yu.

“Yes,” Chen Yu said.

Leo rubbed his weary eyes and sighed.

“So be it, but fight near the special shield unit. I will be around there.”

Leo said.

“Thank you, Commander.” Chen Yu bowed and left.

While walking back to his barracks, Chen Yu heard, “General Mofu is dead. We don’t have a General. Who can replace him?” one soldier complained as he carried a lantern.

“Did Leo not say General Hecta is on her way?” the soldier walking next to him said.

“Do you really believe him after what he has done?” the soldier carrying the lantern said, while the other fell silent.

Chen Yu walked past them, but the question of who would replace the General remained in his mind.

The next day, the sun’s rays fell on the battlefield.

The Noir army marched toward the east.

“Where is General Hecta?” one soldier said.

“You guys really believe the higher-ups? Probably she is not coming,” others mocked.

Right then, they heard:

“Charge!” Leo issued the order.

“Charge!” other commanders shouted as well.

For a moment, no one responded. Then they charged, but Shin was already charging at them.

Both armies collided.

Muskaan took out a bow and aimed at a Shin soldier, but her arrow missed.

She took another arrow, and it missed as well.

For the fourth arrow, she finally hit the enemy, but she did not feel anything.

Similarly, Noir soldiers were mostly defending. No one attacked with full power.

Noir was being pushed back. Some soldiers barely followed the commanders’ commands, and most did so reluctantly.

Genie hovered above the battlefield along with a soldier.

Then the soldier pointed in a certain direction, where a group of Noir soldiers fought on sandy soil.

Around them, a special Noir unit holding large shields was deployed.

“There he is... he’s the one.”

Genie narrowed his eyes, then he moved.

Wind qi surrounded him as he flew toward the target.

At the same time, Han Defu Unit saw two men rushing toward them from the air.

The other soldiers on the battlefield also noticed a Core Formation commander rushing toward a specific point.

Chen Yu fought the enemy while wondering about the question the soldiers with the lantern had asked: Who can replace the General? Then his eyes narrowed. His legs trembled, and he instinctively stepped back.

The approaching figure reminded him of Han Hian. For an instant, the memory overwhelmed him.

But before he could react, the two men swept past him.

Yan calmly looked at the incoming danger, then fell to the ground and grabbed something from it with his left hand while he held his sword in his right hand.

Genie immediately grabbed Yan by the neck and leaped into the sky.

Yan felt as if the air around him was pressing down on him, but he gripped his hands tightly, neither letting go of the sword nor the thing that he had picked up from the ground.

Right then, a crescent-shaped wind cutter came from Yan’s left side.

Genie raised his right hand. The wind cutter and his wind-coated hand collided.

The resulting wind brushed across Yan’s skin, giving him bloody scratches, while the other soldier was minced to pieces.

But Yan’s eyes were on Genie. Genie growled in pain as the winds from the cutter hit his right arm, breaking away the barrier on the arm.

At the same time, Genie’s qi barrier loosened at other parts as Genie concentrated the qi into his arm.

An opening.

Yan threw the sand he was holding into Genie’s eyes.

“Argh!”

For a moment, Genie lost his concentration. His qi barrier was disrupted.

At that exact moment, Yan swung his sword upward. The blade crossed Genie’s neck.

Time itself felt as if it had been paused.

Then blood spilled.

Genie’s head separated from his body before he could reopen his eyes.

Silence fell across the battlefield.

No one could believe what they saw.

A spiritual qi foundation cultivator killed a Core Formation cultivator.

“That’s impossible,” a Core Formation cultivator murmured as he took two steps back.

At that moment, people, whether from Shin or Noir, stopped fighting and looked at their commanders, then at Yan, who fell from the sky to the ground along with the headless body of Commander Genie.

But Chen Yu’s thoughts drifted to the past.

The conversation with Leo replayed in his mind.

“Do you know what a General represents?” Leo looked at Chen Yu.

“Power. Hierarchy,” Chen Yu replied.

“No, Chen Yu,” Leo replied. “It’s much more than that.”

“Do you know that you’re not the only one afraid of battle and death?”

“Everyone is.”

“But they get the courage, the courage to pierce through the enemy.”

“Do you know what the source of their courage is?”

“No,” Chen Yu replied.

“It’s the leader.”

“The General.”

Chen Yu looked at the soldiers around him. Some trembled just as he did.

Then he looked at Yan, who had just slain an enemy commander far beyond his cultivation level and was bleeding from his scratches. But his eyes were calm, and his presence was overwhelming despite him not being the strongest.

The soldiers needed someone they could believe in. For the first time, Chen Yu understood what Leo had meant.

He took a deep breath and shouted, “GENERAL YAN HAS SLAIN THE ENEMY COMMANDER! ATTACK!”