Where Immortals Once Walked

He was no fool. Even while locked in battle with Wu Shaoyi, he had pieced it all together. It had most likely been that dog official, He Chunhua, who had stirred the pot behind the scenes, goading Wu Shaoyi and Pei Xinyong into joining forces against him.

Wu Shaoyi already bore old grudges against him. A little nudge was all it took to spark the feud.

Lu Yao pointed toward the western slope. “Chase them! Kill every last one of them, except that dog official!”

His lips peeled back in a savage grin. “That one, I’ll deal with myself.”

* * *

Suddenly, light filled the world.

Sweat dripped into He Lingchuan’s eyes. He rubbed them, only to realize that the sun had finally begun to emerge from the eastern horizon.

The first rays of dawn lit the cliffs and fell upon him.

Gasping for breath, he could scarcely believe it. With barely thirty-odd men and a dozen broken-down wagons, they had held for another full two hours!

No, not thirty men. There were only nine of them left. The gravely wounded could no longer fight and were sent to join the main column.

His changdao still dripped with blood, some having come from the brigands, while some had sprayed from his own fallen comrades.

He had watched his brothers go down one after another. Once, in the chaos, a soldier thought no one noticed and slipped onto a horse, trying to flee.

Zhao Qinghe spotted him and roared, dragging him down.

He Lingchuan arrived from the rear. Without a word of argument, he took the man’s head in a single stroke.

On a narrow path, the bravest triumphs.

If deserters were not slain, then there can be no true bravery.

Sure enough, as the skull rolled across the dirt, the atmosphere shifted. The soldiers looked at He Lingchuan with awe in their eyes.

He felt neither sorrow nor joy. With blade in hand, he returned to the slaughter.

Lu Yao, having gathered up what remained of Wu Shaoyi’s men, now drove them forward to chase the state troops. However, they were all blocked halfway up the slope by He Lingchuan’s team.

This was a point on the western mountain road that He Lingchuan had chosen carefully. So long as the wagons held, no matter how many the enemy had, only twenty or thirty could press the attack at once, while the rest were jammed behind.

It was precisely because of this that the fighting here had reached such a fever pitch.

The wagons could not be pushed aside, so the brigands tried hacking them apart.

After all, their side had no shortage of muscle.

However, the He Family’s wealth had always gone into a particular brand of understated luxury. Their belongings were all sturdy, well-made, and enduring. Even their wagons were fashioned of old redwood from Blade Mountain[1], steeped in medicinal oils and finished through a dozen painstaking processes. A common blade striking the planks left only a shallow chip, often sticking fast in the grain.

The panels were even treated to resist fire.

These wagons had been built to transport the He Family’s wealth over thousands of kilometers without incident. Even if the draft animals dropped dead, the wagons themselves would endure.

And now, these same wagons brought tears of frustration to the brigands’ eyes.

Moreover, He Lingchuan and his men did not simply sit idly by while the brigands hacked away. Spears thrust relentlessly from the gaps, forcing the brigands to shelter behind their shields, taking only brief swipes when they dared.

Among them, the shrewder ones quickly realized the state soldiers’ defense was too fierce. Hence, they resorted to halfhearted chops and feigned effort, working slowly and carefully, to avoid drawing danger onto themselves. As a result, progress was abysmal.

As Lu Yao watched all of this, his face turned black with rage. After cuffing a few of the laggards, he seized his axe and charged forward himself.

His strength was immense. Each of his swings bit far deeper than his men’s. But to raise that massive weapon left him exposed.

He had vigorous qi protecting his body and had shown no fear in dueling Wu Shaoyi. Yet here, against the random, jabbing spears of common soldiers, he was forced to be wary.

The reason for this was simple: these state soldiers were all supported by origin energy.

Origin energy was the natural bane of true energy and divine techniques. Unless one also wielded origin energy, it was unbearably troublesome to deal with.

This fact rankled Lu Yao. If the Divine Master were still alive, then his men could have also harnessed origin energy. In that scenario, this flimsy barricade, as well as these pitiful “weaklings” of soldiers, would have been no match for him.

His fury mounted, and with it, his blows grew heavier.

The first barricade was about to splinter when He Lingchuan shouted, “Fall back to the second line!”

Yes, he was once again following the stratagem from his dream. While Lu Yao had been busy consolidating Wu Shaoyi’s beaten men, He Lingchuan had quietly ordered the construction of the second and third barricades further up the slope.

His own people could climb over with ease. But when the brigands finally hacked apart the first line and Lu Yao himself stormed forward, he was stunned to find—

Another wall of wagons!

And there’s a third!

Command came naturally to He Lingchuan now. The soldiers looked to him as their rallying point. He fought alongside them, bolstering their spirits, and the barricades truly eased the pressure. With his hand both harsh and merciful—the soldier’s execution earlier keeping any thoughts of deserting at bay, and his leadership giving them hope—they had managed to endure until now.

But as dawn broke, the third barricade was near collapse.

They had run out of resources, and the third line had been thrown together with villagers’ ox carts. They were shoddy and mismatched, and they were nowhere near as sturdy as the He Family’s wagons.

Some carts had compartments made of nothing more than a single layer of thin planking. They were so flimsy that the brigands’ spears punched right through. One thrust nearly skewered Mao Tao’s arm.

He recoiled in fright. “Young Master, we can’t hold much longer!”

Though Zeng Feixiong had left command to him and Zhao Qinghe, somehow, the authority had long since shifted to He Lingchuan.

Now, under Lu Yao’s whip, wiry brigands swarmed like monkeys, scaling the barricade to engage in close combat.

Bodies lay strewn across the ground, friend and foe alike.

And so, the rhythm of battle once again felt eerily familiar to He Lingchuan.

Across the wagons, Lu Yao’s bloodshot eyes locked on his. “Run faster, boy! Once I catch you, I’ll take you and your father’s heads and drink from your skulls!”

He Lingchuan touched his own head, then glanced at the rising sun cresting the eastern ridge. He sighed. “Mount up. Retreat!”

Unlike in the dream, this time he would not cling to the last moment.

Dreams were dreams. Reality was reality.

In his dreams, he could die and rise again, and there would be basically no consequence. In life, death came but once.

Finally! The soldiers let out ragged breaths of relief, some nearly weeping as they scrambled into their saddles.

The spellcaster in their ranks sprinted ahead about fifteen meters, dropped to his knees, pressed his palms to the earth, and began casting.

At Zhao Qinghe’s direction, the others channeled their origin energy into him.

Light flared around the spellcaster, bright and thick.

Then, frost spread from beneath his hands, ice crawling steadily down the slope.

Yes, even in retreat, He Lingchuan had no intention of letting their enemies off lightly.

“Faster, faster!” He Lingchuan urged. “We’re right by a lake! The air here should be full of moisture! Cast faster!”

Sweat streamed down his back as the barricade groaned under assault.

“My true energy is limited. It can only go this far...” the spellcaster gasped. His techniques were honed for killing, not paving roads!

Limited true energy? The words struck He Lingchuan like a spark. He immediately pulled something from his breast and shoved it into the man’s mouth. “Will that do?”

A deep-green profound crystal gleamed in his hand.

At the critical moment, Young Master He still had goods to spend.

1. This probably isn’t some mountain of blades, but I didn’t want to transliterate 刀山 as Mount Dao, since 道山 seems to appear at some point, and that will probably be what I name Mount Dao, as the Dao in that name is what you readers are more familiar with in terms of Dao in the Great Dao. ☜