The Inner city.
Xu Pingzhi rode on horseback, leading fifteen cavalrymen and fifty yudao guards on foot, patrolling the streets at an unhurried pace.
The yudao guards carried bows on their backs, crossbows at their sides, sabres hanging from their waists, their expressions solemn.
The inner city was under martial law. Commoners were forbidden to go out, and anyone who took to the streets without permission would be killed without mercy. This was not only to prevent panic among the people from causing chaos, but also to guard against enemy spies secretly inciting the populace and creating disorder.
As for saying there were no spies from the Yunzhou rebels in the capital, not even a three-year-old child would believe it.
“Boss, do you think the capital can hold? Listen to that commotion, it sounds like the south city has already fallen.”
To his rear right, a young yudao guard urged his horse forward and spoke in a worried tone.
Xu Pingzhi was preoccupied, immersed in his own thoughts, and did not hear him.
“Boss?”
The young yudao guard turned his head and called out again, raising his voice.
Only then did Xu Pingzhi suddenly come back to himself. Frowning, he said:
“Patrol the streets properly and do your duty. The rest will held up by the ministers, there’s no need to think too much about it.”
The young yudao guard grinned.
“If you said, ‘My nephew will handle it,’ then your subordinate would feel much more at ease.”
Xu Pingzhi was now a Qianhu Commander among the yudao guards, and one with real authority at that, enough to count as holding an important office, with high rank and great power.
Naturally, all this was thanks to his almost miraculous standard of “education”. Everyone in the capital knew that Xu Pingzhi, a Baihu centurion of the yudao guards, had brought up both the peerless hero Silver Gong Xu, and Xu Xinnian, a successful jinshi graduate.
The former was known to every household and needed no further introduction.
The latter was brilliantly talented, able to wield the brush in civil matters and bring order to the realm in martial ones, having repeatedly won military merit on the battlefield.
By now, no one privately mocked Xu Pingzhi for being an unfilial son and burying Silver Gong Xu, such a promising seedling for scholarship.
It was true that Silver Gong Xu had great scholarly potential, but making him practise martial arts had certainly not been a mistake.
The young yudao guard probed in a low voice:
“Boss, just give us a straight answer. Does Silver Gong Xu really have the confidence to hold the capital or not?”
Seeing that Xu Pingzhi did not respond, he tried provoking him.
“You don’t know, in the past few days when the capital’s defences were being laid out, all the brothers could tell that the rebel army was probably about to come. Everyone said Silver Gong Xu was at the end of his tether, and that the great victory at Xunzhou City had been the Great Feng’s last flash before death.
“Some even said there might not have been any great victory at all, and that it had just been a lie to deceive the commoners and small fry like us.”
At ordinary times, Xu Pingzhi would have defended his nephew and been easily tricked into letting something slip.
But now, he only sighed silently to himself.
His elder brother had fought all the way to the capital. That meant father and son would reach an end today.
Second Uncle Xu was not like Auntie. Auntie stood firmly and unwaveringly on the unlucky nephew’s side, after all, he was a child she had raised with her own hands.
But Xu Pingfeng was Second Uncle Xu’s own elder brother. Although the two brothers had long since become no better than strangers, now that matters had come to this, just thinking that only one of his nephew and elder brother could live, that blood kin would slaughter one another, made an irrepressible pain surge in Xu Pingzhi’s heart.
…
In the barracks within the city, Wei Yuan stood before a map of the capital, but his gaze was not on the map. Instead, he was looking at a bronze mirror in his hand.
The mirror was shaped like a half-moon, incomplete and broken.
Within it was reflected the scene of the great battle. This magical artefact, called the Huntian Divine Mirror, had been given to him by Xu Xinnian. It helped him direct operations from afar and observe the state of battle in real time.
Wei Yuan was now only in a mortal body, it was impossible for him to take part in defending the city.
At the capital’s four gates, the northern side was being defended by Zhang Shen of Cloud Deer Academy, Li Mubai, Xu Xinnian and the others. Their opponent was the former Yunzhou Regional Commander, Yang Chuannan.
Wei Yuan remembered that this man had come from a family of military officers. On the surface he had belonged to the Wang Clique. In his early thirties, he had been appointed Yunzhou Provincial Commander. Wei Yuan had not had much contact with him, but he remembered Yang Chuannan’s father, Yang Shao.
He had been a military talent exceptionally skilled at commanding troops and storming cities.
The Yang family possessed a military treatise called the Twelve Strategies for Breaking Cities. It had begun to be written in the generation of Yang Shao’s grandfather, passed down through three generations, and only in Yang Shao’s hands had it truly been completed.
It was said that the book categorised and integrated all siege strategies from ancient times to the present into twelve stratagems. If it were ever made public, the Yang family would be certain to leave its mark in the history of military strategy.
However, from the moment it was completed, the book had been designated “one family’s private arts” and was not passed on to outsiders.
“I can see today, that its name is not in vain.”
Wei Yuan glanced at the north wall, now covered in cracks. It was no longer suitable for defending. At most, after the time it took an incense stick to burn, Zhang Shen and the others would have to withdraw and, like the south city, switch to urban warfare.
To the west, Hengyuan and Chu Yuanzhen were leading the imperial guards and the remaining warriors of the shaman clans in defence. The fighting there was the most stable. The Corpse Gu Tribe had raised a force of corpse soldiers unafraid of death, and together with the elusive assassination techniques of the Dark Gu Division, they had repeatedly driven back the Yunzhou army.
On the western gate side, all Wei Yuan needed to guarantee was sufficient support in cannon shot and rolling logs.
To the east, the Gold Gongs of the Nightwatchers led the capital’s twelve guards and the Hundred Battles Battalion from the five camps of the imperial guard in defence.
The battle there was the fiercest. They were facing the heavy infantry of the Xuanwu Army. These hardened soldiers, armed to the teeth, were completely unharmed by firearms and arrows.
Relying on heavy armour and war sabres made from magical artefacts, even the elite among elites, the imperial guards of the palace city, were no match for them.
With the support of fourth rank and fifth rank martial artists on Yunzhou’s side, they were virtually unstoppable.
Fortunately, there were not many fourth rank experts, and the city wall there remained intact, so it could still hold.
The weakest defended south city had already fallen under Wei Yuan’s deliberate decision to leave an opening.
Wei Yuan had buried a large number of landmines in the south city, hidden two thousand armoured soldiers inside civilian homes, set up sixteen cannons along the main roads, and the people had long since been evacuated.
Once the Yunzhou army pushed deep inside, the Great Feng army would “shut the gates and beat the dog,” striking them hard.
But Qi Guangbo had always advanced steadily and cautiously. He had only sent neither too many nor too few troops to attack the south city, battling the defenders while also feeling out the roads.
The roads of the capital were complicated. If you charged in without understanding the layout, it would be easy for the Great Feng army to use its terrain advantage to split your forces apart and destroy them one by one.
“Not bad. A capable commander indeed.”
Wei Yuan calmly issued orders, deploying manpower according to the situation in each area, while also watching the scenes in the Huntian Divine Mirror.
“Observe Kou Yangzhou!”
Wei Yuan ordered in a deep voice.
The Huntian Divine Mirror muttered nonsense as it reflected Kou Yangzhou’s situation.
The reason he was not observing Xu Pingfeng was that doing so exceeded the mirror’s limits and would provoke backlash.
Kou Yangzhou, however, was their ally and would not reject Wei Yuan’s observation.
Wei Yuan took one glance and gave a slight shake of the head. It was not that there was any problem with Kou Yangzhou or Xu Pingfeng’s handling of the fight. In fact, both were experts, each countering the other’s moves in an extremely splendid exchange.
It was just that they still could not escape the old pattern of martial artists fighting practitioners of other systems, so there was nothing overly astonishing about it.
Probably only a martial artist like Xu Qi’an, with endless methods at his disposal, could break the impasse where, when martial artists fought other systems, neither side could do anything to the other.
However, Wei Yuan noticed one thing. As the two fought, they were moving further and further inward, towards the imperial palace.
“Observe Ji Xuan!”
Wei Yuan gave the order, having the Huntian Divine Mirror shift its view.
In the image, a dark figure appeared, hair flying wildly, his armour shattered and torn, exposing a robust upper body, unruly as a war god.
In his palm he held a jade talisman. With a gentle squeeze, he crushed it, and amid rising clear light, he vanished.
In the sky, only the figure in white remained. Sun Xuanji looked left and right for a moment, then suddenly whipped his head around and looked towards the imperial palace.
“So the aim is the imperial palace.”
Wei Yuan raised an eyebrow.
…
Above the imperial palace.
From Xu Pingfeng’s sleeve flew a small, square platform. With a light push from him, the instant it flew out, it crashed into the teleportation array.
The next moment, with a boom, it smashed down inside the imperial palace and turned into a high platform seven feet tall, and about ten feet in length and width.
A flash of clear light shone atop the platform, and Ji Xuan’s dishevelled figure appeared.
He had come directly to the imperial palace by means of a teleportation jade talisman, using Xu Pingfeng’s teleportation platform.
At the same time, pieces of bronze magical artefact components continuously flew out from the embroidered pouch at his waist.
The bronze components automatically fitted together in the air, assembling into a gigantic metal disc.
Kou Yangzhou’s sabre intent slashed repeatedly at the bronze artefact, shaking down hazy clear light, yet it could not damage this Master of Heaven’s Mandate artefact in the slightest.
Throughout the process, Xu Pingfeng also kept using teleportation arrays, defensive arrays, and other formations to block Kou Yangzhou’s fierce attacks. The bronze artefact did not take long to complete. After four or five breaths, it had finished assembling.
Xu Pingfeng lifted his foot and stamped down. The matching circular array of the artefact suddenly spread out, forming a domain of forward and reverse rotations that isolated the imperial palace within another world.
This had been a strategy decided long ago. Taking into account the existence of teleportation jade talismans, Xu Pingfeng had been constantly observing the fortune within the imperial palace, locking onto the female Emperor’s location.
Given his level, ordinary spells for concealing one’s aura simply could not escape his notice. Only a magical artefact left behind by the first Jianzheng, or a beyond-mortal spell in the domain of the Heaven Gu such as “Shifting Stars and Changing Constellations”, could hide it from his eyes.
…
“Fall back a thousand feet!”
With a great sweep of Zhang Shen’s hand, the dozen or so enemy soldiers who had just climbed onto the city wall, brandishing sabres and preparing to begin a slaughter, vanished bizarrely.
“Go back!”
Li Mubai flicked his sleeve, sending the arrows and cannonballs flying straight at him all back where they had come from.
Compared with the other gates, the north gate, guarded by Great Confucians from Cloud Deer Academy, had been held the most steadily, and its walls remained the most intact.
The Great Confucians had worked with the fourth rank experts among the defenders and defended the north gate very well.
But because “laws follow commandments” had been used too much, the faint clear light shrouding the two Great Confucians’ bodies had already thinned to the point where there was scarcely a drop left.
Their strength and spirit were on the verge of exhaustion. If this continued, once they lost the protection of righteous qi, the backlash of their spells would fall directly upon their bodies.
Whoosh.
Amid the shrill tearing of the air, a cold arrow wrapped in immense qi shot towards Zhang Shen’s chest.
The utterly spent Zhang Shen’s heart tightened. At that moment, Xu Erlang’s calm recitation sounded by his ear:
“Shift three feet to the left!”
Clear light surged and the spell moved. The arrow was forcibly pushed three feet to the left, grazing Zhang Shen’s arm as it flew past, then blasted a deep crater into the city wall behind him, sending shattered stones spraying.
Xu Erlang shook the ashes in his hand and let out a breath of relief.
After the battle of Xunzhou City, he had successfully advanced and had officially stepped into the realm of a sixth rank scholar. Scholars of this realm could freeload on other people’s abilities. Whatever they saw, they could commit to writing and record on paper.
They truly possessed considerable combat power.
At Xu Erlang’s age, this counted as exceptional talent.
In the Xu family, only his elder brother, that monster, could suppress him. At present, his father Xu Pingzhi was a seventh rank Refining Spirit martial artist.
Just now, he had been recording the spells of Zhang Shen and Li Mubai. He had only succeeded once, and after just fleecing the sheep, he had used the wool right back on the sheep itself.
Xu Erlang’s rank was low, so the effect of the spell he recorded was inferior to the original version, which was why he could only shift it by three feet.
Xu Erlang leaned out over the battlements and glanced down. The one who had fired the arrow was the former Yunzhou Commander Yang Chuannan.
This former Yunzhou Commander had displayed excellent military talent in the Qingzhou campaign. He thoroughly understood the art of war and excelled at storming cities and pulling down strongholds.
This bastard… Xu Xinnian gritted his teeth and said in a deep voice:
“Teacher, Mister Mubai, please rest for the moment. Leave this place to the Imperial Guards.”
There was no competing with martial artists in stamina. Even after fighting this long, the martial artists were still full of life, running back and forth atop and beneath the city walls.
Zhang Shen and Li Mubai were just about to nod when they suddenly sensed something. In perfect unison, they turned to look towards the imperial palace. There, a gigantic disc radiating boundless might was covering the entire palace.
The fifth rank and fourth rank experts present likewise sensed the vast power emanating from the Master of Heaven’s Mandate’s magical artefact.
They might not know what had happened, but all of them could detect the abnormality in the direction of the imperial palace.
“Her Majesty…”
Xu Xinnian’s face changed slightly.
Yang Chuannan, meanwhile, felt greatly relieved, and the corners of his mouth curled up. Since they had fought all the way to the capital, then no matter what, the head of the Emperor of the Great Feng had to be taken, otherwise this journey would have been wasted.
If the female Emperor were slain, could the Great Feng soldiers’ morale remain steady? Could the officials remain calm? Could the common people suppress the panic in their hearts?
Shoot the horse before the rider, capture the bandit chief before the bandits. This was a truth that had never changed since ancient times.
…
What’s going on… Chu Yuanzhen rose on the wind and shot straight into the clouds.
Master Hengyuan, his golden body shining brilliantly, leapt up and landed on a flying sword, blocking a cannonball for Chu Yuanzhen in the process.
“What artefact is this?”
Master Hengyuan stared gravely at the bronze disc in the distance that covered the imperial palace.
In the battle of Xunzhou City, members of the Heaven and Earth Society had been responsible for hunting the Yao Daoists of the Earth Sect, so they had never seen this artefact before.
“Her Majesty is in danger.”
Chu Yuanzhen’s expression was grave. He knew Huaiqing ought to have life-preserving means, but his instinct told him Huaiqing was in danger.
Before the Yunzhou army formation, Qi Guangbo drew a deep breath and called out loudly:
“Attack the city!”
There were still five thousand troops behind him, the last elite soldiers of Yunzhou.
To the sound of war drums, they poured out in full force.
The instant the bronze disc appeared, nearly every high-ranking cultivator in the capital sensed its presence.
Top-grade treasures like this all carried their own special signs. They could never remain inconspicuous.
Zhang Shen, Li Mubai, Chu Yuanzhen, as well as the experts among the Gold Gongs and Imperial Guards, all felt their hearts tighten.
Since the bronze disc had appeared in the direction of the imperial palace, then whether it was friend or foe, the palace had certainly come under attack.
Why had Wei Yuan still not ordered reinforcements back… Some experts loyal to the Emperor were so anxious they could hardly bear it.
Those who considered the bigger picture thought instead that if they returned to aid the palace at this moment, it would be equivalent to abandoning the city walls.
…
In the secret chamber beneath the Western Garden, Auntie’s heart suddenly trembled and she stammered:
“Lingyue, mum doesn’t know why, but all of a sudden I’m so frightened…”
As she spoke, she looked at her daughter and found Xu Lingyue’s face grave, her head slightly raised, her gaze fixed on the south-eastern direction above.
Beside her, the lovely elder sister Mu Nanzhi was looking in exactly the same direction as Xu Lingyue.
“What is it?” Auntie pressed.
Xu Lingyue said softly:
“Powerful experts have arrived.”
As for how powerful, she was not too sure. After all, she was mostly self-taught and lacked the corresponding knowledge and experience.
“They’re beyond-mortal experts. There are, there are three of them…”
Mu Nanzhi swallowed and finally felt a little afraid.
Although she had weathered great storms at Xu Qi’an’s side, the one surnamed Xu was not here now, and the enemy seemed to be nearby. However much the Flower God had seen, when it was time to cower, she still would.
Auntie said in a trembling voice:
“I-is it Xu Pingfeng?”
Her voice had risen sharply.
Hearing the name Xu Pingfeng, Dowager Consort Chen on the other side turned to look over, her expression complicated.
The women in the underground chamber began to stir. The timid ones whimpered and cried.
The bolder ones shouted that they wanted the Imperial Guards to escort them out of the palace, and the scene immediately became chaotic.
It was not only Auntie who had suddenly become afraid. They too had felt the pressure of beyond-mortal experts and had fallen into panic and fear.
The Empress Dowager drew a deep breath and rebuked them:
“Silence! Making such a clamour, what sort of decorum is this!”
Only then did the noisy voices quieten a little.
Among these women were consorts of the harem and female relatives of civil and military officials. Huaiqing had gathered them in the palace, nominally for protection, but in truth as hostages.
The Empress Dowager did not like her daughter Huaiqing, but since Huaiqing had entrusted these women to her, then as mistress of the harem, she ought to manage them properly.
The Empress Dowager continued, “His Majesty is still above us. Since she has not arranged for us to withdraw, she naturally has something to rely on. there’s no need to panic.”
Xu Lingyue immediately said:
“M—my big brother would never leave mum and I alone.”
These words were more effective than the Empress Dowager’s reassurance. The consorts and the female relatives of high officials finally calmed down and silently wiped away their tears.
Even the few who had been making the loudest fuss no longer insisted on fleeing.
The Empress Dowager glanced at Xu Lingyue, somewhat surprised.
Xu Lingyue returned a weak and delicate look.
…
Ji Xuan cut down the swarming Imperial Guards with a single slash, and then Xu Pingfeng’s transmitted voice sounded by his ear:
“The Jinluan Hall!”
While Xu Pingfeng was entangled with Kou Yangzhou, he stepped across layer upon layer of palace walls, treating the Imperial Guards as if they were nothing, passed through the Meridian Gate, and arrived at the square outside the Jinluan Hall.
Ahead, beneath the eaves outside the Jinluan Hall, atop the vermilion steps, stood the female Emperor in a dragon robe.
Looking at the incomparably graceful female Emperor, a trace of hatred flashed in Ji Xuan’s eyes. It was precisely this bitch and Xu Qi’an’s rebellion that had caused his younger brother Ji Yuan’s death.
Before dying, he had suffered every possible humiliation.
As for Wei Yuan daring to launch a surprise attack on Yunzhou and slaughter his clansmen, Ji Xuan had already learned of that from Xu Pingfeng.
As the “Seventh Prince”, he naturally had to avenge his clansmen too, slaughtering the Great Feng imperial clan, leaving neither man nor woman, old nor young.
But in truth there was no hatred in his heart, only anger that his base had been destroyed. Those clansmen in Yunzhou could die if they died. It would be best if even his own father were killed too.
Not only would Ji Xuan not be angry, he would instead applaud.
If the father lived, how could the son ever rise?
In any case, as far as the National Teacher was concerned, as long as one had imperial blood, it made no difference whom she supported.
Ji Xuan glanced at the teleportation jade talisman in the female Emperor’s hand and said with a sneer:
“Go on then, try teleporting.”
The female Emperor remained expressionless, looking down coldly with an icy gaze, and said:
“No need!”
Ji Xuan nodded and said:
“The Great Feng soldiers are fighting and dying outside. As ruler of a nation, how can you cower within the imperial palace?
“I’ll take you to meet the Great Feng soldiers.”
He intended to personally execute the female Emperor before the Great Feng defenders.
Ji Xuan wasted no words. His qi rippled, propelling him forwards as he rushed at Huaiqing.
Huaiqing still did not move. She raised her left hand. In it was an Earth Book fragment. Using the Earth Book fragment, she pointed above Ji Xuan’s head.
The next moment, a black shadow fell from the sky and smashed heavily between Ji Xuan and the female Emperor, making the square outside the Jinluan Hall quake violently. Countless bricks and stones were jolted into the air together, dust billowing.
Embedded in the ground was Agaruka Bodhisattva, hands pressed together, his body covered in golden blood.
Ji Xuan suddenly raised his head and looked towards the sky.
He saw the bronze artefacts shattering one after another.
He saw the “curtain” that had severed all connection between the imperial palace and the outside world disperse.
He saw Xu Qi’an standing high in the air, his whole body white as jade.
The artefacts left behind by the first Jianzheng had been forcibly blasted apart by a first rank martial artist through sheer violence.
…
From the imperial city to the inner city, from the inner city to outside the walls, every expert who had been watching this place, whether from the Great Feng side or the Yunzhou side, saw the bronze artefacts disintegrate.
Comments for this chapter. You will need a GitHub account. Please follow all terms and conditions of GitHub issues and maintain etiquette in the comments. Cookies are required for this functionality.
If you want to talk with other readers about Nightwatchers (or other cultivation type books) you can join our cultivation groupreading discord server!
I also have a Kofi, which for legal reasons is definitely for supporting my digital art only (promise!): ko-fi.com/yanxin ... plus I guess server space isn't free, and I don't want to put ads/trackers... ever, so thank you if you do!