The next day, Cao Cao's army pressed the assault without mercy.
Zhao Yun rode up with a company of generals and called out to the defenders on the wall: "Don't keep struggling. Surrender now, or we'll be forced to take the city by force — and you may well be hurt in the process."
The men on the wall were nothing more than ordinary soldiers. How could they possibly hold against the combined pressure of Zhao Yun and Ma Chao's column?
And yet they couldn't surrender — their families were all hostages, held by Liu Bei himself.
A young soldier, seeing the older men refuse to budge, finally gritted his teeth and shouted back, "General Zhao Yun, it's not that we won't surrender! It's that Liu Bei is holding our families' lives over our heads!"
Whole families taken as collateral. Who would dare surrender under that threat?
Zhao Yun and the others froze at the words — and then their faces darkened with fury.
To threaten your own soldiers with the safety of their children, just to keep them fighting a war — was Liu Bei even still a man?
Jia Xu stepped forward from the ranks and addressed the men on the wall directly. "I understand your position. But for the sake of this world, and in the name of the Eternal God, we have no choice but to act.
From this day, Liu Bei will suffer ten thousand years in the underworld for what he's done.
Zilong — do it."
"Yes!"
Zhao Yun let out a slow breath. These were decent men, all of them. A pity.
He drew a deep breath, and the spear in his hand shot forward like a silver dragon given form. The city gate shattered to pieces in an instant. The rest of the army surged forward behind him. In the span of a few breaths, the city had fallen.
One side held believers blessed by a god. The other held ordinary mortals. There had never been any real contest to it.
Jia Xu studied the fallen city with a frown. "Something's not right here. Zilong, take your men and press on toward Huanglong — I suspect Liu Bei may already be trying to flee."
"What makes the strategist say that?"
"The city's defense was wrong from the start. Even a fool like Liu Bei knows he has to put up resistance. And yet only common soldiers manned that wall — that alone tells me he's already playing us."
"Understood. I'll move the troops at once."
Zhao Zilong took the order immediately, and within a single day his forces had taken seven cities. Just as Jia Xu predicted, Liu Bei really had already fled with a portion of his men — and, worse, had stripped the food stores and coffers from the two cities behind him on his way out.
Meanwhile, in the western reaches of the Kingdom of Shu, a column of troops pressed on toward Guishuang.
Sitting in his carriage, Liu Bei looked back at his homeland and sighed. This departure, he suspected, was one from which he'd never return in this life.
"My lord, don't despair. Even in Guishuang, the soldiers of Shu are a force to be reckoned with. We could yet carve out a mountain kingdom of our own and rule as king."
"Well. I suppose that's all that's left to us now."
Master and servant shared the thought, quiet comfort in a desperate hour.
But the heavens rarely grant what men wish for.
The demonized Ying Long, having devoured a swath of the heavens, found his power multiplied many times over — and by sheer coincidence, the spot where he chose to descend put him directly in Liu Bei's path.
The clear sky turned black the instant the dragon began its descent.
A boom split the air. Purple lightning cracked, deafening. The sky itself tore open, and an eight-headed demon king emerged in front of Liu Bei in all its monstrous glory.
"Ahh... delicious food!"
The hoarse voice dripped with naked hunger — Yuan Luzhi's hunger.
Liu Bei stared up at the monster, despair pooling cold in his chest. It hung there in the sky above him, blotting out the heavens with roiling black cloud, sealing off every path his army might have taken.
Never mind reaching Guishuang now. There was no road back to the Kingdom of Shu left either.
Sun Qian's feather fan had gone still in his hand. He'd taken to fanning himself out of habit since word of Liu Bei's death reached him, but somehow it never tasted the same anymore.
The soldiers of Shu were dropping where they stood, the miasma in the air eating away at their lives with every breath.
A gleam sparked in Yuan Luzhi's violet, magic-touched pupils. He opened his cavernous maw and swallowed the tens of thousands of soldiers whole in a single motion.
Liu Bei didn't even have time to feel regret. He was simply dead.
Far off in Jingzhou, Cao Cao saw the wrongness bleeding into the sky and knew at once what it meant.
The demonic aura was surging out of control.
He turned to the men around him. "Send word — every priest above immortal rank marches into the depths of the Kingdom of Shu, together. Yuan Luzhi has awoken."
"Yes, my lord!"
Thousands of immortal-rank priests converged from every corner of the land, all bound for one destination. Securing the Central Plains had always been Cao Cao's contingency — he'd prepared for exactly this scenario long ago. A believer of the gods couldn't afford to lean on divine favor alone, not forever.
Cao Cao raised the Dragon-Slaying Sword high and called out, "Believers — follow me!"
"Aye!"
Streaks of light tore across the sky — a fearless column of men, standing in stark contrast to the cruelty of a man like Liu Bei. Today, Cao Cao stood as the Holy Lord. The people wept openly, and whatever the danger, they surged forward behind him without hesitation.
"Let us pray for the High Priest."
"May the gods watch over him."
"It's the least we can do."
People fell to their knees before the temple of their own accord, murmuring prayers for divine protection.
...Begging the heavens for aid...
"Great God of Eternity, I am your faithful servant. Even now the High Priest marches against the demon lord Yuan Luzhi. I beg you — lend him even a trace of your divine power, and keep him safe..."
Words like these rose from countless hearts at once. Their combined faith kindled into flame and surged upward, streaming into the God Realm itself.
Within the Temple of Eternity, Liu Che had been deep in contemplation of the Law of Destruction, working through a chain of derived spells, when the prayers reached him. He opened his eyes slowly.
Glancing over at Mengxian, seated nearby, he said, "Xian'er, your world has already entered its final battle. Let's go take a look at the Lower Realm."
Mengxian was, in truth, what remained of Ying Long and Nvyun — pitiable, however one looked at it. Even accounting for how far the other party had strayed, he had once fought to protect that world too. Now, consumed by the miasma, death was the only path left for him.
...
And yet a true spirit could still be redeemed, even now.
"I understand. Thank you..."
Mengxian nodded, her form growing translucent before vanishing from where she'd stood.
She had come to this world for this very purpose. Now it was time to repay the debt she owed it — and if she descended herself, she might spare a portion of the coming slaughter besides.
Standing before the teleportation platform, Mengxian traced the runes into motion and flew toward her own world.
By the time she arrived, Cao Cao was locked in the thick of battle. On one side stood an eight-headed demon king towering thousands of meters into the sky; on the other, one small, fragile human figure.
Even so, to keep himself from being overwhelmed, Yuan Luzhi had opened a hidden realm of his own.
Since the moment he'd killed the Emperor, he'd carried a will bent wholly toward death. He seemed, in some twisted way, to credit Cao Cao's fortune in unifying the realm with lending a shred of reason to this lower world.
But he'd overlooked one thing.
Since devouring the immortals of the heavens, his own strength had grown considerably. Even with Zhao Yun and the others fighting at full strength now, holding their ground against him was proving a genuine struggle.
Hundreds of immortal-rank priests had already given themselves in sacrifice. Jia Xu worked without pause, urging the gods to lay protective wards over the soldiers to keep the miasma from creeping into their bodies.
"We can't keep this up, Jia Xu... we can't hold much longer!"
Cao Cao ground his teeth, the words bitter in his mouth.
"Hold a little longer — we've already brought down two of his heads! I believe we can still pull this off!"
Guo Jia unleashed a water-based technique at his side, pinning down the demon king's leftmost head. Xu Chu and the others surged upward at once, tearing the head to pieces.
———
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