Yet this so-called great war, in its opening, did not unfold as biographies and novels described — with clear declarations shouted before the battle lines and grand, sweeping clashes of arms.
The true fighting spread quietly and imperceptibly, like a single spark among the withered grass of late autumn, creeping silently outward.
At first, it was merely small-scale friction and probing between the patrol squads at the resource points along the border edges of the two stockades.
But soon, the two sides became like gamblers who had gone bloodshot with fury, ceaselessly raising the stakes and escalating their firepower in the shadows.
A Rank 1 cultivator died yesterday, and today a Rank 2 squad would be sent out in retaliation.
One had barely seized a vein of ore before it would be met with an overwhelming, sky-blanketing assault of Gu worms.
Without anyone quite realizing it — like a frog boiled slowly in warming water — Black Blood Stockade had been dragged completely into a fathomless quagmire of war.
Worse still, the intelligence coming back from the front lines had turned exceedingly grim.
In the contact of these multi-front engagements, the upper echelons of Black Blood Stockade discovered, to their horror, that the number and firepower of the enemy's reinforcing Gu Masters faintly surpassed even those of deeply rooted Black Blood Stockade!
Anyone could see that this was in no way a foundation that White Bone Stockade alone could muster.
That old fox Li Mang — none knew what earth-shaking, weighty profits he had promised — had secretly won over several small and medium stockades in the surrounding area, forging an exceedingly vast and tight punitive alliance!
Under this broadly spread, everywhere-leaking offensive, Black Blood Stockade's greatest weakness was laid bare in bloody clarity.
Though at the very top tier of combat strength they possessed the Rank 4 Patriarch Lin Cang — a pillar mighty enough to crush all opposition absolutely — in their reserves of mid-tier strength, those Rank 2 and Rank 3 Gu Masters were clearly insufficient in both quality and quantity, utterly unable to sustain such a high-intensity, multi-front war of attrition.
The alliance's tactics were even more slippery and venomous.
Like a swarm of maddening flies, they employed the nauseating strategies of "besiege the point to strike the relief" and "avoid the solid, strike the hollow."
The moment Lin Cang of the Rank 4 realm personally arrived at any defensive line, the alliance's Gu Masters there would immediately withdraw like a receding tide, refusing all direct confrontation.
And the instant Lin Cang left to relieve some other position, they would once again, like jackals catching the scent of blood, launch frenzied assaults on Black Blood Stockade's weakly defended sectors.
Utterly enraged by this stick-of-taffy tactic, Lin Cang finally lost his patience.
"Since you all love to hide, then this old master will strike straight at your den!"
Lin Cang made an exceedingly bold decision.
To catch the bandits, first catch their king.
Alone, wielding the world-destroying might of the Rank 4 realm, he charged straight for the White Bone Mountain headquarters a hundred li away, intent on carrying out a decapitation strike against Li Mang!
Yet when he had blasted apart White Bone Stockade's proud bone gate in a rampage all the way in, killing his way into their nest, the scene before his eyes sent his raging heart plunging instantly to the bottom of the valley.
The place was deserted — its people gone, its halls empty!
Across all the vast expanse of White Bone Stockade, apart from a few corpses of the old, weak, sick, and disabled left behind for appearances, there was not a single living elite to be found!
White Bone Stockade had, without anyone realizing it, resolved with utter finality to relocate every last one of its important combat forces and materials. And Patriarch Li Mang had vanished without a trace.
This was the first venomous scheme Li Mang had laid against a Rank 4 powerhouse — "bloom on every front, break the whole into scattered parts"!
He had cast aside his century-old foundation outright, transforming the entire clan into countless sharp daggers, scattering them thoroughly throughout the ten-thousand-mountain wilderness that stretched hundreds of li in every direction.
With no fixed nest, Lin Cang's world-destroying capacity for a fixed-point strike instantly became a fist thrown into cotton.
Though Lin Cang, having struck at empty air, was furious enough to shatter the throne of White Bone Stockade's grand hall with a single palm, he was after all a hero of his generation, not some mediocrity incapable of adapting.
After his brief rage, he swiftly composed himself, grasped the enemy's "break the whole into scattered parts" movements, and changed his strategy with utter decisiveness.
Lin Cang began to devote his efforts to building a "defensive axis."
Relying upon Black Blood Stockade's several most concentrated, most central resource points, he drastically contracted his defensive lines and abandoned those irrelevant outer territories.
At the same time, he forcibly requisitioned elites from the various halls, organizing them into highly mobile Gu Master squads to serve as roving support forces gliding between the defensive lines — forming a tight network capable of reinforcing one another at any moment.
This move curbed the alliance's sneak attacks to the greatest possible extent. For a time, the war fell into an exceedingly brutal stalemate of flesh and blood.
But a prolonged defense inevitably yields ground. To break the deadlock — and moreover to spur those clansmen whose hearts had grown timid into unleashing a will to fight to the death — Lin Cang formally posted the Military Merit Board in the council hall.
Slay an enemy leader, and rewards would be granted according to one's achievements.
The rewards on the board were dazzling in their variety — vast quantities of Primeval Stones, rare Gu-refining materials, and even, not infrequently, exceedingly precious Rank 3 and Rank 4 Gu worms!
Kill one enemy Rank 2 Gu Master:* 100 military merit.
Kill one enemy Rank 3 Gu Master:* 1,000 military merit.
Should one manage to slay a chieftain-level figure of the enemy alliance, not only would the military merit be doubled — one would also obtain a Special Reward Token, redeemable for any of the highest rewards in the clan's treasury!
Under a heavy reward, there must be a brave man.
Gazing at that gold-glittering Military Merit Board, the eyes of every Gu Master across all of Black Blood Stockade turned bloodshot.
The original mood of dreading battle was replaced by extreme greed. Every one of them yearned to carve out a heaven-reaching road for themselves within this meat grinder.
And amid this fervent tide, the hidden piece that Lin Mu had long been maneuvering into place was finally, and exceedingly smoothly, set down.
Under Lin Mu's covert direction and manipulation, Lin Feng used the privilege he still retained to successfully apply for the establishment of an independent mobile support squad enjoying an extremely high degree of autonomy.
The nominal leader of this squad was, naturally, the currently ascendant Lin Feng.
But in its personnel composition, it appeared exceedingly lean.
The entire squad numbered only five: Lin Feng, Lin Mu, Lin Wuxie, Lin Wan'er, and one External Affairs Hall retainer forcibly dragged in "to make up the numbers" — Lin Ping.
Lin Mu had not, of course, pulled Lin Ping into the squad in hopes that he would risk his life on the front lines.
First, it was to forcibly fill out the five-man roster, preventing the clan's upper echelons from inserting an outsider into the squad to spy out their secrets.
Second, it was to use this shell to shelter Lin Ping with full legitimacy.
Before the campaign set out, Lin Mu, under the pretext of "guarding the squad's important materials," stationed Lin Ping most securely within an absolutely safe fortress in the deep rear of the defensive line.
And the remaining four were all genuine Rank 2 combat forces!
This highly mobile support squad, which appeared to hold Lin Feng in the position of honor, in truth deferred entirely to Lin Mu's will where actual decision-making and command authority were concerned.
Though Lin Wan'er, within the squad, keenly sensed this exceedingly bizarre master-servant relationship, she was an exceedingly clever woman. She had long since been bound to Lin Feng's war chariot — to rise together, to prosper together.
And so, sensibly, she chose to hold her tongue and merely see to the healing work that was her own duty.
Owing to the extremely high degree of autonomy they enjoyed, the four-man squad had scarcely begun roving the front lines before it intercepted its first piece of internal intelligence, worth its weight in cities:
An elite squad of White Bone Stockade's, led by a Rank 2 peak stage Gu Master, was preparing to exploit the cover of night to launch a surprise raid on a key transfer resource point along Black Blood Stockade's defensive axis!
Behind a concealed mound of earth, Lin Mu looked at the intelligence report in his hand, not the slightest trace of fear in his eyes.
Faced with this rather threatening sneak attack, Lin Mu made his decision with utter decisiveness.
He did not choose passive defense and mutual attrition. Instead, he turned the enemy's scheme against them, leading the squad to lie in ambush ahead of time along the path the enemy raiders were bound to pass.
The night was deep, the cold moon hooked like a sickle.
The frigid mountain wind swept through the ravine, wailing like the weeping of ghosts.
The four of Lin Mu's squad had already clamped down hard on every trace of their auras, like four lifeless statues, lying prone in silence within the shadows on either side of the dense forest.