Chapter 13 A Twenty-Year Conspiracy

The grassland cavalry was routed. Under Murong Xun's successive charges, which felt as ferocious as those of a god of slaughter, they were struck with sheer terror and ultimately fled in a massive panic.

During those few rounds of frontal charges, the number of people he killed directly was not actually very large; rather, a significant number of them were frightened so badly that they fell off their horses and were trampled to death by their own companions.

After the grassland cavalry was routed, the two Grandmasters chose to flee rather than continue entangling with them.

The crowd pursued them for a short distance, and after leaving behind several more corpses, they finally called it a day.

The grassland cavalry had arrived with great momentum, but thanks to the desperate resistance of numerous martial artists combined with the repeated massacres by a powerhouse like Murong Xun, they ended up fleeing in utter disarray.

"Hoo—"

Murong Xun let out a long breath, a visible stream of white mist shooting from his mouth.

At this moment, waves of scorching heat radiated from his body, and anyone standing close to him could immediately feel that intense warmth.

This was the result of his inner qi circulating at high speeds for a long time, causing his body temperature to rise sharply.

Moreover, the clothes all over his body could practically be described as blood-soaked robes.

Part of this blood belonged to the grassland cavalry, and another part belonged to the pugilists who had followed him.

Do not be fooled by the impression of a complete victory; in reality, one only needed to look at the number of surviving martial artists to understand the truth.

Out of the several thousand people who were there at the beginning, only a few hundred remained.

The initial baptism of arrow rain had caused the highest casualties. Many people had no cover, and caught completely off guard, they died on the spot.

Among them, the low-level pugilists who had just rushed over to watch the spectacle met the most miserable fate.

Faced with such a situation, they possessed virtually no ability to counterattack.

Even if they managed to escape the first wave of arrow rain by sheer luck, during the subsequent close-quarters combat, multiple charging cavalrymen slashing at them meant they might not even successfully mount their horses before being hacked to death.

Those who had previously cheered and laughed aloud upon beating back the enemy suddenly saw their expressions darken when they looked at the devastation covering the ground, losing every trace of a smile.

"Amitabha, may all benevolent donors attain ultimate bliss!"

Puzhi's kasaya had long since been torn to shreds and stained with blood during the battle, prompting him to discard it. Dressed now only in his inner tunic, he pressed his palms together with a compassionate expression, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the wrathful Vajra he had appeared to be moments ago.

"Sigh!"

Standing behind Murong Xun, Zhao Ze let out a heavy sigh. Seeing so many people dead, his heart felt deeply heavy.

At this moment, the members of the Furious Dragon Gang were all standing behind him, though their numbers had dwindled from the initial twenty-odd people down to just twelve. One of their Xiantian experts had perished earlier, and the Houtian members had suffered heavy losses as well, with the survivors all nursing fairly severe injuries.

Two figures drifted down gracefully in front of the group—the two Grandmaster martial artists.

There were also traces of blood smeared across their chests.

Previously, they had desperately wanted to break away from their opponents, even willing to risk their lives in combat, but because of Agudo's death, the two grassland Grandmasters had fought with equal desperation, leaving the two human Grandmasters with no way to come to the rescue.

"The situation is critical now, and this place is not suitable for a long stay. We should return within the pass as soon as possible. If those grasslanders regroup and make a comeback, I fear we will no longer have the strength to resist them."

One of the Grandmasters suggested.

Although the grassland cavalry had been shattered and routed just now, their actual losses were not as heavy as one might imagine. The main force remained largely intact; their morale had merely been suppressed for the time being.

However, the martial artists were too few in number to pursue them too deeply. If they waited for the grasslanders to recover, their current numbers would not be enough to fight their way out of another encirclement.

"That sounds reasonable. Let us return within the pass first before making further decisions!"

Puzhi nodded in agreement.

The other influential leaders had no objections either.

All eyes turned toward Murong Xun.

"Let it be so!"

He had nothing else to say.

There were horses available here, and it was not too far from Yandang Mountain City, making the return journey convenient.

Yet, a persistent gloom hung over everyone's hearts.

Why had the enemy managed to march all the way to their doorstep with a force of twenty thousand—a scale of troops already sufficient to attempt storming a strategic pass—without the garrison of Yandang Mountain City showing any reaction whatsoever?

To say they were unaware would be utterly laughable. The enemy had practically reached their front door; if they still knew nothing about it, Yandang Mountain City would have no reason to exist and would have been breached countless times by now.

Still, this was not the time to dwell on that. The crowd hurriedly gathered dry branches and grass, piled all the corpses together, and burned them on the spot.

There was simply no other choice. With several thousand—nearly ten thousand—bodies piled up, leaving them unattended could easily trigger a plague.

Yandang Mountain City was not far from here, and if a plague spread over there, millions of soldiers and civilians would be affected!

Although Central Plains people valued the custom of burying the dead for eternal peace, under the current circumstances, this was the only viable course of action.

They certainly could not go about digging mass graves; they lacked the tools, and with such a massive quantity of bodies, who knew how long the digging would take? By then, the enemy might have already returned, plunging them into even greater danger.

Yet, what they failed to notice was that beneath the corpses, dim, vague shadows seemed to come to life. While no one was paying attention, those shadows shifted bit by bit toward the periphery, concealing themselves within the darkness.

Amidst the thunderous rumble of hooves, the group departed. The billowing black smoke from the raging bonfire behind them had already dissipated, leaving only the pungent stench of blood lingering in the surrounding air.

The bodies had not been burned thoroughly; at this stage, it was merely a crude disposal method to prevent a plague. To incinerate them properly would take days, but time was precisely what they lacked, leaving them with no alternative.

Once everyone had completely departed, right where they had previously stood, a shadow rose from the ground.

It looked like a flat paper cutout, thin-bodied, but as it stood up, it seemed to fill out, gradually swelling in form until it possessed human facial features and a physique, though it remained entirely devoid of color, resembling a black-and-white film.

And this was only the beginning. Nearby, an entire area of similar paper-like figures rose from the ground, taking on human shapes.

Soon, the surrounding vicinity was packed with people.

They stood in neat, uniform ranks, uniformly equipped and vast in number.

If any martial artist were to see them, they would be utterly astonished, for these were unmistakably the very same grassland cavalrymen they had killed earlier. Moreover, right beside them stood another group of figures attired in various garments—the deceased pugilists.

"My very own legion!"

One of the figures let out a voice filled with emotional resonance.

Had he not schemed for such a long time precisely to expand his legion?

He had even gone so far as to cozy up to the nobles of the grassland, and now he had finally achieved his wish. With so many people dead, and with the foreseeable consequence that a scion of the Golden Bloodline had perished, regardless of how the Great Khan of the Golden Tent might feel, he would be forced to raise an army in retaliation to safeguard the dignity of the Golden Carriage. This would inevitably spark a massive war, which was precisely what he wanted to see.

"Next is my time to hunt!"

"Hahaha..."

Cheng Xiaoyu laughed wildly, commanding his soldiers to mount their horses before pursuing the direction in which the martial artists had departed.

These shadow soldiers hid within the shadows, flickering in and out of view under the sunlight just like the legendary phantom armies passing through the mortal realm. Without careful observation, one might not even notice their existence at all.

Despite their immense numbers, they drew zero attention.

This was why Cheng Xiaoyu was known as the Shadow Monarch.

He was able to summon the shadow of any deceased entity from their corpse.

Although their strength could not possibly match what those individuals possessed during their lifetimes, he could nurture his own shadow soldiers!

Whether his shadows grew stronger naturally through continuous combat or he directly expended a massive price in Paradise Coins to promote them instantly, both methods were viable.

Had he not suppressed his own realm all this time precisely because the high-level shadow soldiers on hand were too few, wishing to accumulate more elite shadow soldiers instead?

Being able to enter a world with such an ancient background came as an absolute pleasant surprise to him.

Through his meticulous planning, he had finally accomplished all this, making every bit of the preparation he made back then worthwhile. He had deliberately left a shadow clone behind in this world, and now that the Demon Tower Paradise had activated once again, his opportunity had finally arrived.

No one knew that Cheng Xiaoyu was not present in his true body; he was merely a clone. Twenty years ago, he first arrived in this world, and using certain methods, he gathered numerous pugilists to hunt down the Left Sage King.

The person who leaked the false intelligence had actually been him.

His objective back then was very simple: to instigate a bloody conflict between the Central Plains and the grassland so that he could profit from the chaos.

The final outcome had indeed been quite favorable, as he harvested a large number of high-quality shadow soldiers from the battlefield.

Afterwards, he deliberately left a shadow clone behind while his main body completed the mission and returned to the Demon Tower.

Inside the Demon Tower, he had only experienced a few missions, but by the time the Demon Tower reopened this world, twenty years had already passed here, allowing his clone to accumulate a considerable amount of strength.

Thus, having reestablished contact with his clone, Cheng Xiaoyu orchestrated this recent operation, directly manipulating Agudo into avenging his father.

The method, identical to the one used twenty years ago, was also his doing—designed specifically to lure people in and slaughter them.

The participants of the Yandang Mountain ambush from twenty years ago had likewise been killed by him. Who else could possibly know the identity of every single person better than the very instigator of that event?

While he had failed to trap absolutely everyone, to his pleasant surprise, the opponents had actually killed so many soldiers, which turned out to be an unexpected windfall.

He had originally assumed he would have to wait for a full-scale war between the Great Yang Dynasty and the grassland before he could fish in troubled waters and acquire a massive army of shadow soldiers.

Now, having obtained so many soldiers, he finally possessed a solid enough foundation to hunt down those martial arts experts without any restraint.