Tamamo-no-Mae swore she would take revenge—revenge for being insulted by those chaotic whispers.
That was far too much, miguu!
Even though she had suppressed the invasion of those whispers with her own power, that instant had still left a deep "impression" on her.
The fox took a deep breath, hatred simmering in her heart. Tamamo-no-Mae decided that once she captured Rovi, she would be sure to teach him a proper lesson.
She looked toward the earth of the present world.
The domain where Tamamo-no-Mae resided was neither in the present world nor in any dimension.
Just like the hiding places of the Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens that Rovi knew of, this nine-tailed fox, gathered from different divided selves, was also hidden deep within the pages of history, concealed in the gaps of Human Order.
Mei Xi, Su Daji, Bao Si, Huayang Tian... The fox demons who had sown chaos in different dynasties and different states had always been intertwined with humanity.
The Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens could hide.
Naturally, so could she.
And by gazing down from between the pages of history, she could naturally see the present world as well.
"Now, the Old Ghosts of the Six Heavens have all begun to manifest."
"The Nine Provinces barrier left behind by Great Yu has also shattered."
"In that case..."
Tamamo-no-Mae leaned down and pressed a finger upon the present world.
"Let me speed things along!"
...
A humming sound spread from the depths of Human Order toward the present world.
Beyond Qin Pass, the front line of Qin's war with Zhao was at a pass called Jingxing. Ringed by overlapping mountain ranges, it was a natural stronghold, easy to defend and hard to attack.
At this moment, the one guarding the pass was Zhao's famous general, Li Mu.
The one attacking it was the Qin army's commander-in-chief, Wang Jian.
The two armies had been locked in confrontation for nearly a month.
In the Qin army's main camp, banners snapped and fluttered. Amid the sternly arrayed ranks, Wang Jian stood atop the watchtower of the Qin camp, gazing at the tightly shut gate of the pass opposite them, and at the Qin soldiers withdrawing like a tide after yet another failed assault. His brows were tightly furrowed.
As the commander of the Qin army, Wang Jian did not look young. His tall frame was enveloped in thick Qin armor, a long beard on his face giving him an imposing dignity. Standing beside him was a young man who bore a very strong resemblance to him.
That was Wang Jian's son, Wang Ben. "Father, in this past month, we've launched no fewer than ten forceful assaults."
"If this continues, I'm afraid continuing to attack by force won't produce any results."
"And..."
And the casualties were heavy.
Of course Wang Jian knew what his son was referring to.
Great Qin, which had now marched east beyond Hangu Pass and aimed its sword point at the six states, already possessed mighty strength surpassing the other states combined in soldiers, manpower, national strength, and logistics.
Under normal circumstances, even if Zhao relied on the pass's geography, even if the general guarding the pass was the famous Li Mu, facing such an all-out offensive, they should not have been able to repel more than ten assaults while inflicting such heavy casualties.
And yet that was exactly the situation now.
It was not because the enemy general guarding the city was especially brilliant—when it came to mastery of military arts, Wang Jian was confident he would lose to no one. Nor was it due to any gap in morale or equipment.
This failed assault was entirely because the other side had "divine aid."
Lifting one's eyes, one could see the twisted, chaotic light manifesting above Jingxing Pass. Lifting one's eyes, one could see that light pouring down, covering the whole territory of Zhao.
That light gave the Zhao soldiers guarding the city strength like walls of bronze and iron. That distortion and chaos allowed them to fight like berserk warriors; even when gravely wounded, they only grew fiercer the longer they fought.
That was the power of a god, yet it carried none of the feeling of an orthodox, legitimate deity. Instead, it was filled with a chaotic aura.
"I know what you want to say. I have already requested aid from the king. If we can invite that one to help..."
"This city can be broken." Wang Jian took a deep breath. "Transmit my military order. Have the soldiers return to defense and rest. Stay alert for every movement. If there is any unusual activity, report to me immediately!"
"Yes!"
The messengers on both sides of the watchtower answered at once. They rode out to convey the commander's order to the surrounding forces.
The Qin camps stationed outside Jingxing Pass faced it from afar, arranged in a triangular formation. They surrounded the water source, with many beacon towers built between them to respond to one another, cutting off any possibility of being ambushed while also allowing them to launch a three-sided siege at any time.
Upon the pass opposite them, Zhao's famous general Li Mu, who had likewise been observing the enemy formation with full attention, could not help sighing at the sight.
"Wang Jian truly is a famous general of this age!" He let out a breath and said, "Defend the pass to the death. Do not give the Qin army any opening to exploit!"
"At the same time, order the soldiers to stockpile more earth and farm while fighting within the city."
Li Mu had already prepared for a long standoff.
But the wars of the four hundred years of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods had taught him a deep lesson. Li Mu knew that Zhao's national strength was now hollow and could not sustain him through a prolonged confrontation.
The best method was to have the army take food from the land.
They would rely on solid fortifications and farm while fighting.
That night, thousands upon thousands of fires drifted through both camps. From afar, they looked like stars scattered through a vast haze.
...
Inside the Qin army's central command tent, Wang Jian was still studying the map.
He was thinking over a strategy to defeat the enemy when a soldier entered to report, "Reporting to the general, someone has come from the direction inside the pass and requests an audience with you."
Wang Jian came back from his focus on the map. "Who?"
"The other party calls himself... Donghua." The man's expression was somewhat hesitant.
Donghua. Donghua.
Everyone knew that Donghua Dijun was Great Qin's "Azure Heaven."
Wang Jian's expression changed, and he hurriedly said, "Invite him in at once!"
But just as his voice fell, a voice came from outside the tent. "General, there is no need to panic. I have already arrived."
The figure who entered wore loose robes and carried a sword on his back. Without question, it was Rovi, "Donghua Dijun," who had come from Qin.
He had arrived at the front line, and at this moment, he set foot here. Lamps burned and lit the inside of the command tent. Rovi flicked his sleeve and looked at Wang Jian before him. "General, do you have a strategy to defeat the enemy?"
Now, the Old Ghost of the Six Heavens hidden within the Human Order of Zhao, toward which Qin's army pointed, had already manifested high in the sky.
But for Rovi to truly reach the layer of Human Order where it was located, he still needed Human Order to break it open.
So he still needed to borrow Qin's power, still needed to borrow the sharpness of the Qin army.
That was why he had come here.
Rather than entering Zhao alone.
"I did not before, but now that the Emperor-Lord has come, I do!" Wang Jian took a deep breath. Looking at the figure before him, who seemed ordinary yet in truth felt endlessly lofty and vast, he tried hard to calm himself.
Rovi laughed. "No, you don't."
Wang Jian froze for a moment, then gave a bitter smile. "Indeed, I do not. But..."
"There is no need."
"Since the Emperor-Lord has come, then to break Zhao, we need only overwhelm them with momentum!"
"Do you dare fight at night?" Rovi suddenly asked.
Wang Jian answered with laughter as well. "What is there to fear? Men, bring my armor, light the fires, and attack the city!"
Though it was deep night, the Qin soldiers were on the front line and had long since been ready for battle at all times. At the commander's order, the central camp, which had been somewhat quiet, immediately began moving.
The soldiers donned helmets and armor, took up long spears and Qin swords, and in an instant formed ranks. The torches in their hands gathered into a great river within the boundless night.
The army formation was like a mountain, its spears like a forest.
Wang Jian cupped his hands to Rovi, then left the central command tent.
Rovi, meanwhile, left the Qin army formation alone. In a single blur, in the next instant, he arrived atop the highest peak on either side of Jingxing Pass, quietly waiting for the Qin army to charge.
Night stretched vast around him. The mountains rose and fell like the spine of a dragon. Gazing at the formations of the Qin and Zhao armies below, Rovi's mind was calm, yet he suddenly felt somewhat moved.
He had already taken part in struggles between nations back in Mesopotamia. Back then, he had been Uruk's sage, and all of Uruk's plans had passed through his hands.
But whether it was participating in conflicts between nations as a human in Uruk, or interfering as a god in Greece in that later-famous "Trojan War," neither stirred as much emotion in him as he felt now, gazing down at the confrontation between these two camps.
Because those previous ones had all been legends. Myths.
What lay before him now was "history."
From myth into history.
Rovi quietly watched the scene beneath him, and the sword on his back gave off wave after wave of humming from within its sheath.
Below, the firelight in the Qin camp gradually surged outward under Wang Jian's command. Gleaming halberds, blades, and swords flashed with cold majesty in the darkness.
"The great general commands—"
"Attack the city!"
"Attack the city!"
The messengers rode past, and the officers of each unit quickly led their men to follow.
Wang Jian personally sat upon a war chariot.
This war chariot was pushed by men and towered high like a mobile watchtower. Seated upon it, he could clearly see the distribution of the entire battlefield.
The cavalry arrayed on either side also served as messengers, allowing him to regulate and adjust the battle situation at all times.
Wang Jian saw the Qin army gather like a long river.
He drew his sword and shouted, "Advance!"
The messengers scattered in all directions and shouted at the same time, "The general orders: advance!"
"The general orders: advance!"
"The general orders: advance!"
"..."
Voices rose and fell, spreading outward. Upon the pass opposite them, Li Mu, who carried out everything from eating and drinking to sleeping and living atop the high walls of the pass, had already prepared a response.
He said, "Archers, catapults, stand ready at all times. When the enemy enters a hundred paces, launch stones. When they approach fifty paces, ten thousand arrows together!"
...
The night battle began.
From Rovi's perspective, it was one mass of firelight charging toward another, two clusters of flame colliding and weaving into great swathes of fireworks.
But he knew that what collided was not fire, but living people.
The Qin army raised their long spears high and advanced step by step.
Men were constantly struck by arrows shot from afar and fell, but those behind them swiftly filled the gaps at the front.
The formation pressed forward step by step, like black clouds bearing down on the city.
"Qin crossbows, deploy!"
Wang Jian issued another order. Enormous siege crossbows, each as large as a war chariot, were pushed out at the same time. They were one of Qin's killing weapons, heavy instruments capable of assaulting cities and breaking gates.
RUMBLE!
The crossbow strings opened, driving enormous "arrows" to shoot forth. From a great distance, they struck the city tower.
Sand and gravel shook loose. Countless Zhao soldiers were smashed apart. Some Zhao soldiers raised shields to block in front of their commander Li Mu, but he shoved them harshly away.
"Archers—"
"Catapults!"
"Release!"
The commander personally took the field and gave orders, and the morale of the Zhao troops around him immediately flourished.
But under the cover of Qin bows and Qin crossbows, the charging Qin soldiers finally rushed to the wall.
Scaling ladders were set against the pass. Amid the violent shaking, countless men rushed upward under falling rocks.
Some were smashed down to the ground by boulders, the ladders and men shattered together. Some raised long spears and kept thrusting and stabbing upward halfway up, yet still could not withstand the spears the Zhao troops threw down.
The first to climb onto the wall was a young man. He laughed aloud, and then the surrounding Zhao defenders rushed him and stabbed him to death with a flurry of swords.
But after him came a second, a third...
The Qin people fell again and again, yet new Qin soldiers kept charging up.
The people of Qin had never feared death.
Because a meaningful death brought merit enough to shelter their descendants.
They feared only dying in humiliation.
Dying without meaning.
A hundred years of reforms and pursuit of strength had long since united the people of Qin into one heart.
Yet as he watched the Qin army once again climb onto the pass, Wang Jian's brows sank lower and furrowed tighter. In their previous dozen assaults, it was not that they had never managed to charge atop the high walls, but every time, they had failed.
So Wang Jian knew that climbing onto the wall was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
With a ringing clang, before the gate and atop the city tower, Li Mu drew his sword and shouted, "Where are my Zhao cavalrymen!"
"The Zhao cavalrymen are here!"
"The cavalrymen are here!"
"Roar—!"
The twisted light and shadow suspended above Zhao manifested, and countless shadows rushed out from within.
Zhao had once been a powerful state as well.
The reforms of King Wuling of Zhao, and the warriors who adopted Hu clothing and mounted archery, had once shocked all under heaven.
Now, that past glory was no more. But—
At this moment, Li Mu borrowed the power of the "heavenly god" to manifest warriors of the past from between the pages of history.
Though the shadows that appeared were mad and chaotic, though these cavalrymen of the past no longer possessed the spirit they once had, they were powerful. They were elite. Each one was worth a hundred men.
Li Mu released them now as his trump card. Now that Qin had pressed most of its forces forward, he intended to use the strength of these cavalrymen to surround and kill the Qin army here!
Though he was unwilling, for his state and his home, Li Mu was already willing to cast aside everything.
For state and home.
That was the meaning of a "general's" existence!
"Kill!"
Li Mu gave the order coldly.
Wang Jian's gaze sank. He was just about to give an order. Having crossed hands with the enemy many times, he had long since prepared for this and had already left himself a retreat.
As the commander of an army, Wang Jian would not gamble with the soldiers under his command.
Even though he knew Qin's "Azure Heaven" was already holding the line behind the Qin army and could intervene at any time.
He would not place all hope upon a god.
The Qin army could die.
But they had to die for something.
Yet at that very moment, Rovi finally moved.
He saw the Qin army press forward, their momentum like a rainbow, cutting across the battlefield like a sharp sword light.
He saw Zhao's wall, firm as a shield, yet unable to suppress the edge of the Qin sword.
His guess had been right.
"The only thing that can break Zhao's heaven is the Qin sword!"
Only this sword, engraved with a hundred years of Qin's arduous history, this sword formed from the momentum of a state and the gathered will of countless soldiers and people.
In that case.
"Lend me the Qin sword!"
A ray of radiance appeared at the edge of the sky, like the sudden rise of the sun, shining brilliantly behind the Qin army. That was the sky of Guanzhong. That was Great Qin's sun.
Donghua Dijun was borrowing a sword from the Qin army.
At the same time, every Qin soldier felt the sword in his hand tremble.
Wang Jian looked at the sharp edge in his own hand, somewhat stunned, unable to react immediately... But before he could respond, a voice sounded behind him and answered in his stead.
"The sword of Great Qin may naturally be lent to Azure Heaven!"
"For my Great Qin, break this mighty foe!"
Black banners snapped in the wind, painted with the character for "king," coming from afar.
Amid the swaying of the war chariot, King Zheng of Qin stood upon it.
"My king!"
Wang Jian froze, then bowed in an instant.
King Zheng of Qin had personally come to the battlefield.
The royal command: the Qin sword may be lent.
Above the vault of heaven, Rovi, manifesting sunlight and dawn, flicked his sleeve. The swords in the Qin soldiers' hands remained in their grasp, but a hint of sharp will rose upward.
When Rovi borrowed the sword, what he borrowed was the formless sword—the concept of the Qin sword's edge.
A sword forged from Qin's Human Order.
He would use this sword to strike Zhao—and break heaven.
---
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