The three Shadow Generals moved in perfect synchrony. Though the Ravenous Hound General thrashed with all his might—his claws rending stone, his fangs bared in a final snarl—it was futile. Within twenty breaths, his canine head tumbled to the blood-soaked earth, still snarling in death.
Ji Xia lifted the severed head by its matted fur, his silhouette wreathed in the dense spiritual mist emanating from the newly arrived Shadow Army. The vapor coiled around him like a coronet, lending his figure an almost ethereal, immortal-like quality.
Across the battlefield, Ji Qianqing's sword blazed with azure light as she hacked off the Gold-Devouring Ape's arm in a single stroke. The beast's fountain of black blood drenched the Hound General perched on its skull—who screamed as if the injury were his own.
The Shadow Army advanced.
Squads of ten moved with chilling precision, their ghostly spears piercing Hounds through vital points before the enemies could even cry out. Each kill was methodical:
Thrust through the throat or heart.
Twist to ensure organ rupture.
Flick the corpse aside like discarded refuse.
On the battlements, Archivist Zhao Qu fell to his knees, tears carving paths through the grime on his face. "Late King... do you see? Taicang has survived another calamity!"
Chancellor Lu Yu clenched his fists. "Do not blame the young prince, my king. In peacetime, I would have flogged him for shattering the Taicang Jade... but without his status as the Great Wind's Emissary, our people would now be carrion."
Ji Qianqing, though her spiritual energy reserves were dwindling, pressed the attack. Her Qing Jun Sword left afterimages as she executed Nine Heavenly Steps, each movement sending a crescent of sword light deeper into the ape's flesh.
"Qing Jun's Final Stroke—Decapitation!"
A three-zhang-long blade of condensed spirit energy sheared through the ape's neck. The head toppled, its eyes still blazing red for three horrifying seconds before dimming. The controlling Hound General exploded in a shower of ruptured veins.
Two hundred li west, at the border of Taicang and Zhouqing, two figures observed the battle from Cangqing Mountain's mist-shrouded peaks:
A veiled maiden in robes of woven moonlight, her features obscured save for luminous green eyes.
A silver-armored youth so beautiful it bordered on cruelty, his third eye—a vertical silver slit—pulsing on his forehead.
"You came to reinforce the mountain's seals," the youth mused, "yet linger to watch ants squabble?"
The maiden remained silent.
Enraged, the youth's third eye emitted thunderclouds, blotting out the trio of suns. His voice dripped venom: "Why must humans—the lowest of races—wear faces like ours? It's... obscene."
The maiden finally spoke, her tone like frost on glass: "The Boundless Wilds are vast. Even our elders don't presume to understand all its oddities."
With that, she vanished—leaving the youth to hurl two date pits westward. They crossed three kingdoms in an eyeblink before erasing a city of 10,000 in twin explosions.
"I win again," he smirked, petting his hundred-zhang-long rainbow serpent.