There was still an air of disbelief hanging around us, all of us hardly believing that we managed to somehow survive. Earlier that day, we were on the verge of annihilation, completely surrounded and outnumbered. I managed to turn that around by detonating the Sunburst bombs at Zi Shou De"s signal, so as to maximize casualties, and managed to level the playing field somewhat by decimating ninety percent of the invaders by nuking them into oblivion.

Completely worth it.

Even then, we were still fighting for our lives at the very end, as the very best of the first ten sects" elites had pressed us hard. Thankfully, Green Dragon Sect, Heavenly Way Sect and Kunlun Sect didn"t send all their elites, or we would have fallen before reinforcements arrived.

Xie Zhi Zhang and Song Si Yuan were "politely" shepherded out of our sect by the Imperial Guard, presumably to answer questions. Despite the Martial Arts Alliance covering for them after cutting off the troops who had come to attack Nine-Tailed Fox Sect and slyly absolving themselves of responsibility, there were still suspicions about their involvement, and none of the high-ranking experts were stupid enough to stay around.

While they didn"t actually kill anybody from our sect, and was mostly just occupied with fighting our veteran commanders and Tian Yu Di, they still partic.i.p.ated in the war. We didn"t bear a grudge against them the same way we did against the b.l.o.o.d.y murderers, but we weren"t going to trust them either. We did have the feeling that none of the experts went all out – all of us implicitly understood that they had been holding back because they were reluctant to partic.i.p.ate in the war.

If people of Song Si Yuan or Shen Tian Yi or Long Shen"s level got serious, they would have leveled the plaza during the clash against Tian Yu Di and the others. But they seemed to have held back the majority of their G.o.dlike powers to spare the members of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect on the plaza. Perhaps, unlike the first ten sects who were screaming for vengeance, they had their own agenda of enslaving the blacksmiths and martial artists of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect for the Martial Arts Alliance, which still didn"t make them trustworthy – we weren"t going to simply forgive them for partic.i.p.ating in that last a.s.sault. But we were too ravaged and hurt to pursue thm.

Never mind vengeance, it would be a miracle if we survived this. Tushan City had been utterly nuked to oblivion, we had lost almost half of our forces, and we had a tremendous number of casualties to tend to. The civilians were homeless, and it would require an awful lot of rebuilding in order to restore our city to working conditions, never mind back to its former glory.

"What will you do now, Sect Leader?" Tian Yu Di asked me quietly. While the leaders and elders were gathered in the center to discuss their next course of action, I had gone off to the side, and was resting at the edge of the plaza, staring blankly into the lake.

"What do you propose I do, Ancestral Master?" I asked him wearily. Tian Yu Di smiled and shrugged.

"That"s entirely up to you. You"re the sect leader."

I glanced at the devastated landscape and the ma.s.sive craters I had carved into the beleaguered city. That was going to take a lot of refilling to fill out the holes. I wasn"t sure how we were going to even begin repairs and restoration.

"For now, I"ll see what they need help with…to rebuild Nine-Tailed Fox Sect and Tushan City." I sighed heavily. "Those Martial Arts Alliance b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have really done quite the number on us. We can"t let them get away with this."

"We can"t indeed. So you want revenge?"

I turned to Tian Yu Di and studied him. He sounded gleeful, almost hopeful that I would flip out and order a ma.s.sacre of the Martial Arts Alliance. But there were currently only two of us. There was no way we could defeat the Martial Arts Alliance on our own, not with their vast amount of resources and endless numbers of martial artists.

Even the Royal Family wasn"t going to pursue this matter. The Martial Arts Alliance was too large to touch – at most, they could only take the Alliance chiefs" word for it and punish the sects involved in the invasion, but they couldn"t afford to wage a full-scale war on the Martial Arts Alliance. It would be too costly and the organization was too vast.

Even though three of the major sects had ceded from the Martial Arts Alliance, and another four had taken major losses – especially Snow Valley Sect, which was certain to lose their place after losing 90% of their forces, the majority of their leaders and elders, and almost all their elites – they still had countless numbers of subordinate sects under their command. And truth be told, I doubted the Heavenly Way Sect, Green Dragon Sect and Kunlun Sect had committed that significant a force to the invasion – significant enough to hurt, yes, but not so much that they would be crippled like Snow Valley Sect. So they would mostly be fine.

"I do."

"So what"s your plan?"

I frowned. For some reason, Tian Yu Di struck me as someone impatient and overly eager. He was dangerous, make no mistake of that. Even though he had proven to be an invaluable ally in fending off the invasion and saving Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, he had his own agenda. An agenda that was sinister and self-serving.

"We"re still too weak and too small, and I don"t trust the other demonic sects – they tend to backstab and betray us even faster and more subtly than the Martial Arts Alliance. At least the Martial Arts Alliance is still bound by laws, codes, and have a good number of people with honor, but the demonic sects…from what I"ve experienced, they are too greedy and murderous to be reliable. Like the Tian Sha Sect, for example."

I remembered the Tian Sha Sect, or Heavenly Fiend Sect. So many readers were obsessed with the prologue and kept demanding to know what it had to do with the main story. Well, of course it did – the Tian Sha Sect (now translated as the Heavenly Fiend Sect) was one of the main antagonists. A showdown with Tian Sha Tian Zun (or Li Tian Zun) was inevitable. Especially after I had killed his son, Li Xue Wu.

It was only a matter of time.

But for now, I had to focus on matters of the present.

"So I want to build a base. After this, Nine-Tailed Fox Sect will become important in helping us topple the Martial Arts Alliance."

"Good idea." Tian Yu Di glanced in Lang Xie"s direction. "You have a mini Heaven and Earth Sect in here, so that"s a fair point."

"I"m glad you understand." I still felt somewhat uneasy, because Tian Yu Di probably wouldn"t sit around idly while I worked on helping Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. "For now, I want to focus on rebuilding. We need to restore Nine-Tailed Fox Sect"s strength and power."

"Hmph." Tian Yu Di merely noded, disgruntled. "Rebuilding isn"t my thing. I"m more suited for fighting. But I know you have a long-term plan that will benefit us in the long run, so I won"t argue against it. It"s just that I"m not going to be of any use in the rebuilding process."

"Yeah, sorry about that." despite his deference to me, I still felt some trepidation over what he intended to do.

"You probably don"t need me to look after you while you stick around and rebuild Nine-Tailed Fox Sect." Tian Yu Di frowned and glanced over the horizon. "I ask for permission to take my leave."

"Take your leave?"

"Yeah." Tian Yu Di nodded thoughtfully. "I"m sure rebuilding will take a long time, and there"s no point having me sit around and do nothing. So I propose that you allow me to leave on a journey. I need to look for Spirit Herbs and medicine to allow me to recover my strength. Right now, I"m only at fifty percent of my strength, but if I recover at least eighty percent of my strength, I might be able to take on the Martial Arts Alliance single-handedly." He grinned. "That will take at least a couple of decades, though, so in the meantime, do your best to rebuild Heaven and Earth Sect."

It was clear that he thought I was rebuilding Nine-Tailed Fox Sect to be Heaven and Earth Sect, or at least become part of Heaven and Earth Sect, but I didn"t bother to tell him that I had no intention of doing so. Instead, I nodded.

"Do whatever you need to do," I told him. Then I frowned. "The Spirit Medicine and herbs in Nine-Tailed Fox Sect isn"t enough?"

"Your Nine-Tailed Fox Sect has some good things," Tian Yu Di admitted. "But they are insufficient. I need more potent Spirit Herbs…Spirit Herbs that can only be found in the deepest recesses of Sen Lin Forest…and perhaps even other continents. If they haven"t changed over the last nine hundred years, that is."

That made sense. Nine-Tailed Fox Sect was a blacksmithing sect, not a medicinal sect.

"Understood. Do what you must. I"ll do what I can from my end as well."

"Good." Tian Yu Di smacked my shoulder in delight. "I"ll look forward to how much you"ll be able to develop the sect by then. Ah…and if you need me, you can contact me through the Golden Dragon Medallion. The seal that binds me to its authority will allow you to contact me through it, just like how you"ve been talking to me earlier, during the battle."
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"Understood." I nodded. "Thanks. And good luck."

"Heh! My enemies will probably need the luck more than I do!" Cackling, Tian Yu Di waved, and then he simply vanished. Even though I couldn"t see him, I could sense him streaking away from the plaza and toward the east.

After he disappeared, Zhu Jiao and the others walked over me. They glanced fearfully at the spot where Tian Yu Di occupied, but they didn"t possess the same time of qi senses I did to detect his presence and know which direction he flew off to. I didn"t bother to tell them either, especially since there was no point in them knowing.

Lang Xie had split off from the group after a few words from Sect Leader, and under his orders, almost all the injured martial artists were heading up Flame Volcano and toward the main sect"s infirmary. Corpsmen, medics and physicians from the Imperial Guard were rushing over to tend to the wounded. I noted that most of the injured they were helping were from Nine-Tailed Fox Sect, and they were being ferried off to either the infirmary, or to huge field tents set up next to the infirmary as emergency field hospitals to accommodate the large number of casualties.

It wasn"t because Nine-Tailed Fox Sect had sustained more casualties than the thirteen sects. Quite the contrary, actually – compared to them, we were actually much better off. It was just that almost all the casualties from the thirteen sects were dead.

Naturally the Sunburst bombs had instantly killed them, incinerated them or ripped their bodies apart from the enormous blast and superheated flames, so there was very few remains, and what corpses that stayed intact were definitely dead. They weren"t coming back, that was for sure.

Comparatively, Flame Volcano emerged unscathed. The Sunburst bombs had been mined in Tushan City, so that was where the bulk of the destruction had taken place. I only mined the outer sect districts at the foot of Flame Volcano, and there was a crater blasted there, but other than that, the main sect grounds escaped ma.s.sive damage. Thankfully the enemies did not invade all the way up Flame Volcano, concentrating their forces around the plaza. None of them had thought to climb Flame Volcano, where only civilians dwelled in.

Speaking of civilians, Sect Leader Zi Shou De and his wife were heading up there to speak to them now.

"Seems a bit anticlimactic, given how everything just ended like this, eh?" Zhu Jiao asked flippantly as he watched the leaders and elders of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect disperse to get on with their ch.o.r.es. "Now that the fighting has stopped…everything feels so unreal."

"What, were you expecting me to start controlling three of the Spirit Engraved Pillars to fly, accidentally open up a Nether Pa.s.sageway to the Nether Realm, and have a bunch of evil beings fom the Nether Realm show up to invade the Great Zhou Empire?" I asked sarcastically. "And because of the appearace of the Nether Pa.s.sageway, everyone decides to stop fighting, become friends and evacuate the area?"

"I never said that," Zhu Jiao said, taken aback. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? Nether Pa.s.sgeway? Nether Realm? I"ve never heard of those before."

"You shouldn"t have." Tong Xue sighed in exhaustion. "They are from another story called Spirit Realm. People were complaining about how that story is always about chaos going on, with no moment of peace, and it becomes tiring to read. Poor Qin Lie always get thrown from one battle to another without resting at all. The pace just never changes, and it becomes tiring to read."

"That"s not true, though?" Lian Rou pointed out. "Didn"t he have quite some peace when he was learning stuff in Armament Sect?"

"Um…even in Armament Sect, he had to deal with Liang Shao Yang and repeated a.s.sa.s.sination attempts on his life…" I shook my head tiredly. "Qin Lie never catches a break."

"What does that have to do with anything?!" Zhu Jiao complained. "Who cares about that stupid story? You guys just survived and got a break. Why aren"t you happy?"

"We are happy…just too tired at the moment." I suppressed a yawn. "Haven"t gotten much sleep since everything had been going on. We"ve been fighting nonstop for days." I glanced at the Imperial Guard gratefully. "I"m glad they"re finally here."

"We should tell them about the demons in the underground pa.s.sageway," Zi Xiao Ji spoke up, flanked by a bloodied Da Ge. None of us mentioned anything about the missing Zhao Shi. The pain was evident on Zi Xiao Ji"s face and Da Ge was unusually solemn, devoid of his usual geniality and humor. I lowered my head a little when I caught sight of them.

We had lost so much…

"I will do that," Jing Wei spoke up. He looked as if he was in pretty bad shape, but I was glad he survived. I shook my head.

"No, you go to the infirmary. I"ll handle this."

I quickly chased after Zi Shou De to tell him that, followed closely by his daughter and Da Ge. Tong Xue and Lian Rou stayed behind to look after Tang Qi Hong"s body. Right now, the priority was to the still living. So none of the soldiers provided bodybags and the like, because they were too busily saving the lives of the wounded or herding away sullen prisoners.

Even the battle-automata and battle puppets were being recalled into the spatial devices of their summoners. The Castellax battle-automata had been burned out earlier, their reactors overloaded when they merged their atomantic shielding to protect the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect members in the plaza from the Sunburst explosions, but there was no time to repair them. Not now, anyway. Again, the priority was with the living.

The battle puppets could be repaired anytime. As long as we had the Spirit Materials, parts and components, we could fully restore them.

However, once a human died, he or she would be gone forever. Just like Tang Qi Hong.

So just like that, the bustling soldiers in the plaza continued to move about like a colony of ants, ferrying the mortally wounded toward the infirmary and field hospital as quickly as possible.

*

Within one of the field tents, Lang Xie sat on a bed and watched as a field medic bound his wounds firmly. With his rank, he was actually ent.i.tled to go into the infirmary, but Lang Xie had argued that his wounds were shallow and ordered the more severely wounded – those with life-threatening injuries who required immediate surgery to survive – into the infirmary, and chose to have his injuries treated in one of the tents set up in the field hospital outside the overcrowded infirmary. The medic wrapped bandages around Lang Xie"s chest after applying some Spirit Medicine, then pulled back to study his work in satisfaction.

"Good. Try not to move too much, or you"ll end up opening those wounds." The medic pursed his lips. "Give the medicine four hours to seal your cuts while channeling your qi to help it, then you should be able to move as per normal after that."

"Understood." Lang Xie was not stupid or stubborn. He was a warrior, and now that the fighting was over, he wasn"t going to deliberately go against the medics" orders just to show off how tough he was. He would rather have his wounds heal fully so that he could be up on his feet and carrying out his duties as soon as possible while being in peak condition again.

"Good. If you need anything else, let me know."

The medic then left the tent and proceeded toward other patients with relatively light injuries. Lang Xie watched him go, and then closed his eyes.

"I know you"re there," he said suddenly.

"Oh? So you do." Tian Yu Di"s voice spoke up with a chuckle. The ancient martial artist then stepped into the tent in a carefree manner. Unlike all the other martial artists, he was completely unhurt, both because he was too skilled and strong, and also because Long Shen and Shen Tian Yi didn"t go all out against him.

"Do you have any business with me?" Lang Xie asked indifferently, his eyes still closed.

"Yes, that"s why I"m spending a little of my precious time to talk to you." Tian Yu Di wasn"t offended at all. Chuckling, he retrieved a thin book from his robes and pa.s.sed it to Lang Xie, who opened his eyes and received it. "I want to hand this to you."

"This is…?" Lang Xie"s brow rose.

"Heaven and Earth Formula. Since Sect Leader is part of this sect, there"s no point hiding the whole thing from you. I"ll teach you the remaining portion of that incomplete technique that Xue Jian was trying to learn. It should allow you to master Heaven and Earth Formula without any demonic side effects. I hope you will manage to always retain control over yourself and not deviate off the true path like Xue Jian did. And also, you will be able to lend combat support to my sect leader so that he will never have to resort to unleashing Divine Spirit Origin again."

Lang Xie studied the book, then raised his eyes to stare intently at Tian Yu Di.

"Are you planning for me to pa.s.s down the techniques of Heaven and Earth Sect in your place?" he asked neutrally.

"Clever boy." Tian Yu Di grinned.

"Even if I pa.s.s it down, it will be Blood Blades, not Heaven and Earth Sect," Lang Xie declared as he met Tian Yu Di"s eyes evenly.

"I don"t care what you call it as long as you stick to the right path and don"t succ.u.mb to demonic urges." Tian Yu Di"s smile spread wider. "Otherwise I"ll personally kill you myself."

"I have no intention to," Lang Xie a.s.sured him flatly.

"Good." Tian Yu Di proceeded to walk out of the tent, but he stopped at its entrance and gave Lang Xie one last glance. "I"ll be back after I"ve regained some of my strength." He grinned, his teeth gleaming in the slight shadows of the dimly illuminated tent. "Perhaps it might take years, but when I return, I look forward to seeing how much your Blood Blades and my sect leader have grown."

Lang Xie said nothing as just watched Tian Yu Di disappear.

*

After discussing with Zi Shou De, we decided the best course of action was to inform the Imperial Guard commanders. After we dealt with the civilians first. Even though so many of them had been ma.s.saced by the invading sects during the first phase of the war, there was still quite a lot of them left. And thanks to my little trick with the Sunburst bombs, they had been rendered homeless.

Whoops…my bad?

"I"ll handle that," Zi Da Ji cut in. "I"m the commander of Blood Blades after all. It makes more sense for me to serve as the military liason."

"Good idea." Zi Shou De nodded. "We"ll need to borrow the Imperial Guard"s strength to sweep through the underground pa.s.sageways, clear out the infestation and find out the source. If we can track down where these demons are coming from, we can plug the breach."

"Maybe White Tiger Sect and Red Phoenix Sect can also help us with that," Zi Da Ji added as she glanced at our new allies, who were herding the prisoners-of-war into the armored fighting vehicles, so that they would be transport to prison facilities.

"Yeah, we"ll do that after we handle the civilians."

"What do we do?" Zi Xiao Ji asked eagerly, hoping to be of help to her parents. I realized that she, along with her parents, were searching for ways to keep themselves busy and occupied, so that they wouldn"t dwell on Tang Qi Hong"s death.

There would be time for grief and mourning later, but right now they couldn"t afford to fall apart. Not until their work was done.

But her parents didn"t realize that Zi Xiao Ji was in the same position as them, so they merely smiled tiredly.

"You should rest." Zi Shou De glanced at Da Ge. "Take care of my daughter for me."

"Roger that," Da Ge replied, but his usual cheerfulness was completely replaced by exhaustion. I could even detect a tiny amount of grief. It was only natural – he and Zhao Shi had served as partners in the Blood Blades for so long. There was no way he wouldn"t feel anything over her death. Even though I didn"t know her very well, I did feel a tinge of sadness.

Perhaps it was cruel of me to say, but her death didn"t hit me hard, not to the point where I felt tears. I hardly knew her, after all. And I was sure most readers didn"t even care who she was, and were completely nonplussed over the death of someone they regarded as an insignificant side character. Perhaps to them, that was all she amounted to, but to people who actually existed within this world like me and Da Ge, she was a real, living person who was very much involved in our lives. Maybe more so in Da Ge"s case than mine, but nonetheless, it still stung.

We had all lost so very much.

"You too, Fei Wu." Zi Shou De turned to me. "You"ve done so much. You should be joining the other Blood Blades and getting your injuries looked at."

Oh, I almost forgot that I was severely hurt in the battle against Jiang Jun Hao, but after I inadvertently descended into Divine Spirit Origin, it seemed that all my injuries had miraculously healed from the tremendous amounts of qi that flowed through my body during that short period of time. There was still aches and throbbing here and there, but I was otherwise all right.

I didn"t argue, however, and merely nodded before watching the Zi couple ascend Flame Volcano and toward the civilians. Then I went back toward the plaza to rejoin my friends. Zi Xiao Ji followed me as well, probably because she had nothing else to do. Da Ge shadowed her without any protest, probably too tired to say anything.

"How did it go?" Tong Xue asked when I returned. I smiled weakly.

"You know…the usual." I glanced at the Imperial Guard. "I guess they"ll get to fight after all."

"Huh?" Lian Rou was confused.

"We"ll be asking them to help us with clearing out the underground pa.s.sageways," I explained.

"Oh, the demons…" Tong Xue nodded in understanding. Both Zhu Jiao and Bai Ning Xue blanched at that.

"What? Demons? What are you talking about?"

"It"s a long story." I sighed, and then briefly explained to Zhu Jiao all the stuff that had happened in my eventful journey back to Nine-Tailed Fox Sect after the rescue mission.

"Holy Throne!" Zhu Jiao exclaimed. "There are demons dwelling under your city all this fething time?!"

"Why are you behaving like a fething Guardsman from Tanith?" I asked crossedly.

"But…but…" Zhu Jiao protested as he backed away frantically. "These are demons, you know? How are we…?"

He never got to finish his sentence. Stumbling over rubble, he fell over and smacked into one of the nine Spirit Engraved Pillars.

Immediately, at the point of contact, all nine Spirit Engraved Pillars came to life.