So if people were expecting me to rip off Spirit Realm and entertain three old friends (though in the original Xie Jing Xuan was no friend of Qin Lie and even tried to kill him twice while owing him for helping her at least twice while he owed her nothing at all, so I had no idea why he just let her in and treated her with respect), then they would be disappointed.

Another thing was that I wasn"t the sect leader. Like, what the h.e.l.l, you think it"s so easy for people to become a sect leader? And for some reason, most sect leaders in xianxia stories were made out to be incompetent, probably just so that the protagonist is justified in killing them. Heaven forbid there were competent sect leaders, who would have outcla.s.sed the protagonist and found ways of dealing with them properly right from the start instead of blundering around and allowing him to live until it was too late. Worse, several stories, such as Spirit Realm, completely ignored the conventions and stuff they set for their characters and completely changed them later to fit the plot. Especially in Spirit Realm – while Ying Xin Ran was introduced as a complete idiot who made the most baffling decisions ever (one wonders how Armament Sect survived under his leadership when his stupidity over Liang Shao Yang and other moronic decisions made no sense), he was often described as someone who had the interests of Armament Sect at heart, someone who invested all his efforts and soul into developing Armament Sect at the expense of himself.

And then, about a hundred chapters later, when Qin Lie saved him, he suddenly had a complete 180 degree turn in att.i.tude, and no longer had the interests of Armament Sect in heart, but more of his own personal interests. Now that he was no longer in the danger of dying, he suddenly turned into this megalomaniac who wanted to retain his leadership of the sect and was more than happy to allow Qin Lie to leave so that he wouldn"t threaten his leadership. Never mind that a hundred or so chapters ago, they were all envisioning Qin Lie as the future of the sect, and were staking everything on him to lead Armament Sect to glory. No, let"s forget all that, do a 180 degree turn so that Ying Xin Ran can become an antagonist, and Qin Lie was justified in killing him, then handing the sect over to Tang Si Qi. Never mind that it was the exact complete opposite of what had happened a hundred chapters ago when everyone was looking to him to revolutionize Armament Sect after triggering all twelve spirit pillars. Now it was, "okay, you"re threatening my leadership, goodbye!"

Fortunately, Zi Shou De was not Ying Xin Ran, and he would never do something like that. He was a lot more sensible, logical and consistent as a character, rather than someone who would change because the plot demanded it and needed a new antagonist. So I didn"t have to worry about that. Thanks to that, there were no bulls.h.i.t shenanigans that demanded that I took over as sect leader, and honestly, I would be far from first choice. I wasn"t a Mary Sue protagonist who could walk up and suddenly become the center of attention, and a messiah upon which the fate of the sect rested on. Yeah, I contributed a lot with Tian Yu Di"s help, but unlike Mary Sue protagonists who singlehandedly saved the day by themselves, I wasn"t the sole reason why Nine-Tailed Fox Sect survived. Zi Shou De"s leadership and resolve, Zi Da Ji"s skills and command, Lang Xie"s strength and decisiveness, the determination of the Blood Blades, the cybernetica cohorts (yeah, I brought them back, but I would never be able to control all of them by myself, and the Blood Blades have proven themselves worthy owners of the battle puppets), and the resilience of the outer sect were all vital to the sect"s survival. It wasn"t a one-man show like Spirit Realm where Qin Lie practically did everything by himself and single-handedly saved the sect. No one was going to look to me to take over as sect leader just because I offered one contribution, which was just one out of the many that so many other sect members did.

Moreover, this wasn"t a ridiculous xianxia story where people focused entirely on grinding levels and such, so I couldn"t care less about reaching Manifestation Realm or its equivalent in this universe (I couldn"t even begin to convert the stages here to the realms there). As if the Martial Arts Alliance would wait ten days for me to cultivate and rise in levels, and one does not simply rise in levels according to the convenience of the plot.

Seriously, Qin Lie literally did that by opening Natal Palaces or whatever because he needed to reach Manifestation Realm. Even though he failed to reach Manifestation Realm eventually (at this part of the story), he jumped about two or three levels to the peak of Natal Palace Realm or whatever. Makes you wonder why he didn"t do it earlier if he could do it so easily. Same with most xianxia stories, actually. They seemed to treat levels and realms as something you rise through when required by the plot.

So I ended up mining the districts surrounding the main sect grounds. I also designed a remote control so that I can detonate them from a distance. Now all I needed to do was lure the f.u.c.kers deep into the city and blow them up before they realized what was going on.

"Are you seriously launching into one super-long rant at the beginning of the chapter?" Tang Qi Hong asked, her hands on her hips, as she watched me bury the Sunburst in the ground. I glanced up at her and shrugged.

"If I don"t do it at the beginning, then when am I supposed to do it? In the middle of the chapter, where I end up cutting off the flow of action? Or at the end, which would leave readers hanging?"

"Um, why even bother complaining about Spirit Realm at all?" Tang Qi Hong rubbed her cheek absently. "It has nothing to do with us."

"Because we"ve been ripping off Spirit Realm for the past twenty or thirty chapters now." I frowned. "You seriously didn"t notice the similiarities?"

"There are quite a lot of differences," Tang Qi Hong pointed out. "For one thing, my father is not such an incompetent fool who switches character at the drop of a hat, for Qin Lie"s benefit. For another, Blood Blades don"t cultivate blood arts like Blood Spear, and they have an army of battle-automata to help them fight off the invaders. And we are using modern technology instead of staying in medieval stasis like most xianxia stories. Oh, and the stuff happening here is not as illogical as the stuff in Spirit Realm, especially with regards to character decisions." She then frowned. "And although they are similar, Tian Yu Di is very different from Xue Li."

"…okay." Realizing that we were going way off a tangent, I decided to return to the task at hand. "That was the last Sunburst. Let"s hurry back to the sect."

"Fei Wu!"

One of the outer sect disciples called out to me, hurrying over across the ruined districts. I glanced at him.

"What"s up?"

"Sect Leader requests that you see him in the main hall at his residence. There has been a change."

"Yes, sir. Thanks, Tian Jian Hao."

Yeah, I recognized the outer sect disciple. He was Tian Jian Hao, the guy who tried to cut the queue in front of me during the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect entrance exam last year. But what struck me was that he was from Dark Asura Sect, and somehow he was still here. Well, Tong Xue was from Smart Shadow Sect, a branch of Divine Shadow Sect, so it wasn"t all that unusual. But even so, I was pleasantly surprised.

"Will you be all right?" I asked. "We"re fighting against Dark Asura Sect. You might come into conflict with your sect members eventually."

"That is fine." Tian Jian Hao smiled bitterly. "I am neither Liang Shao Yang nor Yin Jing Jing. I do not have any support in Dark Asura Sect, and no one there pays any attention to me. In Dark Asura Sect, I"m just an insignificant martial artist who n.o.body cares about. In fact, I"ve been doing very well in Nine-Tailed Fox Sect."

Tian Jian Hao straightened himself.

"I don"t care about Dark Asura Sect now. I"m now a member of Nine-Tailed Fox Sect!"

"You and Tong Xue are similar." I nodded gratefully. "Thanks. I"ll be counting on you then."
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"We won"t let the sect down!" Tian Jian Hao promised. He glanced at the spot where I had just buried the Sunburst. "I heard that you"ve a new trump card that might help! If that"s true, then we can kick those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of Tushan City!"

If there was anything left of Tushan City to kick them out, but obviously I didn"t tell him that. Instead, I smiled and nodded affably.

"All right, let"s go!"

Being an outer sect disciple, Tian Jian Hao did not follow me to Flame Volcano and instead went his separate way, joining Elder Zhao in watching the enemies from the fortress walls. Tang Qi Hong accompanied me instead as we went to see her adoptive father.

"Ah, Qi Hong, you"re here too." Zi Shou De smiled when he saw his adopted daughter. "Good timing. I was about to ask the two of you about the Sunburst."

"You could have called," I replied and waved my smartphone. Zi Shou De nodded with an apologetic smile.

"I guess I should have sent an email," he conceded. "But I prefer to hear it straight from you. I heard that you"ve been mining the Sunburst bombs you"ve built?"

"Yeah." To be fair, it was my fault for not emailing him and informing him that I was done. I had told the Great Elders, but evidently the Great Elders hadn"t informed the sect leader. I wondered if there was some conflict btween them.

"I hear you have a plan to lure everyone into a trap." Sect Lady Zi Da Ji spoke up, having been seated beside her husband all this while. I nodded.

"That"s right, ma"am."

"If I"m not mistaken, it involves blowing up the city." Zi Da Ji didn"t look happy about that, but she was aware that it was highly likely that we would be driven all the way back to the main sect grounds and forced to give up the city.

I suddenly understood what she was getting at.

"We will need a plan…to inform the Blood Blades and all the outer sect elders and disicples before I detonate them." of course it had occurred to me, but more in the form of a vague concept than a concrete idea. "I don"t want them caught in the blast."

"Good. I"ll organize it right away." Zi Da Ji sighed. "I"m stuck here guarding my husband, the Great Elders and the inner sect elders, and I can"t go to the frontlines."

"I"ll go there now and rejoin Fourth squad," I told her. Now that I was done with my little project, there was little reason for me to slack off my duties.

Zi Da Ji nodded. "Enjoy the lull in combat. It won"t last long."

"I rather they stop attacking us at all," Zi Shou De grumbled, but as always, life never went the way we wanted.

Approximately thirty minutes later, I found myself standing next to Tong Xue and Jing Wei atop the fortress walls, overlooking the invaders. They were all glaring back at us from below, having set up camp a few hundred meters away and surrounded by tents and armored fighting vehicles. I was relieved to see that there were no tanks, but when you had martial artists capable of firing fireb.a.l.l.s and techniques of destruction from their bare hands or swords, there was never a need to invent guns, cannons, missiles and tanks in the first place.

"Any movement?" I asked. Having summoned my Castellax battle-automata to stand alongside my friends" battle puppets, we sat around at the top of the ramparts, keeping an eye on the enemy. Given their overwhelming numbers, it was more for show than anything else, but we had hostages, so they didn"t dare to a.s.sault us with their Very Important Persons" lives in our hands. At the first sign of trouble, any one of us could vox to the Blood Blades guarding the plaza, and boom. Shi Jing Yun, Wu Tuo and Su Bai Xue would lose their heads.

"None so far." Tong Xue sent me a quizzical stare. "What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn"t you be in your workshop, building more of those Spirit Bombs you used to wreck Blood Shadow into a pathetic state?"

"Already did," I told him, though admittedly I planned to build another one or two to hide up my sleeve during our break hours. If I wasn"t too exhausted. Sentry duty was being done in shifts, but even though there was no combat so far, it was still an exhausting and mentally draining task. We were all on edge, and tension was running very high, what with thousands of enemy martial artists a.s.sembled right on our doorstep.

"You should make sure to get some rest," Jing Wei advised. Being the senior, he knew more about this than Tong Xue and I put together. He nodded at the milling martial artists below. "I know there"s no fighting right now, but it"s usually the waiting that kills you."

Apparently the military adage from my original timeline applied to here just as well. Rush to wait, and wait to rush. Remembering my mandatory military service, I sighed when I recalled the many moments where we soldiers did absolutely nothing but wait as officers considered orders, transports had to look for alternative routes, the mission turned into a lull and fighting had stopped, or the enemy was nowhere to be seen.

Contrary to popular belief, a war was not nonstop fighting for days or weeks on end. A battle usually lasted a few hours, until the stamina of both sides were exhausted, and one side withdrew, or they settled for a stalemate. It was not violence twenty-four seven, but rather long days of doing nothing but waiting, punctuated occasionally by sporadic violence. Then once an objective was taken or lost, and once we held new ground or withdrew, the fighting would die down, and we would wait for new orders. Orders simply did not come automatically – commanders often had to draw up detailed plans, a.s.sessed the situation, hold strategic meetings and discussed long and hard before they finally came to a decision. Provided we weren"t in the middle of combat already, where they had no choice but to issue orders thick and fast. But when there was no fighting, the wait could become unbearable.

Our battle puppets were arrayed in an intimidating formation, to lengthen the wait. Even though the enemy outnumbered us vastly, the presence of the battle puppets were what kept us in the fight. Currently, when there was no battle, we didn"t supply our battle puppets with our qi, choosing to only do so when we were attacked. It was understandable – the battle puppets were so qi-consuming that it was impossible to keep a steady trickle of qi twenty-four seven to power them all the time. Yet, their imposing figures struck enough shock and awe into the enemies, lowering their morale and confidence, thus forcing the opposing commanders to stay their hand.

For now, anyway.

"I"m surprised you are not working to reach Pure Spirit Stage and soaking in the Will"O Wisp Forest right now." Tong Xue"s comment came out of nowhere.

"Why would I?"

"Because Qin Lie did it in Spirit Realm right in the middle of a war."

"h.e.l.lo!" I almost knocked Tong Xue"s head as I retorted, "I am not Qin Lie!"

"Clearly," Tong Xue agreed. "Or you"ll control three of the Spirit Engraved Pillars and set them loose on the invaders."

"If only we can rely on such Deus ex Machina." I sighed. "But I"m sure the Imperial Guard will be arriving soon. We just need to hold out for another three days."

"Just three days, huh?" Tong Xue looked so very exhausted, which was just about how I felt, to be honest. "I can"t wait."

Honestly, I was hoping inwardly that my streaming and uploading of the video containing Shi Jing Yun, Wu Tuo and Su Bai Xue"s confessions had made their way across the Internet and into the Diet, speeding up their political process, but I was taught to a.s.sume the worst, prepare for the worst while hoping for the best, so I didn"t count on it.

"I"m surprised they didn"t send anyone over to negotiate with us, though." Jing Wei considered for a moment. "I thought they would at least ssend an official over, or one of the sect leaders would come beg us to free the hostages."

"After Lord Lang Xie cut off their arms, I don"t think they"ll lower themselves to that," I pointed out dryly. "If anything, they would be driven to rage, and should now be h.e.l.lbent on destroying Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. The moment we cut off their arms, we closed off any room for negotiation."

"Besides, you know their goals," Tong Xue added bitterly. "They were always going to kill every Blood Blades member, outer sect disciple and outer sect elder, and enslave the inner sect elders and inner sect disciples to forge Spirit Artifacts for them. You think they would just walk away now because we hold their high-ranking members hostage?"

"Wouldn"t enslavement be illegal, though?" I murmured, puzzled. "The Royal Family would investigate this, find out that the Martial Arts Alliance is engaging in criminal practices such as slavery, and free them, right?"

"If they can"t even come help us fight off an illegal invasion, what makes you think they will bother freeing enslaved blacksmiths?" Jing Wei snorted derisively.

"Furthermore, there are plenty of ways to cover up the enslavement once they are finished with their conquest." Tong Xue shook his head. "They will blackmail the blacksmiths into giving false statements by holding their families hostage, or fake their deaths while keeping them in enclosed captivity for the rest of their lives."

"That"s horrible," I muttered, an understatement if I had ever said one, but I was at a total loss for words. Horrible couldn"t even begin to describe these corrupted, so-called orthodox martial artist sects. They were no different from the demonic sects they claimed to protect us from.

"Despite what Senior Jing says," Tong Xue said with a look at the mostly quiet Jing Wei. "I am confident the Royal Family will act. Allowing the Martial Arts Alliance to run rampant like this and indulge in criminal wars would only undermine their authority and cause concern among the civilians. Especially if they find out that the Martial Arts Alliance had slaughtered countless civilians. That is going to cause quite the uproar, especially because they will have good reason to suspect that the Martial Arts Alliance will continue to do that again if they go unpunished."

"Not to mention depriving the Great Zhou Empire of a good deal of taxpayers," I muttered. Slaughtering all those people meant no taxes from them. And that would make the Royal Family unhappy even if they couldn"t care less about their subjects" lives or the ethicality of it. Plus they couldn"t afford to put down rebellions while a potential threat steadily rises in power after plundering its own subordinate sects" resources and wealth. If the Martial Arts Alliance was ruthless enough to conquer one of their own subordinate sects, then who was to say the royal family wouldn"t be next, once they had grown powerful enough to challenge even the Imperial Guard?

"Don"t worry. We can do this." Tong Xue slapped my back when he saw my worried expression, almost sending me over the edge. I glared at him, but he didn"t seem to care.

"What do you think they will do next?" I asked, especially since reality had finally deviated from the fictional and illogical Spirit Realm, and there would be no old friends, no negotiations, and no training to reach whatever realm or stage in the middle of a b.l.o.o.d.y war.

"Organize a rescue mission," Jing Wei replied simply. We both stared at him, and he shrugged. "It"s what I would do. And what Lord Lang Xie or Sect Lady Da Ji would have done. If our members have been captured and held hostage, the Blood Blades would be sent to infiltrate enemy ground and rescue them."

"Then we had best stay alert and keep an eye out for any infiltrators," I said, refusing to be unnerved by the revelation. I hoped I sounded more confident than I actually felt, but being my good friend, Tong Xue saw through me.

"I"m sure we"ll be fine," he a.s.sured me. "If we see them try anything funny, or get within a hundred meters of the walls, we"ll sound the alarm!"

"Oh, I wouldn"t count on that if I were you." Jing Wei burst our bubble, his expression solemn and pessimistic. "The people the Martial Arts Alliance will send on a rescue mission will be so high level and skilled that we wouldn"t even notice their presence until they are at the very heart of our city." His next statement grew more ominous. "We wouldn"t even notice them if they crept up behind us and killed us."