They were winding their way westward in massive numbers. It was inevitable that they would attract attention.

Wei Yuan had dispersed most of his men among the prisoners’ ranks, using them to help the ordinary soldiers move faster. His core group of fifty cavalrymen were standing guard on the periphery and patrolling the area.

They encountered numerous scouts on their way to the west—some were horse bandits, while others were Western Jin troops. The horse bandit scouts usually vanished the moment they spotted a masked rider, but the royal scouts were far more brazen. Some were even trailing them at a leisure pace from a few li behind.

The brazen scouts were typically border troops from the north. They operated in groups of two or three, and all of them were Dao Foundation-stage cultivators.

Although there wasn’t any real conflict between Wei Yuan and the northern frontier troops of Western Jin, that didn’t mean he would tolerate them riding roughshod over him. So, he dispatched three masked riders to engage them in a three-on-three con...