Volume 1, Chapter 159 – Reunion

Very soon, the party arrived at the mustering parade ground.

At Bai Weiyang’s order, everyone took out their Demon-Suppressing Orders and hung them at their waists.

Amidst the crowd of men, Shi Lan stood out on her own. Coupled with her position as a commander of a thousand, she drew many curious looks.

The parade ground was packed with people, a dark mass stretching beyond the limits of sight. No one knew if there were tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. They were arrayed into dozens of massive square formations. Between the formations there was not a trace of noise, only the occasional snort from a flood-dragon horse.

The command platform, over thirty zhang tall, stood at the very front of the parade ground, about a thousand zhang away from Shi Lan’s formation.

A lone figure stood upon the platform, like a black dot. Even with Shi Lan’s eyesight, she could only make out a vague outline. On such an occasion, the only one who could stand there was the Demon-Suppressing Marshal. There would be no one else.

“Brothers-in-arms…”

After Shi Lan had been sitting on horseback for nearly half an hour, a slightly deep voice sounded by her ear. It was clearly the Demon-Suppressing Marshal on the command platform speaking.

Though he was a thousand zhang away, it was as if someone were murmuring right beside her ear, speaking slowly and clearly.

“Since the demon race broke through our pass and entered the Chengtian Domain, only a single year has passed, little more than three hundred days and nights. Yet already, nearly half of the Chengtian Domain has fallen. Those who have died to the maws of demonic beasts are beyond counting, not even in the billions. Blood platforms rise high, white bones fill the wilds, and the slaughter has piled up to the heavens…”

Below the platform, many soldiers clenched the reins in their hands. Among those who died to demonic beasts were their brothers-in-arms, even blood kin. Those mounting blood debts stuck in their throats like bones they could not swallow.

“Today, we stand here, using our own flesh and blood to block the claws and fangs of the beasts. How it will end, no one can yet say. But whether we survive this calamity and return home in glory, or die wrapped in horsehide and leave our bones buried at the border, this Marshal will stand together with all of you!”

With those words, the morale on the field instantly rose a notch.

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Yet within the ranks there were some whose expressions were only wooden. They were the veterans who had been fighting the demon race with complete units ever since the pass fell.

Mustering before battle, again and again, they were already exhausted to the core. After a year of war against the demon race, there was nothing left at their sides but dead comrades and wave after wave of new faces taking their place.

Their hearts were already dead. Even the hot blood in their chests had been worn down to a chill in this war with no visible end, flowing through their veins with no vitality, like walking corpses.

Some of them were in their prime, blood and qi like dragons, with the strength to pull up mountains and hurl them, yet their eyes were already full of death. They looked like elders at the end of life, half buried in the yellow earth, with only a pair of eyes left to gaze upon the world.

“Comrades, wherever you may stand, this Marshal hopes you will remember this in your hearts. One day, my human race will surely command the four seas and decide heaven and earth, restoring the glorious age of ancient times when the human way alone stood supreme!”

“When that day comes, all of you will be remembered through the ages, worshiped with incense offerings by the generations to come!”

“May our human race prosper forever!”

The voice by her ear grew more and more impassioned. Battle standards blotted out the sky. Countless black banners with gold characters snapped in the wind, bringing with them a bleak, desolate air.

“Clang——”

The sound of countless blades leaving their sheaths rang out like dragons roaring and tigers howling, unending. Weapons pointed straight at the heavens, reflecting the newly risen sunlight with flickering gleams.

“May our human race prosper forever!!!”

The answering roar surged like mountains collapsing and seas overturning, rushing straight into the sky and scattering ten thousand li of layered clouds.

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“Move out!”

Listening to the voice at her ear, Shi Lan raised her head to look at the battle standards flying overhead. There was a trace of confusion in her eyes. How long was this war, which would have no reinforcements, supposed to go on?

Until every last person was dead…

Branding the two golden characters “Demon-Suppressing” into her heart, Shi Lan tightened her grip on the reins, spurred her flood-dragon horse, and moved with the formation toward the exit.

In another formation, a man nearing sixty stared at the gate of the parade ground, his expression a little dazed. His hair was snow white, and at his waist hung a black Demon-Suppressing Order that marked him as a commander of a thousand.

“Old Shi, what is it?”

A middle-aged man beside him noticed something was off and gave him a push, calling him back to his senses.

“I… seem to have seen my daughter…”

The man spoke, sounding a little unsure.

……

“Move faster. We only have half an hour. Pack your gear and get ready to board the ships!”

After returning to camp, Bai Weiyang immediately gave the order to start packing and preparing to move out.

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When hundreds of thousands moved at once, too many hands only made for more chaos. In no time at all, the entire camp was in an uproar and a complete mess.

All of Shi Lan’s belongings were in her Qiankun Bracelet. She simply did not enter camp, staying seated on her horse and quietly waiting for the chaos to die down.

“Lan?”

Not far to her side, a somewhat uncertain call came.

Shi Lan turned her head, and her body went rigid.

“Father…”

After a long silence, Shi Lan called out softly. Running into Shi Tianlu here was something she had never imagined.

In only a year, Shi Tianlu looked as though he had aged more than ten years. His full head of snow-white hair was jarring to the eye. The high spirits he had when she first met him were gone, and that pressure that once made her feel a little afraid had completely disappeared.

Shi Lan was no longer who she used to be. With a single glance, she could see Shi Tianlu’s cultivation. He was at the peak of the Earth Fiend Realm. The limbs, spine, and seventy-two acupoints throughout his body were already fully opened. His true qi was like an ocean, surging without end.

For the Shi Lan of today, such strength was no longer out of reach.

Countless complicated emotions flashed through Shi Tianlu’s eyes. Looking at his daughter only five zhang away, his lips moved, yet for a long time he could not speak a single word.

In just one year apart, Shi Lan’s strength had undergone a world-shaking transformation. If not for that single word “Father” from Shi Lan, Shi Tianlu truly would not have dared to recognize her.

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A weak girl who could not even truss a chicken and a mighty Earth Fiend Realm expert who could cleave mountains and cut off rivers. For the gulf between the two to be bridged in a single year, how astonishing was that?

Was this really his daughter?

Shi Tianlu asked himself in his heart, and for some reason, a faint sense of panic surged up within him.

“Have you… gotten used to it?”

After they had faced each other in silence for a long while, Shi Tianlu finally managed to force out this one line.

“I am all right. Thank you for your concern, Father.” Shi Lan answered softly.

“That is good… that is good…” After glancing at the Demon-Suppressing Order hanging from Shi Lan’s waist, Shi Tianlu lowered his head and murmured.

Shi Tianlu understood that Shi Lan would not have much affection for him, but her slightly distant attitude still left him feeling inexplicably saddened.

Shi Lan’s coolness was not what she wanted. She simply did not know how to face Shi Tianlu, how to face the father of this life.

In her current emotions there was unease, joy, and a trace of guilt. She was, in the end, a visitor from beyond this world. Just by receiving a set of memories that did not belong to her, could she really, without the slightest unease, accept the care of “someone else’s” parents?

……

Behind her, the people in the camp had mostly finished packing and were beginning to file toward the fortress gate.