I Never Thought I Would Lose

A deafening, earth-shattering boom rang out.

The light shield trembled violently, its surface covered in countless fine cracks.

The bodies of 5.3 million people shuddered simultaneously—though the protective light had blocked the physical impact of the mountain, the shockwave still passed through every person who had offered their willpower.

But no one fell.

An old man steadied himself with his cane; a mother held her child tighter; young people braced themselves against walls; soldiers planted their spears into the ground to support the civilians beside them.

“Hold on.”

Wang Hao gritted his teeth and growled, pouring every ounce of remaining strength within him into the Lamp of Ten Thousand Hearts. The Martial God Foundation in his dantian groaned under relentless strain, thirteen cracks splitting into twenty.

“Hold on!” he roared again, golden blood seeping from the corner of his mouth and dripping onto the bronze lampstand, where the patina turned a dark gold, stained by his blood.

5.3 million people held on.

Old men’s knees trembled, but their spines did not bend. Mothers’ arms shook, but their embraces did not loosen. Young people’s jaws clenched, but their backs remained straight. Soldiers’ legs weakened, but their spears stayed planted, steadying the people around them.

The cracks in the light shield began to heal.

It wasn’t Wang Hao who mended them—it was the willpower of 5.3 million people repairing themselves. For every person who endured one more breath, the shield grew thicker; for every person who trusted Wang Hao one more breath, the shield grew brighter; for every person who held on for a fellow citizen one more breath, the shield grew stronger.

“This—” The Heavenly Sword’s voice carried a tremor of awe for the first time. “What is this thing?”

“The people’s heart,” Wang Hao said, his voice hoarse, but his eyes burning with a light never seen before.

“I only ever used national fortune to fight before. I never knew—that the hearts of the people are the strongest power of all.”

The black mountain ground against the light shield above, its eerie runes pounding relentlessly.

Each impact sent the shield quaking, but after every tremor, it steadied again—because every jolt made the 5.3 million people in Nan’an City cling closer together.

The bizarre runes at the mountain’s base began to shatter.

The willpower of the people within the protective light was a deadly bane to the eerie. The eerie was born from lingering resentments of the dead, corrupted into malevolence. The people’s will was the purest goodness from living hearts.

They were natural enemies.

The black mountain let out an enraged howl.

It had believed that breaking through Wang Hao’s barrier would deliver Nan’an City into its grasp, the souls of five million lives ripe for the taking.

But it never imagined that Wang Hao could bear the will of 5.3 million people with his own body, blocking its long-planned ambush.

The runes on the mountain’s surface cracked in large sections, each fracture releasing a piercing screech. The resentment within those runes had nowhere to hide under the radiant light, burned into wisps of smoke by the people’s will.

In Nan’an City, 5.3 million people looked up at the small lamp in the sky, watched the shield cast by its glow block the sky-darkening black mountain, and saw their emperor using every last bit of his strength to sustain that lamp.

Some began to cry.

Not from fear, but from emotion.

A little boy holding a candied hawthorn stick spoke to his mother.

“Mom, when I grow up, I want to be someone like His Majesty.”

His mother froze. “Why?”

“Because the emperor brother can protect so many people.” The boy tilted his head toward the sky, gazing at the figure bathed in golden light, and said in a childlike voice,

“I want to protect lots of people, too.”

Across the city, someone shouted first: “I would die for His Majesty!”

Then the whole city joined in.

“I would die for His Majesty!”

“I would die for His Majesty!”

“I would die for His Majesty!”

5.3 million voices merged into a torrent of power greater than any array, surging into the Lamp of Ten Thousand Hearts, into the protective light, into Wang Hao’s body.

Wang Hao felt that force, and his body shuddered.

In his dantian, the cracks on the Martial God Foundation began to heal under the nourishment of the people’s will—not from his own strength, but from the lives, faith, and hope that 5.3 million people had given him.

His spiritual energy began to recover; his national fortune once again surged; the willpower of the people swelled from near depletion to an unprecedented density.

The golden radiance of national fortune blazed around him once more, fiercer than ever before—because this fortune hadn’t been gathered from the daily hopes of billions across the Eastern Wasteland Empire.

It was forged from the purest, deepest, and most fervent trust and devotion of 5.3 million people at the brink of life and death.

Wang Hao looked down at the city below, at the 5.3 million faces gazing up at him, at the tears and smiles on their faces, at the fear and trust in their eyes.

Then he looked up at the black mountain still locked in stalemate with the shield, a bright grin returning to his face.

“Old fiend, I didn’t answer you before—but I will now.”

He gripped the Lamp of Ten Thousand Hearts in his left hand and drew the Heavenly Sword with his right.

“You said my trap was only one layer. You were right—my trap was indeed only one layer. But it wasn’t that Ninefold Annihilation Array you triggered. My trap was this entire city of Nan’an, was 5.3 million lives, was the national fortune of billions across the Eastern Wasteland Empire.”

“You asked me just now if I still thought I could win?”

His smile blazed like an old hunter who had just snared his prey.

“Now I’ll tell you—I don’t just think I can win. I never once thought I would lose.”

The Heavenly Sword let out a prolonged cry in his hand, its sound filled with blazing battle intent.

“Wang Hao, you said before that you never disappoint your people?”

“Yes.”

“I suddenly understood something.” The sword’s voice carried a strange note—like pride, or perhaps bashfulness. “You’ve never disappointed me either.”

“Nonsense, when have I ever let you down?”

“Often. Like when you promised to take me to eat the number one ranked eerie, but we’ve only eaten a few so far.”

“Fine, fine, after this battle, I’ll treat you to as many as you want.”

Wang Hao tightened his grip on the Heavenly Sword, pouring the new strength within him wildly into the blade.

The platinum light on the sword flared again, now even more dazzling—a brilliance fused with the people’s will.

Then he fixed his gaze on a spot three li east of the black mountain’s base center.

System intel showed the main rune pattern was there.

It appeared once every three hundred breaths. Next appearance was—

“Now!”

Wang Hao’s figure streaked across the night sky, trailing a golden afterimage.

In his left hand, he raised the Lantern of Ten Thousand Hearts, and in his right, he gripped the Heavenly Sword, charging toward the base of the black mountain peak.

A protective radiance blazed around him, forming a liquid golden armor that purified all the eerie forces surging from the mountain's surface.

The main pattern appeared as expected.

It was a massive, dozens-of-zhangs-wide, dark green pattern, with a flow of eerie power far denser than the other patterns running through it.

As soon as the pattern emerged, eight twisted shadows materialized around it—guardian anomalies, each formed from the remnant souls of nine levels of eerie beings.