The Spring Breeze Does Not Cross Zhennan Pass

On the street, the little boy holding up a candied hawthorn skewer was cradled in his mother's arms. Most of the sugar coating on the skewer had already melted, but he still clutched it tightly, his big eyes fixed unblinkingly on Wang Hao in the sky above.

"Because of that," Wang Hao said, his voice soft. "Your Majesty admits it—I swindle people, I hoard wealth, I'm black-hearted, I'm petty. All of it, I own."

"There's never been any benevolence or righteousness in my rules, only accounts and deals. But this—"

He pointed at the little boy, then at all the common folk on the street, and a trace of tenderness he himself hadn't noticed crept into his smile.

"This one I owe them. I owe them a life. They call me Your Majesty, so I'll protect them for the rest of their days."

The Heavenly Sword was silent for a long time.

Then, in a tone never heard before, it spoke.

"Wang Hao, this one thinks you may have corrupted me."

"How so?"

"This one suddenly feels that this realm—is worth protecting."

Wang Hao was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter.

The laughter echoed over the city of Nan'an, drowning out the howl of the sea wind, overwhelming the cheers on the city walls, crossing ramparts and streets, falling into the ears of every person looking up at the sky.

He tucked the Lamp of Ten Thousand Hearts back into his sleeve, gripped the Heavenly Sword, and turned his gaze north—toward Zhennan Pass.

"Come on, back to Zhennan Pass. The fight there isn't finished. That wounded half-step tenth-rank is hurt, and the remaining nine-rank aberrations will be easy to clean up. Harvest their cores, and I guarantee you a spot in the top hundred."

"Only the top hundred?" The Heavenly Sword was displeased.

"This one wants to eat into the top fifty!"

"Then you'll need to swallow a few more nine-rank aberrations. Later I'll take you to the South Sea—that fiend's lair is sure to have more stock."

"Excellent!" The Heavenly Sword's voice grew excited once more.

A beam of golden sword-light shot up from Nan'an City and flew north toward Zhennan Pass.

Behind it, the cheers of five million three hundred thousand people rose like a boiling ocean.

And in the far south, within a pitch-black expanse of sea, the wounded black mountain was slowly sinking into the deep.

On the mountain's surface, the injured eye stared with a gaze thick with venom at the direction Wang Hao had vanished, its deep voice echoing through the abyss:

"Wang Hao, this one remembers you."

"Once this one steps into the tenth rank, I will personally devour your Eastern Wasteland, devour your people, devour everything you have."

"That day is not far off."

The deep sea fell back into silence.

Only the black mist spreading over the sea's surface hinted that this was merely a temporary calm.

Three days after the black mountain retreated into the South Sea, the walls of Zhennan Pass still reeked of acrid blood.

Not human blood—it was the black pus left behind by the decomposing remains of aberrations.

The pus had seeped into the gaps between the wall's stone bricks, and no amount of washing could clean it out. Soldiers on watch trod across the sticky ground, every step making a grating squelch that set teeth on edge.

The surviving warships of the Grand Xia Navy were arranged in three columns outside the harbor, most of their rune-cannon barrels already wrecked, muzzles still bearing scorched black marks from extreme heat.

Of the five hundred warships, nearly half had been lost. The rest were battered and scarred—some hulls torn open by aberration tentacles with cracks deep enough to show bone, some decks still pocked with holes corroded by aberrant toxin, some masts snapped, banners burned to ash.

Admiral Han Shanyue limped through the harbor, leaning on a cane, dragging his broken leg.

After his right leg had been shattered by the shockwave of the skull sphere, the Ministry of Works had rushed him a rune prosthetic—black-iron frame, spirit-stone driven, creaking and groaning with every step.

But the old general couldn't get used to the thing. Every quarter-hour he'd curse, "Damn it, might as well have just chopped it off."

Out on the water, the navy's recovery crews were still fishing out the bodies of fallen soldiers.

In three days, they'd retrieved less than three in ten. More of the dead had been devoured by aberrations, their very souls never even leaving a trace. All that remained on the sea were scattered fragments of armor and snapped weapons.

A young recovery soldier hauled a dented helmet out of the water. The name "Zhang Erlang" was carved into the lining inside.

The soldier stared at the name for a long while, then wiped seawater from the helmet with his sleeve and placed it carefully into the collection box behind him.

"Zhang Erlang. From Dengzhou Prefecture, North Frontier Province. Seventh Squad, Third Company, First Battalion of the Imperial Guard." The recovery soldier recited it once, then again, then turned to the clerk behind him and said,

"Record it—killed in action. Body not recovered. Helmet as proof."

The clerk wrote "Zhang Erlang" onto the casualty roster with an expressionless face.

His hand was steady, his writing meticulous, but the pages of the roster flapped in the sea wind, and he had to press down on the corner with his left hand to keep writing.

Three full ledgers of the casualty roster were already filled. Fifty names to a page, nearly five thousand in three volumes—and this was only the confirmed death count. The missing numbered far more, at least eight thousand and above.

Inside Zhennan Pass, the field hospital.

It was an emergency medical station converted from a local temple.

The statue of the tutelary god had been moved to a corner; the altar now held jars of medicine and rolls of bandages. Dozens of hemp ropes were strung between the temple pillars, hung with blood-soaked dressings. The wet bandages dripped bloodwater, lined up along the ropes like some cruel banner.

More than three thousand wounded packed the temple and the tents outside—the severely injured lying on stretchers, the lightly wounded sitting on the ground leaning against the walls. The air inside was so thick it was hard to breathe—blood, medicine, sweat, the stench of rotting wounds. All of it mingled into a foul stew that seemed to have simmered for three days.

The army surgeons were run off their feet. Zhennan Pass had only thirty permanent military doctors. With emergency civilian physicians from South Frontier Province and volunteer healers who'd hurried over from Nan'an City, there were still fewer than two hundred in total. Two hundred people to handle nearly ten thousand wounded—the lightly injured could wait in line, the severely injured lay on stretchers groaning, and those worse off fell silent.

A young army surgeon crouched before a soldier whose abdomen had been corroded by aberrant toxin, studied him for a long time, then stood up and shook his head quietly at the colleague behind him.

"Can't save him. The toxin has already invaded his dantian. Give him another half hour at most."

His colleague was silent for two breaths, then unbuckled a water pouch from his belt, knelt beside the dying soldier, lifted his head, and held the pouch to his lips: "Brother, have some water."

The soldier's eyelids fluttered. His lips moved as if trying to speak, but only a faint, sigh-like moan escaped. Water trickled from the corner of his mouth, mixed with blood, running down his chin and dripping onto the filthy bandages.