The Commanders carried the two figures up the slope.
Given the noise that had come from the forest, the Deputy Commanders had probably already been moving — but it was over so quickly that the whole thing still had a dreamlike quality.
Sure enough, they’d barely crested the slope when Hong Lei and Zhao Kanglin arrived with several dozen people.
“What happened?” Hong Lei’s eyelid was twitching.
“There was about to be something very large — but now there isn’t.”
Wang Meng couldn’t really compress the explanation for a Deputy Commander while also carrying a body, so he kept walking and let it come out in pieces.
The other Commanders chimed in with excitement — sword qi everywhere, and the dark blade—
Hong Lei took a while to piece it together.
His expression, when he had, was complicated.
He’d already made a rough guess when he saw Dai Bing’s injuries. He just couldn’t quite follow the logic.
He’d specifically asked Shen Yi to watch her.
How does keeping watch produce this.
And bundled together with her was a man in sect administrator’s robes.
Qingfeng Mountain’s administrators were not easy opponents. Even Hong Lei himself would have come away damaged.
“Deputy Commander — what do we do with them?” Wang Meng set the bodies down.
Zhao Kanglin’s voice came out cold. “Unsettled times like these, no need to follow procedure. Wasting manpower to guard them makes no sense. This woman nearly got colleagues killed — she’s a traitor. Execute both.”
Hong Lei gave him a look, then turned. “Was Shen Yi injured?”
Wang Meng opened his mouth. “Uh — I don’t think so? He looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat.”
He thought back more carefully, then nodded with certainty.
“Nonsense.” Zhao Kanglin let out a short, contemptuous sound.
Two opponents, alone. There was no way it had been as simple as these Threshold Realm Commanders made it sound.
Hong Lei had no interest in engaging with him. He looked at the three cloud-bands on Dai Bing’s cuff — how many demons killed, how many people protected, to accumulate that.
And Shen Yi had put both of them in this condition but not finished the job. He’d left enough life in them, trussed them properly, and sent them up. There was probably some further reasoning in that.
He exhaled slowly. “They’re damn near dead already — what exactly are we guarding? Leave them. If they’re lucky enough to survive, we deal with them back at the Division.”
On the ground, barely conscious, Dai Bing’s expression unreadable, she turned her head toward her martial brother.
Their eyes met. Something dry and complicated moved across both their faces.
The same young man who had personally closed every avenue of escape had also, in the end, been the reason they still had a heartbeat.
You could almost thank him for hitting hard enough.
“Rigid, the lot of you — clinging to your little rules, never accomplishing anything significant.”
Zhao Kanglin’s disdain was visible. The order was to hold position, and Hong Lei was apparently doing exactly that. Perfectly stationary. What had been the point of bringing all these people in if this was the result?
Seeing himself thoroughly ignored, he made a cold sound. “Where’s the one surnamed Shen? Something this significant and he can’t be bothered to report?”
Wang Meng and the others had been sitting on a response for quite some time. They were already drawing breath—
—when Shen Yi walked up the slope.
One look at him and the words dissolved. Not injured. He didn’t even look like someone who’d been in a fight.
Zhao Kanglin’s face twitched. Something wary entered his eyes.
Those Commanders were actually telling the truth.
He turned away without comment.
Hong Lei smiled with genuine feeling and clasped his hands. “Well done, Brother Shen.”
Real youth and talent. It made him feel his age in a way he found unexpectedly humbling.
Shen Yi fell in beside him and said, after a brief pause: “The mountain is going to move soon.”
“Mm?”
Hong Lei’s hands paused mid-bow. “One administrator making a desperate run for it — that’s not necessarily a sign of anything larger. General Chen—”
He stopped.
Something moved across that square face.
An administrator breaking out under cover of night meant disagreement with the people above. The Elder of Fury Sword had been right there on the cliff and hadn’t intervened.
If the mountain had fractured — factions pulling in different directions—
Was the Sect Master actually prepared to do something that would make the entire martial world his enemy?
If the leadership wanted to protect the swordsman while the lower disciples wanted to flee—
The people here, who had only been assigned to hold a gorge, would suddenly be facing a response from the better part of an entire sect.
Hong Lei bit down. “Thank you for the warning.”
He grabbed a torch from someone beside him, walked into the open, and looked up at the clifftop with a Jade Liquid practitioner’s full visual range.
The Elder of Fury Sword, who had been sitting cross-legged, was standing.
He’d pulled out the wooden pin from his hair. Thin silver strands hung loose across his shoulders.
The clouded eyes held no expression — and yet carried something strange, a fury that didn’t look like an emotion but like something he had been deliberately accumulating, like a reserve being filled.
The old man looked down.
His gaze found the Qingfeng Mountain administrator on the ground.
The disciple still had a thread of breath.
He sighed faintly. The fury in his eyes was nearly at capacity, but hadn’t quite filled — couldn’t quite take over completely.
“You said you’d badly wounded him?” Hong Lei turned and barked at Zhao Kanglin.
“I — I wounded him.” He sounded less certain than usual. The elder’s current qi signature was sharper than anything he’d faced in their exchange. “What’s the rush — if he comes down, we form the Demon Suppression Formation. He won’t make it back.”
It was bluster, but it wasn’t empty bluster.
Division Deputy Commanders had access to the best techniques and medicines available. Against sect disciples — even from a sect as established as Qingfeng Mountain — the Division’s overall depth was comparable, if not superior. Two Jade Liquid mid-stage Deputy Commanders holding the position, supported by dozens of Commanders in formation — capturing one elderly and diminished elder was manageable.
What Hong Lei was worried about was different.
The elder’s expression — either the man had lost his mind and was looking for a place to die, or Sword-Viewing Gorge, the worst possible location for a breakout, had become the intended breakout point precisely because it was least expected.
“Shen Yi — orders.”
He turned and pulled the iron command token from his belt.
“Take this under my authority as commanding officer of Sword-Viewing Gorge. Go to each of these eight Deputy Commanders and bring them here. Fast. And careful.”
Shen Yi raised his eyes.
It was only his second time out on assignment. Flagging an observation was one thing — he had no business assuming his read of the situation exceeded that of an officer with sixty years of experience.
His Jade Liquid Perfection was no small thing, but in a situation of this scale it couldn’t tip the balance on its own, and eight Deputy Commanders combined were worth incomparably more.
He reached for the token.
Another hand got there first.
Zhao Kanglin bit down. “I’m injured. Let me go.”
Shen Yi’s expression stayed level. Beside him, the golden-eagle Commanders turned away with clenched expressions.
Hong Lei gave the young man a look of frustrated resignation. He was the one authorized to call the Demon Suppression Formation — that was the Inner Division’s ultimate resource, and the Outer Division people here had no business directing it.
“Go quickly. Come back quickly.”
He turned back to the cliff.
Good. The elder still needed time to finish building.
Shen Yi looked on quietly, his expression carrying something other than Hong Lei’s faint relief.
With his stronger vision—
Behind the Elder of Fury Sword, far back along the cliff’s edge, a line of figures was slowly approaching the precipice.
Threshold Realm. Some of them hadn’t even reached mortal peak.
(End of Chapter)