Translator: TheBrokenPen Editor : Dhael Ligerkeys Smoke of war undulated up into the skies as battles waged on the hillocks closest to the frontline. Even from a distance, one could almost make out the myriad-colored death rays weaving here and there as well as the violent trepidation of spiritual energies rippling from there. The Green Feather Mountain offensive on Tai Luo Clan territories had begun with more than five to six vanguard squads being mobilized on simultaneous assaults on different fronts, making at least dozens to hundreds of Cultivators from both sides, trying to kill, maim, and destroy their enemies with extreme prejudice. On the hillside of one of those hillocks, the Xie Jin raiding squad was parked, awaiting orders. The whole squad waited in silence, using the time to rest and recuperate with anticipation. The task given to them was simple. They were to wait for the enemy raiding squad assigned here and intercept them if and when they appeared, otherwise, they were to group up with the nearest vanguard squad to assist their assault. With the Qins now out of the picture, it was open season on any Tai Luo Clan Cultivator and territory. An hour had passed since the battle began. Xie Jin opened his eyes. Quietly, he called his squadmates, “Let’s go.” Everyone vaulted themselves up their mounts and they rode on with Lu Ye taking point. Xie Jin and Tao Tian Gang peeled just closely behind while Song Xie and Qiao Qiao Er brought up the rear. Lu Ye was asked to become point-man due to Xie Jin’s recent injury. It was not serious, but it was bad enough to affect his performance. Hence the decision to have Lu Ye take his place. A decision that everyone unanimously agreed to since the whole squad realized how easy and victorious their battles had become with the addition of Lu Ye. With him leading their charge, the squad could easily draw first blood as early as the first exchange, allowing the odds to tip in their favor. His flair and ingenuity which had been a great boon often made everyone wonder more about Lu Ye’s provenance. The squad sped across the sloppy hillside meadows, accompanied by the rapid padded gallops of their mounts. Xie Jin gave Lu Ye a bearing that led nowhere near the crest. Instead, they were riding to the other side of the hillock. Lu Ye knew at once what Xie Jin’s plan was: they were going to intercept the enemy raiding squad. That would mean that the vanguard squad must be making good progress at the top of the hillock, hence the need for the enemy to dispatch a raiding squad to assist with the defense. “Five targets! Two Fifth-Orders, three Fourth-Orders!” Xie Jin shouted from over Lu Ye’s shoulders, “Take one down, Lu Ye, and leave the other to me!” Lu Ye nodded without a word, knowing that Xie Jin was referring to the Fifth-Order Cultivators. Qiao Qiao Er chuckled, “A pair of Fifth-Orders? Looks like they’re taking us seriously, eh?” That was true. That the Clan had sent forth a raiding squad with two Fifth-Order Cultivators indicated how wary it was towards the Xie Jin raiding squad. Not that it came as a surprise; with Lu Ye being an integral presence in this squad, the Xie Jin raiding squad had become greatly feared for their invincibility and deadliness. “They are coming this way!” Xie Jin roared at the top of his voice. Lu Ye did not need to be told. At the front of the formation, he could already make out figures approaching like a shot. Both squads closed in on each other until they were almost a hundred meters apart. Lu Ye set his sights on a ferocious-looking Fifth-Order Cultivator that could only be the leader of the enemy raiders. With a tiny little goatee below his chin, he looked like a greenhorn in his early twenties. Lu Ye fired a spell, although it missed squarely. Riding on a mount galloping furiously contributed to the bad aim. He fired a second spell. This time, it went straight for one of the enemy raiders, although his target was able to evade the blow by ducking low. With barely a few meters ahead, Lu Ye drew his saber. He could care less about what animal his target was riding, only that it resembled a lion and a tiger. As soon as they nearly brushed past each other, Lu Ye brought his weapon down on the Fifth-Order squad leader. The enemy dodged, but his mount twisted and rammed into Amber. The beefy white tiger gave an apoplectic roar as it fell. Up above, Lu Ye knew that Amber was falling. He leaped off Amber and fell to a roll on the ground before he managed to get back on his feet. He scanned his surroundings quickly. Everyone was the same. The enemy squad was using the first exchange to dismount everyone. The enemy was trying to prevent this from becoming a mounted skirmish! Lu Ye’s gaze turned intent and grim as his grip on the hilt of his saber tightened. The enemy must be confident in fighting them on foot if they had decided on such a strategy. [But why on Earth are they so confident?] But there was no time to think. Lu Ye dashed forward as soon as he was ready. The enemy Fifth-Order squad leader was only just getting back on his feet too and it was too good a chance for Lu Ye to miss. He swung his weapon, aiming for his target’s throat. The enemy quickly raised an arm to shield himself. A loud metallic clang resounded. Even with Spiritual Pattern “Sharp Edge”, the enemy’s arm was somehow able to withstand his attack. In fact, Lu Ye thought for one second that he had struck metal instead of human flesh. He looked and realized that his enemy was wearing an iron manica. [So that was why he dared to use his arm to protect himself!] He might not fit the typical stereotype of the large, beefy man who Body-Tempering Cultivators usually were, but he was agile and nimble enough. He was quick enough that before Lu Ye could follow up with another attack, he lunged and barreled a fist straight into his chest, forcing Lu Ye to retreat with his weapon back on the defensive. The sharp, ear-splitting bangs of spells ricocheting everywhere with fiery sparks bursting around could be distracting enough if Lu Ye did not have an enemy flinging his fists at him. Lu Ye used the flat of his saber to shield himself as the blows rained on him and the powerful impact threw him a few paces backward. Then he heard bestial roars and snarls. The mounts—all ten of them—must have engaged each other by now, and apparently, so did Xie Jin and the rest of his squadmates. Everyone had found their match and the battle had begun. All of a sudden, he heard a voice screaming, “They’re not Fourth-Orders!” That was Song Xie and he sounded distressed. That really was a bombshell. All real-time intelligence that Xie Jin received as leader of his squad was supplied to him by Tang Wu. The colored dots on the Shadow Moon Disc were all participants of the Conference and each color represented a different faction while the different hues denoted the participants’ varying ranks. Right now, the display on the Disc clearly indicated that the enemy raiding squad consisted of two Fifth-Order Cultivators and three Fourth-Order ones. The set-up wasn’t exactly powerful and strong, but Lu Ye and his squadmates weren’t dreading the encounter at all. With Xie Jin as their resident Fifth-Order Cultivator and Lu Ye who had proven himself capable of handling one himself, the rest of the squad was expected to just focus on the rest and not make a pig’s ear of what should be a manageable win. That accounted for the relaxed and casual mood before the battle began. At the very least, even if they failed to get the win, everyone anticipated a safe withdrawal with little to no injuries. But only after the first exchange did Song Xie realize that he was up against a Fifth-Order Cultivator. To make things worse, the enemy was a Spell Cultivator whose prowess in slinging one dead ray after another at him with tremendous efficacy and finesse prevented him from making the fight close-quarters combat. Instead, he had to duck and evade for dear life and it would take only one mistake for him to lose his life. “AARRGGHH!” another anguished howl came from another side. It was Tao Tian Gang, yowling as he staggered backward with a bloody gash almost a foot long that anyone could almost see the grotesque viscera inside. But his enemy was not going to just let him go. He pounced on Tao Tian Gang, eager to finish him off, and the flux of his Spiritual Powers clearly showed that he too was a Fifth-Order Cultivator. That almost sent Qiao Qiao Er into a hysterical fit. But fortunately for her, her enemy was only just a Fourth-Order Cultivator, unlike the others. Not that it made the situation any better; what was supposed to be an enemy squad with only just two Fifth-Order raiders had turned out to be four instead. They might not be outnumbered just yet, but they were still being overtopped. All it would take was for either Song Xie or Tao Tian Gang to be killed and the enemy squad would be able to snowball their advantage by having one extra Cultivator free. Deep inside the great hall at the central neutral region, Tang Wu’s face fell with despair as he tore his gaze from the Disc and hissed with undisguised sarcasm, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, eh?” He would be a fool if he could not see by now how he had fallen for Han Zhe Yue’s ruse. The Tai Luo Clan had methods to mask its participants’ real rank, which was commonplace trick enough, if not for the fact that the Clan would see the use of such Talismans on Cultivators as lowly as the Fifth-Order. Ordinary Talismans could not suppress a Cultivator’s Spiritual Energy signature, and Breathing Curbing Talismans would only obscure one’s Spiritual Energy signature entirely, not containing it down to a lower rank. To actually do that, one needed a special Spiritual Pattern. A Spiritual Pattern that needed to be branded on its wielder’s physical body. To that end, the Clan would require the outside help of a master in the arcane arts of manipulating Spiritual Patterns. Understandably, the services of such a virtuoso could never be cheap. Tang Wu knew for a fact that the Tai Luo Clan did not have such a talent within its own ranks, so the two “disguised” Fifth-Order Cultivators must have been a pair of hidden aces that the Clan had kept specially for situations like this. No longer her incandescent and seething self, Han Zhe Yue was now struggling to cover her wicked grin, “What a naive little boy.” She gave him a coy look, “What? You think I don’t know that the white tiger brat is in this raiding squad?” All that outburst and histrionics were all for Tang Wu’s benefit. “You’ve been making a lot of changes and adjustments lately and I know it’s all to prevent me from finding him. But you’re mistaken. I’ve known where he was all along,” Han Zhe Yue’s finger came up and tapped on the display of the Shadow Moon Disc, poking at the spot where the raiding squads were battling each other. “I know for a fact that he’s been instrumental in your trouncing of the Qins recently, so I’m sure you understand why I have to remove him as quickly as possible. In fact, maybe I should just wipe out the whole raiding squad just to be safe.” Her finger traced upwards and stopped at where the nearest assault was underway—a cluster of black and blue dots mixed together on the crest of a hill not far away. “Then I’ll have my raiders ride here and wipe out your vanguard after this. That way, I’ll be able to tear through your defenses and make a beeline for your rear where your logistics corp is. That’s where the true slaughter will begin! A slaughter that shall see Green Feather Mountain eternally castrated! Hahahahaha!” Tang Wu never looked so dismal before. Of all things, he did not see this coming, not knowing that Han Zhe Yue had seen through his plans. In fact, Han Zhe Yue’s plan mirrored his in almost every way! The Green Feather Mountain assault was going smoothly enough and if Xie Jin’s squad could join in, then they could work on securing a victory from there. For the purpose of bolstering her defense line, Han Zhe Yue had mobilized much of her forces to the frontlines, leaving the rear in a very compromised situation. If only the Xie Jin raiding squad could succeed, then it would be the Green Feather Mountain forces instead who would be dealing a most crippling blow to the Clan’s logistical division, effectively collapsing the Clan’s entire defensive line. For this reason, the battle today was the most important skirmish of this year’s Conference. The most important showdown where the winner would take all and the loser would be crushed. What was initially thought of as Han Zhe Yue’s mistake in moving the bulk of the Clan’s troops to the frontlines was just a gambit—and a well-planned one since she had seen through Tang Wu’s plans right from the start and her irascible outlook were just so that Tang Wu believed her. She had allowed Tang Wu to set his plan into motion while she plotted to hijack it and use it against him. It was all Tang Wu could do to stifle the boiling rage and frustration swelling inside him. He had underestimated Han Zhe Yue far too much and now he was paying the price—one that he knew was far more grave than what he could possibly endure. Watching from the sidelines, Qin Wan Li could feel his heart race. He could never compare himself to the likes of Han Zhe Yue and Tang Wu. These two geniuses in the art of intrigue and conspiracy could easily eat him alive!