Chapter 58: After the Battle

Three days later, the fleet crossed Suiyang Lake and reached Jingchun, a place one must pass through when heading south to Guangyang.

In that battle three days prior, Lord Yuan, who led the navy to the battlefield, emerged as the greatest victor. The various bands of waterborne bandits harassing the regions around Suiyang Lake were wiped out in one fell swoop. When the spoils were tallied after the battle, it was recorded that 817 bandits had been killed and 552 captured. As for those drowned or whose bodies could not be recovered, their numbers were beyond counting.

On the navy’s side, casualties totaled fewer than fifty.

Given that there had been no warfare on the borders in recent years, such a brilliant achievement was more than enough to add considerable weight to Lord Yuan’s record. Though it would not alter his noble rank, it was sufficient to silence the civil officials who doubted his abilities as a military commander, and perhaps even help him rise higher within the army in the future.

For these three days, Su Yi had remained in his cabin, tending to his wounds.

In his duel with Zuo Qingzong, Su Yi had relied on his own defensive prowess to go blow for blow with an opponent who stood at the very pinnacle of this world’s demonic path, ultimately killing him. Yet even with his cultivation and the protection of his bulletproof vest, he could not fully withstand the fearsome force of Zuo Qingzong’s fists, and in the end, his internal organs suffered injury.

After the battle, Su Yi had returned to the ship coughing up blood, which gave Chi Pengjin and the others quite a scare. However, he knew his own condition best; though the bloody coughing looked alarming, his wounds were not as grave as they appeared. Still, it would take at least several months of careful nurturing to fully recover.

No matter the true extent of his injuries, the battle on Suiyang Lake alone—never mind the near-miraculous feat of capsizing enemy ships—was enough to establish Su Yi’s invincible image. With his strength, he swept through all the high-level combatants of the White Day Palace, and from top masters like Guan Shan to ordinary soldiers, all now saw him as unbeatable in this world.

If not for his injuries, those soldiers who revered him as if he were a celestial being would likely have already prostrated themselves before him as a living deity.

Su Yi stepped out from his cabin, and every soldier he encountered along the way saluted him with a reverence and fear that perhaps even the emperor himself would not command.

He climbed to the observation deck to breathe in the fresh air, which was especially crisp after the rain.

The fleet docked at Jingchun to replenish essential supplies before setting out again. By his reckoning, Guangyang was not far ahead.

With little to occupy him, Su Yi found himself thinking of Wen Xiang, still being held captive.

It had been three days since he last visited her. Now, in the cabin where she was confined, he saw the inheritor of the Yuanmo Sect once again.

Wen Xiang’s expression was deeply complex as she faced him. Though he was the chief culprit in the near-destruction of her sect, witnessing his staggering martial prowess in the battle on the lake left her unable to summon true hatred.

Anyone who had seen Su Yi’s astonishing skills and methods would surely feel that same sense of powerless awe, unable to call such a man their enemy.

They stared at each other in silence for a while, until Su Yi, seeing that she would not speak, sighed and said, “Miss Wen, your Yuanmo Sect has all but perished. The few survivors are unlikely ever to show themselves again. With your current skills, the idea of rebuilding your sect is no more than a pipe dream. Why not tell me what you plan to do next? In light of your lack of any evil deeds that I know of, as long as you do not speak of seeking revenge, I will not kill you.”

Confronted by his question, Wen Xiang’s gaze grew lost. Over the past three days in captivity, she had asked herself this very question countless times, but never found an answer.

She had been born in a small village in the southwestern borderlands of Daxing. When she was five, her entire family perished in a rebellion led by the seventy-six Dong barbarians; only she, a child, was saved by the previous master of the Yuanmo Sect.

That master adopted her as his daughter, taught her martial arts, and entrusted her with carrying on the sect’s legacy. His kindness was as deep as a mountain. Even after she learned of the Yuanmo Sect’s infamy in the martial world, Wen Xiang had never wavered. She simply held fast to her own principles, devoted herself to cultivation, and lived a secluded life, almost cut off from the world.

She had thought she would live out her days in such quiet obscurity, until five years ago, when her adoptive father visited her in her mountain valley and said he intended to challenge the Pure Steel Sword Immortal, said to be the greatest master under heaven, in pursuit of martial perfection.

There were no witnesses to that duel. When she, staying at an inn at the foot of the mountain, heard that her adoptive father had been defeated and killed, Wen Xiang felt her last earthly tie had been severed.

Her adoptive father had died. Perhaps to strengthen his own martial resolve, he had named no successor before his final challenge. He may well have struggled with the decision, for by the rules handed down through the sect, unless absolutely necessary, only one who had attained the Innate Realm could assume the position of sect leader.

The eight elders of the sect, though outstanding among first-class martial artists, had not, at that time, achieved the Innate Realm. None would submit to another, so the leadership passed into abeyance.

Then, news came that the True Explanation, a text lost for centuries, had resurfaced. The undercurrents within the sect erupted into open conflict. Each believed that if they could obtain the True Explanation, they could break through the bottleneck that had held them back and ascend to the Innate Realm, thereby subduing all rivals and claiming the sect master’s seat.

In the inevitable bloody struggle that followed, Wen Xiang remembered a lesson her adoptive father had taught her: “Might makes right.” She chose to ally herself with Elder Feng Fei, whose skills she respected and who was the strongest among them. Together, they ended what might otherwise have been a long and bitter internal war.

She had thought things would proceed as she had foreseen: Feng Fei, the strongest, would gain the True Explanation, break through to the Innate Realm, and become the new sect leader; the other elders would be forced to accept this and bow their heads. She herself could then retire, leaving the affairs of the sect to the new master, and the matter of future succession to them as well.

Yet the man standing before her had destroyed all of that. As for Feng Fei and the others’ deaths, truthfully, she felt little. Were it not for her adoptive father, she would never have had any dealings with them; her sense of belonging to the sect was rooted only in her gratitude to him.

Now her cultivation was crippled, her strength barely a hundredth of what it once was. The notion of reviving the sect was not even worth discussing. If her adoptive father were still alive, what would he say to her?

The image of that imposing figure flashed through Wen Xiang’s mind. Perhaps, in his eyes, the pursuit of martial perfection was far more important than the continuation of the sect’s lineage.

It was a pity—her adoptive father, obsessed with martial arts all his life, never witnessed the boundless skill of the man before her.