"Brother Xiao, you are truly something else. To think Marshal Moyai actually committed treason... but tell me, how on earth did you lure both that old fox and the Chu Yun Commander, Ghost Spider, to this exact spot at the same time?"
Mu Chen stared at Xiao Lin, his heart a turbulent sea of shock and admiration. If Xiao Lin hadn't exposed the conspiracy, their entire reinforcement squad would have walked blindly into a meat grinder.
But Mu Chen didn't know the half of it. He assumed it was pure tactical genius, unaware that without Xiao Lin's hidden Dou Huang strength, the plan would have crumbled. If the Chu Yun elite squad hadn't been erased in an instant, Moyai and Ghost Spider could have simply compared notes and cleared up the "misunderstanding."
It was Xiao Lin's raw power that had deleted the witnesses, leaving Ghost Spider with nothing but a pile of corpses and a marked traitor to look at. Now, Ghost Spider was beyond words. He only had one mode left: Exterminate.
"It was a simple matter of timing," Xiao Lin said smoothly, offering a truncated version of his exploits to the group.
He detailed how he intercepted the messenger and sent the forged letters, but he conveniently left out the part where he single-handedly vaporized a hundred men. He let the silent, star-scorched crater speak for itself, allowing Mu Chen to believe that Moyai had turned on his own "allies" in a fit of paranoid rage.
Better to let Moyai carry the guilt of these deaths, Xiao Lin thought. It's a small addition to the mountain of treason he's already built.
Mu Chen's respect for Xiao Lin reached a fever pitch. "Brother Xiao, your foresight is boundless! To dismantle a cross-border conspiracy while forcing the enemies to kill each other... you truly deserve the title of Chief Strategist of the Empire!"
Behind him, the thirty Da Dou Shis looked at Xiao Lin with eyes full of near-religious fervor. To them, Xiao Lin wasn't just a general; he was the man who had pulled them back from the gates of hell.
"General Xiao, we owe you our lives!" "If not for your wisdom, my children would be orphans tonight." "To hell with Moyai! We follow General Xiao!"
Xiao Lin accepted the "rainbow farts" (extravagant flattery) with a faint, calm smile, though internally he was focused on the sky. The final act was nearing its climax. He had stayed hidden not out of cowardice, but because he didn't want the Soul Hall or the Imperial Family to see a new Dou Huang rising in the Xiao Clan before he was ready.
In the air above the Black Rock Mountains, the battle had reached a gruesome stalemate. Both Moyai and Ghost Spider were covered in wounds.
Ghost Spider's forbidden pill had given him a terrifying edge, but the poison-saturated Dou Qi was now taking its toll on Moyai. The Marshal's left arm had turned a sickly violet-black, and the blood leaking from his mouth was dark and putrid. He was burning massive amounts of Dou Qi just to keep the toxins from reaching his heart, causing his cyan wings to flicker and dim.
Ghost Spider was in even worse shape. A massive wind-blade gash ran from his right shoulder to his left hip, his robes soaked in a deep crimson. Half of his right ear had been lopped off, and his face was the color of parched bone. Only the manic, suicidal light in his eyes kept him airborne.
The effect of the pill is fading, Ghost Spider realized, his vision blurring. I can't win a battle of attrition. I can die here, but Moyai must not live to enjoy his prize. I will wash away Chu Yun's humiliation with his blood!
Moyai, struggling to breathe through the poison, didn't notice the sudden, terrifying stillness in Ghost Spider's aura. He was too busy suppressing the rot in his veins.
By the time he looked up, Ghost Spider was already charging. The commander didn't raise a palm or a claw; he simply threw his entire body at the Marshal like a human cannonball.
"Is he mad?" was Moyai's first thought.
Then he saw it—the way Ghost Spider's Dou Qi was expanding outward rather than inward. The man's chest was glowing with a volatile, violet light.
"NO! YOU FOOL! STOP!"
Moyai's scream was cut short.
"Moyai! I told you... I'm taking you with me! HAHAHA!"
BOOM!
A brilliant, violet-and-black explosion ripped through the midnight sky. A self-detonation from a peak-level Dou Wang was equivalent to a full-strength strike from a Dou Huang. The shockwave leveled the remaining peaks of the canyon, and the violet flame of Ghost Spider's life essence swallowed Moyai's figure entirely.
Below, even the battle-hardened Da Dou Shis shielded their eyes from the blinding flash. They had expected a fight, but they hadn't expected a Dou Wang to turn himself into a sun out of pure, unadulterated hatred.
Xiao Lin watched the violet fire dissipate, his eyes narrowing as he sensed the fading ripples of life in the air.
"The curtain falls," he whispered. "Time to collect the remains."
BOOM.
The final act concluded with a single, earth-shattering detonation. When the violet flames of the Ghost Spider's self-destruction finally flickered out, the only thing that remained of the Great Marshal was a hunk of charred, unrecognizable carbon falling from the sky.
Marshal Moyai—a man who had ruled the Jia Ma military for decades—was dead. There were no winners in this duel of Kings; both commanders had perished in the desolate silence of the Black Rock Mountains.
The true architect of this tragedy, Xiao Lin, stood in the shadows, his presence hidden from history. To the world, he was merely a talented Nine-Star Dou Ling who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
"Is... is it over?" Mu Chen stammered, his eyes wide with disbelief.
He felt as though he had participated in a world-changing event, yet he had barely drawn his sword. He had watched a Marshal and a Commander descend into madness and erase each other from existence. It felt like a fever dream.
"Wake up, Mu Chen," Xiao Lin said, his voice the first to cut through the shock. "Moyai's body is charcoal, and the Ghost Spider has turned to ash. The threat is gone. Now, we have a job to do. Let's get Nalan out of there."
Xiao Lin was the most composed because the result, while violent, was within his calculations. Whether Moyai had lived or died didn't matter; once the "Treason" was exposed to thirty witnesses, the Marshal was finished. The self-detonation simply saved Xiao Lin the trouble of an execution.
The Rescue and the "Curse"
The group moved toward the deepest part of the canyon, where a thick wall of violet miasma still choked the pass. They didn't need to be subtle anymore. Each soldier unleashed their Dou Qi, working together to blow back the toxic fog.
"NA-LAN JIE! CAN YOU HEAR US?" they roared into the mist.
Soon, an answering shout echoed from the other side. Within thirty minutes, the artificial miasma was dispersed, revealing the trapped squad. Nalan Jie and his men emerged looking like walking skeletons—gaunt, hollow-cheeked, and smelling of damp stone. They had been starving and breathing tainted air for over a month, but they were alive.
The moment Nalan Jie spotted Xiao Lin, he didn't offer a polite greeting. He charged forward and wrapped his best friend in a bone-crushing bear hug.
"My brother! I knew you'd come!" Nalan Jie shouted, his voice cracking with emotion. "I owe you my life! Words aren't enough! Listen—I know we both have sons, but I swear to you right now: if I ever have a granddaughter, she will marry your grandson! It's a blood oath!"
Xiao Lin's smile instantly froze. The image of the "Three-Year Agreement" and the humiliating divorce papers from the original story flashed through his mind like a lightning bolt.
Wait, Nalan... let's think about this... I really don't want to screw over my grandson Xiao Yan...
"No, Nalan, let's not be hasty—"
"It's settled!" Nalan Jie roared, clapping him on the back before walking away to greet the others, leaving Xiao Lin standing alone in the wind, his mind a chaotic mess of future plot points. This... this is how it starts? I'm the one who officially triggers the engagement?
The return to the main camp was a somber affair. Along the way, Nalan Jie and the survivors learned the truth. The realization that their own Marshal had sold them out for a Qi Method filled them with a cold, righteous fury.
By the time they reached the garrison, Xiao Lin was being looked at with eyes of pure reverence. He was the man who had seen through a god-level conspiracy and orchestrated the downfall of two Kings. To the soldiers, Xiao Lin was the "Smartest General in the Empire."
Upon seeing Moyai's charred remains, the camp fell into a deathly silence. Even the Marshal's most loyal followers couldn't argue with the evidence or the testimonies of thirty elite Da Dou Shis. The command was temporarily paralyzed until the generals reached a consensus: the treason was a matter for the Emperor, but the war was a matter for them.
Taking advantage of the Chu Yun Empire's confusion (they still didn't know their commander had exploded), the Jia Ma generals launched a massive, coordinated counter-offensive. Led by the tactical brilliance Xiao Lin had demonstrated, they shattered the Chu Yun lines, reclaiming all twelve lost cities in a matter of weeks.
The Chu Yun army, leaderless and demoralized, was pushed back across the border. It wasn't until the Jia Ma Imperial Family sent a Dou Wang to officially take command that the "unofficial" phase of the war ended.
Eventually, the neighboring empires began to eye the two bleeding nations like vultures. To avoid being picked apart by third parties, Jia Ma and Chu Yun were forced to the negotiating table.
Both sides had suffered "bone-deep" injuries. Jia Ma had lost a Marshal and thousands of men to treachery; Chu Yun had lost an elite regiment and their Supreme Commander to a "phantom" at Black Rock Mountain.
For Xiao Lin, Mu Chen, and Nalan Jie, the war was over. As "trainees" rather than lifelong military servants, they were permitted to return to the capital.
As Xiao Lin rode through the gates of the Jia Ma capital, he looked at the bustling streets and then at his own hands. The war had changed the empire's power map forever. The Intel Clan was finished, the Nalan and Mu clans were rising, and the Xiao Clan...
The Xiao Clan now had an Ancestor who knew the future and held the power of the stars.