Chương 99: The War of Western Unification

September 2028, Azure Profound Continent In the ninth month of the 1537th year of the Imperial Court's Rectifying Heaven Era, Monarch Cloudpiercer of the Western Seat raised his banners against the Lanternmarches. -History of Emperor Vast Martial Historically the two barren western provinces of the Azure Profound Continent were considered ungovernable. The area stretched vast and desolate.

When Leo made his trip to the Western Seat earlier in the year, it took him multiple days of flying to cross the ten thousand mile distance to arrive at the only Tier Five spirit vein in the two provinces. Although the two western provinces possessed an enormous number of Tier One and Tier Two spirit veins, they lacked serious quantities of mid-tier and high tier veins.

In the past, every Tier Three vein and above drew constant battle, as Foundation Establishment cultivators near the end of their lives fought to conquer a higher vein so they could break through and live rather than die of old age. Monarch Sky Summit, father of the current ruler of the Western Seat, proposed to the great sects and temples of the central provinces that they could finally bring the massive population of rogue cultivators under control.

The method was simple: control access to the Mortal Shedding Pills needed to advance to Foundation Establishment. In the past, this would have been impossible. Although the Great Barrier Mountain Range cut off the Azure Profound Continent from the Great Hindustan Empire to the southeast, goods and trade had always flowed between the two great nations. Alchemy pills were very valuable, and easy to smugle. It was hard enough to enforce imperial tax, let alone a complete ban.

However, hundreds of years before Monarch Sky Summit's reign, a great disaster fell upon the Hindustan Empire. Scouts sent to investigate never returned. The teleportation and communication channels to the central provinces stopped working. Now the Imperial Court was left unrivaled, and a plan began to take shape.

Monarch Sky Summit promised the Great Sects and Temples that he would prohibit the public production of the Mortal Shedding Pills, and force anyone who wished to acquire a pill would have to swear a dao heart oath of loyalty or faith to one of the great powers. The great powers agreed to split the western provinces in half. The western half, now known as the Thousandsteppes, would be directly ruled by Monarch Sky Summit's Western Seat.

The eastern half, now known as the Lanternmarches, would be divided among the powers of the central provinces. The prohibition proved easy to implement. Deity Transformation Monarchs possessed lifespans exceeding a thousand years, and all they had to do was wait patiently. Although many families of loose cultivators had great stockpiles, such stockpiles could not last forever. Soon the entire provinces fell under the rule of the Monarchs and Eternals.

By the time Leo, Arthur, Mike, and Kevin arrived on the Azure Profound Continent, the population of the western two provinces had decreased dramatically through generations of one-child policies imposed on lower realm cultivators. That was why it had been easy for them to stumble upon free Tier Two spirit veins. The Monarchs and Eternals had turned the Lanternmarches and the Thousandsteppes into carefully managed faith power farms.

The rulers maintained just enough worshippers for their own personal cultivation without letting the numbers grow unmanageable. After all, if you cultivated an enormous population of Foundation Establishment cultivators without providing them enough opportunities to advance to Gold Core, you were just inviting disaster upon yourself. After Monarch Sky Summit's death, his son Monarch Cloudpiercer inherited an unprecedented centralized Thousandsteppes.

Against the advice of his advisors, Cloudpiercer began to undo much of his father's carefully managed work. He abolished the one-child policy in the Thousandsteppes, citing his own childhood experience as an only child and his wish for a sibling. Many in the Central Continent thought it was shortsighted foolishness and began planning how best to pick up the pieces after the inevitable fall. But that time never came.

Instead it became apparent that Cloudpiercer had his own plans, and his impulsive youthful decisions were setting the stage for a great war of unification. Whether these were his own ambitions or leftover unfinished business from his father remained unclear. What was clear was that there was no such thing as free, easy faith power. Nothing is ever given for free.

Crimson Lotus City, Azure Profound Continent"I still don't understand why you're defending this city." Leo leaned against the parapet, watching the distant fleet hover like a swarm of iron locusts.

"It's just a Tier Three Spirit Vein. You already evacuated all the spiritual soil. Why not fall back somewhere safer?" Lord Ironhorn exhaled through his nose. He had told himself last year that he never wanted to see Leo Chen again, yet here the boy stood, uninvited, alongside three of his equally troublesome companions. They claimed they wanted to witness the start of the war firsthand. Lord Ironhorn had tried to dissuade them.

He lied and told them Crimson Lotus City sat in the far east of the two provinces, that it held only a minor vein, that if they wanted real action they should head west toward the front lines. Someone, probably Shen Tianyi, had tipped them off. The war would begin with fights over Tier Three spirit veins. So they insisted on staying. And "helping." Now Lord Ironhorn stood on the city walls with four cultivators whose combined cultivation barely exceeded his left arm. The one called Arthur didn't speak Common.

The one called Mike could manage perhaps thirty words. And Kevin was insufferable in ways that transcended language barriers. So here he was, stuck talking to Leo. They gazed out at the assembled fleet in the distant skies. Hundreds of vessels hung in the afternoon sky, their hulls painted in the crimson and gold of Monarch Cloudpiercer's Western Seat. The ships had curved wooden bodies reinforced with spirit-forged iron, their bows carved into snarling beasts.

Silk banners streamed from their masts, each one bearing the mountain and sunrise crest. The largest vessels stretched nearly two hundred meters from bow to stern, their multiple decks bristling with ballistae and formation cannons. Smaller escort ships darted between them, carrying messages and coordinating positions. The fleet cast long shadows over the farmland below, and Leo could see peasants fleeing their fields, abandoning carts and livestock in their haste to reach the city walls.

If it was America, and Leo had a thousand transport of flak cannons, he was sure they would flatten the ships in no time flat. But Leo wasn't really sure how Lord Ironhorn planned on dealing with the invaders. Especially since the Western Seat must have some idea of what they need to bring to crush the Iron Rhinoceros Sect.

"What face would remain for any of us if we retreat at the first shadow of an army?" Lord Ironhorn said. The gray and black banners of the Iron Rhinoceros Sect hung from the battlements behind him, snapping in the wind.

"We are supposedly a safe area, far from the border. We even have a profundity backing us. We might as well roll over and surrender to Cloudpiercer now if we cannot hold this city."

"I'm just saying." Leo gestured at the armada.

"That's a lot of enemies with a lot of boats. And all you have is this wall. It barely even stopped me and Arthur last time we were here." Lord Ironhorn's eye twitched.

"These walls keep people out. This is a center of trade not a prison. The defensive formations don't point backward." Leo shrugged. He still didn't fully grasp the intricacies of warfare on the Azure Profound Continent. Cultivators here didn't need supply convoys like American forces used in the Catacombs. The abundance of void stone meant cultivators relied on teleportation formations and storage rings. Logistics was much easier. If one storage ring couldn't hold it all, use two.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. This was half the reason they were here anyway. Arthur had demanded they all come to try their luck. According to him, every single combatant in this war was a walking loot piñata. Leo walked over to check on his friends. They stood in a cluster near one of the wall's watchtowers, pointing at the sky and talking over each other with visible excitement.

Arthur's hands moved in broad gestures while Mike nodded along, and Kevin kept interrupting with corrections that nobody wanted to hear.

"So Arthur." Leo switched to English.

"Any ideas? Those 'immortal opportunities sent from the heavens' look a little hard to crack." Arthur just patted Kevin on the back. The force made Kevin stumble forward two steps. Kevin regained his balance and turned to Leo.

"I just finished translating Lord Ironhorn's briefing on their profundity. Here." He thrust a piece of paper into Leo's hands. At the top, written in Kevin's cramped handwriting, it read: The rhinoceros does not look left. The rhinoceros does not look right. There is only forward.

"Basically," Kevin explained, "when the battle begins, the profundity gets unleashed. From then on, everyone outside the walls can only look forward, move forward, or attack forward. Those flying ships will be forced to advance directly over the city. They won't be able to attack anything except the sky in front of them, and the defenders will pick them off from below." Kevin's eyes gleamed.

"We'll pick off Gold Cores and collect their storage rings with ease. Like shooting fish in a barrel." Arthur shook his head.

"Kevin, you're thinking too small." His weathered face split into a grin that Leo had learned to associate with the old man's get rich quick schemes.

"Getting Tier Three loot is something we can do any day for the next couple years. This is war. You need to think bigger. This is our chance to go for Tier Four loot. Who knows when we'll get another opportunity like this?"

"That's your best idea?" Mike raised an eyebrow.

"Obviously the best loot is right there." He pointed at the paper in Leo's hands.

"We should steal the profundity. That thing sounds ridiculous."

"Mike, we're not stealing the profundity." Leo folded the paper and tucked it into his robe.

"I already promised Lord Ironhorn we wouldn't touch it."

"Fine, fine." Mike held up his hands in surrender.

"Arthur, we don't have the Heavenly Tribulation Lightning Claw anymore," Leo continued.

"How exactly do you think we're going to threaten a Nascent Soul?" Arthur's grin widened.

"I've been working on a solution. You know all that Tier Four wheat we've been harvesting? I asked Shen Tianyi to sell it and come up with something that could threaten a Tier Four cultivator." He reached into his storage ring and produced four daggers. The blades were dark metal, almost black, with faint crimson veins running through the steel.

"I have prepared for us," Arthur announced proudly, "four sets of Tier Four daggers laced with Fallen Grace Crimson Cage Knife Past Embrace." Kevin's eyes narrowed.

"Knife Past Embrace. The legendary bane of Nascent Soul Lords."

"That's the one."

"The one that requires next-generation DNA sequencing equipment and three months of cultivation in a sterile spiritual environment?" Kevin folded his arms.

"I don't believe you." Arthur's confident expression held for approximately four seconds.

"Okay, fine." His shoulders slumped.

"I couldn't read the name. I forgot to ask Tianyi what it actually was, and I can't read the Common on the box. I figured it basically does the same thing." Kevin opened his mouth to protest further, but Arthur had already moved on.

"Leo." Arthur turned to face him directly.

"What do you think is the hardest part of killing a Nascent Soul?" Leo considered the question.

"Probably their domain. Some domains are basically impenetrable."

"Wrong." Arthur held up a finger.

"The hardest part is figuring out how to open the storage rings afterward. Even if we kill one and grab a bunch of rings, how do we know we're not getting ripped off?" He began pacing, warming to his subject.

"Back when we had the Ammo Sect open Tier Three storage rings for us, they took thirty percent as a fee. And they didn't even show us what thirty percent they took. For all we know, they grabbed all the good stuff and left us with spiritual garbage." Mike nodded slowly.

"So what's your plan?"

"If we want the good stuff, we need the Nascent Soul to crack the rings himself and remove his spiritual imprint. Thus we need leverage." Arthur reached into his storage ring and produced four small bottles and shook them.

"Hence these. Four antidotes." He handed them out one by one. Leo held his up to the light. The liquid inside was thin and watery, closer to pale tea than any medicine he'd seen.

"So we're going to extort storage rings from Nascent Soul Lords?"

"Exactly!" Arthur clapped Leo on the shoulder.

"I knew I could count on you. You catch on fast. Just link us all together with your lifebound Coordination Nexus. We'll have him opening his own rings in no time." Leo felt a knot forming in his stomach. He had last used the Coordination Nexus against Texas A&M during the finals, but only after two weeks of constant practice with his Bulldog teammates. He had never tried it with these three.

"Besides," Arthur added, "you owe Lord Ironhorn a favor. Think of it as paying him back. It might not be what he expects, but I'm sure he knows we're... unconventional." Leo sighed.

"Fine. I'll go talk to Lord Ironhorn, find out where we'd be best positioned to catch a Nascent Soul. But once I'm done, we're running drills with the Nexus. No arguments."

"Stay around the Spirit Bell Pavilion's pagoda," Lord Ironhorn said, pointing toward the central district. The seven-story tower stood above the surrounding rooftops, bronze bells glinting at each corner.

"Stay out of my way. I don't expect much from you four, but perhaps you'll surprise me." They squeezed in roughly an hour of practice with the Coordination Nexus before the war horns sounded. Leo stood on the pagoda's uppermost balcony, the silver threads of the Nexus extending from his consciousness to brush against the minds of Arthur, Mike, and Kevin. The connection was rough. Their unfamiliarity created feedback loops that gave everyone mild headaches. It would have to do. The invasion fleet began to move.

A vanguard broke from the main formation and swept toward Crimson Lotus City in a broad crescent. Hulls gleamed in the late afternoon light, formation arrays flaring along their keels as they accelerated. Then the profundity activated. Leo felt it before he saw it. A pressure descended over the battlefield. His divine sense registered a massive formation awakening beneath the city, ancient runes carved into bedrock flaring to life with centuries of accumulated power. The vanguard froze.

Ships that had been maneuvering freely locked into rigid forward trajectories. Cultivators on deck stood motionless, caught mid-gesture, their bodies refusing to turn. A Gold Core elder on the lead vessel strained to look sideways at his subordinates. His jaw clenched. His eyes bulged with effort. Even though Leo was far away, it seemed like he could feel the man's panic. Trapped in his own body. Unable to turn. Unable to run. Leo looked away. For a long moment, nothing happened.

The fleet hung suspended in the sky, paralyzed, every cultivator aboard trapped facing forward. The only sound was the wind. Then the walls of Crimson Lotus City erupted. Gray-and-black-clad sword cultivators revealed themselves along the battlements, dozens of them stationed at intervals around the city's perimeter. They moved in coordinated unison, arms sweeping forward, and hundreds of flying swords burning with spiritual flames screamed toward the frozen fleet. The swords struck home.

Wood splintered and caught fire. Decks cratered. Three domains bloomed in response. Ships within those spheres steadied, and the Nascent Soul Lords deflected the flying swords the moment they entered the domain. But the profundity held them too. The Nascent Soul domains protected the vessels directly surrounding them, but the Lords stayed pinned in place, leaving the rest of the fleet exposed. Ships outside the protective spheres sat as easy targets for the sword cultivators on the walls.

The defenders focused their fire. Flaming flying swords converged on an unprotected transport near the formation's edge. The first volley punched through its hull. The second shattered its keel. Fire erupted along its starboard side, flames racing up the masts and across the deck. The cultivators aboard stood rooted. Locked forward. Unable to so much as glance at the flames consuming them. A few tried to fight back.

Jets of water shot forward from outstretched palms, blasting uselessly into empty air while the flames roared behind them. One cultivator raised a shield, but the profundity forced him to hold it in front of his body. The fire took him from the side. Another ship caught fire. Then another. Smoke columns rose into the evening sky. On the burning decks, cultivators stood like statues in a furnace, facing forward, their silhouettes blackening against the flames.

Lord Ironhorn's voice boomed from the walls, directing the sword teams, calling out priority targets. Then the fleet moved. Every ship lurched forward at once, some invisible command passing through the paralyzed ranks. They advanced in lockstep, maintaining their frozen orientations, sailing directly toward the city. The defenders fell silent. The sword cultivators withdrew their blades. The formation arrays along the walls dimmed. Crimson Lotus City held its breath. They were preparing something.

Leo gripped the pagoda's railing and watched the burning fleet advance. Somewhere out there, three Nascent Souls drifted forward against their will, trapped by a formation they couldn't break, guarding ships they couldn't fully protect. The war for the Lanternmarches had begun.