Facing the approaching formation of iron cavalry, Zhang Duo slowly stepped forward. He had already reached his limit, with less than three months of life remaining. Though he was preserving so-called heartless things, he had no regrets.
He earnestly stretched his body, gripping the spear in his hand tightly.
A relic of a past era should meet its end in a manner befitting that previous era.
He strode toward the front, towards the last battlefield of his life, alone, rushing towards the ever-adjusting military formation, as if marching toward death.
There were old and lonely roars echoing between heaven and earth.
The reflections, writhing in instinctual agony, suddenly froze.
Their battle robes were already torn, their armor merely illusory; some had even lost an arm. They were the last memories before death, the final instincts before death, and all they could leave was this.
What should have seemed like a joke—watching an old man charge into death alone.
But now, all who had died, and all those things, suddenly lifted their heads.
They looked toward the old man running alone to meet his death.
Their gaze fixed on that tattered flag.
There was an eerie stillness in the air.
The next moment, as if flames were burning in the eyes of these pre-death instinctive reflections, the scorching light nearly seared the eyes of the beholders. The expression of the old man who had previously schemed against Zhang Duo froze, his eyes widened slightly.
A righteous military presence rose from that ragged reflection.
Even above the Xiongnu cavalry.
They still had no logic or thoughts, only instincts. They were originally the most intense emotions of the martial soldiers before they perished.
Imprinted in the deepest part of their souls, something they wouldn't let go of even in death.
A synchronized and unified five thousand seven hundred 'Divine Martial Mansion', suddenly stepped forward.
An invisible wave spread out.
In the sky, the military soul which shouldn't have appeared, reemerged here, silent for twenty-three years, distant for twenty-three years of soaring dragons.
The Fortress Leader of Great Wilderness Stronghold murmured:
"Mere reflections, instincts before death."
"No, this is impossible..."
Time, the long expanse of time and the breadth of life and death, is enough to make the ambitions of a hero vanish, to turn the love and hatred of ordinary people into ashes, to transform sturdy edifices into ruins covered in desert sands, yet some things, even time and death, cannot erase.
A burning aspiration, an ambition to swallow the heavens.
Time's polishing only makes it shine brighter.
The once legendary army, with each person gathered under this banner for the same wish, in their final moments of death, still holding on to hope, manifested here as reflections, fleetingly reappearing through the grandmaster's conceptual world.
This was more than twenty years of solitude carried on their backs.
This is a miracle impossible to replicate, even with the legendary immortal arts.
Life and death, the long passage of time is no longer a hindrance.
This dream unfolds before them once more.
Wearing their broken armor, they hold their chests and heads high. They appear weak as if they could crumble at a touch, yet they are so strong as to be fearless, drawing out non-existent weapons from their hands, and with a loud clap, they uniformly stoop low.
The fragile reflection bodies have already begun crumbling from the edges.
But the repressed flames blaze fiercely in their eyes, which should have been dim.
As if oblivious to this scene, Zhang Duo screamed hoarsely, a second time.
"Wind!" New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel·fiɾe·net
The old voice carried far and wide.
Then, as if stepping out from the passage of time, the sound of five thousand seven hundred fallen warriors roaring in unison surged to the sky, a roar deeply imprinted in their souls, all fear of pain, all fear of death, vanished completely.
Is there something more valued than life itself?
Between heaven and earth, there was only the simplest, yet most exhilarating roar—
Zhang Duo was already in tears.
PS: Today's update is here...
Can't write anymore, can't write anymore... I hope you'll like it
There's a small bug with the timeline, it was off by a day, apologies, it will be corrected so that Anfeng and the others arrive at Loulan Ancient City on the next day.
Please allow me a leave of absence yesterday (24th)... (Burned out, exhausted...)
I was diligent in writing, but achieving the right feeling is difficult, so difficult...
It's rare that I stayed up all night, feeling old, can't keep going