~~~

Proper organization requires a lot of work.

It is a lesson Liu Jin already knew, and working with Colonel Peng only reinforces it. After considering their options, the colonel decides to split Liu Jin’s forces and spread them among the soldiers. In that way, the disciples will more easily learn how things work in General Dan’s army. It is a good plan, but not one without flaws.

Uncomfortable as it is to admit it, Colonel Peng’s initial estimation of them as privileged and spoiled is not entirely unfounded. The disciples of the Eternal Flame Clan are undeniably a proud lot. And why wouldn’t they be? They are prodigies among prodigies who have proven themselves numerous times to get where they are. They rose above their peers, left their cities behind, attempted to cross the Ash Road, and succeeded. Some have even gone to the Dead Plains and survived.

When they walk, they do so with their heads held high. The disciples of the Eternal Flame Clan don’t merely believe they are superior. They are certain of it. To them, it is a fact as immutable as the sun rising every morning.

Such a massive collection of egos can only be held together by a strict hierarchy of strength, but in Colonel Peng’s army, their rank is little different from that of a common soldier save for a few exceptions like Liu Jin, who is placed in a position of command because it would look bad if he was given a lesser job. It would infuriate the disciples under his command if he was treated the same as a common soldier even if he doesn’t know anything about how to command an army.

The disciples of the Eternal Flame Clan are simply not ready to take orders or even suggestions from those they consider to be their lessers, a category that most of Colonel Peng’s men fall under.

The average soldier in General Dan’s army is somewhere in the Nascent Realm, with only some of them being above that. By comparison, the disciples under Liu Jin’s command are nearly all in the Spirit Realm. In addition, their levels and foundation as cultivators are incomparably greater. Trying to mix them with Colonel Peng’s soldiers without regard for their cultivation would cause a disaster.

To prevent that, Lu Mei and Liu Jin had carefully compiled a list of the disciples most likely to cause trouble, and Liu Jin had presented it to Colonel Peng, recommending that those disciples be split and paired with his stronger soldiers. Liu Jin also makes sure to talk to all the disciples to impress upon them the importance of doing their duty and avoiding altercations.

So far, that seems to have worked.

Over the past three days, they have been patrolling the border in relative silence, and Liu Jin hasn’t heard anything bad from the other groups either. They wake up early in the morning, patrol until the sky turns dark, and then keep doing it, making sure to rest whenever they arrive at a station.

The men must be rested. The men must be fed. Colonel Peng had made sure to impress the importance of those things on Liu Jin.

“You may have forgotten what it is like to need to eat every day, but they haven’t.”

So far, their task has been more tedious than dangerous. They have not yet come into contact with Murong Bang’s men, merely a few Spirit Beasts.

Admittedly, they had been uncommonly feral ones.

“Murong Bang’s men make them feral on purpose and send them towards us,” the soldier assigned as his aide explains to him after they fight them off. “If we let them pass, there’s a high chance they’ll reach a populated area.”

The soldier is called Old Qing by his peers. Names like that are common under Colonel Peng’s command. Liu Jin has also met Young Qing, Toothless Jin, and Smelly Qing. The names work as good descriptors if nothing else. Old Qing is one of the oldest soldiers, so Liu Jin makes sure to listen to the man’s advice.

“We try to make them run back to Murang Bang’s lands when we can,” Old Qing adds. “Just so they know how it feels.”

“Does this happen often?” Liu Jin asks him.

“Unfortunately not,” Old Qing replies. At Liu Jin’s confused look, he adds, “I’d rather fight Spirit Beasts than Murong Bang’s men, sir, but it’s the latter that’s more common. A good week is one where there are no skirmishes. We haven’t had a good week this year.”

An endless back and forth. That’s all this is. It is far preferable to letting General Dan’s territory be overrun, but Liu Jin does not envy Colonel Peng or the men under his command one bit. He can only hope there are no altercations for the rest of the week.

Alas, it is not to be.

It happens during the afternoon of their fifth day.

“Lord Liu,” Old Qing calls him. It feels weird to hear that name after so long, but that is the name he suggested to Colonel Peng for the sake of simplicity. There are only so many names Liu Jin can keep track of.

Besides, had he let Colonel Peng pick something for him, he’d have probably called him something like Beardless Qing. That is something he can do without.

“I feel them,” Liu Jin says. There is a group of about fifty people over twenty miles away. They move slowly, trying to keep their Qi low, but lowering one’s Qi is not the same as hiding it. Even from this far away, Liu Jin can sense the aggression emanating from them. “Are those Murong Bang’s men?”

“I reckon so, Lord Liu,” replies Old Qing. “What shall we do?”

Liu Jin frowns and raises his Qi. He does it lightly, knowing that using too much of his power will inconvenience the soldiers around him. He just wants to make it clear to Murong Bang’s men that this is not a fight they can win.

It doesn’t work.

Murong Bang’s soldiers do not turn away or slow down. Instead, Liu Jin raising his Qi causes them to speed up, discarding all pretenses of stealth now that they know they have been found out.

Without a doubt, it is a reckless move.

The smart thing to do would have been to attempt a retreat. Fifty men is more than what Liu Jin has under his command right now, but that means nothing in the face of the difference in strength. Liu Jin is in the True Realm. Murong Bang’s soldiers aren’t. Even a child would understand that Liu Jin could defeat all of them on his own.

“I’ll take the lead and break their formation,” Liu Jin says while taking an ordinary spear from his spatial pouch. The long leaf-shaped blade whistles in the wind. “Squadrons One through Four, you take the ones on the left. Five through Eight, the right.”

Liu Jin speeds up. Enough to gain a noticeable lead on his men, but not enough to leave them completely behind. In a little under two seconds, he can see Murong Bang’s men screaming as they charge. The sound seems to trigger something within Liu Jin’s men because they start yelling as well.

As a child, Liu Jin always thought it silly to shout during battle. Now that he has gone through so many of them, Liu Jin understands better. A battle is a place of emotion. When those emotions reach a boiling point, they have to come out in some way.

That doesn’t mean Liu Jin joins in the shouting.

The sight of Murong Bang’s men’s dark armors might trigger something in him, but it is nothing he cannot control. Even as four armored men jump at him with their weapons raised, screaming at the top of their lungs, Liu Jin feels little as his spear traces a semi-circle that knocks all of them back. Though the motion is almost gentle, the difference in strength is such that two soldiers are suddenly without weapons.

Liu Jin keeps going.

Murong Bang’s men roar like beasts. Their bodies crackle with Qi, and Liu Jin can almost hear their muscles tearing themselves apart as they push far more power through their meridians than their bodies are ready to handle. It is all for naught. Liu Jin easily makes his way through their formation, his spear keeping them at bay and cutting them down.

A soldier throws himself at Liu Jin. He never gets close. The tip of Liu Jin’s spear strikes his breastplate and pierces right through it. Before the soldier can open his mouth to scream, Liu Jin has already pulled out his weapon. The blade, now bloody, whistles through the air as he brings it down against a soldier’s leg, slicing his tendons through his shin guard. Liu Jin then jerks his hand back and slams the butt of the spear against another soldier’s jaw, shattering it.

Bright red lightning roars behind him. It is shaped like a wolf, its jaws open to swallow him. It never reaches him. The soldiers around him scream as the lightning engulfs them, but Liu Jin vanishes and appears right behind the one who fired it. The soldier never even realizes he is there. He falls to the ground with his whole body paralyzed.

Colonel Peng’s men take advantage of the chaos generated by Liu Jin. They fall upon their disordered foes with brutal efficiency.

They work in formations of five. Each group of five has a commander who will shout simple orders: strike, fall back, push, and so on. Because of it, the group always knows what to do. It is nothing overly complicated, but there is no denying its effectiveness. Though Colonel Peng’s men are inferior in numbers, the difference in organization makes it so that it is Murong Bang’s soldiers who feel outnumbered.

Liu Jin dashes in between their foes. His spear slices, stabs, and strikes as he breaks apart the enemy’s attempts to order themselves. Anyone with eyes should understand the battle is already lost.

And yet, Murong Bang’s men keep fighting.

A man with burned skin screams as he throws himself at Liu Jin. It is one of the soldiers who got hit by the lightning technique Liu Jin dodged. His flesh steams from the heat, and some of his armor is melted.

Liu Jin easily stabs his arm before the man can reach him.

The man keeps going.

Liu Jin’s eyes widen slightly as the man’s reckless charge causes the spear to sink further into his flesh. The weapon reinforced with Qi easily cuts into the soldier’s flesh and bone, depriving him of his limb. Yet it is as if the soldier does not feel it over the adrenaline of battle. His eyes are wide and dilated, and he foams at the mouth like a rabid dog.

Liu Jin puts him down swiftly.

As the man’s body falls to the ground, Liu Jin looks around and sees similar events happening over the battlefield. A man missing an arm and a leg vainly tries to kill everyone around him. His mouth breathes fire which sputters out as multiple spears pierce his back. Another soldier has the right side of his face almost completely smashed, yet he keeps swinging his sword even though he has probably forgotten where he is. A man who is all but dead grabs hold of a soldier’s leg and bites and doesn’t let go. The soldier stabs and stabs, and still the crazed soldier won’t stop biting.

It is not that Liu Jin doesn’t understand what is at stake here. This is no sparring match. If someone loses here, they won’t be able to skulk away to lick at their wounds and wounded pride.

“Torture’s unreliable, and we don’t have the luxury of taking prisoners,” Colonel Peng had told him.

And yet, this desperate fighting feels odd.

Fleeing. Surrendering. Begging for mercy. It is as if those things did not exist for these men.

Murong Bang’s men keep fighting beyond the point of reason. They fight until they’re almost corpses and then keep fighting some more. By the end of it all, their blood soaks the dirt, and their organs are splattered against the ground. Liu Jin sees Ni Cai going to the side and puking, his formerly pristine robes tainted by blood and gore. Liu Jin can’t blame him. The Eternal Flame Clan is no stranger to blood and violence, but it is usually quick and decisive. This dragged out carnage is new to them.

Even the soldiers, the youngest among them, look queasy by the end of it all.

“Look like we had no deaths, sir,” Old Qing tells him. “Just a few wounded. Nothing serious.”

“That’s good,” Liu Jin replies. He tries to sound calm.

“It’s usually like this, sir,” Old Qing adds in a lower voice. Some of Liu Jin’s uneasiness must have seeped through. “Murong Bang’s men… they don’t fight like normal men.”

“Is defeat such an unappealing concept for them?” Liu Jin wonders while looking at one of the horribly savaged corpses. The man does not have a face anymore. Even after he had received fatal wounds, he kept fighting which resulted in a ghastly spectacle before them. “I understand no one wants to die, but this goes beyond that.”

“Not death, sir. Murong Bang,” Old Qing says. When Liu Jin aims a questioning look at him, he adds. “They say he does not tolerate cowardice. That’s why his men never retreat. It makes fighting them… unpleasant.”

“You are saying they are so terrified of what he will do to them that if they can’t win they kill themselves against our blades?”

“Aye.” Old Qing nods his head. “There’s a reason why people don’t like coming here. Murong Bang’s men seek death.”

And yet, Murong Bang has somehow kept an army together for years.

Is terror enough to do that?

“Whether we win or lose, it’s always a slaughter,” Old Qing continues. “Winning is obviously better than losing, but it still takes a toll.” Another soldier starts puking. “Especially on the young ones.”

Liu Jin sighs.

“Have the bodies searched.”

It is unlikely they will find anything important, but at the least, they’ll obtain some more weapons and armor. After thinking some more Liu Jin adds, “Make sure those who do so are volunteers.”

There is no sense in forcing people without the stomach for it to do it.

“Very well, sir. And once that’s done?”

Liu Jin looks at the sky. The sun is still up and would be for several hours. The men are not physically tired.

Mentally, however…

“Once that’s done, we’ll keep going until the next station, clean ourselves up, and rest.”

Old Qing bows his head. “Very well, sir.”

The scent of blood clings to them long into the night.

~~~