The deep-rock gateway known as the Grand Defile was a natural canyon sliced through ancient granite by thousand years of ice-slow water. Two sheer rock faces rose eight hundred paces into the sky like twin stone pillars, flanking a lush, green mountain meadow that narrowed to a bottleneck barely two hundred yards wide before opening into the western river basin.
For three hundred years, this defile had marked the impassable border between the civilized commanderies of the Eastern Sector and the savage wilderness of the Grand Desolate Forest.
Today, the granite cliffs groaned under a terrifying loud noise of sound.
The rhythmic, thunderous tramp of sixty thousand combat boots rattled loose gravel from the high ledges. Above the canyon, twelve huge cloud dreadnoughts drifted through the alpine mist. Their massive iron-clad hulls cast deep, moving shadows that blotted out the morning sun. From the boat sides of the flagship Sky-Cleaver, golden silk pennants snapped wildly in the down-canyon drafts, each stitched with the crossed-swords sigil of Heavenly Sword Manor.
Behind the flying fleet marched the grand army of the Traditional Crusade.
Ten thousand sword students of Heavenly Sword Manor advanced in razor-sharp, sharp-angled finger bones. Above their heads hovered a shimmering canopy of ten thousand spiritual flying swords. It hummed with cold, crystal-clear sword-qi that filled the narrow pass with the shrill whistle of sharpened steel.
To their left, five thousand students of the Crimson Flame Pavilion advanced with heavy bronze bucklers and broadswords. Their collective internal fire-qi radiated outward in a choking wall of orange heat-haze. They scorched the morning dew from the air and curled the tips of mountain ferns into brittle ash.
To their right, six thousand wind-blade vanguards from Azure Cloud Sect deployed across the rocky ridges, while five thousand magic charm casters from Mystic Magic charm Hall formed a linked outer edge of spirit-banners and yellow crushing weight magic charms. At the rear, four thousand warrior monks of Pure Lotus Abbey walked in solemn, measured strides, the iron rings on their prayer staves clinking like funeral chimes.
Thirty thousand elite fighters, armed with the finest spirit weapons and forged magic charms that five ancient sects could assemble.
Within the ranks of the young students, tension was stretched to the breaking point.
Eighteen-year-old Song Chen, a junior inner student of Heavenly Sword Manor who had trained in the sect’s sword yards since he was eight years old, gripped the cold-iron handle of his flying sword with sweat-slicked fingers. His breath hitched with every step, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
For three moons, Grand Elder Xuan Ji’s sermons had echoed through the mountain halls. Xuan Ji had spoken of an unspeakable demonic monster. An ancient shapeless fiend born from ancient corpse foul fog that had devoured entire mortal cities. Song Chen had spent the last night listening to the older students sharpen their blades, trading horrific rumors of trees hung with human entrails, blood-soaked altars where mortal virgins were refined into demonic pills, and hundred-foot beast horrors that swallowed sword fighters whole.
Song Chen stepped through the narrowest throat of the defile, raising his sword in a defensive block, fully expecting to be assaulted by howling blood-wolves, screeching harpies, or acid-burning acid pools.
He rounded the final rock stone support prop—and froze.
The flying sword hovering above his shoulder dipped three inches as his spiritual focus momentarily fractured in utter confusion.
There were no cut limbs. There were no rivers of black demonic blood. There were no bone-spire fortresses, no jagged iron barricades. No shrieking legions of frenzied monsters.
Before the grand army lay a breathtaking, sun-drenched alpine meadow.
The ground was carpeted in vibrant emerald clover and blooming yellow mountain buttercups, fully untouched by fire or corruption. Running straight through the center of the meadow was a carefully paved cobblestone road, its gray granite stones swept clean of fallen twigs. At the side of the road, a bubbling mountain brook flowed over smooth river pebbles, its crystal-clear water singing a cheerful, musical tune in the morning breeze.
High above in the swaying iron-bamboo stalks, three mountain thrushes chirped merrily, tilting their heads to watch the arriving army with bright, curious black eyes.
And standing directly in the center of the clean road, at the bottleneck of the defile, was the entirety of the enemy host.
Four individuals.
Song Chen blinked, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve, convinced that he had fallen under a high-tier mental illusion array.
Standing in the center of the road was an eighteen-year-old youth dressed in spotless, unpretentious azure linen scholar robes. His dark hair was tied back with a simple silver ribbon. The youth had slender, graceful hands, sparkling sapphire-blue eyes. An open, friendly smile that looked more like an inviting village innkeeper welcoming tired travelers than an ancient demon lord of the deep pit.
Leaning against a polished wooden milestones beside the youth was an unkempt old man in ragged, wine-stained green daoist robes, yawning loudly while scratching his stubbled chin with an ordinary green willow twig.
Behind them stood a huge, seven-foot-tall bear-beast elder with thick iron-gray fur and a massive braided beard. He leaned casually on a giant, five-hundred-jin blacksmith’s forging hammer as if it were a walking stick.
And resting on a warm, sunlit flat stone at the youth’s feet was a sleek, twelve-foot black wolf with radiant silver star-pattern markings glowing faintly along its flanks. The legendary beast king was not snarling. It wasn’t baring dripping fangs.
It was sprawled out on its side in the clover. That let out a massive, teeth-showing yawn before resting its heavy chin on its front paws, its tail giving two lazy, rhythmic thumps against the grass.
The thirty-thousand-man traditional army ground to an abrupt, screeching halt.
Students bumped into each other’s sword sheaths. Flying swords wobbled erratically in the sky. And war drums faltered into an awkward, chaotic thudding before dying away into an eerie, echoing silence.
“Hold formation! Don’t break ranks!” shouted Elder Bai Chong from the front of the sword finger bone, his gray beard quivering as he drew his own golden broadsword. “It’s a demonic trap! A soul-confusing illusion array! They have hidden twenty thousand blood beasts beneath the turf!”
Beside Bai Chong, Elder Yan Lie of the Crimson Flame Pavilion shoved his way to the front rank. His thick neck flushed was dark red with fury. He raised his flaming broadsword, glaring past the peaceful meadow toward the distant tree line.
“Where is the beast horde?!” Yan Lie bellowed, spit flying from his red beard. “Where are the blood-drinking fiends that wounded my son Zixuan?! You coward! Send out your generals! Stop hiding behind an unarmed mortal boy!”
Behind the vanguard, Abbot Hui Lun walked forward until his sandals rested at the edge of the crushed clover. The abbot’s austere, ascetic face tightened as his golden spiritual vision swept across the valley. He sought the stench of rotting flesh, the dark red foul fog of resentful wraiths, or the jagged spiritual runes of a blood-sacrifice altar.
He found nothing. The spiritual qi circulating through the defile was as pure, sweet, and gentle as ice-slow meltwater dropping from sacred mountain summits.
Hui Lun glanced back toward Elder Bai Chong, his voice filled with quiet, troubled doubt. “Elder Bai... This monk senses no malice in this soil. The grass is alive. The water is untainted. There’s no blood array here.”
“Silence, Abbot!” Bai Chong snapped, his knuckles white against his sword sheath. “The demon king’s illusions are insidious! He seeks to disarm our righteous resolve through foul deceit!”
Across the lines, fighters wildly activated spiritual sight magic charms, scanning the meadow, the trees, and the rock walls for hidden pit traps or underground magma tunnels.
They found nothing. The earth was solid, cool, and rich with natural water-qi. The only thing hidden in the tall grass was a family of field mice hurriedly scurrying into their burrow to escape the trampling boots.
Lin Xiao looked across the fifty paces separating him from the front line of thirty thousand armored fighters.
His panoramic vision took in the sea of sparkling flying swords, the fluttering gold-and-crimson war banners, the rows of massive bronze siege giant crossbows. The nervous, sweating faces of thousands of teenage students clutching their handles like frightened schoolboys. Junior student Song Chen was shivering so wildly that the sword sheath at his hip rattled against his copper shin guards with a faint tink-tink.
“Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao murmured inwardly, his curved eyes crinkling in gentle, private amusement. “Look at all those banners. It looks like a royal county fair. Though honestly, they’re stepping all over the fresh wild clover. Ling’er’s honeybees were supposed to forage on those yellow buttercups this afternoon.”
“Host’s botanical priorities are aesthetically pleasing,” Dao Spirit noted drily. “However, hostile combatants possess enough combined moving potential to level fourteen square miles of topsoil.”
“Only if they throw a tantrum,” Lin Xiao replied mentally, adjusting the clean linen sleeves of his scholar robes. “And nobody throws a tantrum when you offer them good manners first.”
High above the numbed army, the shadow of the flagship Sky-Cleaver drifted forward, its star-copper prow parting the morning clouds.
A heavy golden ladder dropped from the vessel’s lower gallery. Grand Elder Xuan Ji’s nine-dragon jade chariot floated down into the open air above the front ranks. Clad in his amazing white ermine cloak, his face tight with dramatic righteousness, the ancient master looked down upon the four figures standing in the road.
Xuan Ji’s eyes narrowed into slits of icy fury as he stared at the slender youth in azure linen.
“So,” Xuan Ji’s voice rumbled across the valley, amplified by his core spiritual power until the cliff walls echoed with the timbre of rolling thunder. “The demon king finally shows his face.”
Lin Xiao took a single, relaxed step forward onto the clean cobblestones. He cupped his hands in a polite, flawless scholar’s greeting.
“Welcome to the Grand Defile of the Desolate Forest, travelers,” Lin Xiao said, his voice pleasant, sweet-sounding, and carrying clearly across the silent ranks without the slightest strain. “The morning air is crisp, but the road is open. Would the elders care to step down from their flying ships and join us for a warm drink?”