Chapter 197 War "Don't go anymore, Your Highness!"...

People always have to grow up.

Standing in the snow in front of the palace, Jia Yue kept hearing Jiang Yu Huo's words echoing in her mind, along with the words that Xiao Jiang had said to her in her dream that day, "...Wait for me, I will grow up quickly, don't let me fall behind."

One was forced to accept the arrangements of fate, while the other was still full of expectations for the future.

In comparison, the beautiful dream that the Nightmare Demon once meticulously wove now seems like a nightmare.

That thirteen-year-old body will never grow up.

He failed to protect her, both seven years ago and seven years later.

"...If I can't catch up with you, I won't want you anymore."

A single sentence, seemingly both resentful and angry, struck him like a boulder crashing down, dragging his heart straight down into an abyss.

The snowy night was cold and desolate, but the bedchamber was warm, only a door kept the warmth inside, and kept him away.

A candle burned inside the bedchamber, casting the shadows of the two people inside onto the doors and windows.

The girl held the slender woman in her arms, speaking in a sweet, coquettish voice. Despite the door and distance separating them, the merman's keen hearing allowed him to hear the sounds inside clearly.

He heard Jiang Yuhuo say to the girl, "...Yes, from now on, I am your aunt."

The girl nestled in her arms and laughed happily, "Auntie, what are you saying? You've always been my auntie..."

He recalled what Jiang Yuhuo had said to him when they parted.

She lowered her eyes slightly, not looking at him, and sighed softly before finally saying, "Thank you for your concern, but... I am destined to only be Ji Hongyu."

After saying that, she turned and went into the bedroom, leaving him alone in the wind and snow.

She wanted to tell him that Jiang Yuhuo no longer existed in this world, and there was no longer that white-haired girl with whom he had made a promise.

His desperate attempts to salvage the situation, his cautious hopes... were shattered completely that night.

"Are you tired? Auntie looks so tired." In the candlelight, Xiao Jing noticed Jiang Yuhuo's slightly red eyes. She reached out and touched them, then, half-pleadingly and half-comfortingly, leaned against Jiang Yuhuo, gently patting her back. "Auntie, if you're tired, take a nap. I want Auntie to hold me while I sleep..."

"OK."

After an unknown amount of time, Xiao Jing drifted off to sleep. When she woke up, she saw her aunt staring blankly into the void, her eyes so calm they seemed lifeless. She suddenly remembered the faint glow in her aunt's eyes before she left and tentatively asked, "Aunt... has that person left?"

Jiang Yuhuo did not answer, but silently embraced the girl in his arms.

The spiritual consciousness that was retrieved seemed to be carrying a chill.

The snowfield was deserted.

*

The Great Zhou Dynasty was located near Yangguan Pass.

The battle to defend the city had lasted for several days and nights. The warriors of the Great Zhou were bloodthirsty, repeatedly repelling the enemy who tried to breach the city. However, the people of the Great Yong were simply too numerous, with a continuous stream of black-armored soldiers surging out from under the city gates like a tide.

In the snow, corpses littered the ground, almost turning the snowfield in front of the city gate red.

The Zhou soldiers defending the city were almost all gone.

Finally, the blood-soaked old general ordered the remaining men to retreat back into the barbican. The heavy city gates slowly closed, and the wounded Zhou soldiers stood inside, looking back, only to see their general standing motionless amidst the corpses strewn across the ground before the gate. His silver hair fluttered in the wind as the old general bent his arm, wiped the blood from his blade, and once again raised his sword towards the dark, cloud-like army.

"General!" Zhou Sidao shouted from the city gate tower, "Retreat immediately!"

Before them stood a vast army of the Yong Kingdom; anyone who stood guard at the gate would be courting death.

But the old general didn't budge. Instead, he shouted at the city gate behind him, "We can't retreat! Mr. Zhou, go back and tell my son that from now on, the task of protecting our country will be entrusted to him!"

We cannot retreat... This is the last line of defense for the Great Zhou Dynasty, less than 800 li from the Western Capital.

Yongjun never gave up his ambition for this land. As soon as the war started, he swiftly captured Jiuyou Mountain, the border between the two countries. In less than half a month, the battle line was pushed from Jiuyou Mountain to Liyang Pass by the army of Dayong.

The Great Zhou was far too small, so small that it had almost no deep enough territory to allow them to retreat. The unexpected battle at Jiuyue Mountain had already caused the Great Zhou to lose its most solid barrier. If Liyang Pass were to fall as well, it would be as if the gates of the Great Zhou had been opened, allowing the enemy to advance unimpeded.

The elixirs and talismans bestowed by the immortals have been completely exhausted. While these were initially enough to defeat the Yong army in the initial skirmishes, their limited effectiveness became increasingly insufficient as the Yong army's numbers grew. The cultivators certainly possessed the power to break through an army, but no cultivator was willing to engage in direct combat with mortals; that would truly defy the Heavenly Dao, and the divine punishment they would suffer would likely be far more terrifying than the complete loss of their cultivation.

Several cavalrymen charged out from the black army, brandishing their broadswords and slashing at the old general in front of the city gate.

"Stop!" Zhou Sidao roared, his eyes bloodshot, but his spiritual power had been exhausted in this protracted war, and he could no longer set up a protective barrier for the general.

Those broadswords ultimately did not fall.

Suddenly, a sword shadow silently descended from the sky, its white rainbow-like blade piercing through the dark clouds and pressing down on the people below, instantly turning the cavalry surrounding the old general into dust.

Zhou Sidao hurriedly looked up.

Above the dark clouds, a figure dressed in black, riding a flying bird and carrying a sword, arrived with a swift and elegant air.

The celestial being swung his sword once more, and a white rainbow fell into the black tide, rippling outwards like waves.

Such a powerful and reckless force finally deterred the well-trained Yong soldiers from approaching. Only then did they truly realize that they were fighting against immortals.

Looking at the woman on the snow, whose face was plain yet whose eyes were sharp, Zhou Sidao's tense thoughts relaxed instantly, and he leaned against the battlement as if all his strength had been drained.

He knew that the general and Liyang Pass had been saved.

This was the first time the battle had been saved by Her Highness the Eldest Princess. Zhou Sidao originally thought that she had no choice but to act because the situation was critical. She was a cultivator bound by the Heavenly Dao, and like the cultivators of those immortal sects, she would be cautious in limiting the use of her spiritual power to a small area, or like him, she would use her spiritual power to enhance the soldiers of the Great Zhou and strengthen their defenses.

But he was wrong.

In the following months, the princess showed him through her actions that she was truly involved in the war.

Assassination raids, leading troops into battle, conquering cities and seizing territories... what she has done has far exceeded the backlash from the Heavenly Dao that a cultivator can withstand.

The battle lines pushed further and further east, and they even crossed the Jiuyou Mountain. The Zhou people were finally able to return to the land that had been occupied by the Yong Kingdom a hundred years earlier.

The Zhou warriors' morale soared, and the Yong army appeared increasingly vulnerable before them. This unstoppable momentum even gave rise to hope: perhaps this time they could recapture Zhaoming City, perhaps their descendants could return to their former homeland.

"Enough!"

Before the soldiers went into battle once again, Zhou Si stopped the pale-faced man and said sternly, "Don't go again, Your Highness!"

He didn't know what power Jiang Yuhuo used to support her body, but he was also a cultivator and knew that the Heavenly Dao would never let any cultivator who violated the order between immortals and mortals go unpunished. Those backlashes wouldn't disappear, even if she seemed unaffected.

"Please step aside, Mr. Zhou. I know what I'm doing."

Jiang Yuhuo was indeed measured. She might not have been at first, but the more battles she fought, the clearer she became about the boundaries of the Heavenly Dao. What kind of people should she kill, how many should she kill, and what kind of backlash would she suffer? She then accurately controlled the backlash within the limits her body could bear, and then repaired herself time and time again with the Mermaid Pearl.

Before this body reaches its end, there are still things she wants to accomplish.

Soon, the Shannan County City was captured by the Zhou army. Taking this former "immortal capital" of the Zhou people undoubtedly made the entire Great Zhou Dynasty excited. The reputation of this generation's eldest princess was almost on par with that of the eldest princess who turned the tide a hundred years ago.

That night, a small celebration was being held in the camp to reward the soldiers who had made meritorious contributions.

The cheers and joy traveled far and wide, and the deafening shouts could be heard even on the battlefield.

Jiang Yuhuo stayed alone on the battlefield. The area had been cleaned up, and the corpses scattered all over the mountains and fields had been collected in the ravines, but wild dogs would still dig through the thin soil and gnaw on the bodies.

Jiang Yuhu chased away the stray dogs and then covered the corpse with a thick layer of soil.

In the void, a fleeting soul paused and looked back, as if seeing its body properly buried, before finally departing in peace.

Many people died in this battle; the souls of the people of Yong and Zhou floated huddled together in the sky.

She didn't come to collect their bodies; she just wanted to try her luck and see if she could run into Jia Qianyang. He had lost two souls and his spirit-summoning wood had been broken, so he definitely needed to refine new souls to restore his power.

No one came to collect the souls, and like those on every battlefield before them, the spirits peacefully went to the underworld.

But at this moment, Jiang Yuhuo suddenly felt weary.

She met Qin Yuqi during the battle of Shannan County.

Qin Yuqi still wanted to capture her. He was completely encased in armor, ruthlessly driving wave after wave of people around him forward to their deaths, as if they were all mere tools. At that moment, she still felt an uncontrollable surge of murderous intent within her.

She could also incite the Zhou people to kill Qin Yuqi, but the first to die would be many soldiers from both Zhou and Yong who had nothing to do with her hatred.

Is it worth it?

To kill one person, many more people will die.

Back at the camp, the feast was still going on.

Jiang Yuhuo found a tree to sit under and silently watched the joyful scene in the camp. Unexpectedly, two cultivators dressed as disciples of the Heavenly Palace walked by. Since the Great Zhou began its counterattack, very few cultivators from the immortal sects had stayed behind to help; only the people from the Heavenly Palace remained.

She didn't need to guess to know whose instructions it was.

As the two white-robed cultivators walked and talked, Jiang Yuhuo subconsciously concealed his aura and sat quietly on the tree, eavesdropping on their conversation without even realizing why he was doing so.

But she soon realized that she wanted to hear news about that person.

"To be honest, we're not really of much use here anymore, so we might as well go back sooner..." a disciple in white complained.

"Lord Zongzi specifically instructed us to cooperate as much as possible. How are you going to explain this to him when you go back now?" another person said with concern.

"No, Lord Zongzi is truly too preoccupied to concern himself with this matter right now. Did you see the heavenly lightning the other day?" The man deliberately lowered his voice. "You may not know this, but Lord Zongzi is already undergoing the tribulation of lightning transformation. If he succeeds, he will ascend to the Divine Realm..."