Let Me Explain, Fairy
Chapter 384 - 268 Holy City_2

Chapter 384: 268 Holy City_2

Zhaye’s tone was subdued, suppressing some emotion:

"Has that Marquis Wucheng of Dayan... indeed gone to the Extreme Black Lands?"

"He must have," replied the Barbarian Strange King, his voice calm. "Otherwise, the Dayan army wouldn’t have sent high-ranking experts at great cost to block the two mountain ranges to stop us from escaping northward."

A tremor passed through Zhaye’s heart, his uniquely deep and sonorous voice of the barbarians quivering slightly:

"King, the Extreme Black Lands is home to a million women and children of the Holy Race..."

"Zhaye, calm down."

The Barbarian Strange King’s azure eyes were serene, his tone soothing with a hint of reassurance: "The Extreme Black Lands are vast and boundless; finding our Holy City wouldn’t be easy. Moreover, the supply train Marquis Wucheng is carrying should not be enough to allow him a prolonged stay in the Extreme Black Lands."

"But what if it falls?" Zhaye clenched his fists, the tough keratin creaking: "That is the Holy City."

The Holy City.

A city built by the barbarians through the spoils of war after their unification by the Barbarian Strange King over the years.

It wasn’t particularly large; it was even smaller than a county city in Dayan.

But it stood as a symbol of the king’s court, representing the transformation of the barbarians from scattered sands vying for resources to unified forces against outsiders.

"Enough."

The Barbarian Strange King gazed at his old friend who had come all this way with him and chuckled softly: "Zhaye, do you think we should strike quickly? Return to support the Holy City?"

Zhaye bowed his head in respect:

"Wu Yuan has been leading a hundred thousand elite Dayan troops to pursue us for over a month. Now their soldiers and horses are exhausted to the extreme. They could certainly be crushed with a surprise attack."

"No."

The Barbarian Strange King immediately rejected the suggestion without a second thought, speaking softly: "For reasons I do not fully understand, that Wu Yuan seems very anxious. By pursuing us so ostentatiously through the blizzard, it’s almost as if he’s advertising an ’attack me’ sign on his forehead."

While saying this,

the Barbarian Strange King extended his one good arm and stood up from the boulder, chuckling lightly:

"She wants to wager with me, to bet whether I can be held back until Zong Qingsheng comes to aid."

Zhaye took a deep breath and asked:

"King, why not take the bet? We’ve won seven or eight out of ten battles heading south, but now, trapped within Dayan Territory, our army’s morale is shaky. If we continue to avoid battle, it may be hard to change the defection in the hearts of the tribal kin."

The Barbarian Strange King walked slowly to the cave entrance; his towering body almost filling the narrow opening, he looked up at the endless white expanse:

"The Holy Race has come this far largely due to the internal strife within the Yan Dynasty. Moreover, every daring gamble I’ve made has been based on the infighting among them. If Wu Yuan is so eager to fight a decisive battle with me, it must be related to the conflicts within Dayan itself."

"However, ever since using intelligence from a high-level official in the Prime Minister’s Mansion to defeat three hundred thousand Border Army troops, there are times when I wonder if the Holy Race advanced too swiftly to the south."

"Too swiftly?"

"Yes, too swiftly," the Barbarian Strange King repeated in a low voice.

Zhaye hesitated: "King, didn’t you say before that if we don’t seize this chance to move south, the Holy Race will no longer have the strength to challenge Dayan in a hundred, a few hundred years?"

The Barbarian Strange King looked down at his sole remaining arm, observing the mysterious patterns on the keratin layer:

"No, what I meant was we misjudged the conflict between the Dayan royal court and those so-called Sects. Far from being as mild as it appeared on the surface, it seems they’ve reached a point of no return. They easily gifted away three hundred thousand elite troops as a present."

As he spoke,

the Barbarian Strange King, standing at the mouth of the cave, sighed: "Had I realized this earlier, perhaps the Holy Race would have moved south later, encountering fewer obstacles and far less risk."

The Barbarian Strange King slowly turned his gaze back to Zhaye, who stood behind him, and spoke softly:

"Zhaye, you were right at the beginning. When the Northern Border Army and the Black Scale Army were moving north, we should have bravely retreated and returned to the Extreme Black Lands to digest the spoils of war from these past years."

"Dayan would have been embroiled in civil strife, while our Holy Race recuperated. When Dayan would be weakened from infighting, our move southward would likely have been much easier.

"Even easier than taking advantage of this snowstorm disaster..."

"..."

Zhaye’s eyes showed complexity: "King, if Dayan didn’t have that celestial military equipment, your decision wouldn’t have led the Holy Race to failure."

The Barbarian Strange King noticed his gaze and spoke with a helpless tone:

"It is what it is. It’s too late to talk about this now. I overestimated myself and placed too much trust in my judgment of the overall situation. Now, all the retreat paths for our Holy Race have been blocked. We can only wait, wait for the desperate changes that Wu Yuan is so anxious for, and act on opportunity."

Zhaye looked at his familiar friend, silent in the wind and snow for a long time, before speaking softly:

"King, I understand."

At this moment, the Barbarian Strange King suddenly chuckled again, his deep voice feigning light-heartedness:

"I understand your concerns. Marquis Wucheng of Dayan is indeed remarkable, but we still have E’ji hiding within the Extreme Black Lands, don’t we? He’s the cleverest of the three of us. Even if Marquis Wucheng manages to find the Holy City, he will find a way to evacuate the citizens there.

"As long as our citizens are safe, the Holy City is just a city, we can rebuild."

...

...

...

In the Extreme Black Lands, a glance reveals an endless darkness; here, not a sliver of light exists, as if the pitch black were eternal.

However, at this moment, the divine light radiating from within the Dayan Army Formation almost completely illuminates half of the sky.

A rather majestic city stands within a canyon, beneath the Dayan Army Formation, resembling a stripped child.

The sounds of slaughter, screams rise, and fall in waves, chaos reigning within the city, with countless corpses of the Barbarian Tribes piling up like mountains.

Unlike the towering bodies of the Barbarian Tribes, the corpses here seem somewhat smaller, most of them not even having grown the keratin layer to withstand the cold.

The Barbarian Tribes are martial by nature, with adult barbarian women also possessing the strength to fight,

At the time of the city’s fall, under the organization of those who stayed behind, the temporarily assembled barbarian army orderly marched towards the vehicles outside the city.

But the release of the Cloud Qi Bomb had already dissipated the surrounding snow clouds; without the cover of the blizzards, the White Armored Heavy Cavalry of the Northern Border Army, like the scythe of the Grim Reaper, relentlessly sliced through their fleeing troops.

"....."

Since breaking into the city, Niu Yeqing had lost count of how many barbarians he had killed.

Unlike the civil wars and rebellions, he had experienced before, after breaking into the city, he didn’t need to distinguish between civilians and soldiers; he could simply chop down anything that moved.

This was an utterly unequal slaughter.

Kill.

Kill.

Kill.

The spirit blade in his hand was already notched, and the black blood staining his white armor was particularly conspicuous. When he regained his senses, all he saw everywhere in the city were corpses.

Niu Yeqing wandered silently through the city streets, aside from his comrades carrying out the sweep order, there was practically no living thing around.

But this was merely the beginning.

The lord’s command was to leave no survivors, to massacre the city.

"Bang!"

Along with four comrades, Niu Yeqing burst through the door of a snow house, characterized by the unique architectural style of the Barbarian Tribes; his gaze immediately fixed on two barbarians inside.

A barbarian woman and a barbarian child, huddled together, shivering in fear.

These two barbarians seemed to be mother and child,

Niu Yeqing thought so, as he and the four comrades at his side each drew out their notched service blades.

But then,

The barbarian woman, who had been shivering just a moment ago, suddenly hurled the child out the window, shouting a few phrases in their barbarian language, incomprehensible to them, and then charged directly at them.

The Barbarian Tribes are very tall, the women being no exception, standing about twice the height of these burly human men.

A normal person would have no chance against these Barbarian Tribes, but unfortunately for her, they were cultivators.

"Pfft!"

Several coordinated slashes lit up, and the woman’s towering figure became another corpse.

Watching the woman’s body, one of the men hesitantly asked:

"Leader Li, that child shouldn’t be a threat, shall we pursue?"

Leader Li gave a cold look and said:

"Pursue. The offspring of the Barbarian Tribes, once grown, will not know how many of our Great Yan citizens they would kill."

Without further conversation, they activated their cultivation techniques and started to pursue outside the house.

Just as they left the house,

they saw the barbarian child had been sliced in two by a blade of light coming from afar, the fear still not fading from its half-closed eyes.

The person who had dealt the blow sheathed his sword, giving a respectful bow to an elder clad in the commander’s armor:

"Marquis Wucheng, the city is massacred. Do we continue?"

The elder calmly watched the child die, then closed his eyes for a few breaths as if sensing something, reopened his eyes, and said indifferently:

"There are only three hundred thousand barbarian offspring in this city, collect the supplies, we move northward."