When this General of the North charged into the enemy ranks, it was as if there were no one around him. Not one of the herding tribes’ soldiers could stop him. Huyan Xi’s expression turned grimmer and grimmer. He watched the General of the North cut through his vanguard, nearly killing them all. His strength was like that of a god of war come to earth, and it shattered the morale of the herding tribes’ soldiers. Already some soldiers were beginning to retreat and showed signs of breaking ranks.

The herding tribes’ soldiers were all brave men who wouldn’t run from a powerful foe and did not fear death. But what if their enemy wasn’t human? With strength like this, who could say that the General of the North wasn’t a divine demon from heaven instead of a mere mortal from earth?

Huyan Xi had used precisely this kind of strength to frighten the Xia forces at the outset, but Marquis Zhenbei had not withdrawn. With his life and the lives of his family, he had dealt Huyan Xi a serious blow. But now, faced with a foe who was equally mighty, the soldiers and commanders of the herding tribes retreated.

Sixth General Xiao saw the army before him ready to turn tail and run and smiled slightly. He bent as he swept his saber in an arc. The gust from his saber, strengthened by his internal force, hurtled toward the legs of the enemy horses. The herding tribes’ advance guard was all composed of cavalry. Their horses were not merely their steeds but also brothers and comrades to them. Without their horses, they were like a falcon whose wings had been clipped. They could no longer soar over the grasslands.

And the General of the North had aimed at the legs of all the vanguard’s horses. It was entirely within his capabilities to break the legs of all the horses in first rank, and even in the second. If his attack succeeded, this war was as good as lost. Not only would the herding tribes lose their morale, they would be beaten back to the depths of the grasslands by Xia’s reinforcements, and it would take them years to recover.

His blow could not be permitted to land!

In a flash, Huyan Xi suppressed his still unhealed internal injury and leapt from horseback. He had no time to draw his sword, so he lashed out with his whip. The body of the whip met the force of the General of the North’s attack. The clash of these forces knocked both Huyan Xi and Xiao Jinyi back a couple of steps, where they remained fixed in place, each gazing upon his nemesis.

Huyan Xi tasted sickly sweetness in his throat, and blood filled his mouth. But the herding tribes’ soldiers shook off their dread and began to cry out:

“The King of the Northern Frontier! The King of the Northern Frontier!”

Hearing these voices behind him, Huyan Xi knew that if he spat out this blood, it was all over. By blocking the unbeatable General of the North’s attack, he had given hope to his despairing soldiers. He would swallow this blood if he had to rather than spit it out.

The empress meanwhile also felt blood roiling in his chest. No one had put him in such a desperate position since he had come to this world. This was the height of fighting ability that this world could permit. He and Huyan Xi were both at the peak, precisely on a par!

This person couldn’t be a player!

Was he really the doctor, the target of his mission?

The empress frowned slightly. His gaze fell on the tall poles, on the four scarcely distinguishable sets of features on those faces. Those were his father and brothers, family with a tie of blood to him. And behind him was his beloved and the nation that was so precious to him.

Was love more important, or was his mission more important?

He recalled the instructions he had received before coming here. The doctor was different from the other players, who had holographic helmets; when they died, their brainwaves and data would be withdrawn by the helmets. But the doctor lacked the protection of a helmet. If he didn’t recognize himself as a person in reality, his death in the game world would mean actual brain death. The only way to avoid this was to activate the item and put it on the doctor before he died. The item would wake him and save his brainwaves to the empress’s holographic helmet in the real world. Then, when the empress woke, the helmet would be placed on the doctor’s head.

He couldn’t kill the doctor, but as the General of the North, for the sake of his father and brothers and the nation so dear to the one he loved, he had to kill Huyan Xi.

So…he would take Huyan Xi alive, put the item on him to awaken the doctor’s brain waves, then kill him as an offering to the souls of Mobei’s valiant dead!

The empress gripped the hilt of his saber. Huyan Xi’s abilities were in no way inferior to his; it would be hard to take him alive.

When the blood roiling in his chest had settled, the empress struck. The blade of his saber passed beside Huyan Xi’s face; Huyan Xi had dodged the lightning strike.

It seemed he had no need to hold back; this person wouldn’t die easily. In reality, the empress was a veteran of many battles, and now he went all out, attacking with all his strength.

Clouds of rock and grit flew around the clash of these two ultimate masters. Everything for hundreds of yards around was affected. The herding tribes’ soldiers, who had started out nearby ready to support Huyan Xi, retreated to a safe distance to shout encouragement after a dozen of them were killed by the reverberations of the empress’s blows.

Those within Mobei City, however, saw clearly from the shelter of its walls. Xiao Jinshu watched the empress’s performance, gulping again and again. With no attention left to spare for etiquette, he asked, “Your Majesty, that person… Is that really the same one I know? My family’s Xiao Jinyi?”

Emperor Jingren smiled and nodded, eyes filled with profound adoration.

Xiao Jinshu was silent.

Had he not seen the General of the North’s face with its features so similar to his own and his family’s, he would have thought that Emperor Jingren was attempting to wrest military authority out of the hands of the Xiao family by having a man impersonate the family’s nonexistent youngest son. With his disability, Xiao Jinshu could not inherit his father’s title; this person could become the next Marquis Zhenbei and sway the troops to his side under the guise of Marquis Zhenbei’s son.

But Emperor Jingren was so certain. So this Xiao Jinyi, whose martial abilities were as fierce as a demon’s, really was his sister Xiao Jinyi? The same one who was the empress? His…little sister?

“I recall that…General Xiao…was very small as a child,” Xiao Jinshu said with difficulty.

“The general has told me of this,” Emperor Jingren said carelessly. “Naturally one develops as one grows.”

Could a figure like this and abilities like these really be the result of development? How could his little sister have developed into such a strapping man?

Xiao Jinshu felt even his fingertips trembling. Fortunately, his last remaining sliver of intelligence told him that now wasn’t the time to quibble about such things. There was a general on his own side who could defeat Huyan Xi. It didn’t matter who it was; his presence would boost morale, so he would willingly support him! Xiao Jinshu kept his mouth shut, looking down outside the city walls. But when he looked, he couldn’t find the two combatants. He sought high and low and saw two forms suspended in midair.

Around them, rocks and grit flew. They moved too fast for the naked eye to follow. Only the direction of the debris around them gave any indication of which one had the upper hand. Huyan Xi’s abilities were such that Xiao Jinshu felt his family had come by their deaths honorably. It was already an accomplishment to have injured him at the cost of four lives. But when he thought that the person who could meet Huyan Xi blow for blow was his sister, his little sister…

Xiao Jinshu thought it was a good thing he couldn’t walk, or else he would have been in danger of falling off his feet.

His gaze fell on Emperor Jingren. He saw this unusual emperor smiling slightly, a soft light shining in his eyes. It was clear he had the deepest trust and love for Xiao Jinyi. It was as if he beheld the world’s most rare and precious beauty. But…

Xiao Jinshu snatched a pail of water from the tower and drank gulp after gulp to quash his misgivings. It didn’t matter; he would ask when this struggle was over.

Watching the battle outside the city, Xiao Jinshu understood for the first time how the strength of one could overwhelm the arts of ten. All strategy was worthless here. They and the herding tribes alike could only wait for a victor to emerge between these two.

Xiao Jinyi wasn’t afraid of a long fight; he was uninjured and did not need to exert his internal force to suppress a wound. And if the battle went on long enough, the main army would arrive. Any number of Huyan Xis wouldn’t be enough then. From Huyan Xi’s point of view, it was different: he couldn’t afford to drag this out. It wasn’t only a question of his physical condition but also of the herding tribes’ soldiers.

With sickly sweetness threatening to rise up his throat, Huyan Xi unexpectedly pivoted in midair and grabbed Marquis Zhenbei’s head, meeting the General of the North’s saber with the head held high. Xiao Jinyi inwardly cursed this contemptible gesture, but he couldn’t stab through his own father’s head. He turned his blade aside just as the momentum of his attack was at its peak, while Huyan Xi pulled a knife at that exact moment and plunged it into Xiao Jinyi’s chest.

Xiao Jinyi knew that he couldn’t dodge. He leapt in the face of the attack and snatched Marquis Zhenbei’s head, wresting it away from Huyan Xi. With his muscles he trapped the knife between his ribs, so Huyan Xi couldn’t try the same maneuver a second time.

Seeing Xiao Jinyi stabbed, Emperor Jingren’s face went rigid. Xiao Jinshu couldn’t resist saying, “Do not worry, Your Majesty. General Xiao used his muscles to catch the knife between his ribs. There is no internal injury. And until the knife is pulled out, there won’t be too much blood loss. This injury…will not do much harm.”

Looking into Emperor Jingren’s increasingly grim face, Xiao Jinshu could hardly go on. But regardless of whether the person before him was his sister, he felt respect and gratitude toward him. General Xiao had been presented with a clear opportunity to kill Huyan Xi; through Marquis Zhenbei’s head, he could have stabbed Huyan Xi in the chest. But not only had he not done this, he had willingly been injured to retrieve Marquis Zhenbei’s remains.

As Xiao Jinshu thought this, Xiao Jinyi made a backhanded toss, and Marquis Zhenbei’s head sailed onto the city wall and landed in Xiao Jinshu’s lap. Despite the force of the throw, the head landed as lightly as a feather. General Xiao had sent it back deliberately.

Xiao Jinshu held his father’s head and set it atop the wall so the marquis could see Xiao Jinyi at the foot of the wall.

“We cannot let General Xiao fight alone,” Xiao Jinshu said calmly. “Prepare the siege crossbows.”

The soldiers obeyed. Mobei City’s craftsmen had worked day and night to fabricate ten siege crossbows, whose range was thousands of yards. Anyone with eyesight keen enough to aim them could shoot at the herding tribes’ soldiers in the distance.

Emperor Jingren watched as Xiao Jinshu had his bodyguards lift him from his chair so he could rest against the city wall, kowtowing to his father.

After three heavy strikes, Xiao Jinshu’s forehead was bleeding. Staunchly, he said, “Father, I have failed in my filial duties. I cannot retrieve my brothers’ remains.”

Then he sat back in his chair and said coldly to the soldiers holding the crossbows, “Spread phosphorous powder on the arrows.”

Emperor Jingren understood at once what he meant to do. He wanted to stop him, but watching Xiao Jinyi locked in a bitter battle at the foot of the city walls, in the end he said nothing.

As dusk fell, torches flared to life on the wall. In the firelight, a shade of brutality seemed to cross Xiao Jinshu’s features as he gazed at the distant torches of the herding tribes’ soldiers as well as the three heads atop three poles. As he had expected, in order to let his side see the heads clearly, each pole had a torch burning at its base, making them perfectly visible in the dimness.

Xiao Jinshu took a deep breath and said, “Aim at the heads of the three generals.”

The commander of the archers wept. He couldn’t resist saying to Xiao Jinshu, “Counsellor…”

“Shoot!” said Xiao Jinshu fiercely.

The archers let fly. As the arrows slid through the grooves in the siege crossbows, they began to burn with green-white flames. Ten streaks of green-white light flew toward the bamboo poles.

“No!” Huyan Xi grasped the Xia army’s intentions at once. He wanted to turn and block the flaming arrows, but Xiao Jinyi held him back; he couldn’t divide his attention.

The siege crossbows shot their arrows with powerful speed. Before the soldiers guarding the poles could react, three or four arrows had fallen on them and the poles.

Though there were only ten siege crossbows, the arrows came in wave after wave. Soon the three poles were engulfed in phosphorous flames. When the flames touched a flammable object, they turned bright yellow, burning intensely.

Tongues of flame swallowed the heads of the three generals, encircling three sets of peacefully closed eyes.

Tears flowed from Xiao Jinshu’s eyes.