Throughout the history of the Empire, there had been incidents of great generals overestimating themselves and attempting to threaten the Imperial court. However, none of them met good ends.
Even if the Imperial Capital did compromise at the moment, they would surely find ways to look into the matter later on. This was to prevent successive generals from doing the same. Song Zining had threatened the court for Qianye, and that was a great taboo.
Qianye never attached too much importance to the trade with the Empire. No amount of riches could compare to people like Zining and Jundu.
If he had known beforehand, he would’ve tolerated the Empire and continued trading. There was no such thing as tree sap before the new world opened anyway. He could just pretend the thing did not exist.
Having guessed Qianye’s thoughts, Eunuch Liu spoke to console him.
He explained that Song Zining’s move might not be a bad thing. Everyone could see that the war in the new world had reached a critical stage. Without sufficient troops, even a celebrated genius like Song Zining would not be able to escape ultimate defeat no matter how intelligent he was.
In addition to Song Zining and Zhao Jundu, there were several dukes and experts like Wei Potian who were just one step away from the divine champion realm.
These people weren’t idiots—everyone could tell that only death awaited them if there were no reinforcements. There were actually people stirring up trouble for no reason at such a time, depriving the Empire of its critical supply of holy tree sap. Everyone knew about the sequence of events, and the Empire could bring forth no good reason, so a mutiny wasn’t out of the question.
Hence, Song Zining’s statement was likely true. Of course, it was also possible that he had secretly encouraged the issue.
Besides, Song Zining’s accomplishments were beyond glorious. The Emperor would never do anything to him no matter how muddle-headed he was, let alone the fact that he was a man of great talent himself.
Qianye felt a bit more relaxed after hearing Eunuch Liu’s words. How much tree sap to trade to the Empire was a matter that required much thought—it had to be just the right amount.
Qianye wasn’t quite confident regarding this. So, he asked for Eunuch Liu’s advice which the elderly man was all too happy to give. In the end, the amount agreed upon made up two-thirds of the Empire’s production capacity. This would leave room for negotiations without delaying war supplies.
Only elite soldiers could enter the Blacksun Valley. The Empire had transferred numerous elites over, but they required a week of special training before they could be considered barely eligible. There weren’t enough troops no matter how much medicine there was. Qianye needed to leave some stock for himself as well in case someone stirred up trouble again.
Reason and logic didn’t work in the face of absolute profit—only strength was enough to make one’s voice heard.
After the successful trade, Eunuch Liu had accomplished his primary mission on Fort Continent. Instead of leaving immediately, however, he went around Cerulean Wave City to observe the places and trade between different races. He didn’t comment on the situation and only informed Qianye briefly before taking his leave later on.
Eunuch Liu didn’t hide his movements from Qianye, but it was obvious that he had little interest in the Summit of Peaks, so much so that he didn’t even visit the new training ground that was undergoing construction. He only buried himself in the trade district to observe the different races haggling for wares. He bought so many items there that Qianye couldn’t help but wonder if he could fit all that in his spatial gear.
Of course, the eunuch wasn’t going around for fun. It was just that Qianye couldn’t even guess what the man’s objective was.
After Eunuch Liu’s departure, Qianye arranged for a corvette to deliver several crates of holy tree sap to the Empire, escorted by experts from the Yin and Kong families. The escort for this mission was extremely important, so Qianye had to coax Young Miss Yin until she finally agreed to board the ship.
Considering Song Zining’s victory in the central zone and a matching supply of holy tree sap from Fort Continent, it would seem that the Empire’s situation was fairly good. Feeling relieved, Qianye saw William to the Flame Duke’s territory before heading back into the new world. The pioneering efforts here weren’t just about himself. It involved the fates of Zining, Jundu, the Empire, and even the human race to a certain extent.
The existence of Blacksun Valley itself gave Qianye a feeling of familiarity and a strange sense of terror.
Unknowingly, the Empire and Evernight had been fighting in Blacksun Valley for over a month.
Song Zining had changed his tactic and was setting up camps at every step. He had constructed several fortresses in the area, around which several siege battles had taken place over the week. At the same time, he had dispatched several smaller squads to roam the valley and attack enemy supply lines whenever the opportunity arose.
There were no more satisfying battles that were worthy of military textbooks nor was any army wiped out. The war became slow and steady, but that didn’t stop the death toll from rising as time went by. The casualty list sent back to the Empire each day formed a thick stack of papers, and there were still a lot of soldiers missing.
This way of fighting attracted a fair bit of criticism.
The casualty rate for this month had almost caught up to the entire pioneering phase. The mysterious halo of constant victory seemed to have disappeared from around Song Zining as people began to claim any general could lead fortress defense battles.
Only a handful of learned people could tell that the dark races had always held the advantage at every siege. The advantage was never enough to claim a decisive victory, but just enough that they would not abandon the attack. And when they did attack, they would always find that they had chewed off more than they could chew. Even if they did manage to capture the fortress in the end, it was only because the Empire had abandoned it voluntarily. Rarely did they ever break the defense.
Once or twice might be a coincidence, but the repeated performance was proof of Song Zining’s accomplishment in strategy and divination. This was a bleeding strategy, and each fortress was like a grooved blade that served to drain the dark races’ elite fighting power.
The Empire’s losses were also shocking. The most solemn moment at every morning meeting was the announcement of yesterday’s casualties. Experienced veterans and new recruits alike would be dumbfounded by the heavy numbers.
In just a month, the Empire had lost over a hundred thousand soldiers, all of them elites and not cannon fodder. Who wouldn’t feel pained at the loss of core fighting power equalling three army corps?
Although the dark races had lost three times this number, many people remained skeptical of Song Zining’s tactics. The outcome of this war was too bitter. Every new day, countless living soldiers would turn into corpses—this was in exchange for even more enemy corpses.
The Evernight Council, of course, wasn’t having a good time, either. Yet they kept sending a steady stream of soldiers into the new world and the Empire kept holding on.
With every passing day, the voices criticizing Song Zining grew stronger. Fortunately, some people understood themselves well enough—they knew they couldn’t take Song Zining’s place, so the only thing they did was to question the strategy. Song Zining ignored everything happening back in the Empire and kept his focus on exhausting the enemy forces.
“The dark races will give-in one day because they are three races and we are only one.” Every day, Song Zining would repeat this before donning his cold metallic mask to enter the battlefield.
There were occasional bright beacons amidst the dark, gloomy, and bloody battlefield. Some of the units Song Zining had sent out to ambush the enemy’s rear would fail, but some of them would produce dazzling results.
Of them, Wei Potian’s squad was one of the most eye-catching.
This self-proclaimed Marquis Potian’s best fight was when he accidentally led his unit into dire straits. It was there that they displayed unbelievable tenacity and fended off a force ten times their size for an entire day and night. Wei Potian held back five enemy marquises on his own.
The entire battle was a bitter defense with no chance to counterattack at all. It looked like they would be defeated at any moment.
However, that sharp mountain peak hovering above the battlefield never collapsed. That gave the Wei family warriors boundless courage to fight against their enemies, repelling one wave of attack after another.
In the end, the five marquises attacking Wei Potian were exhausted. Whatever attacks they launched on him would lose eighty percent of their power, barely an itch for the target.
Wei Potian’s Spirit Slasher was also a killer weapon that struck fear into the enemy. Wounds opened by the blade would not heal within a week, and the effects were even more pronounced in the new world. Even a non-lethal injury might take one’s life.
At every critical juncture, Wei Potian would fight as though he was about to drag someone down with him. Those marquises were long-lived creatures who held the advantage in the field; there was no way they would play along with the madman.
Toward the end of the bloody battle, several human squads appeared in the vicinity. Song Zining himself arrived to surround the enemy forces, killing tens of thousands in one fight.
Wei Potian’s fame sky-rocketed, and that solitary peak was recognized as a realm only divine champions of the Wei Clan could reach: the Supreme Peak.
Wei Potian had comprehended this state before reaching the divine champion realm. This gained him endless praise, and some even thought he might be the third genius of the Empire beneath Zhao and Song.
Such a young genius with a powerful background was a prime marriage candidate.
Some of the well-connected families even came to see him on the front lines. “Marriage? What marriage? I’ve been thoroughly taken advantage of by Zhao Yuying. How can I find anyone else?”
This caused a wave of commotion, and Zhao Yuying became famous.
Duke Yan should’ve been furious, but he only said in a carefree manner, “Young people can be a bit rash sometimes.”
Such an attitude could be interpreted as a sealed deal.
The marital alliance between Zhao and Wei was thus decided. The Zhao Clan had found yet another powerful ally in the Far East Province, and the Wei family would gain much from the Zhao. With the Zhao clan’s support, the Far East Province’s expansion efforts would be much easier. How so many families had to return disappointed was a different story.
Many capable young leaders had also emerged, and these people made for good targets. It seemed many marriage negotiations would ensue after the war.
Of course, no one would do this during the war—on one hand, it was to prevent affecting the army’s fighting spirit, while on the other, it was to see who would survive until the end.
As more and more corpses accumulated on the battlefield, the scales of victory slowly tipped toward the Empire. However, this was still not enough in Song Zining’s eyes.
