Chapter Eighty-Nine: Reunion and Departure

Since last night, many friends have been leaving messages and casting votes one after another. I nearly did not sleep at all. Thank you, everyone.

I have read every message carefully. I never once thought of giving up; I only hoped to borrow your encouragement to see my new work more clearly and gain even greater motivation.

^_^

—

Unexpected events came one after another!

When Commander Hailian led a large force of city guards and more than three thousand cultivators at the fourth-rank level or above appeared beneath the city walls, Xu Wen and the soldiers atop the walls were all swept by joy and exhilaration.

By the time Hailian, following a middle-aged man of noble bearing and imposing stride, stepped onto the city walls, the man was in his forties, with a faint shadow of gloom and worry clouding his brow.

This man must be the Prince of Glory who had sent out the royal distress signal last night.

Beside the Prince of Glory stood as many as twenty-four experts of the seventh rank, along with more than a hundred sixth-rank guards. Broad-shouldered and robust, fierce and capable, their armor and weapons were all top-grade!

From Hailian Quan’s account, after they released the Cloudmist Beacon in their own town, they were immediately detected by the Prince of Glory’s guards, who raised their vigilance at once. The moment the city lord fell into trouble, they rallied more than a hundred scions of noble houses, and even dispatched assassins to successfully slay a necromancer, seizing control of the southern gate...

Xu Wen was slightly taken aback. The Prince of Glory’s methods and decisiveness were clearly no less formidable than Hailian Quan’s.

However, when the Prince of Glory intended to deploy the city guards to restore order within the city, he was driven back by a sudden horde of walking corpses. The strange, rapidly spreading scourge forced him to choose to hold the gate. After that, two necromancers led large numbers of walking corpses and undead in continuous assaults on the southern city!

With no other choice, the Prince of Glory sent out the royal distress signal...

The rest need not be mentioned. Once the two forces of experts joined, those undead were not enough to fill the gap between the teeth; one was slain, one fled.

The only thing Xu Wen had not expected was that the surviving households, together with the necromancers from the north, would run headlong into the seven great eighth-rank experts who had forced their way into the city from the northern side. One of them seemed to have no dead guard at all, and was directly killed by the elder Xuleng, who flew into the city through the air.

That meant all five necromancers within Muses City had been executed, and the danger was entirely removed.

Xu Wen felt secretly delighted and relaxed at once.

As a direct member of the royal line, the Prince of Glory took over command. He left the six great noble houses’ eighth-rank experts and Hailian Quan in place, while the guards formed a ring, keeping everyone else outside. Clearly, they were discussing the next step.

At this point, Xu Wen was certain that the crisis in the imperial capital was nearly over.

From He Chen, he had learned that the imperial palace of the capital possessed an exceptionally solid, high-strength defensive barrier, one whose protective power was even several times greater than that of Azure Cloud Academy.

Inside the palace were countless experts, more than fifty thousand imperial guards, a ten-thousand-strong advanced mage legion, and over a hundred magi who could ensure the barrier’s integrity.

As for the rebels of the El family and the Selim family, they would never be able to breach the palace.

So by now, the palace should be perfectly safe!

Moreover, the city was vast, and it was impossible for all the experts of the great families to have perished...

Once the situation here stabilized and a signal was sent to summon the forces of the great families and adventurer teams throughout the Azure Cloud Empire, striking from both inside and outside, the Dark Empire’s conspiracy would surely be shattered.

The facts, however, differed somewhat from Xu Wen’s expectations...

Orders were relayed through the crowd one after another. More than a dozen detachments were dispatched from the city to seek reinforcements in the farther towns.

The twelve thousand city guards were divided into three routes, each led by an eighth-rank expert, and sent to the three nearby towns, while also searching for the students who had been teleported out from Azure Cloud Academy.

The Prince of Glory intended to continue stabilizing the situation in the towns around the imperial capital while striving to gather more reinforcements.

When Xu Wen found the departing Hailian Quan and inquired further, he realized there were flaws in his own assumptions...

The Cloudmist Beacon in their town could be seen from a hundred li around, and it had been burning for half a day. It was impossible for the necromancers of the Dark Empire besieging the imperial capital not to have noticed it.

By now, the imperial capital should already have made the corresponding preparations and defenses.

If the Dark Empire still had not withdrawn, that could only mean they possessed absolute confidence...

So what the Prince of Glory needed to do now was to ignite the Cloudmist Beacons in all the surrounding towns as swiftly as possible, creating the momentum of a stormy tide: necromancers annihilated, experts of the Azure Cloud Empire gathering strength, ready to counterattack with all their might!

The blow suffered by the Azure Cloud Empire this time was grievous indeed. It was not suitable to act rashly and fight a desperate battle to the death with the necromancers of the Dark Empire. Victory had to be secured in one stroke!

Otherwise, the Azure Cloud Empire would have very little room left to recover.

After the explanation, Hailian Quan solemnly patted Xu Wen’s shoulder and said, “You have already done very well, but the battles ahead are unimaginably perilous. Even I have no certainty I can live to return to the imperial capital. You are only at the fourth rank, and the road ahead is long. You need not take part in this battle. I will choose a squad to escort you back to your town, and bring your friends with you. Azure Cloud Academy will not be able to open for some time.”

“...”

Xu Wen nodded silently.

He could imagine just how tragic the later battles would be.

A great host of necromantic archmages, millions upon millions of skeletons, walking corpses, and hundreds or even thousands of dead guards... added to that two ninth-rank magi and dozens of grand magi—this was no longer something he, a mere low-level fire mage, could influence.

Staying away from the imperial capital was the wisest choice.

A few minutes later...

One hundred elite soldiers of the town’s city guard were selected by Hailian Quan to escort Xu Wen and He Chen back to their town, accompanied by the seventh-rank battle master, Zhang Ke.

This was an arrangement made by the Prince of Glory in consideration of the possibility that the rear towns might suffer a second wave of attack—every town had to leave behind a seventh-rank expert for protection.

After bidding farewell with reluctance to the many who had fought through the night atop the walls, Xu Wen mounted his horse and set out on the return journey.

Along the road, dawn was already breaking.

“Brother Xu.”

Zhang Ke spurred his horse to Xu Wen’s side and said with evident admiration, “In truth, taking refuge temporarily with one of the noble houses is not a bad idea. With the strength of a noble house backing you and an eighth-rank expert guiding you, you could very well reach the realms of magi and grand magi much sooner.”

“Thank you for your reminder, Uncle Zhang Ke. But... at best they could only help me rise to the level of grand magus. After that, I would face endless trouble from the noble houses and lose all freedom of my own. How, then, could I ever avenge myself?” Xu Wen’s calm tone and answer left the other man momentarily stunned.

This youth actually saw things so deeply!

After pondering for a while, Zhang Ke asked again, “Once you return to your town, do you really intend to leave just like that? To go back to your...”

“The Hortonklin family. But I probably won’t stay there for long. To avenge Dean Harman, I must first become a true warrior.”

Xu Wen knew what Zhang Ke wanted to say. The Hortonklin family’s foundation was shallow; they could not even cultivate a grand magus. But the other man did not know that Xu Wen had in his possession the magical insights forged from Dean Harman’s lifelong work. He did not need any mentor at all; he could study and grow entirely on his own.

“You mean joining an adventurer team or a mercenary band?” Zhang Ke’s eyes lit up, looking at Xu Wen with surprise. Frequenting the Monster Beast Mountains and keeping company with death was a path many elite cultivators had to choose in the later stages of their lives. Only under the dual pressure of long-term tension and danger could a cultivator improve faster and ascend to higher realms.

This was also why Azure Cloud Academy forbade youths over eighteen from enrolling—by that age, practical cultivation was far more effective at shaping true experts than the competitive atmosphere of a school.

Riding at full pace, Xu Wen gazed toward the distant morning light and slowly shook his head...

Even he was not sure whether he simply had not yet decided on joining a mercenary band, or whether he had not yet decided on his path of tempering himself.