Chapter 63: The Small Fry Turned Out to Be Myself? (Please Keep Reading!)

Chapter 63: The Small Fry Turns Out to Be Myself?

Outside the capital city.

On a solitary mountain peak dozens of miles away, standing several hundred meters tall, one could faintly discern the layout of half the city.

Yu Xian stood alone on the cliff, gazing into the distance with a look of amazement.

There’s an old saying: when the number reaches ten thousand, it’s boundless; when it reaches a hundred thousand, it connects heaven and earth.

As for an army of a million, even living two lifetimes, Yu Xian had only seen it in history books.

This was a pure visual shock caused by sheer numbers.

A camp stretching over hundreds of miles, with fires blazing across the hills—just sending a command from one end to the other would require a fast horse running for half an hour.

“Such a magnificent sight, it’s worth staying to witness it once,” Yu Xian thought.

Now endowed with great power, he was no longer the cautious little cultivator he had once been. He was confident that even if he encountered the foundation-establishing cultivators from the Jiang and Lin families, he could at least run away if he couldn’t win.

So after settling the others from the Wang mansion to leave the capital, he returned alone to await the final battle.

Of course, he harbored some secret hope of both sides suffering heavy losses and himself gaining some advantage.

But without absolute certainty, Yu Xian still remembered his place: he was merely a spectator.

After all, even if he gained nothing from this battle, being able to watch a foundation-establishing duel up close was a considerable gain for him.

Such was the pitiful fate of an unrooted wandering cultivator.

Although he had already reached the foundation-establishing stage, he was still vague about the various combat methods and strength of those at this level.

With the blaring of horns echoing across the plains, the rebel army began an orderly retreat after leaving a field of corpses behind.

The general defending the east city gate was drenched in blood, his furious battle cries abruptly silenced.

He looked around; his former comrades were almost all gone. Unable to bear it, he covered his face and wept bitterly.

The men were all gone; the city could no longer be defended!

The Kingdom of Yue had enjoyed many years of peace, and the four major camps responsible for the capital’s defense had long been hollow shells. After the battle in Cangbei city, the remaining elite forces of the capital were all but wiped out.

Now, the palace’s most elite guards held the palace walls, refusing to come out. The remnants of their forces relied on the tall city walls of the capital to hold out for a time.

But even if they exchanged one for ten, they simply couldn’t afford such losses.

The rebel army had been besieging the city for only three days, yet their side could barely muster enough defenders.

That night, the general secretly summoned his remaining comrades, telling them to disarm and flee for their lives; he himself faced the palace, knelt, and took his own life.

Though the ruler was unkind, he could not be disloyal.

The next morning.

The outer city of the capital city fell without a fight.

A million-strong army surged into the outer city, pressing straight toward the palace.

…

Lin Zhen looked at the heavily guarded palace and the siege crossbows hidden in the shadows; even he felt a slight prickling on his skin.

Clearly, relying solely on physical strength to resist those siege crossbows posed some threat, at least forcing him to expend some magic power to defend.

The palace gate was solid, the walls towering dozens of feet high, and there was a moat; even if countless soldiers died trying to fill it, they could never scale the walls.

“Is this the last line of defense?” Lin Zhen sneered slightly, then slowly ascended into the air amid the crowd’s attention, instantly stirring waves of enthusiastic cheers.

The palace guards on the walls showed fear and hesitation in their eyes.

“Release the arrows! Fire!” the defending general shouted angrily.

Whizzing sounds filled the air.

A rain of arrows filled the sky like a swarm of bees, interspersed with a dozen or so giant crossbow bolts as thick as an adult’s arm, capable of piercing even an elephant.

Yet Lin Zhen simply flew higher.

Although, with his strength, he could withstand a frontal assault, it would undoubtedly consume a lot of his magic power.

By flying just a bit higher, all the attacks missed.

Against foundation-establishing cultivators, ordinary humans had too few means to actually harm them, let alone break their defenses.

“Divine Sword!” Lin Zhen bellowed from hundreds of meters up.

A golden light burst forth from his body, expanding continuously until it merged with him, transforming into a massive glowing sword over ten meters long.

“Breach the city!”

Man and sword became one; the golden light fell swiftly.

The grand and sturdy palace gate, when met with the flying sword wielded by a foundation-establishing cultivator, was like tofu—easily sliced open by the golden light.

Boom!

A huge hole appeared in the palace gate.

The imperial city was breached!

“Charge!!”

The war drums rang out as hundreds of warriors surged forward from the rebel ranks, their true energies roiling.

They were the vanguard suicide squad selected from the million-strong army—each a postnatal martial artist, with several innate masters mixed among them.

Each was wrapped in iron chains, braving the rain of arrows pouring down from the walls, fearless of death. Using their bodies as shields, they leapt directly into the moat.

They swam across at top speed, then hammered iron stakes into the ground and used chains to construct rudimentary iron rope bridges.

“Charge!!!”

With the bridges, the moat was no longer an obstacle.

“The leader orders: leave none alive, kill without mercy!”

“Kill without mercy!”

“Kill without mercy!”

The disorderly troops surged into the palace, engaging the palace guards in close-quarters combat.

…

Yu Xian, mingling among the chaotic crowd, wore no armor—just a red cloth tied around his arm and a yellow headband, wielding a broken sword. He shouted perfunctory slogans with the masses, hanging at the back of the disorder.

There were so many rebels that a few unfamiliar faces attracted no notice.

Yu Xian did not arrogantly fly up into the sky to watch the spectacle; instead, he concealed himself within the crowd, still able to see what he wanted.

For example, Lin Zhen’s sword just now.

“That man is the rebel leader, likely the Lin family’s foundation-establishing cultivator. That flying sword is his spiritual weapon, far more powerful than my Bloodstained Sword.”

“Moreover, it feels like he hasn’t even unleashed his full power yet—he hasn’t even released the full aura of a foundation-establishing cultivator.”

“What if I faced that sword?” Yu Xian quietly compared and sighed inwardly. “Damn, I definitely can’t win.”

“A foundation-establishing cultivator from a cultivation family is this strong; how much stronger must the heirs of the great sects be? A nobody like me is probably just a punching bag in their eyes.”

“What difference is there between me and those small fry who just exist to boost the protagonist’s experience and achievements in novels?”

“Looking at it this way, even breaking through to mid-foundation isn’t stable for me. Having a realm without combat strength means I can easily be outmatched.”

“A mainstream foundation-establishing cultivation technique is already a miracle to break through with; trying to survive among foundation cultivators with it is just wishful thinking.”

“So, after I return to the cultivation world, the first thing I need is a reliable inheritance.”

Just from this one sword strike, Yu Xian felt it was worth the trip.

If he hadn’t seen a true foundation cultivator in action with his own eyes, he’d still be stuck in the illusion that “all foundation cultivators are evenly matched.”

Weakness and ignorance are never obstacles to survival; arrogance is.

He had to admit, since his breakthrough, he’d harbored a faint arrogance, thinking that having reached foundation establishment, he could face the Jiang and Lin families’ foundation cultivators without worry, even hoping to benefit from their conflict.

Yu Xian silently reflected that if he didn’t change this mindset, trouble would surely come sooner or later.

(End of chapter)