Drums of War

by Tinalynge

  “It truly is magnificent!” He said with astonishment in his voice. His eyes were filled with disbelief, and he quickly accepted Hui Yue’s hand as the white-haired young man withdrew the threads of blue Qi from within his beast core.

  Once again, the Emperors were incapable of understanding what just happened, but they could see that this eagle was clearly astonished, that the attack was completely unexplainable. Looking at both the cat and the eagle neither of the two seemed wounded, yet both of them instantly admitted defeat the moment the bright blue light appeared. Both seemed to have been without power as they collapsed on the ground. Just what kind of amazing attack was this? None of them seemed to understand.

  “Thank you for allowing me to experience this attack,” The eagle said with a bow as he slowly made his way down the arena with Hui Yue following behind him. He no longer needed to experience his other attacks, he had already tried out the one attack he was most curious about, the others he could experience later on.

  As he stepped off, he nodded towards the Emperors and slowly made his way back to the city gate. He returned to his room to prepare for the following day.

  Having left behind the sparring arena, the guards slowly returned to their tents. Some started cultivating their inner energies while others went to the arena to spar and hone their techniques.

  Soon the news spread about how Hui Yue won two sparring matches with only one attack and both matches had the same result. This Grand Marshall was someone no one really understood. His real strength became a topic of much conversation. His attacks became the stuff that legends were made from. Although no one, apart from the ones who had experienced the blue cloud’s power, really knew what the attack did, everyone assumed that it was an attack which could defeat anyone he used it against. Only Hui Yue knew that it was only it was efficient towards opponents of his strength or lower. Just as he knew it was only efficient in this manner, he also knew that it was hard to actually successfully use the attack.

  The cat was surprised by the speed of the transformed Hui Yue, which allowed for the younger man to use the blue net successfully The second man was standing still, allowing for Hui Yue to directly attacking him.

  As the guards were motivated to train, Hui Yue was busy in his room preparing the training the guards would undertake the following day. After hours of work, his eyes roamed across the paper in front of him, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

  Moving to the floor, Hui Yue sat in front of his window. It had taken him the rest of the day to prepare for the following day’s exercise, and as he sat in the light of the window the sun was soon replaced by the moon. Hui Yue once more started absorbing the essence of the heavens and the earth. He sifted the Yin energy from the essence allowing it to enter his upper dantian and merge with the Yang energy that was already there.

  Feeling all the energies enter his body, Hui Yue had a sly smile on his face. His eyes were closed as he enjoyed how the energy flowed through his meridians and refined itself before it slowly entered the lower dantian. Hui Yue decided that he wished to speed up the refinement process, and not just wait for the cultivation technique to do all the work. So he forced large portions of the essence of the heavens and the earth through his meridians constantly rotating it through his body. After entering every meridian, the color of his Qi turned very white. This action continued until the Qi was pearly white with a lustrous shine to it.

  While Hui Yue focused on refining Qi, his cultivation techniques were also working overtime. Both the one in the lower and the middle dantian. Surprisingly enough, a copy of Hui Yue had not appeared within his upper dantian. It seemed that refining the Yin and Yang energies was something which had to be done manually.

  The copy of Hui Yue that existed within his lower dantian was constantly absorbing the essence of the heavens and the earth and sending it through the meridians to refine it. At the same time, the copy within his middle dantian was constantly absorbing one thread of Qi after another refining it further into liquid drops of silver energy which fell into his spiritual energy sea. His spiritual energy sea was ever so slowly rising.

  While these two dantians were under constant refinement, Hui Yue’s inner energies had swelled after he reached the ranks of a King, but his Wu Wei was a completely different matter. Wu Wei could only be refined from combining Yin energy with Yang energy. Sifting the Yin and Yang energy from the essence of the heavens and the earth was something Hui Yue had to do manually. As he did his cultivation base rose; however, when he was not paying attention to those energies his upper dantian would not refine any energy on it’s own.

  Manually sifting the energies, Hui Yue noticed a tranquil feeling envelop him. With his newfound control over the blue cloud, the cloud once more billowed outwards. The cloud surrounding him increased the density of the essence of the heavens and the earth around the white-haired young man by a few times making it possible for him to sift through more Yin energy as he soaked in the moon’s gentle light.

  This night went by as many other nights had. The young man was completely absorbed in his training, and as he was not paying attention to anything two shadows suddenly appeared behind him. Both patrolled the room before they once more disappeared into the shadows not leaving a trace of having been present.

  Hui Yue woke up the following day feeling incredibly refreshed. However, he was slightly disappointed with how much he energy he cultivated during the night. It felt like such a minuscule amount and that it would take forever for him to break through once more. Although he had skyrocketed from the first star to the eighth star, Hui Yue was now finally getting to know exactly how much Yin and Yang energy was needed for him to advance a star. Not only did he need an astonishing amount of Yin and Yang energy, but he also needed to have a basic understanding of how to balance all the energies in his body. This was something he had never attempted before, and balancing energies was no easy task.

  A King ranked expert would constantly increase his Qi and spiritual energy. Although his main energy now consisted of Wu Wei, he still refined both Qi and spiritual energy while refining Wu Wei. These energies were also important to keep balanced.

  Balancing one’s energy meant that one had to keep the Qi the exact same consistency as it was previously, just because one reaches a higher rank did not mean they could take it easy and refine the Qi any slower or less pure than they had before. The was the same for spiritual energy as he knew that both energies would easily become unbalanced if he were to slack even the least bit. If even the slightest bit of the energy was not refined as purely as the previous energy, it was likely that an imbalance would occur. If this happened, then it would be even harder to advance.

  Maintaining a balance of the different energies in their body was a reason why it was hard for Kings to advance to the Emperor rank Although Kings were rare, they were far more numerous that Emperors. To become an Emperor one needed to maintain a perfect balance of energies. At the same time, they needed to have the patience to refine all the Yin and Yang energies, and merge them slowly making their way through the bottleneck.

  As Hui Yue woke up, he was disappointed that he was incapable of refining more Wu Wei during the day. But at the same time he was disappointed, he was also acutely aware that he had already been given all the assistance he could wish for from his previous life. Although Hui Yue felt that his cultivation speed was not fast, it was without a doubt faster than any other cultivator currently. If anyone experienced his pace, they would be filled with a joyous expression and not the discouraging expression which was currently on Hui Yue’s face. The young man was far too spoiled by the monk’s abilities.

  With a sigh, Hui Yue stood up and decided not to spend anymore time thinking about the balancing of his inner energies. Instead, he went to his desk where he picked up various papers. After looking through them all with a frown, Hui Yue nodded his head. All the documents were present and after storing them, Hui Yue left his room. He headed outwards towards the city ga
tes.

  It was too early in the morning for the city to be bustling with life; instead, it was filled with bakers, messenger boys, and other people who were working in the early morning. Striding through the empty streets, Hui Yue was filled with excitement thinking about how the army would react to his training. He hoped that the guards could be trained into soldiers, but everything rode on the training he created for them. With a smile on his face, the young man rushed through the city towards the outside where all the guards and the commanders were waiting for him.

  Chapter 56 – Training the Guards

  As Hui Yue rushed through the city gates, the young man was greatly surprised to see that there weren’t any guards present. The tent camp was once more completely empty, but the closer he got to the arena the easier it was to hear voices chatting together making it evident that he was heading towards the location of all the guards.

  Reaching the arena, the guards were all standing in formation. The first line was the ten thousand guards belonging to Wan Qiao by their side were the ones belonging to Pan Long and so on. The common soldiers were standing in a neat row with one thousand in each line with their commander in front. Everyone was chatting, yet as soon as Hui Yue was spotted quietness descended upon the group of cultivators. No one said a word, but everyone looked at him with curiosity in their eyes. The rumors of his spars from the previous day had long since reached every corner of the army, and everyone was curious if this young man truly possessed god-like abilities that could force an unwounded opponent into submission.

  “It’s easy to tell what they are thinking,” Hui Yue said to himself in a low voice as he once more swept his eyes across the many soldiers before he stopped in front of the commanders. Nodding in their direction, Hui Yue once more stepped onto the large arena.

  The arena was raised approximately one meter into the air, and this one meter allowed Hui Yue to get a better look at the army in front of him.

  “Today our training will begin,” Hui Yue said with a serious voice. “Gather in your groups of five!” Hui Yue continued, and movement started to appear in the fine lines of guards. After what seemed like ten minutes, the movement stopped.

  “Now you are to fight against each other. Fight in groups of five. Everyone apart from your group is your enemy. The commanders will roam the battleground, and if you are heavily wounded, you will leave to get healed. If anyone continues fighting with an injury, I will personally ensure that they never make it to the actual war.”

  “When you have left, your group will continue fighting with one person less. This is not a fair duel. Sometimes your group will fight against five against ten, other times it will be the group which is ten against five. On a battleground, no such thing as fairness exists. Survival is what counts, and you need to learn how to fight to stay alive.”

  Hui Yue was quiet as he looked at the many guards, his words caused some of them to pale with nervousness while others had wide grins spreading across their faces showing the excitement they felt.

  “Lord,” Suddenly one of the commanders spoke up, and Hui Yue instantly paid his full attention to the Emperor. Although Hui Yue had a higher rank, he fully respected these Emperors who had managed to reach such a high rank without relying on things such as past lives and strange abilities.

  “Speak,” He said with a nod. The commander cleared his throat, his eyes flicking from one side to the other.

  “Where will we fight?” He asked as he scratched himself on the back of his head causing the smile on Hui Yue’s face to grew larger.

  “You are to start the battle right now where you stand,” He said, and a murmur instantly rose to the sky. Everyone was shocked. They were currently standing incredibly close to one another, how could they fight in such conditions? This was simply impossible for these guards who were used to sparring at the arena and having space to move around.

  “This is not a sparring match,” Hui Yue reminded them as he knew exactly what each and every one of these guards was thinking. “When you are fighting in this war you will have no space to maneuver around unless you, yourself, create that space by slaughtering your enemies. This is one of the most important reasons that we are starting with this exercise,” Hui Yue explained. The more he spoke, the more sense it made to the listening experts.

  “I need you to understand that this is now war; I need you to fully embrace the fighting method and environment we will be fighting in. I want all of you to become an army, an army which Shenyuan and its lords can be proud of.” Hui Yue finished and as he did a fire burned in the eyes of every single one of the highly skilled experts. Their hearts were beating faster than before, and they all told themselves that they would prove that they would show the army of Shenyuan to the world, that they were capable of acting like soldiers.

  “Well in that case,” Hui Yue said with a smile on his face, “There is no reason to waste anymore time. You all understand what I expect from you, make me proud and fight to your hearts content. Remember that when you get injured you are to leave the battlefield.”

  Having said this, Hui Yue hit a bell he brought with him, and as soon as the sound was heard clattering sounds came from the ground in front of him. Some of the experts took beast shape, others produced weapons, and yet others fought with their bare hands in human form. No matter what they did everyone wanted to persevere, everyone wished to be the last man standing. The person who could prove to this mysterious Grand Marshall that they at least were worth his time to train.

  The sounds of fighting instantly filled the air. A few screams were heard here and there, and soon a small line of wounded experts were leaving the battleground. Some had severe wounds which the healers treated promptly while others had minor injuries. There were external and internal wounds. There were broken arms and legs alongside punctured lungs and broken ribs.

  But although there was a steady stream of people leaving the battleground, Hui Yue’s smile increased. In front of him was four hundred thousand experts and the battles were raging back and forth. Some groups used tactics and prioritized survival while others just aimed to defeat as many as possible, even going as far as to making it a competition within their group to see who could defeat the most people.

  “It seems as if they have overcome the biggest hurdle,” Hui Yue mumbled as he saw how battles were flowing back and forth. Everyone was getting used to fighting in close proximity with one another. Some of the groups were doing great together. They were able to depend on one another to watch their backs while others were completely dysfunctional together. Those groups did not last long.

  Looking at the healers, a long line of wounded could be seen. Hui Yue narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember every single face of the first many experts that were taken out of the training. Although it was likely that they could have lost because multiple experts teamed up against them in the beginning, it was more likely that these experts lost because they had failed to work with their group effectively.

  Seeing how many lost right at the start, Hui Yue had mixed emotions. Although he felt that it was to be expected, that many would fail this exercise, he still had hoped that considering they were all kings and emperors they should be evenly matched. Observing the battlefield once again, Hui Yue had to admit that around ten groups of five caught his eye. They stood out due to different reasons; however, the white-haired young man had no doubt that the final spot would belong to one of these groups.

  One group was defensive, their backs facing each other. As they stood their ground, neither of them attacked others, but as soon as one person attacked them, the entire group would work together to fight their foe. Wiping out their enemy quickly before they once more took up their previous position. Looking at them like this, Hui Yue only had praise for them. He had, after all, told them that survival was the most important thing, and watching this group they easily understood what he meant.

  There was another group that used the completely opposite tactic, yet although they were highly
offensive, they also relied on one another. It was like watching the waves of the ocean, each filled with strength and determination but at the same time a part of the whole. The five of this offensive group were moving around gracefully, trusting their partners to have their backs while at the same time disposing of as many experts as possible.

  Another group was more conventional in their approach. Their group of five constantly attacked groups which were already entangled against another group, or they would all focus on the same few people using raw power to dominate their opponents.

  Looking at the many experts on the grounds below, Hui Yue could not help but smile. As time went by, fewer and fewer experts were left below as more and more were either waiting to be treated or had already been treated by the healers.

  Hui Yue sighed as the sun reached the highest position in the sky. Many hours had already gone past since they started fighting but now that more than half the army was eliminated, the fighting became increasingly desperate.

  Another three or four hours passed while the stream of injured became smaller and smaller and as the day was finally coming to a close, Hui Yue was grateful to see that at least ten thousand had managed to fight through the entire day without giving up.