Jiaguo’s forces had been struggling after earning their first victory. They focused on mobile strike forces and quick skirmishes, but the semi-circle of Qin’s armies ensured that they were always outnumbered. They’d had some limited success by deploying multiple attacks at once, some of which were feints and distractions, but Qin didn’t hesitate to send elites or even xiantians to drive a wedge between Jiaguo’s forces. When that happened, the only answer was a full retreat, lest they risk a collapse in their own formation.

Yoshika was proud of her people. They were giving better than they got, and casualties on her side were very limited—but it wasn’t enough. They needed another decisive win.

The key battlefield was the northeastern camp where they’d had their first victory. Qin’s army was large, but not large enough to completely surround the city without spreading themselves too thin and risking a pincer attack from reinforcing armies. The northeastern camp was the most exposed as a result.

Early on, they’d used Yuuko and her unit to take advantage of that and to present a threat that Qin could not ignore. In truth, even with Haeun’s spellcraft and Yoshika’s combat calligraphy techniques combined, not many could pull it off. Yuuko’s unit had every fighter capable of using Haeun’s teleportation talismans effectively. Even then, Yuuko herself couldn’t quickly replace her own talismans because her ki affinity was Light—the complete opposite of the spell’s element.

Qin didn’t know any of that, though. They only knew that Jiaguo had soldiers capable of instantly relocating themselves on the battlefield—a terrifying power that they had to respect in every single engagement. The threat was more valuable than the actual power.

But they did respect it. There hadn’t been another opportunity to take advantage of Yuuko’s unit, and they’d tried. The teleporting soldiers would have been excellent headhunters going after officers or enemy irregulars, but Qin was conservative with their own elites. It was no wonder why—they just didn’t need them.

Jiaguo was coming out ahead in the skirmishes, but they weren’t winning the war. Qin’s numbers were endless, and they’d be receiving reinforcements from the northern sects soon. It wasn’t enough to slowly bleed them. Jiaguo could kill a hundred cultivators for every one they lost and still be overwhelmed by Qin’s sheer numbers.

And that brought Yoshika back to the northeastern camp. If anything was going to cause a shift in the war, it would happen there. And Qin knew that too—so they’d turned it into an impenetrable fortress.

The encampment was on a steep hill—practically a cliff—and had been reinforced by cultivators altering the terrain and building fortifications. It was all quite makeshift, with barriers of dirt, stone, and the occasional bit of wood—though trees were fairly sparse in the area. Under normal circumstances, such fortifications would be almost meaningless before an army of cultivators, but there was another obstacle.

Bu Dong Rushan.

Yoshika had done her due diligence and collected as much intelligence on the man as she could. Which really just meant asking Lin Xiulan.

“Him? Oh dear, that’s going to be rather troublesome.”

Eunae raised an eyebrow at Xiulan as the two of them met over tea. They may have been at war, but Jiaguo still had their luxuries. Even the prisoners were well-provisioned.

“You know him?”

“Not personally, but he’s an old one. Sometimes called the Austere Mountain’s second grandmaster, by those feeling charitable.”

“And those who aren’t?”

Xiulan gave her a wry smile.

“Austere Mountain’s true grandmaster. It’s only by choice that he doesn’t rule the sect. That, and the fact that his domain is rather incompatible with their rites of succession.”

“How so?”

She sighed.

“He never yields. Austere Mountain chooses their grandmaster through combat trials, but they aren’t meant to be duels to the death. Bu Dong Rushan has never been defeated because he never admits defeat. Either his opponent yields or the match is stopped as a draw.”

Eunae furrowed her brows.

“What about real battles? If he’s that old surely he’s been in a few.”

“You’d have to ask Ienaga Yumi about that—but as far as I know, nobody in the history of the Austere Mountain sect has ever been able to so much as injure him.”

“I see...”

That was Yoshika’s next stop. Kaede stood next to her master as they put some of the reserves through training exercises. A few mages had shown potential talent for martial arts, and they were trying to awaken their ki. If Jiaguo couldn’t match Qin in quantity, then they’d do everything they could to exceed them in quality.

“I don’t know this cultivator by name, but I know the one.”

Kaede gave Master Yumi a sidelong glance.

“Have you met him in battle before?”

“I have. Grandmaster Qian Shi, I can drive off if it comes down to a battle. It’s not a certain thing, but he can’t kill me without extreme risk to his own life. If I fought him to the death...I think I could at least take him down with me.”

“And Rushan?”

Yumi pursed her lips and tapped her foot.

“I can’t touch him. In Ashikaga’s groupings, I’d place him at the top along with the likes of you and Yan De.”

That gave Kaede pause. Ienaga Yumi was ‘weak’ for a xiantian cultivator, but she was so specialized in the art of killing that she’d earned a reputation for headhunting xiantian enemies. She’d killed more xiantian cultivators than anybody Yoshika knew, short of Jianmo.

“Really? Not even you can hurt him? How have I not heard about this man before, if he’s so invincible?”

Yumi chuckled.

“It comes at a cost. I can’t touch him, but I have driven him back before.”

“Really? How?”

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“By ignoring him. He’s not weak, by any means but...he doesn’t move. No, that’s not right, he isn’t slow and he can maneuver as well as anyone, it's just...”

She frowned, trying to find the right words.

“His domain. Most of us project our domains, but his is an anchor. It doesn’t follow his body, or if it does, it’s exceptionally slow. I’m not sure how it works, exactly—and I suspect that’s a closely guarded secret—but he does not give chase outside of his domain. He stakes out a position, and he holds it.”

Kaede thought about that. Could she take advantage of it and just attack the adjacent encampments? No—just because he didn’t move, didn’t mean his army wouldn’t. He was a rock. An obstacle in the way of her progress, even if he stayed right where he was.

“I need to remove him. This stalemate can’t go on forever, and we can’t make any more progress as long as he’s holding such a critical point.”

Yumi nodded slowly.

“He’s well placed. I was surprised by Yan De’s inexperience at first, but he’s obviously no fool. He knows strategy, but it’s...shogi.”

“Shogi?”

Kaede knew the game of shogi, of course, but she wasn’t sure what her master meant.

“It’s predefined rules, tested strategies, a limited board. Simulation and theory. He plays his pieces well, and he knows how to read the board, but real wars aren’t like that. You broke the rules once with your opening attack, and he wasn’t prepared for it.”

“But now he’s adjusted to it.”

“Yes, but he’s still playing shogi. The rules have changed, and still he plays under the assumption that they will not change again.”

She turned to meet Kaede’s eyes.

“Nobody is invincible, Kaede. Real wars do not have boards, pieces, or rules. If you are to defeat Yan De, you must do as you always have. Challenge his expectations. If he presents you an unbreakable wall—break it! If you face an immovable object...”

Yoshika understood. She bowed gratefully to her master.

“Thank you for your wisdom, master. I believe I know what I have to do.”

----------------------------------------

The empress smashed into Qin’s ranks with all the fury of the heavens themselves. She was so fast! Gao couldn’t follow her movements at all, only the flashes of light and the explosions of thunder that heralded her appearance. It was as though he was suddenly standing in the center of a storm cloud as she sowed chaos among their ranks.

Lightning blasted the soldiers around her, kicking up dirt and dust with each explosion and sending men toppling to the ground. Even with Rushan’s blessing, not all of them got back up.

He remembered his orders. Rearguard—if the elites were pressed, his unit was to lead the retreat. Only...

Gao ducked as a bolt of lightning grounded itself barely a few feet away from him, leaving him momentarily deaf and blind. As his senses returned, he felt a sense of calm wash over him. They couldn’t retreat—not while Bu Dong Rushan’s blessing was the only thing keeping them alive. If they fled, and the empress gave chase?

She wouldn’t even need to try. The very second they left the elder’s protection, she could kill them instantly—as easily as she breathed.

“Hold positions! Stand your ground! Leave her to the elder and focus on the enemy!”

Perhaps he was out of line, shouting orders like that, but nobody else was doing it—or if they were, he couldn’t hear them over the cacophonous din of Empress Yoshika’s battle. And it was a battle, because while neither the Demon Hunters nor the Earthshakers could resist her, Bu Dong Rushan did not sit idle.

Each time the empress appeared in a flash of light and an explosion of thunder, and each time Bu Dong Rushan rushed to meet her. He would catch her in less than a second each time, swinging that tree-sized glaive with such force that Gao could feel it cutting the air with each stroke.

And then she would vanish before it could land, only to reappear elsewhere and begin it all again. A stalemate. Elder Rushan was fast, but Empress Yoshika was faster—yet neither could touch the other.

Bolts of lightning glanced off of Bu Dong Rushan’s armor like raindrops. She cast spells—and it was only then that Gao remembered that she was a beastkin—but he deflected them with his glaive with contemptuous ease. Once, she even appeared right behind him, ambushing him with a flurry of blows that precisely targeted unarmored pressure points.

He ignored them entirely and nearly caught her. The Empress never attempted to directly engage him again.

She couldn’t defeat him. They were holding! They took losses, but Gao realized that even his fallen brothers weren’t dead. Injured, paralyzed, but still breathing. This was the woman who dared to challenge the mighty God-Emperor, and they were holding!

Belatedly, Gao remembered his own order and tore his attention away from the dazzling clash of titans happening within their ranks. Either the Empress would have to retreat, or eventually more xiantian reinforcements would arrive to drive her back—perhaps even kill her and put an early end to the entire war.

Eyes forward—there was still an army, and they’d be...

Gao paused. They hadn’t moved. Jiaguo’s army hadn’t taken a single step forward—simply standing by and watching as their empress—their ruler fought alone against an entire army. The demon woman at the front yawned.

A chill ran down Gao’s spine. Something wasn’t right. It was too clean. Why was Empress Yoshika fighting a battle she couldn’t win? Surely after the first few exchanges she’d realized it was hopeless. Why continue to fight? Why weren’t her people concerned?

Then he saw it—or rather, her. A lone figure striding across the gap between the armies. She didn’t dazzle like the living thunderstorm overhead, nor was her appearance as ominous as the unit of demonic monsters. She was just...a girl. Beautiful, with long black hair, deep crimson eyes, and an expression of grim focus as she marched across the battlefield with a sword in her hand.

It was her. Gao didn’t know the names, but he’d heard that Jiaguo’s empress was myriad. Of all things, a pair of dual cultivators who’d taken their dreadful practice to an extreme that few could dream of. There were at least three of them—or was it four? Somehow, despite her unassuming appearance, Gao knew—as surely as he’d known when he first laid eyes on her—that it was her.

He opened his mouth to call out a warning, but it all happened too fast for him to follow.

The first empress flashed, appearing next to the second as Elder Bu Dong Rushan gave chase. This time, she didn’t vanish as he swung towards her, only...backed off.

The Austere Mountain Elder’s eyes widened as if he’d only noticed the second empress for the first time, just as her blade ignited with an ominous red-black qi that moved at unnatural angles, as if it rejected existence itself.

Bu Dong Rushan halted his attack and stepped back as she swung towards him.

Sacred Art: Immovable as a Mountain

Time seemed to slow as Gao felt the elder’s technique within his very soul, and suddenly it was as if Bu Dong Rushan dwarfed the actual mountain in the distance. He didn’t change physically, but his presence was so immense that Gao Yuanjun felt hopelessly insignificant.

But his wasn’t the only power that resonated in that moment.

Divine Art: The Sixth Arm of Asura—Star Sundering Slash

As if frozen in time, Gao recalled some of his more philosophical brethren who enjoyed testing each other with puzzles and paradoxes. One, which he’d always thought of as foolish, came immediately to mind—between an immovable object and an unstoppable force, which is greater?

It was a pointless thought exercise. A question with no answer, no practical purpose.

He saw his answer, then. Bu Dong Rushan had the presence of a mountain, and he stood unyielding, challenging. Larger than the nearby mountain, larger than the Forbidden Mountain’s highest peak, larger than the entire mountain range—as great as the earth itself! One could sooner split the earth in twain. Truly, he lived up to his audacious name.

So did Empress Yoshika’s sword art. Gao watched in horror as her sword flickered up in a single swift stroke, rending space itself along its path. A mountain? What Gao Yuanjun saw was a blade that could split the earth, the sky, the sun and the moon—the very stars and heaven itself.

She cut Bu Dong Rushan from hip to shoulder, straight through his dantian.

Silence fell over the battlefield as the Great Austere Mountain’s mightiest elder—the undefeated, unyielding, invincible expert whose name and title invoked the very image of the sect’s namesake—fell. In two pieces.

Then the demons charged.