This Clone isn't your Golden Finger Chapter 13
This Clone isn’t your Golden Finger Chapter 13
The fifth prince of the Gu Dynasty was known as Gu Dulong. He was one of the prime contenders to be the next emperor of the Gu Dynasty along with his eldest imperial brother, the crown prince, and his second brother, who was the child of the imperial noble consort. Gu Dulong was a man in his forties, but he appeared to be in his early thirties and was built like a barrel. Even his layers of clothes could not hide his bulging muscles, but his most eye-catching feature was the baleful aura he emanated.
“Your Highness, the army has entered the formation. We can begin the battle at any time on your command.” By his side, an old general with graying hair saluted the fifth prince.
Gu Dulong made a noncommittal grunt and motioned for the general to retreat. His viperous eyes scanned the army on the other side of the battlefield with disdain. As one of the Gu Dynasty’s top two commanders and someone who earned the title of the Gu Dynasty’s God of War, the fifth prince could easily discern the difference in quality between the two armies.
The Gu Dynasty army was all uniformed and moved as one unit. Not only that, but their armament: armor, shields, and swords were all standardized. It may be better to pursue higher quality for martial warriors, but for an army, standardization was king!
On the other hand, the Li Dynasty army was far less uniform. It was clearly separated into two main camps, with numerous subunits making up those camps. Even though the Gu Dynasty army was lower in number, their power was greater than the numerically superior Li Dynasty army. Despite this, victory and defeat were uncertain.
The most uncertain factors were naturally the martial cultivators. In a world where personal strength reigned supreme, the gathering of a million ants was worth nothing. The martial grandmasters only needed to kill the commanding general, and the army would become disarrayed, allowing their opponents to strike. This tactic of cutting off a snake’s head had been proven many times before and became a standard procedure.
It wasn’t that a million ants would not be able to fell an elephant, but would an elephant just stand there and let the ants attack it? Not to mention that cultivators had wisdom greater than mortals, so they wouldn’t do such a braindead action.
Gu Dulong’s eyes narrowed as he saw an interesting site. On a floating platform sat a girl who appeared to be around ten. What was shocking was not the girl’s budding beauty but her ability to fly. In other words, this girl, who seemed to be only ten, stood at the peak of the Allfist Realm.
Both dynasties had at least one martial grandmaster hiding in their ranks, but none would be so daring as to broadcast their status. Not to mention that he hadn’t received any information noting the rise of a new grandmaster. The fifth prince began to suspect that the girl was just a lure to focus their attention away from the actual trump card.
After the sun reached its highest point, Gu Dulong gave the order to advance. As if the two opposing forces had made an agreement beforehand, the moment the Gu Dynasty army advanced so did the Li Dynasty Army.
Like two surging tides, the waves of humans clashed against one another. The casualties immediately entered the thousands, and it was only rising from there.
As time passed, it became apparent that the Li Dynasty army wasn’t as well organized and structured as the Gu Dynasty army. The more time that passed, the more obvious it became as the number of deaths on the Li Dynasty army’s side started to rise at an exponential rate. In contrast, the Gu Dynasty army’s casualties started to slow.
If the Li Dynasty army continued to lose men, their defeat would be all but written in stone. Knowing this, the commanding officers of the Li Dynasty army sent out their special task force, squads of powerful martial masters, to assassinate the field generals of the Gu Dynasty army. The Gu Dynasty naturally had preventative measures to prevent this.
Around each field general was a group of martial masters protecting them. They didn’t join the battle because, in the grand scheme of things, their ability was better spent protecting the field generals than killing a few hundred more soldiers. Against the Gu Dynasty’s martial master protection squad, the Li Dynasty’s special task force was unable to take a single life.
The fifth prince sneered. ‘It seems that not only has the quality of their army degraded, but the quality of their martial masters has as well.’
But just as the thought finished forming in Gu Dulong’s mind, an adjutant informed him that one of the lower field generals had died. Gu Dulong frowned but didn’t think much of it. Reasonably speaking, with how many squads were sent out, one had to succeed in the grand scheme of things.
However, the fifth prince could no longer think it was just chance when two more generals died. Worse, he discovered that it was done by the exact same squad.
“Bastards!” Gu Dulong roared, causing his adjutant to nearly piss himself in fright. “Pass down my orders. Send a squad to kill those bastards!”
However, to the fifth prince’s immense anger, the squad, which included some of his own subordinates, failed to eliminate the special task squad that had eliminated the three field generals. Worse, the special task squad even managed to two kill two more generals while being pursued!
Gu Dulong felt that his face had been slapped and smeared into the ground.
With a wave of his hand, he directly smashed his adjutant’s head into a meat paste. After venting, he allowed himself to calm down. Initially, he had thought that the Gu Dynasty army only needed to defend and slowly but surely overwhelm the Li Dynasty army. ‘It seems that I underestimated the Li Dynasty. After all, they are the empire with the longest history. It’s not strange for them to have a trick or two.’
Gu Dulong ordered the army to retreat. Because of the death of the field generals, both sides suffered almost the same number of casualties, but, in reality, the Li Dynasty had the upper hand. Soldiers were more replaceable than generals, after all.
As a result, the Gu Dynasty camp’s mood became low. In stark contrast, the Li Dynasty camp’s atmosphere was very fervent.
“Haha, Fengjun, I didn’t expect that little tournament I held would bring me a treasure like you. Come, you must drink more wine!” Duke Gong said happily as he toasted Leng Junfeng.
“I was just lucky.” Leng Junfeng said humbly, but the smile on his face was not one bit dimmer as he drank the wine in his cup.
Not only was Duke Gong toasting Leng Junfeng, but several other high-ranking generals had also arrived. Their cultivation varied, but it didn’t matter because their worth was their ability to command tens of thousands of soldiers.
“Brother Fengjun is amazing!” Wang Meilin said, her cheeks slightly flushed. She already had good feelings towards Fengjun, Leng Junfeng’s false identity, but she admired him significantly more after this battle.
Off at the side, Fenghua rolled her eyes. Oh boy, here comes the romance bit. I’ll bite my hand if there isn’t something separating these two.
The celebration did not last long. The army still had to continue to battle tomorrow, after all. Fenghua summoned Leng Junfeng to her tent and said, “You made a name for yourself today. It can be your shield, but it can also be your downfall. The army isn’t united, so not only do you have to worry about being backstabbed, the opposing army will definitely pay more attention to you.”
“I know.” Leng Junfeng accepted Fenghua’s words calmly. However, he would still do it if given another chance. Hiding was not his style at all.
“How’s your cultivation coming along?” Fenghua asked. ‘Although he hasn’t made much progress before, after this massive battle, he should have some gains. What’s the most eye-catching feature a protagonist had? That was growing after every battle!’
“I’m not confident in completing the Bone Refinement Stage, but I feel that I should be able to link my twelve meridians soon.” Leng Junfeng said.
‘See?!’ Fenghua thought.
Once Leng Junfeng links all twelve of his meridians, he will incur the Foundation Establishment Heavenly Tribulation. Once he passes, a spiritual qi sea will appear in his dantian, making him a foundation establishment disciple.
Fenghua greatly looked forward to it. What was the most significant difference between a qi gathering pupil and a foundation establishment disciple or a body transformation acolyte and an acupoint opening master? It was their ability to externalize qi!
The clone smirked as she wondered what the people’s reaction would be when they discovered that a martial master like Leng Junfeng was able to control flying swords. Would they think he was a martial grandmaster? ‘Eh? That’s a pretty good idea. Pretend to be a martial grandmaster. The people of this realm can’t differentiate at all. As long as he doesn’t attack, he won’t get exposed.’
The next day, as Fenghua expected, there was a larger group of martial masters chasing after Leng Junfeng and his squad. Not only that, but the Gu Dynasty army also sent their special task squads to eliminate the Li Dynasty’s field generals.
The result of the second day was that the Gu Dynasty suffered the losses of some martial masters but no field generals. Three of the Li Dynasty’s field generals died, and many more soldiers perished. It was a complete contrast to the end result of the first day.
On the third day, the Gu Dynasty lost four field generals while the Li Dynasty lost two. As if representing the loss, the Gu Dynasty had twice as many casualties as the Li Dynasty that day.
On the fourth day, it looked like there was going to be a repeat of the pattern. Neither sides’ grandmasters had acted, and it was still unknown which side the goddess of victory would stand on. However, Fenghua didn’t mind. In fact, she wished that the war would go on even longer because she was using the will of each army to cultivate.
Generally, only in extreme circumstances would human emotions magnify, but on the battlefield where bloodshed and death were common, it was a regular occurrence. Fenghua was currently refining the human will and improving the Primogenitor Flame within her spiritual core. She could even feel that she touched upon the principles at its core. If this continued, she might even be able to become a soul cultivator!
However, just as Fenghua was immersing herself in the bloody will of the soldiers, some guys who couldn’t read the mood disturbed her.
“Not good! The Gu army sent a large squad to eliminate his grace!” One of the martial masters protecting Duke Gong shouted in fear. “Guards, protect the duke!”
Wang Meilin’s status on the battlefield was one of the martial masters protecting Duke Gong. So for convenience, Fenghua also stayed by the duke’s side. Fenghua didn’t discount the possibility that the duke used this point to use her influence, but she didn’t care. If the duke really displeased and schemed against her, she didn’t mind showing him the error of his ways. Whether Duke Gong was able to learn from his mistake was another matter, considering he would be dead.
The duke’s ten guards quickly surrounded him in a protective circle. Wang Meilin was the backend. On the surface, she was part of the guard, but, in reality, she was more of a hanger-on, but the real guards didn’t mind because it brought Fenghua with them.
Even though the duke’s guard had ten martial masters, their expression was grim because the group coming towards them consisted of twenty people.
Once the special task force neared, all twenty surrounded the group and ignored Fenghua, who was outside the encirclement, but they still paid attention to her. For her part, Fenghua was content to just watch. As long as Wang Meilin wasn’t in any danger, she wouldn’t take any action. Who knows, maybe she could benefit like Leng Junfeng and have a breakthrough. Probably not, though.
Reality proved Fenghua wrong. While it appeared that the squad of twenty’s target was Duke Gong, their actual target was Fenghua. They acted out a play of pretending to corner Duke Gong, but once over fifteen of them were near Fenghua, they all struck, revealing their peak martial master strength.
The group was composed of direct subordinates from the fifth prince, Gu Dulong. All of them were either old masters or veterans who were one step away from the Acupoint Opening Realm but could not take that last step.
Du Gulong’s plan was straightforward. Ever since the battle started, Fenghua’s high-profile actions revealed herself as a martial grandmaster, though the fifth prince suspected that it was actually a trick. This caused him to start scheming; If Fenghua were to be publically killed or defeated, the morale of the Li Dynasty army would plummet, allowing the Gu Dynasty army to widen the difference.
“Pesky fellows. I didn’t find trouble with you guys, but you dare put your idea on me?” Fenghua was in a horrible mood, she felt that she was just short of enlightenment, but these guys just had to ruin it.
Waving her hand, an invisible flame spread out and burned two martial masters to death. The fire caught three others, but owing to their strong spiritual qi, they had enough time to discard their clothes that caught on fire. The group of eighteen felt sweat drip down them as they saw how Fenghua easily killed two of them with a wave of her hand.
Some even inwardly cursed. They and the fifth prince both thought Fenghua was a fake grandmaster. The reason was none other than her young appearance! Unlike the Huang Realm, the Allfist Realm didn’t have any techniques to preserve beauty and youth. Not to mention that no cultivator in their right mind would freeze their appearance at such a young age.
“Hm?” Fenghua blinked as she noted a female martial master, but her gender wasn’t the reason she caught Fenghua’s attention. Female martial cultivators usually preferred more elegant and feminine weapons, but not this martial master. She preferred a spiked bat.
Upon seeing the spiked bat, Fenghua recalled that she, and Tianyi the main body, had always wanted to see the stunned silly faces of people when they saw a cute girl wielding an incomprehensibly large weapon. ‘Aren’t I a cute girl?’
So under the wary gazes of the remaining eighteen martial masters, Fenghua took out a huge sheet of steel that was six centimeters thick. Using her fire, she quickly sliced part of the sheet into a sword that was half a meter wide and three meters long and tempered it for good measure.
Upon seeing this, the eighteen martial masters had a strange look on their faces. The scene of a ten-year-old girl wielding a sword three meters long was far too strange. However, they didn’t have time to think things through because Fenghua appeared in front of one of them as if teleporting.
“Batter up!” Using the flat edge of her new sword, Fenghua sent two martial masters flying into the sky. She even made a ‘ding’ sound in her head for good measure.
It was a scene too comical to be reality, but it was the truth. The people who saw the aftereffects of Fenghua bashing the sword on the two martial masters didn’t think it was so humorous.
In the middle of the Gu Dynasty’s army, a huge crater had formed from the force of two martial masters crashing, killing the nearby soldiers upon impact. Worse were the corpses of the two martial masters. Nearly all their bones and flesh had been liquified by Fenghua’s attack, and it appeared as if the only thing keeping their humanoid form was their skin.
One soldier even threw up seeing the liquefied remains pouring out of the corpses’ orifices and their bodies deflating like some sort of eldritch balloon.