For the entire morning, undercurrents surged through Linbei City, and killing intent lurked around every corner.
Forty-eight nets spread across the city, sweeping through it from end to end. Inns, marketplaces, main streets—nearly every inch of ground was searched as though they intended to dig three feet into the earth.
At a quarter past noon, on the busiest main street in the city center, the pupils of a hidden sentry from the Eagle Eye Squad, concealed on the top floor of a teahouse, suddenly contracted.
Amid the distant crowds, a conspicuous figure in a crimson round-collared robe was swaggering along as though he owned the place.
The man was slender, with long hair hanging loose. He was even holding up a skewer of candied hawthorns, looking utterly brazen.
“Target spotted! Crimson robe, slender build, moving toward the eastern alley!”
The Signal Squad immediately relayed the intelligence.
Like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves catching the scent of prey, eight hardened soldiers from the Head-Hunting Squad charged out from three directions, forming a deadly encirclement as they closed in!
The man in red seemed to notice them. Like a fish slipping through water, he darted into the maze of winding alleys.
“Don’t let him get away!”
The Head-Hunting Squad launched a desperate pursuit through the narrow lanes.
Reinforcements from the Formation-Breaking Squad rushed in along the way, using carts to block every branching path.
More than twenty elite soldiers sealed off the entire alley, leaving it as tightly enclosed as an iron barrel.
Finally, at the dead end, they cornered the crimson figure and pinned him firmly against the wall!
He Zhongshan, the squad leader, drew an unsharpened wooden saber and let out a sinister laugh. “Mr. Liuchu, forgive us for the offense!”
The man in red slowly turned around, took a bite of his candied hawthorn, and blinked innocently.
It was a face somewhat resembling the instructor’s—but it wasn’t him.
It was actually a covert operative from the Ghost Shadow Squad, disguised through makeup and costume.
The air froze instantly.
The elite soldiers who had advanced with their sabers drawn stood rooted to the spot, as though struck by lightning.
There was… a traitor in their ranks?!
“You bastard! How dare you betray us?!”
He Zhongshan was so furious that his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
The Ghost Shadow operative swallowed his candied hawthorn and replied expressionlessly, “The instructor said that if I could fool even our own men, he’d give me extra credit for this lesson. I won’t have to attend tonight’s additional training.”
Seeing the murderous looks of the more than twenty men around him, he hurriedly added, “The instructor also said that during an exercise, hitting your own people… will cost you points!”
The Ghost Shadow Squad leader, who had hurried over to confirm the target’s identity, nearly blacked out with rage.
Not only had they been led around by the nose by a simple visual characteristic, committing the cardinal military sin of jumping to conclusions, but one of their own men had also made fools of them!
At the same time, in a quiet, humble teahouse in the southern part of the city, a “teahouse attendant” dressed in a gray cloth tunic, with his hair casually tied up using hemp cord and several streaks of soot smeared across his face, was leisurely pouring tea for customers.
This was Xiao, who had changed both his clothes and hairstyle.
Through a broken wooden window, Xiao watched coldly as soldiers in the distance ran themselves ragged over false intelligence, their formations thrown into chaos.
This had never been a fair contest.
He had long since memorized the tactical habits and personality flaws of all forty-eight men.
He knew that the Head-Hunting Squad instinctively cut through the left side when pursuing a target, so he had kicked over a cart at the entrance to the left alley in advance.
He knew the Eagle Eye Squad liked to perch on the highest roof ridges to survey their surroundings, so throughout the exercise, he had stuck to the visual blind spots where the shadows beneath the eaves overlapped with the tree canopies.
He knew the Signal Squad always took the straightest routes to transmit messages as quickly as possible, so he had deliberately caused disturbances along several major straight roads, creating crowd congestion and severing their lines of communication.
He had never been running away at all.
He was using the entire city as a chessboard, exploiting the arrogance and ingrained habits of these forty-eight men to make them dismantle their own defenses with their own hands.
◆◇◆◇◆
By the afternoon, the situation began to change.
After being humiliated and toyed with several times, the wolfish instincts and tactical training buried deep within these Northern Frontier elites were finally pushed to the brink.
He Zhongshan made a decisive call. He ordered all blind pursuit to stop and handed over full command of the battlefield to the Signal Squad and the Eagle Eye Squad.
“Signal Squad, listen up!”
He Zhongshan roared at the men. “Swallow that useless nonsense about ‘seeing a man in red’! I want reports on the target’s gait, shoulder width, and the habit of unconsciously curling his right hand when walking!”
“Eagle Eye Squad, abandon your single-target surveillance. Start monitoring every point in the city where crowds gather or disperse abnormally!”
At last, a deadly net, its six squads connected like nerves and sharing a common lifeblood, began slowly tightening over Linbei City.
At a quarter past three, in the alley behind a carpentry workshop in the western part of the city, Xiao once again shed his gray tunic and changed into a carpenter’s blue shirt. He also tied his hair into the tight bun commonly worn by craftsmen.
Just as he was about to slip silently out of the back alley, his steps paused slightly.
At the entrance, the wooden frames of two abandoned catapults had been pushed over, completely blocking the narrow exit. This was the Formation-Breaking Squad’s handiwork.
Beyond the entrance, eight hardened soldiers from the Head-Hunting Squad had drawn their wooden sabers. Moving in perfect unison, they advanced silently in the military’s most brutal pushing formation.
On the three-meter-high walls to either side, elite soldiers from the Eagle Eye Squad and Ghost Shadow Squad looked down from above, their crossbows trained on his position, sealing off every possible escape route.
The entire alley had become a dead end with no way to heaven and no door to earth.
“Sir, you changed three sets of clothes and altered your appearance twice. Your disguises really are extraordinary.”
The Signal Squad leader stepped out from behind the layers of shields. He was drenched in sweat, yet his eyes shone with a blazing intensity.
“But you forgot one thing. We’re no longer a disorganized rabble! The Signal Squad has connected the entire net, and we’ve closed in on four sectors in the western city simultaneously. The faster you move, the clearer your movements become to us!”
The Signal Squad had finally become the true brain of this army.
They no longer blindly relayed whatever they happened to see. Instead, they had begun integrating intelligence.
After paying the price of an entire day of being deceived and having their formations dismantled, the forty-eight men had finally achieved their first seamless tactical coordination. Together, they had forced the seemingly omnipotent Xiao into a corner.
Xiao stood alone in the cramped alley, surveying the deadly formation around him, where blades and swords bristled and every movement was coordinated flawlessly.
For that brief moment, the cold indifference in his eyes melted like snow.
He actually still had a way out.
But it would require him to climb over the rooftops and escape across the roofs of two private residences. He might even alarm the residents, and breaking through would require excessive force.
“…Now you’re finally getting somewhere.”
Xiao raised his eyes to the blood-red setting sun.
Then he lowered his gaze to the timepiece on his wrist, its hands still moving steadily.
The faintest curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.
He Zhongshan, drenched in sweat and panting heavily, emerged from behind the Formation-Breaking Squad.
He stared fixedly at Xiao in his blue carpenter’s shirt, his hairstyle completely changed, his eyes burning with fervent excitement.
“Take him down!”
In the next instant, the Head-Hunting Squad members pounced like cannonballs fired from their barrels!
Xiao did not surrender meekly. His figure flickered like a ghost, slipping between two blades in a movement that defied the laws of human biomechanics.
He Zhongshan reacted with lightning speed. His enormous hand clamped down on Xiao’s shoulder like an iron vise, and he roared with delight, “Got him!”
Riiip!
The sound of tearing fabric rang out. He Zhongshan’s expression changed drastically.
What he was gripping so tightly was nothing more than a blue outer shirt whose inner seams had already been cut!
Xiao wore only a fitted white undershirt beneath it. Using the force of his opponent’s pull, he vaulted into the air like a white swallow, heading straight for the weakest point in the defensive line—the top of the wall.
But the moment he was about to land, the Formation-Breaking Squad let out a thunderous roar. Two heavy, half-man-high wooden shields reinforced with iron slammed toward his landing point from opposite sides with tremendous force!
Suspended in midair with nowhere to brace himself, Xiao’s eyes flashed sharply. He crossed his arms and raised them to block.
BAM!
The muffled impact exploded like a war drum.
The tremendous recoil sent Xiao flying backward. When his feet hit the ground, he slid back three full steps, carving two deep furrows into the hard-packed earth.
Before he could regain his balance, a wooden saber was already at his face.
Xiao did not dodge. He simply stood still.
At last, the surroundings fell silent.
The only sound in the entire alley was the soldiers’ heavy, ox-like panting.
Xiao straightened and gently brushed the dust from his sleeves.
He looked at the men around him, covered in mud and nearly exhausted to death, yet so proud they might have thought they had conquered an entire kingdom.
He made no further move. Instead, he offered a calm, faint smile.
“That’s enough. Take me back to the training ground.”
◆◇◆◇◆
Before the command platform on the training ground, the final traces of the setting sun were about to burn out.
Forty-eight elite soldiers stood in neat formation.
Every one of them looked as though they had rolled through muddy water hundreds of times, yet their eyes shone with the wild arrogance of victors.
They had done it!
The unfathomable instructor who had thoroughly crushed them had ultimately been captured and brought back by their own hands.
Xiao was “escorted” back to the command platform.
He turned around, brushed the dust from his clothes, and surveyed the hardened soldiers.
“Who coordinated the final encirclement?”
He Zhongshan stepped forward, his voice booming like a bell. “Reporting to you, Sir! This subordinate and the Signal Squad leader coordinated it together!”
Xiao nodded.
“How long did it take from the moment all six squads truly began working together to the moment you trapped me in the alley behind the carpentry workshop?”
The Signal Squad leader answered loudly, “Reporting to you, Sir! Exactly half an hour!”
“Very good. The intelligence was integrated smoothly, and the tactics were executed decisively.”
Xiao nodded approvingly.
Just as smiles were about to spread across everyone’s faces, Xiao suddenly pointed toward the enormous sundial beside the command platform.
The shadow on the sundial had already passed the beginning of the You hour mark, stretching diagonally across the ground.
“But—”
The smile vanished from Xiao’s lips. His voice became as cold as a blade forged in the frozen north, slicing through everyone’s elation.
“It is now a quarter past the beginning of the You hour. According to the rules you set yourselves, you have exceeded the time limit.”
The blood surging through the entire crowd instantly turned to ice.
Their triumphant expressions froze like masks on forty-eight faces.
They had used the sundial to estimate the time and military drums to keep it synchronized.
But on a real battlefield, there would not always be a sundial, nor would anyone be there to beat a drum for them.
Xiao looked down at them indifferently, his gaze so cold it held not a trace of emotion. In a voice devoid of warmth, he announced:
“Therefore, this mission is judged a failure for the entire squad. Additional training tonight.”
“Sir!”
Someone clenched his fists, unable to contain his indignation.
Xiao gave them no chance to complain. He coldly unfolded the tactical debriefing ledger in his hands, delivering each criticism like a knife to the heart.
“Eagle Eye Squad! In the first half, you could see the target, but you had no ability to identify what you were seeing. One red robe and one false hairstyle, and you let yourselves be led around half the city like dogs. On a real battlefield, you would have led the main force straight into an enemy trap!”
“Supply Interdiction Squad! You thought cutting off supplies meant standing guard around wells and teahouses? I changed my clothes three times and passed right under your noses three times. I sat in a teahouse in the south of the city and drank tea for half an hour, yet you couldn’t even calculate the baseline number of people moving through the area. You were blind to everything!”
“Ghost Shadow Squad! You rely far too much on visual characteristics. You don’t know how to analyze a target’s gait, breathing rate, or skeletal structure, and you even let one of your own men lead you around in circles!”
“Head-Hunting Squad! Arrogant and conceited. You put too much faith in the idea that your prey will run into your traps. If the Signal Squad hadn’t taken over the overall situation at the end, I would have picked you off one group at a time!”
“Formation-Breaking Squad! You’re slower at blocking streets than an old woman walking down the road. If I’d had a repeating crossbow, the men carrying those wooden beams would have died three times over. The enemy would already have trampled over your corpses and charged through!”
Finally, Xiao’s gaze pierced the Signal Squad like a sharp sword, his imposing presence bearing down on them.
“And you. In the second half, you finally looked like a proper unit. But in the first half… you were the worst of them all!”
The Signal Squad leader’s face turned deathly pale. Gritting his teeth, he protested, “Sir! We ultimately integrated the intelligence successfully and forced you into a dead end!”
“Because it took you until the final hour to remember that you are the nervous system of this unit!”
Xiao’s voice crashed like thunder, making everyone’s eardrums ache.
“On a real battlefield, will the enemy give you time to make fools of yourselves and gradually learn to work together?! You captured one man, yet to encircle him, you completely stripped three defensive positions in the eastern part of the city of their troops. If this had been an enemy ploy to lure the tiger away from the mountain, Linbei City would already be a sea of flames! If you cannot control the overall situation, then forty-eight men are simply forty-eight blind men waiting to die!”
The training ground fell into absolute silence. One could have heard a pin drop.
For two consecutive days, this man had stripped away every shred of pride and self-respect these Northern Frontier elites possessed, tearing them down to the bone and grinding them into dust beneath his feet.
He Zhongshan clenched his teeth, his chest heaving violently, still unwilling to accept defeat.
Suddenly, he stepped forward and cupped his fists, speaking sternly.
“Your wisdom and tactics are beyond us, Sir. We concede wholeheartedly! But—”
He raised his head sharply. In his eyes erupted the most primitive, savage fighting spirit of a martial warrior.
“Men in the military must ultimately prove themselves with real blades and real spears! Yesterday, you said you would accept challenges outside the classroom at any time. Does that promise still stand?!”
This was their final line of defense, their last stubborn pride.
They admitted they could not outwit him.
But they absolutely refused to believe that forty-eight battle-hardened killers who had clawed their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood could lose in close combat to a slender instructor.
Xiao looked at this pack of wolves, the bloodthirsty light rekindling in their eyes, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
“My word still stands.”
He slowly descended from the command platform and stood empty-handed in the middle of the training ground. He did not even take a wooden saber.
“Come at me.”
He Zhongshan roared and charged at Xiao like a gigantic bear gone mad!
He used the Northern Frontier army’s most brutal and practical military grappling techniques, with no unnecessary flourishes. His hands shot forward like iron hooks, aiming directly for Xiao’s throat and the vulnerable pressure points around his joints. His attack carried the savage determination of a man intending to kill with a single strike!
Yet Xiao had no intention of meeting his strength head-on.
At the critical instant, just as the fierce wind from He Zhongshan’s iron fist was about to strike his face, Xiao’s feet slid half an inch to the left and backward, as though he were a phantom.
That tiny shift placed him precisely in the blind spot of He Zhongshan’s forward momentum.
Xiao raised a hand and lightly touched He Zhongshan’s thick arm, then pulled and guided it aside. At the same time, he casually tapped the back of He Zhongshan’s knee with the tip of his foot.
BAM!
He Zhongshan failed even to touch the hem of Xiao’s clothing. His enormous, heavy body instantly lost its balance, crashing to the ground in a thoroughly humiliating sprawl and raising a cloud of dust. He lay there seeing stars.
“Plenty of force, but your center of gravity is completely exposed. Full of openings.”
Xiao lowered his eyes and looked down at him.
He Zhongshan immediately rolled over and scrambled back to his feet, his expression one of utter shock, as though he had seen a ghost.
Xiao walked straight to the weapon rack, pulled out a long wooden saber, and pointed it diagonally toward the ground.
“Again. Head-Hunting Squad, all eight of you at once.”
The eight hardened soldiers, led by He Zhongshan, exchanged glances. Their expressions turned utterly ruthless.
All eight drew their wooden sabers. Their formation spread apart instantly, forming a net from eight directions. Covering one another, they advanced on Xiao in a furious, coordinated assault!
The wooden sabers tore through the air with shrill whistles that made everyone’s scalp tingle.
But what happened next left every elite soldier watching from below with a profound sense of helplessness.
Xiao seemed to know exactly what they would do next.
Every time he swung his saber or shifted his position, he placed himself precisely at the limit of someone’s reach, in the dead angle where they could no longer exert their full strength.
He did not even need to block forcefully. A casual sidestep was enough to make two Head-Hunting Squad members’ wooden sabers collide with each other. A light shift in his footing turned one opponent’s body into a human shield blocking a teammate’s line of sight.
This was no sparring match. It was a precise, one-sided disassembly.
He possessed no extraordinary inner strength, but his command of spatial distance, human anatomy, visual blind spots, and dynamic prediction had reached the limits of human capability.
Smack!
Smack! Smack!
In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the sharp cracks of wooden sabers clashing rang out in rapid succession.
The eight hardened soldiers collided with one another like headless flies. Their wooden sabers were knocked from their hands one after another as Xiao struck their wrists at precise pressure points or hit their knees with the hilt of his weapon. They fell to the ground, groaning in pain.
Xiao stood proudly amid the scattered “corpses,” his wooden saber angled toward the ground, his breathing so steady that it had not become the slightest bit irregular.
“Still don’t understand?”
His gaze was as cold as a blade.
“Individual strength has never been the core of this unit. You think you’re ganging up on me, but in reality, you’re using your own men’s bodies to block your comrades’ attack paths!”
“I refuse to accept this! Again!”
This time, the Ghost Shadow Squad leader, a former covert operative, stepped into the fighting formation with seven of his strongest bodyguards, all radiating a deathly aura.
They no longer held anything back in the name of sparring. All eight drew their wooden sabers, murderous intent plain in their eyes, and formed the covert assassination battalion’s most brutal killing formation!
They held their breaths and locked onto Xiao.
Wooden sabers flashed, and figures crossed!
Within the crowd, Xiao moved like a phantom of red and black. Every time his wooden saber swung, someone folded to the ground with an injured arm.
But this time, the composure gradually faded from his face.
Having been driven into a corner and forced to abandon all defensive restraint, these men finally unleashed a terrifying ability to coordinate their attacks.
They were trading their lives for opportunities to strike at Xiao.
At last, after four covert operatives had desperately endured the blows of Xiao’s wooden saber, the Ghost Shadow Squad leader and the final bodyguard seized the one-tenth of a second when Xiao needed to draw breath—the tiny gap in which his guard was vulnerable!
Two wooden sabers howled through the air, one above and one below, crossing their attacks to seal off every possible avenue of escape.
A third man slammed his shoulder into Xiao’s lower body like a battering ram.
There was no way to dodge.
Xiao’s eyes suddenly sharpened. Gripping his wooden saber horizontally with both hands, he advanced rather than retreating, meeting their attacks head-on!
BAM!
A violent impact struck him.
For the first time, Xiao’s breathing grew heavier. The wrist holding his saber went numb from the shock.
One wooden saber grazed his shoulder, while another struck his side.
His feet slid backward a full half-step across the sandy ground. The soles of his shoes scraped two blackened furrows into the earth before he barely managed to steady himself.
He had been forced back half a step.
The violent aftershock of the wooden sabers had torn a gash in the sleeve of his plain garment.
The entire training ground fell into deathly silence.
Only the covert operatives’ ragged breathing remained, like bellows torn apart.
Every eye was fixed on Xiao, who had been forced backward.
The Ghost Shadow Squad leader gripped his saber, both hands trembling slightly.
So… with eight men working together, they really could touch him.
Yet he felt no joy at having achieved this. From the very beginning, he had already sensed the unfathomable depths of this instructor’s abilities.
They had genuinely intended to kill him just now. They had given it everything they had.
And Mr. Liuchu had not revealed even the slightest trace of killing intent from beginning to end.
Moreover, they had been eight against one.
Where on earth had His Highness Prince Su found such an incomprehensible monster?
Xiao slowly lowered the wooden saber in his hands.
He glanced at his torn sleeve, then raised his eyes to look at the soldiers before him. They were in a sorry state, but at last, they had revealed their truly lethal fangs.
A smile slowly spread across his lips—the first genuine, warm smile of approval he had shown in the past two days.
“Now that’s more like it.”
He tossed the wooden saber back onto the weapon rack. It landed with a light clatter.
“Being able to force me back half a step is quite impressive. From this moment on, you’ve finally earned the right to attend my lessons.”
His gaze swept calmly over the others.
“If you still want to spar in the future, you’re welcome to challenge me anytime. Mounted archery, sabers, swords, spears… Whatever you can think of, I’ll oblige.”
The crowd’s hearts tightened.
They no longer dared to regard this man as a frail, scholarly guest adviser who could not even handle a chicken. All resentment and defiance had vanished, replaced by genuine respect and admiration.
He Zhongshan stepped forward and saluted properly. This time, there was not the slightest trace of disrespect in his tone.
“This subordinate is thoroughly convinced. Please forgive my earlier discourtesy, Sir. I look forward to learning from you in the future.”
Xiao glanced at him. He naturally understood He Zhongshan’s temperament, and he also knew how this man’s story would end.
But he merely said indifferently, “It’s nothing. I know what you’re capable of. You led the hunt well this time, and your judgments and orders were precise. You’re still young. If you can learn to rein in your impulsive nature, perhaps you’ll be able to serve His Highness even better in the future.”
He Zhongshan froze for a moment. He was already thirty-two, and Mr. Liuchu looked younger than he did.
But he quickly accepted the advice with humility.
“This subordinate will keep your teachings firmly in mind at all times!”
Xiao said nothing more.
◆◇◆◇◆
Night had completely fallen. Blazing torches were lit around the training ground, tearing through the darkness.
The forty-eight men sat cross-legged in a circle beneath the command platform. The arrogance and defiance in their eyes had been thoroughly washed away, replaced by a fervent reverence they had never felt before and an intense hunger for unfamiliar tactics.
Xiao had changed back into his conspicuous crimson round-collared robe. He walked over to a long table in front of the command platform.
A heavy black cloth covered the table, beneath which several sharply defined shapes could be made out.
He swept his cold gaze over the men.
“Your performance over the past two days wasn’t poor because you lacked courage, nor because your martial skills were inferior.”
“It was because you couldn’t see far enough. You didn’t know the time, you didn’t know the direction, and you had no idea what your comrades in the distance were going through.”
Xiao seized one corner of the black cloth and swept it away.
Under the torchlight, four unusual objects lay quietly on the long table, their cold metallic surfaces gleaming like weapons.
A camouflage-painted binocular device, a metal circular case fitted with a precision compass, a stainless-steel wristwatch whose dial gleamed coldly, and a glass mirror that refracted the firelight in an eerie way.
The gazes of all forty-eight elite soldiers were instantly drawn to them. Their breathing involuntarily grew quieter.
Some had seen a few of these objects before. Some had used one of them. Others had never seen any of them.
Xiao picked up the military binoculars and spoke in a deep voice.
“First, you lost because you couldn’t ‘see far enough.’ With these binoculars, you can identify the enemy’s flags and formations from beyond a hundred paces.”
He set the binoculars down and picked up the liquid-damped compass.
“Second, you lost because you ‘lost your way.’ This compass will tell you where north is, whether you’re surrounded by fog that blots out the sky, in a dense forest so deep you can’t see the bottom, or in a desert swept by sandstorms.”
Next, he picked up the quartz wristwatch, its metal band gleaming faintly in the firelight.
“Third, you lost because you were ‘out of sync.’ With this watch, six squads scattered across a hundred-li-wide area can launch an attack within the same precise moment.”
Finally, he picked up the sunlight signal mirror.
“Lastly, the signal mirror. It allows you to transmit silent messages instantaneously over long distances by reflecting sunlight.”
“You must become more familiar with how to use these tools than anyone else.”
Xiao lined up the modern tactical equipment on the table. His gaze swept across the crowd like lightning.
“But you must engrave this firmly into your bones: tools are only tools. They can never replace your brains. These things aren’t meant to let you show off your courage like some reckless fool. Their only purpose is to help your already formidable killing abilities avoid fatal mistakes.”
Xiao slapped six equipment registration ledgers and forty-eight copies of a “New Calendar Time Conversion Chart” onto the table.
“Every piece of this specialized combat equipment has its own unique serial number. Squad leaders are personally responsible for safeguarding and allocating the equipment according to operational needs. Anyone who deliberately damages, loses, or privately sells any of it will be dealt with according to military law!”
“The New Calendar time system will now be implemented in full. You must learn it earlier and become more familiar with it than any other unit. Every one of you must engrave this chart into your bones, until you can determine the time without having to think.”
Xiao looked at these warriors, whose eyes had undergone a fundamental transformation. His voice echoed across the training ground as night descended.
“Starting tonight, your first real lesson is this: the forty-eight of you must fuse together into a single blade with a will of its own!”
The instant his words fell, the forty-eight elite soldiers’ breathing grew scorching hot. It was as though a ball of fire were blazing wildly inside each of their chests.
They stared fixedly at the equipment gleaming with cold light, then looked up at the instructor on the command platform, who seemed like a god and a demon at once.
At last, a spirit known as that of an elite special-operations unit truly awakened within them.
However, just as their blood was boiling and they prepared to welcome their rebirth, Xiao abruptly changed the subject.
He leaned forward slightly, the corners of his mouth curving into a gentle yet spine-chilling smile.
“Now that your blood is running hot… surely none of you have forgotten the punishment of ‘additional training for the entire squad’ tonight?”
It was as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over their heads.
The iron-blooded passion that had just ignited throughout the training ground instantly froze.
They felt chills run down their spines, unable to guess what torturous method this living King of Hell would devise next.
The Ghost Shadow Squad member who had disguised himself as the false target earlier timidly raised his hand.
“Sir… you promised that if I successfully fooled everyone, I wouldn’t have to attend additional training tonight.”
Xiao looked at him and nodded approvingly.
“I keep my word. You may sit this one out.”
The man had just let out a sigh of relief when Xiao leisurely added, “However, what I teach is worth a fortune. Missing even one night’s training means you may lack that crucial breath of strength at a life-or-death moment. And besides…”
Xiao pointed toward the forty-seven pairs of eyes behind the man, glowing eerily green in the torchlight, as though they wanted to devour him.
“Judging by the looks of them, I don’t think they’re planning to let you walk out of this training ground alive.”
“…”
Feeling the intense murderous intent pricking his back, the Ghost Shadow operative hesitated for barely a breath before slapping his thigh with righteous determination.
“This subordinate was born a member of the unit and will die as a ghost of the unit. I’m attending tonight’s additional training no matter what!”
A chorus of gritted teeth and cold laughter rang out around him.
“…At least you know what’s good for you.”
Looking at these troublemakers, who had finally developed a little vitality and cohesion, Xiao picked up the list of tonight’s additional training exercises.
When he read out the assignment and its rules—
All forty-eight men stared at him in stunned disbelief.
After a moment of silence, every face twisted into a smile more painful than crying.
They had already endured an entire day of pursuit and then the sparring matches. They were utterly exhausted.
Who would have thought that tonight’s additional training would be the main event?
It seemed none of them would be sleeping tonight.
Xiao stood with his hands behind his back, his harmless-looking smile illuminated by the torchlight.
“Then, everyone, please do your best to ‘survive’ tonight.”
◆◇◆◇◆
After a period of intense refinement, the special training and the final, bloody field assessment finally came to an end beneath the fading light of the evening sun.
Wind swept sand across the secret training ground.
Forty-eight men stood in formation.
Their leather armor was damaged, covered in mud and dried blood. Some still wore bandages stained with fresh blood, yet not one complained of pain, and not one swayed on his feet.
After enduring a trial worthy of the Asura’s hell, their very presence had changed beyond recognition.
Before, they had been a pack of hungry wolves, baring their teeth and ready to rip out an enemy’s throat at any moment, their killing intent openly displayed.
Now, their killing intent had been drawn deep into their bones and blood. Their eyes were calm and unfathomable, like ghosts in an abyss, ready to merge with the darkness at any moment.
Xiao still wore his crimson robe as he stood on the command platform.
He did not roar loudly like an ordinary military instructor, nor did he deliver some rousing graduation speech.
He simply stood there, looking at the forty-eight men below with his calm eyes for a long time.
The entire training ground was silent, save for the flags snapping in the evening wind.
“Starting today, you have graduated.”
Xiao’s voice was not loud, but every man heard him clearly.
No one spoke. All forty-eight stood straight as pines.
“But there is one thing I want you to remember.”
Xiao slowly descended from the command platform and came to the front of the formation. His gaze passed from He Zhongshan’s face to the eyes of every other man.
“What I taught you wasn’t how to kill more people.”
“It was how to kill when you must, retreat when you should, and hide when necessary.”
He stopped. His tone remained calm, even slightly cold, but every word burned into their hearts like a branding iron.
“You may lose. You may be injured. You may have to flee in disgrace.”
“The one thing you must never do is let your pride get you and your comrades buried out there together.”
Xiao raised his eyes, his gaze carrying an authority that brooked no argument.
“Remember, you are not going out there to die for someone.”
“You are His Highness’s personal guards. What His Highness needs is a blade that can be brought back—not one that, once drawn, can never return.”
Xiao paused. At last, his cold tone softened slightly, revealing the deepest hope he had carried for these men over the past several months.
“So coming back alive matters more than how many people you kill.”
He turned around, facing away from them, and left them with one final sentence.
“From today onward, I want you to remember for yourselves how to bring back… everyone standing beside you.”
As soon as his words fell, steady, powerful footsteps sounded from the gate of the training ground.
Everyone turned toward the sound.
The last rays of the setting sun fell like a golden cloak across the shoulders of a majestic black python robe.
Prince Su had come alone, without a single attendant, entering the blood-soaked, battle-hardened training ground on his own.
Xiao turned slightly and stepped aside.
The instructor’s task was complete. Now it was time for the commander and his blades to forge their pact.
“Greetings to Your Highness!”
The forty-eight men moved in perfect unison, dropping to one knee with a resounding clash of armor.
Xiao Yuan walked up to them and stopped.
He raised a hand. His voice was deep and resonant.
“Rise.”
The forty-eight men stood, their eyes blazing as they gazed at the master to whom they had sworn their lives.
Xiao Yuan looked at the forty-eight faces before him, weathered yet unyieldingly resolute, and remained silent for a moment.
He offered no words of consolation and made no mention of the hardships they had endured.
“Starting today, you have a name.”
Xiao Yuan’s voice echoed across the empty training ground.
“—The Su Guards.”
The men’s breathing briefly caught.
Prince Su had incorporated his own title into the name of their unit. It was a sign of how highly he valued them.
“Not simply because you are my personal guards.”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze grew profound, as though he could already see the countless bloody storms that lay ahead.
“But because the tasks you carry out for me will often be things that cannot see the light of day, cannot be spoken of openly, and cannot leave your names behind.”
“You will enter the most dangerous places. You will investigate people, rescue people, eliminate people, and dismantle schemes on my behalf.”
“There will be missions the world will never know you carried out.”
“There will be times when I cannot even acknowledge that you were ever there.”
Xiao Yuan paused. In his sharp eyes, tempered by countless battlefields, appeared an extraordinary solemnity.
“But it is enough that I know.”
The expressions of the forty-eight iron-blooded men shifted. Some unconsciously tightened their grips on the hilts at their waists.
An indescribable heat surged through their chests.
Xiao Yuan’s gaze passed over each of them in turn.
“You need not prove yourselves to the world. You need only prove to me that I am right to entrust my back to you.”
At this point, Xiao Yuan lowered his voice further, speaking with the full weight of a commander who had fought through countless battles.
“As for your lives, I want you to cherish them yourselves.”
“If one of you dies, I lose one man I can rely on. There are forty-eight of you, and I don’t want to lose a single one.”
The sun was about to disappear completely. Torches flickered to life one after another around the training ground.
Xiao Yuan looked at this unit, now utterly transformed, his gaze sharpening as he called out in a deep voice.
“Su Guards, hear my command!”
“Present!”
The forty-eight men roared in unison, their voices shaking the heavens.
Xiao Yuan looked at them and uttered his final two words.
“Return to formation.”
Those words drove the soul of this unit firmly into their very spines.
No matter how dangerous the mission, no matter how desperate their predicament—carry out the mission, protect their comrades, and then return to formation.
“Understood!”
The forty-eight Su Guards saluted in perfect unison. Then, led by their respective squad leaders, they dispersed in an orderly fashion to organize their equipment and ranks.
Beside the command platform, the torchlight flickered gently.
Xiao Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, watching the Su Guards in the distance. Their movements were crisp and efficient, and not a trace of their former impatience remained.
“You trained them well.”
Xiao Yuan spoke suddenly, his tone carrying undisguised praise.
Xiao merely raised an eyebrow slightly.
“What exactly did I do well? They can’t even cut someone down openly anymore. All they know how to do is fight dirty.”
Xiao Yuan turned to look at the adviser beside him, the man who had personally forged this terrifying weapon.
A smile curved his lips.
“Before, they only knew how to charge forward. Now, they know how to come back.”
Xiao gave a faint, noncommittal laugh and turned to look at the last traces of sunlight on the horizon.
“As long as they know how to come back, that’s enough. My lessons are expensive.”
Xiao Yuan said nothing more.
This blade was something Xiao had specially forged for him. He would have to make good use of it.
From that moment onward, the Su Guards were officially established as a unit.
There were still forty-eight men, just as before.
But from that day forward, they were no longer merely forty-eight elite soldiers.
They shared a name: the Su Guards.
And the command “Return to formation” became one of the most important orders in their unit.
They would scarcely ever appear on any conventional battlefield.
In the years to come, few people in the world would ever see their true faces. Yet, in countless sleepless nights, the lords and warlords of the realm would eventually come to remember the chilling name of the Su Guards.