A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

Tuoba Yue saw Tuoba Ye.

He rode a grey-maned warhorse, his scimitar held horizontally at his side, charging towards her.

Behind him followed several hundred personal guard cavalrymen, their hooves clattering and kicking up clouds of yellowish-gray dust.

Most of the surrounding slave soldiers had already dispersed.

Those unfortunate people carrying wooden sticks scattered and fled like ants hit by stones into the water, their cries drowned out by the sound of horses' hooves.

Tuoba Yue didn't run away.

She gripped her sword and spurred her horse forward two steps to meet them.

It wasn't that she wasn't afraid, but that she had no way out. There were still hundreds of elite soldiers fighting desperately behind her. If she ran, these people would immediately scatter.

Tuoba Ye's face drew closer and closer.

She knew that face all too well—it was the face she'd watched grow up, her older brother, the fastest man on the grasslands, who never blinked an eye when killing.

"You little bitch, you're really not going to run?"

Tuoba Ye's voice drifted in on the wind, carrying a hint of excitement. Not anger, but the excitement of a hunter seeing his prey walk right into his trap.

Tuoba Yue did not answer, but held his sword across his chest.

The sword is too light. It was a gift from the fourth brother. It's exquisite and beautiful, but not enough for killing people.

There's no time to think about it.

Tuoba Ye's warhorse rammed through the last few slave soldiers blocking his way.

The scimitar slashed down from above at a sharp angle—a tricky angle, with heavy force, a method commonly used on the grasslands to behead people.

Tuoba Yue dodged to the side and raised his sword to parry.

"clang--"

Her arm went numb, and her hand almost split open. The force traveled along the sword to her shoulder, making her sway on the horse.

The gap is too big. Tuoba Ye is a fierce warrior who has fought for thirty years. She is just a princess. No matter how good her swordsmanship is, it is just a show. In a real fight, she can't withstand it.

With a backhand slash, the tip of his sword aimed at Tuoba Ye's horse's neck—not to harm the man, but to cripple the horse first.

Tuoba Ye snorted coldly, his curved blade sinking to knock her sword aside, and then sweeping it horizontally.

The blade grazed Tuoba Yue's cheek, shaving off half a lock of her hair.

"So marrying a man from Wei means you've learned all their fancy tricks?"

Tuoba Ye slashed again, this time downwards, the blade whistling through the air.

"What's the use?"

Tuoba Yue gritted her teeth and took the blow.

The sword almost slipped from his hand, and a sharp pain shot through his wrist.

Her horse was also in bad shape; it was struck twice and its front hooves lurched.

On the distant battlefield, the bugle call still echoed.

The Wei family army's cavalry had already stormed into the valley. Fifty thousand iron cavalry surged in from the east like a surging black tide, scattering the outer Western Qiang infantry.

But she is still at least three hundred steps away.

Three hundred paces is just a matter of a breath for a cavalryman.

But Tuoba Ye wouldn't let her get away with it.

When the scimitar came down for the third time, Tuoba Yue's hand failed to catch it.

It's not that I didn't want to answer, it's that my arm was too tired to lift it.

After enduring three consecutive heavy blows from Tuoba Ye, her right arm was numb from shoulder to fingertips, and her sword hung at her side, its tip trembling slightly.

A sinister smile flashed in Tuoba Ye's eyes.

He saw it—Tuoba Yue couldn't hold on any longer.

The scimitar was raised again.

……

Wei Zhao's white wax spear pierced through the chest of a centurion, twisted the shaft, and flung the corpse away.

He had shaken off his personal guards.

It wasn't intentional—he was too fast.

One man charged into the encirclement of the Western Qiang cavalry, like a red-hot iron wedge, forcefully piercing through three layers of human walls.

A sweeping motion of the white wax spear sent two charging cavalrymen flying, horse and rider.

The spear tip thrust forward, piercing a tribal war flag. The flagpole snapped, and the tattered cloth fluttered in the wind.

There are too many people blocking the way, and you can't kill them all.

Tuoba Yue's banner was still standing, but it was swaying, and swaying more and more violently.

She was fighting with Tuoba Ye.

Wei Zhao gritted his teeth.

At three hundred paces, his white wax spear could pierce through the group in front of him, but at least a thousand Western Qiang cavalrymen were in between.

too slow.

His firing rate increased even further.

It wasn't an improvement in technique, but a pure burst of energy—he pushed his first-grade physique to its limit, and every strike carried a visible force.

Where the spear tip passed, blood mist filled the air, and screams flew up and fell like sparrows from both sides.

He saw it after two hundred steps.

Tuoba Ye's scimitar drew an arc in the air, slashing towards a slender rider.

Tuoba Yue was there.

Wei Zhao's eyes reddened.

It wasn't an adjective; his eyes were truly red, blood vessels bulging on them, making him look like a wild beast that had been completely enraged.

"Takuye——"

He roared, a sound so loud it echoed throughout the valley.

"If you dare touch her, I will kill you!"

Tuoba Ye heard it.

He turned his head and, from two hundred paces away, saw the white-clad cavalry general charging madly through the crowd.

The trajectory of the white wax spear was so fast that it left only a blur; each shot was a life lost.

Tuoba Ye laughed.

It wasn't a cold laugh, but a near-manic laugh.

"Come on, come on!"

He yelled back at Wei Zhao, his voice cracking.

"But it's too late for you!"

He raised the scimitar above his head, the blade flashing briefly in the sunlight.

"You can't protect anything!"

The knife slashed down.

Tuoba Yue could no longer lift his sword; his right arm was completely numb, and his fingers could barely grip the hilt.

She watched as the curved sword came crashing down from directly above, the force of the blade so strong she couldn't open her eyes.

No thoughts flashed through my mind.

There was only one thought in my mind—Fourth brother, I'm sorry.

Then her left hand moved.

It's not something you do intentionally; it's your body's own reaction.

A dagger was tucked into the boot shaft on the outside of the calf.

That was the Wei family's rule—taught to her by Liu Jingshuang: when going to the battlefield, one must hide a short blade in their boot, "the last resort for survival."

She had practiced the motion of drawing the dagger a thousand times. Her left hand reached down, pulled out, and blocked upwards in one fluid motion.

"Ding!"

The dagger and the curved sword met above her head.

The knife was too heavy; the dagger blocked it, but the remaining force wasn't dissipated.

The scimitar veered off course, and the blade, still carrying some of its force, slammed into her left shoulder.

The bone wasn't broken, but the flesh was torn.

A hot liquid gushed out from my shoulder and trickled down my arm.

Tuoba Yue's body tilted to the side.

I couldn't even sit still on the horse's back—no, I couldn't sit still at all.

The excruciating pain in her left shoulder made her entire left side go limp, and her fingers loosened, causing her to fall off the horse.

"Takuye——"

The voice that Wei Zhao was squeezing out no longer sounded human.

His hoarse, rough voice, carrying a murderous intent rising from the bottom of his chest, caused the warhorses of the Western Qiang cavalry in front of him to retreat repeatedly.

The white wax spear spun half a circle in his hand, its tip drawing a silvery-white arc.

Then he moved.

It's not a charge; a charge is conducted in formation, rhythmically, and systematically.

this is not.

This is a ferocious beast going mad.

The white horse charged at full speed, sending pebbles flying everywhere as it was trampled.

The spear tip was held level, pointing towards Tuoba Yue two hundred paces away, like a red-hot iron needle.