One Sword Decide The Battle

“You’ve run long enough.”

The night wind carried the words across the southeastern battlefield.

The middle-aged man with the great saber slowly stepped out from the surrounding group. The strip of red cloth tied around his wrist fluttered in the wind. Behind him, eleven Foundation Establishment cultivators had already spread into two layers. Three late-stage cultivators held the most important positions, while the rest were all at the middle stage.

Eleven auras locked onto Hao Nhien at the same time, making the spiritual pressure in the surrounding area grow noticeably heavier.

Hao Nhien remained standing on the Tieu Dao Sword.

His outer robe had already been thrown away with the Bloodscent Lure. Blood still marked his left shoulder, and the stain at the corner of his mouth had not been completely wiped away. After repeatedly erupting with Spirit Wings, the meridians around his shoulders and back still burned, while the spiritual energy remaining in his body was only a little above half.

But the place where he had chosen to stop was no longer an empty stretch of desert.

Behind him stood Cat Loi City.

The earthen-yellow light of the city formation still covered the walls. Before the eastern gate, Cat Thanh stood at the head of the force that had just withdrawn. He had not stepped beyond the protection of the formation, but violet-gold lightning was already flowing slowly around both arms, and his peak Foundation Establishment aura was completely undisguised.

Among the twelve people ahead, no one had revealed a cultivation level above his.

On the wall, Luu Thanh had already set an arrow to the string. The arrowhead was not fixed on any single target, but shifted slowly between those most capable of intervening at a moment’s notice.

Farther southeast, Hoa Duong had also turned the Hoa Van formation back toward the battlefield. Nearly one hundred warriors had only just finished a charge. Blood still stained their armor, and their Sa Ma were breathing heavily, yet the formation remained battle-ready.

The great-saber cultivator glanced toward Cat Thanh, then toward Hoa Duong and the additional figures appearing on the wall.

He understood one thing very clearly.

If all twelve Foundation Establishment cultivators charged at once, this would no longer be a pursuit of a single man. Cat Loi and Hoa Van would immediately enter the battle, turning everything into a chaotic clash in which both sides would pay with the lives of Foundation Establishment cultivators.

The man raised one hand.

“Hold your positions.”

Those behind him stopped.

He looked directly at Hao Nhien.

“I’ll kill him.”

A cultivator behind him frowned.

“He’s fast.”

“I know.”

The man’s gaze passed over Hao Nhien’s injuries.

Hao Nhien reached into his storage ring.

Several artifacts on the opposing side immediately stirred, but what he took out was only a small jade bottle.

He poured a pill into his palm and swallowed it.

A high-grade Qi-Vitality Pill.

Its medicinal power quickly spread through his meridians. A single pill could not restore all the spiritual energy he had already consumed, but the turbulent flow of qi and blood gradually stabilized, the burning around his shoulders eased, and the spiritual energy that had begun to move sluggishly through his meridians became smoother.

Within only a few breaths, the weakened aura around him had steadied by several degrees.

The great-saber cultivator immediately noticed the change.

He studied Hao Nhien for another moment, then glanced toward the eastern gate. Cat Thanh was still standing there, lightning circling his arms, but he showed no sign of stepping forward.

When the man looked back, the great saber in his hand had already begun to rise.

Throughout the pursuit, Hao Nhien had relied on speed to keep widening the distance.

This was the first time he had willingly stopped.

And the distance between them was only a little over twenty zhang.

The saber cultivator clearly had no intention of letting the opportunity pass.

Late Foundation Establishment spiritual energy surged along the weapon.

“How long do you think one more pill can keep you standing?”

Hao Nhien returned the jade bottle to his storage ring.

“Come find out.”

The man’s eyes turned cold.

He glanced once more toward Cat Thanh.

Then, almost immediately, spiritual energy exploded beneath his feet.

He stopped probing and charged straight forward.

The twenty-zhang distance vanished rapidly.

The great saber rose higher as he advanced, black saber qi extending from the blade while the pressure of late Foundation Establishment climbed with every step.

Hao Nhien remained exactly where he was on the Tieu Dao Sword.

Spirit Wings stayed folded behind him.

The Fire Spirit Sword hung low at his right side.

Ten zhang remained.

The man saw that Hao Nhien still had not retreated.

His speed increased again.

Seven zhang.

Five.

The great saber came down with the full force of his charge.

At that exact instant, Spirit Wings erupted behind Hao Nhien.

The Tieu Dao Sword accelerated at the same time.

Instead of retreating from the descending saber, Hao Nhien shot directly into its range.

The saber cultivator’s pupils contracted.

At this distance, his saber could cut Hao Nhien down.

But the Fire Spirit Sword had also entered killing range.

“Madman.”

The word escaped his lips.

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The descending saber immediately changed.

His wrist twisted sharply and the weapon was pulled back across his chest, transforming from an all-out attack into a defensive interception.

That moment of transition was exactly what Hao Nhien had been waiting for.

The Spirit Sword struck.

The invisible attack pierced directly into the man’s soul, carrying neither spiritual light nor any sound obvious enough for an outsider to notice.

Against a late Foundation Establishment cultivator, Hao Nhien’s current Spirit Sword could only create a tiny disturbance. He had never expected it to seriously injure the man’s soul.

He needed only one beat.

The saber cultivator’s eyes lost focus for the briefest instant.

His turning wrist slowed for exactly that moment, leaving the great saber short of a complete defensive position while the redirected saber qi briefly lost continuity.

To anyone else, the opening might have been too small even to notice.

For Hao Nhien, it was enough.

Fifteen days in Black Wind Valley had forced him to repeat the same thing thousands of times: maintain force while his body was being knocked off balance, strike before his stance had fully stabilized, and remove every unnecessary motion from the process of releasing power.

Now his legs, waist, back, shoulder, and arm formed a single line.

The Body-Soul Fist Art held his body’s axis together while Spirit Wings supplied the final burst.

Fire spiritual energy pressed tightly along the edge of the Fire Spirit Sword.

Every bit of force was compressed into the shortest possible path.

Sword Slash descended.

A red-orange streak flashed between them.

The saber cultivator regained clarity almost immediately.

His great saber continued pulling across his chest while protective spiritual energy erupted around his body.

But the beat he had lost could not be reclaimed.

The Fire Spirit Sword was already there.

Clang!

The two weapons collided.

The metallic impact lasted only an instant before a dry cracking sound followed.

The great saber snapped in half.

One broken section spun into the air, while the Fire Spirit Sword continued downward with the momentum still behind it.

The newly formed protective spiritual energy tore apart.

The battle armor beneath the blade split open.

The two figures passed each other.

Hao Nhien brought the Tieu Dao Sword to a stop behind his opponent.

Behind him, the late Foundation Establishment cultivator remained frozen in the same posture for a brief moment.

Then a line of blood slowly appeared from his shoulder down across his ribs.

Strength left his body.

He fell from the artifact beneath his feet.

The battlefield went silent.

All eleven Foundation Establishment cultivators on the opposing side had seen the exchange, yet from where they stood, everything had happened within only a few breaths.

The late-stage cultivator had charged.

Hao Nhien had suddenly accelerated.

The two had crossed.

The great saber had broken.

The man had fallen.

The instant in which the Spirit Sword struck his soul had left no obvious sign for anyone else to see.

One late Foundation Establishment cultivator tightened his grip on his weapon.

The man beside him, who had been stepping forward, stopped halfway.

A Sa Manh cultivator looked down at the corpse on the sand, his expression turning grim.

On the wall, Luu Thanh still held his bow drawn, but the arrow had not left the string.

Cat Thanh also remained in front of the gate.

Lightning still glowed around his arms, but his gaze slowly moved from the body in the sand back to Hao Nhien.

Hao Nhien did not need to study their reactions for long.

He understood the price of that sword better than anyone.

His opponent had possessed a higher cultivation level, but he had charged with his momentum fully committed, eager to seize the rare opportunity created by Hao Nhien finally choosing to stand his ground.

The Spirit Sword had stolen only the smallest instant from him, but that instant had appeared at the exact moment his saber was changing from offense to defense.

Hao Nhien had taken everything he had refined in Black Wind Valley and used it to turn an opening that barely existed into a single sword strike capable of deciding life and death.

If the same man had maintained a defensive posture from the beginning, or had not thrown himself into killing range with all of his forward momentum, Hao Nhien could not be certain the same result could be repeated.

But battle did not offer a second chance to make the same choice differently.

Hao Nhien slowly moved the Fire Spirit Sword to one side.

The blood on the blade was burned into a thin wisp of smoke by fire spiritual energy.

The medicinal power of the Qi-Vitality Pill was still spreading through his meridians, stabilizing his condition further.

His spiritual energy had not returned to its peak, but he still had enough to continue fighting if necessary.

And he still had methods he had not used.

Frenzy remained untouched.

But Hao Nhien had no intention of killing more people merely to prove that he still had strength left.

That one sword was enough.

He looked at the eleven Foundation Establishment cultivators ahead.

“Let it end here.”

A Sa Manh cultivator clenched his teeth.

“You just killed one of ours.”

Hao Nhien looked at him.

“You brought an army to Cat Loi first.”

The man’s expression stiffened.

Hao Nhien did not continue arguing.

Instead, he looked past them toward the battlefield behind.

The eastern wing had been shattered.

Formation flags lay toppled among blackened supply wagons.

Most of the archers had already withdrawn from their positions, while the remaining organized units were gathering the wounded and pulling people north.

To the south, the beast formation had also lost its rhythm completely.

The Sa Manh were splitting their attention between reclaiming spirit beasts, restraining the grade-three beasts still in a frenzy, and pulling their own people away from overturned beast-control wagons.

Cat Loi City remained standing behind Hao Nhien.

“You still have men. You still have Foundation Establishment cultivators. You can keep fighting.”

Hao Nhien raised the Fire Spirit Sword slightly.

“So can I.”

The expressions of several people ahead changed immediately.

Hao Nhien had been pursued for a long distance and was visibly injured, yet a late Foundation Establishment cultivator had still died in a single exchange.

No one knew how many methods he still had left.

No one could be certain that the sword they had just seen could not appear again.

“If you want to continue, Cat Loi and the Hoa Ky Tribe will answer.”

Hao Nhien’s voice was not loud, but it carried clearly across the battlefield as the noise around them slowly faded.

“But before you do, look at what you actually gained tonight.”

His gaze turned toward the Sa Manh cultivators.

“Your people have lived beside spirit beasts in the Western Wastes for generations. You understand their instincts and depend on them to survive. Yet tonight, you drove Spirit-Sealing Nails into their heads, chained them, and forced them into the city formation until they died. In the end, Sa Manh cultivators were killed beneath the claws of the very beasts you had forced into battle.”

One Sa Manh cultivator tightened his grip on his spear.

Hao Nhien did not demand an answer.

“I only want you to take one question back with you.”

His gaze passed across the rest.

“What exactly did you come to Cat Loi for, and who benefits when the people of the Western Wastes kill one another?”

Several expressions shifted.

Hao Nhien noticed, but said nothing more about Heavenly Eye.

They did not yet possess enough evidence to turn suspicion into certainty, and not everyone standing before him necessarily knew who was behind the entire affair.

He lowered the sword tip.

“I am Hao Nhien of the Hoa Ky Tribe.”

“Cat Loi was in danger, so the Hoa Ky Tribe came. If another place truly faces disaster in the future and asks for help, I hope Cat Loi will do the same.”

Hao Nhien looked directly at the people ahead.

“That is the kind of relationship I want among those who live in the Western Wastes. If there are grudges, disputes, or reasons to fight us later, then settle them when that time comes.”

He paused.

“But tonight, continuing this battle will only create more dead.”

Behind him, Cat Thanh stepped one pace farther out from the gate.

Lightning brightened around both hands as his peak Foundation Establishment aura spread outward.

Hoa Duong raised his long saber as well.

On the wall, Luu Thanh drew the bowstring nearly to its limit.

More Cat Loi Foundation Establishment cultivators appeared behind the glowing formation.

Hao Nhien looked at the enemy.

“If you withdraw, Cat Loi and the Hoa Ky Tribe will not pursue.”

A black-clad cultivator spoke coldly.

“You can decide that for Cat Loi?”

Cat Thanh answered from behind.

“Yes.”

Every gaze shifted toward him.

Cat Thanh looked directly at the group ahead.

“Tonight, Hao Nhien’s word is also Cat Loi’s will.”

No one asked further.

Hao Nhien said:

“Take the living home. Bury the dead. If today’s matter is still unfinished, there will be plenty of chances to settle it later.”

His gaze passed over the broken formation flags and the corpses of spirit beasts scattered across the sand.

“But tonight’s siege has already been lost.”

Silence settled across the battlefield.

No one immediately lowered their artifacts.

A few words could not erase those who had just died, nor could they turn enemies into friends.

Hao Nhien had never expected that.

He only needed the survivors to carry what they had witnessed tonight back with them.

A low whistle suddenly sounded from the north.

Several black-clad cultivators turned their heads at once.

A second whistle followed, longer than the first.

Far away, the remaining organized troops began gathering their formations, while the Sa Manh gradually abandoned the broken formation plates and moved to reclaim their spirit beasts and wounded.

One Foundation Establishment cultivator still held his artifact while staring at Hao Nhien.

“This isn’t over.”

Hao Nhien met his gaze.

The man held it for another moment before finally stepping back.

The others began loosening their formation as well.

When the third whistle sounded, the entire army outside the city truly began to withdraw.

It was not a chaotic rout.

The survivors continued carrying the wounded.

The units still intact covered the rear.

The Sa Manh tried to recover whatever spirit beasts they could still take with them.

But the siege formation was gone.

Cat Thanh gave no order to pursue.

Hoa Duong held his formation in place.

On the wall, Luu Thanh slowly relaxed the bowstring.

Hao Nhien remained standing on the Tieu Dao Sword, watching the distant figures retreat deeper into the night of the Western Wastes.

After tonight, many people might remember the sword that had killed a late Foundation Establishment cultivator.

But Hao Nhien wanted something else to remain with them longer than the memory of that strike.

The question that had appeared only after he lowered his sword.

Why had they come to Cat Loi?

And who, in the end, was truly benefiting from the people of the Western Wastes killing one another?

Behind him, Cat Loi City still glowed beneath its earthen-yellow protective formation.

The sounds of the siege had stopped.