Chapter 146: Epilogue

Arriving at Jianmen, Fang Xian set about organizing military affairs, intensifying training, conscripting soldiers, and drilling the militia. Three months later, the Zhou and Liang states launched a massive invasion of the Wu state, while the Xia and Man states remained inactive.

Fang Xian discussed the situation with Wu Qingluan, deciding to evacuate the civilians of Jianmen County while strengthening defenses. Suddenly, an imperial edict arrived, appointing Wu Qingluan as the Marshal of the Flying Phoenix Army and ordering her to take up her post immediately.

Shortly after Wu Qingluan's departure, Fang Xian was ambushed by two grandmasters of the Transformation Realm. He killed one in a counterattack, while the other escaped heavily wounded. Soon after, the massive armies of the Xia and Man states fiercely assaulted Jianmen Pass.

Leveraging the treacherous terrain of Jianmen Pass, Fang Xian engaged the allied forces of the two states in fierce battles, launching numerous skirmishes of varying scales outside the pass.

Reinforcements from the mountain stronghold arrived to assist in the evacuation, guiding tens of thousands of Jianmen civilians safely into the stronghold. Fang Xian held the strategic pass defensively, burning the plank roads behind him to cut off retreat. After holding out for a month, he received the system reward: the Sturdy Shield Battle Formation.

Using this to train his soldiers, the formation proved exceptionally effective in subsequent defensive battles, repeatedly withstanding the offensives of the allied coalition and routing several elite enemy units through localized counterattacks.

After shooting down dozens of enemy generals, repelling several surprise attacks, and slaying three enemy Transformation Realm grandmasters, Fang Xian struck terror into the enemy, plunging the situation into a stalemate.

Holding out for another month, Fang Xian was rewarded by the system with the Sharp Blade Battle Formation, granting him a formation adept at both offense and defense. However, his forces were reduced to just over thirty thousand men.

The Man state changed its commander, sending Hachi, a renowned general and brother of the Man monarch, to take personal command. Yet, after suffering three consecutive defeats, a desperate Hachi took to the battlefield himself. Fang Xian suddenly deployed five hundred puppets as an vanguard to raid the enemy's central command, flashing across the field to slay Hachi and wipe out his three thousand elite guards. Nearly half of the puppets were destroyed in the resulting self-detonations.

From then on, the Black-Armored Death Guards haunted the battlefield, striking mysteriously and repeatedly achieving great merits. Under Fang Xian's leadership, they slew Li Dongxu, the commander of the Xia state, becoming the grim reapers of the battlefield.

Three months later, Fang Xian obtained the system-rewarded God-Slaying Crossbow. With his own cultivation on the verge of breaking through to the Transformation Realm, the terrifying power of the God-Slaying Crossbow allowed him to instantly kill any Transformation Realm grandmaster.

However, by this time, several prefectures surrounding the Wu state had been conquered by Zhou and Liang, while Xia and Man forces had also breached Wu through alternative routes, leaving Jianmen Pass as the sole territory remaining in Wu hands.

An imperial decree arrived, ordering Fang Xian to abandon Jianmen Pass and retreat to Wudu, appointing him as the Grand Marshal of the National Armed Forces, with supreme command over all troops in Wu, as the nation faced imminent annihilation.

Yet, just as the decree arrived and before Fang Xian could prepare his retreat, another piece of news shocked the world: Hong Tianzhi, commander of the Jinwu Army, had betrayed the Wu state. He executed the ninth prince, who had been sent as an imperial inspector, surrendered twenty thousand Jinwu troops to the Xia state, and was enfeoffed as the Prince Suppressing Wu, currently marching his army toward Wudu.

Fang Xian immediately decided to evacuate Jianmen Pass, retreating to Guangyuan City with his remaining twenty thousand soldiers. However, word reached him that the various states, dreading Fang Xian and fearing his return to Wudu as Grand Marshal, had gathered more than twenty Transformation Realm grandmasters to hunt him down.

Fang Xian promptly ordered his soldiers to scatter into smaller units and retreat entirely into the mountain strongholds of the Daba Mountains. By now, he had become a god in the hearts of his troops, commanding absolute obedience; every soldier was willing to die for him.

Amidst relentless pursuits and assassination attempts, Fang Xian killed several Transformation Realm grandmasters one by one, eventually drawing out a supreme innate grandmaster from the Xia state. Fortunately, Lady Yin Suxin of the Hundred Flowers Abyss arrived to save him.

Simultaneously, the Grand Preceptor of the Man state appeared as well. Fang Xian gave Lady Yin a life-prolonging pill and a transforming divine armor. Working together and enduring heavy wounds as a price, the two managed to slay the Man Grand Preceptor and critically injure the Xia Grand Preceptor, but both fell into the Qingyi River, their fates unknown.

When Fang Xian awoke, half a month had passed since the great battle. Having drifted downstream with the current, they had washed ashore in the territory of the Liang state along the lower reaches of the Qingyi River.

By this time, the final battle at Jianmen Pass had shocked the world: Fang Xian and Lady Yin had slain an innate grandmaster of the Man state and severely wounded an innate grandmaster of the Xia state, but their whereabouts remained unknown, sending tremors across the realm.

Nevertheless, the situation in Wu did not ease. Armies from the four states poured into Wu territory, advancing steadily toward Wudu despite fierce resistance.

The Eldest Princess led the Flying Phoenix Army through dozens of battles against the Zhou state, eventually fleeing into the Taihang Mountains with several thousand remnant troops. When the four-state coalition laid siege to Wudu, the Grand Preceptor of Wu betrayed the nation, assassinating Emperor Wu Qingdi and the imperial princes, wiping out the Wu imperial house, with only the Eldest Princess escaping alive.

The Wu state was destroyed, its people displaced, and refugees flooded the land. Fringed by internal disputes over territorial division, the four states plunged into even more chaotic warfare. The Daba Mountains were also affected, facing successive attacks from various armies on the mountain strongholds, all of which were successfully repelled.

A vast number of Wu's remnant troops fled into the deep mountains across various regions, continuing stubborn resistance against the foreign armies under the leadership of a new generation of young generals, with occasional reports trickling out.

Upon waking, Fang Xian discovered that the meridians throughout his body were completely severed and his cultivation was lost. Lady Yin Suxin had woken before him and retained the cultivation and martial prowess of a top-tier expert, but she suffered from amnesia. Believing herself to be Fang Xian's wife, she took the initiative to practice dual cultivation with him on the night he awoke to help heal his injuries.

Unable to move, Fang Xian could only submit to her ministrations. After half a month of this, he recovered his mobility, though he dared not reveal their true relationship to Yin Suxin, while the dual cultivation genuinely aided their mutual healing.

Meanwhile, while Fang Xian was healing, Ye Hongxiu and Feng Ling led troops from the stronghold into Jianmen County to search for him, engaging in bloody combat with martial artists dispatched by various states to track him down. Zhu Shimei also descended from the Daoist Sect; having broken through to the Transformation Realm, she had mastered the grand clarity arts of the Daoist Sect.

Just as the women were being overwhelmed and besieged by martial artists from the various states, an elderly man suddenly appeared to save them. It was Uncle Qi, whom Fang Xian had previously rescued and sent to Guangyuan City before the great battle at Jianmen. Having recovered all his memories and strength, he turned out to be an innate grandmaster.

While the women were at their wits' end, the Falcon King suddenly returned, bringing the news that Fang Xian was safe. However, noting that Fang Xian was too far away at the moment, he told them not to worry and to return to the stronghold to await further news. Uncle Qi escorted them back.

By this time, the mountain base had sheltered over three hundred thousand refugees, with more than one hundred thousand additional refugees accommodated across various outer strongholds. The stronghold's army had also expanded to around fifteen million—correction: fifteen hundred thousand—soldiers, undergoing continuous training, with the nearly twenty thousand veterans serving as the backbone, daily recounting Fang Xian's heroic exploits to the new recruits.

Two months later, Fang Xian recovered. His physical fitness had comprehensively improved, and his cultivation had broken through to the Transformation Realm. Yin Suxin's cultivation had fully restored to the innate grandmaster realm, though her head injury left her memories unrecovered.

With Wudu fallen and the Wu Dynasty collapsed, the four states continued their chaotic wars, leaving the common people to suffer. Fang Xian traveled the rivers and lakes with his confidantes, saving countless lives under the guise of a divine doctor while welcoming countless refugees into strongholds across various regions.

As the four states disregarded the lives of the Wu subjects, treating the Central Plains as mere spoils of war to be plundered and leaving the people unable to survive, Fang Xian decided to raise the banner of rebellion, unite men of ideals from the former Wu Dynasty, and appoint himself as Grand Marshal.

Fang Xian employed a novel military training method to forge an elite army, adopted a system of self-governance to unite local righteous men, and implemented an equal-field land distribution system to absorb refugees, surviving and growing in the cracks between the four rival states.

Ultimately, his martial army was forged, sweeping through the elite forces of the four states, progressively reclaiming the territory of the former Wu Dynasty, and continually annexing the lands of the four powers. Defeating the three supreme martial powerhouses of the world, Fang Xian became the foremost figure of his era. He destroyed the four states to unify the realm, ascending the throne as the Great Emperor.

Twenty years later, Fang Xian's children led armies to conquer the four seas, unifying the distant oceanic nations and establishing principalities large and small. Handing over the imperial throne to the son he shared with the Eldest Princess, he shattered the void alongside his beloved companions and ascended into the heavens.