Battle Royale of the Sinners

Tong realized Zuo Ci healed him after seeing his peaceful approach. His stress and tension disappeared, and he could breathe in the fresh air once more.

"Administrator?" Asked Tong.

"Correct. I'm in charge of monitoring anomaly beings such as yours."

"Then, why did that girl attack me? Why did you interfere with my war?"

The calm face of Zuo Ci turned into a hostile glare and said.

"You have killed too many innocents of this world, child. Though I understand that you have your reasons, killing the helpless innocents after they surrendered to you is too violent! Both of us are here to remind you for the first time and for the last time. It's fine if you are fighting in a war and the innocents get caught into it by accident. But genocide is forbidden! If we catch you killing unarmed peasants again, we will show you no mercy!"

"Again, this is the last warning. Any incident similar to the slaughtering at Liyang City will not be tolerated!"

After finished with his warning, Zuo Ci's body faded into thin air and disappeared.

Tong had a chill running down his spine. That was the first time that he fought a life-and-death battle against an 8-winged-immortal, and she could easily kill him in one move. Furthermore, it seemed she still went easy on him. The disparity between the current him and her was too vast!

Now, there was this Zuo Ci with ten wings! How could he sleep after he realized that he could be killed by these two at any moment?

'I feel like saying [Yes] to the system goddess now.'

'I wonder what happened to her. She's been silent for a while.'

Tong slowly swam back to his camp. He could not ambush or raid Huangfu Song's men anymore. More soldiers from the Imperial side were climbing ropes to cross the river. By the time that Tong stepped his foot on the shore, more than 10,000 Imperial soldiers had crossed the river.

<<Your [Despair] has 15.94% chance to take control of your body>>

'This is troublesome.'

...

Zuo Ci reappeared in the sky above Nanpi City. He had not finished his job yet as Tong was not the only sinister sinner who massacred innocents.

One more sinner had to be taught a lesson.

'What's his name again? Right, Jiang Man. The one with the illusion skill and so-called [Ninja] skills.'

'Before the system goddess returns, I have to use this rare chance to discipline these otherworlders.'

…

…

October 14th, 6 AM.

All former Huangfu Song's soldiers, Zhu Jun, and his men crossed the river safely.

At first, Zhu Jun wanted to remain on the other side to coax Dong Zhuo into sieging the barricade wall. However, the news about Huangfu Song's death forced him to move to the other side to calm the remaining soldiers and integrate them into his army.

The death of Huangfu Song was mysterious and creepy last night. The witnessed soldiers thought that a vengeful spirit killed him because he offended them by cutting the woods beside the river at night.

They saw the killer disappeared from their tight enclosed formation with their own eyes. Besides, there was a mysterious, creepy scream from a woman in the darkness, which scared them enough to wet their pants. After the wail, cubic stones rained down from the sky and dropped onto the ground and the river. Each stone block had a smooth surface and sharp edge as if the master artisan made them.

Zhu Jun also heard the cry of Liu Yang. Combining with all the pieces of evidence and eyewitnesses, he had to believe in such supernatural phenomena. None of them had even thought that Tong actually ambushed them.

"This river is sacred. Do not offend the spirits!"

Zhu Jun ordered his soldiers to gather incense sticks to hold a prayer ceremony. Afterward, they resumed their march along the river bank.

…

Dong Zhuo and Li Ru watched the departing army of 129,000 men from the other side of the Yellow River.

They also stayed up for the entire night after the commotion broke out. Both of them even heard the cry of Liu Yang.

"Wenyou, do you believe in spirit?" Asked Dong Zhuo.

"Not a chance. That was just a cry of a commoner woman somewhere. There is no such thing as spirit or god in this world."

"Hah! Me too! Look at those frantic soldiers. They wet their pants because of a woman scream during the night. If they bed a woman at night, won't they piss on their partner because of her scream? HAHAHA!"

Li Ru ignored Dong Zhuo's dirty joke and stared at the wall from a distance away.

"My lord, it's time we send our reply letter to Zhang Tong. We should prepare to leave this place as well."

…

7 AM.

Tong and his men packed up and were ready to leave. Since Zhu Jun and the rest of his army started moving, they had to return to Liyang City.

They left the "Zhang" flags on the wall and placed scarecrows in soldier's armors as decoys, so they could delay Dong Zhuo a bit longer before he realized it.

Before Tong could leave, a soldier rushed to him and gave him an arrow.

"This is?"

Tong examined the arrow. There was a letter tied on it.

"This arrow was shot by the opposing army, sir! It seemed to be a message from them."

Tong nodded and read the letter.

[Greetings, I am Li Ru, the advisor of lord Dong Zhuo, your ally.

We received your letter many days ago, but we could not reply to you as we have circumstances.

We've agreed that we will help you in this fight by withdrawing our force from the battle and steal some of the Imperial army's supplies.

However, we have a condition. We want Henei City that you are planning to occupy.

Although it sounds overbearing, we will give you another help. We shall dispatch an additional unit to help you occupy Shangdang City.

Occupying Henei City will put you in an awkward situation because the city will be isolated from your bases as well. On the other hand, Shangdang connects directly to Ye City through the main merchant roads.

Henei City is vital to our Lord while Shangdang is more beneficial for you in the long run. We want to initiate this trade as our condition for the cooperation.

I'm looking forward to your reply.]

Tong read the letter with a frown. He closed his eyes to picture the map of Shangdang and Henei regions.

Henei City was indeed not an ideal city to occupy at the moment as the distance between Ye City and Henei was too long. Henei City also nether connected to Julu nor Jinyang. Comparing to Shangdang City, it was closer to Ye City, and the roads from Shangdang connected to Jinyang to the north, which made it a more desirable strategic city. Although the roads from Shangdang to Ye City was slightly bumpy and dangerous for a large army to pass through, the roads were commonly used by merchants and logistic caravans.

Also, there was Hu Gate in between Ye City and Shangdang City. By taking Shangdang, they would save the resources for not having to siege this pass. Also, the soldiers on this check-point had to surrender to Tong once Shangdang City fell as no neighbor city would supply them food anymore.

With Shangdang, Jinyang, Ye, and Julu, the four regions would form a square formation. With ally cities connected, there would be two ally regions that could send supports to each other.

Tong snapped open his eyes and wrote two letters. One was the reply letter, and the other one was for Zhang He and Ju Shou.

…

…

7.30 AM.

The reply letter from Tong arrived in the hands of Dong Zhuo, who was mockingly laughing after he read the letter.

"Damn brat! He wanted me to send 50,000 men to siege Shangdang for him? Who am I? His sugar daddy? In his dream!"

Dong Zhuo passed the letter to Li Ru. After Li Ru read all of it, he burned the letter.

"My lord, I think we should do as he asked."

"Huh? What!? Why do I have to waste my soldiers for him!? I said I would help, but I didn't specify how many soldiers I will send! As a matter of fact, I plan to send ONE soldier to monitor the siege! BAHAHAHA!"

Li Ru shook his head and bowed again. "Lord, I believe we will gain more profits from this siege rather than letting Zhang Tong taking all the treasures."

The ears of Dong Zhuo perked up when he heard the word, "Treasure."

"Explain!"

"Yes, lord. You should aware that Liu Ping will be moving pass Shangdang, correct?"

"Yes. So?"

"It is likely that he will recruit Zhang Yang and all his men into this crusade as well. Rather, Zhang Yang and all of his subordinates will volunteer to join him. Those guys will bootlick the Emperor to get more achievements for their career! Once they moved out, the city will be lightly guarded. If Zhang Tong sieges the city, he can steal all the treasures inside the city!"

"What!?"

"That's why we should siege the city for them so that we can take some of these treasures back to our bases first. Then we let Zhang Tong take our leftover."

Dong Zhuo slapped his knee and burst into laughter. "Dammit! I haven't thought that far! You've enlightened me, Wenyou!"

Li Ru just bowed and stopped speaking. He had advised Dong Zhuo with all the ideas he had. He did not have any other suggestion anymore because he was tired from the lack of sleep.

Dong Zhuo also did not bother speaking. He quietly walked toward the wall and gestured Hua Xiong, who was standing guard in front of the tent, to follow him.

The two ignored every soldier and stopped at a distance away from the wall. Dong Zhuo looked at Hua Xiong and asked, "Do you have an arrow?"

Hua Xiong took out an arrow from his quiver and gave it to the fat lord.

Dong Zhuo took the arrow. He coughed to clear his throat for a while before he put the head of the arrow under his armpit with its tail feathers pointing at the wall. He closed his armpit and shouted.

"OH NOEZ! I HAZ BEEN HIT BY AN ARROW! SAAAAVVVEEE MEEEE!"

Hua Xiong stared at his boss in shock for a second before he realized what Dong Zhuo was trying to do. He also shouted.

"OH NOEZ! OUR LORD HAZ BEEN HIT! TAKE OUR LORD BACK AND RETREAT!"

For the sake of realism, Hua Xiong cut a wound on his arm and soaked Dong Zhuo with his blood.

Dong Zhuo shouted again. "RETREAT! I NEED A DOCTOR IN HENEI!"

The nearby soldiers did not everything from the beginning. They panicked and escorted Dong Zhuo and Hua Xiong over.

Li Ru looked at the two and sighed. If they wanted to retreat, they could have said the word directly without this farce.

"Signal all troops. We shall withdraw back to Henei!"

Li Ru's aide looked at him in confusion. He asked, "Sir, what about Zhu Jun and our initial plan?"

"Forget it. We've done everything we need. For the intel documents we have about Henei and the false Bao Xin unit, burn it."