83: Chapter 83: A Pyrrhic Victory Ends, the Great Ship Soars Through the Sky

The White Bone Armored General had retreated, but the Northern Ridge did not quiet down immediately.

There were still over two hundred Black Armor Elites who had charged inside the lines.

Half of them had their bone armor and Meridians frostbitten by the aftermath of the jade sword, their movements noticeably slowing down; the other half, driven to desperation and knowing that retreating meant death, simply charged toward the Old Turtle Head Stone while braving the thunder, fire, and chaotic spears.

Lu Changyuan descended from the high platform in person.

Not to pursue.

But to finish off this last breath of resistance.

When he landed in front of the stone base, the first Black Armor Cultivator who rushed over had just managed to knock open a corner of the bone shield, but before his long spear could thrust in, he was slashed from throat to collarbone by Lu Changyuan.

Before the blood could even spray, a second Black Armor Cultivator stepped on his companion's corpse and pressed forward, the layer of grey-black bone patterns on the shield slamming into one's chest, causing a stifling pressure.

Lu Changyuan did not retreat.

With a press of his military talisman, the last trace of purple lightning in the stone groove behind him was forcibly extracted, sliding along the back of his blade and drilling directly into the seam of the bone shield.

The Black Armor Cultivator's entire body stiffened.

Lu Hu's blade arrived from the side.

A single strike severed both the shield and the arm.

"My Lord, the East Shoal can be suppressed!"

"Then suppress it."

Lu Changyuan did not turn his head, only kicking the corpse away, "Do not go beyond the fifth zhang."

"Understood!"

Lu Hu turned his horse and, leading the remaining forty-seven riders, cut across once more.

This time, the Black Armor army no longer possessed the uniformity it had just moments ago.

The front shield line had been shattered by the jade sword, the black rain in the rear had been forcibly interrupted, and the White Bone Armored General himself had retreated after being wounded; the entire formation was like it had been deboned, leaving only a shell of people barely holding on.

When the Purple Lightning Seahorse rode the waves and cut in, it was no longer a "waist-cut," but a mopping up of the remnants.

Over at the Central Military Drill Ground, Li Heng directly split the team of Array Master into three groups.

One group to reinforce the Northern Ridge.

One group to go to the Outer Port to support the second pile.

The last group ran along the active line between the Central Army and the East Shoal, specifically picking up Spirit Stone grooves and talisman nails that hadn't completely broken off to reconnect them.

"Don't worry about whether it's neat!"

"Just get it lit up first!"

"As long as it's lit, that's fine!"

He roared until his voice cracked, but he truly managed to drag those lines that were on the verge of expiring back to life.

Chen Mo was in an even worse state.

The old talisman master's blood-stained wooden awl was reduced to a short stub by the end, barely enough to hold.

He simply bit the wooden awl in his mouth, grabbed wet sand with his bare hands and smeared it onto the base of the Old Turtle Head Stone, then pried fragments from the bone armor of the dead Black Armor Cultivators nearby, using the bone shards as nails to pin the talisman papers back into the stone crevices one by one.

His grandson huddled nearby, tears almost falling: "Grandpa, your hands!"

Chen Mo's hands were covered in blood.

Yet he didn't even look down.

"What are you crying for?"

"The stone hasn't shattered."

"As long as it hasn't shattered, it's not your turn to cry yet."

As these words fell, several Loose Cultivators nearby who had already collapsed from exhaustion actually crawled back up and followed him to pile sandbags against the stone base.

The situation at the Outer Port was the slowest to be reported back.

By the time the Northern Ridge had cleared away most of the remaining enemies within the lines, a chaotic but clear voice finally came through the military talisman.

"The second pile is still standing."

"The secondary flag is gone, and the main pile has cracked by half a foot."

"Two damaged ships have been saved; another has half-sunk and has been dragged onto the shoal to dismantle its planks."

"Of the group of prisoners carrying sand, four have died, and nine are still able to move."

The voice in the last sentence was very familiar.

It was still that one-legged Cultivator.

He was hoarser than before, but steady.

"Vice Envoy."

"The Outer Port has not been lost."

After listening, Lu Changyuan replied with only one word.

"Recorded."

The other side of the military talisman was silent for a moment.

Then someone replied: "It has been recorded."

It was not a war cry.

Nor was it a show of gratitude.

It was just that the people over there finally understood that the breath they had held on to would not be dismissed by those behind them with a mere "it was all their duty."

When the last Black Armor Cultivator in the Northern Ridge fell, the horizon was already turning white.

It wasn't fully bright.

Just a bit of bleak grey light squeezing out from the dark clouds.

Shattered shields, broken spears, corpse parts, and patches of black ice that hadn't completely melted were still floating on the sea surface.

The section of the black tide frozen by the aftermath of the jade sword was still floating ten miles away, like a low wall built of dirty snow.

The Black Army further back had completely retreated behind the fog, with only three or five shadows of black boats looming in and out of sight, no longer pressing forward.

The White Bone Armored General did not show its face again.

But no one thought this matter was over.

Everyone knew that thing had only taken a sword strike, not died.

It would come again.

Just not right now.

What Xuangui Island needed to do first was to swallow back the blood it hadn't yet swallowed.

Lu Changyuan did not let anyone pursue.

As soon as the sky brightened, the first order was to clear the lines.

The corpses at the Northern Ridge were divided into three categories.

Blue Moon Island reinforcements, Xuangui Island mixed-unit defenders, and Black Armor enemy corpses.

The Black Armor enemy corpses were to have their heads cut off first, then be piled into the outer reef trench, and sprinkled with Evil-Suppressing Sand to prevent them from turning into corpses.

The fallen on their own side were to be carried back one by one to the front of the Central Military Drill Ground.

The name tags of the dead were to be re-hung according to last night's method.

Who died on which line, who last reinforced which segment, who received medicine, who didn't, whose half-merit, full-merit, or merit for atonement—not a single stroke was to be missed.

Shi Jian was not on the island.

Then Li Heng would record it himself.

Li Heng's hand holding the pen kept trembling, but he still flipped open the ledger page by page, coughing up blood as he wrote.

"Northern Ridge, seventy-three dead."

"Outer Port, twenty-nine dead."

"Central Army Array Master team, eleven dead."

"East Shoal cavalry..."

Speaking to this point, he paused.

Lu Hu stood nearby, his voice heavy: "Nine cavalry injured, three seahorses sunk."

Li Heng lowered his head and wrote it down.

He didn't change a single word.

Chen Mo's side was even slower.

He first kowtowed three times to the Old Turtle Head Stone before letting people carry away the fallen from the Northern Ridge one by one.

The boy helped by handing over talisman papers and moving wet cloths, and in the end, unable to hold on any longer, he plopped onto the ground and fell asleep, his hands still clutching half a roll of unused talisman cloth.

When Lu Changyuan passed by, he took a look but did not wake him.

He only had people drag him to the corner of the medicine shed.

After finishing all this, he returned to the high platform.

The wound in his palm was no longer just the blade mark from pressing the formation register earlier.

After crushing the jade sword, the Golden Core Sword Intent sealed within the white jade had surged back along his Meridians, carving an even deeper gash in the web between his thumb and index finger and his palm.

The bleeding had stopped for now, but whenever he clenched his hand, it felt as if ice needles were still buried in his bone joints.

He placed the military talisman on his knees and looked down at it for a long time.

The five active lines were still lit.

But they were barely lit.

The first segment of the Northern Ridge had barely been pulled back to twenty-five percent dimness.

The line for the second pile at the Outer Port was so thin it looked like it would break with a gust of wind.

The Central Army's Spirit Stones were bottoming out.

The East Shoal cavalry could still move, but they were no longer fit to launch a second round of hard cutting.

This was not victory.

It was holding on.

That was all.

But what Xuangui Island needed most right now was precisely this "that was all."

In the afternoon, Superintendent Mu Yunshang's transmission finally connected again.

As the image lit up, the first thing seen was not her face.

It was the entire wall of battle maps behind her that were constantly changing.

Several red lines had already retreated.

But not completely.

Her voice was hoarser than the previous night, but steadier: "The news that Xuangui Island is alive has been sent into the Zhenhai Fortress."

Lu Changyuan asked very directly: "What about the main battlefield?"

"We didn't win."

Superintendent Mu Yunshang did not speak empty words either, "But we didn't collapse. The black tide held up at the Meteor Trench suddenly fell into chaos in the second half of last night. The main force at Zhenhai took advantage of this breath to reconnect half of the two broken supply lines."

She paused for a breath and added: "If Xuangui Island had truly been lost last night, this half-line could not have been reconnected."

Lu Changyuan did not respond.

He knew the weight of these words.

Superintendent Mu Yunshang looked at him, her gaze finally falling onto his hand, which was still wrapped in wet cloth: "You used your trump card."

"I used it once."

"How much is left?"

"One sword strike."

Superintendent Mu Yunshang was silent for a moment before saying: "Enough to save your life one more time."

"But next time, don't expect Xuangui Island to hold out like this again."

Lu Changyuan nodded: "I know."

"The formal garrison and replacement Array Master will arrive as early as tonight, or by dawn tomorrow at the latest."

Superintendent Mu Yunshang said, "You have less than two days left. Hand over the lines that can be handed over, settle the accounts that need to be settled, and write clearly who can be used, who cannot, who retreated last night, and who reinforced this morning."

"Xuangui Island is not yours."

"But the three days you held it will be counted as yours."

After saying this, she paused.

As if she had heard some new report.

When she spoke again, her tone for the first time carried a faint hint of softening.

"Also."

"Someone from the Command Headquarters wants to see you."

Lu Changyuan raised his eyes: "Who?"

"Your father's former subordinate."

Superintendent Mu Yunshang did not beat around the bush, "The Deputy Commander of Zhenhai Fortress, Commander Tie Zhan."

After she finished speaking, she cut the transmission.

The high platform was quiet for a moment.

Lu Hu, Li Heng, and Chen Mo were all busy below, and no one heard.

But Lu Changyuan knew that this name would not drop at this time without reason.

Xuangui Island had been held.

The accounts behind it were about to be settled.

At dusk, the dark clouds on the horizon were finally torn open by the sea breeze.

The setting sun didn't show much, only dyeing the distant sea with a layer of cold golden edges.

Just behind that golden edge, a massive warship broke through the clouds.

The bow did not bear a merchant mark.

Nor a military depot insignia.

But a large flag with a deep black background and golden scale battle patterns pressed onto it.

Before the warship arrived, its Spiritual Pressure pressed over the entire sea surface.

The people on Xuangui Island who were originally still moving corpses, repairing lines, and dismantling piles almost all looked up at the same time.

Li Heng's hand holding the pen suddenly stopped.

Lu Hu stood on the East Shoal, squinting into the distance, and cursed in a low voice: "Which big shot is this now?"

Lu Changyuan stood at the very front of the high platform.

The sea breeze blew his blood-stained hem.

The great warship drew closer and closer.

Finally, it stopped above the Outer Sea of Xuangui Island, like a sheet of iron clouds pressing down.

The formation gate on the side of the hull slowly opened.

A figure stepped through the air and descended; before landing, he looked toward Lu Changyuan on the high platform.

That gaze was deep, direct, and hard.

Like a soldier looking at a blade.

And like an old acquaintance finally seeing the person he was meant to see.