The Stone King's Lover (石王的愛)

Chapter 57

A/N: death, gore?? character dying on the battlefield, blood, not being able to save someone

Xie Yi-jun

1303 years after The Long Night

Zuótiãn

<Front Lines>

In the middle of a battle, there is no time to think past any decision. There's no coming up with a few good solutions and then weighing all the odds. All that existed was a single choice, and you make it before you even pick up your sword. Xie Yi-jun had made it that morning before they'd left for the outskirts of Hêi'àn City. That choice was; survive.

With only that in his heart, the King led his men into another battle against an enemy twice their size, everybody fighting with the same choice in their hearts too.

Yi-jun had been shot down about thirty minutes ago from his horse, taking an arrow in the shoulder, but he broke it off and had been continuing on foot with Hong Zhui in his hand, until he saw the telltale cracks in the ground and the swooping of a hawk overhead that signaled Meng Bai was approaching...

Xie Yi-jun's men had done a good job of holding the line, not allowing even a single enemy soldier to cross into their territory, but they were taking heavy losses. Blood and bodies and arrows and broken swords were littered everywhere.

The King had stayed in the heat of the fighting for hours, but ran slightly East when he noticed the line was weakening there-

Not even a single one of them can be allowed to cross into Zuótiãn. From there it's a straight shot to the heart of Hêi'àn City. Today we will either hold them back or we will all be lost...

Now, after fighting off the last five or six of the insurgents trying to cross, Xie Yi-jun stared back over the expanse of desert, catching sight of a few battling nearby, and then the steadily approaching cloud of sand and smoke.

Meng Bai liked to wait to appear until much of the killing had been done. Coward-

The King saw an opening, where his men had all but been destroyed, and that was where he knew Meng Bai and the rest of them would attack from any second.

Dripping blood, sweat, filled with some chilling mixture of rage and despair, Xie Yi-jun felt himself dropping his sword, and then something inside him broke-

More like exploded...

He knew using his powers now might not yield much, as he was too exhausted to be very accurate, but nevertheless. The moment he watched the sand-cloud taking down the last of his army defending the border, Xie Yi-jun's fire shot out from deep inside his soul-

For a moment, he heard and felt nothing, only saw the wave of pure red as it collided with the cloud and the entire thing went up in flames. Flames that soared as high as the sky itself, burning deep into the sand and dividing the two territories in half.

Safe now-

That was what echoed through his head as Yi-jun fell to his knees, feeling as if he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

If I was a cat I would have just sacrificed eight of my nine lives...

His eyes dripped tears as he watched the fire burn so hot and so high that no one, not even Meng Bai was able nor willing to try to break through.