Volume Five: Ancient Legends - Chapter 58: After the Battle

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In the aftermath of the war, Chen Chen and his companions set about cleaning up the village.
Following that, they ascended to the Misty Sect to restore order to the grounds.
The Misty Sect had suffered no casualties and sustained no losses.
It was as though everything had merely been a play; without superfluous explanation, a battle had simply, objectively occurred.
Driving away a few minor demons and spirits, Chen Chen and the others successfully reclaimed their territory.

Considered among the few who had survived this harrowing ordeal, Chen Chen knew that far beyond the Breeze Tribe, the tribe led by the Yellow Emperor was still embroiled in war.
The grand army of advancing fierce beasts and the forces of the Yellow Emperor's tribe were still locked in fierce combat.
Chen Chen was too far from that theater of war, for it seemed that great distances always separated tribe from tribe.
An ordinary person might have to travel for a very long time to reach that place.
Traversing tribal territories was the privilege of the mighty; whenever they so desired, a single magical treasure summoned forth would place thousands of mountains and rivers beneath their feet.

Chen Chen had heard that when the three combined armies—the Yellow Emperor's Tribe, the Big Dipper Tribe, and the Lesser Dipper Tribe—arrived, even the heaven-shaking great demons were struck with terror.
Moreover, within those three armies were the elite warriors of each tribe.
Chen Qingfeng, a Ninth-Grade Immortal King of the Breeze Tribe, was stationed right there, though among that grand host, he served merely as a common soldier.
The Sovereign of the Great Cultivation Nation possessed unfathomable strength, and only beings like them truly understood how deep the waters ran on this continent.
They alone knew how long-laid the schemes of the Third Cultivation Star had been.

In even more distant realms, sovereign states were reorganizing order, striving to regain the capacity for survival.
The shamans of the Great Shaman Nation chanted incantations while grasping their shamanic staves, for those lands were likewise the cradles of the mighty.
Countless undercurrents and dubious maneuvers permeated the Magic Alliance, and everything remained shrouded in the unknown.

The titanic battle within the Yellow Emperor's territory ultimately concluded when the Yellow Emperor's tribal army, allied with two other tribes, formed a tripartite encirclement before the tribal city, repelling wave after wave of assaults from the beast army.
While the beast army was capable of establishing a certain degree of dominance within the Breeze Tribe, conquering settlements and departing victoriously, and could still hold their own against the Jiuli, they proved no match when faced with the combined forces of the three major tribes. Outmatched by numerous Immortal Kings, they retreated into the shadows filled with lingering resentment.

In that clash, both sides had deployed their most formidable commanders.
Among the beast host, the candle-dragon Zhulong Jiuyin orchestrated the war from behind the scenes, while the phantom serpent of the demon race boasted a cultivation spanning an unfathomable expanse of years.
Beast fierce-lords such as Qiongqi, Taotie, and the nine-headed Zhangliu served as the unyielding backbone of the demonic forces.

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The Yellow Emperor's tribe and its two allies likewise dispatched numerous Immortal Kings.
As the saying goes, beneath the realm of Saints, all are mere ants; both sides had no choice but to field their absolute strongest lineups to avoid suffering a thorough and devastating defeat.
Rallying the morale of their troops, the Yellow Emperor's tribe utilized superior numbers to overcome scarcity and greater strength to subdue the weak, successfully holding the phantom serpent at bay.
Both factions harbored ultimate techniques, withholding them while plotting and watching for an opportunity to deliver a fatal blow.

The various Star Sovereigns of the Big Dipper Tribe manifested with formidable might in the mortal realm, invoking the power of their destiny stars to come within a hair's breadth of crippling the Taotie.
The Immortal Kings of the Lesser Dipper Tribe chanted incantations, initiating a grand momentum that channeled the power of the constellations; so terrifying was the pressure that the normally bloodthirsty Qiongqi abandoned its feast upon the battlefield ghosts, wheeled around, and fled in frantic panic.

The final showdown of the battlefield took place between the current Sovereign of the Yellow Emperor's Tribe and Zhulong Jiuyin, the candle-dragon of the beast army.
There was no physical clash of weapons or direct combat between the two leaders; instead, through meticulous strategic positioning in this grand game of deployment, each sought to outmaneuver and eliminate the other's chief commanders.

Ultimately, human calculations cannot outmatch the designs of heaven. No matter how towering one's personal power and influence might be, one could never stand against the collective will of all living beings.
No matter how one sought to govern the masses, human life could never be treated as mere blades of grass.
Both sides maintained a tacit understanding, continuing their eternal cycle of mutual predation.
When humans grew hungry, they consumed the beasts; when beasts grew hungry, they too craved the flesh of men.
This mutual devouring had persisted for countless years—the Taotie, for instance, was a beast that simply relished the taste of humans.
Similarly, humanity had proliferated for ages, its numbers so vast that if panic ever struck, the possibility of consuming all beasts to extinction was far from unthinkable.

At last, the great war between humanity and the beasts drew to a close.
This predestined centennial conflict finally reached its classic climax as the beast army's offensive—surging at first, flagging upon the second breath, and exhausted by the third—came to a halt.
With the three armies united, the human forces resisted wave after wave of assault, successfully defending both the battlefield and their cities.

Safe within the Breeze Tribe, Chen Chen heard the triumphant reports echoing from the greater human territories. He felt a profound sense of surviving a catastrophe, coupled with the sweet taste of a victory surpassing bygone eras.
Chen Chen was striving to grow, marking every day with progress and every moment with challenge.
The boundary steelets erected during that great war seemed as though they had been driven into the earth since primeval antiquity, scattered across every tribe and nation to proclaim the might of mankind.

Even immortals bore the character for "human" within their title; upon the platform of the Breeze Continent, they shouldered an even greater mission.
For the Breeze Tribe, for the Great Cultivation Nation, and for the entire Breeze Continent, perhaps they were truly the stalwart pillars dedicated to escorting and guarding this world.
Through each step of his growth, Chen Chen would eventually walk toward their ranks, walking toward greater power and stepping onto the stage of inter-dimensional contention.

Brawls could resolve nothing, yet martial might remained one of the fundamental tools for survival.
Passing oneself off as capable through deception was an unseemly way to live, and Chen Chen had no desire to act with such shamelessness.

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He practiced diligently every day to ensure that when the moment came to strike, he would actually possess the moves to execute.
In this year, Chen Chen had reached his twentieth spring and autumn, growing increasingly robust within the Misty Sect.
He was no longer like the greenhorn who had first entered the mountain gates, knowing nothing and repeatedly questioning the senior immortals.
He was no longer idle, merely sitting about while awaiting assignments and placements.
He was no longer a rootless wanderer without family, friends, or a sense of belonging—just another ordinary mortal born into the mortal realm.

He was an inner-disciple of the ethereal Misty Sect, and a renowned hunter within the Breeze Tribe.
His father had been a veteran hunter, and Chen Chen had inherited his trade, frequently bringing down game in the wilderness and sharing the bounty with his fellow tribesmen for everyone to enjoy together.
At times, he would also cure portions of the meat into jerky, sealing them away to be consumed slowly over time.

Chen Chen was also an aspirant yearning to become an immortal. Hunting required formidable strength; should one encounter a beast of too many years of cultivation, defeat meant a tragic demise in the desolate northwest.
He needed immense courage to face his prey, and since hunting had become his bounden duty, he was determined to master it first.
As time flowed onward, Chen Chen drifted back into the rhythms of tribal life.

That immortal mountain of the Misty Sect faded gradually into the distance, for even in his pursuit of immortality, he harbored his own unique Dao.
To wait endlessly atop the Misty Sect was ultimately nothing more than cowering and passively enduring existence.
Taking that first step upon the path of cultivation meant seeking immortality solely to strengthen oneself.
To study the Dao was to comprehend the myriad great principles of the world, and crossing swords with fellow seekers was a certainty that would arrive in time.
To cultivate the self meant navigating the razor-thin margin between righteousness and wickedness; in a complex world, a mere bit of self-cultivation and refinement was never enough.

A cultivator, through countless epiphanies, would one day step upon the stage of history to welcome their predestined final battle.
By then, both parties would have walked together along their respective paths of growth, arriving precisely at the moment your secret martial manual reached its breakthrough while my peerless divine art achieved perfection.
Everyone trained to absolute perfection, and during that stage brimming with confidence, they would truly comprehend the profound meaning of mortal existence.

Fists and palms would clash in yet another stance, exchanging blow for counter-blow in a dance of technique.
With dragon-flying and phoenix-dancing valor, they would strive once more from the hundred-foot pole to scale even greater heights.

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