Chapter 104: Too Large To Surrender
Enough of the blockage in the canal was cleared for the ship to continue. My progress would not be halted, no matter what. The more time I seemed to have, the more it seemed to so easily slip through my fingers.
Armies marched up both sides of the canal. The army on the Leaf Empire’s side was much smaller, only being used to organize forces on that side of the canal to go to the other, where the army advanced in pace with my ship, securing the fortresses and towns behind them. These soldiers helped remove blockages from the canal and ensure my ship wasn’t attacked as it sailed over the water bridge between the two seas.
After breaking the initial resistance, the Wood Empire was moving to regroup ahead of us. The massacre had unsettled me. While I was willing to fight quite a bit, killing so many helpless people left a bad taste in my mouth that wasn’t easily washed away.
I had been hitting up for so long, that I was unused to being in a position of absolute power, where life and death were so easy to decide. While these people might look different from me, they were no beasts. There were no easy answers, except the answer I had learned from my long experience with cultivators, that might makes right. There was a knock a on my cabin door.
“Enter,” I called out.
“Senior Yuan Zhou, there are reports that the enemy forces are mobilizing in large numbers ahead of our position. At around the halfway point along the canal,” Vice Leader Tan explained with a bowed head. I had considered taking up the mantle of Sect Leader, but that title had connotations I did not wish to take on.
The cultivators who were traveling with me, were under my protection, but ultimately they could leave whenever they wished. This was a journey to the center of the Great World, one I would undertake on my own if needed. Having to care and worry for these people as a Sect Leader would only hold me back with more attachments. My mind drifted to a colored portrait made from long ago.
The silence stretched out as I knew what would be needed. “Senior?” Vice Leader Tan hesitantly asked.
“I am thinking about many things. How large is the force arrayed against us?” I asked.