Chapter [B4] 21 — Gratitude
Battle raged amongst the fourth peak with a renewed vigor. Men cheered and roared as they poured over the demon armies, cultivators swept across, mystic arts exploding with power while mortal men and women rose to the occasions, firing with their rifles and using the new supply of healing pills to take care of the injured in the camps.
Lord Zhou watched all of this happening from the skies. In his long life, he’d had to face against demons many times, and there had even been time when there had been battles and armies against other lords. He’d seen many conflicts, many wars, they were never good things. To the men and women who fought in these wars, they were simply being told to risk their lives for the battle between lords that likely did not even know their names, and would not care for a moment should they perish.
That was the weight that war carried. The death of innocent men and women, the death of people who had no stakes in the war being fought, a terrible thing.
And yet… right now he saw something else entirely. He saw rallying cries from the soldiers, he saw them carrying each other, fighting side by side, and he saw the fury. The fury of their homes being invaded, the fury of these creatures trampling on all they loved, the fury to come for their way of life.
In just a few days, the fourth peak had come alive. From the edge of defeat they had been given a chance and he saw the despair give way to something else, something far more powerful that made his own heart pulse with vigor and strength.
They’d been given a miracle. And the winds of the battle had decidedly began to turn.
It made him itch to kill some demons with his own hands. To unleash that fury building inside of him, to let it find a target and burn them to ashes, smother their very souls and leave no trace of them behind.
He was far too controlled to let such rage control him, but it was there, burning in the background. It had been far too long since he’d let himself lose, far too long that he’d been Lord, but before being a Lord, he had been a warrior, and that warrior wanted to be let lose.
But now was not his time, and this was not his domain, and so he simply watched the battle continue.