Chapter 159 - 54: With the Token in Hand, I Command the World
"This is Lord Senkō Byōei's sword and topknot."
Hidan humbly presented the two items to the daimyo of the Land of Wind, his face full of sorrow.
"Sigh!"
Jinghang sighed softly beside him, his expression like that of someone who had just lost a father-in-law—not too indifferent, yet not overly sorrowful, perfectly balanced.
"Two thousand samurai... all... all gone."
In the luxurious suite of the Crystal Palace, the daimyo of the Land of Wind clutched the leather sofa so tightly that it was nearly torn apart. His mouth was agape, almost wide enough to swallow an egg whole. His face was pale, and shock and terror were almost overflowing.
Counting the eight hundred samurai lost at the Diegeng Pass, the daimyo's four thousand elite troops had been reduced by two thousand eight hundred. For such a large country to have only a thousand samurai left to defend it was an unprecedentedly fragile "national defense" force since the founding of the Land of Wind.
On the ninth day of the samurai expedition being besieged by sand bandits, Hidan quietly infiltrated Biancheng Station and discovered that Senkō Byōei was organizing all the samurai for a suicide attack.
"You can see the situation now; we are in a deadlock. The stored water is almost gone, and continuing to hold out is meaningless. If we flee, we will inevitably be pursued by the sand bandits and eventually die in this vast desert.
Since we cannot hold, nor can we flee, we might as well charge out and kill as many sand bandits as possible to ease the pressure for future samurai expeditions.
The responsibility for this defeat lies with me. I will lead the charge, repaying the daimyo of the Land of Wind with my death. If any of you are unwilling, you need not participate; I will not force you."