Chapter 47: THE VOICE ON THE MOUNTAIN
449 Words
Down in the valley, the battle was a maelstrom of mud, blood, and steel. General Kaelen’s smaller, more agile army was locked in a desperate struggle against the Regent’s larger, heavily armored legion. The air was thick with the screams of the dying and the crackle of cultivators’ spells.Then, the Voice came.It was not just a sound. It was a physical force. The ground shuddered. The air vibrated. The word "CEASE!" slammed into the battlefield, and every soldier, from the lowest footman to the highest-ranking commander, froze in their tracks, their swords held aloft. The sheer, overwhelming authority of the sound was undeniable. It was the voice of the mountain itself, the voice of a god.Silence fell upon the valley, a silence more profound and terrifying than the din of battle it had replaced. Every eye turned upward, toward the mist-shrouded peak of Black Tooth Mountain.The Regent, watching from his command tent, felt a surge of pure terror. This was not a part of his plan. This was an ancient, unpredictable power he had no way to control.General Kaelen, on the other hand, felt a surge of wild, vindicating hope. This was it. The sign he had been waiting for. The legend was real.High above, on the ledge, Tianlong took another breath. His next words rolled down the mountain, clear and resonant, heard by every soldier in the valley."You fight in the name of the House of Jin. Lay down your arms. The true heir to the Dragon Throne has returned. Ascend the mountain and behold."The proclamation sent a shockwave through the armies. The Regent’s soldiers looked at each other in confusion and fear. General Kaelen’s army let out a ragged, triumphant cheer.The Regent knew he had lost control. To stay and fight now would be to openly defy the voice of the mountain, an act of sacrilege that not even his most loyal troops would support. But to obey meant walking into a trap.General Kaelen acted decisively. "Lay down your arms!" he commanded his troops. "We go to greet our Princess!" His soldiers obeyed instantly, dropping their weapons in the mud.The Regent’s legion, seeing this, began to waver. Their commanders, pale and shaken, refused to give the order to attack the now-unarmed northern army. The battle was over, won not by swords, but by a single, divine command.A tense, unspoken truce was formed. Both the Regent and General Kaelen, with their personal guards and highest-ranking officers, began the slow, arduous ascent up the ancient pilgrim’s path of Black Tooth Mountain. They were no longer generals of warring armies. They were petitioners, climbing to seek an audience with a power that had just rewritten the rules of their world.
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