Chapter 850 - 762: Dayan Sect of My Martial Lineage (2)
She returned to the Capital City to secretly investigate the matter.
It turned out that when she led her troops against Prince Li’s forces, Huangfu Yuxuan had someone imitate her handwriting, claiming she was trapped in enemy territory and requesting rescue from her master and senior brothers. Without any hesitation, Ning Yujun and the disciples embarked on a mission to rescue Xia Wenjin.
The headquarters of the Dayan Sect wasn’t in the Capital City. The sect had 1,200 disciples; even the weakest among them possessed second-rate martial arts skills in the Jianghu. In terms of status within the Jianghu, they were stronger than Haotian Village and were only slightly inferior to the four great sects.
Of course, they weren’t rescuing Xia Wenjin. Huangfu Yuxuan told them that Xia Wenjin was besieged by Prince Lu’s elite troops — Prince Lu being that Princely Heir who became Prince Lu following the original Prince Lu’s murder — and was in critical danger. They needed to break through Prince Lu’s army to rescue her, but since Prince Lu united the forces of Prince Xin and his own, they had a formidable army abundant in martial arts masters. Now, they could only rely on the strength of the Dayan Sect, hoping to rescue Xia Wenjin soon.
To save Xia Wenjin, the Dayan Sect went all out. Ning Yujun and his disciples led the entire Dayan Sect as the vanguard.
The Jianghu people were skilled in martial arts, and even though Prince Lu had summoned numerous top-tier masters, the thousand-strong team still managed to break into the core.
More than a thousand people charged into an army of a hundred thousand, as if a pebble was thrown into a lake, surrounded by water from all directions.
However, even though the people of the Dayan Sect could fight ten enemies each, what about twenty? And this was a situation where they were up against a hundred. Moreover, this was the military, with bows and arrows, arrays, and the elite martial artists that Prince Lu mustered from the Jianghu.
More importantly, as the Dayan Sect fought on, they realized they were a lone force deep within enemy lines. Huangfu Yuxuan had used them to create chaos within Prince Lu’s camp, holding back the strongest and most elite forces, thanks to which he calmly redeployed his troops and won a brilliant battle.
At that time, Huangfu Yuxuan had only forty thousand troops to fight against Prince Lu. Four thousand against ten thousand was hopeless to win — but with the help of the Dayan Sect, they achieved an unexpected small victory, enough to dampen Prince Lu’s morale. Moreover, his intention was never to have a life-and-death struggle with Prince Lu then. It was merely to use these forty thousand to restrain Prince Lu’s forces, preventing them from reinforcing Prince Li.
After one victory, they immediately withdrew, completely ignoring the Dayan Sect disciples that had constrained the martial masters and were now trapped.
The battle between Xia Wenjin and Prince Li had already reached a stalemate when Xia Wenjin spread a rumor that Prince Lu had surrendered to Huangfu Yuxuan, the Imperial Grandson, the chosen one by destiny.
Xia Wenjin fought bravely and wittingly, while Prince Li was the weakest of the princes. Originally, he had an arrangement with Prince Lu for a pincer attack on Xia Wenjin to eliminate Huangfu Yuxuan’s important ally.
But Prince Lu’s forces never showed up, and with rumors spreading, Prince Li became suspicious, and his troops lost morale. In that battle, Xia Wenjin achieved a major victory.
However, the Dayan Sect people received no aid or assistance, trapped amidst chaos. Even though the Dayan Sect members were highly skilled in martial arts, they were surrounded, attacked by volleys of arrows, and impacted by chaotic armies. The entire Dayan Sect held out for thirteen days without receiving any reinforcements. Instead, their numbers dwindled from 1,200, leaving only a pile of skeletons and bones.
In the end, fewer than ten managed to fight their way out.
In this battle, Ning Yujun suffered severe injuries, losing all his martial arts abilities. Li Haofan lost an arm, Zhang Ge was killed by an arrow through his body, Lu Hongyin was decapitated, and Mu Ziyu’s face was disfigured, with wounds all over her body.
The other Dayan Sect disciples who made it out were not lightly injured either.
What was not clear to them by then?
They had been used as mere pawns, and abandoned once they were thoroughly exploited.
When they painstakingly returned to the Capital, it was exactly when Xia Wenjin had triumphantly returned. Dressed in armor, riding on horseback, she cut a majestic and heroic figure.
They had originally gone to rescue Xia Wenjin, sacrificing the entire Dayan Sect. But Xia Wenjin had never been trapped by Prince Lu’s army. Since she hadn’t been besieged by Prince Lu, why did she ask her sect for help?
She utilized the Dayan Sect to eliminate Prince Lu’s elite Royal Army, without considering that her sect would be annihilated. The once illustrious Dayan Sect in the Jianghu was no more!
For her own victory, she exploited her sect, her master, and brothers and sisters who treated her like a daughter and sister...