The Battlefield of Ghosts and Gods

That day, the beacons on the city wall burst into flame,
rolling clouds of black smoke spiraling upward,
mixing with the fog until the sky turned the color of ash.

The blood spurting from broken necks bloomed like red spider lilies—
gorgeous, poisonous, fleeting—
flowering across this infernal battlefield.

I rode upon a Ghostman steed, charging through the gates.
With every thunderous step, the ground cracked beneath its feet.

“Bai Xi,” Tu Xin said, his voice carrying in the wind,
“Enjoy yourself.”

He had given me hundreds of thousands of soldiers,
for no reason other than to let me “enjoy” the battle.
To him, humans were nothing more than ants.
This was no longer the merciful immortal I once remembered.

The gates flung open.
War drums thundered.
And what greeted me—
was a storm of arrows raining from the sky.

Silver arrows.
They cut through the wind, piercing the flesh of the Ghostmen around me.
Their bodies were impervious to iron,
but fragile before silver’s soft gleam.

I sat astride a four-meter-tall Ghostman,
and through the rain I saw Qin An—
riding hard upon his black horse,
his black iron sword flashing through the mist.

Each swing took a head.
Where he rode, Ghostmen fell like wheat before the scythe.

The ones around me began to tremble.
Their tongues stumbled over broken syllables—

“The Hellfire Asura…”

That was Qin An’s name once—
The Hellfire Asura.

He had slaughtered a hundred thousand Ghostfolk in the old war.
And now, he would kill the last of them all.

The Ghostman beneath me had lost its will to fight.
I didn’t bother forcing it.
I stepped off its skull,
kicked into the air,
and soared straight toward Qin An.

I caught a broken sword from the ground as I flew,
and slashed.

He leapt from his horse, meeting me midair.
Two blades collided,
screeching like thunder.
The black sword flared with a deadly light—
and a crushing force slammed into me.

I was thrown back, spitting blood,
and hit the earth hard.

Qin An charged,
and the battlefield parted before him.
He reached me in a few strides,
grabbed my collar,
and ripped off my helmet.

My hair spilled loose, wild in the wind.
The cold edge of his black sword pressed against my throat.
And his voice broke, raw with fury—

“Bai Xi!
You killed my parents.
I’ll avenge them today!”

My eyelids grew heavy.
Something deep inside me began to stir—
a second heartbeat,
something clawing to break free.

I smiled faintly.

“Then kill me.
It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I lifted my chin, baring my neck.

The sword trembled against my skin.
I could feel his hands shaking.
The blade traced the hollow of my throat,
cutting a shallow line—
beads of blood blooming upon the edge.

Time froze.

Then—he dropped the sword.
His hands clutched my shoulders instead,
his voice breaking apart.

“You think I don’t dare kill you?
You only survive because I still love you!”

Lightning split the sky.
He bent forward—
and bit into my neck.

His teeth tore through skin like knives,
ripping away a piece of flesh.

And yet—
I felt no pain.

A strange force pulled at me,
ripping my spirit from my body.
I was cast adrift in a void,
watching everything from above—
an unwilling witness to my own body.

I saw myself in Qin An’s arms,
his mouth pressed against mine in a desperate, fevered kiss.

All around us, men were dying.
Three soldiers wrestled with a Ghostman,
its body full of holes,
a silver arrow lodged in its skull.
The creature caught one man by the legs—
and tore him in half.

Behind them, the city walls burned.
Tu Xin stood among the smoke,
expressionless.
His green robes whipped in the wind.
Then he leapt—
from the wall,
a fall of several dozen meters,
landing before Qin An like a thunderbolt.

“Let her go.”

He raised his hand.
The world split.
Thunder crashed—
the ground ruptured.

Qin An was thrown back,
and my body lay unconscious upon the bloodied ground.

Tu Xin gathered me into his arms
and turned back toward the city.

A few soldiers charged him—
but before they could swing their blades,
their bodies shattered into fragments.

He pressed one palm against the city gate.
Stone turned to dust.
The wind carried it away.

All creation trembled beneath his power.

Then, a pull—
a dark gravity—
dragged me downward.
Countless invisible hands tore at me,
dragging me back into flesh.

With a gasp, I woke.

Tu Xin’s face hovered above me, twisted with anger.

“Qiao Qiao!
Where is the skin mask I made for you?
Why didn’t you wear it?
And the black iron chains—
without my key, how did you break them?
You are mine!
Why did you kiss Qin An?”

Gu Yi…
Gu Yi…
Was that you inside him?

This war began absurdly,
and ended even more absurdly.

No victor.
No conclusion.

Of the hundred Ghostmen, only forty remained.
Thousands of soldiers dead.
Qin An’s forces no better—
Tu Xin’s thunder had torn the battlefield to pieces.
Lightning pits burned across the plain,
men turned to ash where they stood.

Qin An’s soldiers dragged him away half-dead.
When the smoke cleared,
only charred corpses remained.

Tu Xin was furious.
For the first time,
his mask cracked—
and I saw the cruelty beneath.

“Bai Xi,” he said coldly,
“If you weren’t still useful,
I’d kill you myself.”

He left after that.
I lay in bed for days, healing.

My neck still bore the wound where Qin An had bitten me,
a strip of flesh torn away.
And again,
I had felt my soul forced from my body.

Now I was sure—
Bai Xi was not gone.
Even though we had merged,
she was still there,
hiding inside me like a coiled serpent.

And Tu Xin—
he was the same.
He might have devoured Gu Yi’s spirit,
but the one who had held me that day,
the one who said my name—
was not Tu Xin.

It was Gu Yi.
Only Gu Yi ever called me Qiao Qiao.

Word came from the front—
after the battle, Qin An had fallen gravely ill.
He had watched his parents die before his eyes,
his soldiers burn alive,
and suffered my every cruel word.
That he still breathed was a miracle.

They said military affairs were now handled
by a stranger—
the same man who had devised the silver arrows
that could kill Ghostmen.
He was bedridden,
barely able to move.

When Tu Xin heard this, he smiled faintly.

“Zhuo Hua…
Let’s see how long you last.
The poison may not kill an immortal,
but it will ruin half his life.”

Two days later,
a storm tore through the heavens.
A red thunderbolt split the clouds
and struck Zhuo Hua’s tent.

He vanished before the eyes of all,
leaving nothing but blackened ground.
Every tree and blade of grass within a hundred paces
was torn apart by the blast—
and yet no mortal nearby was harmed.

Though Zhuo Hua was gone,
he left behind a formation—
a battle array.

They followed its markings,
and found it powerful beyond compare.
Tu Xin sent the remaining forty Ghostmen to destroy it.
None returned.
All were torn to pieces outside the array.

Tu Xin looked down upon the dismembered corpses,
and muttered,

“The Killing Array.”

It was Zhuo Hua’s ultimate formation,
lethal beyond measure.
Even immortals would struggle to break through—
let alone Ghostmen.

Tu Xin smiled thinly.
Then turned his cold eyes on me.

“Tomorrow,” he said,
“you will break the Killing Array.”