DLERB -Chapter 94 Is That… a Person in the Sky?!

The wind howled past their ears.

Xiang Liang lay flat on his horse, gasping for breath.

He didn’t dare look back.

The killing cries behind him seemed to be fading.

“Lord!” Fan Zeng’s voice was hoarse, as if scraped by sandpaper.

“We… we’ve shaken them off!”

Xiang Liang lifted his head.

He looked around.

Of the 300,000-strong army that had set out, only a few hundred personal guards remained at his side.

Every one of them looked as if they had been dragged out of a blood pool.

Their faces were smeared with blood and mud—indistinguishable from one another.

But what dominated them most was fear.

The fear of surviving a massacre.

A guard reined in his horse, his voice trembling.

“Those monsters… they didn’t follow.”

Another guard slid off his horse and collapsed onto the ground.

“My god…”

“What the hell were those things…”

Xiang Liang’s chest rose and fell violently. He thought of that iron wall that crushed everything in its path.

He thought of that young figure who had stomped Xiang Tian’s head into pieces in a single step.

Ying Zheng!

That tyrant who should have already been frail and dying!

Why had he become like that?

Sorcery!

It must be Qin’s sorcery!

“Lord, we must go!” Fan Zeng yanked hard on Xiang Liang’s reins.

“It’s not safe here!”

Xiang Liang jolted back to his senses and gripped the reins again.

Right—leave!

They had to leave!

He lashed the horse’s rump again.

“Move!”

The group continued fleeing madly toward the southeast.

No one knew how long they ran.

The horses were foaming at the mouth.

The men were on the verge of collapse.

Just then—

“Water!”

A sharp-eyed guard pointed ahead, his voice filled with sudden joy.

“My lord! Look! Water!”

Xiang Liang struggled to lift his head.

He followed the direction of the man’s finger.

At the far end of the horizon—

A shimmering expanse appeared.

Like shattered gold under the setting sun.

“Wu River…”

Xiang Liang’s lips began to tremble.

He saw it clearly.

It was the Wu River!

A wide, familiar river stretching across the land!

“Hahaha…”

He suddenly burst into laughter, manic and unrestrained.

“It’s the Wu River!”

“Heaven has not abandoned me! Heaven has not abandoned the Chu!”

The guards around him also erupted in cheers of survival.

“We’re saved!”

“We’re saved!”

Everyone spurred their horses desperately toward that water—toward life itself.

Hope rekindled in every heart.

At that moment—

A massive shadow descended from the sky.

Silent.

It covered them completely.

The guard leading the charge felt the light dim abruptly.

He subconsciously looked up.

And the joy on his face vanished instantly.

He raised a trembling hand toward the sky.

“W-what… what is that?”

The others also stopped.

All of them looked up.

Above their heads—

Dozens of enormous black shadows were circling.

They had massive wings, unmoving, yet somehow riding the wind in steady glide.

Like silent beasts from hell.

“Birds?”

“S-so big… birds!”

A soldier muttered in disbelief.

Fan Zeng’s pupils contracted violently.

No.

Those weren’t birds.

He saw it clearly now.

On those enormous black wings—there was a pattern.

A ferocious black-water dragon insignia.

“Qin soldiers!” Fan Zeng screamed, his voice no longer human.

“It’s Qin sorcery!”

The moment the words fell—

The “giant birds” in the sky moved.

Black dots detached from their bellies.

They began falling straight toward them.

“Careful!”

Xiang Liang instinctively raised his arm to shield his head.

“Bang!”

A ceramic jar landed not far in front of his horse.

They shattered on impact.

“Pa! Pa! Pa!”

Dozens of ceramic jars crashed to the ground one after another.

No explosions.

No arrows.

Only a thick, black, viscous liquid splashed out from the broken jars.

It drenched them—covering bodies and ground alike.

A pungent stench spread rapidly through the air.

What… was this?

Everyone froze.

The next moment—

Countless tiny sparks fell from the sky.

Like fireflies drifting down across the heavens.

They landed on the black liquid.

“BOOM——!!!!”

A dragon of fire erupted from the ground!

Flames shot up several meters high in an instant.

Forming an impassable, burning wall!

“AAAAH——!!!”

A personal guard splashed by the black liquid instantly turned into a human torch.

He screamed and rolled madly on the ground.

Useless.

The flames clung to him like maggots on bone—impossible to extinguish.

Within a few breaths, he was reduced to a charred corpse.

Scorching waves of heat surged forward.

The fire had sealed off every path to the Wu River ferry.

The river was right there.

Yet it had become an unreachable chasm.

Hope, just as it had been born, was burned to ashes in an instant.

A Chu soldier stared at the blazing wall.

Then at the black “monstrous birds” circling in the sky.

He dropped his weapon.

Thud.

He fell to his knees.

“Gods…”

He kowtowed frantically toward the sky.

“The gods are angry!”

“Spare us! Please spare us!”

His mind completely collapsed.

Not just him.

One by one, the soldiers around him threw down their weapons.

They knelt.

They bowed toward the sky in desperation and fear.

In their understanding—

How could humans fly in the sky?

If this wasn’t divine power, then what was it?

If this wasn’t sorcery, then what was it?

They had offended the gods.

They deserved death.

Xiang Liang watched all this, his body swaying violently as if he might fall from his horse at any moment.

It was over.

Morale.

Willpower.

All gone.

Just then—

Whoosh!

A sharp tearing sound cut through the air above.

The flag bearer beside Xiang Liang—holding the banner of the Xiang clan—suddenly stiffened.

An arrow bolt had pierced through his forehead.

His expression still held confusion and despair.

His body fell straight backward.

Clang.

The great banner of the Xiang clan fell into the dust.

It caught fire.

Burning.

Xiang Liang jerked his head upward.

On the largest “monstrous bird” in the sky—

A cold-faced man in flying fish uniform slowly lowered a heavy crossbow.

Qinglong.

The “monstrous birds” in the sky began to descend.

They glided on the wind in smooth, controlled arcs.

Landing precisely in the empty ground between the fire wall and the Wu River ferry.

Sealing off the last remaining path of escape completely.

Dozens of Embroidered Uniform Guard soldiers unfastened their harnesses and jumped down from the gliders.

They drew their embroidered sabers.

Forming a silent line of death.

At their front, Qinglong walked step by step toward Xiang Liang, illuminated by the firelight.

His face carried no expression at all.

Each footstep seemed to land directly on everyone’s hearts.

Xiang Liang looked at him.

Then at the towering wall of fire behind him.

He no longer had any thought of escape.

He gave a miserable laugh.

“Hahaha… hahaha…”

“Flying technique… flying technique…”

“Ying Zheng… Ying Zheng…”

“I, Xiang Liang… lose without regret!”

He slowly drew his sword.

The treasured blade that symbolized the honor of Chu.

He placed it across his neck.

“The sons of the Xiang clan would rather die than surrender!”

He prepared to end his life and preserve his final dignity.

Just as he was about to apply force—

A clear, playful child’s voice drifted from the distance.

“Wait.”

A four-wheeled carriage approached unhurriedly.

It stopped outside the fire wall.

The curtain lifted.

Ying Ziye’s young, delicate face peeked out.

Looking at the despairing Xiang Liang, he smiled innocently and brightly.

“Old man, before you die…”

“Don’t you want to know something?”

“That letter you received back then—saying my father emperor was about to die…”

“Who exactly wrote it?”