What's your name?

Zhang Xiao...

Haha, you have some strength, come on!

You're being hunted in Jianghu? Hahaha, we are the ones who least follow the rules of Jianghu.

One day, I will...

When Zhang Duo woke up again, he saw cold mountain rocks and Western Region shrubs with short thorns. The cold starlight spilled down, making everything ahead shimmer brilliantly.

He took a breath, and his lungs felt a stabbing pain like ice needles, instinctively holding the location of his wound.

The last clear trace of memory was that the Colonels resting in other rooms of the Divine Martial Mansion had probably noticed something amiss and formed a formation to entangle that guy. Then he probably rushed out in a daze, not even knowing where he was now.

He wasn't wearing armor either, holding tightly onto that fluttering banner.

Zhang Duo slowed his breathing, calmed his breath, and lay flat on the cold ground, his eyes gazing at the starry sky above, his whole being like a taut bowstring suddenly relaxed, not wanting to do anything, feeling aimless and powerless.

In the end, was it only him who escaped?

The pathetic outcome, how is it any different from back then?

He pressed on his wound; the injury wasn't much of a problem, but his already unstable mental state was shaken violently again. In his brain now, he didn't know how many voices were whispering unconsciously, causing piercing pain like needles.

As a Martial Artist who once stepped onto the Grandmaster Level, he was very aware of his physical condition. In his current state, even if his injuries could heal, the fragile mental state he had painstakingly maintained wouldn't last long. It would naturally collapse, and by then, he would lose himself.

The understanding of himself would merge with the reflection in the mental image world.

At that time, it would be no different than being dead.

This was the ending he foresaw twenty years ago, but now, it had come too early. Originally, this ending would arrive only after he dealt with the spirit reflection in the Divine Weapon, but now he had less than a month left.

The hopes of back then were ultimately unachievable.

The goal he had strived towards for over twenty years was shattered in an instant. Zhang Duo could no longer find a reason to continue acting, lying under the starry sky like a corpse, even feeling in his heart that ending it all like this might not be a bad option.

The next moment, such thoughts were extinguished by his heart, the resilience honed over long battles made him struggle to stand up. It wasn't out of fear of death or having a purpose, but merely the instinct to survive that dominated him as a Martial Soldier who had crawled out from a hellish battlefield.

In the distance, he could faintly hear the sounds of Martial Artists moving. He couldn't discern whether those sounds and movements came from the Colonels of the Divine Martial Mansion or the elites of the Great Wilderness Stronghold. Even if they were Colonels from the Divine Martial Mansion, it wasn't impossible that they had been followed by someone.

The man with the dense beard could likely be using others as bait to lure him out, such dirty tactics wouldn't cause him any psychological obstruction.

Along the way, he encountered search parties from the Great Wilderness Stronghold twice. Zhang Duo fought desperately, all his wounds tearing open, killing all the roadblockers in the shortest time, but this inevitable mobilization of his Qi Mechanism caused the crucial point pierced by the Dagger to rupture again, which had started healing with his Grandmaster Level physique.

Blood dripped, drop by drop, from between his fingers.

That Dagger used to ambush him was obviously not an ordinary item. After just a few moves, Zhang Duo's breathing became rapid once more, his vision darkened, and he moved forward by instinct, tripping over a stone in the night, sending his whole body tumbling forward.

With blurred vision and heavy injuries, his consciousness almost felt like it was being flung out of his body.

This impact couldn't last long.

As long as he found a place to endure that period, he could recover his original strength.

His vision began to lose light from the edges, darkening, slowly spreading to every corner of his view. After crawling forward by instinct for a long time, nearly fainting, Zhang Duo finally fell into a complete coma.

It was a rare sleep in the past twenty years, during which he almost forgot his predicament. His consciousness, like fine sand on the desert's uppermost layer, slowly sank down, and the repressed memories below churned upwards, appearing in his dreams.

Ahead seemed an endless road, the scorching temperature causing the air to warp.

He walked wearily, taking one shallow step, then another deeper one.

Unknowing of when the end would come, the time then and now seemed so similar. Everything he pursued had utterly failed, he lost his value, almost disgraced in Jianghu.

He raised his head, faintly seeing a few silhouettes ahead.

He instinctively reached out his hand towards the people ahead.

"Wait a moment..."

Zhang Duo suddenly opened his eyes.

Before him was a plain, gray room, low-ceilinged. In his sleep, he had extended his right hand. He was momentarily startled, then saw the blood on his palm had been wiped away, and there was a pungent smell of herbs on his wound.

His tense nerves finally relaxed.