Feeling the ground shake, Zhou Fan stood up and prepared himself. He grabbed Yipeng and jogged to the city walls.
Of course, his jogging was many times faster than anyone else's running.
On his way, he didn't see a single resident. It seemed that they had retreated to a safer area.
When he made it to the city walls, they were lined with catapults and ballistas. Zhou Fan went up there, unstopped, and laid his eyes on the scene before him. From the distance, an army came. Once again, they looked like nothing but black dots.
After looking for a while, Zhou Fan counted 10 million enemy troops! Directly across from them, stood another 10 million troops. At that moment, drums started playing within the army and Zhou Fan heard the empire's war song for the first time. Not long after, the enemies played their war song.
Both sides started marching forward and before long, they clashed!
Almost instantly, the armies merged together and fought to the death. Before a minute had passed, Zhou Fan estimated that 100,00 had died. The ground started to turn red and it seemed as though there was a river of blood.
Many soldiers cried out, injured in the battle. Many more were already dead. Witnessing the horror of war, Zhou Fan felt fear. Never before did he imagine he would see such a terrible scene. Catapults would crush people into meat paste while ballistas would pierce them through.
Zhou Fan didn't feel fear from the power demonstrated. Instead, he felt fear at the cruelty and evilness of humanity. Every single soldier who fell had a life story. 20, 30, and even 40 years of life, only to die in a single moment.
However, Zhou Fan was astonished to see not a hint of fear on most of the soldiers. Even in their dying breaths, they tried to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. On one side, a man who had one of his arms cut off and was bleeding out on the ground grabbed the ankle of one of the enemies, allowing another soldier to kill the man. On the other side, a battered and bloody man bit the flesh off of the enemy who had pierced him with a sword.
After 10 minutes had passed, Zhou Fan had started to build up a resistance to these deaths. Millions had died as Zhou Fan stood frozen, watching. At first, he had planned to make a move. Perhaps a fireball that would burn the enemy to ashes, or a giant wave that would drown them. However now, he simply stood there, watching. As time passed, he felt enlightened. As if he had understood the meaning of life.
Seeing the endless slaughter, he had realized that both sides were fighting equally. Without their insignias on their armor, you couldn't tell who was who. Zhou Fan realized that he didn't want to make a move. He held no allegiance to the boundless empire. He held no hate towards the truth empire.
In fact, the only reason they were fighting is because they were ordered to. They believed that dying for their emperor was an honorable death. So much so that they continued to fight even in their last breath. In a way, it was an honorable death. If they didn't fight, the truth empire would kill their loved ones. However, the cause of the war wasn't so noble. It was simply because the kings and emperors of each side didn't like each other.
Still watching the war, Zhou Fan's indifference grew and grew. After 30 minutes, Zhou Fan simply didn't care. He couldn't explain why. He saw these people give up their lives and futures with their loved ones. He understood that many would be left without fathers or sons. But he just couldn't feel any sadness. He couldn't relate.
He had never felt a love so strong that he would die for it, nor an allegiance so honorable he would sacrifice himself.
'Is this the path of a cultivator? To grow beyond mortal worries or affairs? To become the one above all beings?'
Then, Zhou Fan raised his hand towards the sky. Because of the war, not a single person noticed his movement. He felt he had reached enlightenment. A new idea came to his head.
At his command, the clouds started moving in. Before a minute had passed, a giant stormcloud appeared above the battlefield. Zhou Fan shot a green light out of his fingers into the cloud. The green light was very similar to the green light he had created to heal Xiaolong. However, there was a difference. When he created the green light before, it was based on trial and error. He kept trying different combinations until something worked 'good enough'.
This time, he felt as if he truly understood what he was doing. Instead of calling the green light healing Qi. It was much more accurate to call it life Qi.
When the green light disappeared into the clouds, rain began to fall. At first, no one paid it any attention. However, they quickly noticed that their injuries were visibly healing. The bodies on the ground also seemed to be healing! It was almost as if they would come back to life. Unfortunately, they wouldn't. Although Zhou Fans epiphany was incredible, it wasn't bring back the dead incredible.
Although he could heal their bodies, their soul was gone forever. After both sides realized the rain was healing them. The battle stopped. Yelling men stopped yelling, commanders stopped commanding, and soldiers stopped fighting. Soon, clanking could be heard on the ground. Many soldiers had dropped their weapons while looking at the sky. Many even started to unintentionaly cry.
After another minute, people started to fall on their knees. They looked at the battlefield around them and cried. Even the most battle hardened and emotionless men were not spared.
At some point, a man uttered out a word. 'God'. A word that none had used before, yet felt so correct to use. As if it was an infectious disease, the word god started to pour out of many peoples mouths.
Like that, the war was over. Looking from afar, Zhou Fan indifferently turned away and walked back to the courtyard.