Eastern Han Dynasty, not the Three Kingdoms

The setting sun burned like blood, and the Di camp was in chaos. Gu Tu clutched the broken wolf-head battle flag, his knuckles white from straining as he listened to the distant blast of the Xiliang army's bugle calls. Three consecutive requests for surrender were rejected, and Ma Chao's harsh words, "I won't stop until my entire clan is exterminated," struck everyone like a hammer.

"Great chief! We can't wait any longer!" A leader of a small tribe suddenly pulled off his blood-stained headscarf, "The Western Liang cavalry will flatten this place tomorrow!" The tent suddenly exploded, with the sobbing of women and children and the cursing of soldiers mixed together.

At that moment, a white-haired old man stood up, leaning on a bone staff, his cloudy eyes looking westward. "Have you heard of the Zhangzhung Kingdom? Beyond the perpetually snow-capped Kunlun Mountains, there are vast grasslands and a hundred thousand elite cavalry." He paused, grabbed the jade wine cup on the table and smashed it. "Give them all the treasures you've looted over the years! Beg them to take you in. Even if you're just a pawn, it's better than dying at Ma Chao's hands!"

Gu Tu suddenly looked up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "But why would the Xiangxiong help us?" The old man sneered and pointed at the Di woman trembling outside the tent. "Beauty, gold and silver, plus warriors like us who are skilled in battle—they have no reason to refuse."

The tent suddenly fell silent, the only sound being the cold wind, whirling gravel against the curtains. The high priest's bony fingers traced the sheepskin map, finally stopping at the distant Western Regions: "Zhangzhung... Under the Blood Moon Curse, there is no way out..." His voice, mingled with the howling of wolves outside, sent a chill down everyone's spine.

The high priest's manic laughter shook the bronze bells in the tent. He tore at his bloodstained black robe, revealing the hideous "Death" tattoo on his chest: "A blood moon hangs in the sky, jackals devour themselves! Do you think you can escape genocide..." Before he could finish his words, Gu Tu grabbed a bronze wine jar and smashed it down. Amidst the flying pottery shards, several strong men lifted the high priest and dragged him out of the tent, his shrill curse still echoing in the night sky.

"Noisy!" Gu Tu kicked over the altar, and the burning sheep oil lamp made the map flicker. "Ma Chao's 100,000 cavalry have laid a tight net, taking the elderly, the weak, women and children with them to escape?" He dug his nails deep into his palm, "Only these cannon fodder are left behind!"

众首领面面相觑，终于有人颤抖着开口：&34;可...可那些族人...&34; &34;蠢货！&34;孤秃抽出弯刀劈断案角，&34;让他们死守祭坛，就说这是最后的防线！&34;他的眼中闪过阴鸷的光，&34;马超要灭族？就让这些人当替死鬼！&34;

The Gobi night wind, swirling with gravel, tore the flames on the altar, twisting them into shape. Lone Tu climbed the platform, stepping on a wolf skull, his blood-stained battle flag fluttering behind him. "My people! That scoundrel Ma Chao threatened to wipe us out completely!" He deliberately exposed the wound on his arm from an arrow, the dark red blood glaring in the firelight. "Look at this scar! If they can hurt me today, they can slaughter all your wives and children tomorrow!"

Angry roars erupted from the crowd, and warriors holding bone spears pointed their spears at the sky: "Fight with the Han people!" "Blood debt must be repaid with blood!" The old patriarch in the corner took the opportunity to raise his arms and shout: "The altar is a place blessed by the gods! As long as we hold on here, we will surely wait for a turning point!" Lies spread rapidly like a plague, and women and children held their amulets tightly, with false fighting spirit burning in their eyes.

At the same moment, the high priest, driven to the edge of the altar, suddenly erupted. His gaunt body knocked over the offered sheep skull, his bronze mask gleaming an eerie green in the moonlight. "Fool! The Zhangzhung Kingdom? That's a phantom in the quicksand!" He frantically tore at the scabbed wound on his chest, blood dripping onto the totem pole. "The stars have long foretold—there's no escape westward, only endless snow-capped mountains and floods!"

"Hold down this madman!" Lone Bald's face sank as he motioned for his trusted followers to step forward. The High Priest suddenly broke free and rushed towards the burning altar: "Listen carefully! When you enter the snowy mountains with your treasures, the snow will devour everything you have, and the cold wind will gnaw at your bones! The curse of the blood moon is beyond even the gods' control..." His words abruptly ended as he was pinned down, his eyes bulging as he continued to let out a muffled, manic laugh.

Amidst the roaring crowd, the leaders quietly retreated to the west side of the camp. They gazed at the horses laden with gold and silver, caressed the delicate skin of the women in their arms, and a greedy smile curled their lips. "Let these fools serve as shields," one leader spat. "By the time Ma Chao is entangled, we'll already be in Xiangxiong..." Before he could finish his words, the high priest's final cry echoed in the distance, piercing the night like a death knell.

Black battle flags loomed like dark clouds, the clatter of the iron hooves of a hundred thousand Xiliang cavalrymen rustling the Gobi Desert. Ma Chao, clad in blood-stained silver armor, held a withered wolf-head battle flag aloft on his tiger-headed golden spear. Wherever he passed, the Di corpses scattered among the rubble had long been devoured by vultures. The scouts reported, "Three miles ahead is the Di altar!"

"Pass the order," Ma Chao rubbed the blood scab on the spear shaft, "Leave no one alive."

Two hundred thousand Di people crowded around the altar, at the center of which stood a three-meter-tall totem pole, its skin entwined with human skin, still dripping with blood. The elderly, the weak, women, and children clutched faded amulets, while warriors gripped chipped bone blades, gazing at the dark clouds of iron cavalry swirling across the sky, growling like trapped beasts. The high priest, his white hair loose, his body smeared with cinnabar, his nails stained with rotting flesh, licked the runes on the totem pole with a bloody tongue: "A blood moon is approaching! Beneath this altar lie the spirits of eight hundred generations of ancestors, who will surely overthrow the Han people..."

The words were crushed by the deafening roar of war drums. The Xiliang cavalry, in a cone-shaped formation, tore through the defenses. The front row of crossbowmen unleashed a volley of poisoned arrows, raining down like a torrential rain. The women and children before the altar were trampled to pieces by the iron hooves before they could even utter a scream. Ma Chao led the way, his spear tip sending Di warriors who blocked his path careening away, blood splattering his stern face. "The so-called altar is nothing but a graveyard for your burial!"

"God bless you!" The remnants of Gu Tu's army rushed forward, waving flaming torches, only to be shattered by the Xiliang army's shield array. The high priest suddenly laughed wildly and leaped towards the bronze brazier atop the altar: "Behold! This fire... will burn through hell..." Flames instantly engulfed him, while below, Ma Chao's spear pierced the totem pole, and the rotten wood collapsed with a thunderous crash, crushing the last remaining faith of two hundred thousand Di people into dust.

The thunder of war drums shattered the crows circling above the altar. Two hundred thousand Di people formed a human barrier, children carried on the shoulders of women and children, and white-haired elders wielded stone axes. Atop the altar, the high priest frantically poured cinnabar into the sky. Blood mist and gunpowder smoke rose into eerie crimson clouds under the scorching sun.

The heavy crossbows of the Xiliang Iron Cavalry were the first to tear through the defenses, their arrows pouring down like a swarm of locusts. There, the burning totem pole collapsed with a loud bang, instantly engulfing thousands of the elderly, weak, women, and children gathered for prayer.

Xu Huang's Xuanhua axe severed the neck of the last Di warrior, splattering warm blood across his scarred face. The renowned ruthless general suddenly tightened his grip on the reins, his Adam's apple rolling as he gazed at a nearby baby swaddling under the crushing horse's hooves. "General... these women and children..." Before he could finish his words, Dong Huang's spear had already sent the fleeing youth flying, its blood-stained tassel frozen in the wind. The youth was still clutching half a blackened bread in his arms.

Xu Shu rode his horse to Ma Chao's side, pointing his feather fan at the altar piled with corpses. "My king, if we slaughter everyone here, who will farm and graze this land in the future? These women and children..." His voice was drowned out by the cries of the people. An old Di woman trembled and crawled towards Ma Chao, her withered hand still clutching a faded amulet. "Spare... the children..."

"No!" Jia Xu strode forward, waving his black feather fan, his wide golden sleeves sweeping across the blood-spattered saddle. "Midang of the Eastern Qiang and Huchuquan of the Xiongnu are now seeking revenge in Xiliang!" He deliberately raised his voice, adding a chill to the murderous atmosphere on the battlefield. "Mercy is a betrayal of the dead!"

Ma Chao's golden tiger-head spear slammed heavily into the ground, sending up a splatter of blood that obscured the tiger-eye pattern on the spear. In the distance, the last Di children cried out amidst the flames, their voices echoing the pleas of the people as they set out to battle. He thought of the skinned children at Qingshi Gorge and the pregnant women disemboweled at Baicao Beach. His knuckles suddenly clenched around the hilt of his sword, and cold sweat seeped through the crevices of his armor. "Pass the order—don't spare a single life!"

The setting sun dyed the Gobi Desert a thick bloody red. Two hundred thousand corpses lay piled high in a heap, and blood flowed in crimson streams in the lowlands. As the Western Liang army trod on the mountains of corpses and seas of blood to survey the battlefield, one soldier was horrified to discover that Gu Tu and the other leaders were nowhere to be seen.

"Report! All the tents and tunnels have been searched, and there is no trace of the enemy chief!" The scout knelt on one knee, with pieces of flesh still stuck in the cracks of his armor. Xu Huang kicked aside the remains of a burning felt tent and looked at the treasure boxes scattered on the ground. Suddenly, he grabbed a captured Di old man and said, "Where did your chief escape to? Tell me!"

The old man spat out bloody teeth, revealing his broken gums in a sneer: "While you were slaughtering unarmed women and children here, our warriors had already taken their hope and fled far away."

Amidst the ruins of the altar, several soldiers dragged the blood-stained high priest before Ma Chao. The old man's bronze mask had long since shattered, and half the tattoos on his face were covered in blood scabs.

"Mighty General..." The high priest suddenly fell to the ground and kowtowed, his withered forehead banging against the blood-stained gravel. "It was that jackal, Gutu, who deceived our people! He used lies to drive women and children to their deaths, while he himself fled westward with the bandit leaders and their wealth!" He suddenly looked up, his cloudy eyes swirling with madness and resentment. "Those traitors who betrayed the gods... led a cavalry loaded with Han treasures and headed towards Yalu Zangbu!"

"Yarung Zangbu?" Ma Chao's spear tip lifted the old man's messy white hair, and his black cloak rustled in the wind. "What kind of place is that? Are they trying to hide from pursuers here?" The high priest suddenly let out a shrill laugh, causing the soldiers to subconsciously step back. "Desperate situation? For them, it's a way out! Legend has it that the Zhangzhung Royal Court is there. All they need is to sacrifice those evil spirits in human skin..." His voice trailed off, and a gurgling sound escaped his throat. "Kill me... Let me go to the underworld and watch those bastards be annihilated by the God of War, atonement for the sins of millions of Di people."

Ma Chao released his grip, and the high priest collapsed in a pool of blood, still muttering curses. From afar, Xu Shu called out, "General, the pursuers are ready to march!" He gazed at the gathering dusk in the west and fiercely threw his blood-stained banner into the air: "Pass the order down, the light cavalry must remain mounted for three days! Even if we catch up to the so-called Yalu Zangbu, we must string the heads of these beasts together as sacrificial banners!" The wind and sand blew up the high priest's tattered black robe, revealing the claw-ripped "death" totem on his chest, as if foreshadowing the end of this escape.