Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

On Chang Baishan's sallow face, his brows were still furrowed in a coma, as if he was enduring endless pain.

Liu Yueli's body was stiff under the blanket, and the blue-gray mark on the back of her shoulder was suppressed by the golden needle. The dead silence revealed a heart-pounding evil.

His gaze finally fell on the piece of iron with animal patterns that had been copied by Ying Qi and was lying quietly on the frozen soil.

The twisted lines, soaked in blood, were like a venomous snake that had come to life, emitting eternal malice.

"Take them with you." Qin Ming's voice was still cold, but with an unquestionable determination.

"Return to the capital. I want them to live to see... the end of the Shenmu Royal Court."

"Yes!" The guards responded loudly and carefully lifted the stretcher.

The wind from the ice valley, carrying sulfur, blood, and the sound of murderous horns, followed the black dragon flag and rushed out of the canyon.

On the surface of the cold pond, the broken floating corpse of Carrigon slowly sank into the cold darkness in the whirlpool, leaving only circles of spreading ripples, like a silent mockery.

Chang Baishan lay on the bumpy stretcher, and every weak breath he took was like the hissing of a broken bellows, bringing out tiny blood foam and ice crystals that stuck to his cracked and gray lips.

The massive wound on his shoulder blade, covered in black ointment, oozed muddy yellow fluid from the jolting ride, emitting a pungent, acrid, and decaying stench. His sallow face alternated between the flush of fever and the grayness of near death, his brow furrowed in unconsciousness, as if his soul were still enduring the torture of extracting poison and gouging out bones.

Only the piece of iron with animal patterns wrapped in soft cloth by the personal guards in his arms, still tightly clamped against his chest, felt cold and hard through the layers of restraints.

It became the only anchor with the breath of death that he could grasp in his sinking consciousness.

On another stretcher, Liu Yueli was wrapped in a thick fireproof blanket, like a stone statue burned by a raging fire. Beneath the blanket, the bluish-gray mark on her shoulder, locked shut by a golden needle, was like the crater of a dead volcano.

The slight tremor at the end of the golden needle pulled the slowly wriggling black lines under the skin, and each wriggling caused more black blood as sticky as ink and emitting a foul smell to seep out from the edges.

The half of his face, exposed from the edge of the blanket, was a pale, almost transparent white beneath the charred black and bloody skin. The faint whispers that occasionally escaped his throat were like spider silk about to break in the cold wind.

Her stiff body felt every bump in the carriage, and every vibration was like an invisible hammer hitting the core of the brand locked by the golden needle, bringing an icy pain deep into her bones.

The pain was like a maggot in the tarsal bone, gnawing at the remaining will and dragging the consciousness into deeper darkness.

A grim atmosphere enveloped the entire team like a layer of frozen ice. The only sounds were the rumble of wheels on frozen ground, the crunch of horses' hooves on icy shards, and the faint whirring of smoke rising from distant beacon towers, like the drumbeats of death, hammering at the taut nerves of every black-armored soldier.

At the front of the team, Qin Ming sat upright on a jet-black warhorse, his heavy armor with coiled dragon pattern gleaming coldly under the bleak sun.

Beneath the visor, those bottomless eyes were like an icy abyss, piercing through the fluttering Black Dragon battle flag and casting towards the northern skyline.

There, in the direction of the Shenmu Kingdom, a lead-gray cloud hung low, like an ominous omen.

"Your Majesty!" A galloping horse, like an arrow from a bow, rushed back from the front, a cloud of dust rising. The scout dismounted, knelt on one knee, and spoke with the hoarseness and urgency of a long journey. "Urgent news from the northern border! General Han De, the frontier defender, has led 100,000 cavalrymen and arrived at 'Black Wind Pass', a hundred miles outside the Shenmu border, two hours ago! By your majesty's order, form up! The beacons are lit! The Shenmu border defenders are in hiding, and all beacons are extinguished! Also... an envoy from the Shenmu royal court has arrived before our army!"

"Who is the envoy?" Qin Ming's voice came through the visor, cold and without a trace of emotion.

"He claims to be the Left Prime Minister of the Shenmu Kingdom, Na Risong!" The scout paused, "Accompanying him... is Elder Toruhan Shadow Pharmacist, Gulutai!"

"Gulutai?" Qin Ming's lips curled up into an extremely cold arc under his mask, "Let him come to see me."

"Here!"

The team did not stop moving forward, but just slowed down a little.

Qin Ming rode his horse and stood on a high slope, his black armor rustling in the wind.

Behind him, the black-armored cavalry were like silent mountains, and their murderous aura soared into the sky.

On the distant horizon, a great steel wall composed of countless black armors and blades reflected a biting cold light under the bleak sunlight of early winter.

On the beacon tower, billowing smoke was like a black dragon holding up the sky, silently announcing the empire's anger.

Soon, a group of people came under the "escort" of the black-armored cavalry.

Like sheep being chased by wolves, they approached with trepidation. The leader, wearing the deep purple brocade robe symbolizing high status in the Shenmu Kingdom, had a gaunt face and a gleaming gaze. It was Na Risong, the Left Prime Minister of Shenmu.

Beside him, there was a skinny old man wrapped in a pitch-black cloak, with only a pair of cloudy eyes like dead fish showing. He exuded a disgusting mixed smell of decay and herbs. It was the Toruhan Shadow Pharmacist Elder, Gulutai.

That day, Song dismounted from his horse when he was ten feet away from Qin Ming.

He practically stumbled to his knees on the icy frozen ground, kowtowed heavily, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "Narisong, the Left Prime Minister of the Shenmu Kingdom, pays homage to His Majesty the Emperor of Daqian! Our king is shocked to hear of the unrest on the border and is deeply saddened! He has specially dispatched a foreign minister to come and apologize! Toruhan Shadow Pharmacist Kaligon... Kaligon is ambitious and acts on his own. His actions were absolutely not authorized by our king! This is his personal..."

"Antidote." Qin Ming's icy voice was like the collision of cold iron, directly interrupting his lengthy defense. The eyes under his mask were like two real ice spikes, instantly nailing into Gulutai's body.

Na Risong trembled all over, the rest of his words were choked in his throat, and his face instantly turned as pale as paper.

The gulutai slowly raised his head, his cloudy, dead eyes meeting Qin Ming's cold gaze. He showed no fear at all, but instead stretched his dry lips into a smile as strange as a skull, his voice hoarse as sandpaper rubbing against his chest:

"Your Majesty, the Great Qian Emperor... The Bone-Eroding Plague Seal is a secret method enshrined by the 'Sacred Tree' of our Toru Khan. No ordinary medicine or stone can cure it. This seal... requires the blood of the 'Mother Gu' as a guide, supplemented by the breath of the 'Sacred Tree', to be removed. However..." His cloudy eyes rolled, glancing in the direction of the heavily guarded stretcher in the distance. His voice carried a subtle hint of malice, "The Mother Gu... has been buried with that fool Kaligon in the icy pool of the Ice Valley. Its blood is gone, and the breath of the sacred tree... only remains deep within the 'Bone Burial Cliff' of our Toru Khan Holy Land."

He paused, and his withered fingers stretched out from his black robe like eagle claws, holding a bone box carved from black animal bones and covered with strange runes in his palm: "This is the 'Soul-Calming Guide', which can temporarily suppress the outbreak of the plague poison and delay it for... seven days." He handed the bone box forward slightly, and a venomous light flashed in his turbid eyes.