Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

The two guards responded, put down their weapons, and walked towards the slope.

Just as they passed by Hua Yunhong, their attention was focused on the steep slope below!

Hua Yunhong moved again!

The sword was unsheathed! With a gleam of cold light!

puff!puff!

The two guards had no time to react and fell to the ground, covering their bleeding necks!

The team heard the noise and turned around in shock, only to see Hua Yunhong's cold and bloodthirsty eyes and the bloody sword!

"You...you..." Captain Zheng was instantly sobered up from his drunkenness and hurriedly tried to draw his sword!

But Hua Yunhong was even faster! He approached like a ghost, and his waist knife accurately pierced the captain's heart!

The captain opened his eyes wide, looking at the "prisoner" in front of him in disbelief, his throat gurgling, and finally collapsed, the wine bag rolling to the ground, and the mellow wine gurgled out, mixing with blood and seeping into the cold snow.

Hua Yunhong gasped violently, his chest heaving. The sudden burst of energy had exhausted the strength he had accumulated over the past few days, but his eyes burned with a mad fire.

He quickly dragged the three bodies to a hidden place and looted all their dry food and money, especially the team leader's identity badge and a simple map of the surrounding terrain.

He changed into the captain's relatively well-fitting uniform and fur coat, smeared his face with mud, lowered the brim of his hat, picked up the captain's sword and wine bag, turned around without hesitation, and walked in the opposite direction of the mine, quickly disappearing in the vast snowfield and twilight.

He did not look back at the mine where he had been imprisoned for months and suffered endless humiliation.

His goal is ahead.

In that vast, seemingly impregnable heartland of the empire belonging to Qin Ming.

The dormant poisonous snake finally slipped out of the cage.

He lost his kingdom, his army, and all his great power.

But he is still alive, with a deep hatred and an unextinguished, crazy and cunning ambition.

The wind and snow in the north concealed the escape of an insignificant "captive".

Unbeknownst to everyone, a deadly assault on the heart of the empire had already begun. Hua Yunhong's first step, silent yet resolute, pointed southward.

With his familiarity with the northern terrain and his crude map, he carefully avoided official roads and large military towns, weaving like a ghost through hills, dense forests, and abandoned villages. He encountered small patrols of the Qian army, but managed to slip through several times thanks to his uniform and a carefully imitated, mumbled response with a thick northern accent. He also encountered roving horse bandits, but with his ruthless skills and the little money he plundered from the bandits, he either drove them off or killed them, seizing their horses' food and water.

He was no longer the pampered King of the Divine Tree, but a lone wolf driven to despair, determined to exact revenge. All his elegance and calculations were reduced to the most primal instincts of survival and hunting.

A few days later, he arrived at an abandoned military camp called "Black Stone Fort" on the southern border of the former Shenmu Kingdom. This was once Shenmu's outpost against the southern tribes, but now only broken walls remained, revealing a desolate scene in the snow.

Hua Yunhong's destination was precisely here. According to the extremely secret intelligence he had planted back then, hidden in the mountains and forests near Blackstone Fort was the Shenmu Kingdom's last remaining emergency arsenal, unknown even to Kaligon. And... a small group of elite former Shenmu border troops, who had been scattered after the kingdom's destruction and were lurking there, awaiting a call.

He patiently searched for the mark in the ruins, and based on the secret code in his memory, he finally found the secret mark engraved with three twisted willow leaf patterns at the entrance of a half-collapsed cellar.

He took a deep breath and, with a specific rhythm, gently knocked on the rotten wooden door of the cellar.

After a moment of dead silence, a hoarse and alert voice came from inside the door: "The wind and snow will bury your bones."

Hua Yunhong responded in a deep voice: "Liu Gen is immortal."

With a creak, the wooden door was pulled open a crack from the inside, and a pair of sharp and suspicious eyes looked at him in his disheveled appearance dressed in the uniform of the Qian army.

"who are you?"

Hua Yunhong slowly raised his head and pulled off his dirty fur hat, revealing a face that, though weathered by the frost, still showed some of its former outlines and majesty, as well as a pair of narrow eyes that were now burning with cold flames.

"It's... Your Majesty?!" The voice of the man inside the door trembled instantly, filled with incredible ecstasy and shock! He flung the door open, revealing a middle-aged man with a scar on his face and a sharp gaze. He slumped to his knees on the cold ground, "I am General Han Qian! I pay my respects to Your Majesty! Your Majesty... You are truly still alive!"

He was not the only one in the cellar. There were seven or eight other men who were also ragged but had sharp eyes. They came over when they heard the sound. When they saw Qinghua Yunhong's face, they were all shocked and knelt on the ground!

Hua Yunhong stepped into the cellar and looked around at his loyal old men. The cold fire in his heart finally felt a glimmer of warmth. He briefly recounted his escape from Snow God Valley (naturally omitting the humiliation of being captured in the mines), saying only that he had faked his own death to escape and had gone through many hardships to reach this place.

"Your Majesty has suffered!" Han Qian's eyes were filled with tears. "I and your subordinates have always believed that Your Majesty is not dead, and we have been waiting here day and night! The armory is intact, hidden in a secret cave in the back mountain, enough to equip 500 men! There are more than 300 brothers scattered in the nearby mountains and forests, and they can all be summoned at any time!"

"Good! Good! Good!" Hua Yunhong said three good words in a row, and finally a hint of an almost ferocious smile appeared on his withered face, "Heaven will not destroy me! It will not destroy the sacred tree!"

He immediately ordered Han Qian to send someone to secretly gather all the scattered old subordinates as quickly as possible and activate the armory.

Three days later, deep within the ruins of Blackrock Fort, nearly four hundred elite soldiers of the original God Wood Border Army had quietly gathered. Though their faces were pale and thin, their clothes ragged, their eyes held a fierceness and loyalty undimmed. Brand-new armor, sharp swords, and powerful bows and crossbows were taken from a secret cave and distributed.

Hua Yunhong changed into a black suit that he had found, and put on a dark cloak. Although there was no coiled dragon pattern on it, the majesty of a person who had been in a high position for a long time and the cold murderous intent in his eyes made all the assembled soldiers hold their breath and bow their heads.

He stood on a broken monument, his eyes sweeping over the weathered yet longing faces below.

"Soldiers!" His voice was hoarse, yet it carried a bewitching power. "Qin Ming is tyrannical. He destroyed our homeland and slaughtered our people! This hatred is irreconcilable!"

"I'm back!"

"The sacred tree is not dead yet!"

"Now, Qin Ming's main force is in the north, leaving his hinterland empty! This is our godsend opportunity to avenge our humiliation and strike directly at Huanglong!"

He suddenly pulled out the sword from his waist that he had snatched from the team leader and pointed it to the south!

"I will lead you, like a poisoned dagger, to pierce Daqian's heart! We must make Qin Ming pay the price! We must let the world know that the spirit of the sacred tree will never surrender!"