The war camp was a sprawling encampment of tents and temporary formations that stretched across ten miles of the Western Border. The State of Zhao's army had gathered cultivators from every orthodox sect, pressing them into a unified command that answered directly to the Imperial General, a man named Lei who was said to be at the Nascent Soul realm — two entire major realms above anything the Reliance Sect could field.

Meng Hao was assigned to a reconnaissance squad with five other cultivators: a taciturn swordsman from the Green Sky Sect, a cheerful archer who talked too much, a nervous formation expert who kept adjusting his defensive talismans, and two brothers from the Cloud Peak Sect who finished each other's sentences.

'The Violet Fate Sect uses — ' one brother said.

' — poison techniques and shadow arts,' the other finished. 'Their cultivators can blend with darkness, attack from ambush, and — '

' — and their poison can kill a Nascent Soul cultivator if you give it long enough.'

'Great,' Meng Hao said. 'Perfect. Wonderful. I'm going to die in a war I didn't volunteer for, killed by poison I can't see, deployed by cultivators who can finish each other's sentences.'

Their first mission was a simple patrol along the contested border, nothing more dangerous than a potential skirmish. But the Violet Fate Sect had been raiding patrols for months, and reconnaissance squads had a thirty percent casualty rate.

Meng Hao checked his talismans, reviewed his techniques, and — against every instinct that had kept him alive in the Reliance Sect — prepared himself to fight. Not for glory. Not for honor. Not even for the State of Zhao.

He prepared himself to fight because the alternative was dying, and he was not ready to die.