Chapter 109: The Winter General!
Husband and wife both turned their eyes towards him and their eyes widened.
The face of the young man walking up to them was similar to Xie Yang in many ways, but there were striking differences between them. He was blessed with the good genes of Lady Shen, just like Xie Yang, and had dark pupils, wide eyes, and a sharp nose. He was several inches taller than him, though, and his tall figure was straight and strong.
On his face was a smile as gentle as Xie Yang's, but it did too little to hide the fierceness and overwhelming might he had accumulated defending the border from the savage outsiders for several years.
His appearance was such a complete surprise that Xie Yang and Lin Hua were speechless for a good few moments.
Seeing their bewildered state, Xie Tong said with a smile, "What? Too shocked to see me?"
After Xie Tong snapped his fingers before his eyes, Xie Yang, who starred in utter surprise at Xie Tong, his eldest brother, as he didn't expect to see the famous winter general here of all places, stepped out of his dazed state.
"Big brother, why wouldn't I feel shocked to see you here? You didn't even have time to attend my wedding, so how did you make time to come back home and attend this banquet? Did you finally realize that family is more important than the battlefield?"
In this life, Xie Yang didn't only have a good father but also a good brother. He spent childhood days following his reliable brother's back, and the attention was mutual. Xie Tong treated him like his treasure, giving him all the best food and taking him into the skies literally so that he could take in the view of their father's land.
The relationship between the two brothers was good before Xie Tong went to war with Xie Yong ten years ago. Since then, he treated the battlefield as his home and rarely returned home. It became his permanent home after Xie Tong found out that his old father was a sick tiger.
Although Xie Yong was a stubborn old man and didn't give a damn about his body collapsing, Xie Tong didn't want to lose his father just seven years after losing his mother. Xie Tong forced the heavy responsibility of guarding the borders on his shoulder, allowing Xie Yong to go home and rest.
Xie Yang felt that Xie Tong had gone back on his word and betrayed him, and he stopped exchanging letters with him. He was a frail and sickly child with no friends whatsoever, and his brothers were the only ones there for him. They were his friends, teachers, playmates, and so on.
Suddenly finding out that a significant person of his life had all his attention elsewhere and couldn't spare time to play with him came as a shock to a seven-year-old him, and he blamed Xie Tong. He wasn't in the right mindset nor the right age to be understanding of his brother's decision. As a result, they drifted apart.
Xie Yang could count the amount of time they have spoken to each other in the last two years in one hand.
He was obviously dissatisfied with Xie Tong!
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it. I had planned to attend your wedding, but a fool leaked that I had left the military base to the outsiders. I was the greatest threat to them, and with me gone, their chances of breaching the empire's realm increased to 35%.
In less than a day, they prepared an army and tried to breach the defense of the border city." Xie Tong chuckled, disdain vivid in his eyes, "I don't know if those insects forgot who I was or if they had gone senile from suffering defeat after defeat from my hands, but they stupidly didn't investigate me and put their plans into motion believing that neither I nor the conditions of my army have improved over the last two years.
They believed that by the time the news of war breaking out at the borders reached me, they would have finished conquering the border city. Sadly for them, I had acquired a family of telepathic spiritual insects, and I shared them with my advisor and trusted subordinates. I was in the middle of the way back home when they timely informed me of their attack.
I had no choice but to use the power of my spirit brand and teleport back to the border city to deal with them. When I reached there, I saw my men mostly in disarray and fifty thousand outsiders rushing to the gates. I immediately entered the battlefield with a chest full of anger caused by determining that I wouldn't be able to see my treasure's wedding."
In merely two years, Xie Tong hadn't only acquired great communication items for his army and made a pact with a sage spirit. As a result, he gained access to its spatial powers, which allowed him to set up a temporary return point. Wherever he was in the world, as long as he wanted, he could return to that point in the blink of an eye. The outsiders didn't know that.
After all, Xie Tong hadn't made these two pieces of good news public. Thus, they miscalculated and ended up having to face him anyway.
"Since such a thing happened and you had a good reason to miss my wedding, I forgive you."
"You've grown up to become a sensible man."
"That I have."
Xie Yang was no longer an insensible kid but a man of intense wisdom, so he could understand that his brother couldn't attend his wedding because he was fulfilling his duty and saving tens of thousands of lives. He wasn't in the wrong, and Xie Yang didn't blame him either.
"Little sister, treat me as your brother and don't hesitate to ask me for help when you need it. If someone bothers you, even if they are the emperor's son, I will break their legs for you. If it's my brother, I will teach him a lesson." Xie Tong didn't want to make Lin Hua feel like a third leg, which was why he made sure to involve her in the talk. What he said, though, was too intense.
Well, army men mainly were hot-headed, and Xie Tong was the representative of such men. He didn't care about the onlookers spreading his words in the empire. After all, in the past, he had beaten a prince black and blue and didn't regret it even after eating a thousand whips on his back.
"I will, big brother." Zhang Xiu had taught some etiquette to Lin Hua. Due to this, she knew that she would offend him by refusing his goodwill. Thus, she didn't do any of that hypocritical refusal and accepted him as her good brother and made sure to express it to him too
"I feel like something's on your mind. What's bothering you?" Xie Yang was conscious of his wife, and for a while now, she had this curious look on her face.
"Yeah, I can feel it too." Xie Tong added.
"I was only wondering how you send them packing."
"It isn't too long a story. I will explain it as we walk to the private seating area where Father is waiting for us."
"Okay."
To the people, Xie Yang and Lin Hua weren't as impressive as Xie Tong. Because he was with them, many experts and masters came to converse with them. While people had probably mistaken Xie Tong as a muscle head, he offended no one. He exchanged pleasantries with them before giving them the fart.
Neither could they get angry at him, for he had acknowledged their ant-like existence, nor could they continue pestering him as that would be too shameless of them. It was an act way below their status.
As he led his brother and sister into the grandest part of the restaurant, Xie Tong recalled that day and told it to them. Xie Tong remembered that day vividly. After he appeared above the Border City and looked down, he saw most families in the streets, ready to abandon their livelihood and homes and birthplace at any moment. He saw soldiers at the walls preparing weapons of war.
He saw tens of thousands of foot soldiers rushing out the gates and marched to the outsiders, ready to sacrifice their lives to stop them. He saw the outsiders hideous grinning as if victory was already theirs and that soon they would get to feast on the tender flesh of humans.
Without the winter general, who was at the spirit grandmaster realm, to help them, the Winter Army was nothing to them, and the Winter Soldiers were just their prey!
Xie Tong shattered their delusion of his absence by descending between the two armies and appearing before the outsiders like a bolt out of the blue.
A Second After He Appeared, Tens Of Thousands Of Outsiders Came To A Halt, TUCKED THEIR TAILS BETWEEN THEIR LEGS AND MADE A RUN FOR IT!!!
With a burst of crazed laughter, Xie Tong chased them with two of his spirits. The Spear Spirit raised his hand and pointed at the sun. Tens of thousands of spears manifested above the ground, blanketing the sun and turning the entire sky at the border dark.
The Black Lightning Spirit raised both his hands and discharged dual elemental energy into the atmosphere, resulting in the formation of ink-like clouds. Dark clouds gave birth to bright and blue lightning as thunder boomed in the air.
The lord of the two spirits intertwined the attacks, fusing blue lightning dragons with cold flickering glints in the darkness to create black spears shaped like dark blue dragons.
"The moment I brought my hand down, the outsiders stopped regretting their decision. Want to know why? It's pretty simple. Ten thousand dragons flashed down the sky, crashing on the outsiders like torrential rain. Endless explosions occurred, causing the terrain to change and tens of thousands of outsiders to enter eternal sleep! Even I was shocked at the devastation I caused.
My men were in a state of shock, must worse than I. If it weren't because I was wearing the Winter Armor Set, they would have mistaken me for my father, the lord of clouds, hahaha! There were tens of thousands of them, but I defeated them with one hand, reenacting the legends of my father." Xie Tong boasted about his achievements proudly to his brother and sister.
Lin Hua was impressed by his heroic tale!
If only Xie Tong's nose could get bigger each time he lied, then it would all be perfect to Xie Yang!