An eight-hundred-li urgent relay rider, his horse's hooves shattering the thin morning frost of the Imperial Capital's outskirts, brought with him the biting wind-blown sand of the Northern Frontier and a thick, inescapable scent of blood. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, he shot straight toward the Suzaku Gate of the Imperial City.
The rider on the horse was clad in armor covered in sword marks and arrow holes. His face was caked in dust, his lips chapped and bleeding, but his eyes burned with a terrifying brilliance as he fixed them on the towering palace gates drawing ever closer. From his hoarse throat rolled an irrepressible excitement: "A great victory in the Northern Frontier! A great victory at Canglang City! We have slain the Northern Desert Grandmaster Tulu Hua in battle—!!"
"A great victory in the Northern Frontier—! The enemy chieftain Tulu Hua has been slain in battle—!!"
Chapter 157