The Hanshan Pass lies to the west of the Daxia Empire. Flanked by two mountains, it serves as the gateway to the nine western provinces and the bastion protecting the central Great Plains. Consequently, it has historically been a place of strategic contention for the Military School.
Since taking command under dire circumstances last year, Princess Daming had led an army of three hundred thousand to hold this pass, locked in a standoff with the Western Buddhism. Despite her intense hatred for the sect, Princess Daming is a grandmaster of strategy, possessing an extraordinary, otherworldly focus. When Zhou Tieyi devised the strategy of cutting off the enemy’s grain supply to force the Western Buddhist refugees into internal chaos, she found it highly effective—at least until Maitreya established the "Salvation Mantra." She remained willing to execute such plans, for she had always viewed the pursuit of longevity as her paramount objective. When she first arrived at Yujing Mountain and met alone with Miaoyu and Zhou Tieyi, she had remarked that in a few decades, most of the Taoists there would be nothing but dust, so why bother with them? In her eyes, with the right methodology, a year or two—or even a century or two—was a duration she could easily afford to wait.
However, the Western Buddhism possessed twenty-four Buddhas, and they were not without talent. Maitreya’s "Salvation Mantra," enacted a month ago, had completely shifted the situation and temporarily stabilized the …
Chapter 616