The vast military formation instantly dispersed, charging towards the heaven-supporting god for a renewed attack. The battle flags of Qin fluttered in this underground world. The unparalleled generals of Great Qin brandished their halberds. Bai Ze watched helplessly as the god, whose power was so great that he could support the heavens, was firmly held back.

Bai Ze's eyes widened, and he murmured:

"Bai Qi, is he using the military formation, borrowing Chong's own strength to fight against himself?"

"Strategy is adapting to circumstances for advantage. Warfare is the art of deception."

"To attack and surely take, strike where he does not defend; to defend and surely hold, guard where he does not attack."

Bai Qi's moves incorporated the attacking style of military strategy. The old professor was mesmerized, but Bai Ze suddenly reacted. Without hesitation, he turned around and ran out several steps, then suddenly turned back, hoisted Dong Yuefeng onto his shoulders, and continued running towards the inner hall.

The sudden action startled the old man. He was taken aback for a moment, then looked down at Bai Ze, reached out and patted his shoulder, and said:

"Y-You, what now?!"

"Bai Qi is no match for Chong."

"What?!"

"That is a god who supports the heavens, one of the strongest thirty-six existences in the Kunlun Shan Hai."

"He is the original form of Pangu, the replacement for Mount Buzhou."

"Chong and Li together are comparable to Zhu Jiuyin."

Bai Ze gritted his teeth and replied, "Perhaps when Bai Qi was at his peak, back in the late Age of Gods, leading the top army of that era, he could fight against existences at Chong Li's level with terrible casualties, and I would even believe he could suppress them. But there's a key point."

"Chong's power comes from himself, while a famous general's power comes from his army."

"No matter how brilliant his tactics, the army will suffer losses, people will die, arrows will be used up, swords will become dull, and stamina will be rapidly depleted. That is to say, Bai Qi's combat power will begin to decline after the battle begins, and at an increasingly faster rate, not to mention now..."

"The current Bai Qi is just a war soul left behind by a sword."

"The current army is just the troops stationed here. Cultivation isn't just about what you think you can do. In modern terms, Bai Qi is like the world's number one esports player, with the most amazing awareness in history, who crawled out of a coffin."

"His hands are trembling, and his aging body is completely unable to unleash his full strength. He can only barely control a bunch of level one minions to deal with the opponent's max level hero, and the opponent happens to be Zhuanxu's general, a top-tier opponent."

"The current Bai Qi has no energy, no other advantages, and even his own will is weakening over time. He can only rely on his awareness to stall. How long can he stall like this?!"

"What... what do we do?"

Dong Yuefeng asked subconsciously. After all, he was an old man, and this wasn't his area of expertise.

Bai Ze regained his composure and quickly ran to the front of the inner hall, answering:

"Wait!"

Bai Ze said, "Old Dong, you need to understand... Bai Qi isn't just a general for one-on-one duels. Although he's good at commanding individual battles and annihilation warfare, he's also good at strategic deployment. He's never been defeated in his life, and a volatile woman once told me that military strategy isn't just about annihilating the enemy."

"Military strategy is about achieving one's goals with force."

"And the goal isn't just to kill the enemy."

Bai Qi wielded the Zhan Ge (halberd), using the battle formation to block the heaven-supporting god.

With every breath, war puppets were shattered. With every breath, his advantage diminished. But Chong became more and more battle-hungry and determined because of these slight victories. Anyone could see that Chong's victory was only a matter of time.

The strength of Bai Qi's soul continued to decrease.

But his face was indifferent, without a trace of emotion, and he was only consuming the heaven-supporting god in an intangible way.

Bai Ze recalled Jiu Tian Xuan Nv, the goddess of war revered by the strategists of Shen Zhou, and whispered:

"Bai Qi's goal, or rather, strategic objective, isn't to defeat the heaven-supporting god."

"It's to stall! Stall until the First Emperor revives. As long as the First Emperor revives and wields the Xuan Yuan Sword, even just the Xuan Yuan Sword Qi can still inflict heavy damage on the heaven-supporting god. It's equivalent to shattering the heaven-supporting god's true goal in a strategic sense, defeating him."

"He's even disrupting the overall layout of the Great Wilderness."

"He doesn't care about the victory or defeat of one battle, but focuses on the entire situation."

"He's even using himself as bait, deliberately adopting a head-on tactic that's bound to fail, and even showing weakness to Chong from time to time, luring him to attack even more fiercely. He will lose, but in the grand strategic sense, Chong has already lost when he accepted the challenge..."

"Damn it, that's the true style of a military commander."

"His thought process is completely different from that of a normal person."

The old man subconsciously said, "Then why not open it now?"

Bai Ze, who knew everything, gritted his teeth, "Can't open it!"

"The First Emperor is dead, and he died for some special reason. He relied on the stimulation of the Xuan Yuan Sword Qi to reunite his soul. It's like those naturally occurring phenomena in the world. If you wake him up now, his soul won't be fully aggregated, and the consequences will be unimaginable..."

He shuddered, "He might turn into a premature, mentally retarded state or something."

"The worst thing is that he could become a vegetable."

"That potter would definitely chop me up alive, and Bai Qi would chop me up too."

"They definitely wouldn't mind having another dish in the Shan Hai realm."

It was as if a husky was placed in the Siberian snowfield, automatically unlocking its intelligence.

After discovering that all the big shots were unreliable.

Or rather, when the big shots were about to move further and further away from him, Bai Ze briefly activated his reliable mode.

Burning his intelligence.

But turning his head to look at the battle situation on Bai Qi's side, Bai Ze's forehead was covered with cold sweat. He gritted his teeth and stretched out his palm, pressing it on the gate, not knowing whether he should open it now or wait a little longer. His mind was constantly thinking like crazy: open it, bear it, open it, bear it.

Open it... bear it...

Bear, can't bear it anymore!

Finally, Bai Ze put a heavy force on his palm.

He grabbed a handful of coins from his sleeve.

His face was sincere.

"At this time, we should do some fortune-telling."

The old professor gasped for breath, almost unable to get it up.

His blood pressure soared.

Among Bai Ze's friends was Feng Hou, a direct descendant of Fuxi. Of course, he learned a lot of things, which were directly passed down from the Xiantian Bagua (pre-celestial eight trigrams). He immediately set it up and then deciphered it. The final hexagram was slightly strange. Bai Ze looked at the hexagram and said in a low voice:

"Upper Canon, Initial Nine: Hidden Dragon, do not act. Nine Four: Leaping in the abyss, without blame."

"This is..."

……………………

"Upper Canon, Initial Nine: Hidden Dragon, do not act. Nine Four: Leaping in the abyss, without blame."

Western Zhou Dynasty/Spring and Autumn Period.

A Qingniu (blue ox) cart swayed out of the Zhou Dynasty's capital, and then went all the way west.

The old man in the Qingniu cart muttered the hexagram to himself.

In this year, Master Zhongni died, and in the years after his death, the states threw out solicitations to the master's disciples. They were extremely eager, even more eager than when the master was alive. Confucius' disciples scattered throughout the world. For example, Marquis Wen of Wei, in addition to extreme respect, personally worshiped Zixia as his teacher.

And now, these changes were already showing signs.

The young driver once whispered in disappointment:

"Why didn't they respect the master when he was alive?"

The old man put down the hexagram and told a story with a smile:

"There was a man named Ye who loved dragons very much. His house was full of dragon patterns, and his clothes were covered with dragon patterns. The whole world knew that he loved dragons. But one day, when a majestic true dragon came before him, he retreated in fear, wanting to desperately get away from it, even kicking off his shoes."

"Your master is a dragon. His morality is too lofty, and his goals are too vast."

"The world respects him because it wants to establish a reputation for respecting the virtuous, but when he truly appears before them, and they see that saint who does not belong to this era with their own eyes, they will only associate it with themselves and only fear and distance themselves."

The young man was silent for several days.

On this day, they arrived near Hangu Pass. He looked up at the city over there, which seemed to be the direction of Great Qin, a place condemned by the Central Plains as barbarians. The old man said he wanted to get off and take a walk. The young driver helped him. The old man looked into the distance, and when it was night, he lit a bonfire. The old man asked with a smile:

"What do you think of this mountain today?"

"What do you think of this water?"

The young man answered one by one.

And just after he finished answering, the old man asked him, "What about the world?"

This time, the young man sighed complicatedly, "I don't know."

The master had passed away, and the foundation of Zheng Zhuang Gong, who once dominated one side, was gone. The romance of the past had been swept away by the wind and rain, and even the ancestral business had not been left behind. Seeing this with his own eyes, and also seeing the master's death, the young man naturally felt mixed feelings.

"Heh, foolish child..."

The old man suddenly reached out and patted him on the back of the head.

When the young man was puzzled, his eyes suddenly widened. In front of him, the world had changed. Everything, from the earth, mountains, and even the hearts of the people, had turned into streams of flowing luck. Finally, these things gathered together and directly transformed into an unprecedented phenomenon.

West of Hangu Pass, a weak black dragon groaned.

Outside Hangu Pass, a red bird hovered, occasionally flying down, wanting to peck at the eyes of the azure dragon. The dragon and the bird fought constantly, and the young driver was horrified by this strange sight. The old man next to him took a step back. When the young man saw the red bird about to peck out the black dragon's eyes and swallow his dragon pearl.

He subconsciously took a step forward, waved his arm to drive away the red bird, and protected the black dragon.

But the next moment, the protected black dragon did not appreciate it at all. With a violent dragon roar, it directly bit the young man's arm. It was obviously illusory, but the teeth and fangs were extremely sharp, directly sinking in, and the dragon's eyes were even more tyrannical and cruel, not trusting anyone.

The young man was in pain and looked at the old man over there, saying, "This, this is..."

The old man stroked his beard and said with a gentle smile, "Don't worry, this isn't real. This is just the future atmosphere and fortune. It's just a certain future that may appear in this world. It's like water taking advantage of the situation and flowing down, so you can watch the downstream from the upper reaches. That's all, very simple, right?"

The young man said, "...Simple, I'm afraid it's for you and the master, right?"

"Yuan has not been good at the Book of Changes divination since he was a child. The master was always helpless at the end."

The old man heard that there seemed to be a self-deprecating tone in the young driver's words, and laughed loudly.

"Your teacher said that a studious person is like a keen horse that will find its own way. Ordinary people are ordinary horses that will be tempted by various things and need to be whipped to feel the pain before they know they should run forward, and the most hopeless people are like nags."

"Even if they are whipped and feel pain, they just spin around in place and don't move forward."

"You are not the kind of person who gives up on yourself, so why not learn?"

The young man said unhappily, "The master said that I am a wild horse that will directly throw him off his back."

The old man was stunned and burst out laughing.

The young man said, "Besides, what is the whip? Is it the teacher?"

The old man sighed, "This era of the collapse of ritual and music is the whip."

The young man said, "You said this is the future atmosphere and possibility?"

The old man, who could already see the possible future fate from the top of the mountain, nodded, "It's someone's fate. I can see it from here... Does it hurt?"

The young man was bitten tightly, grimacing in pain and said:

"It's okay, whose fate is this? So tyrannical?"

The old man stroked his beard and said, "A person who cannot be described."

"A person's fortune is like a stream, and the turning point of the water is the barrier."

"Judging from the rugged flow of this fate."

"He was abandoned by his biological father when he was two years old."

"After finally returning home, his father died early."

"His mother wants a lover, not him, and even plans to kill him."

"Let her lover's child replace him."

"His chancellor wants to control him."

"His younger brother betrays him."

"His close friend wants to assassinate him."

"The musician he likes wants to kill him."

"His eldest son fears him."

"His youngest son betrays him."

"The whole world is his enemy."

"In the end, he will also die early."

The old man's voice paused, and he didn't continue to speak. With his realm to follow the general trend of the world to calculate and see, even if it would consume his lifespan, he also saw other things. He seemed to see a figure from this turbulent trend, from this hundreds of years of chaos, walking forward stubbornly alone.

At the age of three, I was an abandoned son.

At the age of thirteen, I am the King of Qin.

I want all the countries in the world to be united as one.

Then he was about to speak again, but he saw the young man put down the sword he raised in his hand.

He sat cross-legged on the ground, reached out and stroked the black dragon that was just an illusion of luck, and sighed:

"Are you so miserable? Even worse than me."

The red bird flew over again, and the black dragon was restless and tyrannical. The young man didn't kick the black dragon away like ordinary people, but instead reached out to protect the black dragon and drove the red bird away.

The old man was stunned when he saw the young driver driving away the red bird, letting the black dragon suck his blood, and stroked his beard and murmured, "Things are done by humans, and everything in the future is uncertain, but isn't the general trend of the world composed of individual people? What will happen when a drop of water merges into a river..."

"Originally, I wanted to cut off your connection with the secular world."

The young driver's tone was cold: "Old sir, what are you talking about?"

The old man shook his head and instead asked, "The dragon comes from the abyss, why is the dragon in the abyss?"

"Yuan doesn't know, Brother Zilu is much better than me at the Book of Changes."

The old man suddenly joked, "Look, maybe only in the abyss can a dragon that is so tyrannical that the whole world is its enemy rest in peace. Although this abyss has no meaning for the human world, for the dragon, it may be the only place it can trust."

The young driver looked at this great sage and said, "No, even this disciple knows."

"This sentence is not interpreted in this way."

The old man said to himself, "Is that so?"

"Perhaps today's visit is fate."

The young driver frowned and replied, "I am Yuan, old sir, you are mistaken again."

The old man burst out laughing.

And the young driver sat cross-legged on the ground in pain, and finally let the black dragon surround him, leaning back slightly, letting the black dragon's sharp teeth sink into his arm, devouring his blood, with a faint smile on his face, and said, "Don't worry, you don't have to be afraid of the red bird anymore."

In the black dragon's pupils, the young driver was reflected.

The mountains and rivers were vast, and the moon surged in the river.

The latter lowered his eyes and whispered with a smile:

"I will protect you."

ps: Today's third update...4400 words...

I'm gone, lying in a corpse.

But after connecting these, I really want to write the key plot of the next chapter, damn it!