A lone woman hovered in the sky, motionless except for the slight sway of her pitch-black hair in the wind. The wreathing shadows that had surrounded her body just moments earlier had already receded, but her face was still just as void of emotion as she looked down on the lifeless body of her fallen opponent.

With the battle over, she had once again fallen into the graceful, yet distant posture with which she carried herself. Her sharp gaze, almost regal in its character, surveyed the horizon for any other approaching cultivators standing out against the white of the snow. Nobody. Satisfied, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the chilly winter air.

Then she began plummeting towards the ground.

Yue Zhong only caught herself halfway through her fall, straining her will to its limits to regain her flight. The remainder of her descent was controlled, if little more elegant. As soon as she was on the ground, she fell to her hands and knees, her legs lacking the strength to support her anymore. After a short moment of remaining in this position, she shifted around to fall onto her back.

Then she just laid there, limbs sprawled out, catching her breath. The snow was cold, but that was of little notice to a cultivator of the Dao Contemplation Realm. Her eyes traced the clouds in the sky as she slowly recovered.

This fight had taken everything she had out of her. She wasn't a warrior, she was an assassin, stunts like this one were not in her playbook. Keeping up her stealth for the entire time that the enemy army had approached had already taken a lot out of her, as had the chase.

Intentionally being hit by her opponent's lightning had been a terribly dangerous gamble, but she hadn't seen how she would otherwise have been able to end the fight before her strength ran out.

She traced the shallow wound on her stomach with her tired finger. This had been way too close. She had been fractions of a second away from being carved in half by that sword…

She shouldn't have taken a risk like that. She could have just called for the Patriarch or Sun Liang to pursue Zhiwen Shao in her stead. What was she even thinking? She had a family to lead, people to take care of…

After a couple of minutes, Yue Zhong felt strong enough to stand up again. Quick recovery was one of the many perks of being a cultivator of her level. She strolled over to where Zhiwen Shao had hit the ground, shaking the snow out of her hair on the way.

She checked his pulse just to be absolutely sure he was dead, then she pulled his spatial ring off his finger before storing his body in her own. She looked around, locating his sword, and stored that away as well. The Roaring Thunder Sect's leading families weren't quite as wealthy as the Lunar Peaks Sect's, mostly owing to the Zhou family's monolithic dominance over it, but as the chosen weapon of one of their family heads, it was still an enormously valuable artifact. Not something to be left behind for some abnormally lucky mortal to stumble upon.

That taken care of, Yue Zhong took a healing pill for her wound before starting to make her way back. She wasn't in a condition to fly again just yet, so she simply started walking back in the direction she had come from

…

"I admire your restraint, Elder Wei.", Long Zhao said, gesturing to Liu Wei's four captives.

His own opponents hadn't been so lucky. The mangled body of the last of them was enough evidence to infer that his survival had been nothing but a happy coincidence. There were probably more broken bones in his body than intact ones.

Liu Wei nodded.

"I simply took my time."

"I'm not certain that is something to admire. You could have helped us out finishing the battle, had you been done sooner!", Sun Liang commented.

"I was sure that your skills would suffice, Elder Liang. And even you must recognize the value of prisoners in war, otherwise you wouldn't have given the enemy the chance to surrender."

The battle had ended not long after Long Zhao had subdued the last of his enemies and joined in against the lower ranking cultivators. Having seen their leaders being defeated or fleeing the battlefield, they had surrendered rather quickly and now they had well over three thousand prisoners of war to deal with.

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"I'm not denying the positive outcome, just pointing out that too much restraint can become a hindrance given the right circumstances."

"That I won't deny, though I assure you that I'm just as capable as you at recognizing these circumstances and that I wouldn't hesitate to act on them."

"Enough of that.", Long Zhou interjected, gesturing to Grandmaster Fang Gong, who was approaching the three. As the three turned towards him, the old man bowed deeply.

"Allow me to thank you all once more for coming to my school's aid. We wouldn't have been able to win this battle without you!"

"It is only right for us to help those standing up against the unjust attack of the Roaring Thunder Sect.", Long Zhao answered.

Liu Wei refrained from commenting that they had stood by for months as similar attacks were happening.

"Your righteousness should be an example to all sects. We will be holding a celebratory feast tomorrow and if your plans allow it, we would be deeply honored if you would grace us with your presence as guests of honor."

"Hmm… I think we could use a day of rest before we continue on, yes.", Long Zhao answered after shooting a few confirming glances to Liu Wei and Sun Liang.

"I will arrange for your accommodations. Say, I wanted to discuss something else as well… My people have been handling the prisoners, but since they outnumber us more than two to one, I'm not entirely sure how to proceed."

Liu Wei had already spent some time thinking about this dilemma. Since him and the three others weren't moving with an army, it was a dilemma that they might face repeatedly from now on.

"I think it would be acceptable to let those below the Dao Attunement Realm who are also not direct members of the Roaring Thunder Sect simply go free. Disarm them, but leave them basic personal necessities, make it clear that they are going to be persecuted should they cause trouble in the region, then send them on their way.

"Most of them are part of sect's whose leaders are now either in captivity or dead, and even if those who choose to return to the enemy won't make it back fast enough to warn them of the Lunar Peaks Sect's involvement in the war before they come to know it anyways. That should reduce the prisoners you have to handle to a reasonable amount."

The others took a minute to consider his proposal, then nodded along. It wasn't a perfect solution and even with the warning it would probably lead to an increase in banditry, but the School of Blooming Dawn simply couldn't be expected to handle that many prisoners.

"We will do that then and try to restrain the rest here at our school. What about the spoils of war?"

As casually as the question was asked, this was an important subject. One of the central reasons cultivators even fought in wars was for resources and wealth and loot from battles was an important part of that.

A cultivator would usually carry their best weapons and armor into battle, so while most of their possessions, especially cultivation resources, would usually be stashed at their sects, battle loot was still a substantial source of wealth. Its distribution was almost as essential as the battle itself and would occasionally turn into fierce contests of its own.

Between Dao Contemplation Realm cultivators, this was traditionally handled on a simple contribution basis: whoever killed or defeated another combatant would get to claim their possessions. If multiple people had contributed to the kill, they would split the loot equally. This practice provided a substantial and straight-forward incentive to participate with all one had to offer and it had by this point taken on an almost ritualistic character.

Of course, in practise, this method often ran into various problems, and so the forging of agreements modifying prior to the battle was almost as old as the practice itself. In this particular case, Liu Wei and Long Zhao had agreed to each hand over a third of their loot to Sun Liang, as he would, per their own plan, not be fighting any of the Dao Contemplation enemies.

Liu Wei had already confiscated his captives' spatial rings and weaponry, as had Patriarch Zhou. They would handle that distribution later, when they had time. For now, this was about all the other loot that the battle left behind. Liu Wei already had an opinion on that as well.

"Your school may loot the battlefield and take the prisoner's belongings. We'll leave the distribution up to you."

He could see in the other's faces that this bothered them, particularly Sun Liang, but they didn't object. Realistically, they didn't have the capacity to carry tons of lower-level cultivators' weapons and armor with them anyways. They were also forgetting something much more important than that loot.

"The Lunar Peaks Sect, on the other hand, would like to take ownership of the horses that the army left behind. If you could herd them here until the end of the war, we would be grateful."

Both his companion's faces lit up as they realized what this meant. The Roaring Thunder Sect's horses were among their greatest treasures. They descended from an ancient beast and were famous for their speed, strength and stamina.

Naturally, the Roaring Thunder Sect jealously guarded them, never selling, gifting or otherwise giving them to outsiders and striking out violently against any who did somehow get their hands on one. They had succeeded in keeping these horses to themselves for millennia this way. Of course there were occasionally some outside of their grasp, but never enough to get a breeding population going.

A herd of over four thousand animals like this one would be of incredible value to the Lunar Peaks Sect – and they wouldn't have to worry about retaliation either! This was more than enough to satisfy even Sun Liang's greed for now. Agreements were reached and the work was picked up. Fang Gong went to coordinate his people while Liu Wei and Long Zhao assisted Sun Liang in the construction of a prison that could, at least temporarily, hold their Dao Contemplation Realm captives.

It was late at night when Yue Zhong showed up, looking absolutely spotless and unbothered as she dumped the body of Zhiwen Shao before them from her spatial ring.

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