Chapter 1

Time: Guanghe 4th year (181 AD).

Location: Liangzhou, Beidi Commandery.

Lü Bu stood on a small hill, looking at the Jingzhou elite cavalry cleaning up the battlefield in front of him, and said calmly, "With Helian dead, this border will be peaceful for some time."

Behind him, a tall, middle-aged man with a stern face looked at Lü Bu's back and showed a hint of enthusiasm: "If it weren't for you, the people of Jingzhou would have suffered another great disaster. However, we are already outside the borders of Jingzhou. You should be more cautious and return to the army as soon as possible. Otherwise, if someone with ill intentions uses this to attack you, even though you were fighting the enemy, you might still be criticized."

Hearing the middle-aged man's words, Lü Bu nodded: "Rest assured, Gongzheng. Once the soldiers finish cleaning up the battlefield, we will return to Jingzhou."

Although it is the end of the Han dynasty, it is not yet the era of warlords rising and the Han dynasty's authority being completely lost.

In this situation, leading troops across borders to fight is still very taboo.

To put it bluntly, if it weren't for the fact that Jingzhou and Liangzhou are located on the northern border, where the generals need to be ready to deal with the northern barbarians, and the court is far less sensitive to troop movements here compared to the central regions, Lü Bu leading troops into Beidi Commandery would have likely faced significant criticism in the court, even if it was to pursue and kill the fleeing Xianbei cavalry.

After all, Lü Bu is currently only the chief clerk of Jingzhou, and Beidi Commandery is already within the territory of Liangzhou. According to Han law, Lü Bu has no right to cross the border to pursue the enemy.

It can only be said that who would have thought that this time the Xianbei invasion of Jingzhou would encounter Lü Bu?

If it were someone else, they might have just driven the barbarians away, but Lü Bu, with his fiery temper, thought, "How can Jingzhou be a place where you come and go as you please?"

Trying to run when you can't win, what kind of good thing is that?

Therefore, after leading the troops to defeat the invading barbarians, Lü Bu, facing the fleeing Xianbei leader Helian, directly led the Jingzhou elite cavalry in pursuit, until he caught up with Helian in Beidi Commandery and shot him dead with an arrow, thus ending the pursuit.

Helian was also quite unfortunate. He led his troops to invade Shuofang Commandery, but was cut off from the rear by Lü Bu's troops from Wuyuan Commandery. Unable to fight, he could only flee along the Shang Commandery towards Liangzhou. In the end, he was caught by Lü Bu in Beidi Commandery and met his end.

There was nothing he could do; it was just his bad luck to encounter an enhanced version of Lü Bu.

Yes, an enhanced version of Lü Bu.

The Lü Bu of now is not the historical Lü Bu of Jiuyuan.

He is actually a穿越者 (穿越者 means "time traveler" or "穿越者" in this context, but it's better to use "穿越者" to maintain the original term).

However, when others become Lü Bu, they are often weakened for various reasons, such as insufficient combat awareness or a mismatch between body and soul, making their combat power even less than that of Yan Liang and Wen Chou.

But when he became Lü Bu, for some reason, his strength, speed, and reaction all improved by a level, and his combat power skyrocketed. At that moment, he felt he could take on one and a half of the original Lü Bu.

Not only that, but since he became Lü Bu, he felt himself getting stronger every day.

More accurately, the world itself was getting stronger every day.

As the top of this world, Lü Bu could clearly feel that since he arrived, the air in this world had become richer in something—let's call it the essence of heaven and earth.

This essence of heaven and earth subtly influenced all living beings in the world, making everyone stronger every day.

For ordinary people, the influence might be subtle, but for Lü Bu, who could sense and actively use the essence of heaven and earth to enhance himself, his strength changed dramatically every day.

As a time traveler, Lü Bu almost immediately understood the reason for this change in the world—essence revival.

So, the question is, as is well known, in the case of essence revival, everyone's combat power increases exponentially.

If Lü Bu's original combat power was ten, and the combat power of other top warriors was about nine.

Then, after becoming a time traveler, Lü Bu's strength inexplicably increased by a level, let's say to twelve.

Now, with essence revival, conservatively estimating, everyone's combat power would be squared. So, Lü Bu's combat power would be 144, and others' would be 81—this gap would widen significantly.

And this is just the beginning of essence revival.

As time goes on, this gap will continue to widen.

In the long run, Lü Bu feels he will truly become invincible.

This is still assuming that everyone starts from the same point.

In reality, with essence revival, the stronger one is, the earlier they can sense the essence of heaven and earth. In other words, Lü Bu is already ahead of others in this aspect.

As the original top, Lü Bu is the first to benefit from essence revival. As long as everything goes smoothly, the actual gap between him and others might be even more exaggerated than imagined.

In short, the current Lü Bu is simply—invincible.

Just like this time.

The Xianbei leader Helian invaded Jingzhou.

In the northern regions of the Han dynasty close to the grasslands, Youzhou, Jingzhou, and Liangzhou all suffered from barbarian invasions, with Jingzhou being the most severe.

After all, in Youzhou, Gongsun Zan was a ruthless leader, and the White Horse Volunteers made the barbarians run for their lives. Unless forced, they dared not move south. Moreover, the Inspector of Youzhou, Liu Yu, had high prestige among the barbarians. With Liu Yu, even without Gongsun Zan, the barbarians would not dare to be too bold.

In Liangzhou, due to the repeated campaigns of the Han dynasty, the Qiang invasions were not as severe. Plus, there were skilled leaders like Dong Zhuo, Han Sui, and Ma Teng. Even if there were Qiang rebellions, as long as these three were not problematic, most were minor.

Only in Jingzhou, the new Inspector, Ding Yuan, was somewhat negligent, leading to severe barbarian invasions, with the Xianbei frequently raiding the borders.

Especially in Xiping 6th year (177 AD), when the Han army launched a three-pronged attack on the Xianbei and suffered a major defeat, the Xianbei became even more arrogant.

At that time, the Xianbei leader was Tanshihuai.

Fortunately, although Tanshihuai defeated the Han army, he knew that a lean camel is still bigger than a horse.

So, Tanshihuai, despite defeating the Han army, was careful not to completely enrage the Han. He always restrained his raids on the border counties of Jingzhou.

Unfortunately, after Tanshihuai's death, his son Helian was not as rational.

As soon as Helian took over, to demonstrate his authority, he gathered the Xianbei tribes and allied with some Hun and Wuhuan tribes, raising an army of 300,000 to invade Jingzhou from Shuofang Commandery, planning to raid extensively.

Logically, 300,000 barbarians, even if they were a motley crew, would still be a formidable force. Moreover, these 300,000 were not all a motley crew; among them were many Xianbei, Hun, and Wuhuan elite cavalry.

In terms of numbers, the current Jingzhou army would find it difficult to resist such a large barbarian invasion—the main force of the Jingzhou army was only about 80,000, including 20,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry and 60,000 infantry.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, the Jingzhou army would likely leave the border regions of Shuofang, Wuyuan, and Yunzhong Commanderies to the barbarians, allowing them to raid, then concentrate their forces to defend the inner regions of Taiyuan, Shangdang, and Xihed Commanderies, waiting for the barbarians to leave after their raids.

After all, the barbarians moved south only to raid and would not stay.

However, this was not a normal situation because now Jingzhou had Lü Bu.

Three years ago, when the Han army was defeated by Tanshihuai, Lü Bu had not yet entered public service.

Three years later, Lü Bu was already the chief clerk of Jingzhou, commanding the entire 20,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry.

Unfortunately, when Helian led his troops to invade Shuofang Commandery, Lü Bu was stationed in Wuyuan Commandery—his intelligence indicated that the barbarians on the grasslands were moving, so he led his troops north to guard against a possible invasion.

Thus, upon learning that Helian was leading his troops to invade Shuofang Commandery, Lü Bu immediately led his troops to cut off Helian's retreat.

If it were the Lü Bu of a normal period, even as the top warrior of the Three Kingdoms, with 20,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry against 300,000 barbarian cavalry, it would be unlikely, especially since he had to leave some troops to guard Jiuyuan, leaving him with only about 10,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry.

But the current Lü Bu is a time traveler and has already benefited from the first wave of essence revival.

Thus, Lü Bu led 10,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry to intercept 300,000 barbarian cavalry and demonstrated what it means to be invincible.

The 300,000 barbarian cavalry were defeated in one battle, and no one could stop Lü Bu.

The 10,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry just followed Lü Bu in a charge, and the enemy was already in disarray.

All the barbarian leaders who tried to turn the tide were beheaded by Lü Bu in the midst of the 300,000 troops.

The Xianbei leader Helian, who was also the leader of the southern invasion, could only flee with his Xianbei elite cavalry.

However, Helian wanted to run, but he had nowhere to go!

If Helian had chosen to invade from Wuyuan Commandery, he would have directly encountered Lü Bu, but with the vast grasslands behind him, he could have turned and run.

But Helian chose to invade from Shuofang Commandery and advanced deep into Jingzhou, so when Lü Bu cut off his retreat, Helian had nowhere to run.

He could only flee along Shuofang Commandery towards Liangzhou, hoping to escape back to the grasslands from there.

But when Lü Bu learned that Helian was fleeing, he immediately said, "How can Jingzhou be a place where you come and go as you please?"

He left the majority of the Jingzhou elite cavalry to expand the victory and personally led 1,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry to continue pursuing Helian.

Helian was so frustrated!

Although he was fleeing, he still had about 20,000 Xianbei elite cavalry.

Now, Lü Bu was pursuing him with only 1,000 men, but he dared not fight back.

300,000 troops were defeated, so what could 20,000 do?

Thus, Helian, with 20,000 Xianbei elite cavalry, was pursued by Lü Bu with 1,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry. Despite his efforts to flee, he was caught by Lü Bu in Beidi Commandery.

With no way out, Helian, with 20,000 Xianbei elite cavalry, faced Lü Bu's 1,000 Jingzhou elite cavalry, refused to surrender, and tried to resist. Then, in front of everyone, he was shot dead by Lü Bu with an arrow.

With Helian dead, the 20,000 Xianbei elite cavalry, already demoralized, either fled or surrendered, completely losing their fighting spirit.

After killing Helian, Lü Bu, since Beidi Commandery was already in Liangzhou, and the main culprit was dead, did not pursue further. He cleaned up the battlefield and prepared to return to Jingzhou.

In short, this was Dong Zhuo's fault.

If Dong Zhuo had given Lü Bu the Red Hare earlier, Lü Bu would have caught and killed Helian much sooner, and there would have been no need to pursue him into Liangzhou.

Thinking of this, Lü Bu secretly noted Dong Zhuo's name.

What? You say the Red Hare was originally Dong Zhuo's?

That's impossible.

The Red Hare is Lü Bu's, and he would say the same even if the Son of Heaven came.

Anyone who disagrees should first talk to the Heaven-Piercing Halberd.

Fortunately, although he didn't have the Red Hare, Helian's mount was also a fine horse from Dayuan, which could serve as a substitute.

Regardless, with Helian dead and Lü Bu returning to Jingzhou, this battle was over.

However, while the battle was over, its impact was just beginning.

With 10,000 Han cavalry defeating 300,000 barbarian cavalry.

If the Northern Campaign against the Xiongnu and the sealing of the Wolf Dwellings by Huo Qubing is a past legend of the Han dynasty, then from today, he, Lü Bu of Jiuyuan, is the living legend of the Han dynasty!