Amidst faint Buddhist chanting, wisps of pale red mist drifted down toward the earth.
The mist was formless and immaterial. Ordinary soldiers felt nothing at all, and Dao Foundation cultivators merely experienced mild discomfort. Yet the dharma idol experts were gripped by inexplicable dread, their faces turning ash-pale. The Scenery Command grandmasters instantly recoiled; even Xiao Jingyuan instinctively stepped back several zhang, only to teleport back to his original position to steady troop morale.
The Supervisor of the Embroidered Uniform Office vanished in a flash and reappeared an instant later, as if he had never moved. In the central army, aside from the red-eyed Duke of Cao, no one even noticed that either of them had budged.
Layer upon layer, wisps of mist fluttered down like snowflakes. Every wisp was composed of faint red lotus karmic fire; even Scenery Command cultivators feared it like a tiger, terrified to let a single spark touch their flesh.
Wei Yuan was no longer who he had once been. Different from the time he cursed eight hundred thousand Shaman warriors to death, his attainment in Buddhist arts had advanced by leaps and bounds, and his mastery over karmic fire was beyond comparison. Today, he could disperse an entire sea of fire into tens of thousands of wisps of mist.
The moment the karmic fire appeared, all Qingming warriors immediately ducked into tunnels deep underground. Only those already locked in melee with the Dao soldiers or the Ji army could not pull back. Yet this only stoked their ferocity; they charged deeper into enemy ranks, determined to pin down their foes so they could not dodge.
Drifting wisps of red lotus karmic fire descended, primarily homing in on the gray-robed Dao soldiers, instantly igniting countless ranks of them. The vast stores of karma Wei Yuan had accumulated over time now fully transformed into sin-purging flames, showering down upon the mortal world.
High in the sky, Cangwu appeared, his face twisted in a furious roar. Yet his thunderous bellow was completely contained within ten zhang of his person, not leaking the slightest ripple, so that not even Wei Yuan sensed his presence.
Watching the mist in the air, Cangwu was driven near madness, roaring over and over, "Why wasn't this divined? Why did nobody tell me he still had this trick up his sleeve?! He clearly used karmic fire when fighting the Shaman Clan, so why didn't anyone warn me?!"
His tone abruptly turned sinister: "...You just wanted to destroy my prized treasure, didn't you..."
The red lotus karmic fire worked wonders against Dao soldiers created primarily from yin qi. A mere speck could engulf an entire Dao soldier in flames, burning away all yin qi and spiritual essence until nothing remained but a smear of white ash.
In the sky above, a faint light subtly emerged, inspiring joy and tranquility upon sight.
Wei Yuan finally revealed himself, standing within the light. In his hand rested a small red lotus whose petals continuously peeled away, dissolving into wisps of red mist.
The Dao soldiers were originally devoid of emotion, fearless, and numb to pain. Yet touched by the karmic fire, they writhed on the ground in agony and wailed toward the heavens! As it turned out, it was not that they lacked pain, but that it had been suppressed and bound.
Some Qingming warriors were also brushed by the karmic fire, but azure light promptly flickered across their bodies, extinguishing the flames. This was the mortal fortune Wei Yuan had bestowed upon them in advance, which allowed them to cancel out the karmic fire. Nevertheless, a few Qingming warriors were touched by the fire repeatedly and were ultimately consumed.
By the time the red lotus in Wei Yuan's palm had completely dissolved, less than twenty percent of the million-plus Dao soldiers below remained. Nearly five hundred thousand Dao soldiers still posed a tremendous threat, but they were no longer enough to overrun the Qingming positions.
As the karmic fire receded, a bell tolled once more in the sky. Countless Qingming warriors charged out from underground, clashing in melee with the Dao soldiers and the Ji army.
Tongues of fire began spewing from countless bunkers, sweeping waves of flame across the surface of the positions. Interlocking fields of fire reaped swathes of Ji soldiers daring to stand above ground; even Dao Foundation captains could not escape.
After suffering grievous casualties, the State of Ji soldiers finally came to their senses and leaped into the trenches one after another.
The cultivators also began pairing off in combat, and in this regard, Qingming achieved total domination. While the Ji army boasted a large number of dharma idols, most were in the early stage and of mediocre quality. The cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning could each chase down several opponents at once.
At the Dao Foundation level, although Qingming had only three hundred thousand warriors on the battlefield—a mere fraction of the Ji army's head count—their number of Dao Foundation cultivators was five times that of Ji! Three templates could bring down a single Mortal Tier, and five templates could gang up and pummel an Earth Tier.
The battlefield descended into chaotic melee and meat-grinder mode. The might of Cangwu's Dao soldiers also began to show. Every one of them possessed late-stage Body Casting strength, and their sheer fearlessness forced even the template Dao Foundation cultivators to proceed with caution.
Wei Yuan had not expected Cangwu to drop Dao soldiers directly onto the heavy artillery batteries, leaving the guns largely destroyed and the artillerymen suffering heavy casualties. Such an obvious oversight was likely influenced by the opposing immortal's rank and destiny suppression.
Fortunately, Wei Yuan had stationed heavy forces in the wall-less new city of Guantun County, bogging down the two hundred thousand Dao soldiers deployed there in a grueling struggle.
The buildings in this city were oddly styled yet extraordinarily sturdy. A Dao soldier had to swing a heavy hammer with all his might just to smash a hole in a wall, while the building as a whole showed no sign of collapsing. Demolishing buildings in the city was almost as difficult as quarrying a rocky mountain.
Unable to smash through the buildings, the Dao soldiers fought within the labyrinthine city, where the Qingming warriors knew the terrain intimately and employed flexible tactics. Wei Yuan had long since set up numerous barricades and fortifications throughout the city; every window facing the street served as a firing position, and vast numbers of landmines had been planted, inflicting devastating casualties on the Dao soldiers that entered.
The gray-robed Dao soldiers were formidable, devoid of pain or fear, knowing only how to kill and continually inflicting casualties on the Qingming warriors. By contrast, while the Ji army had numbers on their side, many veterans merely shouted battle cries without pressing forward, keeping an eye out at all times for escape routes.
This kind of meat-grinder battle terrified them most; they could lose their lives at any second, dying without ever knowing why.
Wei Yuan stood in midair, his heart calm as still water. In his eyes, every human life at this moment was merely a fluctuating number.
Supported by the Flourishing of the Many Realms and his own capacity to run tens of thousands of concurrent tasks, Wei Yuan took in every corner of the hundred-li battlefield, tracking combat down to ten-man squads.
By now, several small Qingming detachments had maneuvered around the heavy artillery positions, launching a counter-siege against the Dao soldiers occupying them. Several other units began advancing toward Guantun new city, preparing to surround and annihilate the Dao soldiers inside.
On the left and right flanks, two detachments of three thousand elite cavalry suddenly charged out from the defensive lines, sweeping wide to outflank the Ji army's rear. The Ji army immediately dispatched three dharma idol generals on each side to intercept them. Leading the northern column was Xiaoyu. Cradling Immortal Sword Great Sun in his arms and bolstered by military aura, he stood before his troops, hurling insults and trading techniques.
Bolstered by military aura as well, the three Ji dharma idols moved to engage, but seeing the immortal sword in Xiaoyu's embrace, they felt a pang of trepidation. Soon, however, they noticed clear differences between the sword Xiaoyu held and the true Immortal Sword Great Sun: it wasn't as blazing, its flames were mere mortal fire rather than True Solar Flame, and it only resembled Immortal Sword Great Sun on the surface.
The three dharma idols breathed a sigh of relief. Little did they know that Xiaoyu was cradling Immortal Sword False Sun; the genuine Immortal Sword Great Sun was held in the hands of Star Lord Shaoyang, slowly materializing behind their backs.
Then a blazing sun rose into the sky. Of the three dharma idols, one was slain on the spot, one was severely wounded, and the weakest fled in panic. Xiaoyu immediately led his elite cavalry to tear through the Ji forces blocking them, breaking in from the flank of the main camp and running amok within.
The southern cavalry column seemed to have no commander, yet the Ji dharma idols attempting to intercept them dropped dead one after another for reasons none could fathom, leaving only a faint, blurry shadow flitting past.
With their commanders dead, the southern interception collapsed, and the elite cavalry breached the main camp as well, setting fires everywhere.
Cangwu naturally saw that the commander of the southern cavalry was in fact an exquisitely beautiful young woman—Bao Yun. Yet right now, a distinct shimmer of immortal light flickered around her. Above her head, a poised, noble old matron stood in the air, shadowing her every step.
The Bao family ancestor was not present in true body; the figure in the air was merely a projection, meant as a warning to fellow immortal opponents that Bao Yun was the most valued junior of this generation in the Bao family. Killing her was forbidden; she could only be captured alive. Otherwise, it would mean an endless blood feud, and the Bao Family Immortal Ancestor would use the exact same methods against the enemy's own juniors.
Similarly, above Xiaoyu hovered the silhouette of the Xiao Family Immortal Ancestor, visible only to fellow immortals.
Cangwu naturally ground his teeth in hatred. Had Wei Yuan sent any other two people, he would have had no reservations and might well have stepped in personally to obliterate them. Even if it were Ji Liuli, he would not have hesitated, as he was already locked in mortal enmity with the Palace of Grand Beginning.
However, the Bao family and Xiao family remained outwardly neutral; it was merely that a few juniors from their households were in the Palace of Grand Beginning and Qingming. If he pushed those families into open opposition, Cangwu had no confidence he could answer to his venerable lord.
The battlefield entered a brutal, bloody war of attrition, with casualties on both sides climbing precipitously. At this point, the Ji army's casualties were actually somewhat lower than those of the gray-robed Dao soldiers, as many of their warriors were slacking off and merely going through the motions.
In this stalemate, the significance of the six operational zones Wei Yuan had established became increasingly apparent. The zone commanders assessed the battlefield independently, each directing a dozen or more units simultaneously, dispersing and regrouping at will, executing maneuvers with dazzling finesse. Xiaoyu and Bao Yun had even mounted coordinated flank attacks without prior consultation, raiding the Ji army's main camp.
***
In the territory of the Mountain Folk, a road was steadily extending forward. Tens of thousands of road builders were working with fiery enthusiasm.
Suddenly, the mountains to the flank began to shudder. Towering ancient trees toppled one after another, and the earth rumbled as several terrifying giants, each several zhang tall, emerged along the ridgeline!
With casual sweeps of their limbs, they shoved aside whole swathes of forest and smashed through obstructing peaks, carving a path through the mountains. Behind the lead giants appeared even more mountain giants, followed by dense, uncountable swarms of Mountain Folk!
The main force of the Mountain Folk had actually chosen this precise moment to strike Wei Yuan's rear.
Confronted by the sight of Mountain Folk blanketing the mountains and plains, the road-building laborers did not panic in the least. Instead, they put down their tools, retrieved weapons and armor directly from the wagons parked along the roadside, and suited up on the spot, transforming in the blink of an eye into an elite heavy infantry force.
The beds of several wagons swung open to reveal rotary autocannons or infantry guns concealed within.
Once the former construction workers had transformed into heavy-armor elites, a faint light suddenly surfaced over every man. All this radiance converged high in the sky, coalescing into a towering figure leaning on a sword. Though the hundred-zhang-tall figure's features were indistinct, it bore a faint resemblance to Wei Yuan.
The vast majority of these tens of thousands of construction workers were, in truth, Dao soldiers of the Hall of Dao Soldiers. Wei Yuan had stationed his most elite fifty thousand in the northwest specifically to guard against the Mountain Folk.
Chapter 1058