Wei Yuan appeared over the pass city of Ganzhou, standing suspended in midair as his divine sense swept across the entire settlement.
Every household within the fortress kept its doors firmly shut. The only figures in the streets were Qingming warriors, alongside numerous cultivators holding registers who went door-to-door, verifying identities and taking census.
Within the pass fortress were one hundred and fifty thousand civilians and an equal garrison of one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. Before the battle, all had believed the fortress impregnable: supplies were piled high as mountains, and the city boasted a hundred artillery pieces, so not a single soul had fled.
None expected that in less than two hours, the entire city would fall, its defenders captured to a man—save for the generals, who, seeing how the wind blew, fled beforehand.
When Qingming's first shell—with a caliber of one and a half chi and weighing four thousand jin—came crashing down, not a single dharma idol general dared intercept it. They could only watch helplessly as it fell. The city-protecting ward flared to life, but the shell's sheer power punched straight through the barrier of light, blowing away half the gate tower and obliterating the array's crucial nodes.
This shell was vastly heavier than Qingming's previous divine-sense-guided missiles; even a dharma idol cultivator would be injured trying to stop it. Crucially, Qingming possessed not one heavy cannon of this caliber, but fifty!
And so, sensing disaster, the Lu clan's dharma idols fled immediately. Even if they somehow stopped the opening volley of fifty rounds, every one of them would be severely wounded. And what would they use to block the second salvo, the third, or the dozens that followed? If they, exalted dharma idol masters, ended up blown to bits by mere mortal fire and mortal iron, they would become the laughingstock of the world.
In Qingming's vanguard legion were several Golden Core dharma idols, tasked with guiding shells via divine sense and breaking through the enemy dharma idols' interceptions. A Golden Core dharma idol was still a dharma idol, its divine abilities and might far exceeding ordinary peak Dao Foundation cultivators. Though far inferior to genuine dharma idols, they were perfectly suited for guiding missiles and shells.
Yet this newly developed heavy artillery from Qingming was seeing combat for the first time, and its destructive force was staggering. Even ordinary dharma idols shrank from facing its brunt. Three shots shattered the garrison's morale, and before the first barrage had even concluded, the dharma idol generals had vanished without a trace.
Just then, a young girl flew over—strikingly bright and cold all at once, with large, lively, yet oddly dazed and endearing eyes. Her face held an uncanny fusion of icy aloofness and adorable innocence, unforgettable to anyone who saw her.
Landing beside Wei Yuan, she adopted the picture of an obedient, dutiful daughter and called out, "Dad..."
Wei Yuan nearly dropped a few inches in the air. "How many times have I told you?" he snapped irritably. "You are not allowed to call me that! Did you not hear me clearly?"
"All right, Dad," the girl replied.
Wei Yuan gave a helpless laugh of sheer frustration. "Call me Hall Master!"
"Understood, Hall Master Dad."
Caught between laughter and tears, Wei Yuan had no way to deal with her and could only let it slide.
This maiden was none other than Wei Ying of Water Moon Hall. She still appeared youthful and delicate, though in truth she had reached her current appearance when she was only five or six years old, remaining completely unchanged over the years since.
Like Xu Shiba, Wei Ying had absorbed and devoured all the siblings of her batch at birth. Her aptitude defied the heavens, she possessed innate wisdom from a past life, and her growth rate was seven to eight times that of normal people. Her cultivation advanced like lightning—so fast that Wei Yuan felt if she went any quicker, she would catch up to him.
At this point, Wei Ying had already formed her dharma idol: a Taiyin Full Moon, the orthodox pinnacle idol of Water Moon Hall. Originally, Water Moon Hall's three supreme dharma idols—Taiyin Full Moon, Jade Toad, and Immortal Osmanthus—had all been somewhat flawed and lacking perfection, ranking at the very bottom among the Twelve Halls. On Wei Ying's original dharma idol, for instance, several patches across the full moon's surface had been hazy and indistinct.
Cultivators knowledgeable about the past of the Third Generation Palace Master, Demonic Venerable Suchan, naturally assumed this was because the authority over years and time had been lost to the world.
However, ever since Wei Yuan obtained the Ancient Full Moon Dao Foundation and used it to form a grotto-heaven, the imperfections on Wei Ying's dharma idol had abruptly diminished by a great margin, and the cultivation of other Water Moon Hall practitioners had advanced accordingly. Only then did Wei Yuan realize that the Water Moon Hall's Dao path had also been missing the Ancient Full Moon.
When the ancient human race arose from the untamed wilderness, it was truly a cradle of hidden dragons and crouching tigers; every cultivator was a world-shaking genius. For instance, the Ancient Full Moon had actually been an individual cultivator's Dao Foundation—and unique across all realms. In other words, that remarkable talent had acquired a portion of heaven and earth's authority while still at the Dao Foundation stage.
Even now, Wei Yuan could scarcely imagine what kind of Dao path could possibly forge a Dao Foundation like the Ancient Full Moon.
Since acquiring the Ancient Full Moon, the Water Moon Hall's cultivation arts had grown vastly more potent, ranking in the upper-middle tier among the Twelve Halls. If they could also retrieve the lost authority of time, they might well stand as equals with the Three Views.
Seeing Wei Yuan looking a bit annoyed, the girl finally behaved herself and said, "We have inspected the fortress defenses. Compared to traditional pass forts, they drastically modified their defensive ward here, boosting blast resistance while weakening defense against Dao arts. At the same time, the walls were lowered and thickened. All these changes were made specifically to counter our artillery.
"However, they prepared only for our first-generation cannons, which had limited power—each shot roughly equal to an initial Dao Foundation strike. Our newest heavy artillery was designed after the naval guns of the otherworldly realm. A one-and-a-half-chi heavy cannon carries the punch of an initial dharma idol attack, while a one-chi heavy cannon matches the strike of a peak Dao Foundation practitioner.
"Against power of this magnitude, such minor reinforcements could never hold. Judging from the destruction observed in this battle, an enemy fortress would need to be rebuilt from the ground up and manned by thirty dharma idol cultivators to withstand our bombardment."
Wei Ying paused briefly before adding, "Therefore, the era of high walls and stalwart fortresses is over."
Wei Yuan asked, "Then how should we defend against heavy artillery?"
"For fortress and citadel defense, the ramparts must not be built high, and defensive arrays should be designed primarily against mortal iron and blasts. The best method is using ward arrays to detonate incoming shells prematurely. For field fortifications, one must build defenses anchored to mountainsides, tunneling directly into the rock. On open plains, one must construct subterranean trench networks reinforced with multiple layers.
"Yet the superior solution remains air superiority, strikes by top cultivators, or deploying mobile forces to raid enemy artillery emplacements. A mediocre alternative is suppression via long-range missiles or counter-battery fire..."
Wei Ying's answers were crisp and clear; she had evidently done extensive homework. Unlike Xu Shiba, who devoted herself purely to the sword, Wei Ying read widely and held a deep interest in military campaigns between armies. She was already serving as a general in the vanguard legion.
Wei Ying possessed profound cultivation and unmatched talent, and her naturally cute yet icy expression made her an absolute heartbreaker among young men. As a result, she had countless suitors among the army's rising talents, while countless others could only keep their admiration buried in their hearts, never daring to show it.
Aside from her looks far exceeding what their confidence could handle—leaving them to pine in silence—there was also the fact that whenever Wei Yuan arrived at the front lines, Wei Ying chased after him every day calling him 'Dad.' Rumors had thus swept through the army that she was in truth the Realm Lord's illegitimate daughter.
Having listened to her report, Wei Yuan said, "Very well. Leave this place for the follow-up forces to take over. Lead the vanguard legion out immediately and proceed straight to the next pass city. Once it falls, this commandery will be ours. If you encounter the Lu clan's main army, you may bypass the fortress and eliminate their forces first."
"Understood, Dad!"
"You are not allowed to call me Dad!"
"Yes, Dad!"
Watching Wei Ying fly off, Wei Yuan felt a headache coming on. Though she possessed innate wisdom from her past life, everything she did in this life seemed aimed at doing her utmost for Qingming.
And so Wei Yuan merely shook his head, pushing past memories of prior unpleasantness from his mind. Back then, the Karma Great Curse had failed to claim his life; in the Far North, Wei Yuan had not only formed a marriage bond with Zhang Sheng, but had also brought back the core of the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven and gained karma tied to the dragon guards—an immense harvest by any measure.
The most vital was truly the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven. Wei Yuan increasingly realized that the Yellow Springs was an indispensable link in the cycle of the Great Dao of heaven and earth. Only with the existence of the Yellow Springs could the world form a self-contained system.
Looking back, the Karma Great Curse had faintly borne the traces of supreme figures vying from the shadows. As for Fei Yutong's betrayal back then, though personal reasons played a part, it had likely been steered to a far greater extent by a hidden hand behind the scenes.
Just as everyone harbored a dark side in their heart, the vast majority simply never acted on it. Not even Wei Yuan was immune, so how could others be blamed?
Wei Ying's vanguard legion was exceptionally efficient; in less than an hour, the lead mobile unit had already marched out of the city and begun pushing into enemy territory.
Wei Yuan knew that Lu Changhe was an immortal and closely intertwined with the Western Jin royal family, holding a critical position. As the saying went, pull a single hair and the entire body moves. Wei Yuan did not expect taking Lu Changhe down to be an easy task; people would inevitably leap out to interfere. The more people who stepped out, the clearer Wei Yuan would see the layout behind the scenes.
What if no one stepped in to stop him?
That question had an easy answer: good things came in pairs, and slaying immortals shouldn't just stop at one.
Chapter 1128