A sudden burst of light flared within the trenches. Flying daggers, flying swords, iron spheres, and chakrams—magical artifacts of every shape and sort shot up from the ditches, instantly swatting dozens of leaping Wu warriors out of the air.
The following ranks of the Wu army disregarded these meager casualties, surging forward like a green tidal crest that drowned the front trenches. Multitudes of Wu warriors leapt into the ditches and locked in bloody combat with the human cultivators.
Yet within the cramped trenches, the Wu warriors could not bring their speed to bear at all. Once inside, they could only trade blows head-on against the human cultivators. In the blink of an eye, over a hundred warriors were cut down, while only a dozen or so human cultivators suffered wounds.
Upon the high platform, the Great Shaman grunted in displeasure. The general beside him immediately loosed a piercing whistle that carried for ten li. A second echelon of the Wu army advanced. Numbering roughly a thousand, every warrior rode atop a giant lizard over a zhang in length.
These monitor lizards were venomous and agile, capable of swimming at high speed through water, making them premier mounts in swampy terrain. In past wars, poison lizard cavalry had inflicted bitter suffering upon humanity.
Yet the Wu offensive did not stop there. Two shamans danced a bizarre ritual around a bonfire. The flames gradually turned from red to dark green, whereupon a bloody cloud gathered over the human positions, drizzling down a patter of crimson rain!
With a shout from Yun Feifei, the human cultivators under the bloody deluge quickly withdrew along the trenches, fleeing the reach of the rain. On open ground, entangled with Wu warriors, an orderly retreat would have demanded heavy casualties, but pulling back along the trenches was far easier. Groups of Wu warriors hopped into the trenches to cut them off, only to be hacked down in moments. Warriors perched along the trench rims were also struck down or injured by magical artifacts hurtling up from below.
A simple trench alone could never have achieved such results. Wei Yuan's initial order had merely been to dig ditches, but with their lives on the line, the cultivators had brainstormed all sorts of clever ideas as they worked. Many among them were veteran ruffians from the jianghu, contributing no shortage of nasty traps and underhanded tricks.
Beyond regular trenches, the cultivators had dug subterranean tunnels and temporary redoubt shelters, rigging the tunnel entrances and shelter mouths with various traps. Whenever Wu warriors overwhelmed a section of trench, the cultivators ducked into the tunnels and ambushed them as they pursued. Even if a chamber fell, they could flee along the underground passages to another trench and hold the exit, cutting down any Wu warrior the second their head popped out.
Yet the Wu army held vast superiority in numbers, sweeping across the battlefield like a deluge and pinning the several hundred human cultivators firmly within the trenches. A detachment of poison lizard cavalry flanked around the front lines, charging up the heights toward Wei Yuan and the others.
The time was ripe. With a thought from Wei Yuan, Qingming reopened its domain!
A shaft of clear light shot straight into the heavens. From within the light drifted countless motes and silky threads of luminescence, swiftly displacing the humid breezes and toxic fumes as the surroundings transformed into a clear domain.
Every human cultivator felt an instant surge of vigor. They could distinctly sense wisps of spiritual qi seeping into their bodies, doubling their spiritual power recovery rate. Those who had been dizzy and blurred from poison felt their minds clear; their poisoning and fatigue receded dramatically, restoring their combat prowess.
The Wu warriors, by contrast, grew feeble and sluggish, their speed visibly dropping. Many looked around in panic, completely at a loss as to what had happened.
Within the clear domain, human morale soared. Fighting with desperate ferocity, they mowed down swaths of Wu warriors in an instant.
One burly man had been impaled by several venomous spears, with a poison lizard clamping onto his leg. Though on the brink of death, he suddenly found renewed strength. Loosing a roar, he seized the lizard's jaws and wrenched them apart by sheer brute force. Gathering his remaining strength, he snapped the creature's lower jaw clean off, laughed three hearty times, and collapsed dead.
Upon the high platform, seeing the sudden manifestation of a vast clear domain, the Great Shaman shot to his feet in fury. But four thousand foot soldiers and one thousand poison lizard cavalry were already mired in trench warfare, entirely enveloped by the clear domain. What was more, the domain was expanding and strengthening at a rate that defied all common sense—even the domains of boundary stones that humanity had maintained for centuries could hardly rival this!
The sudden arrival of the clear domain caused Wu casualties to spike precipitously, and disarray began to spread through their ranks.
The Great Shaman slowly extended a withered, twig-like finger and pointed forward. The general immediately raised a horn and blew hard into it, sending resonant blasts echoing across the entire battlefield.
Before the high platform, two thousand warriors stepped forward in unison and marched out in formation, each thudding step shaking the earth!
They were visibly far taller than ordinary Wu warriors, towering even over Wei Yuan. Clad in heavy armor and wielding massive shields and short battle-axes, they bore down like a wall of steel.
The human cultivators fighting bloody battles in the trenches felt the earth tremble. Many hopped up to look, their faces instantly draining of color. These heavy armored shield-and-axe warriors were the true elite of the Wu, standing alongside shamans as the army's dual pillars. Their axes and shield spikes dripped with deadly poison, each warrior possessed late Body Casting strength, and nearly all could cast a few curses.
With such prowess, they were more than a match for any human defender one-on-one—to say nothing of outnumbering them several times over!
As the shield-axe warriors advanced, dark green mist continuously seeped from the seams of their armor, blending into a roiling toxic fog that rolled toward the human trenches alongside their phalanx.
Wei Yuan instantly saw the danger. Such heavily armored warriors would not be disadvantaged even in the trenches, and the poisonous vapors billowing from them would settle into the ditches. Though Jia Wood Life-Mystic could weaken toxins, these heavy warriors were essentially walking poison dispensers. In such numbers, the venom could not be purged fast enough.
If all two thousand heavy warriors breached the trench network, the entire human line was liable to collapse.
Wei Yuan took up his spear and mounted his steed. With a call, a dozen-odd riders assembled at his side, readying to charge.
Just as Wei Yuan moved to spur his horse forward, someone caught his reins. Looking down, he found that it was none other than Xu Wenwu! On a battlefield choked with flying gore and poison gas, why wasn't this fellow hiding somewhere safe? What was he grabbing the reins for?
Xu Wenwu yelled with panic written all over his face, "Big Brother! Think thrice!"
"Think thrice?"
"Yes! The enemy is too strong—how about we just run? The world is huge, can't we find fortunate encounters somewhere else?"
Qingming's domain had already unfolded, granting Wei Yuan full awareness of everything within it. In the brief span of this delay, four or five more human cultivators had fallen in the trenches.
Wei Yuan said impassively, "Fine, then I shall think thrice before acting."
He drew a deep breath and roared, "One, two, three—charge!"
The warhorse suddenly expanded in size, flames igniting beneath its hooves. Wei Yuan roared, pointing his spear forward as he charged toward the heavily armored phalanx! The mounts of the dozen-odd riders similarly transformed, their speed exploding as they trailed close behind Wei Yuan.
Though facing an enemy a hundred times their number, they pressed forward without fear!
As the steeds surged faster and faster, Wei Yuan willed Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains into manifestation, completely turning the surrounding thousand zhang into a clear domain! Disarray finally rippled through the armored Wu phalanx. Many warriors felt a fiery searing pain across their exposed eyes, noses, mouths, and skin, and their vision began to blur.
The dozen-odd human riders bulged with muscle, their bodies swelling a size larger. Under the empowerment of Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, their combat strength surged by a full twenty percent!
At that moment, a jade mountain materialized in midair and slammed into the center of the phalanx like a meteor! Countless heavy warriors were launched into the air by the shockwave, while dozens were pulverized into paste or shaken to death outright. Within the domain, the might of Wei Yuan's Dao arts was greatly enhanced and cast far more swiftly—virtually the moment his intent stirred, the jade mountain was already formed.
Reeling from consecutive strikes, the armored phalanx fell into utter disarray. Wei Yuan burst into their ranks like lightning. He swept his spear in a wide arc, swatting five or six warriors flying in front of him, sweeping away all in his path!
The riders followed closely behind Wei Yuan like a sharp arrowhead, piercing straight through the formation.
To Wei Yuan's eyes, the armored warriors moved as slowly as snails. His spear thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew through body after body. Before he knew it, no foes remained ahead—he had carved entirely through the enemy formation. But only nine riders remained behind him.
Wei Yuan wheeled his horse around and leaned low, adopting a posture to charge once more. Many armored Wu warriors immediately pulled together to brace against his second charge. To their shock, Wei Yuan merely pointed his spear, and another jade mountain coalesced in the sky, hurtling down with a howling roar to crush another dense cluster of heavy warriors.
Repeating his ploy, Wei Yuan charged once more into the chaotic ranks, but this time flaming immortal swords continuously materialized around him. From the saddlebags slung over his horse, unfinished sword vessels flew out, merging with the manifested Immortal Sword · False Sun to multiply their power; each sword cut down two or three foes before dissipating. Though an individual Immortal Sword · False Sun was weak, their sheer numbers compensated. At peak, over a dozen manifested at once, flying and slashing blindly without any need for aim.
In the blink of an eye, Wei Yuan broke out on the opposite side. This time, only five riders remained behind him.
His warhorse let out a long neigh as Wei Yuan turned about once again. The armored phalanx before him was in complete disarray; the two jade mountain strikes alone had crushed over two hundred men. Now, the heavy warriors didn't know whether to cluster or scatter—some bunched together, others dispersed, throwing the formation into total chaos. Seizing the moment, Wei Yuan ringed himself with False Sun swords and carved through the enemy ranks for a third time!
Yet when he wheeled his steed around, not a single rider remained behind him.
Seeing his elite troops suffer catastrophic casualties, the Great Shaman on the platform could endure it no longer. He surged to his feet and struck the great drum beside his throne with heavy blows.
Behind the platform, several hundred figures draped in black robes were decapitated. The blood spurting from their necks converged together, searing a bizarre, colossal rune into the ground.
The Great Shaman muttered rapid, dense incantations that buzzed like a swarm of hornets taking flight. He raised his hand and pointed at Wei Yuan; his fingertip abruptly blew apart into a burst of bloody mist!
Above Wei Yuan's head, a crimson blood cloud inexplicably coalesced. Viscous droplets of blood fell upon his armor, instantly burning small pits into the metal. Wherever Wei Yuan went, the blood cloud shadowed him, remaining fixed directly above his head.
Chapter 120