"Here, here, and here—all require troops stationed in defense. Xiaoyu, you take charge of the five positions to the west. Eldest Senior Sister, you handle the three positions to the east. As soon as the defensive positions are built, return immediately."
"These few mountain peaks need someone to go inspect them on the ground."
Wei Yuan pointed and gestured across the map, quickly casting an inescapable net centered on the mountain pass. He deployed his main force along the primary thoroughfare while sealing off and delaying along the flanks, striking the posture of a decisive battle, just waiting for Silver Moon to arrive for a fight to the death.
At this stage, Wei Yuan no longer held anything back. The mobility of Qingming's main force relied entirely on flying boats; in just a single day, over a hundred thousand troops were airlifted ten thousand li away, sealing off the southward route.
Afterward, the flying boats shuttled back and forth, deploying various detachments to key strategic locations.
Only a day after Qingming's defense line was established, billowing dust and smoke rose from the north as countless Liao cavalry swarmed over the mountains and plains.
Inside a war chariot in the center, Silver Moon suddenly opened his eyes and asked, "Why has the vanguard halted?"
A Liao woman replied, "Khan, the pass ahead has been seized by the humans!"
Silver Moon's eyes snapped wide, and he said slowly, "So fast? Then not many could have arrived. Pass the order: charge straight through!"
A short while later, a general reported back, "The vanguard charged three times and failed to take it. The humans are exceptionally numerous—at least one or two hundred thousand strong!"
Silver Moon finally stepped down from the chariot, his brow furrowing slightly. He had been building his momentum the entire way, intending to deal Wei Yuan a thunderous, decisive blow over the Sea of the Moon. Having it suddenly interrupted left an indescribable annoyance in his chest.
Once one became an immortal, every gesture and movement tugged at the Great Dao of heaven and earth. The reverse was equally true: abnormalities in the Great Dao of heaven and earth would also alert an immortal.
At this moment, Silver Moon felt terrible. He had planned everything out nicely: to fight the decisive battle against Wei Yuan over the Sea of the Moon. This was the royal court where he had reincarnated dozens of times; even with the ancestral temple destroyed, standing here still granted him a massive boon, much like Wei Yuan standing within Qingming.
After stepping down, Silver Moon did not go to the front lines immediately. Instead, he summoned several myriarchs and ordered them each to lead ten thousand light cavalry through several trails on the left and right, penetrating into the Sea of the Moon to harass Wei Yuan's rear.
The expressions of these myriarchs were completely wooden. Upon receiving their orders, they led their troops away without hesitation.
Having arranged all this, Silver Moon could already sense that the rise of his qi dynamic and fortune had halted. He sighed inwardly; in the end, his momentum had indeed been broken.
He rose into the air and reached the front lines moments later. But when his divine sense swept forward, it slammed into an iron wall, forcefully repelled by military qi.
Silver Moon narrowed his eyes, his expression calm while shock churned in his heart. Military qi of this scale belonged to at least five hundred thousand troops! Had Qingming's war capability reached such a height that it could deploy hundreds of thousands of troops at will?
The pass between the two mountains was ten-odd li wide, currently sealed entirely by heavy armored chariots. Armored steel plates were erected between the chariots, forming a wall of iron and steel.
Behind this steel wall sat thousands of chariots. Deployed individually and spread apart like reefs in the sea, if the Liao cavalry breached the wall, they would inevitably be shredded by these reefs, and each chariot was itself a fortress packing ferocious firepower.
The Liao Clan had already experienced this fortress firepower defensive tactic at the Northern Mountain Gate and in Eastern Jin. Looking at the sheer number of forts, Silver Moon knew that his vanguard of two hundred thousand iron cavalry could never break through.
At this moment, Wei Yuan appeared. He bowed to Silver Moon from afar and said, "This path is closed. Please turn back, Great Khan!"
Silver Moon narrowed his eyes and said slowly, "Only today do I see that Realm Lord employs troops like a god. I underestimated you before."
Wei Yuan laughed. "My grasp of the art of war is mediocre at best. It is simply that my soldiers are fine and our national might is strong. No matter how we fight, we cannot lose!"
"You are not an immortal after all. Do you truly believe that relying on these sluggish iron boxes can block my way?"
Wei Yuan said, "I am not here to block the way; I am here to fight a decisive battle against you right here. Great Khan, after you?"
No matter how naive Silver Moon might be, he knew he must never fight a decisive battle on a battlefield prepared by his opponent. With a cold snort, he instead ordered the vanguard to pull back and make camp, abandoning even the ten thousand corpses before the pass.
No matter how strong Qingming's national might was, it had marched deep into the Liao domain. Military qi was draining away constantly, and its supply line stretched more than a hundred thousand li. Silver Moon was certain Wei Yuan could only seek a swift victory. Thus, he planned to wait for his main army behind him to arrive, while the tens of thousands of light cavalry he had sent out would sever Wei Yuan's supply lines; without even needing a decisive battle, Wei Yuan would be forced to retreat.
Yet right at this moment, several images suddenly transmitted from afar. Those myriarchs had actually been refined by Silver Moon through puppet secret arts; when necessary, they could serve as avatars, and over far greater distances than ordinary avatars. It was through this secret art that Silver Moon could command more than a dozen army columns like extensions of his own limbs, repeatedly shattering powerful foes.
These images were what they sent back.
Countless Liao cavalry had been galloping at high speed through a valley when the ground suddenly detonated. So tremendous was the force that some riders and horses were blasted dozens of meters into the air! Then shrapnel sprayed everywhere; many cavalrymen fell straight off their horses, blood gushing from all over their bodies only after they hit the ground.
The leading myriarch was an avatar of Silver Moon. At a glance, he recognized this weapon known as a landmine. He immediately ordered all the Liao cavalry to take flight briefly. Something called a landmine shouldn't explode if not stepped on.
Yet even though the Liao cavalry took to the air, the landmines detonated when they were meant to detonate, as if they possessed spiritual intelligence of their own.
Silver Moon immediately looked toward the ridges on both sides. With an order, the Liao cavalry activated bloodlust mode, scaling the sheer cliffs as though walking on flat ground, attacking toward the peaks on either side.
Sure enough, the roar of autocannons echoed from both mountain peaks, and dozens of flying swords flashed with dazzling brilliance, directly concentrating fire on Silver Moon's avatar.
These flying swords were shockingly all Dharma Idol magic treasures. Though only of the lowest grade, with dozens of them firing at once, Silver Moon's avatar—being merely at the peak Dharma Idol stage—dared not take them head-on. He had no choice but to retreat swiftly, dispelling them as he fell back. Only after retreating more than ten li in one breath did he neutralize all the flying swords, costing twenty percent of his magic power in the process.
Not just at this one location—every single column of Liao cavalry encountered interception, and every single route was guarded by dozens of Dharma Idols!
Silver Moon had long heard the fame of Qingming's Golden Pellet dharma idols, but in the past he had treated it as a joke. Only now, facing them on the battlefield himself, did he realize that when dozens or hundreds of pieces of trash gathered in one place, they ceased to be trash.
If Wei Yuan could place dozens of Golden Pellet dharma idols at every single interception point, how many had he deployed on the frontal battlefield?!
Silver Moon took a deep look at Wei Yuan and said, "Realm Lord Wei, you truly intend to put me to death!"
Wei Yuan smiled. "What kind of talk is that? We can still talk. After we fight, we'll talk—talk properly!"
Silver Moon naturally wouldn't believe Wei Yuan's nonsense. He prepared to return to his central army to devise a strategy to break the deadlock. Having commanded armies for millennia, he already had a countermeasure: deploy his iron cavalry to block Wei Yuan's northward path, then dispatch two detachments around the mountain range to thrust straight into the Frost Silver Prairie and sever Wei Yuan's route of retreat.
Then, Silver Moon prepared to bow his head to the Living Buddha and request several Dharma Gods to reinforce him. Once this strategy spanning thousands of li was accomplished, Wei Yuan himself might be able to flee, but the million Qingming troops would all remain in the Liao domain, serving as nourishment for heaven and earth.
Yet at the thought of having to bow his head to the Living Buddha, a shadow flitted across Silver Moon's face. Gritting his teeth, he decided to fight Wei Yuan first to test his opponent's true caliber before deciding whether to take that final step.
With his mind made up, Silver Moon wasted no more words on Wei Yuan and turned to leave. But he had flown only a few fathoms when his entire body shuddered, freezing stiff in midair!
In the distant sky, a long fissure suddenly cracked open. A faint greenish luminescence slowly spilled forth, cascading downward in layered folds to draw open a vast curtain of greenish light. Sheets of it drifted gently from the sky like emerald dissolving in rippling water, its surging edges warping the profound depths of the heavens. Along the arched fringe, the green shifted into pale pink—incomparably magnificent, incomparably resplendent!
This was netherlight found only in the Nether Sea of Hanyuan in the far north, yet it had abruptly appeared in the south, a million li away!
In an instant, Silver Moon felt as though plunged into an ice cave. Then, countless invisible, intangible nether threads crept forth, binding him fast.
Inside a hidden grand hall, massive torches scattered throughout could only illuminate their immediate corners. The gilded Buddha statue's countenance remained hidden in darkness. The licking flames of the giant torches illuminated only the bases of the pillars; the coffered ceiling and crossbeams sank into blackness. In the censer lay cold ash and lingering incense, a wisp of pale smoke drifting along the edges of the light. Upon a high platform in the corner of the hall, a vajra pestle and bronze cymbals gleamed faintly on one side and sank into deep shadow on the other, flickering between light and dark.
Seated upon the high platform was a Buddha several tens of zhang tall, crawling all over with young men and women of various races in assorted postures. Leaning forward slightly, he looked toward the green-eyed woman below the platform and said with a smile, "I thought you would never return. What brings you here this time?"
The green-eyed woman said, "I wish to make a bet with the Living Buddha."
"Bet on what?" the giant Buddha asked with interest.
"Bet that Silver Moon will lose."
The Buddha chuckled. "Seeking death again, are you? Though few in this world can kill you, I am not the only one. Why must you always come to me?"
"I may not lose."
The Buddha said with some resignation, "You are certain to lose. How about this: since we haven't met in a thousand years, let us bet something bigger. What do you want? Mind you, dying is out of the question."
The green-eyed woman said, "I want that ring on your hand."
The Buddha paused, then took off the ring worn on his little finger and said, "This is no great treasure, merely a broken stone left behind three thousand eight hundred years ago by that man. Moved by his solitary courage in carving out a sliver of hope for the world's human race all on his own, I kept it as a memento.
"This stone itself is of no use, nor do you comprehend that grand conviction of swimming against the current. What do you want this for?
"Why not ask for something else? How about this: I have three thousand six hundred dharmas. Aside from the three fundamental arts, you may choose any one of them for an inheritance. How about that?"
"I want only that ring."
Helpless, the Buddha sighed. "Then as you wish. It makes no difference anyway; Silver Moon cannot lose."
The wager struck, the Buddha suddenly sensed something. He straightened up instinctively, causing countless young men and women to lose their hold and tumble down.
The Buddha paid them no heed, speaking with visible shock, "Calamity! How could I have overlooked this? No, not overlooked—I never even considered it!"
Chapter 1387