Driven to Madness

The reinforcements from the Bao and Xiao families were delayed by several days, but they eventually trickled in—each family contributing several dozen dharma idols and hundreds of Dao Foundation cultivators. The two representatives had taken completely different approaches. Xiaoyu simply displayed his Great Sun True Fire Domain and declared that Qingming offered countless paths for sword cultivators; as long as his clansmen went, he guaranteed every one of them could choose a sword path to practice. Baoyun, on the other hand, lavishly handed out Qingyuan directly within the Bao family, hiring temporary cultivators with extravagant pay. Whatever anyone wanted, they could take the money and buy it in Qingming themselves. In addition to high salaries, there was also a remarkably generous pension for those who fell in battle. In the end, the Bao family sent twice as many reinforcements to Qingming as the Xiao family, proving that the might of Qingyuan surpassed even the allure of Dao paths. Xu Henshui achieved only mediocre results, largely because the Xu family were mostly alchemists who had little desire to risk their lives on the battlefield, and a cohort had already been dispatched as expeditionary alchemists. Fortunately, Xu Youyi opened doors for him, permitting Xu Henshui to recruit throughout Eastern Jin. Given time, he would likely gather a respectable force. As for Southern Jin and the State of Zhao, both sent a token contingent of a few dharma idols and several dozen Dao Foundation cultivators. How many among them held dual loyalties remained unknown, nor did Wei Yuan care. Once inside Splendor of the Many Realms, what they could or could not see was not up to them. What they could or could not conceal was equally beyond their control. The only decency Wei Yuan maintained was not making them the sole expendables; instead, he integrated them into units alongside other cultivators, allowing them to serve as expendables together. *** On the battlefield outside the realm, raging flames engulfed a war fortress. Several gaping breaches had been torn into its outer hull, and armored warriors swarmed inside like locusts. Fighting erupted everywhere across the fortress's interior. Seeing that the fortress could hold out no longer, the dharma bodies retreated to designated zones. The outer walls then detached automatically, and the dharma bodies immediately bolted out, fleeing toward safety at full speed. A brilliant blaze of light erupted from deep within the fortress, followed by a thunderous detonation that dragged countless surrounding armored warriors back into the chaos. Instantly, a luminous swath of star sand drifted in the void. A shadow swept past, gathering every grain of star sand into Wei Yuan's grasp. This was Wei Yuan's sole distinct advantage as the defender on home ground—he could harvest the spoils of war. The woman remarked coolly, "Insatiable greed. Gathering this star sand will not translate into fighting strength; it merely wastes a fraction more of your immortal power." She played another stone, and a new batch of taller, sturdier armored warriors strode out of the void, though far fewer in number than the preceding waves. Hearing her words, a thought struck Wei Yuan. Large swarms of worker bees were mobilized, rapidly erecting sprawling clusters of new structures across the Land of Vitality. These buildings were mere hollow shells that completely blanketed the ground, essentially forming a roof that shut out the woman's sight. The woman shook her head. "Driven to madness." The two sides had clashed for several days, with casualties between the dharma body puppets and the otherworldly warriors roughly at a one-to-two ratio. Yet this battle was a war of total attrition. War fortresses consumed resources as well, and their loss had to be factored into the equation. Calculating it this way, the immortal power expended by both sides was roughly equal. The woman seemed somewhat surprised that Wei Yuan could achieve this much. "Over ten thousand years, those capable of fighting me to a draw can be counted on one hand. You are one of them." Wei Yuan ignored her; speaking also consumed energy. Keeping his head down, he directed the worker bees to continue expanding the canopy until the core area of the Land of Vitality was entirely covered, leaving only the access corridors for the dharma bodies and war fortresses. With her vision blocked, a massive maw split open across Wei Yuan's abdomen, swallowing all the star sand in a single gulp. Pure heaven-and-earth origin qi then surged outward in billows, nourishing the Land of Vitality. Relying on the Land of Vitality's natural evolution to refine the star sand was simply too slow. Even if he waited until this battle ended, the initial batch of star sand would never have been transformed into dharma body puppets in time. Wei Yuan therefore handled it himself, using the canopy as cover so she would believe he was merely depleting an existing stockpile—just unaware of how large that stockpile truly was. A new war fortress ascended into the sky with defenses pushed to the maximum, taking the place of a destroyed fortress. The surrounding armored warriors swarmed toward it, but before drawing close, many suddenly veered off their original trajectories. Some brushed past the fortress, while others even turned and flew away. Only a handful managed to approach, only to become sitting ducks for concentrated defensive fire. Wave after wave of armored warriors charged, only to scatter wildly the moment they drew near. Fierce volleys of flying swords then blasted from the fortress, ruthlessly harvesting the disoriented warriors. A single war fortress could not alter the overall situation, but it successfully drew the woman's attention. She placed another stone, and a new contingent of warriors leaped from the chaos, their armor swirling with chaotic power. The moment this batch appeared, Splendor of the Many Realms marked and designated them as Chaos armored warriors, classifying them as tier-three—two tiers above the original warriors. The Chaos armored warriors were noticeably more resistant to gravitational pull, but beyond that, their combat capabilities differed little from the tier-two warriors. The specialized fortress soon found itself locked in a grueling battle, gradually falling into a disadvantage. At that moment, an adjacent fortress maneuvered closer, dragging the warriors besieging it along. Unable to withstand the gravitational pull, the tier-two warriors fell into disarray, drastically increasing the newly arrived fortress's killing efficiency. Among the many dharma bodies within the fortress, two inconspicuous figures were conversing discreetly. In the hands of one, a flying sword materialized every few breaths; he never missed, each strike unfailingly slaying an armored warrior, always targeting critical breaches where enemies were attempting to widen the gaps. Yet this dharma body was thoroughly dissatisfied. He said to the figure beside him, "Fighting like this is utterly stifling. What kind of dogshit dharma body is this, forcing me to fire flying swords one by one? Old Bai, let me play with that rapid-fire gadget in your hands!" The dharma body beside him held a sword casket from which flying swords blasted out in continuous succession. The rate of fire was impressive, though the power of each individual sword was modest. Still, unleashing a ceaseless barrage of flying swords was undeniably satisfying. Chuckling, that dharma body clutched the sword casket tightly and refused to let go. "Junior Brother, this battle concerns someone's Great Dao and future; we can't just fool around. You'd better honestly accumulate your strength as arranged and wait for orders!" "Heaven knows when those orders will come. What if he squanders the tactical opportunity?" "You don't need to worry about that. Could you ever have imagined an extraterrestrial battle being fought like this? Back when our Sword Palace's founding patriarch took part in the war beyond the realm, he went up with nothing but a single immortal sword, charging straight in with his physical body. Where was there any luxury like hiding inside puppets to maneuver? That kid can split his divine sense into over a hundred thousand strands right now—more than both of us combined, and he's smarter than the two of us put together. You don't need to fret on his behalf." "Hmph, dividing more divine thoughts doesn't necessarily mean being smarter... Firing one by one like this is just infuriating!" War fortresses were destroyed from time to time in the void. Most dharma body puppets and true spirits managed to escape, yet a small number of true spirits consistently failed to break free. Even Wei Yuan's powerful pulling force using the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven proved futile. After several occurrences, Wei Yuan sensed something amiss. Counting the pieces on the board, he discovered that several extra stones had appeared without his notice. The Great Dao established by these white stones decreed that whenever a dharma body puppet was destroyed, a certain proportion of true spirits would inevitably perish. With each additional white stone, this proportion increased. Meanwhile, the purpose of two other white stones was to conceal these placements from Wei Yuan's sight. Had Wei Yuan not noticed an anomaly in the data, grown suspicious, and abruptly counted the stones, he never would have discovered that new pieces had been added to the board. Compared to Wei Yuan's crude, straightforward method of adding a roof, the woman's technique was far more sophisticated, elegant, and composed. Its only flaw was that it was expensive—prohibitively expensive. By now, the battle had reached a fever pitch. Newly deployed war fortresses continually exhibited specialized divine abilities, and their construction was no longer uniform. Instead, they had been modified specifically against the armored warriors, featuring far more intricate interior structures. Rather than being destroyed simply by breaching the outer shell, enemies now had to fight fierce room-to-room battles inside before bringing a fortress down. As another fortress blew apart in ruin, many dharma bodies escaped. A portion suffered severe damage, but rather than ejecting their true spirits directly upon destruction, they exhausted their last bit of mana to self-detonate. A single head, encasing the true spirit, shot back toward the base like lightning under the explosive thrust. The woman's expression darkened. Using the remnant shell of the dharma body to shield the fleeing true spirit meant the true spirit was never exposed, rendering her hidden moves utterly useless. This also aroused her suspicion: could he truly deduce the purpose of her placements? By now, only half of the white stones remained in the bowl, and the casualty ratio had gradually shifted from parity to slightly favoring Wei Yuan. After a brief pause, she accelerated her placements. Clearly, even if she suffered twenty to thirty percent greater losses under the current ratio, Wei Yuan was still destined to lose. What she needed to do was push the engagement forward and lock in this attrition ratio once and for all. Wei Yuan, naturally, had no intention of letting her have her way. The hall masters of the Palace of Grand Beginning entered the newly refined specialized dharma bodies and ascended into the sky to join the fray!