Xu Zhongxing slowly raised his massive hand and swept it forward. The army's military qi surged, quickening their march at once, while over a dozen dispatch riders galloped to the rear to urge the trailing infantry to double their pace.
Before long, Xuanwei Three came into view. Looking at the low, practically ornamental city walls, Xu Zhongxing frowned slightly, momentarily at a loss as to where to begin.
The city was completely unfortified, yet military qi gathered conspicuously within, clearly concealing a heavy garrison.
Fan Donghe shook his head upon seeing it and remarked, "These troops are poorly drilled—they can't even conceal their military qi. Judging by its strength, there must be ten thousand men lying in ambush inside."
Xu Zhongxing said, "When meat is delivered right to your lips, of course you eat it."
He immediately issued orders to the rear army, dispatching thirty thousand infantry to besiege the city. His dispositions complete, Xu Zhongxing led the main force past Xuanwei Three, penetrating deeper to seek a decisive battle against Wei Yuan's main army.
Not far beyond Xuanwei Three, something Xu Zhongxing and Fan Donghe had never seen before came into view.
Fan Donghe rubbed his eyes and peered closely. Across the flat ground, wooden stakes were driven into the earth, coiled with loops of iron wire bristling with countless tiny barbs—and there were three or four belts of such obstacles.
Behind these unprecedented obstacles, a vast expanse of military qi condensed; the domain's main force was clearly gathered here. Yet they were all concealed inside trenches, only their heads poking out.
Xu Zhongxing and Fan Donghe exchanged glances. Neither had ever seen a defense that dug trenches instead of building ramparts.
After watching for a moment, Fan Donghe said, "A fine way to stop cavalry, I suppose. But dispersed like that, their redeployment will be sluggish. We only need to concentrate our assault on a single point to slice them right in half!"
"Wait for the infantry behind us to catch up first."
Xu Zhongxing then dispatched two squadrons of cavalry to flank the positions on the left and right, probing for any other ambushes. Judging by the military qi, however, Xu Zhongxing knew there were at least fifty thousand men ahead; the entire domain's military strength seemed to be assembled here.
Yet while Xu Zhongxing held back his attack, Wei Yuan made his move. A shrill shriek tore across the sky as several railgun shells came screaming down!
"What is that?" Xu Zhongxing drew his sword, but before he could act, Fan Donghe had already slashed out three beams of blade light.
The three shells suddenly swerved, evading the blade light, and detonated midair. They scattered dozens of submunitions, some of which exploded in the air—some releasing blinding flashes, others detonating with terrifying, thunderous roars. Below, countless warhorses panicked instantly, throwing the cavalry into disarray.
Seven or eight submunitions slipped through to strike the ground before detonating, blasting several dozen nearby cavalrymen into the air.
In the heart of the domain, Yu Zhizhuo personally worked based on reports from the front, loading white-striped hollow canister submunitions into shells before feeding them into the formation. The vast majority of the shells fired in this salvo were hollow canisters without powder.
At the front line, Fan Donghe unleashed over a hundred flashes of blade light. A tidal wave of blade qi cleaved through all the submunitions midair, only to reveal that nearly all of them were empty.
The realization that he was being played sent Fan Donghe into an immediate fury. Had Xu Zhongxing not been the commander-in-chief, he would have charged the enemy line himself.
Howling incessantly, salvo after salvo of shells rained down from above. Even Xu Zhongxing was forced to act personally, while every officer at or above the mid-stage Dao Foundation had to assist in intercepting the barrage.
Xu Zhongxing fired a signal flare, urgently summoning a dharma idol elder from the following army. Only by combining the might of all three did they barely manage to stem the bombardment. Yet strays slipped through from time to time, each shell claiming the lives of over a dozen cavalrymen upon impact.
Qingming's artillery shells seemed endless. Seeing that morale would crumble if this continued, Xu Zhongxing made a decisive call. He ordered runners to tell the rear army to advance at full speed and reach the battlefield as quickly as possible, then turned to Fan Donghe and the dharma idol elder: "We strike together and carve open a path!"
Three dharma idols struck in unison with earth-shattering might. Three hundred-zhang torrents crashed against the defensive lines, instantly leveling all obstacles and clearing three avenues through!
Yet Xu Zhongxing frowned slightly.
Though the three dharma idols' strike appeared overwhelming, its true power was less than expected. Weakened once by the domain's power and dampened again by the opposing military qi, only seventy percent of its force remained. Moreover, the enemy was cunning, hunkering entirely within the trenches; an all-out strike by three dharma idols had killed fewer than a hundred soldiers with its shockwaves.
Xu Zhongxing could afford no second thoughts now. With a wave of his longsword, the heavy cavalry surged forward to lead the charge!
The cavalry mass reached the front of the positions in the blink of an eye. Dao Foundation captains unleashed bursts of sword qi and blade rays to shred the barbed wire before them, or buffed their mounts with spells to leap over a zhang into the air, clearing the barbed wire completely.
Yet no sooner had they cleared the first belt of barbed wire than a succession of relentless explosions ripped through the ground. Many heavy cavalrymen stepped on something, blasting riders and mounts alike into the air!
Scores of warhorses reared in terror. At that moment, the defenders popped up from the trenches, a continuous roar erupting as thick gunpowder smoke instantly blanketed the field!
Countless cavalrymen were thrown backward, while riderless horses crashed into the barbed wire, tangled and thrown headlong to the ground. Explosions rippled across the front in unbroken sequence as pre-laid landmines detonated one after another; the charge had turned into an utter disaster.
Countless riders collapsed out of nowhere, having no idea where the attacks were coming from. All they could see was the smoke over the enemy lines growing thicker and denser, punctuated by steady muzzle flashes—and nearly every flash brought another horseman mysteriously tumbling from the saddle!
Fan Donghe's eyes turned bloodshot at the sight. With a maddened roar, he drew his blade and charged forward.
Just then, eight immortal swords sliced through the air, drawing him aside into the sky. An ethereal-looking old Daoist appeared, shouting from a distance, "A barbarian like you laying hands on mere mortals—have you no shame? This old Daoist cannot bear the sight and must discipline you on behalf of your parents!"
Fan Donghe swept the eight immortal swords aside with a single slash, noting that their strikes lacked any real force. Disinclined to waste time on the old Daoist, he moved to plunge into the line to rescue the elite cavalry he had commanded for years.
To his surprise, the old Daoist's voice suddenly boomed: "So you truly dare not spar with this Perfected Person! With those thick brows and big eyes, who knew you were as timid as a mouse? How about this: if you can take three sword strikes from this old Daoist without dying, I'll turn around and leave!"
Fan Donghe was thoroughly enraged and bellowed, "Daoist dog, courting death!"
Soaring into the sky, he brought his blade down with mountain-splitting, sea-parting fury, slashing straight at the sharp-tongued old fraud!
Watching the blade descend, the old Daoist sneered and called out, "Nothing special!"
Yet for all his soaring bluster, he spun around on the spot and fled into the distance, not daring to take the strike at all.
The old Daoist's sheer shamelessness left Fan Donghe momentarily stunned before he realized the old man was truly all bark and no bite.
Yet the man was still a dharma idol; slaying him would be worth far more than wiping out tens of thousands of common troops. Fan Donghe pursued in hot haste, vowing to cut down the babbling old Daoist!
Both dharma idols flew at full speed, crossing the domain in the blink of an eye and hurtling toward the west. Suddenly, Fan Donghe's vision darkened as a hundred-zhang serpent plunged from the sky, spewing a plume of venomous mist down at him!
A chill ran through Fan Donghe's heart. Daring not be careless, he focused entirely on battling the giant python.
After only a few exchanges, he sensed that the python carried a third of flood dragon bloodline, and its toxic breath was exceedingly terrifying. Though it was no match for him, a single lapse resulting in poisoning might truly see him perish in these Shattered Lands. Casting all thought of the old Daoist aside, he concentrated on fighting the serpent, gradually gaining the upper hand.
Meanwhile, the old Daoist had already returned to the battlefield between the two armies. His eight immortal swords carefully skirted around Xu Zhongxing, striking toward the dharma idol elder as he hollered, "You white-haired scoundrel! Ignorant old codger! Dare you spar with this old Daoist for three days and three nights..."
Xu Zhongxing was in no mood to deal with that rogue old Daoist. The cavalry was suffering disastrous casualties; only a sparse few managed to breach the defensive lines, only to be promptly shot dead or to have their mounts stumble and plunge into the trenches. The army's military qi wavered violently, showing signs of collapsing.
Without a word, Xu Zhongxing flashed directly to the front line and slashed his sword downward. No brilliant glow or sword qi could be seen, yet over a hundred Qingming soldiers in the trenches dropped dead in eerie silence—and over a dozen Dao Foundation cultivators were no exception!
This sword strike, "Life-Slaying," was one of Xu Zhongxing's signature lethal techniques, a weapon meant for battlefield slaughter. Back in the day, he had slain thousands of Shamans in a single battle with this strike, carving his battered remnants out of an encirclement.
From deep within the positions, a heavy snort sounded. A brilliant red radiance flashed, and a hundred-zhang, plaintive sword beam swept across the field, cleaving back toward Xu Zhongxing!
Xu Zhongxing swung his sword to parry, but the moment he raised it, he discovered faint wisps of black qi entwining his blade and even his sword hand. The strike's power was diminished by half a measure, and the circulation of his magic power grew faintly sluggish!
The ever-composed Xu Zhongxing was now shocked and furious, thinking to himself, "How vicious! Tricking me into slaughtering so many bearers of karmic luck just to shroud me in karmic debt!"
The longsword collided with the red sword beam, and both dissipated into nothingness, ending in a dead heat. The stray sword qi swept across several cavalrymen, claiming their lives in an instant.
Xu Zhongxing's face turned livid, his hand trembling slightly with fury. From that single clash, he sensed that although his opponent possessed transcendent talent, their actual cultivation was only at the Dao Foundation realm.
Yet his own side's military qi was faltering, offering Xu Zhongxing no support whatsoever and instead dragging him down; suppressed further by the power of the domain, his sword strike retained merely eighty percent of its strength.
His adversary, however, was bolstered by military qi, which boosted the attack's strength by at least fifty percent. Furthermore, the domain's enhancement was substantial, and wielding a genuine immortal sword on top of that, they fought Xu Zhongxing to a standstill!
Xu Zhongxing had been a peerless genius since childhood, essentially invincible among his peers. Even against fellow dharma idols, he could overpower Fenhai. Yet here he was, challenged across cultivation realms by a junior—and fought to a draw!
In the past, it had always been Xu Zhongxing challenging others above his level; when had he ever suffered such an insult from a junior?
Wei Yuan was equally shocked and enraged. A single strike from the foe had wiped out a hundred of his men! Those deployed in the front lines were elites at least at the Bone Tempering realm, not to mention the dozen-odd Dao Foundation cultivators killed! Wei Yuan had temporarily blessed them with karmic luck, yet it hadn't prevented their slaughter!
Seeing Xu Zhongxing raise his sword once more, Wei Yuan gritted his teeth and bestowed karmic luck upon all several thousand men before Xu Zhongxing at once, hoping it would at least save some of them.
A dim yellow glow lit up the tip of Wei Yuan's spear, but it quickly extinguished. Xu Zhongxing was no ordinary dharma idol; the odds of Wei Yuan landing a shot were near zero. He had to wait for an opening.
At the center of the battle line, Zhang Sheng brandished the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword, unleashing overwhelming hundred-zhang sword beams toward Xu Zhongxing! The sword qi was terrifyingly potent, forcing Xu Zhongxing to parry and deflect. Yet Zhang Sheng was merely at the Dao Foundation realm with limited magic power; such an unrelenting barrage could hardly last half the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
Yet Wei Yuan grasped Zhang Sheng's intent and immediately ordered his troops to cease fire.
The gunfire on the battlefield abruptly ceased, leaving behind an unbelievable silence. Breaking through the final obstacles, the Xu family's iron cavalry plunged like a tidal wave into the billowing smoke!
Yet they quickly discovered that the web of trenches was an absolute nightmare for cavalry. Enemy soldiers filled every ditch, raising steel-pipe-like weapons; with every flash of fire, another gaping hole opened in the riders' bodies.
An indescribable sensation settled over the field. A shiver ran down Xu Zhongxing's spine, and before his eyes, every domain soldier seemed to transform into gods and demons, butchering his cavalry in swathes like livestock for the slaughter!
This was Xu Zhongxing's first encounter with Ephemeral Multitude.
Casting all hesitation aside, he soared straight into the lines and struck thirteen times in succession, reaping thousands of lives in an instant. This broke Qingming's fire, allowing him to salvage what remained of his cavalry.
As the cavalry fell back, Xu Zhongxing covered the retreat sword in hand.
Wisps of black qi had silently crept up to his neck, hidden from sight beneath his armor.
Chapter 341