In a single short clash, nearly half of the sixty thousand cavalry had been lost, and seventy percent of their warhorses were dead or crippled. Looking upon the scattered remnants of his army, Xu Zhongxing’s heart bled!
At this moment, Wei Yuan’s heart was bleeding just as well. In that brief engagement, more than five thousand domain warriors had fallen. Every one of them was an elite at or above the Blood Merging Realm, and nearly a hundred Dao Foundation cultivators had been lost!
Of all those casualties, over three thousand had been slain by Xu Zhongxing alone, and nearly every fallen Dao Foundation expert had been struck down by his hand. Xu Zhongxing’s lethal sword technique was truly terrifying—it practically ignored defenses and disregarded armor, unable to be stopped even by the blessing of karmic luck. It had cost Wei Yuan more than three thousand strands of azure karmic luck for nothing.
Had the addition of over a hundred thousand sacrifices not provided an immense amount of azure qi—bringing the total amount of karmic luck in his sea of consciousness past fifteen thousand strands—Wei Yuan would have had no idea how to keep fighting this battle.
An immortal sword suddenly descended beside Xu Zhongxing. The sword had originally been azure, but now gleamed with a faint crimson light.
Zhang Sheng had been unable to hold back from taking action after all.
The moment this sword fell, Xu Zhongxing’s vitality was immediately shaken. Yet before the second immortal sword could appear, he flashed away in an instant, forcefully breaking free of the sword formation’s lock, leaping clear of the perimeter, and striking back with a reverse sword slash that annihilated the descending immortal sword.
Wei Yuan’s intuition had indeed been correct: Xu Zhongxing was thoroughly versed in the art of battlefield combat and exceptionally difficult to handle. He advanced and retreated like lightning, his aura flickering between presence and absence, and he could shift between the formed and the formless to break target locks by force. Unless a way was found to restrict his movements, neither Wei Yuan's Dusk of the Immortal Path nor Zhang Sheng’s sword formation could land a blow on him.
Perhaps only Perfected Fenhai’s sky-filling celestial fire could leave him with nowhere to run, while Ji Liuli’s Nine-Layer Demon-Suppressing Pagoda was the natural bane of divine abilities like this.
Zhang Sheng flicked a finger against the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword, feeling quite helpless.
The Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword was a genuine immortal sword, meant to be wielded by an immortal; slaying a dharma idol should have been as effortless as chopping melons and slicing vegetables. However, none of Zhang Sheng’s four immortal sword Dao Foundations was particularly compatible with it. Whichever one he used, he could not unleash even ten percent of the Crimson Night Sword’s power. Holding the blade did enhance Zhang Sheng’s combat strength somewhat, but it was not enough to slay Xu Zhongxing.
Even if Zhang Sheng had already advanced to dharma idol, a difference of two realms would still leave him with no chance of victory against Xu Zhongxing. After all, Xu Zhongxing was a cultivation genius who fell little short of Zhang Sheng himself.
Before the defensive positions, many wounded soldiers and injured horses were still struggling in agony. Only now did Xu Zhongxing realize that while the barbed wire appeared simple, it was troublesome in the extreme. Even when blasted into sections, if a warhorse stepped on it carelessly or brushed against it, the horse would be punctured and lacerated. Often, it would tangle straight around the horse’s legs, easily tearing deep gashes with the slightest misstep.
On the battlefield, once a horse's leg was injured and could not receive timely treatment, the mount was practically ruined.
The cavalrymen wore steel boots and thus did not fear the barbed wire, but the continuous bombardment had long since turned the ground into loose churned earth. Once unhorsed, the cavalrymen stumbled along unevenly, their movements sluggish, turning them into sitting ducks.
Wei Yuan gave Xu Zhongxing no breathing room whatsoever, relaying orders to the rear to resume the bombardment. This time, Xu Zhongxing was the only dharma idol left on his side, and his interception efficiency dropped drastically. Seizing the opportunity, Wei Yuan ordered all submunitions swapped out for fully charged fragmentation rounds. After a few salvos, Xu Zhongxing’s cavalry suffered devastating losses once again.
Xu Zhongxing had no choice but to withdraw. Once he retreated several li away, the shelling ceased; it seemed the effective range of this bizarre weapon reached only two li past the front lines.
At Xuanwei Three, the sounds of slaughter and explosive roars had already erupted. The Xu family infantry had breached the underground, and a fierce battle had begun between the two sides.
To the rear, the central army’s one hundred and fifty thousand infantry had begun filtering onto the battlefield. Seeing the tragic state of the cavalry Xu Zhongxing had led, several elders in the central army took on grim expressions. A gaunt, long-faced old man even began cursing vehemently: "Useless trash! Fighting a rabble and turning out like this! Losing thirty thousand cavalry in such a short time? You couldn't slaughter thirty thousand pigs that fast!"
The other two dharma idol elders also glared at Xu Zhongnian. One of them barked, "The family placed their trust in you, putting thirty percent of our military might in your hands, and this is how you repay the family?! You have the gall to call yourself a renowned general?!"
The more the three dharma idols looked at Xu Zhongnian, the deeper their disgust grew, and this hostility arose entirely without reason.
Xu Zhongxing’s face was ashen as well. His mood was volatile, and he even felt an urge to strike out and kill.
He was abruptly startled, realizing that something was wrong with his mental state. After all, he was a rare prodigy possessing numerous secret arts. As he carefully scrutinized himself, he discovered that at some point, karmic debt had completely ensnared his entire body. Even if a heavenly tribulation had not yet arrived, he was trapped in a state beset by endless calamities, where nothing would go right.
With karmic debt so dense, most of the people he had just killed must have possessed karmic luck—perhaps there were even individuals blessed with great karmic luck among them.
Xu Zhongxing suppressed his instinctive frenzy and agitation, forcing himself to calm down and think. Karmic debt was not insurmountable; it was just that because this took place within Qingming, the reaction within Qingming was especially intense. Leaving Qingming would ease it somewhat, at least granting him breathing space to seek a way to dissolve it.
The moment he thought of this, irritation welled up within Xu Zhongxing once more.
Resolving this sort of karmic debt was exceedingly troublesome and demanded a heavy price. For a considerable time to come, Xu Zhongxing would likely have to tread carefully in everything he did, measuring every word and action, and making any breakthrough in his cultivation utterly impossible.
Yet where had so much karmic debt come from? Even though this was an era of flourishing karmic luck, coming across a few people blessed with it was still far from easy. So how could there be so many people possessing karmic luck within Qingming?
Slaying people blessed with karmic luck incurred a karmic backlash dozens or hundreds of times worse than killing ordinary mortals! Moreover, karmic debt born of karmic luck was far harder to dispel, and it would offset and erode Xu Zhongxing's own karmic luck.
Xu Zhongxing’s hands were trembling slightly now. In the coming battles, he could no longer take action recklessly, especially when it came to slaying low-ranking soldiers and cultivators. If he accidentally killed a few more who possessed karmic luck, he might well perish on the spot—and die without even knowing why.
The three dharma idol elders had already noticed Xu Zhongxing’s unusual behavior. Inexplicably struggling to control their emotions, jealousy, disgust, and old grudges surged from the depths of their hearts, and they began jeering again: "What, shaking with fear already?"
Murderous intent flashed in Xu Zhongxing's eyes. Three invisible, formless sword qis shot from between his brows, lightly tapping the forehead of each elder.
Only after the sword qi retreated did the three elders react. Cold sweat instantly broke out as they were seized by shock and fury. If Xu Zhongxing had intended a sneak attack just now, the three of them would already be corpses!
Although they were all dharma idols of the Xu family, the family was vast; the three elders were not close to Xu Zhongxing, nor did they get along with him. Only now did they realize that his cultivation was actually this terrifying.
Xu Zhongxing narrowed his eyes slightly and said slowly, "We are currently inside Qingming, and the karmic luck here is abnormal. Everyone has already been affected. So from now on, keep your mouths shut! Push me too far, and whether I die or not is hard to say—but you three will definitely go before me!"
Chapter 342