At the main defensive position, Wei Yuan kept feeling that something was odd about Xu Zhongxing's demeanor as he walked away, so he recalled the scene carefully.
A pure, pristine white lotus faintly manifested within the pupil of his left eye, and the memory in Wei Yuan's mind suddenly shifted.
Xu Zhongxing was no longer dignified and imposing; he had become grotesque and horrifying. His entire body was warped and asymmetrical. From the crown of his head sprouted two sharp horns, one long and one short, curving in opposite directions. Dense black miasma swirled around him, within which countless agonizing human faces rose and sank.
Wei Yuan took a sharp breath. Viewed through the vision granted by the White Lotus of the Defiled Earth, Xu Zhongxing had turned into a twisted, frenzied monster swarming with resentment!
This was his true heart-form manifested through the White Lotus of the Defiled Earth, fundamentally different from the outward appearance seen with mortal eyes.
Seeing this image, Wei Yuan understood that Xu Zhongxing was so deeply entangled in karmic debt that he was on the verge of drawing down a heavenly tribulation. Even if he did not perish beneath the lightning, lingering in such a state for long would reduce him to a madman governed purely by instinct.
Wei Yuan finally grasped how his three thousand strands of karmic luck had vanished.
Suddenly, a perilous thought crossed Wei Yuan's mind: *If another thousand strands of azure qi were spent on him, Xu Zhongxing would probably perish...*
Trading four thousand Body Casting cultivators for a pinnacle dharma idol—anyone would consider that not just a fair trade, but an immense bargain.
Wei Yuan closed his eyes and calmed his spirit, having reached a decision. This was war; benevolence was something to be indulged only after victory.
Within Ten Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, phantoms of countless human cavalrymen appeared, drifting blankly toward Jade Mountain before casting themselves into the Gate of Transmigration Across the Myriad Realms. As the transmigrating human souls grew in number, strands of otherworldly fortune were slowly generating.
The dark pool churned once more, something brewing beneath its depths, yet the volume of transmigrating souls seemed not quite enough, delaying its emergence.
By then, the dharma idol elder entangled by Perfected Chuhe had broken free from the skirmish and returned to the army. So long as one stopped up one's ears to ignore whatever the old Daoist was babbling, one could essentially fight or disengage at will.
On the western flank of the domain, Fan Donghe suddenly grew wary and seized a moment of advantage to break away and flee.
He departed so abruptly that the serpent could not react in time to intercept him. From the forest below, a small black shadow suddenly darted out, raking a vicious claw across him. Fan Donghe slashed back twice with his saber, shearing away a patch of cat fur, before fleeing wounded.
The cat looked at the blood on its claws in frustration, then turned to lick its wounds.
In this opening clash of probes, Xu Zhongxing had suffered a devastating loss. Trading nearly thirty thousand cavalry for merely five thousand enemy casualties, he had even burdened himself with karmic debt, which would leave his hands and feet bound throughout the coming engagement.
Just then, Fan Donghe completed a circuit around the perimeter of the domain and returned from the east. Three long gashes spanned his back, the flesh peeled open so deeply that pale golden bone was visible!
Seeing Fan Donghe's injuries, Xu Zhongxing was furious, yet he could only order Fan Donghe to remain with the rear guard.
By this point, all six Xu family dharma idols had inspected the main defensive position Wei Yuan had established, yet none had a workable plan.
Stripped to its essence, this defense was simply a maze of trenches. Even if they used massive Daoist techniques to churn up the earth, it would only make the terrain more convoluted. Furthermore, this was the Qingming Domain. Were they to employ large-scale earth-churning arts, Wei Yuan would undoubtedly suppress them with the domain's power. Qingming now possessed a radius of over two hundred li; no solitary dharma idol could pit their magic power against the full might of an entire domain.
The barbed wire was straightforward enough to handle—a single Daoist technique could sweep clear a wide swath. The explosive mechanisms hidden underground were nearly impossible to guard against, but the cavalry had already detonated them all beneath their hooves.
Yet the trenches were uniquely suited to shielding against arrows, rendering the forty thousand archers of the Xu army virtually useless.
After endless discussion, they realized that against such a simple network of trenches, they had no choice but to launch a brute-force infantry assault to wear down the defenders.
One elder suddenly asked, "Why don't we simply bypass it?"
Everyone looked at him as if he were an idiot. Setting aside whether they could even march around so vast a position, even if they did, the tens of thousands of defenders inside could suddenly charge out and strike their flank and rear. An army of over a hundred thousand would collapse in an instant.
In the end, Xu Zhongxing made the call: assault with the infantry!
The Xu army regrouped. The badly injured Fan Donghe was assigned to oversee the rear guard, while the remaining dharma idols set out in force to clear the battlefield obstacles. The center army's infantry advanced right behind them, with the surviving cavalry screening the flanks.
With Fan Donghe and the cat having wounded each other, the Xu family still had five battle-ready dharma idols. Though Xu Zhongxing was burdened with karmic debt, so long as he refrained from attacking ordinary soldiers, his combat power remained on par with Fan Donghe in peak condition.
On the domain's side, the only true dharma idols left were the old Daoist and the serpent—together counting as one. In addition, Zhang Sheng wielding the immortal sword was equivalent to a pinnacle dharma idol. Beyond them, there were no visible dharma idol-level combatants for the time being.
Just as the Xu family dharma idols reached the front line, a shrill whistling tore through the air as artillery shells rained down upon the Xu army's staging area. With only the badly wounded Fan Donghe in the army, he could hardly intercept many of them, and could only watch as fifteen canister shells burst open, scattering hundreds of sub-munitions that instantly engulfed the ground in a sea of fire!
This barrage was fully packed with explosives, blasting thousands of soldiers to death in an instant!
Xu Zhongxing was shocked and furious. Wei Yuan had led him to believe the shells could only reach a short distance, giving him the confidence to assemble his forces, only to unleash a merciless bombardment the moment the dharma idols capable of intercepting moved away!
Xu Zhongxing's expression turned dark as still water. He immediately dispatched two dharma idol elders to circle around the defenses into the domain's rear and find the firing positions. If left unchecked, the artillery would shatter the morale of his two-hundred-thousand-strong army.
The two elders understood the gravity of the situation. This was war, and regardless of how much they resented Xu Zhongxing, they possessed enough self-awareness to acknowledge that their tactical leadership was far inferior to his, so they carried out the order.
Sure enough, the scoundrel old Daoist appeared, intercepting one of the elders. The duel in his hands was perilous in the extreme, yet his mouth never stopped for a single moment. Anyone listening would think that the one about to fall was his opponent, not him.
Another brilliant beam of saber light rose into the air, intercepting the second elder. The saber light was pliant yet tenacious; though its magic power was vastly inferior to a dharma idol elder's, it simply refused to yield, even managing an occasional surprise counterattack.
Xu Zhongxing had known Wei Yuan would have cards up his sleeve. For now, he joined forces with the two remaining dharma idol elders to clear away the obstacles before the line, then ordered one elder to press on and locate the artillery emplacements. He took his stand at the front line, confronting Wei Yuan and Zhang Sheng while observing his army's advance.
Countless Xu warriors charged through the rain of shells, falling in droves along the way, yet many still managed to breach the trenches. The two sides clashed in brutal, bloody close-quarters combat.
At that moment, that indescribable sensation descended once more from the heavens as Wei Yuan activated Ephemeral Multitude again. Since both sides were human, Wei Yuan had to bestow the blessing onto his men individually rather than opening it across an indiscriminate, wide area.
With his powerful primordial spirit and lightning-fast thoughts, Wei Yuan could bestow blessings on hundreds in the blink of an eye. His forces' combat prowess surged, and the Xu family's casualties began to mount.
In the heart of the defensive position, concealed under the dual cloak of the newly acquired treasure tree fruit's stealth and the domain's power, Wei Yuan watched Xu Zhongxing, waiting for the moment he made his move. Meanwhile, as casualties on both sides mounted, the dark pool within Jade Mountain surged with ever greater violence, and a colossal figure began to surface.
The sole dharma idol elder remaining beside Xu Zhongxing suddenly dashed at full speed toward Perfected Chuhe, while the elder sent to search for the artillery positions abruptly wheeled around to pincer the old Daoist!
In an instant, three dharma idols converged in a siege around Perfected Chuhe. Only now was Xu Zhongxing's deadly stratagem revealed: he intended to eliminate the weakest link, the old Daoist, first.
Wei Yuan, however, vanished directly from the spot and cut off the returning dharma idol elder. Two tall warriors materialized out of thin air, exuding the authentic aura of dharma idols, forming an encirclement alongside Wei Yuan to slay that elder!
Meanwhile, the dharma idol elder charging toward the old Daoist was intercepted by a cat.
Xu Zhongxing's brow twitched. Never had he expected Wei Yuan to still be concealing two dharma idol-level combatants! Taking a step forward, he was about to engage Zhang Sheng once more when he suddenly noticed over a dozen warriors clad from head to toe in heavy armor appearing around Zhang Sheng, their faces completely concealed. Their personal cultivations were ordinary, yet above the crown of each warrior rose an extraordinarily bright, slender stream of azure qi, revealing a freakishly abnormal level of karmic luck.
These warriors used their bodies as shields to protect Zhang Sheng, while Zhang Sheng unleashed a hundred-zhang beam of sword light, sweeping down in pursuit of Xu Zhongxing.
Both sides had laid their daggers bare!
Chapter 343