The Tide Had Turned

Beyond the vault of heaven, the fierce battle raged on. Suddenly, a string of blood beads flung down from above, hurtling toward the main peak's summit. Mid-fall, the drops transmuted into bizarre chunks of flesh, each as massive as a hill. Wei Yuan had finally drawn out the True Monarch's hidden gambit. Holding nothing back now, his aura shifted abruptly, and a colossal immortal sword appeared in his grip. The blade looked utterly unremarkable, and in truth was unremarkable. Yet as Wei Yuan gripped it reversed and plunged it toward the empty air before him, the Xu family Dharma Idol elder felt as though heavenly tribulation were descending upon his head. He tried madly to flee, heedless even of the thunderous strikes locked onto him by the two puppets. Wei Yuan flicked the blade. A soundless hum rippled outward, and in an instant, the surrounding heaven and earth were filled with a bleak, desolate sorrow, like an elegy sung over the fall of a myriad-year dynasty. The Dharma Idol elder's origin soul shuddered. For a moment, his mind went completely blank; his intended next move was inexplicably wiped clean, leaving him oblivious to what he had even meant to do. Though his wits returned almost immediately, fireworks were already blossoming across his body as all his life-preserving Dao arts triggered at once. In that single instant of hesitation, he had absorbed an untold number of heavy blows. A wisp of blackish-red alchemical fire shot up from below, striking the elder's ankle. In an instant, the dharmic powers across his lower leg turned a sickly cyan, reeking with the stench of dead fish. Sun Yu had bided his time until this exact moment to strike, directly crippling one of the elder's legs and destroying his ability to flee via flight. Seizing the opening, the two puppets on his left and right surged forward, each seizing one of the Dharma Idol elder's arms. Hardening his resolve, the elder triggered a brilliant flash on his dharma idol, and a terrifying storm of dharmic power swept out across a hundred zhang! He was actually detonating his dharma idol! In the blink of an eye, the dharmic storm pulverized everything within a hundred zhang. Sun Yu escaped in a somewhat disheveled state. As the storm settled moments later, Wei Yuan was still standing where he had been, the greatsword planted before him, having actually blocked the oncoming storm of dharmic power. The two Dharma Idol puppets were battered and tattered all over; had they been living men, they would surely have been blown to pieces. Yet the Xu family elder's dharma idol hadn't been completely destroyed—a fraction of it remained. His idol had originally been a giant xuan-turtle, but now the shell was entirely gone, leaving behind a slender lizard whose tail and limbs had also been blown away; without a closer look, one might have mistaken it for a snake. This elder possessed a peculiar dharma idol, with life-preserving prowess that was nothing short of extraordinary. Who would have imagined that detonating a dharma idol could mean blowing up only the outer shell? Only, he hadn't anticipated that those two warriors truly were puppets, not flinching or dodging at all. Had they been normal human cultivators, instinct alone would have driven them to evade. From a distance, Sun Yu spat another mouthful of alchemical fire, incinerating the elder's other foot. Wei Yuan bellowed, swinging the greatsword in an arc that cleaved right into the Dharma Idol elder's head! The strike shattered the elder's final vestige of dharmic power and split his skull—which had been tempered to rival a top-grade magical treasure—halting just beside his brain. Wei Yuan reached out with an attracting grasp. Cui Yu appeared and instinctively grasped the hilt of the greatsword. "Strike!" Wei Yuan barked. Cui Yu started, heat instantly rushing to his face, but he knew this was no time to be squeamish. Gritting his teeth, he unleashed his Dao power and bore down with both hands, cleaving the elder in two! Wei Yuan, the two puppets, and Sun Yu then charged toward Feng Tingyu. That other Dharma Idol elder had long since been scared out of his wits; braving a slash from Feng Tingyu, he wheeled around and flew out of the domain, never looking back. Had Wei Yuan wished to pursue, he could have caught him, but he did not. Instead, accompanied by the two puppets, he flew over a knoll at the domain's edge. Countless openings suddenly appeared across the knoll as thirty thousand troops surged forth from underground. In lockstep unison, anchored by the two Dharma Idol puppets, they raced along the edge of the domain toward the northwest, intending to cut off the retreat of the entire Xu family army! Seeing the towering hundred-zhang column of military qi from afar, Xu Zhongxing drew in a sharp breath! This was Wei Yuan's true killer blow—from the very beginning, he had intended to pin down and keep the entire Xu army here! Xu Zhongxing acted decisively, immediately ordering a general withdrawal while directing Fan Donghe to lead the rear guard to intercept this elite force that had appeared out of nowhere. Yet the frontline was in chaotic slaughter; withdrawing was easier said than done. The defenders of the domain were battle-hardened veterans. Seeing their opponents waver and turn to retreat, they clung to them doggedly, refusing to let them slip away no matter what. A resolute grimness flashed across Xu Zhongxing's face. He brought his sword down abruptly, and several Dao Foundation cultivators perished without a sound! Having taken the True Monarch's blow head-on, Zhang Sheng was already gravely wounded. He managed to slash out a wave of sword qi, which Xu Zhongxing easily evaded. Xu Zhongxing attempted to close in on Zhang Sheng, but Zhang Sheng flashed away a hundred zhang. Bolstered by the domain's power, even weakened, Zhang Sheng's movement speed was not inferior to Xu Zhongxing's. Realizing he couldn't catch Zhang Sheng, Xu Zhongxing switched targets at once, striking down more than ten Dao Foundation cultivators in succession. The black miasma crept slightly further up his neck, yet he paid it no heed. The Qingming warriors finally wavered; before a Dharma Idol like Xu Zhongxing, no matter how many rushed forward, it was nothing more than throwing their lives away. Seizing this opening, Xu Zhongxing finally extracted his troops from their positions. Yet the Qingming army still had ammunition left, inflicting several thousand more casualties in the course of the retreat. Seeing the tide turning grim, Wei Yuan rushed over with one Dharma Idol puppet, accompanied by Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu, to besiege Xu Zhongxing together. Wei Yuan bestowed karmic luck upon both Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu, while using the Dharma Idol puppet to shoulder the bulk of the assault. Only then did they manage to hold Xu Zhongxing at bay, leaving him no leisure to slaughter ordinary soldiers. The two armies began clashing on their own. The main force of the domain finally pushed out from their fortifications, pursuing hot on the enemy's heels. On the other side of the battlefield, the rear guard commanded by Fan Donghe intercepted that mysterious unit. Every soldier in this unit wore a visor, exposing only their eyes. Their gazes were entirely devoid of expression, sending a chill through Fan Donghe's heart. The rear guard under Fan Donghe was composed mostly of archers, who began blanketing them in arrows from two hundred zhang away. Yet the unit raised their shields in unison, transforming into a moving dragon of steel, their march barely slowing. After several volleys of arrows rained down, their casualties numbered less than a hundred. The quality of the shields they bore was simply too high; only the elite private army guarding the Xu family's ancestral grounds was equipped with heavy shields of such caliber. Seeing the unit about to bypass him, Fan Donghe had no choice but to order his infantry to charge. But just as the large mass of infantry closed to within twenty zhang, fire guns suddenly thrust out through the gaps in the shield wall. Amid deafening roars, the foremost thousand soldiers were all cut down! The morale of the entire infantry force collapsed in an instant. Scrambling and tumbling, they fled backward, while this elite unit marched toward their designated position without the slightest hesitation, their footsteps striking the ground in perfect unison. Caught in a dilemma, Fan Donghe's face darkened terribly. Having led troops for many years, he knew his force was already on the verge of collapse; another failed attack might trigger a total rout. Yet if he didn't attack, their path of retreat would be severed. At this point, their only hope lay in the battle between the supreme cultivators. But out beyond the sky, Qiuniu was visibly at a disadvantage against his opponent. Moreover, with the two clashing for so long, a terrifying aura was brewing in the heavens, one that set the origin soul trembling. The Dharma Idol tier of combat was also deadlocked; counting on them to shield the army was out of the question. By now, the army's military qi was faltering, on the verge of dissolving. In this dire extremity, Fan Donghe produced a scarlet medicine vial and resolutely swallowed the pill within. A sudden flush rose to his face, as if he were drunk on wine, and his aura surged upward by leaps and bounds. "Keep firing! Do not stop!" Having barked the order, Fan Donghe raised his broadsword and flew toward the opposing army, only to be intercepted by the Dharma Idol puppet. At that moment, several cylindrical barrels were wheeled out from within the mysterious unit. Teams of men steadied each one, aiming them at the archers a hundred zhang away. The next moment, flying swords shot from the barrels one after another, whistling through the air and plunging into the archer formation! Though by Dao Foundation standards these flying swords were absurdly weak, and numbered only a few hundred, they were the final straw that broke the camel's back. Men began fleeing from the archer ranks. Once the first turned, the entire unit broke into flight! Fan Donghe let out a long sigh, knowing all was lost. Meanwhile, the other two Dharma Idol elders and Perfected Chuhe were fighting with tremendous intensity. Flying swords clashed, and Dao arts detonated into massive balls of raging fire, each several dozen zhang across, resembling the end of the world. Yet ever since Cui Yu had slain that Dharma Idol elder, neither side here had suffered another wound. Beyond the vault of heaven, just as that terrifying aura of heavenly tribulation approached its tipping point, Qiuniu let out a sigh. The battle finally ceased, and both Qiuniu and Zhu Yuanjin disappeared without a trace. Wei Yuan left one puppet alongside Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu to keep stalling Xu Zhongxing, disengaging himself from the fray to hurtle toward Fan Donghe's sector. Xu Zhongxing could not be killed, nor could he be kept here. In Wei Yuan's mind, capturing tens of thousands more Xu soldiers was far more important than slaying an ordinary Dharma Idol. Thus he chose to force Fan Donghe back and lead his troops to seize the key eastward positions, severing the Xu army's line of retreat. All the while, howls echoed across the sky from time to time; Yu Zhizhuo's artillery bombardment had never ceased, preventing the Xu forces from regrouping. By now, Xu Zhongxing also knew the tide had turned. He unleashed a flurry of lethal strikes to force back Feng Tingyu and Sun Yu, then returned to the barely rallied cavalry. Fusing his dharma idol with their military qi, he stabilized the army's aura, then led the twenty thousand surviving cavalry in sweeping back and forth across the battlefield to rescue the units mired in the melee. Those beyond saving were left to scatter and flee for their lives. Seeing that matters had gone sour, the two Xu family elders had already taken flight ahead of the rest. Perfected Chuhe's spirits lifted. His eight immortal swords shone brilliantly as he began cutting down the routed troops. Xu Zhongxing forced Wei Yuan back, retrieved Fan Donghe, and then attempted a charge against the bizarre unit Wei Yuan was leading. The result: two thousand cavalry all fell in the zone between twenty and ten zhang, with not a single survivor! Shaken to his core, Xu Zhongxing cast a deep, lingering look at that army, then led his cavalry around Wei Yuan, crossing mountains and ridges to quit the domain. In this battle, although the Xu family had lost only one Dharma Idol elder, out of their three hundred thousand-strong army, sixty thousand had been slain and a hundred and sixty thousand taken prisoner, with another thirty-odd thousand fleeing into the wilderness, their whereabouts unknown. The remnants Xu Zhongxing managed to rally after the battle numbered merely forty thousand—an utter and total defeat. On Qingming's side, a total of twenty-odd thousand had perished. Over ten thousand of them had been wiped out by the True Monarch's single finger strike, several thousand more had fallen under Xu Zhongxing's blade, and fewer than ten thousand had actually died in the combat between the armies. Yet the war was not over. Having just gathered some stragglers after withdrawing from the domain, Xu Zhongxing received word that one of the two supply depots in the rear had been ambushed by horse bandits. The eight thousand defenders had been wiped out by fewer than five thousand bandits; all supplies that could not be hauled away in time had been put to the torch; and all seventy thousand laborers in the camp had been swept away by the bandits, vanished without a trace. Xu Zhongxing knew at once that something was amiss—horse bandits only plundered coin and goods, so why would they abduct laborers? Yet there was no time to delve into it now. Having consumed an elixir that overtaxed his life essence, Fan Donghe was on his last breath. Xu Zhongxing had the two Dharma Idol elders take him back to the Xu family for treatment first, while he personally led a troop of cavalry to hold the rear, covering the retreat of the remaining forces northward. Yet before the tens of thousands of stragglers had even marched ten li, a surge of military qi suddenly soared into the sky ahead. A troop rounded the mountain—though numbering only five thousand, their military qi was fierce and chilling, clearly the mark of a battle-hardened host! At that moment, military qi also rose behind them as thousands of iron cavalry came clattering forward. These riders wore breastplates and held fire guns, with lances and cleaving sabers slung at their mounts' flanks. Flanked by thousands of iron cavalry, Wei Yuan exuded murderous intent. The Azure Steed beneath him had changed once more: its frame had grown a size larger, its long mane had turned deep navy, its hooves were like drums, and from the corners of its mouth grew two writhing fleshy barbels, already bearing a hint of dragon visage. The two cavalry forces, one ahead and one behind, hemmed the remnants of the Xu army in between.