After the great battle, Qingming was already extraordinarily busy. Yet abruptly, all high-rank cultivators and Dao Foundation cultivators of Earth Tier and above were summoned. Except for dharma idol cultivators like Sun Yu and Yu Zhizhuo, who had to oversee their respective regions, everyone else—no matter what they were doing—had to drop what was in their hands and prioritize the assigned tasks.
The Qingming cultivators took it in stride, but many cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning usually spent most of their time in cultivation, often meditating for days at a stretch. Although the abundance of spiritual qi in Qingming did not match that of the Palace of Grand Beginning's mountain gate, it offered distinct advantages of its own.
Qingming was an immortal stone that grew at extreme speed, giving it an active, ever-shifting nature. Cultivating in the Palace of Grand Beginning offered swifter progress, but while progress in Qingming was slower, achieving enlightenment was far easier, making it much simpler to break through cultivation bottlenecks and thresholds.
Many Palace of Grand Beginning cultivators had been pulled straight out of seclusion, naturally leaving them full of discontent.
Several disciples from the Palace of Grand Beginning were grouped together, led by none other than Ren Suxing. Having the highest cultivation, he naturally took charge of the group. Ren Suxing led them to the foot of a mountain, consulted the map in his hand, and compared it against the earth vein node before saying, "This is the spot. This job will take a full day, so everyone make it snappy."
The disciples set down the chests they were carrying on their backs, retrieved various array-laying materials and tools from within, and set to work establishing the array.
As he worked, one young disciple grumbled, "I was called out right after entering seclusion—I was just about to gain an insight. Senior Brother Ren, what exactly are we doing here?"
Ren Suxing snorted and snapped irritably, "We came here for experiential training, not for quiet meditation. Do your job properly! This is the Zhou Tian Celestial Stars Array; its function is to monitor heaven and earth. The first step requires establishing thirty-six nodes, and ours is just one of them. The second step is seventy-two nodes, and only after all three hundred and sixty nodes in the final step are completed will the array truly be finished."
The young disciples were all somewhat astonished, not expecting such a massive undertaking.
Just then, someone nearby asked, "May I ask, what is the reason for laying down this Zhou Tian Celestial Stars Array?"
Ren Suxing looked up to see two cultivators wearing felt caps approaching. Both possessed extraordinary bearings, and one was visibly a dharma idol cultivator.
Yet Ren Suxing was also seething with frustration, and seeing idle cultivators loafing around only stoked his temper. He replied curtly, "The Domain Lord said it's to guard against fire, guard against theft, and guard against bald thieves!"
The two cultivators fell silent for a moment. Then, the dharma idol cultivator offered a polite bow and said, "Thank you for informing us." With that, the two walked toward the core of Qingming.
Watching the departing backs of the two cultivators, one young disciple from the Palace of Grand Beginning frowned. "Why do those two look a bit suspicious?"
Another added, "I feel like something's off too, but I can't put my finger on it."
Ren Suxing glared at both of them and said flatly, "What does whether they're suspicious have to do with you? How much salary are you drawing, or how many cultivation resources are you getting, to bother worrying about that? Just do the work in front of you!"
The young disciples did not dare argue, and finding reason in his words, they buried their heads in their work.
Once the two cultivators had walked a distance and saw no one around, the young Dao Foundation cultivator spoke up: "Hmph, that brute goes too far! To actually insult us like that!"
The cultivator beside him lifted their head, revealing none other than Peacock Buddha Mother, who smiled faintly and said, "Let him scold if he wishes. The more he scolds, the closer he is to our Buddha. As for you, the Shamans will soon attack. Are you prepared?"
The young monk Honglian showed an eerie, menacing grin and said, "I've long been unable to wait! Once I have delivered enough Shamans, I will go have a word with him!"
In the blink of an eye, two days passed. The first layer of the Zhou Tian Celestial Stars Array was completed, with its array eye established in a stone hall beneath the main peak. As long as a cultivator was stationed permanently at the array eye, they could monitor heaven and earth, keeping watch over every movement within Qingming at all times.
Needless to say, the one permanently stationed at the array eye was Wei Yuan's dharma idol warrior. At present, within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, there was only one enlightened dharma idol warrior, and he was deployed at the array eye.
Wei Yuan inspected every node array first, and after confirming that everything was in order, he activated the great array. Surging spiritual qi was drawn from across Qingming, converging into the great array. Soon, images appeared one after another in Wei Yuan's consciousness until the entirety of Qingming lay beneath his gaze.
With the Zhou Tian Celestial Stars Array in place, ordinary concealment and stealth became useless. Moreover, Wei Yuan possessed immense karmic luck, and presiding over the array through his own dharma idol warrior made it easy to receive sudden intuitive hunches. This allowed him to spot veteran infiltrators, those badmouthing Wei Yuan behind his back, and those who never looked within themselves and always blamed their environment.
Now that the array was established, Wei Yuan suddenly recalled a scene described in Xu Wenwu's records, so he checked Xu Wenwu's location to see what he was up to.
Xu Wenwu was lying in bed, fast asleep and snoring peacefully. A tiny girl was draped over his belly, also deep in slumber. The little girl appeared four or five years old, exceptionally lovely and pretty. The snores of the big and the small rose and fell in turn, appearing remarkably heartwarming.
Wei Yuan was taken aback. Having not seen her for some time, he had not expected Xu Shiba to have grown so big already. Her growth rate was five to six times that of an ordinary child. Looking at it this way, in another month or two, he might need to arrange for her to begin Body Casting cultivation. Still, though her body had grown, had her soul and mind grown alongside it?
With a flicker of his figure, Wei Yuan silently appeared inside Xu Wenwu's room. Xu Wenwu's Body Casting was already nearing completion, a speed that was utterly astonishing. The main reason he cultivated so quickly was that he had endured a lightning tribulation back then—a lightning tribulation meant for ascending to the dharma idol realm!
Beyond that, he relied on occasionally devouring bits of karmic luck, spiritual power, and the like. But as for when he swallowed it or how much, Xu Wenwu could not control it himself either, leaving it entirely to whatever fate brought.
Furthermore, although Xu Wenwu's physical cultivation progressed rapidly, his state of mind was far from adequate. Never mind a Dao heart—joy, anger, worry, brooding, fear, the seven emotions, and the six desires were all present in full force, and he feared death and clung to life. Thus, Wei Yuan had never dared arrange for him to forge his foundation. Relying on intuition, Wei Yuan sensed that Xu Wenwu would most likely attract a heavenly tribulation when he cast his Dao Foundation.
When Wei Yuan entered the room, Xu Wenwu remained utterly oblivious, but the little girl suddenly opened one eye and cast a glance at Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan was thoroughly astonished; he had not expected Xu Shiba's spiritual perception to be keen to this degree.
Seeing that it was Wei Yuan, the little girl's tensed body immediately relaxed, and she continued sleeping against Xu Wenwu's soft belly.
Wei Yuan recalled his purpose in coming here. Raising a hand with a wave, he painted a pair of resolute, aloof eyes on the wall of the room, and beneath them sprayed a line of characters: "Big Brother is watching you!"
Wei Yuan looked at the spray art, feeling very satisfied. He hoped this image would help steel Xu Wenwu's Dao heart a little.
Having finished this, Wei Yuan's figure vanished as he went off to attend to serious business.
Through the Zhou Tian Celestial Stars Array, not only could infiltrating enemies be detected, but missiles could also be guided. Moreover, the array's monitoring range was currently five hundred li around it; once the entire array was complete, its reconnaissance range would reach three thousand six hundred li. In other words, within the array's bounds, the enemy would face missile strikes anytime, anywhere.
In the blink of an eye, seven days passed.
Although the Shamans had withdrawn their troops, they had continued digging the canal forward, advancing another seventy li to within just over two hundred li of Qingming. With Hongye's return, the Shamans once again mobilized a million-strong army to attack Qingming.
Wei Yuan, through a series of tedious and intricate redeployments, quietly moved numerous civilian units to the front line and the second defensive line.
Ding'an City was not large and could not hold too many troops. Wei Yuan stationed a hundred thousand civilians inside the city and a hundred thousand outside, bolstered by twenty thousand city defense troops serving as the backbone.
The fortress zone on Ding'an City's right flank had already proven in the previous round of fighting to be a meat grinder where Shaman casualties rivaled those beneath the walls of Ding'an City itself. Therefore, Wei Yuan deployed two hundred thousand civilians here—including fifty thousand civilians from Zhao—along with a hundred thousand standing army troops. The Dragon Wing and Dragon Gallop armies were also stationed here.
The refugees from Zhao had barely learned how to ignite and fire a gun, and many were so frail that wearing armor weighing dozens of jin left them gasping for breath. They had not been in Qingming long, and their bodies had yet to recover.
Wei Yuan placed them on the third defensive line. Many privately rejoiced, thinking this battle would be easy to handle, and began looking forward to the prospect of becoming Qingming realm citizens after the war.
The mountainous terrain of the left flank was naturally easy to defend; Li Zhi led the Zhenshan Army to anchor the main defense there, with Wei Yuan allocating an additional fifty thousand civilian troops and twenty thousand standing troops to support him.
As for the Xu family youths as well as the middle-grade and high-grade human sacrifices, Wei Yuan placed them at the very rear, having no intention of deploying them.
After the tragedy at Yong'an City in the previous battle, the civilians of Qingming knew that hiding in the rear was not safe either. Many whose families had been wiped out volunteered for the front lines. In their eyes, there was no safe place under heaven; only by slaughtering all the Shamans could true safety be achieved.
The battlefield was not truly vast, and with nearly two million troops deployed between both sides, it was already packed to the brim. Though the Shaman army had many more units in the rear, there was simply no room to deploy them. If they wanted to attack from another direction, they would have to detour several hundred li, running the risk of being ambushed by Wei Yuan at any moment.
Thus, Hongye still opted for a frontal assault, waging a war of attrition against Wei Yuan. Qingming only had so many people; over two hundred thousand had died in the last battle, and after a few more clashes, Qingming would have no one left.
For this battle, Hongye pushed his command zone forward to five hundred li out, then dispatched an army of three hundred thousand to escort six colossal altars as they began advancing. These six altars were enormous and exceptionally heavy, each dragged along inch by grueling inch by tens of thousands of slave mighty warriors.
On the first day, the Shamans merely deployed their battle formations and spent the entire day hauling the altars forward.
Wei Yuan tried launching several missiles, but all were intercepted. This time, the Shaman army had many bow-wielding Great Shamans who could hit their marks infallibly within a thousand zhang; even high-speed missiles could not escape their aim.
Wei Yuan promptly altered his strategy, having dozens of railguns begin hurling empty barrels and even boulders. Then, Wei Yuan had gunpowder packed into several of the boulders.
At first, the Great Shamans intercepted them one by one, but once they realized what was being thrown were empty barrels and even rocks, they stopped intervening as much. Yet while empty barrels were harmless enough, boulders crashing into the formations could still crush people to death.
Yet the Great Shamans cared nothing for the lives of the lowly soldiers below. Watching the boulders crash down, they actually burst into hearty laughter. But as they laughed, several stones suddenly detonated violently, leveling over a thousand warriors in an instant and violently shaking the military qi!
The death of a thousand warriors was a minor matter, but the shaking of morale and military resolve was grave. The Great Shamans and Shaman Scholars were forced to resume their interceptions, shooting down whatever was hurled their way regardless of what it was.
Wei Yuan, meanwhile, swapped out the cultivators manning the railguns batch by batch. In any case, if Qingming lacked anything right now, it certainly did not lack trash Dao Foundations.
And so, the first day passed in this back-and-forth tug-of-war, with the archer Great Shamans having expended the greater part of their magic power.
Chapter 501