Who Dares Fight to the Death?

At midnight, the Shamans' altars were all in position, and they launched a full-scale offensive. This time, three altars unleashed blood curses. Yet because Qingming now possessed the Peerless Dao Domain, the power of the blood curses was drastically reduced. Mortals died by tens and twelves rather than collapsing by the hundreds and thousands at once as they had before. Wei Yuan bided his time patiently. Only when all three blood curses had fully unfolded and expended their requisite sacrificial power did he activate the power of the Dao domain, dispelling all three blood curses in a single stroke. Upon the three altars, dozens of Shaman Scholars collapsed and died without a sound. Only the few Great Shamans presiding over the rituals escaped with their lives, yet their auras were thoroughly depleted, leaving them critically wounded and unable to rise. Several other Great Shamans immediately flew onto the altars and carried the survivors away, their faces filled with shock and bewilderment. Wei Yuan's counterattack this time was exceptionally fierce. Countless Shamans around the altars wore panicked expressions, unable to comprehend what had just happened. How could blood curses that had consumed vast amounts of sacrificial power vanish so abruptly, inflicting such horrific casualties on the Shaman Scholars who cast them? Wei Yuan showed no expression, yet in truth, the remaining nurturing power in Qingming had decreased by nearly half. Still, according to the records left behind by the immortal, the Shamans' consumption ought to be ten times that of Qingming. Right now, it was a battle of Qingming's nurturing power pitted against the Shamans' sacrificial power; it was simply a matter of who would hesitate or buckle first. The remaining three altars of the Shamans reinforced the power of heaven and earth within the Wu domain, directly compressing the Qingming Domain. Against this, Wei Yuan had no way to counterattack. However, with the Peerless Dao Domain in place, the stability of the Qingming Domain had multiplied, causing the difficulty of compressing it to skyrocket. At this moment, in the dead of night, the power of the Shamans was at its peak. Reinforced by the altars' amplification of the power of heaven and earth, the Qingming Domain was compressed by fifty li. Originally, it would have been compressed by a hundred li, but once the Peerless Dao Domain was activated, the effects of the shamanic arts in this regard were heavily curtailed as well. Even so, falling back fifty li was fatal; Ding'an City was now completely exposed beyond the boundary of the domain. At the center of the Shaman army, a Shaman standing three zhang tall raised his drumsticks and began beating a war drum. A bloody glow radiated from his entire body, and his aura was blazing to the extreme—he was unmistakably a Desolate Shaman. Before him stood the Heaven-Supporting War Drum, crafted from the hide of an immortal-grade fiend. A single beat of this drum could grant a bloodthirsty frenzy to a hundred thousand warriors. Catching sight of this Desolate Shaman, Wei Yuan's heart tightened, though he was not surprised. Desolate Shamans were not exclusive to the Desolate Ancestor Tribe. Having suffered such a terrible loss in the previous battle, Hongye had undoubtedly gone back to summon reinforcements. Bloody light surged in vast sheets across the Shaman vanguard. In an instant, they became rabid and bloodthirsty, howling as they charged forward. Taking advantage of the lingering domain power over Ding'an City before it completely dissipated, Wei Yuan activated the city defense array. Then, the city's defensive firepower opened at full blast, while railguns began lobbing missiles to bombard the Shamans. Great Shamans within the Shaman army stepped forward to intercept them, but human cultivators manipulated the missiles to dodge, sending their trajectories drifting erratically. Many still rained down successfully, each blast claiming the lives of over a thousand Shaman soldiers. The Shaman army surged forward like a tidal wave. Qingming stood like a seawall, shattering the first wave to pieces against its ramparts. The Shaman army triggered their bloodlust with the Heaven-Supporting War Drum, while the defenders of Qingming were backed by Ephemeral Multitude. The warriors of the Shaman vanguard were already, on average, a minor realm higher than human mortals, and after unleashing bloodlust, their combat strength climbed by yet another realm. However, Ephemeral Multitude elevated ordinary mortals by two entire realms. In direct comparison, the human mortals possessed a slight edge in strength. Coupled with the cover of fire guns, redoubts, city defense cannons, and missiles, a single mortal could essentially trade their life for two Shaman soldiers. Within Wei Yuan's perception, the moment the two armies clashed, the auras of his own warriors vanished in massive swathes. In the redoubt sector he guarded in person, the fighting was particularly bloody and brutal. In less than an hour, the front two tiers of redoubts fell completely, and the ten thousand defenders within were wiped out to the last man. This time, the Shamans had deployed six legions facing Wei Yuan's sector—three in the front and three in the rear—forcing Wei Yuan into a meat-grinder battle. With a flick of his divine sense, Wei Yuan summoned several specialized missiles. Detonating at high altitudes across various locations, brilliant points of searing white light burst open above the battlefield, instantly illuminating an area of a hundred li as bright as day! This light was agonizingly harsh to the eyes of the Shamans, whereas to humans, it was merely glaring. In an instant, countless Shaman warriors shrieked and clutched their eyes, and the humans seized the opening to cut them down in droves. Suddenly, the earth shook and the mountains trembled once more as the three foremost small redoubts detonated in continuous blasts. It turned out Wei Yuan had secretly buried explosives underground. The Shamans had been focused solely on guarding against the missiles in the sky, never imagining that the captured redoubts were nothing more than powder kegs. Afterward, the armies of both sides clashed in close-quarters combat across a battle line stretching over ten li. At the center of the line, the young monk Honglian's expression had turned ferociously twisted. Holding a jade blade in one hand and a demon-subduing pestle in the other, an endless surge of blood-sea waves faintly roiled within a dozen zhang around him. Yet in the dark of night, no one noticed anything amiss. Any Shaman warrior who stepped into the blood sea immediately grew drowsy, their movements slowing to a crawl. The young monk slashed out beams of blade-light over a zhang long; a single sweep cleaved more than a dozen Shaman warriors in half at the waist. Meanwhile, the demon-subduing pestle swung out clouds of dark-golden mist. The mist spanned several zhang across, and once a Shaman was touched by it while trapped within the blood sea, their eyes would burst moments later, spraying blood as they died. Wei Yuan naturally noticed the young monk, but this was the first time he had seen him fight in an army formation. The young monk's every action seemed unremarkable at a glance, yet his slaughter was horrifyingly efficient. With every passing moment, dozens of Shaman soldiers perished around him. Less than an hour had passed since the clash began, yet the number of Shaman soldiers dead by his hand had already exceeded five thousand! Wherever the young monk's blood sea swept, the military qi of the Shaman forces seemed to lose its effect. Whether common warriors, nobles, or Great Shamans, all grew exceptionally feeble. Only upon seeing this did Wei Yuan realize the young monk's uniqueness. He specialized in slaughtering Shaman warriors below the Dao Foundation realm. Be they pariahs or elites, none could survive more than five breaths once they entered his blood sea. Whenever a powerful Dao Foundation or Great Shaman appeared, the Peacock Buddha Mother hidden within the ranks would step forward to take them on. The Peacock Buddha Mother's method of attack was equally bizarre, periodically pressing his palms together in reverent bows. Even a Great Shaman who had been tainted by the young monk's blood sea would lose half their life the instant the Peacock Buddha Mother bowed to them. The clever ones turned and fled immediately, thereby preserving their lives; those slightly slower to react would be left with only a thread of breath after a second bow, and a third bow meant certain death. The two monks coordinated with flawless tacit understanding. In a single hour, the Peacock Buddha Mother had already slain three Great Shamans, along with nearly a hundred Power Shamans, blood shamans, and Dharma Shamans. Above the two monks, origin qi of heaven and earth surged continuously, blending with the surrounding killing intent, karmic debt, and stench of blood. The two monks had achieved astonishing results, as evidenced by the unbroken flow of heaven and earth's bestowals. For a time, the battle line where the two stood actually showed faint signs of pushing the enemy back! Yet as he watched, Wei Yuan found it strange. The young monk was slaughtering ordinary Shamans on such a massive scale—was he not afraid of karmic debt? And the Peacock Buddha Mother's karmic debt seemed hardly any better. Yet seeing how unbothered the Peacock Buddha Mother appeared, Wei Yuan surmised that the young monk either possessed a unique Dao Foundation or extraordinary karmic luck that rendered him fearless of karmic debt. Judging by the sea of blood surrounding him, he might even be using karmic debt for his cultivation. A local success, however, did not alter the broader state of the battlefield. Along the front lines, the struggle raged back and forth, and the front city wall of Ding'an City changed hands several times. Wei Yuan issued orders almost mechanically: throw ten thousand men in until they were wiped out; throw another ten thousand men in until they were wiped out again. At last, unable to bear the overwhelming strain, the city defense array went completely dark. This time, Wei Yuan did not send any more men to the front wall. Instead, he withdrew the troops from within the city beforehand, designated the rear city wall as the new front line, and began stationing troops there to contest it. With every passing moment, thousands of warriors perished on both sides. Suddenly, a chorus of wails erupted from the battlefield below Wei Yuan—it came from the refugees of Zhao. Originally stationed at the very rear, they had assumed their turn would never come in this battle. Never had they expected the Shaman army to be so vast, driving all the way before the final line of defense! Many refugees cried out in panic, tossing aside their weapons in an attempt to flee. But among them, Wei Yuan had stationed three thousand deathsworn warriors who viewed death as coming home—part of the original eighty thousand. These deathsworn barked stern shouts at once, even cutting down dozens who attempted to run. Then, taking the lead, they mounted the walls and began fighting the Shamans to the death. The Zhao refugees had been shivering in terror when an invisible force descended from the sky, instantly making them feel immensely powerful. Then, faint curtains of light fell one after another. The refugees enveloped by them had their eyes turn bloodshot at once; fear vanished, replaced by wild ferocity. Seeing leaders taking the vanguard in bloody battle, they howled and mounted the wall, throwing themselves into the slaughter. Feng Chutang materialized in the darkness and nodded to Wei Yuan. His face was etched with exhaustion, and a distinct grayish-black hue hung over the space between his brows. Without lingering for a moment, the two immediately flew toward the next redoubt holding Zhao refugees to repeat the process: Wei Yuan applied Ephemeral Multitude, while Feng Chutang cast Hundred Battles Heroic Souls. By the time all four redoubts were taken care of, patterns of bluish veins had surfaced across Feng Chutang's face, making him look exceptionally hideous. His movements grew sluggish, as though he were shouldering a heavy mountain. "I need... to go... rest for a bit..." Feng Chutang barely maintained his flight, drifting sluggishly toward the core of the domain. Just then, a crisp popping sound reached Wei Yuan's ears. Turning to look, he saw the sound had come from the young monk. A blood vessel in the corner of his eye had burst, dyeing his entire eye crimson, while blue veins bulged on his forehead, transforming his once-handsome face into something savage and terrifying. The sea of blood around him had noticeably expanded, turning virtually solid with surging waves. The Peacock Buddha Mother chanted a Buddhist proclamation and said, "Let us stop here." The young monk gritted his teeth and replied, "It's fine, I can hold out a bit longer. If I don't kill them all, this young master's altar of spirit won't be at peace... How the hell are there so damn many Shamans?!" The Peacock Buddha Mother let out a sigh and continued fighting. Half an hour later, all the redoubts of the fourth tier fell, and all fifty thousand Zhao refugees were slain in battle. In return, the Shamans left nearly a hundred thousand corpses behind. Just as the young monk cut down his fifteen-thousandth foe, the blood sea suddenly boiled. Both of his eyes burst, jetting two long pillars of blood. Yet he merely grunted softly, still standing upright! The surrounding Shamans were momentarily chilled to the bone, not daring to advance. The Peacock Buddha Mother sighed softly, picked up the young monk in his arms, and turned to depart. He strode through the air, each step leaving a crimson footprint suspended in the sky. Wei Yuan shifted his gaze again and saw more than a dozen Dao Foundation cultivators fighting desperately to carve their way out of the Shaman ranks. The two in the center were carrying Xu Henshui. Xu Henshui's left arm was gone, a gaping hole pierced through his abdomen, and he was unconscious. Yet above him, bestowals of heaven and earth poured down continuously—clearly from more than one kill. Xu Henshui had presumably fought several Great Shamans in the skies above the enemy ranks and fallen into their formation after suffering severe wounds, only to be reclaimed by these cultivators risking their lives. Yet while fifty Dao Foundation cultivators had charged in, only twelve made it back out. There were simply too many Shamans—not only common warriors, but their Great Shamans also outnumbered the human dharma idols several times over. As dawn drew near, the Shamans showed no sign of retreating, continuously feeding wave after wave of troops into the fray. In Wei Yuan's eyes, countless souls could be seen weeping and wandering through the air, while squad after squad of mortals marched into the battle lines, only to be wiped out in their entirety. Suddenly, a surge of fury welled up from the depths of his heart. Wei Yuan drew out the Yang bullet and bellowed, "Hongye! I heard you were once a top-tier Nether Shaman! Do you dare fight me to the death?!" Wei Yuan's voice thundered across the entire battlefield. Hongye stared at the Yang bullet in Wei Yuan's hand, his expression turning grave. Wei Yuan waited a moment, but received no response, and spat, "Useless trash!" He soared into the sky with his back to the rising sun, facing the entirety of the Shaman army, and roared once more, "Who among you has three thousand years of lifespan to dare fight me to the death?!" The Shaman army fell into dead silence. Moments later, the horn sounded the retreat.