A flock of birds skimmed across the land.
Without warning, a sky-piercing surge of killing intent struck from below. In an instant, rain of blood filled the air, feathers scattering in every direction. The few surviving birds wailed mournfully, fleeing high and far.
On the ground below, a large contingent of black-clad men surged out of the woods on both sides, rushing toward a convoy traveling down the center of the official road. At the core of the convoy were several ornate carriages, followed by dozens of freight wagons carrying baggage and supplies, escorted by about two hundred imperial soldiers.
Yet the black-clad men bursting from the dense forest numbered several thousand at the very least—a vast disparity in numbers. The soldiers guarding the carriages, however, showed no panic. They sounded a signal horn; then the lead wagons halted while the rear ones pressed forward, automatically closing into a tight formation.
Casting aside their blades and swords, the soldiers pulled flying-sword guns straight from the wagons. Meanwhile, the carriage doors of the freight wagons swung open, revealing compartments packed with warriors armed to the teeth!
Next, two ornate carriages that were supposed to be the prime targets collapsed, each revealing two mounted infantry guns!
At the head and tail of the column, two dharma idol cultivators appeared, shouldering full-scale rotary flying sword cannons. They opened up with frantic barrages directed straight at the leading black-clad men.
Dozens of black-clad figures suddenly took to the air—they were all Dao Foundation cultivators, intending to shatter their opponents with a swift, ferocious thrust.
Yet taking flight on a battlefield meant either ascending to paradise or plummeting into hell.
In a flash, more than two hundred various magical artifacts appeared, crashing toward the airborne attackers like a tidal wave. With mounting despair, those dozens of black-clad Dao Foundation cultivators realized that every single one of the more than two hundred imperial guards in the convoy below was a Dao Foundation cultivator as well!
The raging surge of magical artifacts swept past, wiping the airborne Dao Foundation cultivators clean from the sky.
At the same time, the rotary cannons in the hands of the two dharma idols began to unleash their full might. High-powered flying swords automatically shifted their trajectories, chasing down the black-clad men. In the blink of an eye, three to four hundred more corpses littered the ground.
Against full-power rotary flying sword cannons wielded by dharma idols, these black-clad men—who possessed only Body Casting Great Perfection or at best the Jade Bone realm—hardly qualified even as target dummies.
The leader of the black-clad force stood dazed, unable to comprehend how a convoy that should have been an easy mark had abruptly turned into an impenetrable, spiked iron ball.
Then the four infantry guns opened fire. Under the operation of a crew of Dao Foundation gunners, the guns fired rapidly and accurately, blasting the black-clad men into the air. More critically, many of them had never encountered such weapons before, throwing their ranks into immediate chaos.
Within breaths, a ring of corpses formed on the ground, centered around the convoy.
Left with no choice, the leader signaled a temporary withdrawal to regroup for another assault.
Yet even after they retreated two li away, the infantry guns continued to shell them in pursuit, bombarding them all the way back into the dense forest.
Fortunately, the convoy showed no inclination to flee. Instead, the guards dismantled wooden carriage planks and drove them into the ground to form crude breastworks. The window of one carriage slid open, and Consort Yuan looked out while cradling the Young King of Chu in her arms, then drew the window shut once more.
That single glance made the black-clad leader abandon all thought of retreat. What he did not know was that a force of three thousand heavy cavalry was galloping toward them at top speed. Their military qi coalesced into a heavenly horse, every mount leaping several zhang at a stride as though treading the wind.
This cavalry force had employed the military manual Treading Shadows, doubling their marching speed compared to standard cavalry. A distance of a hundred li took merely two quarters of an hour.
Before the black-clad leader could even finalize his adjustments, the three thousand heavy cavalry crashed upon the scene. Wei Yuan pulled no punches, casting Rain of Fire from the Heavens to set the woods ablaze. Sun Yu and Xu Henshui seized the opportunity to unleash toxic smoke, while Perfected Chuhe directed soldiers to spray fire oil into the trees.
In mere moments, the two patches of dense forest turned into seas of flame. Unable to stay hidden, the black-clad men were forced out by the fire, only to run straight into the heavy cavalry bolstered by Wei Yuan's Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. These cavalrymen had originally possessed cultivations at Body Casting Great Perfection, but under the blessing of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, they were equivalent to the weakest Dao Foundation cultivators.
Yet even the weakest Dao Foundation was still a Dao Foundation. Before three thousand Dao Foundations, the black-clad men faced nothing short of a one-sided slaughter.
A short while later, several thousand black-clad men lay dead or wounded. Of their six dharma idols, four were killed in action and two heavily wounded and captured; not a single one escaped.
Just as they began surveying the battlefield, a hand resembling dried bones suddenly reached through the air, tearing open a rift. A bizarre figure wrapped from head to toe in cloth strips squeezed out from within, lunging with a savage grin toward the carriage where Consort Yuan sat.
As he lunged, all the soldiers around the carriage were flung outward, and even the two dharma idol cultivators were swept back against their will!
A Scenery Command powerhouse!
The carriage's ornate compartment instantly disintegrated into ash, exposing the interior. Consort Yuan sat upright, holding the Young King of Chu with one hand while clutching a crimson immortal sword in the other.
Across from her sat a woman in red, who at that very moment pulled a petite jade dagger from the storybook in her lap, pinching the hilt lightly with three fingers.
With a flick of her wrist, the jade dagger vanished from her fingers, instantly embedding itself in the mummy-like figure's chest! The grotesque man let out a world-shaking shriek, his body freezing midair!
In that split-second freeze, Consort Yuan appeared before him, swinging the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword down brutally onto his head!
Though his dharma form was exceptionally resilient, Consort Yuan ranked among the very finest even among dharma idols. Wielding the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword, her blade hacked a full three inches into the crown of his head, shattering the flawless, inviolable state of his dharma body in a single strike.
From below, a burst of pitch-black darkness materialized without warning, engulfing the man. Immediately afterward, Feng Tingyu plunged the demon blade Qiyue fiercely into the dark mist! Judging by the angle, the strike landed square between his legs.
Wei Yuan felt his own thighs clamp shut at the sight.
At the very last moment, it was Wei Yuan's turn to act. Pouring in every ounce of strength, he swung the Sun Furnace Greatsword in the killing technique Sweeping the Four Barbarians, unleashing power in two distinct surges that hacked brutally into the strange man. With a resounding crack, the blade sank deep—uncertain how far, though it certainly had not cleaved through entirely.
Then Feng Tingyu's black mist dispersed, revealing the figure in midair. He was now in a wretched state, bearing several gruesome wounds, his lower back cleaved halfway through by Wei Yuan's strike.
Next, Sun Yu, Xu Henshui, and Yu Zhizhuo appeared. Knowing full well they could not pierce the man's dharma body on their own, the three directed their efforts at his open wounds. Sun Yu blew toxic smoke into them, Xu Henshui tossed in handfuls of medicinal powder, and Yu Zhizhuo stuffed two bundles of explosives between his legs.
Estimating that the Void-Extinguishing Dagger's effect was about to wear off, the cultivators from the Palace of Grand Beginning scattered like startled birds, fleeing into the distance.
With a deafening roar, a fireball swallowed the grotesque man.
The strange man let out a delayed scream of agony. His eyes gleaming with vicious malice, he glared resentfully at Zhu Yuanjin, cast a venomous look at Wei Yuan, and twisted around to duck back into the rift in the sky, vanishing without a trace.
The cultivators all let out a long breath. With the crushing pressure abruptly gone, several broke into a cold sweat.
Feng Tingyu clutched her chest, repeating in rapid succession, "Scared me to death, scared me to death!"
The demon blade Qiyue materialized, complaining gloomily, "He was merely at Scenery Command Great Perfection... well, fine, he was pretty terrifying! But next time, could you pick another spot to chop? A Scenery Command Great Perfection dharma body doesn't have vital spots anymore—slashing there is no different from slashing anywhere else!
"Besides, who knows how many years it's been since that old monster last bathed... Forget it, this venerable seat needs to go throw up for a while."
Feng Tingyu looked at the demonic blade and asked in all seriousness, "What are you going to throw up with?"
The blade bordered on frenzy. "It was a metaphor! Do you know what a metaphor is?!"
"Oh!" Feng Tingyu nodded in sudden realization.
The demon blade found her earnest, contemplative expression particularly infuriating.
Wei Yuan felt both fortunate and lingering dread. He had not anticipated that the people from beyond the realm would dispatch an assassin at Scenery Command Great Perfection.
Fortunately, Zhu Yuanjin possessed vast combat experience, deploying the immortal artifact Void-Extinguishing Dagger right at the opening. Though the dagger had only one use remaining, it was still an immortal artifact; a single strike had pulverized a large expanse of the strange man's mindscape world, severely wounding him and freezing him in place.
Then Consort Yuan, an elite dharma idol, wielded the Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword to cleave through the crown of his head, damaging his sea of consciousness and breaking his near-invincible physical state. Feng Tingyu followed with a slash from the demon blade—no matter how much the blade complained, that area remained a vital spot, and Feng Tingyu had trusted her instincts completely.
Even if it was no longer a weak point in the physiological sense of a dharma body, psychologically it remained a vital spot all the same.
Then came Wei Yuan, wielding his mightiest weapon, the Sun Furnace Greatsword, to execute the peerless killing technique Sweeping the Four Barbarians, hacking the man's body halfway apart with all his might.
Sun Yu and Xu Henshui's subsequent efforts were merely icing on the cake, while Yu Zhizhuo's two bundles of explosives, though visually spectacular, inflicted virtually zero damage, failing to shave off even a single fleck of flesh.
Only through the seamless coordination of these top-tier dharma idols from the Palace of Grand Beginning, backed by two immortal artifacts and an all-out assault, were they able to inflict heavy wounds on the grotesque man and drive back a terrifying foe who stood merely half a step away from immortality.
Wei Yuan had known that many factions did not want Consort Yuan and the Young King of Chu to return to the capital alive, making ambushes along the road a near certainty. He had laid careful preparations in advance, intending to strike with overwhelming force and deliver a brutal blow to anyone bold enough to touch her carriage.
If he did not sever every claw they reached out, he figured those people would never grasp his current strength and would find it all too easy to let their loyalties stray.
He had set out to crush a hare with the might of a lion, never expecting a lion of their own to show up. In the moment of crisis, Zhu Yuanjin finally displayed the true strength of an elite assassin hidden beneath the surface, exercising flawless judgment and striking first to pin down a formidable enemy.
Consort Yuan's reaction was likewise nothing like that of a pampered concubine sheltered in the deep palace; an all-out strike from her shattered the opponent's consummate dharma body, clearing the path for those who followed.
In hindsight, both of their choices had been impeccably correct. On judgment and reflexes alone, few in the same cultivation realm could rival them.
Just then, the soldiers dragged over the two surviving leaders of the black-clad men, and Wei Yuan's spirits lifted. After a grand victory, if one could not savor the vanquished foe's ruined posture up close and recklessly dismantle their Dao heart, the joy of winning would be cut in half.
Chapter 674