The cargo of this flying boat consisted entirely of Liao soldiers fallen in the opening battle. As expected, they were able to nourish Qingming while adding primal chaos qi to the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Once all tens of thousands of corpses were refined, the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World advanced another small step within the Myriad Transformations Realm. Wei Yuan now needed only another nine hundred and ninety-six years of cultivation to step into the late dharma idol realm.
Immediately afterward, another flying boat touched down, carrying back several thousand carcasses of Liao horses. Once cast into the Reincarnation Furnace, however, the results were mediocre; several thousand horses could not match even a few hundred Liao tribesmen.
The Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World meticulously recorded all these shifts, converting them into cold, dispassionate figures.
Wei Yuan returned to the garrison city. By now, the battlefield had been cleared, and large cohorts of cultivators were rushing to repair the satellite cities. Their current workforce was only enough to work on four satellite cities at once, and because Wei Yuan insisted on excavating a tunnel connecting them to the garrison city, the workload was even greater. Yet omitting the tunnel was out of the question.
Without it, the defenders of the satellite cities could only fight to the death within their walls. With a tunnel, they had an escape route, which made an immense difference to morale and ultimate outcomes.
After resting for several days and bringing up hundreds of thousands of reinforcements from the rear, the Liao Clan resumed their offensive.
At the onset of battle, the Liao cavalry swarming across the hills and plains met a frontal hammer blow. By now, dozens of cannons stood mounted upon the garrison city, multiplying its firepower. Beneath the blanket of cannon fire, the Liao forces finally suffered substantial casualties.
Soon after, the Liao army discovered that the human firepower was far fiercer than in the previous battle; countless flying swords whistled through the air, reaping Liao warriors in swathes. The Liao forces answered with torrential barrages of arrows, and the number of high-powered enchanted arrows noticeably increased.
Both sides fought bitterly for half a day, sliding once again into a bloody stalemate.
Wei Yuan noticed that Dao Foundation captains were still dropping dead without warning from time to time. On a battlefield where hundreds of thousands clashed in bloody carnage, the death of one or two individuals would ordinarily cause not a ripple. But now Wei Yuan knew that these men were in fact perishing under the touch of killing intent.
Wei Yuan looked up at the sky. High above the firmament, he did not know in what manner the two immortals were contending.
Wei Yuan roved along the city walls like an avatar of death. Wherever he arrived, human combat effectiveness surged, Liao casualties mounted sharply, and the enemy experts lurking in the shadows vanished without a trace.
Yet no sooner had he turned the tide in one sector than he had to rush to the next, without a moment's respite.
Seemingly by chance, Wei Yuan passed through the same stretch of wall three times in succession.
The Liao assault in this direction was exceptionally fierce, while the city's retaliatory cannon fire had dwindled to sporadic bursts; of the fifty artillery pieces, only a dozen or so were still firing.
Before long, Wei Yuan passed through the same spot for a fourth time. He halted abruptly, his gaze locking onto a heavy arrow gliding silently through the night. As it drew near, the arrow suddenly morphed into a viper, darting toward him. Wei Yuan struck it down with an effortless slash of his sword.
Yet the moment that heavy arrow was destroyed, every incoming arrow within dozens of yards of Wei Yuan transformed into a serpent. In the blink of an eye, dozens of snakes of varying sizes and distinct properties lunged toward him!
Wei Yuan remained fearless, gathering his focus to respond. Right at that instant, a mass of shadow rose from beneath the battlements where he stood, condensing into a slender rapier that silently thrust toward his lower body.
This thrust made no sound and blocked all spiritual sense; an ordinary cultivator standing inches away would still fail to notice it.
The strike was vicious and insidious. Even if a cultivator's lower body was no longer an absolute vital point, psychologically it remained a vulnerable target, and once a hit landed, an endless succession of deadly follow-ups would surely follow.
Yet just as the blow seemed about to land, the Liao assassin concealed within the void felt a chill at his knees. A pair of lower legs, severed at the joint, tumbled out of the empty air!
He looked down in stunned disbelief, only to see a patch of shadow clenching the demon blade Qiyue in its jaws. With another sweep of the blade, his remaining leg and more than half of his hip were severed from his torso.
Only then did a delayed sense of alarm flare in his mind, alerting him to mortal danger!
Immortal power welled in the Liao assassin's eyes, and only now did he notice a great formation laid out beneath him at some unknown point, faintly recognizable as something designed to suppress karmic luck. That was likely why he had never sensed any peril beforehand. But there was no time to ponder; with a shrill scream, he turned and fled.
Held in the shadow dragon's maw, the demon blade Qiyue pursued with another strike, but this time it met only air. What had been a locked-on slash was dispersed by the immortal power surging from the enemy.
Qiyue raised the blade once more, only to find that locking onto the opponent was no longer possible.
In the fleeting moment that slash went wide, the Liao powerhouse had already fled a hundred yards away, on the verge of vanishing into the night.
Before Wei Yuan's eyes, the silver-haired woman suddenly reappeared, gripping a short blade and closing in at blistering speed. Wei Yuan calmly drew Instant, leveled it, and aimed the muzzle straight between her brows!
Her expression flickered. A warning sharper than any she had ever felt made her instinctively twist aside to dodge the shot.
A translucent bullet burst from the barrel, propelled by a tempest to traverse the distance in an eyeblink. It struck the back of the fleeing Liao expert's skull, extinguishing every shred of his life force.
Far away in the Dingyue Grand Hall, another seat became vacant.
Seemingly well satisfied, Wei Yuan walked toward the Liao assassin's corpse, brushing past the silver-haired woman. She made no move to strike, her eyes flashing with uncertainty over whether that shot had been a mere coincidence or if Wei Yuan had truly detected her.
She hesitated, refrained from approaching him, and shifted directions before fading into nothingness once more.
Wei Yuan squatted before the dead Liao assassin and sifted through his belongings, finding a waist token crafted from lightning-struck immortal peach wood. The Liao script upon it read "Huwen," which meant "Shadow Blade" in the Liao tongue.
From Huwen's body, Wei Yuan retrieved a jade disk engraved with markings and numbers. Behind the symbol for the human dharma idol realm was a single tally mark, while behind the Dao Foundation realm were twenty-one tallies.
This was a magic treasure commonly used by Liao powerhouses to record battle achievements; the count beside each cultivation mark represented the number of people slain.
Huwen had coordinated with the Liao archer who could fire serpent arrows in an attempt to ambush Wei Yuan, only to walk right into a trap Wei Yuan had meticulously prepared. Wei Yuan's patrol routes had been deliberately calculated, his repeated circuits intentional, and along that path lay only one ideal vantage for an ambush.
In the crucible of battle, no one had time for careful deliberation; when a fleeting opportunity arose, one could only decide on instinct whether to seize it. In such moments, karmic luck became the decisive factor. Blessed with immortal qi, these Liao powerhouses had assumed they held overwhelming advantage in fortune.
Yet Wei Yuan had laid his snare with a formation and infused it with otherworldly fortune. At the critical juncture, he had finally lured his foe into doom, where the shadow dragon wielding the demon blade Qiyue dealt repeated grievous wounds, and a tempest round from Instant finished the job.
Collecting his spoils, Wei Yuan glanced casually over his shoulder, catching only a fleeting silhouette left behind by the silver-haired Liao woman.
Wei Yuan remained composed, letting his gaze sweep across the battlefield. That had been a prime opportunity to take down the silver-haired woman, but her spiritual perception was remarkably keen, and she had dodged his feint-turned-shot in the nick of time.
Perhaps owing to Huwen's death, the Liao powerhouses grew noticeably more cautious, yet the attacks of their ordinary troops intensified. Swarms of ironclad Liao soldiers charged straight onto the battlements and even broke into the streets below for house-to-house combat, sending the casualties among the defending Dao soldiers soaring.
At nightfall, desolate war horns blared once more as the Liao forces retreated to their main camp, abandoning a hundred thousand dead. The garrison city had become a sea of blood littered with corpses; in this battle alone, casualties among the Dao soldiers approached twenty thousand.
Mindful of the previous lesson, Wei Yuan patrolled the entire perimeter without pause, relying on his own karmic luck to suppress any lingering immortal killing intent. The warriors who could still stand dragged their bone-weary bodies to treat the wounded and clear the field.
Meanwhile, the Palace of Grand Beginning urgently dispatched thirty thousand Dao soldiers as reinforcements, filling the gaps in their ranks and bolstering their defensive strength.
Without a moment's rest, the newly arrived Dao soldiers were deployed by Wei Yuan to sweep the battlefield and rebuild the satellite cities. The satellite cities had proven their worth, exacting a devastating toll on the Liao Clan—over twenty thousand bodies lay strewn beneath their walls alone. Thus, after every battle, Wei Yuan saw to it that they were rebuilt.
Walking among the carpets of corpses, Wei Yuan suddenly understood: this was war—mechanical, repetitive, bloody, and dull.
Dawn broke once more.
The battlefield had been cleared, and the outlines of new satellite cities were already taking shape as vast columns of Dao soldiers toiled like ants. On the ramparts, infantry guns pointed vigilantly toward the north. After a night of frantic repairs, the number of functional guns had reached more than thirty again.
In the morning light, a lone Liao rider suddenly approached from the north.
His steed was pitch-black, and upon it sat a tall warrior with two streaks of white war paint across his cheeks, a scimitar at his waist, and rare, cross-shaped star pupils in his eyes.
As he galloped south, the laboring Dao soldiers instantly fixed wary eyes upon him. Riding alone, the Liao warrior showed no trace of fear, shouting at the top of his lungs, "I wish to see your commander!"
Wei Yuan was directing Dao soldiers on the ramparts to bolt steel shields onto the walls to reinforce defenses, so he naturally spotted the rider.
He Fang spurred his horse forward to intercept him. The Liao rider was actually quite young, his square face bearing no trace of ferocity, only courage.
He Fang said, "Whatever business you have, speak to me."
Though this young Liao warrior had merely entered the dharma idol realm, he gave He Fang a stifling sense of pressure.
In a deep voice, the Liao youth said, "Huwen was my elder brother. He died in battle last night. I have come to ransom his body. Once I have him, I will return to the north and never again take part in battle against the human race."
He Fang did not know who Huwen was, but four Liao dharma idols had fallen the previous night, so he was likely one of them. He turned toward Wei Yuan, awaiting his decision.
Wei Yuan said, "I do not know who Huwen is. Tell him to leave. If he lingers any longer, he will not leave at all."
The young Liao warrior dismounted, laid his dagger upon the ground, and knelt toward Wei Yuan from afar, pressing his face to the earth.
Given Wei Yuan's temperament, he would never trust anything a strange Liao tribesman said, treating it merely as wind past his ears. No plea or sorrow held any sway over him; having once cursed eight hundred thousand Shaman troops to death in a single stroke, Wei Yuan cared nothing for the sentiments of an alien foe.
Just then, an airship slowly lifted off from the city, turned about, and flew southward.
For reasons unknown, the young Liao warrior suddenly grew frantic, kowtowing with such force that blood stained his forehead.
Standing atop the walls, Wei Yuan watched in silence. Huwen's corpse had been infused with immortal power; no matter what tale this Liao youth bore or what price he offered, Wei Yuan would never return the body.
The flying boat finished its turn, accelerated, and drew further into the distance.
Frantic, the Liao youth leapt to his feet as if to chase after the vessel, but countless flying-sword guns instantly leveled at him. He Fang looked up toward Wei Yuan; with a single word from Wei Yuan, over a hundred flying-sword guns would riddle the Liao warrior with holes.
Wei Yuan frowned. He lifted a hand, then lowered it.
He Fang pressed his hand down, and the Dao soldiers lowered their weapons.
The flying boat accelerated steadily until it finally vanished beyond the distant horizon. Without rhyme or reason, two trails of hot tears spilled down the young Liao's cheeks. He did not know why, feeling only as though an empty hollow had been carved out of his chest.
He rose in silence, left his dagger on the ground, mounted his horse, and galloped northward without looking back.
Wei Yuan signaled for work on the satellite cities to continue, casting the small interlude aside. Every race had its own legends, and every race had its heroes.
The young Liao did not return to the main camp. Skirting around it, he prepared to head north, but his mount suddenly startled and reared onto its hind legs!
Before the horse stood a silver-haired woman, practically touching the steed's snout. The Liao youth urged the horse several times, but this steed of legendary pedigree refused to take even half a step forward.
Leaping down, the young Liao stared at the woman and said, "I have no desire to pursue what happened to my brother, but nor do I wish to serve you any longer! I am returning north of the Tianhan Sea; that is where I belong!"
The silver-haired woman said, "An eagle grows only when locked in combat with birds of prey; chasing doves day after day accomplishes nothing. Will you not consider staying?"
Leading his horse, the youth walked around her and continued northward. Unperturbed, the woman said, "Here is a portion of immortal power, imbued with the Great King's insights. It imposes no constraints upon you. Now that you have seen Wei Yuan with your own eyes, you should understand full well that without the aid of this immortal power, you will never be able to avenge your brother."
The young Liao's northward steps slowed, slower and slower, until he finally came to a halt.
Within the garrison city, He Fang walked up to Wei Yuan and said, "I think that Liao kid was no ordinary fellow. We shouldn't have let him go."
Wei Yuan asked, "You fear we might have inadvertently let a genius slip away, who will return to seek vengeance once he matures?"
He Fang nodded.
Wei Yuan offered a faint smile and replied, "If I spent every day scheming to stifle geniuses in the cradle, where would I find the time for what truly matters? Rest easy. If a day comes when he truly grows strong and returns for vengeance, he will only find that the gap between us has grown even wider."
Chapter 706