Inside each speedboat, four Body Casting mighty warriors vigorously cranked hand levers. The levers drove gears, and the gears drove propellers. Across the sea, the speedboats surged like wild horses broken free of their reins, frequently leaping into midair as they crested wave peaks before crashing heavily back down. If not for this being the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, where Wei Yuan had placed an enhancement of never-capsizing Daofa upon them, many would have overturned into the ocean long ago.
Aboard the speedboats, cultivators raised hand cannons and heavy crossbows, keeping their eyes trained on the entrance between worlds. Yet there was no movement from the other side.
Wei Yuan flew to the boundary between the two realms. Looking up, he saw that within his field of view, that heaven and earth was also inundated with seawater. All of this water had flooded over from the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, and there was no telling how far it had reached.
With a thought, over a hundred pixel Dao soldiers manifested before Wei Yuan. As they dropped into the water, over a hundred large fish surfaced immediately, each bearing a Dao soldier. Some skimming the surface and some submerged beneath, they surged rapidly toward the opposing world.
Then Wei Yuan waved his hand, summoning several dozen more water-phase pixel Dao soldiers into the sea. Upon touching the water, these soldiers naturally activated the Water-Parting Art, moving through the depths with remarkable speed, no slower than native sea fish.
These dozens of water-phase Dao soldiers fanned out, diving beneath the surface toward the opposing heaven and earth.
Han Li and the others fell silent. They had originally been discussing how to send scouts to probe the enemy's strength, fully prepared to take casualties. Han Li had argued for sending low-stage cultivators—his unspoken reasoning being that even if a batch died, a few were bound to make it back alive.
Long Wushuang and Jun Weizhi, on the other hand, felt that such a task naturally fell to them; of course they should lead from the front.
The three were on the verge of arguing when they watched Wei Yuan deploy hundreds of Dao soldiers.
Silence lingered in their small three-person channel for a moment before Han Li spoke first: "The great undertaking is not yet accomplished; we must still strive diligently."
Long Wushuang said, "Painstakingly cultivate Daofa!"
Jun Weizhi: "We must delve deeper into the Great Dao of heaven and earth!"
Wei Yuan could not be bothered with their sudden burst of ambition. His divine sense was already divided among each of the Dao soldiers as they cleaved through the waves at full speed. When entering the opposing world, looking from afar, the sea surface clearly curved at a sharp angle—the opposite ocean looked as if it were standing upright before him. Yet once surging through the waves, he felt no abnormality whatsoever; he could only see heaven and earth slowly revolving, while the surface beneath him remained completely level.
From the vantage point of the water-phase Dao soldiers trailing at the rear, Wei Yuan could see the soldiers ahead forging upward, as if scaling a towering mountain.
One could glimpse from this the sheer wonder of creation and the marvelous methods of immortals.
Upon breaking into the enemy realm, Wei Yuan discovered that the seawater had not penetrated far—no more than a hundred li at most. A grim, desolate chill pervaded that heaven and earth. Blade-like mountain peaks soared thousands of zhang into the sky, imposing and magnificent.
The shore was densely packed with maned warriors, noisily constructing something. Even across dozens of li, many maned warriors turned their heads one after another to fix their gazes on the incoming Dao soldiers, clearly possessing keen spiritual senses and exceptional vision.
Just as Wei Yuan intended to examine them more closely, his vision suddenly went dark. A sharp pain tore through his divine sense, and connection was instantly severed with the dozen-odd Dao soldiers at the very front.
Wei Yuan nearly recalled all his divine sense from the pain. And he had not even seen how the enemy had struck!
Decisive as ever, Wei Yuan drew on the immense spirituality honed through years of practice within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. In an instant, he distributed hundreds of tasks to the Dao soldiers, then retracted his divine sense.
Once Wei Yuan's divine sense withdrew, the normally rigid Dao soldiers seemed to gain souls in a flash. They scattered abruptly—some shooting straight into the sky, others diving into the depths of the sea.
Only now could it be seen clearly: a warrior with dark red mane, noticeably taller than those around him, was drawing a colossal bow without pause. Each time the bow was drawn to the full, three long arrows materialized on their own. Every shot hit home, released with terrifying speed; the Dao soldiers could scarcely make out the motion of drawing and loosing.
In the blink of an eye, less than half of Wei Yuan's Dao soldiers remained. The survivors suddenly soared into the air, charging toward the shore at full tilt. Yet by his own might alone, that red-maned warrior wiped out the dozens of fast-flying Dao soldiers in under three breaths.
Yet he felt as though he had missed something. Peering intently, he saw only the vast, boundless sea. Beneath the surface, three water-phase Dao soldiers, separated by several li, sped back toward the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Wei Yuan retrieved the three Dao soldiers and thereby learned everything they had seen.
With Wei Yuan inside the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, all the visual data was analyzed in real time, leading to a conclusion: the maned warriors were building ships. However, their shipbuilding craftsmanship appeared exceedingly primitive. The hulls were bizarre and misshapen, resembling washtubs. Worse still, many of these washtubs appeared to have been carved directly out of stone.
One water-phase Dao soldier had observed two maned warriors pushing a washtub into the sea, only for it to sink straight to the bottom. The two warriors scratched their heads in exasperation, completely helpless.
Seeing this, Wei Yuan's spirits lifted. He immediately issued orders to the rear to accelerate ship construction. Soon, another large vessel twenty zhang long was launched from the shipyard of Central City. This vessel featured twin propellers and sixteen drive units.
Four rushed heavy cannons were mounted aboard, and the hull was reinforced with armor. Although there was no gunpowder in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, a substitute was naturally found: the shells were filled with the dual powers of water and fire. Normally kept isolated, the barrier was removed upon firing, causing water and fire to violently clash and unleash an explosive burst no less powerful than gunpowder.
The warheads no longer relied on simple detonation; instead, they were infused with sword qi. A single shell blast released dozens of sword qi beams, potent enough to severely wound even a dharma idol cultivator.
These shells had all been charged day and night without sleep by dozens of sword cultivators in the Battle Saint Hall. A single Dao Foundation sword cultivator could normally infuse at most one shell a day before having to meditate and rest. But with the immortal orchid nurturing them with its aura, their Dao force recovery speed multiplied, allowing each person to charge three shells every two days.
Wei Yuan now possessed two mid-sized warships, each equipped with four main cannons and sixty rounds of ammunition.
Once the warships arrived, Wei Yuan gave a wave of his hand, generating several dozen more Five Elements Dao Soldiers that charged into the opposing realm. This time, their mission was provocation.
The Five Elements Dao Soldiers strutted brazenly through the air, then hollered toward the shore as if trying to say something.
The dark-red-maned warrior slowly lowered his colossal bow and listened intently. Then, each Dao soldier spat out a beam of light, converging midair into an image: a warrior with every trace of mane completely shaved off, looking emaciated and comically frail.
Every maned warrior erupted in an instant. Roars shook heaven and earth. Soon, dugouts and skiffs of every description hit the water, surging en masse toward the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World!
Wei Yuan had long been prepared. The moment the armada of dugouts and skiffs burst into the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the speedboats scattered and fled. Their speed was easily seven or eight times that of the crude skiffs, leaving the pursuers hopelessly behind.
Then, deep beneath the surface, the seaweed began to spin. Its dharma body was now colossal, spanning a full thousand zhang when unfurled. As it spun faster and faster, a terrifying vortex nearly a hundred li across gradually formed on the surface of the sea.
Chapter 729