The seaweed's demise sent Wei Yuan into an instant rage, while the enemy's impassioned fervor and tragic fate were completely worthless in his eyes.
Wei Yuan pointed forward and roared, "Kill every last one of them!"
Countless speedboats circled the enemy like a wolf pack. The stronger fighters used powerful bows and heavy crossbows, while the weaker ones cradled large-caliber hand cannons, desperately pouring down firepower.
The maned warriors were already drifting unstably on the waves, their aim severely compromised. On top of that, Wei Yuan exerted suppression through the power of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, extending his side's range and accuracy while disrupting enemy fire. With this double advantage, the maned warriors could hardly hit anyone, while their own ranks were shot one by one into the sea.
The two large warships also arrived on the battlefield. The cannons mounted aboard them proved even deadlier implements of slaughter; a single blast would blow even the maned warriors' largest skiffs, along with everyone aboard, to smithereens.
Wei Yuan directed a separate squad of speedboats to surge forward at high speed, thrusting straight toward the interface between the two worlds, intent on wiping out every enemy who had taken to the water in one fell swoop.
With the death of each maned warrior, a wisp of spiritual qi dissipated, absorbed by the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. One or two made no noticeable difference, but once the dead numbered in the hundreds and thousands, the Heavenly Dao chains binding Han Li, Jun Weizhi, and the others loosened by an imperceptible fraction.
Though the loosening might have been only one-thousandth, with their talents, all of them could clearly perceive the change. Long Wushuang's aura erupted violently in an instant. Spurring the speedboat beneath his feet, he drove straight into the enemy's rear.
Jun Weizhi's aura turned unfathomably deep. Bearing a crossbow in hand, he shot enemies into the sea one after another at an unhurried, steady pace, excelling through relentless precision.
Han Li looked around first, then closely observed his opponents. His hands were by no means idle either; two flying swords shuttled back and forth, reaping life after life.
Dugu Cangqiong glanced curiously at Long Wushuang and Jun Weizhi, unable to fathom what had provoked Long Wushuang or why Jun Weizhi had suddenly become so dangerous.
Wei Yuan remained concealed in the sky, overseeing the overall situation and suppressing the battlefield with the power of heaven and earth. At the same time, he quietly bestowed three strands of advanced otherworldly fortune and his final strand of purple qi upon Maiden Yin-Yang.
The bloody war against the Liao Clan had depleted much of Wei Yuan's karmic luck, the greatest drain being on his high-tier fortune. Directly confronting an immortal, Wei Yuan had had no choice but to rely on karmic luck to counter immortal power, expending it at an extraordinary rate. What he held now was the last of his high-tier fortune, enough to allow Maiden Yin-Yang to strike with full force three times while ensuring she could move freely to return to Central City.
Wei Yuan's plan was that once an enemy Scenery Command expert appeared, he and Longying would do everything they could to hold them off, aided by the various immortal plants. After weathering the Scenery Command expert's strongest blows, Maiden Yin-Yang would strike without warning with three all-out attacks, striving to slay the foe on the spot or at least inflict grievous injury.
The premise of it all was that Wei Yuan and Longying could withstand the assault without perishing.
For now, Wei Yuan had little to worry about on the battlefield. With his presence inside the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, every person on every speedboat instantly received their own exclusive assignment, needing only to execute it without having to think.
For instance, the commands given to the speedboat helmsmen were simply: "One, two, three, four; two, two, three, four..." They only had to crank their handles in rhythm.
Thus, countless speedboats moved like a pack of wolves—speeding up or slowing down, parting or converging in erratic paths, yet coordinated with consummate synergy.
Wei Yuan breathed a slight sigh of relief. If the battle unfolded along these lines, the enemy would be completely annihilated with minimal losses to his own side—provided no Scenery Command expert intervened.
Suddenly, a terrifying, colossal will drenched in brutal, bloodthirsty intent descended like mist over the entire battlefield, actually forcing back the power of heaven and earth of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
A dark-silver-maned man and a pale-gold-maned warrior strode across the sea. Wherever they passed, the ocean's surface turned mirror-smooth, without the slightest ripple. Everyone's movements stiffened for an instant, as though time and space were momentarily displaced.
The pale-gold-maned warrior shouted, "The enemy is formidable and cunning! We cannot sacrifice ourselves in vain any longer! Clansmen, the time has come to return to the Sacred Throne!"
The maned warriors roared one after another. Their movements grew swifter and more vicious. Extending sharp claws, they tore open their own iron-hard bodies, letting their blood gush freely.
Faced with these suddenly frenzied opponents, Wei Yuan naturally showed no mercy, nor did he have any habit of allowing enemies to finish their rituals. With a shout, he ordered a general offensive, while his own hundred-plus Dao Foundation warriors, blended in among the mortals, charged into the fray as well.
Long Wushuang exhaled with a sharp shout, drew a massive bow, and loosed an arrow! It flew with immense weight and power; though slightly deflected by the waves at first, its trajectory corrected itself in mid-flight and accelerated, piercing straight through a maned warrior.
Long Wushuang did not wait to see the outcome of the first arrow. In that brief interval, he unleashed six more arrows toward six different foes.
Yet the maned warrior who had been shot through suddenly chanted a bizarre incantation. His figure abruptly vanished and reappeared right beside Long Wushuang, the two standing face-to-face!
Shocked, Long Wushuang had no time to react before the maned warrior plunged a dagger into his body! Immediately after, six more maned warriors materialized around him, six daggers stabbing into his flesh from different angles.
Following the assassination, the seven maned warriors turned to ash, vanishing into thin air.
Bathed in blood, Long Wushuang stood at the prow, eyes wide open. A raspy sound came from his throat, all his bewilderment and unwillingness frozen upon his blood-streaked face. After a brief shudder, Long Wushuang plunged headfirst into the sea, sinking beneath the waves.
Across the battlefield, maned warriors vanished from where they stood and reappeared beside whichever opponent had dealt them a mortal blow, driving daggers into their foes' vitals with a reverse grip before crumbling into ash.
In a short span of time, hundreds of maned warriors dragged their mortal enemies down with them in mutual destruction.
Those capable of killing opponents from a distance across the sea were all Dao Foundation cultivators. In an instant, more than two hundred Dao Foundation cultivators within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, along with Wei Yuan's hundred-plus Dao Foundation warriors, were entirely wiped out!
A strike to the vitals from the maned warriors' daggers extinguished body and soul alike—whether ordinary cultivators or Dao Foundation warriors. Even with the Gate of the Many Realms in hand, Wei Yuan was powerless at the black pool blooming with red spider lilies.
This technique of the maned warriors was practically a karmic Daofa: it allowed them to teleport to the attacker's side and deliver a fatal blow at the cost of burning their dharma body and primordial spirit, instantly reducing themselves to nothing but ash!
Wei Yuan was shocked and furious. When the dark-red-maned warrior had died alongside the seaweed at the beginning, Wei Yuan had merely assumed it was some powerful Daofa. The dark-red-maned warrior was late Dharma Idol stage, so it had not been surprising for him to use such a technique. But Wei Yuan had never imagined that every single member of this race possessed this secret art!
What kind of damned race was this to develop such a bizarre art?
For the moment, Wei Yuan could find no way to counter it. Seeing that the Dao Foundation maned warriors on the sea were dead, those at Body Casting perfection actually slashed open their own bodies as well!
Wei Yuan immediately ordered the speedboats to pull back and used the heavy cannons mounted on the warships to bombard the enemy, repeatedly blowing their foes to pieces along with their boats. But after only a few volleys, several surviving maned warriors appeared on the warships, butchering the gunners to the last man!
Just as Wei Yuan was about to withdraw further to devise a counterstrategy, Han Li suddenly said, "We can't retreat! If we pull back too far, they can pick and choose who to kill! We have to press forward and send the believers in first!"
These words startled Wei Yuan, but he immediately realized it was the optimal solution—albeit an excessively cold-blooded and ruthless one. Those maned warriors clearly had a choice of targets; if they suffered several fatal wounds simultaneously, they could choose one attacker to die with them.
The daggers forged from burning their own souls and primordial spirits had the power to obliterate the soul; even if one's cultivation exceeded that of the maned warriors, a single stab could prove fatal.
Han Li meant that they should send in the immortal plants' core believers—those fearless yet low-strength devotees. Armed with rifles, they could still inflict mortal wounds as long as they were close enough. The maned warriors were not numerous, numbering less than ten thousand. Even if they had to fill the gap with believers' lives, they could drown them in bodies.
Wei Yuan weighed the pros and cons in an instant. Through the various immortal plants, he immediately issued direct orders to the corresponding believers. Thousands of believers charged at full speed into the ranks of the maned warriors. Guns roared as sheets of lead shot hailed down upon the maned warriors. The warriors counterattacked almost by instinct, expending their primed strikes to perish together with these mortals who were nowhere near Body Casting perfection.
A moment later, the sea fell quiet, leaving only empty boats drifting on the water. In death, the maned warriors turned to ash; the inhabitants of the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World likewise dissolved into origin qi upon dying, returning to heaven and earth.
Thus, in a battle with casualties in the tens of thousands, not a single corpse remained.
In the middle of the sea, only the silver-maned warrior and the pale-gold-maned woman remained.
Wei Yuan revealed himself, slowly drawing Demonic Blade Qiyue and leveling it at the silver-maned warrior.
Chapter 731