In the late autumn of the eleventh year of Tianqi of the Great Tang, Qingming once again held the Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony. Over fifty thousand cultivators gathered in Qingming, including local cultivators, advanced disciples from prestigious clans such as the Bao, Xiao, Xu, Southern Qi Li families, and the Three Cuis, as well as Dao soldiers from the Palace of Grand Beginning and rogue cultivators from across the realm. The event shook the world, even startling the Tang dynasty into dispatching Senior General Wei Boyang specifically to observe the ceremony.
Upon the central altar of the Shaman vanguard legion coiled a Nether Shaman whose serpentine lower body spanned hundreds of feet. His torso sprouted four arms, and his entire body was covered in silvery-white scales that rippled with an aqueous sheen.
Floating around him were dozens of classified military dispatches. His four arms gestured continuously, pulling in a new batch as soon as he finished reviewing the previous one. He had flowing silver hair and silver eyes devoid of pupils. He was Liu Lan, the commander in chief of this vanguard legion and a trusted subordinate of Heavenly Shaman Huiye.
Catching sight of a dispatch, he suddenly flared with fury and barked, "Qingming is holding a grand celebration in ten days?! My army is barely a thousand li away, and he actually has the leisure to throw a celebration?!"
Around the altar, dozens of Great Shamans prostrated themselves on the ground, none daring to utter a sound.
Liu Lan tapped the air before him, and a map materialized, clearly marking the army's current position and Qingming's borders. Ahead of the army, the canal had already been excavated to within five hundred li of Qingming, dug even wider and deeper than in Hongye's time.
"Pass down my order! Have those commoners dig the canal with all their might—at least thirty li forward every day! Nine days from now, the canal must reach within two hundred li of Qingming. This general will launch an offensive the day before their grand ceremony. Let us see how he holds his celebration then!"
The order flew to the foremost lines. Shaman army commanders immediately had cauldrons brought out, filled with vast quantities of crimson liquid that was brought to a boil and distributed to the laboring shaman commoners. After drinking the blood wine, the commoners became energized as though injected with adrenaline, feeling no fatigue whatsoever, digging relentlessly to the beat of war drums and military music.
Their full life potential had been forced out by the secret draught; once the effects wore off in three to five days, they would drop dead. But with strict orders handed down by the legion commander, no one cared whether these million commoners and slaves lived or died. Slaves and commoners were continually transported from the rear anyway; for every one that died, two more would take his place.
Meanwhile, Wei Yuan arrived at the Qingming frontline on a routine inspection of the defenses and battle readiness.
After more than half a year of preparations, Wei Yuan had established three lines of defense, forming a defensive system nearly a hundred li deep. Scattered across these lines were over a dozen small fortified cities, each capable of housing tens of thousands. All were of comparable size, with no primary or secondary distinction among them. This was Wei Yuan's precaution against the Shamans sparing no expense to suppress his Peerless Dao Domain and then using a blood curse to slaughter an entire city.
Now that the positions consisted solely of small cities without a core metropolis, there was no single target for a massive Shaman curse. Spending a colossal amount of sacrificial power just to eliminate ten thousand people would be an enormous loss. Even with a Heavenly Shaman presiding, such grand curses could be invoked two or three times at most.
There was nothing amiss with either the defense lines or the troops, but scouting riders reported that the Shamans were noticeably speeding up progress. A million slaves and commoners had consumed blood wine, unleashing their life potential to dig the canal at full speed. At this rate, they would reach striking distance in seven or eight days.
Observing the Shamans' movements, Wei Yuan frowned slightly. He had originally calculated that the Shaman vanguard would arrive at Qingming in about a month. By that time, the Qingming Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony would have concluded, the newly ascended Dao Foundation cultivators would have stabilized their foundations, morale across the realm would be soaring, and elders from friendly clans would still be present in Qingming, ready to lend a hand in an emergency.
Wei Yuan had calculated everything smoothly, yet the Shamans refused to play along, insisting on advancing and initiating the battle early.
However, Wei Yuan had invested heavily in this Dao Foundation Grand Ceremony, and he would never allow the Shamans to disrupt it. He immediately ordered missile units deployed from the rear into defensive positions, retrofitted with newly developed high-explosive warheads.
Half a day later, as dusk fell, dozens of missiles soared into the sky from Qingming, streaking toward the Shaman canal construction site.
A dam had been erected at the head of the canal, and before it lay twenty li of newly dug channel packed with laborers toiling day and night without pause. From time to time, a laborer would collapse dead mid-stride, whereupon overseers would haul the body away to parts unknown.
Suddenly, sparks of fire appeared in the heavens, like dozens of shooting stars blazing across the horizon. In the blink of an eye, they arrived above the construction site and began plummeting rapidly.
Several sharpshooters among the Shaman overseers let out loud whistles of warning while rapidly drawing their bows, unleashing volley after volley of arrows toward the falling meteors.
Having the battle of the Land of Rain as precedent, the Great Shaman sharpshooters knew Qingming possessed weapons known as missiles or rockets that were notoriously difficult to defend against. Thus, dozens of Great Shaman sharpshooters had been stationed at the frontline worksite expressly to intercept them.
The Great Shamans released their arrows like the wind, each firing dozens in the blink of an eye. This time, however, the fiery meteors in the sky abruptly accelerated, doubling their speed and leaving the Shamans' intercepting arrows far behind.
The dozens of rockets then dispersed, descending upon the commoners laboring along the riverbed. Dozens of enormous fireballs rose into the sky, showering the earth with countless fragments. Each rocket covered an area of a hundred zhang across, dispersing at least several thousand shrapnel pieces.
Dense clouds of fine dust billowed from the ground as masses of shaman commoners collapsed for no apparent reason. Even some Great Shamans felt sharp pain across their bodies, having been struck by the dense shrapnel.
The Great Shamans possessed thick hides and durable flesh, so the fragments caused them only superficial wounds, but for the slaves and commoners, a single shard was fatal. A single barrage of rockets left tens of thousands of commoners dead on the ground, hundreds of Shaman Scholars and nobles wounded, and even two Great Shamans relatively severely injured.
The Shaman worksite immediately fell into chaos. Many commoners dropped their tools and scrambled in all directions for cover, while the Shaman Scholars had no heart to maintain order, scrambling to save their own lives. After all, several Shaman Scholars had just been killed right before their eyes.
Before the initial confusion could subside, a second barrage of missiles arrived. This salvo covered a broader area with greater precision, targeting dense clusters of Shamans and inflicting horrific casualties in an instant.
Between the two strikes, casualties among the Shamans reached seventy to eighty thousand, grinding the construction site to a complete halt.
One of Wei Yuan's Dao soldiers hovered in midair, continually transmitting images of the battlefield back to the rear. Wei Yuan's true body remained hidden a hundred li away, using his divine sense to guide the missiles in bombarding the Shamans.
Strands of black and red karmic debt continuously flew toward Wei Yuan, entering the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Unmoved, Wei Yuan focused on observing the Shamans' movements, evaluating whether a third long-range strike was necessary. For now, it appeared superfluous.
Not a single Shaman was left working on the canal site; they were scattered everywhere, fleeing and hiding. Meanwhile, karmic debt rose from the corpses of the fallen Shamans, all streaming toward Wei Yuan.
Just then, the Red Lotus Bodhi drank its fill of karmic debt, its branches bending under the weight. Faint red flames appeared at the tips of every branch, burning silently upward and growing fiercer until they coalesced into a colossal sphere of red light. Suddenly, as though tearing free from some shadowy cocoon, the red flame shuddered and burst forth, shooting brilliant red light straight toward the vault of heaven. Vast Buddhist power gushed from within it like surging waves, causing it to advance in rank right then and there.
Within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, patches of golden tribulation clouds gathered across the sky. Towering into the clouds stood a magnificent peak, upon which countless Buddhas and Arhats seemed to open their eyes at once, fixing their gaze on the Red Lotus Bodhi below!
Chapter 836