The grand ceremony was held on the outskirts of Yong'an City, where five separate grounds had been opened and calibrated to the five elemental phases to aid the cultivators in their breakthroughs. As for higher, more specialized attributes—such as Life, Lightning, Wind, Spirit, Extinction, or even the Four Sacred Beasts and Yin-Yang—no preparations whatsoever had been made.
A rogue cultivator had actually raised this question, only to draw a chorus of bizarre looks.
Wei Yuan paced above the grand formation, opening and closing Ephemeral Multitude strictly according to protocol. The standard procedure allotted two rounds of Ephemeral Multitude, while the wealthy young masters and mistresses who paid handsomely received four.
With the swelling numbers, Wei Yuan found that Qingming's rate of accumulation was falling far short of the demand for Ephemeral Multitude. Activating it for fifty thousand cultivators at peak Body Casting imposed no small drain, so Wei Yuan refused to open even a single extra round. As for the young masters and mistresses who had paid lavishly, they deserved more by right.
Yet precisely when to activate and deactivate it was written clearly into the schedule, complete with automated reminders from the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Wei Yuan could neither trigger it early nor delay it. He felt like nothing more than a humanoid automated switch, stripped of all autonomy.
Fortunately, no one else knew he was an automated switch. Gazing up at the Domain Lord's towering figure in the sky, basking in the karmic luck descending like a gentle spring rain, and witnessing the volcanic eruption of spiritual power once Ephemeral Multitude opened, the myriad cultivators were awestruck beyond measure. They dutifully offered up their karmic luck, affording Wei Yuan a measure of solace.
With the opening of the second round of Ephemeral Multitude, every cultivator began casting their Dao Foundations at the exact same moment. The entire world fell dead silent.
Looking down from above, Wei Yuan saw clearly that two thousand private cultivation spots had been established atop a detached knoll. To sit in those spots, one had to fork out fifty times the standard price. Indeed, not ten times, but fifty.
Yet at a price that gave even Wei Yuan slight qualms, two thousand individuals had actually paid it this year!
While waiting for the crowd to cast their foundations, Wei Yuan grew somewhat bored, so he contacted Perfected Chuhe. The latter replied that the new weapons were just ready, amounting to only fifty missiles in total.
Fifty was plenty. With a stir of Wei Yuan's divine sense, dozens of missiles soared into the sky, streaking toward the Shaman army camp.
***
Inside the vanguard camp of the Shaman army, Liu Lan felt an inexplicable irritability. He lashed his serpent tail about erratically, sending the clutter atop the altar flying in all directions.
He reared his torso, standing over a dozen zhang tall. Combined with the mobile altar that was itself ten zhang high, he could see quite far into the distance.
Progress on the canal remained sluggish, still more than three hundred and fifty li from Qingming. The slaves and lowborn shamans were exceedingly timid; now, the mere sight of a flash in the sky sent them scattering in terror. The overseers hacked, beat, and cursed them, but to no avail.
Liu Lan could endure it no longer and had brought the vanguard legion closer and closer to the front lines. Yet without the canal open, those colossal mobile altars could not advance. Not to mention that the grand altar had been broken down into more than a dozen sections, requiring a massive lake to be excavated before it could be pieced together section by section.
Without an altar, the Shamans could not fight at all.
Right at that moment, several points of light flashed across the distant horizon. The lowborn shamans at the front lines instantly cast down their tools and scrambled frantically for cover.
Spotting the swarm of gleaming points, several sharpshooter Great Shamans quietly withdrew from the canal excavation site as well. After all, while these missiles were not lethal to them, taking a hit still hurt tremendously.
Liu Lan had witnessed this scene more than once, yet he remained helpless. Overhead lay the Shattered City; though only at its periphery, Liu Lan could faintly sense malicious gazes sweeping back and forth. Some of those gazes even peered down at a distinctly tilted angle.
The instant he sensed that tilted extraterrestrial gaze, Liu Lan's scales flared, his scalp prickling with dread. It meant the extra-celestial monstrosity was dangerously close to this realm, practically pressed against the celestial dome, probing to burrow into the jagged breach.
Consequently, Liu Lan had kept his head down, doing only what a commander ought to do and never taking the field himself.
This time, however, the trajectory of the incoming missiles was noticeably different from before. They bypassed the construction site entirely, flying straight toward the Shaman vanguard legion in the rear!
Liu Lan flew into a rage. This was blatant provocation! He immediately issued orders, his piercing shrieks rousing every Great Shaman and dragging them to their battle stations, strictly commanding them to mount an all-out interception and not allow a single missile to hit the ground!
Dozens of missiles came howling in. Just as they neared the airspace above the Shaman camp, their speed surged violently!
Liu Lan merely sneered. He had seen this trick many times and already had a countermeasure. The sharpshooter Great Shamans either delayed their release by a beat to lead the accelerated missiles along their trajectory, or, if confident in their draw speed, shot normally before unleashing rapid volleys.
In the blink of an eye, over a thousand Gale Heavy Arrows shot into the sky, forming a tight net that met the incoming missiles. Liu Lan could practically picture the missiles blowing apart in midair, just as he had seen in days past.
Yet a bizarre spectacle unfolded!
As if endowed with a spirit of their own, all the missiles suddenly began snaking through the air, weaving with uncanny agility to dodge the heavy arrows. Slipping through near-impossible gaps in the barrage, they plunged straight toward the encampment below.
Over a hundred sharpshooter Great Shamans attempting to intercept fifty missiles had let forty-five slip through! For a fleeting moment, Liu Lan wondered if all the sharpshooter Great Shamans had turned traitor!
The missiles plunged swiftly and detonated several dozen zhang above the ground, propelling thousands of palm-length flechettes into the camp. Shaman warriors, nobles, and Shaman Scholars instantly erupted in blooms of gore. Many Shaman Scholars were struck by just a single dart, only for an arm or thigh to be sheared clean off; the unluckier ones were snapped in two at the waist!
Not just the nobles and Shaman Scholars, but even Great Shamans were instantly punched through with bloody holes upon being hit. Even Great Shamans, renowned for their formidable physical bodies, could not withstand the kinetic force, riddled with puncture wounds.
Ordinary elite warriors, even heavy cavalry, were killed in a single strike.
As the missile saturation concluded, Liu Lan swept his divine sense outward and tallied the casualties: over ten thousand elites in total!
Turmoil and chaos inevitably broke out across the camp, though the Great Shamans naturally moved to suppress it. Liu Lan transformed into a streak of silver lightning, descending from the altar and landing before a relatively intact missile wreck. This missile had been struck by a Great Shaman; its warhead had not detonated, but was burning fiercely.
Liu Lan exhaled a cloud of silver mist, instantly extinguishing the flames. He then began dismantling it with his own hands, eager to see what manner of magical treasure could slip past the arrow storm of the sharpshooter Great Shamans.
Inside the warhead lay half-consumed explosives, a massive array of neatly arranged flechettes, and a charred corpse strapped securely within the nose cone. Judging by its shape and size, it looked somewhat like an overgrown rodent.
Chapter 839