Vexations

Wei Yuan pondered the matter over and over to no avail, so he set it aside and focused on the war against the Shamans. The battles beyond the heavens required no worry from Wei Yuan. A single clash between the two sides often dragged on for days or even weeks. Though human Scenery Command cultivators were few in number, every one of them was exceptionally formidable. Xuanyue and Mingwang could each take on two opponents at once. Cui Chengxiao could firmly hold the upper hand in a one-on-one duel, and could hold out for quite some time even against two. Xu Lanshan had reached Scenery Command not long ago, yet she could steadily hold her own against mid-stage and even late-stage adversaries. Wei Boyang and Zhu Yuanjin flickered in and out of sight. Later on, the two even began appearing together, launching joint surprise attacks on single targets. The moves played by immortals were too far removed from Wei Yuan, so he simply gave up dwelling on them, directing all his attention to managing the mortal battlefield instead. The Shamans had begun dispersing their forces once again, splitting into five legions—four large and one small. On the eastern front, they began pushing past the Hanyang–Qingming line, thrusting deep into the southeast of Qingming, where they set up camp and launched their offensive. A small-scale legion was stationed directly across from Hanyang Pass, monitoring the movements of the garrison inside. By now, Xu Lanshan had drawn the attention of the otherworldly abominations and could no longer enter the Shattered Lands to kill, so the Xu family elders inside the pass once more exercised their innate instinct: self-preservation above all else. A full five hundred thousand Xu family private troops inside Hanyang Pass were pinned down by two hundred thousand Shaman soldiers, unable to make a move. In truth, this was only because Liulan still did not understand the situation in the Shattered Lands well enough. Had Wei Yuan been leading the Shaman forces, he wouldn't have needed two hundred thousand; two thousand would have been plenty. In Wei Yuan's words, the size of your force didn't matter, but if you dared touch me, that became a matter of fundamental principle—it would be a fight to the death, and the war would not end until the Xu family offered up your head. This was unquestionably a threat, but Wei Yuan knew it was guaranteed to work. Fortunately, Liulan was unaware of this, thereby wasting two hundred thousand troops outside Hanyang Pass, leaving him with just over six million troops at hand. Yet Shaman reinforcements continued pouring in without end. What baffled Liulan was that almost all who arrived were the rawest, most ordinary recruits possessing barely a trace of Body Casting foundation, accompanied by a swarm of Shaman Scholars and noble lords. There were no Body Casting mastery elites at all, and hardly even any at the late Body Casting stage. Such an army gave Liulan a severe headache. Once numbers exceeded the limits of command, having them was worse than not having them. Consequently, Liulan had no choice but to continuously detach legions, moving them along Qingming's perimeter and fanning out across multiple separate positions to force Wei Yuan to disperse his forces as well. Sure enough, Wei Yuan had to maintain at least five hundred thousand troops to guard the front, which left him with less than a hundred thousand men to counter each Shaman legion. Yet Liulan gathered his finest elite troops together into a single legion of just three hundred thousand. It had no other duties except escorting supply convoys to the various legions and reinforcing any army whose battle went poorly. Liulan had acted out of helplessness as well, left with no alternative but to force Wei Yuan to scatter his strength. Ten ordinary warriors could easily defeat one elite, but a hundred against ten would prove rather difficult. If the elites numbered over a hundred, they could hold their own against a thousand disorganized stragglers. When ten thousand elites clashed with a hundred thousand aging and weak troops, as long as the commanding general was not hopelessly incompetent, victory was all but assured—a single charge might very well decide the battle. That was why Liulan preferred to endure crushing casualties and press forward with an unceasing offensive: when attacking, great curses could be used to sustain morale. If these common soldiers were put on the defense, under an assault by Qingming's heavy formations, they would likely collapse under the artillery bombardment before the two armies even met in melee. Fortunately, the sacrificial power bestowed this time had been exceptionally vast. Even after Wei Yuan's volley of dummy missiles had baited out eighty percent of it, what remained was still enough to cast the morale-boosting great curses and occasionally lob a blood curse or two over Qingming's head. Wei Yuan naturally noticed that the overall quality of the Shaman troops was poor. Even without All Living Beings in a Flash, the Qingming soldiers held a commanding advantage in close-quarters combat. After all, Qingming's equipment far surpassed these third- and fourth-rate Shaman troops. The gear of a dozen Shaman warriors combined was probably not worth as much as the armor on a single Qingming soldier. In the bloody fighting, Qingming's forged breastplates proved immensely effective. The cleavers of the Shamans could barely pierce their defense, and ordinary arrows could hardly penetrate. Unless heavy blunt weapons were used, three to five lightly equipped Shaman warriors ganging up on a single Qingming soldier would typically end up getting slaughtered in return. Even so, though Wei Yuan realized that the Shamans were merely sending third- and fourth-tier legions into the fray, their sheer numbers were overwhelming—so immense they could easily rotate troops and launch attacks on every side, leaving the pressure extraordinarily heavy. Wei Yuan could only keep up fire suppression with artillery and launch missile raids against the altars from time to time. But missiles were in short supply, and the raids yielded modest results, destroying only three altars while the Shamans still possessed at least twelve more. Wei Yuan launched counterattacks now and then, but these were swift, contained strikes: he would rout the Shamans holding a position and pull back immediately. Wei Yuan didn't believe for a second that the Shamans lacked elite troops. That he hadn't seen them yet could only mean one thing—the enemy commander held those elite legions in reserve, waiting to commit them to the field once a flaw appeared, clinching victory in a single stroke. Thus, Wei Yuan also kept ample reserves, artillery, and ammunition in hand, constantly prepared to deal a crushing blow to the Shamans' final push. Liulan, on his part, feigned possessing a massive elite legion, maintaining a steady barrage of assaults. Only through continuous attack and relentless attrition could he keep Wei Yuan from seeing his weakness. The two of them were like a pair of experienced, master gladiators maneuvering around each other. The fighting seemed fierce, but both withheld their full strength at every turn, lying in wait for the other's misstep. During the war, Wei Yuan had already laid out a karmic luck formation, steadily funneling in various types of immortal spiritual qi to drive his karmic luck higher. He was waiting for an opportunity—an opening that would compel him to reveal himself and personally intervene. When that happened, Wei Yuan would be exposed before the Shamans, and perhaps a Nether Shaman or Spirit Shaman would be unable to resist stepping in for an assassination, attempting to claim Wei Yuan's life at some cost. Wei Yuan was waiting for precisely that moment. By his calculations, that would be the best chance to slay a Shaman Scenery Command equivalent, with a likelihood far greater than what True Monarch Xuanyue and True Monarch Mingwang could manage. Of course, while waiting, Wei Yuan did not forget to make life miserable for the opposing commander. His method for doing so was simple: he drove his own karmic luck higher. That way, not only would those around him suffer bad luck, but adversaries tied to him by major, direct karma would also fall on hard times. Soon enough, Liulan discovered that he was fighting on two fronts: one ahead of him, and one behind. At the Shaman base camp, Liulan had originally been at the front commanding a new round of assaults. Just as two legions were rotating in chaos, the two Shamans in the rear issued twelve consecutive orders demanding that Liulan return to the main camp immediately to explain the situation. Pressed with no alternative, Liulan set off; fortunately, as a top-tier Nether Shaman, his speed was blistering, covering hundreds of li in a quarter of an hour. The two Shamans were already seated high within the grand tent. Seeing Liulan enter, the Shaman on the left said coldly, "We have just calculated an important figure: during this period, Qingming used five hundred million jin of steel merely to construct its defensive line. Can you explain where their steel came from?" Two faint plumes of smoke suddenly puffed from Liulan's nostrils. He wanted nothing more than to slap both of them across the face! How was he supposed to know where the humans got their steel? Did that have a single tael of immortal silver to do with him? Just then, the Shaman on the right said coldly, "Your silence proves your guilt!" …… At this moment, Wei Yuan had troubles of his own. The Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven was already overburdened and struggling to operate. Right now, the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven resembled a cherry whose flesh was made entirely of various yin souls, while the true Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven was merely the pit inside. The Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, on the other hand, sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, brimming with vibrant life.