Across the crimson earth, several massive carts crawled forward at a sluggish pace. Heavy tarpaulins shielded their roofs from the blazing sun, while observation posts watched from both front and rear.
Each cart's wheels stood a full zhang tall. Massive as the vehicles were, shamans were just as immense, meaning each carriage could accommodate only a dozen or so of them.
Four armored carts, fifty Power Shamans, and a single leader at the perfected Power Shaman realm—this was the entirety of the reinforcements dispatched to Fengmang.
Only five shamans rode inside the second cart. Aside from Tianyu and Wei Yuan, there were Hunter Thirty-One, Zhengang, and an attendant at Tianyu's side. The attendant was an elderly mid-stage dharma idol cultivator who also hailed from the Desolate Ancestor Tribe, an old retainer tasked with guarding Tianyu ever since the boy was at the Dao Foundation realm.
Tianyu still found the harsh reality hard to swallow, sighing, "Ah, shamanesses! They're so mercenary! The moment I ran out of money, every single one of them took off! Not a single one stayed behind! Not one!"
Wei Yuan rolled his eyes, thoroughly disinclined to comfort him. Tianyu wasn't truly stupid, yet at times he displayed the quintessential brainlessness of a Power Shaman.
He still had an old retainer at his side, yet his mind was entirely occupied with those strangely proportioned shamanesses. The old servant wasn't some chattel slave of Tianyu's family; he was being paid for his service. It was merely that the old man was upright and honorable, choosing to stay by Tianyu's side even knowing the youth had gone broke.
Going to Fengmang was a near-certain death sentence. There was no way the old servant didn't know this, yet he remained steadfast and loyal. And yet a shaman like this couldn't extract a single kind word from Tianyu.
Wei Yuan could only sigh inwardly, wondering when Tianyu would finally grow up. Wei Yuan himself had not been in the Desolate Realm for very long, yet Hunter Thirty-One and Zhengang had followed him this entire way, resolutely marching toward Fengmang even while knowing full well the mortal danger ahead.
Right then, Wei Yuan's divine sense twitched as he captured several scorching auras rapidly closing in on the convoy. A few breaths later, the perfected Power Shaman leading the front cart unleashed a thunderous roar:
"Enemy attack! Everyone to battle stations!"
The carts ground to an abrupt halt. The Power Shamans leapt down, seized massive warhammers, and drove ground stakes deep into the earth. In an instant, the four heavy carriages were converted into unshakeable fortresses.
In the blink of an eye, several black specks appeared in the distance, closing the gap at terrifying speed. High in the air, several vicious raptors also materialized.
The charging behemoths possessed rounded heads with eyes so minuscule they were almost impossible to spot. They had five pairs of limbs: the middle three were sharp claws, the forelimbs were shaped like scythes, and the rearmost pair resembled iron oars.
Faint flames swirled over the beasts' bodies; they were unmistakably at the dharma idol level. Mounted on their backs were several petite humanoid beings. While termed petite, they were roughly the same size as the current Wei Yuan.
The ferocious birds in the sky possessed wingspans spanning fully thirty zhang. Their flying speed wasn't particularly fast, but each flap of their wings severely distorted the surrounding landscape. Viewed from afar, it seemed as if several rolling fire tornadoes were sweeping toward them.
The lead Power Shaman spat a curse and bellowed, "Our luck's run dry—we've walked right into a death trap! When the fighting starts, risk your lives to kill the flame demons on the desolate worms first! If we don't slaughter every last flame demon, none of us will make it out alive! Once the last flame demon is dead, run for your lives and see who has the heavens on their side!"
Wei Yuan swept his divine sense over the approaching monsters, swiftly taking measure of their strength. These were all fiends commonly encountered in the Desolate Realm War Domain. The airborne beasts were qinlong, the most formidable among them; once sucked into the fiery vortex swirling around them, escape was nearly impossible.
The desolate worms themselves possessed dharma idol-level strength. Massive, tremendously strong, and thick-skinned, it ordinarily took over a dozen Power Shamans joining forces to subdue a single one. Yet the most terrifying threat lay with the flame demons on their backs. Though small in stature, they were born with innate dharma idols and could wield a myriad of fire-attribute divine arts. They were exceptionally fast and fiercely lethal.
What made them most troublesome was their speed. Though they rode in on worms, once combat began, they would dismount, and their true speed far exceeded that of the mounts. Without wiping them all out, not a single Power Shaman stood a chance of escaping.
Tianyu was already dumbfounded. He smiled bitterly. "What kind of wretched luck is this?!"
Wei Yuan didn't point out the obvious. The fellow's fortune couldn't handle such sudden excess. This calamity today was almost certainly tied to his public unboxing of the Pink Enchantress and the multiple strands of karmic luck he had siphoned from the other Power Shamans.
Saying such things now was pointless. The primary task was repelling this wave of enemies.
On the brink of battle, Wei Yuan's spirits lifted, a surge of excitement coursing through him.
In an instant, he regained the calm composure and decisiveness reserved for war. Patting Tianyu on the shoulder, he asked, "How are you planning to fight?"
Tianyu had already donned his armor and was slipping barbed, gold-plated iron rings onto his tail. He said, "In a bit, I'll use this to swing—"
Wei Yuan slapped the iron rings right out of his hand. "Take them all off!"
Tianyu opened his mouth to argue, but the moment his gaze met Wei Yuan's, most of his bluster evaporated instantly. He could only obediently slide off the rings, though he still muttered in a low voice, "This is an innate combat method, an elite martial technique worthy of several shadow stones filming it from different angles—"
Ignoring his muttering completely, Wei Yuan produced an iron bow and thirty arrows, tossing them to Tianyu. "Your job is to shoot the qinlong."
Tianyu was appalled. "How can I do any damage with an arrow?"
"It doesn't matter if you can't hurt them; just make them chase you. Lead them around in circles. If they stop chasing, hit them with another arrow. Now go!"
Tianyu tried to object, but Wei Yuan seized him by the belt, hoisted him with a single arm, and hurled him straight out of the cart!
The three Power Shamans watching were slack-jawed. None of them had imagined that Wei Yuan could toss the mountain-sized Tianyu as easily as a pebble.
Wei Yuan turned around and barked, "Lower the canopy, mount the ballista!"
Hunter Thirty-One and Zhengang snapped out of their daze. They collapsed the sunshade canopy, hauled out the colossal ballista from inside the cart, and mounted it onto the firing bracket along the edge.
"Shoot only the desolate worms. Disregard everything else."
Having given his instructions, Wei Yuan flashed to the side of the lead Power Shaman, patted his shoulder, and said, "Move near my cart and lead all the Power Shamans in a defensive formation anchored to the vehicles. Do not let the desolate worms ram the wagons directly. Once the defense is organized, hunt down the flame demons as you see fit."
"Right, but—"
"Execute!" Wei Yuan barked sharply.
The commander shuddered, suddenly not daring to voice any objection. For a fleeting instant, he experienced the illusion that he was looking at a Heavenly Shaman, completely stripped of the courage to resist.
Meanwhile, Tianyu was hollering and shrieking, leaping up and down as three qinlong chased him relentlessly. Yet the countless precious medicines he had consumed finally bore fruit. His movements were extraordinarily nimble as he zipped about in midair.
The qinlong were far too colossal and lumbering, and with three of them crowding together, they constantly interfered with each other. For the moment, they were utterly helpless against this remarkably agile fat shaman.
The four desolate worms were still several hundred zhang away when multiple ballista bolts tore through the air! However, the worms' hides were simply too thick; even when the bolts penetrated a full zhang deep, they merely twitched from the pain and charged even faster.
At that moment, several black specks launched into the air from the back of each desolate worm, streaking forward and leaving trails of afterimages as they pounced toward the heavy carts.
The lead Power Shaman gritted his teeth, raised his one-zhang-long executioner blade, and met several incoming flame demons, instantly engaging in fierce combat.
Wei Yuan inhaled deeply. His muscles tightened and relaxed, distorting the surrounding space and lifting dirt and gravel into midair.
Testing his physical vessel, Wei Yuan discovered that relying solely on fleshly strength was enough to exert slight control over the surrounding space. This was originally an ultimate technique of the Hall of the Bright King. Learning it wasn't difficult; the hard part was achieving the requisite physical toughness. Having attained that physical caliber, executing the technique came effortlessly.
Seeing two flame demons swooping down toward him from above, Wei Yuan suddenly stepped forward. Spanning thirty zhang in a single stride, he appeared behind the two demons in an instant. His spear fell, skewering one flame demon clean through!
The armor-shattering power of Compassion activated, detonating the flame demon into minced chunks. Meanwhile, the other demon was pulled backward instead of advancing, dragged back toward Wei Yuan by the invisible spatial pull generated by his sheer physical might.
Wei Yuan paid no heed to the helpless demon. In a single step, he materialized next to another flame demon, flicked his wrist to impale and shatter it, and took another step, instantly arriving before the next.
Just like that, Wei Yuan flashed forward stride after stride, strolling as if taking a leisurely walk while brushing past one flame demon after another. Only after he passed would each frozen demon detonate into a burst of gore!
With every step Wei Yuan took, a lotus of blood blossomed in his wake.
The lead Power Shaman was locked in a brutal struggle when his three opponents suddenly stiffened and exploded on their own! Astounded, he could not comprehend what had just happened. But then he saw Wei Yuan's silhouette flashing continuously, heading straight toward the desolate worms laying siege to the carts.
Right then, a flame demon tumbled out of the sky, staggering to its feet, thoroughly disoriented. Spotting the opportunity, the lead Power Shaman immediately lunged forward and cleaved it in two with brutal efficiency.
Wei Yuan had already arrived before a desolate worm. Against this monstrous beast standing fully five zhang tall, Wei Yuan's figure appeared dwarfed beyond comparison.
Yet slaughter was never decided by size. After the intense battle, Wei Yuan had developed a renewed appreciation for his own physical strength. He bounded upward.
In Wei Yuan's eyes, the desolate worm's movements turned sluggish. He ascended tier by tier until he reached eye level with the worm's forehead. This was no simple leap; he was anchoring his physical body to the surrounding space, borrowing momentum to rise.
Following the battlefield records, Wei Yuan thrust his spear straight into the desolate worm's cranium.
The frontal shell of the worm's head alone was one and a half zhang thick. Feeling the recoil against his hands, Wei Yuan channeled surges of dao power into the spear. Though the spear advanced no further, the torrential dao power had already plunged deep into the core of the desolate worm.
Right at that moment, an earth-shattering aura abruptly surged up from afar!
A golden wheel of light manifested, slicing across the sky at incredible speed. It plummeted in a terrifying howl, severing the desolate worm clean in two right down the middle!
Only then did Wei Yuan realize the golden wheel was a three-zhang-wide colossal battle-axe spinning at frightful velocity. Having bifurcated the desolate worm, it soared back into the sky, flying toward the direction it had come.
A massive hand reached out from the horizon, catching the colossal axe firmly in its grip.
The earth trembled as Yaolan's figure rose above the horizon, inch by inch. Looking at Wei Yuan, her large eyes brimmed with laughter as she called out in a soft, gentle voice: "Don't be afraid, Little Craft God! Your big sister is here to save you!"
Her voice traversed thousands of zhang, yet it was still loud enough to knock several Power Shamans off their feet.
Wei Yuan stood there, dumbstruck. His spear remained lodged in the desolate worm's forehead, his hand gripping the shaft so that he appeared to be dangling from the beast's corpse. Wei Yuan took a silent look at himself; by proportion, he currently looked like a mouse clutching a toothpick that had been jabbed into a bull's skull.
At that moment, the dao power Wei Yuan had channeled into the desolate worm erupted in full force. Coupled with the armor-shattering effect, a line of blood split open along the worm's head from the puncture wound, rippling swiftly from head to tail. Even though the worm's torso had already been chopped in half, its hindquarters did not escape the blast.
The bloodline ruptured, sending a curtain of gore spewing dozens of zhang into the air, like an immense crimson veil unfurling across the sky!
Yaolan blinked in surprise. She didn't remember her axe strike possessing such an effect.
Yet all the Power Shamans erupted into cheers, some so overcome with excitement that they began leaping and clapping their paws.
Amidst the deafening roars of approval from the Power Shamans, Yaolan felt a momentary lapse of certainty. Could it be that she was simply too talented, inadvertently unlocking yet another divine art?
Seeing the reaction of the Power Shamans, Wei Yuan was finally convinced that the rumors were true. Yaolan truly was a city belle revered by them all.
Chapter 889