Feng Chutang pulled a suit of black armor onto his body. The armor was divided into more than a dozen pieces across three layers: an inner soft lining, padded soft armor, and a cotton-faced rigid shell. Once the belt buckled firmly shut, every section activated, fusing into a seamless whole in an instant.
Feng Chutang then lifted a long-handled flanged mace, slotted seven flying swords into his belt, and finally remarked, "I never imagined the day would come when I, Feng, would don this armor."
It had to be said that once clad in this black armor traced with silver patterns, Feng Chutang transformed in a flash from a frail scholar into a fierce general fit to spearhead a charge.
Next, he opened the brocade bag before him and gingerly pinched out three dark-red talismans, tucking them into a concealed pouch beneath his gauntlet. Only then did he step out of the tent, saying to his personal guard, "Let us go."
At the edge of Qingming, Zhang Sheng had regrouped her forces. This time, the ranks had grown by merely two thousand, totaling five thousand men.
The soldiers were still the same men, but their equipment had undergone an extensive overhaul. The troops bore heavy shields and carried double-barreled axe-guns. At the edge of the camp sat two new models of chariots, into which Yu Zhizhuo was gingerly loading a batch of shells with dark-red tips.
Zhang Sheng was still clad in a green robe, a row of identical flying swords arrayed before her. Dao Foundation captains lined up one by one to receive them, and in the blink of an eye, all two hundred flying swords were distributed.
Zhang Sheng checked the time and called out, "The hour has come. March!"
Clad head to toe in heavy armor, Feng Chutang looked at Zhang Sheng with distinct dissatisfaction. "Why are you still dressed like that?"
Zhang Sheng answered mildly, "I am the commander of the armed forces and need not lead the charge. Naturally, I may wear as I please."
Helpless, Feng Chutang went to his designated position to assemble with the troops under his command. Seeing that he had been assigned a thousand-man contingent, he was finally passably satisfied.
The Qingming army got under way. Zhang Sheng summoned the generals onto the central command chariot, unrolled a map, swept her broad hand across it, and declared with ringing resolve, "The sole objective of this battle is to crush Song Cui head-on! No matter how many men they bring, we have only these five thousand—and we will roll straight through their center!"
The generals' blood surged with fervor!
***
Outside the Song Cui domain, an army was marching at double time. The soldiers already looked haggard, yet the horns urging them forward sounded without pause. Resentment flared in many eyes, but none dared voice a complaint. Even before reaching the front lines, the army's military qi showed signs of scattering.
Two figures descended from the sky, landing atop the central carriage. The moment Cui Chengxiao entered the compartment, he demanded, "What do you think you are doing? Why mobilize the army without authorization? Look at this military qi! Marching out like this is asking for defeat!"
The beautiful woman in palace attire knitted her delicate brows, glaring furiously at Cui Chengxiao as she gritted her teeth. "So you remembered to come back?! Just as well you did—I am going to level Qingming!"
Cui Chengxiao's expression darkened. "What kind of joke is this?! Why go to war with Qingming out of the blue?"
The woman shouted, "Qingming sent an envoy who humiliated Lian'er to his face! Lian'er was so agitated his old ailment nearly flared up again! I cannot swallow this insult!"
Cui Chengxiao was startled. "Humiliated how?"
"With filthy words!" the woman replied.
Cui Chengxiao's expression visibly softened at once. "So that was it. No great harm done. Where is the envoy?"
"I had him sliced to pieces, along with his entire retinue!"
Cui Chengxiao sighed and tried to placate her. "Isn't that enough, then? Why still be angry? In truth, punishing only the principal culprit would have sufficed. Those attendants were just common soldiers; there was really no need to execute them. By killing them all, you only make us look tyrannical."
"They drove Lian'er's old illness to the brink of relapse, so every last one of them deserved to die! And don't talk to me about punishing only the principal culprit—the real mastermind is alive and well! The prime culprit is the Qingming Domain Lord!"
Cui Chengxiao urged, "There is truly no need for this. It might well have been the envoy acting on his own initiative. Both Domain Lords of Qingming have been disciples of the Palace of Grand Beginning; we must act with caution."
The woman flew into a rage, roaring, "I don't care! What if they are from the Palace of Grand Beginning? I will wipe out Qingming no matter what! If you won't go, I'll go myself! At worst, I'll die in Qingming—which would suit you just fine! I think you despise Lian'er and see him as a burden, don't you?! You won't even look after your own child, so what else are you good for?"
Cui Chengxiao's face turned green and white by turns. "What... what nonsense are you spouting!"
The woman's eyes went wide, her voice climbing another pitch. "Nonsense?! If Lian'er isn't yours, whose else could he—"
The old man beside them scrambled to his feet at this point and slipped quietly out of the carriage.
Whatever came next was not for his ears. The beautiful woman in palace attire was the great-granddaughter of the Immortal Ancestor, but her husband was not Cui Chengxiao—it was the Second Elder. Cui Chengxiao's own legitimate wife was a daughter of the main branch of the Xu family, also a direct descendant of the Immortal Ancestor. Thus, this tangled mess touched the Immortal Ancestor on both sides. The old man had scraped his way up to Scenery Command with great difficulty and had only just begun to enjoy the good life, so he had zero desire to get entangled.
Once out of the carriage, he flew toward the city. A general from the rearguard hurriedly took to the air, calling out, "Elder, are you not remaining with the army to oversee the march?"
Stroking his beard, the old man replied, "I have other pressing duties in the city. The Fifth Elder's presence here is more than sufficient."
With that, brushing aside the general's attempts to detain him, he flew determinedly toward the domain city. Only when the old man was far away did the general spit on the ground and curse under his breath, "Old fox."
The old man's ear twitched, but he pretended not to have heard, instead quickening his flight.
His mind was crystal clear. Qingming had held off a million Shamans and emerged victorious; it was simply not something their mere two hundred thousand troops could bring down.
True, at that time Qingming had Scenery Command grand cultivators from multiple factions overseeing the defense, and those masters had since departed. But pressure on the Palace of Grand Beginning's Northern Mountain Gate had eased considerably now, so redeploying one or two Scenery Command cultivators here would pose no problem at all.
Having broken through to Scenery Command with such hardship, the old man wanted neither to face the Qingming battle formation nor to engage in life-and-death magical duels against fellow Scenery Command cultivators.
Little did he know that not far from the city ahead, a troop armed to the teeth lay in ambush. In the center of their camp, a karmic luck formation had been laid, with a small pool of spring water at its core. Ji Liuli stared intently at the water, continually tossing various treasures into it. At last, ripples stirred the pool, followed by a sudden, towering jet of water erupting upward!
Ji Liuli was overjoyed. "A big fish took the bait! Fire the signal—have the whole army switch into gear!"
Immediately, the warriors mounted several artillery pieces and fired several specially crafted shells into the sky. The shells burst without sound or light, yet released a low-frequency vibration imperceptible to the human ear that rippled swiftly into the distance.
As the vibration swept across the earth, several hidden encampments were activated in turn, and squads of dormant warriors marched out, each bearing different colors and attire.
As the old man flew, his heart suddenly fluttered with unease, as if something ill were about to occur. Yet the sensation vanished in a flash, as though nothing had happened at all.
Though uneasy, he was even less willing to turn back, so he steeled himself and pressed forward.
Crossing a forest, he was only a few dozen li away from entering the Mujia Domain. Just as his tension eased, his face suddenly turned ghastly pale.
Along the domain's edge stood over ten thousand stationed Song Cui troops, but their ranks were disorganized, sheltering behind rocks and trees without daring to step outside the domain by even an inch. Directly across from them stood a five-hundred-man force flying the banner of the Heaven-Battling Gang.
Before the Heaven-Battling Gang's position lay seven to eight hundred Song corpses strewn haphazardly across the ground. Now the two forces confronted each other across the domain boundary. The Heaven-Battling Gang did not enter, and though the Song troops inside outnumbered them dozens of times over, they dared not take a single step out.
"These are horse bandits?!" The old man's expression grew uglier by the second. Whose horse bandits were equipped so magnificently, suited in full heavy gear? This armor surpassed even that of the Song Imperial Guard.
In the middle of the Heaven-Battling Gang, a masked cultivator turned toward the old man, smiling to reveal a mouthful of white teeth.
The old man clearly sensed the masked cultivator's cultivation: merely the Myriad Transformations realm of the middle dharma idol stage, a hundred and eight thousand li below his own. Yet for some reason, facing this masked cultivator, he had the distinct sensation of being eyed by a savage beast, and a chill crept into his heart.
Steeling himself, the old man barked in a deep voice, "This old man is He Zhiyou, an elder of Song Cui and an academician of the Great Song Hanlin Academy! Seeing as you have strayed down the wrong path and this is merely a first offense, I can show leniency! Withdraw at once, and I will pursue this no further!"
The masked cultivator let out a soft chuckle. "Elder He, calm yourself. Watch the show first."
Dozens of li away, battle cries suddenly erupted around the unfinished city as several columns of horse bandits charged into the domain at once, followed by a barrage of gunfire. Men and horses alike were armored. Some swept like the wind, firing from afar and wheeling away as soon as the Song Cui troops closed in, only to resume shooting once distance was restored.
Others capitalized on the advantages of cavalry, smashing straight through the Song Cui battle formations, wheeling around at a distance after piercing through, and then charging whatever weak point presented itself.
Yet the fiercest was a band of horse bandits in black armor and black robes. Upon charging into the domain, they dismounted in unison, formed a firing line, and advanced steadily while laying down fire. Their firepower was extraordinarily savage, deliberately striking wherever Song Cui forces were thickest, slaughtering wherever the enemy gathered most. To make matters worse, when they saw the Song soldiers flee into the city lord's manor to make a stand behind its walls, the bandits actually rolled out several infantry guns and began shelling the manor!
These groups of bandits charged back and forth through the newly established domain. A faint green light surfaced over every Song Cui soldier, an invisible layer of armor clinging to their bodies, yet they still could not withstand the ravenous, wolf-like bandits and were routed into shambles.
All the combat-ready troops of Song Cui had been dragged away by the woman in palace attire. Those remaining behind were either second-line units of poor combat capability whose main duty was constructing the city and clearing farmland, or a handful of rotated elites whose equipment was undergoing maintenance, leaving them without even full suits of armor. Though seventy to eighty thousand men still remained in the city, their fighting strength could well be imagined; in the blink of an eye, a few thousand horse bandits had sent them fleeing in all directions.
Watching this, He Zhiyou felt a chill seep into his very bones, completely at a loss for what to do.
***
On another battlefield, Zhang Sheng had deployed her five thousand heavy-armored infantry into phalanxes, confronting the fifty thousand Song Cui troops opposite them from afar.
Though the Qingming Army was small in number, Cui Chengxiao felt his scalp tingle as he looked at the sharp, squared-off block of their military qi. Stepping out before the ranks, he projected his voice: "Domain Lord Zhang, our sides were originally on friendly terms. What is the meaning of your marching troops westward today?"
Standing atop the command chariot behind the battle lines, Zhang Sheng acted as though she had not heard, focusing entirely on observing the enemy's military qi.
Beside her, Feng Chutang remarked, "From what I see, they are fierce in appearance but cowardly at core. They may not dare fire the first shot."
"Is that so? Then I shall." Zhang Sheng reached out and drew a large-caliber rifle into her grip, aiming it directly across the field.
"Wait!" Feng Chutang had only just started to intervene when flames burst before his eyes with a thunderous roar!
The massive bullet punched straight through four ranks of Song Cui soldiers before embedding itself in the body of a fifth.
The shot was so violent and swift that even Cui Chengxiao had no time to intercept it.
Zhang Sheng said slowly, "Refraining from firing the first shot is the Kingly Way. But today I will walk the Hegemon's Path, so fire the first shot I must!"
With that, Zhang Sheng leveled the muzzle forward and barked, "All forces, attack!"
The Qingming army roared in unison, stepping out in unified cadence as they bore down on the Song Cui formation. Like molten lava spreading across the land, their advance seemed slow yet was extraordinarily swift—and utterly unstoppable!
Chapter 924