A distance of over ten li took but a fleeting moment for the Zhao iron cavalry. High-quality warhorses could cross it at full gallop and still retain ample stamina to fight.
In the midst of the cavalry formation, the Sixth Princess stood clad in armor aloft in the air, gazing out at the Qingming battle lines from afar. She was deeply perplexed as to what purpose so many iron-and-steel fortresses served. However, having spotted the Zhao iron cavalry on their flank, Qingming had already begun adjusting their formation, throwing the army into turmoil.
The woman in red said, "We can't wait any longer! They have quite a few fortresses. Once their main front wheels around, our casualties will surge!"
Gritting her teeth, the Sixth Princess suppressed the unease in her heart and ordered the assault! She wanted to punch through Qingming's lines before their deployment was complete.
Watching the iron cavalry charge across the hills and plains, feeling the trembling of the earth, Wei Yuan felt his blood surge as well. In years past, he too had ridden at the forefront, leading a meager troop of cavalry to carve through enemy ranks and back again as though traversing empty ground!
Alas, time had passed too swiftly; that impassioned youth was gone, never to return.
Nowadays, what occupied Wei Yuan before a battle was whether there were enough carts and wagons, enough cannon shells, and enough variety in the rations. Nothing else required much thought. Many heavy-armored warriors had gone nearly a year without a chance to mend their armor. On the battlefield, infantry increasingly resembled decorative ornaments—once the fighting ended, they merely had to march over and occupy the ground.
In the Qingming Army, numerous young officers ran like the wind, leading their units toward their designated positions. All of them carried rapid-firing rotary cannons on their shoulders, trailed by a dozen or so men bearing ammo crates on their backs.
The Zhao iron cavalry charged at blistering speed, but Qingming redeployed their rotary cannon positions even faster. Some didn't even bother digging emplacements, mounting the rotary cannons straight onto the combat wagons. Others dropped flat to the ground, channeled Dao power to blast out a shallow trench, and crawled right in.
Wei Yuan did not look at the rapidly closing Zhao iron cavalry. Instead, he looked up into the air, where another spatial anomaly had appeared—evidently, yet another Scenery Command expert had arrived.
On the battlefield below, the Zhao iron cavalry surged forward like a dark slate tide. When they charged to within roughly five hundred zhang, several young officers lying prone at the very front clamped down on their triggers!
*Chug-chug-chug-chug!*
A dull drone resounded across the battlefield as flying swords shot toward the oncoming Zhao iron cavalry, instantly blowing bloody holes through their bodies; even robust warhorses could not withstand more than a few strikes.
More and more rotary cannons began to roar, coalescing into a tempest in the blink of an eye. The combat wagons to the rear also opened fire, instantly cloaking the battlefield in billowing smoke. From time to time, Zhao riders were blasted skyward along with their mounts by heavy artillery!
In the Qingming rapid-firing rotary cannons, one out of every five flying swords possessed the Yang attribute. Upon firing, it trailed a long, glowing streak of light, allowing the gunners to easily spot where their shots landed and guide them with divine consciousness.
Yet on the battlefield, due to the blistering rate of fire, what met the eye were whips of fire sweeping back and forth. Across the wide front, there were hundreds of such fiery whips!
A Zhao cavalryman burst through the smoke and fire, exceptionally fortunate to have slipped between the blast points of two cannon shells with only minor injuries, before charging on toward the Qingming line. But the Dao Foundation cultivators reacted with lightning speed; in an instant, six or seven rotary cannons around him swung to aim right at him!
In the span of a breath, dozens of flying swords punched clean through the cavalryman's body. Struck with devastating force, he flew straight off his saddle, thrown backward by the momentum of the swords before crashing heavily into the dust and mud.
The pure white warhorse let out a mournful whinny and collapsed, though its immense momentum drove it sliding forward until it came to a halt just a few zhang before the Qingming line, showering the Qingming gunners in mud and grit.
The white horse had long since ceased moving. Dozens of holes riddled its body, from which large gouts of blood only now began to pour, dyeing it crimson in the blink of an eye.
This was the final cavalryman of the charging cavalry legion, and the closest any Zhao iron cavalry had come to the Qingming position in the entire battle.
With that, the fifty thousand iron cavalry of Zhao's first wave were completely wiped out.
The Zhao cavalry had also been issued cavalry carbines, but their range fell short; the vast majority had collapsed before they could even get within range.
The roar of gunfire and artillery gradually subsided, and as the smoke on the battlefield cleared, a hellish scene was unveiled.
The horsemen had died in every gruesome manner imaginable, sprawled across the ground in contorted postures. Some had fallen with their mounts, the flesh and blood of rider and beast mangled together into a gory blur. Some had been severed at the waist by flying swords, their viscera and entrails trailing out. Others had lost their heads entirely, their headless corpses still locked in fighting stances—broken spears, notched blades, and shattered shields lay strewn everywhere, like a cemetery of metal.
The entire battlefield had turned into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, saturated with a nauseating stench that reeked of sickly sweetness and iron rust.
Even many Qingming soldiers stared dumbfounded, and some began vomiting on the spot.
The Sixth Princess turned pale. She still had fifty thousand cavalry in hand, but the situation was plain to see: sending them forward would be nothing more than throwing their lives away.
Before she could recover her senses, the woman in red suddenly pulled her behind her and barked to those around them, "The Sixth Princess is unwell and can no longer observe the battle! Escort Her Highness back!"
"But—" The princess tried to speak, but the female general in red covered her mouth!
The female general in red said decisively, "I commanded this battle; it has nothing to do with you! Say nothing—go!"
Two Dharma Idol cultivators immediately dragged the Sixth Princess away. Looking distraught and hollow, as though she had lost her very soul, she allowed herself to be dragged into the distance.
Watching from afar, Wei Yuan felt a touch of regret. He would just have to find an opportunity to make her acquaintance later.
Withdrawing his gaze, he looked toward the void ahead and said, "Seniors, are you taking the field in person? If you do this, we'll be ripping away the last shred of face!"
Two elderly men appeared in midair, both dignified of bearing and clad in luxurious robes. Wei Yuan recognized only one of them as the Duke of Zhongguo, knowing nothing of the other. Judging by his attire, however, he too was likely some duke or prince. This was the hallmark of Zhao's immortal clan—which was also its royal family: among Scenery Command experts, there was an abundance of dukes and princes.
At this moment, abnormal phenomena manifested in the sky. On one side surged boundless waters, rolling waves cresting to the heavens; on the other stood a forest of boulders and jagged peaks. Both Scenery Command experts had manifested their mindscape worlds, the fringes already encroaching upon the Qingming battle lines.
Qingming's Dao Foundation cultivators could barely hold their ground, but many mortal soldiers suddenly clutched their throats in violent suffocation, unable to draw in any air. On the other side, the warriors' bodies suddenly grew several times heavier, forcing their knees to the ground against their will. Those with weaker cultivation had their leg bones snap outright!
This was only because Qingming's army aura weakened the mindscape worlds; otherwise, many soldiers likely would have perished on the spot.
The smile vanished from Wei Yuan's face. He said coldly, "In past battles, you people sprang out every single time—I've endured you for far too long! But today is not yesterday! It seems you two dukes are still living in the past, daring to unfold your mindscape worlds before me?
"Very well! I would like to see how you intend to take back these mindscape worlds once you've unleashed them!"
Wei Yuan took a single step forward, and his figure was already high in the air. Looking down from above, he stood a head taller than the two dukes. Immediately, Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World unfolded, blanketing the sky and the earth, engulfing the mindscape worlds of both Scenery Command cultivators in a single sweep!
The three mindscape worlds intertwined, clashing in an instant. This was the most direct and brutal form of combat between Scenery Command cultivators!
The two Zhao dukes had never imagined that Wei Yuan, who was not even at Scenery Command yet, would dare pit mindscape worlds against them. Before reaching Scenery Command, a mindscape world was merely a prototype; facing a true Scenery Command in this way was no different from a child fighting a full-grown adult.
Yet as Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World unfurled, both dukes were astounded. Their own mindscape worlds actually began to crumble, bearing an unspeakably crushing pressure!
No longer daring to underestimate Wei Yuan, they immediately exerted their full might, fighting two against one, and only barely managed to withstand the heavy pressure of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
Wei Yuan sneered, waving his broad hand, and the skies of the three mindscape worlds began to overlap.
The purple blotches originally clinging to the firmament of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World suddenly discovered sweet new prey and spread across immediately. A massive horde of otherworldly monsters surged into the stone forest and vast marsh worlds, hunting everywhere for spiritual essence to devour!
The two dukes turned pale with horror and cried out, "Otherworldly fiends! Why are you undergoing an inner demon tribulation? Is... is this a heavenly tribulation meant for Scenery Command? No, you aren't even at Scenery Command—"
Regardless of how shocked the two dukes were, the three mindscape worlds were now deeply entangled, making escape far from easy. Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World pinned down both worlds firmly, and the purple festering in the firmament rapidly spread, expanding toward the other two mindscape worlds.
Inside Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, all was quiet. The mortals had all returned to their dwellings, and the immortal plants revealed their true forms, holding in their aura as though they were ordinary flora.
Wisps of black and white qi rose from the land of Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, mingling into a vast expanse of mist. Though extremely thin, the mist effectively obstructed divine consciousness.
The divine consciousness of the two dukes also entered Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, but only swept past in haste. At this moment, they were frantic as ants on a hot pan; they cast only a cursory glance into Wei Yuan's mindscape world, but like looking at flowers through a fog, they saw only an expanse of water and an islet, unable to discern clearly what was actually there. Moreover, as soon as divine consciousness entered Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World and penetrated the mist, it was rapidly depleted, unable to hold out for long.
Before unfolding Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, Wei Yuan had already prepared: he had ordered all mortals to return to their places and the immortal plants to disguise themselves. At present, Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World looked merely like a mindscape world endowed with a measure of vitality and spiritual essence. Only upon close inspection would one notice discordant details: what was such a massive, intricate city for? It couldn't possibly be something Wei Yuan had built on a whim, could it?
The divine consciousness of the two Scenery Command cultivators swept back and forth to no avail. With their spiritual vision severely restricted, they completely failed to notice a platinum celestial laurel tree, watching the divine consciousness scanning past it and already eager to strike.
The three grotto-heavens orbited the three mindscape worlds from afar, entirely motionless. Wei Yuan possessed other killer moves to deal with the mindscape worlds of the two Scenery Command cultivators, with no need to employ the grotto-heavens that were still far from mature.
At this moment, Wei Yuan entered Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, sat down in his study, and took up the Three Realms Ruyi Sutra, which he had only just begun. Lifting his brush, he wrote two characters: Bitter Sea.
Above the battlefield, leaden clouds suddenly gathered thick and heavy. Raindrops the size of beans began pelting down, while lightning flashed intermittently through the clouds—shockingly blood-red.
Outside Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, tribulation was born from the void. Bolts of lightning wrapped in purplish-black qi materialized, crashing down in a sky-covering deluge! The two Zhao dukes were scared out of their wits—when had they ever seen a heavenly tribulation that so blatantly carried the aura of celestial demons?
The heavenly tribulation was originally aimed at Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. However, with the two dukes' mindscape worlds pinned beneath Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, they were forced to face the heavenly tribulation together. What was worse, they were not the rightful tribulation-bearers; in the eyes of the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, this counted as meddling in the heavenly tribulation, an even more heinous offense that warranted compounded punishment. Consequently, the lightning tribulation meted out to them was exceptionally severe.
Terrified and alarmed, the two dukes were just about to extricate themselves at any cost when dozens of crimson sword qi burst forth from that laurel tree, instantly slicing the sweeping divine consciousness in front of it into dozens of pieces. With a sweep of sword qi, the tree reeled it all in, swallowing it into its trunk.
Both dukes let out a miserable shriek, and two streams of fresh blood instantly leaked from the corners of their eyes!
Meanwhile, the trunk of the celestial laurel tree suddenly bulged here and swelled there. Unable to suppress it in the end, several sharp snaps rang out—crack, crack, crack! Several large tears split across its bark, and the trunk expanded by an entire ring, swelling so wide that it became a bloated "lau-rel" tree.
With the Fat Laurel Immortal taking the lead, how could the other immortal plants contain themselves? They immediately unleashed their respective tricks, riddling the two dukes' divine consciousness with holes in an instant.
Wei Yuan had no time to divide his attention and did not notice the immortal plants' little antics. Taking advantage of having someone to shoulder the heavenly tribulation, his brush flew across the paper, finally finishing the most lethal sentence: When the Bitter Sea is wholly dispelled, all living beings shall ferry themselves.
On distant Spirit Mountain, several more lotus pedestals shattered.
Chapter 980