Dealing with the Swarm

Xu Yuan had actually wanted to dissuade Feng Jiuxuan. The current situation inside the city was indeed ripe for decapitating Qin Ke. But in a high-stakes clash like this, unless one possessed a long-prepared trump card, anything you could think of was bound to be anticipated by the enemy—they might even turn it into a trap. Unfortunately, before he could speak, Feng Jiuxuan had already vanished. Yet on second thought, Tianyuan had not secretly sent any voice transmissions to the old man before being swatted away. Moreover, given his maternal uncle's strength, even if he failed to kill Qin Ke, nothing terrible would happen to him; giving Qin Ke a try was always worthwhile. With that in mind, Xu Yuan sped toward the prefectural yamen. After all, he still thoroughly agreed with the first half of what his uncle had said. Though he bore the power-supplying markings on the back of his hand, the lack of meridians meant he could not channel spell arts. His true combat strength was actually inferior to his previous aberrant ghost form, leaving him entirely incapable of tangling with the remaining paramount Saints. Just as he sprang into motion, Xu Yuan caught a glimpse of a minor turn of events in the sky above. With a single punch, the White Emperor impaled Mu Nuo's torso. When speed reached a certain extreme, even a blunt weapon could inflict the penetrating wound of a sharp blade. Without a sound, the small body of the six- or seven-year-old child hung upon that arm. His entire chest had vanished without a trace, presenting a rather gruesome sight. Xu Yuan paid no mind to Mu Nuo's injury, instead mentally mocking Tianyuan for throwing the fight. That woman really had been knocked away on purpose. Look at that—Mu Nuo, possessing a body far sturdier than hers, had not even been granted the chance to be sent flying under the White Emperor's blow. Pulling his gaze back, Xu Yuan leaped, transforming directly into a streak of light that hurtled toward the yamen. Gliding swiftly at low altitude, Xu Yuan calculated the sects' likely countermoves while casually cleansing the tide of demonic insects spreading like a flood through the streets below. Countless beams of light scattered from his markings like flower petals cast down from heaven, piercing the hearts of every demonic insect along his path with dense, unerring precision. This miraculous sight instantly triggered waves of euphoric shouts among the prefectural troops. "An immortal has intervened! We're alive!" "Are these the methods of an immortal?" "Why didn't they step in sooner?! If... if they had stepped in earlier, Father and Brother would have..." "The immortals have their own immortals to fight! Finding the spare hands to help us is already their limit—can't you see the northern district has already been reduced to ruins?!" "Stop your damn roaring! Hurry to Xuanque Street to reinforce them!" Taking in everything below, Xu Yuan finally realized that for the desperately resisting private family guards and the city's populace, this war was sheer despair. They had to face not only the swarms falling from the sky, but also tremble in fear over the shockwaves of the immortals' arts above. Against the former, they could at least fight back; the descent of the latter, however, often heralded the annihilation of an entire street. When gods clashed, mortals suffered. The suffocating pressure from the Saints had nearly made Xu Yuan forget that beneath his feet lay a sprawling prefectural capital. With a quiet sigh, Xu Yuan abruptly veered his rushing body in midair, sweeping low toward several gathering points of the insect tide. He could sense that among these swarms were plenty of giant beetles whose carapaces rivaled the Bodily Fusion Realm. While he could not contest the Saints above, helping these low-ranking foot soldiers to reduce casualties posed no difficulty at all. Xu Yuan's arrival immediately brought about a dimensional strike upon the battlefield on the ground. A Saint's origin qi and perception, coupled with Xu Yuan's formidable control, unleashed an endless downpour of curved light beams as his flight tore past, effortlessly hitting the vitals of every demonic insect. Even those few elite boss insects comparable to grandmasters met the same end under the absolute might of a Saint: instantaneous death. A scarlet streak of light flashed overhead, showering down radiant beams worthy of a deity. A giant insect demon, its life completely extinguished, stood rigid for a few breaths before toppling over. Before it, a ponytailed woman in the uniform of a Secret Detective stared blankly upward, her eyes fixed on the familiar figure in the light—a figure already etched into her very marrow. Just moments ago, her eyes had met his. Biting her lip, the ponytailed woman unconsciously tightened her grip on the notched broadsword in her hand. How... how could this be? Why wasn't he dead? And... and why had he become so strong? While the handsome, valiant woman stood in a daze, a burly man bounded up the small mound of insect corpses beneath her feet, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth. "Commandant Xu, thank you for the assist! If not for your help, who knows how many brothers this third-rank insect demon would have devoured." Xu Mengxi snapped back to her senses and looked back, though a trace of daze lingered in her dark pupils. Seeing this, the burly man raised the waterskin in his hand and grinned. "Would you like some spiritual water to restore your origin qi? It's clean—nobody's touched this skin." Only then did Xu Mengxi fully regain her composure. She shook her head and said softly, "Protecting the common folk of Great Yan is my duty. There is no need for the spiritual water." Belatedly noticing the strange expression on her face, the burly man scratched his head, looked toward the scarlet streak in the sky, and asked cautiously, "Commandant Xu, I'm just a rough fellow and can't make head or tail of what's happening up there. Could you explain it to me? The brothers down below sent me to ask." Volunteering to join a chivalric league meant they did not fear death, but they feared dying without knowing why. And this damnable war had left the brothers dying in complete bewilderment. They had no idea why they were fighting, nor even who the invaders were, before the insect swarm crashed into their faces. "..." Xu Mengxi hesitated for a moment, then gently shook her head. "This... I do not know either." "Ah?" "The ones above are all Saints. My cultivation is shallow; I cannot read the battle either." "Is that so..." The burly man rubbed the back of his head, his voice carrying a faint sliver of hope. "Then does an immortal stepping in to help us mean our side is about to win?" As he spoke, he pointed toward the east of the city. "Look, there are other immortals over there helping kill the bugs." "..." Hearing those words, Xu Mengxi forced down the turmoil caused by Xu Changtian's return from the dead, raising her eyes to look over the devastated Zhenxi Prefectural City. Several overbearing auras rippled across the city. Though the lethality of each art could not compare to that scarlet beam of light, dozens or hundreds of demonic insects were still being wiped out within their wake. At the sight, Xu Mengxi parted her red lips, a flicker of doubt in her almond eyes. "Perhaps... we really are close to winning?" Even without mobilizing the military arrays and city defense formations, Zhenxi Prefectural City possessed the strength to repel the insect swarm. As a frontier provincial seat, Zhenxi Prefectural City was home to the ancestral seats of most aristocratic clans in Xize Province. Among them were millennial families that had survived the Dachao upheaval, as well as newly risen elites of recent years. This meant the prefectural city did not lack high-ranking cultivators. To cultivators of the Origin Realm and above, dealing with these swarms was practically a dimensional strike. Yet as long as the battlefield of Saints above remained undecided, none of them dared make a move. After all, Huang Shiwei served as a stark precedent. A supreme expert of the Transcendent Realm had been wiped out in an instant despite being shielded by the city defense formation—who else would dare act recklessly under the feet of the Saints in the sky? Xu Yuan, acting as a "Saint," taking the time to sweep through the insect tide served as a weather vane, enabling the "old family monsters" to make up their minds. After first sending him voice transmissions full of loyal declarations—phrases like "Hold on, Young Master, I have come to assist," or "Why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken? Please return to the yamen first, Young Master"—they entered the fray to clear the swarm inside the city. Though he knew these old family monsters had likely misunderstood a few things, Xu Yuan was more than happy to see this outcome. If the families deploying their private guards earlier could be called an act of self-defense, then these old monsters intervening personally meant they had officially boarded Zhenxi Manor's ship. And if one or two of them died in the process of clearing the swarm, it would completely cut off any path of retreat for these Xize families. For these aristocratic clans, you could kill as many of the people below as you liked; but if you touched their own lives, all pretense of cordiality was shattered. With that thought, Xu Yuan felt an urge to stir up trouble, but ultimately abandoned the idea. If that old auntie Lou Ji were here, she certainly would not let such an opportunity slip by. But asking him to pull it off was another matter. Call it a woman's soft-heartedness, or call it self-awareness. He was no professional. Even with Saint-tier power, if he tried something, he would likely leave loose ends behind. Still, the intervention of these old monsters spared Xu Yuan a great deal of effort. Without meridians to channel through his markings, he could not cast spell arts; he could only hurl origin qi bombs like a savage. To ensure precise hits, he had to expend mental focus to guide them. In less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he was already feeling mentally drained. The vast origin qi stored in the markings was already half-spent, yet he had killed less than half a tenth of the insect tide. There were simply too many. Had he known, he would have made a move on Mu Xingyi earlier—though given the man's alienated mindset, it would likely have been in vain anyway. Arriving before the prefectural yamen, the defensive array immediately parted to allow him passage. Before stepping inside, Xu Yuan cast one final glance toward the sky. Feng Jiuxuan and Qin Ke had already taken their fight outside the city. It was not far, situated where they could still react to the situation inside at any moment. Vast sheets of roaring, blazing flames obscured the Dao domain, preventing Xu Yuan from seeing inside. However, that old man Qin Ke's strength was likely considerably weaker than the White Emperor's; when fighting the White Emperor, Feng Jiuxuan would be unable to prevent the shockwaves from destroying the city, whereas Qin Ke's area-of-effect attacks, though far broader, had not affected the interior of the city at all, having been contained entirely outside by Feng Jiuxuan. As for the White Emperor and Mu Nuo... Looking up, Xu Yuan's eyelid twitched involuntarily. Mu Nuo was still asleep. His head had been obliterated, yet he was still lying there sleeping. Was this brat trying to play surveillance camera too? Swallowing his internal retort, Xu Yuan stepped into the prefectural yamen. With the White Emperor's experience, he would surely realize Mu Nuo's "uniqueness" before long. But in Xu Yuan's memory, the Lord of Guyuan, as a boss, possessed no sealing arts, so there was no immediate worry of Mu Nuo being sealed away before waking. The only real concern was whether the energy within Mu Nuo's body could endure it. Immortality was fine and well, but ten thousand years ago, when the human race first encountered the aberrant ghost calamity, they had also believed them to be immortal. Only later did they discover that an aberrant ghost's immortality required life origin as fuel. Without thorough study, Xu Yuan had no idea what principle governed Mu Nuo's immortality... "Changtian!" Mid-thought, an armored silhouette threw herself into his embrace, breaking his train of thought. Lowering his gaze, the faint scent of ear-length short hair drifted into his nose. There was no feeling of warm, soft jade; instead, it dug into him rather painfully, as his "sworn bro" was clad in armor. Before he could speak upon meeting her concerned eyes, Li Junwu grabbed his right hand, stared at the markings on the back, and asked urgently, "Are you all right?" Xu Yuan discreetly pulled his hand back, offering a light, teasing laugh. "Don't these markings look handsome? Besides, why does your tone sound like post-battle comfort? We're only halfway through. How badly damaged are the array patterns?" Speaking, Xu Yuan drifted down toward the ground. Li Junwu followed behind him, gazing at his nonchalant back as she gently pressed her lips together. Throughout the battle so far, Xu Yuan had carried nearly all the weight, while she could only keep a helpless vigil over the yamen. Landing on the ground, Li Junwu fell into step beside him. "Seventy percent of the city defense array patterns have been ruined. The Saints on their side clearly know the layout of the city's formations; every spell struck directly at a vital node." Xu Yuan was not surprised by this. He nodded gently. "It's still within acceptable limits. Moving forward, use the array to sweep the insects from the city." Pausing briefly, Xu Yuan changed the subject. "Where is that stupid wolf? I remember it ran back here, seemingly gravely injured?" Inside Qin Ke's Dao domain, the white wolf had turned into a fire wolf, pierced through with several gaping holes that were instantly cauterized by the flames. When it fled, that stupid beast had been engulfed in fire. Recalling Qin Ke's arts in the Dao domain, Xu Yuan felt a sudden prickle of vigilance and said rapidly, "The flames in Qin Ke's Dao domain seem unquenchable, and he can shift his true form freely among them. Did Linlang bring those flames back with it?!" Hearing this, Li Junwu's delicate face showed no alarm. Instead, it twitched slightly as she whispered, "It was faking." "..." "The moment it got back, it gave its fur a shake, and it was completely healed." "..." As they spoke, the two crossed an arched gateway and stopped in their tracks. A snow-white wolf was lying lazily on the courtyard lawn, sunning itself and dozing off. Seeing the two enter, Linlang squinted its wolfish eyes, glanced at them, rolled onto its back with its belly up, and continued to sleep. Xu Yuan nearly lost his composure. People were fighting to the death outside, and this son of a bitch of a stupid wolf was here taking a nap! Knowing Xu Yuan's temper, Li Junwu quickly explained in a soft voice, "Jiayi was so angry she whipped it with a lash, but it refused to budge an inch, saying it has always been terrified of dying." Xu Yuan took a deep breath to settle his mind. "Forget it. We have no use for it at this stage anyway; having it guard the yamen isn't bad. Once Mu Nuo wakes up, everything will take a turn for the better."