Dong Rui always designed his modified avian demons with this line of thinking: they couldn't just plummet out of the sky the moment their wings were hit.
The black-armored man and his puppet army pursued right behind them at a speed faster than galloping horses.
One group flew through the sky while the other gave chase along the ground.
"Hey!" the soul-snatching mirror suddenly remembered a crucial question. "Why is this monster chasing us?"
"How should I know?" He Lingchuan was just as baffled.
"That black-armored freak clearly told you to give something back!" Dong Rui chimed in from the ground, listening in. "Judging by how frantic he was, did you steal his coffin or something?"
"This is my first time visiting the Shanjin Plain. How could I owe him anything?"
That was a fair point. For a moment, Dong Rui couldn't think of a counterargument.
Flapping its wings, the bat quickly flew into the distance.
***
The Yao Kingdom's army had already entered the territory of Mount Jing, pursuing the fox demon.
Mount Jing was not far from the Yao Kingdom, and many Yao people had traversed this area before. Even though pitch-black darkness enveloped the night, navigating the mountain paths in the dark posed little difficulty for this elite Yao force.
General Chongwu's order to the entire army was to press forward with all haste.
The great demon Three-Tails, previously a trapped turtle in a jar, had abruptly slipped out of their encirclement and inexplicably reappeared in the direction of Mount Jing—
It had to be either an escape art or flight through the air. General Chongwu leaned toward an escape art; after all, with an entire family of fox demons, there was no way they could have flown through the sky.
Yet the Yao army's escape-art prohibition array had never malfunctioned. How had the fox demons slipped away?
Recalling the music that had previously echoed across Baitou Ridge, General Chongwu concluded that the three-tailed fox demon had likely received assistance from human cultivators.
They had already probed Three-Tails' divine abilities thoroughly beforehand; only human methods possessed such infinite variety.
General Chongwu was patient. This encirclement and suppression mission was far from over. So what if the fox demon had escaped the encirclement? He could still track it down.
As long as he kept pursuing, it would fall into his grasp sooner or later.
Furthermore, all escape arts had limitations. The fox demon and its accomplice could not use them indefinitely; his side was indeed capable of catching up.
A scout ahead came over the ridge to report: "General, red light is flaring brilliantly over Ke Ridge! The cause is unknown."
Ke Ridge? General Chongwu's brow furrowed.
The ruins of Ke Ridge and the legend of the Luosheng Armor were well known to everyone around Mount Jing, and he had naturally heard of them as well.
Could there truly be such a coincidence in this world?
"I recall Ke Ridge has numerous raised platforms with several arrays set upon them. Why would they suddenly be triggered?" But soon he realized: "Could it be the fox demons' doing?"
The fox demons were indeed heading toward Ke Ridge.
Then the red light vanished, and silence fell ahead once more.
The fox demons were still on the move, so the Yao soldiers continued their pursuit.
Winding around the mountains for several li, a shadow glided close through the night sky at extreme speed.
The night was dim, devoid of stars or moon, but the sharp-eyed marksmen in the army shouted at once, "A strange bird! A giant bird has appeared in the sky!"
General Chongwu spotted it as well.
Reacting with extreme swiftness, he drew an arrow and nocked it to his bow, loosing it with a twang without needing to aim.
The arrow vanished the instant it left the bowstring, only reappearing beneath the bat, thrusting straight toward its belly!
This was known as sky-intercepting archery, exceptionally difficult for an enemy to parry or intercept.
Once it struck its target, the explosive true force infused into the arrow would detonate the arrowhead, tearing into the enemy's flesh.
Not to mention, the arrow carried origin power, which enhanced the explosive arrow's lethal effect.
Yet who would have guessed that the strange bird in the sky would flap its wings and suddenly vanish!
When it reappeared, it was already more than ten zhang ahead.
A flash teleportation.
General Chongwu's brows knit tight. He had no idea what kind of monster possessed such a divine ability.
Wait—there seemed to be something on the bird's back.
In the blink of an eye, the strange bird flew beyond his range.
Watching it fly away into the distance, General Chongwu withdrew his attention, for he quickly noticed that the fox demons' direction was the exact opposite of the bird's!
What was this strange bird planning? Did it intend to lure the Yao army away?
Yet he maintained a firm grasp on the fox demons' movements, so he merely dispatched two night owls to shadow the strange bird while keeping the main force marching toward Ke Ridge as planned.
Further ahead was a fork in the path. The fox demons' direction seemed to have shifted slightly, angling toward Red Bean Ridge.
Before long, a commotion broke out ahead.
Beside the clashing of blades and the shouts of his own men, General Chongwu heard bizarre roars.
The vanguard swiftly sent word back:
"Report! An army of monsters has appeared ahead!"
Spurring his horse forward, General Chongwu demanded, "How many?"
"Our avian scouts estimate over seven hundred! It is a puppet army composed of armor and earth!"
Composed of armor and... earth?
General Chongwu did not quite grasp the phrasing, but he soon understood.
The bizarrely shaped host emerged from the woods, closing in aggressively. The Yao troops naturally shouted for them to halt, but the oncoming force showed no reaction, blindly charging forward.
Then, like surging waves crashing in a tempest, the two armies collided with violent fury.
The other side attacked without a word, and the Yao army rarely met a match in the surrounding lands—how could they let uninvited guests dare challenge them?
In the dark night, the two sides tangled together in bloody chaos.
Facing such a horde of sinister apparitions, the origin power of the Yao soldiers naturally activated. Their origin power was vastly superior to that of the neighboring states; the azure glow radiating from them was even purer than that of the Yuan Kingdom.
When the Yao weapons struck the puppets, a strike delivered with three-tenths of one's strength yielded half the full effect.
Yet the puppets' earthen-rock carapaces were exceedingly thick and hard. Yao weapons mostly consisted of sabers, spears, and lances, suited for slashing and thrusting rather than hacking and cleaving. Faced with such turtle shells, breaching them required multiple heavy blows.
With one side augmented by origin power and the other feeling no pain and knowing no fear, they fought to a dead heat for the moment.
The enemy leader was a black-armored man possessing terrifying martial might. He plunged into the hostile ranks like a tiger into a flock of sheep; wherever he passed, Yao soldiers fell dead in droves.
Such a colossal gulf between individuals was something not even origin power could bridge.
Behind him were several earthen mages. Whenever puppets were hacked to pieces, the mages needed only to wave their vine staves, and the breaches on the puppets would quickly mend themselves.
After all, the puppets stood upon the solid ground, where fresh rock and soil were available on demand.
Seeing this, the Yao soldiers grew disheartened: How the hell are we supposed to fight this?!
They were flesh and blood, while the enemy could heal instantly!
These things weren't even human.
Yet the Yao troops were marching along a mountain path. Meeting upon a narrow defile, neither side could retreat.
General Chongwu glanced in the direction of Mount Ke, guessing that these monsters had to be connected to the red light on Mount Ke. Had that strange bird deliberately lured them here to intercept the Yao army?
The timing had been immaculate. With no room to fall back, his side could only clash with this inhuman force.
He noticed that whenever human blood splattered onto the enemy general's black armor, it was swiftly absorbed.
The man was horrifyingly savage. Having slaughtered more than a dozen Yao soldiers in rapid succession, the other soldiers instinctively shrank back, looking upon him as a god of slaughter descended to earth.
As a result, the black-armored leader's ferocity grew sharper, his every movement turning even more brutal...
Staring at the figure, an absurd notion sprang to General Chongwu's mind:
Could this be...?
Stirred by this realization, he stepped out from the ranks and shouted, "Hold! We have no intention of obstructing you!"
The other turned a deaf ear, slaying two more men with effortless gestures.
By now, He Lingchuan had landed in the distance and crept back, lying prone atop a ridge behind the Yao army to observe the battle.
Channeling his full visual acuity, he managed to spot faint wisps of black smoke rising one after another from the Yao army, drawn as if guided straight toward the black-armored leader.
This black smoke all originated from soldiers who wore fearful, hesitant expressions.
"Do you see that?"
"Huh?" Dong Rui sounded puzzled. "See what?"
He Lingchuan tapped the soul-snatching mirror against his chest; he was speaking to the mirror. Things that the eyeball spiders couldn't see right now were invisible to Dong Rui as well.
The mirror's muffled voice came out: "I didn't see anything either."
Now that was intriguing. The soul-snatching mirror communed with the Netherworld and could detect all manner of sinister spirits and apparitions. If even it saw nothing, then what exactly was this black-armored leader siphoning from the Yao soldiers?
He Lingchuan studied the soldiers carefully. They did not seem to feel anything themselves, nor did their vital spirit seem compromised—unlike Nangong Yan's enthralled Feather Guards, who had had their vitality and blood drained dry by the evil spirits in the Screaming Forest.
The mirror added, "Still, that black-armored leader... hmm, he seems to be getting stronger?"
He Lingchuan nodded slightly.
Indeed, as it absorbed more of the black smoke, the black-armored leader grew stronger and more agile. General Chongwu had shot two arrows at him: the first pierced his armor plates, embedded in his shoulder, and detonated, blasting him back two steps, and he had to use some effort to wrench out the broken arrow.
The arrow hole in the black armor had healed immediately afterward.
A quarter of an hour later, the second arrow struck between his ribs. Though it didn't detonate, the arrowhead burrowed into the wound like a loach tunneling into tofu. By all rights, this was a weak point in armor defense, yet the arrowhead barely penetrated, and the leader casually plucked it out without suffering any injury at all!
He Lingchuan's gaze narrowed.
General Chongwu's origin power was far from weak. Just what was going on with that black armor?
After tossing the arrowhead aside, the black-armored leader butchered a dozen more Yao soldiers in quick succession. Even two deputy generals who charged him were struck down in a couple of moves: one had his chest crushed beneath a boot and bled out, while the other had his skull crushed bare-handed, his head bursting like a rotten watermelon.
For a time, gore, bone shards, and brains splattered across the battlefield.
Though this Yao force possessed exceptional discipline and impressive fighting prowess, when had they ever witnessed such a bloodstained butcher? Many soldiers were frozen in dread, terrified to block his path.
This dread peaked after the black-armored leader slaughtered a bear demon accompanying the army.
Watching from the distance, He Lingchuan immediately saw that even denser black smoke was drifting out of the Yao soldiers, swirling over to pour into the black-armored leader.
Was that... emotion?
No, wait. He Lingchuan's thoughts stirred. Could it be fright and fear?
Did that armor grow stronger by devouring the fear of its foes?
If his conjecture was correct, it was no wonder the black-armored leader's killing methods were so brutally sadistic—he was deliberately cultivating an endless supply of terror!
By now, General Chongwu had charged to the front of the black-armored leader, drawing a deep breath to roar once more, "Stop! We are not your enemies!"
Turning a deaf ear, the black-armored leader snatched up a meteor hammer and hurled it toward him.
With a resounding clang, General Chongwu took two steps back to diffuse the force, refusing to give up trying to persuade him: "If you keep fighting us, your real target will get away!"
Chapter 1164