Chapter 296: The G.o.dseal Spark (6)
“KILL!!!” The old man, who Fang Cheng and Chu Zhaonan didn’t know, seemed to go mad. The fingers on both his hands were all spread out, and ten streaks of alternating black-white qi coiled above his nails. As he raked forward with his hands, two skulls, one black and one white, screamed as they rushed a rider.
“Hundred Soldier Hall… Rotating Yin And Yang!!!”
Boom! A black-white halo suddenly detonated against a rider, but a fish scale-like golden armor appeared on his body, forcibly absorbing this wound!
This strike jolted the rider from his shock. Afterwards, he flicked out without a moment’s delay, and a stream of light instantly flew out!
“A signal flare?” The old man’s eyes were completely scarlet. How many of his clansmen had died here?! The counterattack had just begun; how could he allow these people to escape!
“Stop them!” His shout exploded through the air, but without need of him to speak, the flare was accurately struck by a bullet before it even had a moment to detonate as it rushed into the sky.
Thump… A m.u.f.fled noise echoed. Without warning, the stream of light mutely died out. The pupils of those still alive in the Screaming Wind Legion shrunk. What accurate gun arts!
“Retreat!!!” A cavalryman reared his head back and bellowed, but it was too late!
In a conical formation, they would’ve original drilled through the bottom of the Xingtian Legion’s crescent moon. Yet as they stood before Dangyang Bridge, Zhang Fei had actually roared as he broke the bridgehead! Right now, they had no room to advance or retreat!
Ahead, that una.s.suming cultivator was still standing. Beyond laid the bottomless gorge, and behind… was the Xingtian Legion and Hidden Dragon legion already ambus.h.i.+ng! Now, even the originally fleeing cultivators in front seemed to be under the effect of b.l.o.o.d.y bravery, whooping as a group actually turned back and charged!
After the initial battle-formation attack, close-quarters combat followed! Naked swords cutting through fles.h.!.+ According to the original script, their Screaming Wind Legion should’ve maintained battle formation, and the Xingtian Legion should’ve been routed everywhere! Now, the crescent moon had folded and become a full moon. They were just like the filling in a steamed bun, deeply stuck inside!
“Charge out! Follow me!” Nonetheless, the Screaming Wind Legion’s formation still hadn’t collapsed in such a time. A rider raised his left hand, and the white tiger banner unfurled once more. His armor was one shred different from everyone else’s… The ornate design of a tiger’s head was on his breastplate, likewise white.
But as he shouted these words, a terrible murderous will shrouded his entire body from the crown of his head, in an instant! He had no time further thought, and sweeped back at lightning speed, merely his mount couldn’t run at all! A cracking noise followed, and the enormous head of his black tiger answered and fell!
“This…” He looked at the sky in shock. In the dark of night, beneath the moon, a hundred weapons formed out of black qi were floating in the air. They radiated a flavor of deathly stillness, all of them aimed at riders below!
“This is… the Ten Thousand Shadows Heavenly Punishment?!” He was so frightened that his hair almost stood on edge! Daomaster Ancientpine’s famous supreme technique had appeared on the battlefield. The man’s name and the shadow of a tree put him in a state of uncontrollable horror!
“NO! No! The amount isn’t right! The power isn’t right!” After a flash of shock, his breathing became rushed, and cold sweat dotted his brows. If this was the real Ten Thousand Shadows Heavenly Punishment… absolutely no one would’ve been able to survive within a range of a hundred meters just now!
“Set formation!!!” His hands weaved seals at a dizzying pace. There was no choice to say that the Screaming Wind Legion was worthy of being the elite force of a quasi-apex clan. Following his words, the surviving tens of riders quickly gathered to him, and the white spiritual light shrouding their bodies became stronger and stronger!
Xu Yangyi fixed everything before him with a hard stare. The opportunity only existed within this instant! The slash of his Ketu-Rahu Sword was enough to shake the enemy’s state of mind. However, if the opponent wasn’t separated, now that their morale had fallen to an all-time low, a dogged battle would still follow!
The riders of the Linghu Clan… wouldn’t take death lying down!
So within his body, boundless fatigue, weariness, and the hollow sensation of having drawn one’s qi empty surged again. His fingernails sunk into his flesh, keeping him on his feet! He was no longer capable of any movement. If his will power was not extremely firm, he wouldn’t even be able to stand right now. Presently, he could only hope that the Xingtian Legion, the Hidden Dragon Legion, and everyone else would be able to grasp this moment of imminent peril. The chance would pa.s.s away in the blink of an eye, to thoroughly gate the Screaming Wind Legion from leaving!
“Vice Captain!” In front of the gorge, the radiance of exploding qi was everywhere. From behind, shouting voices fell on the ear without pause. Seven riders kept their ground, bloodied as they gathered together. One of them gritted their teeth and said, “Which way are we breaking through now?!”
Ordinarily, the captain made all commands, but it was presently unknown if he had survived from under that sword!
But these words caused the vice captain to grow silent. Which way to break out?
As far as his eyes could see, a humanoid black bear was struggling against a rider at the rear! This man-bear was only middle-stage Qi Condensation, only just having advanced not too long ago. But with the aid of a few surrounding cultivators, several talismans on the bear dazzled brightly, and it actually forced itself against a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator. Although he was armed to the teeth, the rider was suppressed!
In the sky, that d.a.m.ned cultivator with the gun arts was like a hunter reaping lives. The gunslinger made very few movements, yet his first shot had shattered the flare with extreme precision! They had no way to send a signal!
At the other side, a bald bare-chested cultivator was growing an endless thicket of plants from his body, completely blockading that front. He personally bore witness to the toughness of these plants as he saw a cultivator attack three times, but they were instead wrapped within them.
Unexpectedly, they were left with no route of escape, the heavens leaving them without a path and the earth barring entry!
His heart finally fell to panic. The two wings had closed in, and they were faced with gorges. Originally, the troops of the central forces were still battle capable, but they were actually beginning to be counter-separated by the opponent at the rear!
His gaze unconsciously looked ahead, yet he couldn’t help but flinch in panic. Across from the several-meter-long gorge was that cultivator who had shocked the heavens with one strike, watching them like a wolf.
The wholly unmasked killing intent and coldness within those eyes caused him to feel his hands and feet chill. However, his gaze shook. He saw… a thread of blood trickling down the opponent’s two clenched fists.
“This…” The vice captain came to a sudden realization. That cultivator lacked the strength to make a second strike! No… in a flash, he had been completely pulled out of the fight!
Why were the two wings attackings so frantically? Because they also knew that this person couldn’t pull off a second attack! At this moment, their formation was in great disarray, their fighting spirit totally absent, yet that cultivator was also an arrow at the end of his flight!
Only several meters had to be charged! To cut off the other’s head! This was a path they could escape through, born from the heavens!
“All forces…” He gritted his teeth and said, but he oddly couldn’t shout out the words to charge.
He was afraid.
That sword just now was too dreadful! It had immediately annihilated scores of the Screaming Wind Legion. This was the nail of his heart, the shadow of his heart. The enemy was one man alone, across from them, yet his lips quivered several times as these words touched them. He was simply unable to shout them out!
What if… the opponent could still attack again?
Obviously… charging forward was the best choice. Several meters… nothing more than several meters! The command was firmly lodged in his throat, yet the figure of that person confronting them seemed to incomparably tall, just like Zhao Yun at Changban Slope, Zhang Fei at the other end of Dangyang Bridge! None dared to step over that terrifying moat!
With Xu Yangyi standing here, none would dare choose a frontal attack!
This was might! Although one sword forced Xu Yangyi to grind his teeth and brace himself, staunchly blocking the opponent was his final hope!
“KILL!!!” Behind, Gao Ye had discovered the instant of silence ahead. Hot blood rushed in his heart. Such a heaven-defying attack surely couldn’t be made a second time. Moreover… when they were students of the same stage, he knew of Xu Yangyi’s nature. If the other was able to move right now, there was no doubt that the would already be wreaking carnage. However… his former cla.s.smate didn’t move!
Not that he didn’t move, but because he couldn’t!
At this moment, the two wings had to eliminate the Screaming Wind Legion as fast as possible, or the enemy would converge ahead!
“OOHHH!”
In front of him was a rider. The rider’s armor had already shattered, and he seemed to face a small hill. He had already been encircled by four middle-stage cultivators, several magik treasures disturbing his surroundings. Yet a late-stage cultivator of the Hidden Dragon Legion laid hidden like a viper within the group, planning to make a decisive blow.
“Flower Travels Between.” With no care for where he was, the rider’s hands weaved seals at lightning speeds. In an instant, his figure was like a spirit b.u.t.terfly! He swiftly cruised through several minor fights, rus.h.i.+ng out over a dozen meters in the blink of an eye! He hurried straight to the forefront, the direction where eight other cavalrymen had gathered!
Boom! As he charged ahead, two red glints shot forth like vipers! They firmly obstructed his path.
Gao Ye lifted his head and glanced over. In front of him, ten-somewhat people had surrounded two riders. A red glint smoldered in the barrel of the gun in his hand. As the shot was swallowed and spat out, there was bound to be a cultivator screaming as they were injured and downed.
“f.u.c.k!” Eyes somewhat reddened, Gao Ye looked towards the gorge, and his heart skipped.
The opponent… actually hadn’t chosen to attack Xu Yangyi. Instead… all their forces reversed, charging back to where they came! They had actually opted for the most difficult path, and that was to rush the skewered Xingtian Legion again!
Yet how difficult was such a maneuver now?!
Eight riders had gathered together, confronting the fifty-plus cultivators of the Xingtian Legion’s allied front! Especially… since they were still nursing their wounds!
“BLOCK HIM!!!” At this moment, Gao Ye, Xu Yangyi, and Chu Zhaonan almost roared out at the same time!
Victory or defeat, everything rested here! The opportunity had already been grasped in hand. If the soldiers of the former echelon beared the brunt of the revitalized charge… they were doomed to lose!
“Gun Kata…” Over twenty meters high in the air, Chu Zhaonan inhaled deeply. The qi of both his arms were like a tide, madly surging into his guns. Shockingly, his two pistols became light gold in color!
“Holy Arrival!” In the wake of this voice that the enemy couldn’t hear, two golden lights gushed out from Chu Zhaonan’s pistols. They were akin to rays, drawing two paths of golden fire before all the riders’ advance!
All the other standing cultivators only felt ribbons of spiritual force bubble into their bodies. In this formlessness, their realms actually expanded by a tenth!
A tenth of one person wasn’t strong, but a tenth of over dozens of cultivators was equal to creating several more fighters!
“Charge!” The longspears of the vice captain and the seven other Screaming Wind legionnaires glimmered with red light. Surprisingly, they weren’t checked within the ten surrounding meters. They had already formed a line in front of the gorge, their backs to Xu Yangyi. With their backs pressed back against the water’s edge, their only chance was to win or die trying. All of them understood that only seven of them had gathered. Only by attacking while retrieving scattered survivors could they rush out!
White light converged on their bodies once more. Following a wild cry that could split mountains, the seven riders took off at a full-speed gallop! They transformed into seven white streaks, diving into the boundless ranks of the Xingtian Legion!
Cold air spoils the banner flag’s color, the sound of drums cast low and dim over the land! Truly a miserable situation!
Swoos.h.!.+ The longspear in the vice captain’s left hand took in and exhaled qi shakily, a white tiger phantasm lingering on the blade. A defensive line of no less than ten cultivators had already come before him. A wisp of solemnity flashed through his eyes. In their all-out charge, the white light on the seven rider’s suddenly became rays of qi that rose above! Even their silhouettes began to turn fuzzy!
“Their burning their longevity!!!” With a glance, the old man from the Xingtian Legion was immensely shocked, but he couldn’t help but praise the enemy.
Resolute! Too resolute!
Both sides had now reached the final step! The Screaming Wind Legion was without a shred of hesitation or moreover a trace of reluctance. The vice captain’s longspear was pointed levelly, aimed at the ten-plus cultivators ahead. He gritted his teeth and barked out, “Crouching Tiger Cages Dragon!”
Jingle! Seven crisp humming noises echoed from seven longspears at almost the same time! Under the moon’s glow, the ruptured world was dyed silver-white! And in this silver-white expanse, seven silver lights rocketed and shone!
1. Poem by Southern Dynasty poet Jiang Zong (518-590 CE).