Even with ten million people supporting the formation, it wouldn’t last. The Fienddragon Legion and city army would decide who would win this battle.
Before the corpse puppets had even arrived, Tianming could already smell their stench. The corpses’ flesh was rotting and infested with maggots. They were already dead and soulless, but they still continued being manipulated by Ghoul King Si Ling.
“It’s unforgivable to desecrate the dead.” Tianming looked at Ghoul King Si Ling. She was a sinner even greater than Ye Bodhi. Although she was ranked fifth, it seemed not even ten Ghoul King Xue Yis would reach her number of kills and crimes.
It would be impossible to forget someone who could apathetically control three million corpse puppets.
“Rest in peace…” Tianming’s chain flew out before the puppets reached him. Killing them wouldn’t bring him any joy, but would instead bring pain. “They’re already dead, but they need to be killed again. When can they find release?”
Most frightening of all was that if the city fell, the more than ten million people there would end up like this as well. While they weren’t strong individually, their sheer numbers were scary, which was why Xuanyuan Xie had forewarned Xuanyuan Muxue and the rest.
Lumps of meat rained down in front of Tianming, who was already numb to it. Corpses still continued relentlessly rus.h.i.+ng at Tianming, even when their eyeb.a.l.l.s were falling out.
“When will this end?” Tianming hacked apart the puppets crawling onto Lan Huang. His body was covered in grey blood and his expression was pale. This battle was much worse than he had expected.
Tianming looked around and saw that the rest of the defenders were all fighting against corpse puppets. While casualties were still light, they would be exhausted by fighting these resilient corpse puppets, which would give the people from Nonahall and Hexapath a chance to ma.s.sacre them later on.
“Things can’t continue like this. I’m sure the general and the rest are racking their brains over this too.”
Tianming cut apart another corpse, only for its rotten internals to explode. Even Tianming’s Infernal Armour was blown away. “Not good!”
The same thing happened to many others as well. Some were injured, and in more serious cases, had their flesh rotting away.
“Hey, they must be using some broodmother beast to do this. Let little sis try out the Evernight Curse!” Meow Meow suddenly said.
“Smart!” Tianming’s eyes shone.
“Exactly!” Meow Meow was pleased.
“Don’t get too c.o.c.ky! If my wing wasn’t hurt, I would’ve thought of it too!” Ying Huo snorted.
“Your wings affect your brain?” Meow Meow said.
As they bickered, Tianming had Xian Xian take root in the battlefield. “Use the Evernight curse!”
“Yes, but rewards after!” Xian Xian said shamelessly. “Food, food, food!”
Tianming flew to the Evernight Rose. It was releasing millions of pollen toward the battlefield. “Is there any effect?” Tianming asked anxiously.
“Any effect?” Tianming asked hurriedly a short time later.
“Give me some time. Big Brother Meow was right. That ghoul king is using some kind of broodmother-type beast to do this. There’s a small grey insect inside them. I suspect she has a fourth lifebound beast, which is a broodmother!”
“There’s a small insect?” Tianming couldn’t help but be excited. Xian Xian had shown itself to be the bane of broodmother-type lifebound beasts in the Kilostar Domain. Heartscourge worms and greenvoid skydevourers alike had all ma.s.sacred each other.
Then, there had been over a billion. This time, there were only three million!
“They become much stronger when controlling a corpse. However, I can ferret out their bodies!” Xian Xian’s black roots dug into some puppets’ bodies. Some immediately broke apart the roots. However, some were no longer able to move.
“See!” Xian Xian finally brought a tiny grey insect the size of a mosquito over to Tianming.
“Can you kill them all in one shot?”
“No. When they sense danger, they’ll use the corpse puppets to defend themself. However, I can use the Evernight Curse to make them go crazy!”
“Then do it!” If Xian Xian could resolve the corpses, that would be like one person overturning the whole battlefield themself!
“How will Little Li show his appreciation if Xian Xian succeeds?”
“I’ll let you eat as much as you want! I’ll hire ten thousand people as your chefs!”
“Yaayyy!” Xian Xian was excited. In truth, it didn’t know how anxious Tianming was now and how eager he was to do something.
Before, neither he nor anyone else had seen any hope after seeing the corpse puppets. But now, it was a new start! “It’s all up to Xian Xian.”
The Radix World Tree hadn’t let him down yet.
The Evernight Curse had filled the whole battlefield. The pollen entered the puppets to find the insects. This was the ghoul king’s secret! Perhaps she had never considered that someone could find them.
She stood outside the formation with a cold look, as if everything was under her control. It was all proceeding according to her expectations. “The corpse puppets will not only exhaust the formation, but also disrupt their formation and break their wills. Look down on my babies at your own peril.” She smiled charmingly.
Pointing at the city, she commanded, “The time has come. Kill!”
The members of Nonahall and Hexapath were already raring to go. Immediately, countless powerhouses and beasts charged down the path the corpse puppets had opened and crashed into the formation!
Rumbling sounds rang out as countless abilities reached the formation ahead of the invaders. There was no way the Infinite Starnet could halt such an advance.
“Enter the city and kill as much as you can!”
“Yes!”
The area became even more chaotic as at least four hundred thousand members of Nonahall and three hundred thousand of Hexapath charged in.
“Haha, they’re finished!”
“Once we kill them, the ghoul king can turn them into new puppets for the next city!”
“Heh, they still want to resist? It’s better to just roll over and die!”
However, just as they caught up to the puppets, Xian Xian shouted, “Watch and learn, boys!”
“Sis, you’re wrong. This here is a heroic chicken, not a boy!” Ying Huo replied.
Xian Xian activated all of the Evernight Curses simultaneously.
“General! Have the troops retreat!”
Tianming had already warned Xuanyuan Xie in advance, and the general had chosen to believe in him.
The command to retreat was pa.s.sed down. The defenders had free movement within the formation, so it wasn’t difficult.
“Restrain them,” Xuanyuan Xie ordered Yi Xingyin and the rest.
The Infinite Starnet seemed to become much gentler. If it were like knives before, it would now be ropes. Although its attack power had greatly fallen, its restrictive power had shot up.
The corpse puppets suddenly turned around. The insects within were currently in a berserk state, and when they saw the invaders, they went on the attack. They even started attacking each other.
The invaders were already deep inside the formation, and they couldn’t quickly escape their restraints. They were quickly dragged into a battle and experienced the puppets that had previously made the defenders suffer.
At least half of them had already entered the formation, and of those, three quarters couldn’t disengage and were quickly devoured by the corpse puppets.
“Let the corpse puppets have freedom of movement. Only restrict the army!” Xuanyuan Xie shouted.
“I know!” As the creator of the formation, Yi Xingyin could easily manipulate the formation.
“Everyone, the imperial son created a miracle. Give it your all, victory is at hand!”
Everyone in the city was ablaze with pa.s.sion after hearing Xuanyuan Xie’s words. The emotion would push the formation to even greater power.
“This is the power of the ma.s.ses.” Tianming was standing on the city wall. “It proves my choice was right. So, kill!”
In these circ.u.mstances, the enemy didn’t dare to allow anyone to go in to save the troops caught behind enemy lines. Although a few managed to escape, many more died inside.
“How is this possible?” Ghoul King Si Ling was filled with disbelief.
The chaos lasted two hours. Finally, almost everyone inside the formation had perished, whether they were corpse puppets or members of the two sects.
The Fienddragon Legion and city army entered the battlefield to clean up and to kill any stragglers. There were mountains of corpses outside the city; this was a complete victory for the defenders!
As long as Xian Xian was around, the corpse puppets would be useless. This was a great blow to the alliance of five divine realms.
Tianming looked at the land that had been stained with blood. He stabbed Xuanyuan Yuheng’s Draconic Swordbreaker into the ground and closed his eyes. “Rest in peace.…”