Since the matter had progressed to this point, there was no point in delaying. They might as well start advancing.
That night, Lin Zuiliu occupied Flat Order City with his troops. Once he completely subjugated it, his armies then took over Southern Sky Palace, before sweeping across the entire country.
In but half a month, the entire western region of Long Sang had fallen into his hands.
When word began to spread, the entire country was stunned.
It was not just Long Sang that was amazed; even the other six countries were dumbfounded.
Why had this old fogey reappeared?
What was he trying to do?
While everyone was still in a daze over his brazen actions, Lin Zuiliu had already begun his performance.
After taking control of the entire western region, he didn’t march on the capital. Instead, he headed for the south, planning on conquering that area as well. Because his soldiers were all Origin Qi Scholars, their mobility was easily imagined.
Even Lin Zuiliu himself took to the field at Haizhou City, forcibly destroying the defensive Origin Formation and subduing the inhabitants there.
A single person had taken down an entire city all on his own.
He didn’t stop there, though, and immediately proceeded to his next destination.
It seemed like he was planning on taking over the entire southern region in one fell swoop.
At that moment, Long Sang’s troops had already reached Ten Thousand Swords Mountain and were preparing for a fierce battle. When they heard this news, however, they were immediately stunned.
The King of Chaos had returned? Then what were they supposed to do?
Should they fight here or retreat?
Despite Long Sang’s military array being incredibly impressive and them having three Thought Manifestation Realm cultivators on this expedition, Ten Thousand Swords Mountain was still no easy prey.
This time, the Boundless Sect wasn’t making any attempt to conceal its strength. They had activated the mountain’s defensive formations and were prepared to fight to the death.
The defensive formation had been upgraded a number of times in the past few years, and its offensive power and capabilities had been greatly improved as a result. The illusion that had tricked Shen Junan and the others was merely one of its new functionalities, not its sole improvement. And because the Boundless Sect’s territory included arable farmland, it meant that they produced large quant.i.ties of resources. When factoring in the large number of Light Shaking Realm cultivators, it was entirely possible for the Boundless Sect’s disciples to hold out for a number of months.
And even if Long Sang’s army did seize Ten Thousand Swords Mountain, they would pay a huge price.
General Guan Tao was a veteran, but even he hesitated at this dilemma, unable to make up his mind.
His hesitation ended up giving him an opportunity.
Three days later, orders from Long Coiling City arrived, saying that they were to immediately give up on this operation and return to the southwest.
Guan Tao sighed. Thankfully, he had not been impulsive, and the emperor was not crazy.
This decision was not strange at all. Fighting a war on two fronts was not wise, especially when neither party was easy to deal with.
That evening, Guan Tao ordered his troops to quietly retreat.
Though the troops had every intention of doing so, Lin Shaoxuan refused to let them go that easily.
One aspect that Long Sang was vastly inferior to the Boundless Sect in was communication.
Patelocke was connected to multiple groups despite the fact that he was still with the Zhu Clan. His importance was quite high, as his communication range was incredible. This allowed these distant groups to coordinate effectively and easily.
Lin Shaoxuan had been aware of Lin Zuiliu’s attacks from the very beginning, and he had purposefully allowed this information to reach Guan Tao.
Long Coiling City’s orders hadn’t escaped Lin Shaoxuan’s notice either. The Immortal Temple had even managed to be one step ahead in that regard.
During this time period, information security was terrible. n.o.body invested much into preventing information from being leaked.
On the other hand, the Boundless Sect recognized the incredible value of information, and they used it to maximum effect.
After learning that Long Coiling City had issued retreat orders, Lin Shaoxuan quickly calculated how long it would take for the orders to arrive, and then kept a close eye on the Long Sang troops as that time neared.
Guan Tao even did his due diligence by setting up some diversionary illusion formations. These formations were crafted by the best Origin Formation specialists within the army. Under normal circ.u.mstances, the Boundless Sect would have been easily fooled.
But against someone who was prepared, it was completely useless.
With a simple probe, Lin Shaoxuan quickly determined that Guan Tao was about to withdraw his troops.
He didn’t hesitate in the slightest and, led all of the disciples in the sect to board the Cloud-Piercing Shuttles and charge away.
Dragon Gate Pool.
It was impossible to reach Ten Thousand Swords Mountain without pa.s.sing through this location. The same went for leaving. As such, it was a very strategic chokepoint.
The Dragon Gate Pool was not a particularly dangerous location in and of itself.
However, not every militarily-strategic location was necessarily inherently dangerous. Some of them just happened to be naturally suited for ambushes.
There were two mountains bordering the Dragon Gate Pool, and on one end was water. The central area was also at a lower elevation, which made it easy for Origin Energy to get trapped there.
As such, even though the place didn’t seem like much of a chokepoint, it was an incredibly important location.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, it would be a high priority to cautiously scout out the area before advancing to avoid falling straight into an Origin Formation.
However, Guan Tao hadn’t done so.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t cautious. Rather, it was that the Long Sang troops had only just pa.s.sed through this location earlier.
Unless someone had immediately started preparing an Origin Formation after they pa.s.sed through earlier, there was no other way for a formation to be successfully set in such a short period of time. And the only way that could happen was if someone had gotten wind of their movements in advance. Otherwise, setting up this kind of ambush was impossible.
For this reason, Guan Tao had chosen not to waste his time and ordered his army to immediately enter.
However, as they marched through the Dragon Gate Pool, he gradually began to realize that something was wrong.
After they had been marching for some time, Guan Tao glanced around before frowning. “Something’s wrong.”
“What happened, General Guan?” asked his deputy, Jiang Liu.
Guan Tao didn’t reply. His brows furrowed even more deeply.
Suddenly, he tapped his left index finger on his forehead and growled, “Break!”
His eyes opened wide as a divine light shone filled his gaze, after which he began to scan his surroundings.
But even though he had activated an eye technique, he was still unable to discover anything noteworthy.
Just as the glow in his eyes began to dim and when he was about to close his eyes, he suddenly thought of something and turned to look at the sky above him.
He muttered, “The sky…… is very blue.”
“Yes, it is very blue indeed,” Jiang Liu replied.
Guan Tao said, “Before we entered the Dragon Gate Pool, I remember seeing a dark cloud off in the distance. But now, I can’t seem to find it.”
What?
The people around him were stunned.
Guan Tao flew into the air, this time charging directly into the sky.
He hurriedly glanced below him, and the same glow appeared in his eyes again. This time, however, he had activated his eye technique to its greatest extent. Not only that, but his Thought Manifestation Realm aura also began to spread out, enveloping the surroundings.
No one knew why Guan Tao had suddenly decided to show off like this, but they watched. Suddenly, the sky above them began to crack as if it were gla.s.s shattering. In the blink of an eye, spiderweb-like cracks had spread everywhere.
Following this, a voice sighed, “General Guan is indeed General Guan. It’s not easy to trick you at all.”
Guan Tao was taken aback. “Lin Shaoxuan?”
Lin Shaoxuan’s figure appeared out of thin air as he wryly smiled at Guan Tao. “Shaoxuan greets General Guan. It’s been a long time, but your elegant bearing has remained the same.”
Upon seeing Lin Shaoxuan, Guan Tao’s expression drastically s.h.i.+fted as he yelled, “Not good! There’s an ambush here! Hurry up and get out of here!”
“It’s too late,” Lin Shaoxuan said with a sigh. “Even though not all of your troops have entered the Dragon Gate Pool, getting more than half of them is good enough.”
As he spoke, the cracking sky finally completely shattered, and a vast swath of thunderclouds revealed itself overhead.
Immediately afterwards, a powerful bolt of lightning descended from the sky, slamming into the ground.
“This is the Sky Lightning Formation!” Guan Tao yelled as he unleashed a ferocious punch at the sky.
This punch was filled with might, and it exuded a tremendous amount of pressure. Clearly, the punch was capable of shattering a mountain. However, even this powerful fist was incapable of destroying the Origin Formation that the Boundless Sect’s disciples had spent so much manpower and resources creating. The punch was only capable of weakening the lightning bolt slightly, which bought some time for Guan Tao’s subordinates to escape.
Lin Shaoxuan sighed. “General Guan, you’re panicking. And when you panic, you’re more likely to make mistakes.”
As he spoke, he waved his hand. The river behind them, which had previously been flowing lazily, suddenly began to expand before taking the form of a ma.s.sive beast. Demonic Beasts continued to form from the water, recklessly charging at the Long Sang soldiers. It just so happened that the Long Sang soldiers were in the process of retreating. They had basically delivered themselves into the hands of their opponents.
“No!” Guan Tao yelled.
He hadn’t expected Lin Shaoxuan to focus on the Flowing Yin Yang Formation instead of the Sky Lightning Formation. Those thunderbolts had merely been a distraction. This surging river was the true killing blow — Lin Shaoxuan’s goal had not been to kill the Thought Manifestation Realm cultivators, but rather to damage the lower ranks as much as he could.
Perhaps they were also aware that they didn’t have enough time to set up a formation that could kill a Thought Manifestation Realm cultivator.
However, even if they weren’t able to kill the Thought Manifestation Realm cultivators, they could kill the others.
Under the weight of the immense wave cras.h.i.+ng down on them, the Blood Boiling Realm cultivators were basically killed in the blink of an eye. The Yang Opening Realm cultivators were able to hold on for a bit longer, but the end result was just that they had merely prolonged their suffering.
Only the Light Shaking Realm cultivators were strong enough to escape from the influence of this giant wave. But right when they extricated themselves, streaks of sword light suddenly filled the sky, rus.h.i.+ng towards them.
The Boundless Sect’s disciples weren’t just idly waiting around while the Long Sang army had been panicking.
They had concealed themselves in the formation, and were now using their terrain advantage to slaughter the stronger cultivators.
“Good, Lin Shaoxuan! Very good!” Guan Tao snarled as he stared at Lin Shaoxuan in rage. “You’ve taken everything I taught you and used it on me instead!”
Lin Shaoxuan sighed again. “Shaoxuan will not forget General Guan’s kind instruction. As long as General Guan doesn’t personally attack, Shaoxuan promises not to harm you.”
“So that allows you to kill them? Don’t forget that you too are a citizen of Long Sang Country!” Guan Tao rebuked angrily.
Lin Shaoxuan calmly replied, “Of course I haven’t forgotten. But General Guan, you seem to have forgotten what happened to the Heavenly Might Battalion back then.”
Guan Tao was taken aback.
Lin Shaoxuan continued speaking. “And this time, wasn’t it the imperial family who came after the Boundless Sect first? We are all humans, and we even come from the same background. How could I possibly desire to harm them? But it seems to me that you were the ones who turned your backs on us first! Are you all the only ones who don’t need to consider these things when you want to kill people?”
Guan Tao was rendered speechless.
The fearful cries from below were still continuing. His two Thought Manifestation Realm cultivators had long since charged over, unleas.h.i.+ng punches at the sky as they attempted to destroy the formation.
One of the more excitable ones even cried out, “Guan Tao, why waste any more of your words on him? Let’s hurry up and try to break out of this formation!”
“It’s too late,” Guan Tao sighed lamentably.
Guan Tao himself had taught Lin Shaoxuan this Flowing Yin Yang Formation. At that time, Lin Shaoxuan had been a smart, curious youth. Guan Tao had noticed his intelligence and taught him how to use the Flowing Yin Yang formation to ambush a stronger force. No one was clearer than he about the properties of this formation.
It was a given that no soldiers below the Spirit Burning Realm would survive, and even the Spirit Burning Realm cultivators would suffer quite greatly.
Roughly half of the soldiers had entered the Flowing Yin Yang Formation. In other words, half of their troops had been lost in a single instant.
A devastating blow!!!