Archfiend

Chapter 294: The Godseal Spark (4)

The black tide didn’t lose the slightest hint of speed. The fall of Mo Yeyu’s wall was like a crab stripped of its shell, exposing the soft tender flesh within!

Under the moonlight, deathly pale cultivators faced the rides. The Spirit Accumulation Cannons in the hands of Xu Yangyi’s forces were already shaking so much that they couldn’t be held. In a war of mortals, the charge of a thousand-strong cavalry could break the minds of infantry. It was the kind of suffocating feeling and dread that brought the earth to quake and tides to churn, enough to to make any cultivator on the battlefield for the first time to flee on mere contact. Although there were only a hundred riders… their weaponry, momentum, and battle formation far transcended mortals’ by a hundred fold! 

“KILL!!!” The armored rider of pure white hefted up his longspear from his waist at an angle! His left hand waved a two-meter-long banner with a white tiger drawn on it. The flag fluttered in the wind, like a sailing reaper in the glow of the moon, causing both heart and soul to tremble!

“KILL!!!” Following his mad howl, the hundred riders behind him shook the heavens together with their cry for murder, jolting the four reaches!

Behind the wall of thorn, the first squadron of the Xingtian Legion’s crescent formation was no more than twenty meters away! Their objective was the bottom of the crescent! To drill through it! Tear it apart! Encircle and kill! In several rounds, everyone here would be exterminated!

“Junior Brother!” “Brother Xu!” Chu Zhaonan and Fang Cheng shouted in unison. Even now, they hadn’t received orders to attack!

The ground was shaking. The faces of the black tigers and riders were almost clear enough to be discerned, like black reapers under moonlight. All of a sudden, a cultivator in formation, his lips quivering and sweat pouring like rain, madly cried out and threw down his cannon, turning back and making a run for it!

The barrier protecting him had shattered… he had to run! This was too awful! Such a battle formation! The reaper’s sickle was already poised at his neck! In his heart, oppressive terror almost drove him insane!

But in the next second, his head suddenly flew up! Reflected upon the eyes of over a dozen cultivators who were preparing to flee, it was incomparably striking!

“Those who fall back a single step will be killed without mercy!” An old man appeared at the battle formation’s rear. Towards a cultivator who he normally considered important and had now been the first to flee, he didn’t have one shred of tolerance!

“On a narrow path with rivals and enemies alike, the brave find victory!!! Who dares retreat! I… will extinguish his body until nothing is left!!!”

No retreat? Under his snow-white facial armor, a victorious smile hung at the corner of the leading rider’s mouth. To retreat was to die… to die in absolute despair. To not retreat… was to still die, yet the opponent wouldn’t feel despair!

“Tiger Screams In The Mountain Forest!” The leading rider roared to the heavens, like he was breathing out the hot blood of his thoughts. The longspear in his hand fired a scarlet-red edge and traveled twenty meters to directly take the Xingtian Legion’s battle formation, who were already gritting their teeth to brace themselves!

BOOM! Following his spear thrust, the red beams of a hundred riders behind him erupted at the same time! This place… had become an asura ground of interweaving red light! The ground was torn asunder by countless cracks! And yet… they still didn’t slow down!

Skewer the Xingtian Legion!

Skewer the Xingtian Legion… This battle had to be won!

“Resist the enemy!!!” The old man had no time to ask for instructions, his voice screaming hoarsely. In the next second, the protective artifacts of the first line of cultivators all raised up! A brilliant wall of prismatic light took shape in front of them!

“Stand firm in formation!” The old man roared as his voice broke. His eyes had become completely scarlet, and his heart was an icy expanse.

Since he dared come, he wasn’t ill-prepared whatsoever. On the contrary, his preparations were rather sufficient. However, he didn’t understand why one of his disciples—ordinarily more arrogant than any other—was now dumbstruck like a wooden chicken. The disciple’s first reaction wasn’t to stay in the formation he had long practiced, but rather take out a defensive treasure. What would be the aftermath of each protective treasure against the impact force of several thousand meters and late-stage Qi Condensation cultivators fully armed with supreme artifacts?

The first echelon… will break… Now, this thought arose in his mind, yet both his hands were shaking. He couldn’t shout for them to come down and moreover yell for reinforcements!

The old man knew… in the next second, just like a tiger in a flock of sheep, the sorrowful scene of blood-dyed earth would follow.

His voice echoed like spring thunder at the side of the soldiers’ ears. Many people trembled, their hands immediately forming seals. Nonetheless, the earth’s trembling progressively intensified. The first echelon of cultivators continued to stagger a few times! As a shadow rushed like arcing electricity before a cultivator, the cultivator raised his head in despair.

The last image in his eyes was snow-white armor, pure white like the soul. It seemed as pure and holy as a snow lotus. In the next instant, countless snowflakes gushed out of this snow-white armor, dyeing the armor a monstrous blood-red.

His body was torn apart by an explosion, a splatter of blood in an instant.

The pitter-patter of rain filled the battleground. Red and all kinds of colors exploded in the air, forming a horrific vortex of qi! It was so fast that there was no more time to form seals! As a ringing noise echoed, the first defensive line of camouflaged cultivators fell entirely apart! All their protective artifacts crumbled away! Blood-red spiritual light devastated them as if it wanted to tear the first echelon into smithereens!

“Puh!” “ARGH!!!” Blood-curdling screams rose and fell! There was no exception among the first line, a total of twenty-somewhat cultivators. They all spat out mouthfuls of blood and flew into the air, decapitated and torn to pieces. The magik artifacts that they had placed all their hopes in had shattered apart with a rumble. The pupils of the second echelon of cultivators suddenly dilated because they saw… a terrible scene that would live with them forever!

The golden chains in between the riders now followed the raging charge, like sickles harvesting wheat! Even if they dodged the central forces of Screaming Wind Legion, they would be immediately split in two as long as they touched the chain!

“Puh!” A cultivator screeched, both of his hands placed in front of him in defense. Less than half a second later, two black whirlwinds stormed past his body! To his shock… he soon opened his eyes and saw the lower half of his not-too-distant body.

The lower half of his body astonishingly hung on the chain, being dragged away!

CRASH! Like a car charging into a pile of toy blocks, the first line’s collapse was exchanged with the domino-like fall of the next echelon! In an instant, the third camouflaged rampart disappeared! But the final line was ten meters away!

“Screaming Wind Legion!” First blood had been drawn! A spear ripped apart a cultivator in front, ruining the cultivator’s body! Blood sprayed over the leading rider’s snow-white armor, yet the he wasn’t put off in the slightest. Instead, he raised his hand and waved, his white tiger banner suddenly pulled out behind him! Following his high-speed impact, the flag flew up in the air!

“Onwards to victory!!!” Soon after he said these words, an overwhelming howl followed! The eyes of all the riders revealed mad zealotry, the black flood emotionlessly reaping lives. An untold number of cultivators had been hit squarely and torn in two! Internal organs, broken bones, and ruined limbs were everywhere!

In an instant… a rain of blood descended!

“Bastards!” The old man’s eyes were red. Those who had died were all his clansmen! Inside the clan, any of them were youths of pretty good talent, but in only this attack now… they were merely worth one charge!

Horses given water pass through limpid autumn waters, the chill of wind and water like a blade.[1] Black, red, and white qi exploded and flashed. There were no set defensive formations around him! The first cultivator fled in terror and then… there was a second… a third!

Ahead, in a single attack… the cultivators that formed the Xingtian Legion’s third echelon had all been felled!

Dead was dead, and fled was fled. The old man shivered from head to toe as he stood in place. He absolutely hadn’t expected that there was such a large gap between the clan disciples he had boasted of as elites and a quasi-apex clan!

At this moment, his hand was soaked in blood, yet it wasn’t the blood of the enemy. The enemy… hadn’t even lost a hair. From all around, the black flood surrounded and destroyed them, like an awl plunged into the bottom. The blood of his own kin was on his hand. He had already killed five of his own clan’s disciples, but he now didn’t wish to kill.

At his side, there were another twelve people. These twelve didn’t flee, but rather formed seals at lightning speed. Their movements were very messy, but rays of white light ultimately rose up from the ground. A defensive formation slowly took shape.

The last line of defense. He personally stood here. To lose was absolutely intolerable! Before him was a black line. The pure-white leading rider was dyed in blood, charging towards him at top speed, like a death god!

Yet at this moment, as he looked on at the bottom of the Xingtian Legion’s crescent formation, the leading rider in pure-white armor snapped his head up.

A sensation of extreme danger suddenly arose in his heart. The Xingtian Legion’s two wings hadn’t attacked. In fact, the central forces had all been decimated. Even if the Xingtian Legion’s two wings attacked, it was an exercise in futility, yet what was this feeling?

He hadn’t felt the Xingtian Legion’s collapse on first contact to be unexpected. A war of cultivators and a one-versus-one fight were two different concepts! In similar raids, he no longer knew how many clans he had broken. Among the clans the Screaming Wind Legion had exterminated, not a single one had believed that they wouldn’t be able to resist. However, it was merely a belief. 

Here, unless one could be like Zhao Yun and cut a bloody swath through an army seven times in and out… the usefulness of a single person’s martial skill wasn’t great. [2]

Nevertheless, within the crowd of the final defensive line, he clearly saw an orb of black qi that caused his mind to reel in great shock. This qi was surging forth like a tide!

“FULL CHARGE!!!”

An order was to be followed to the exact letter! In a twinkling, all of the Screaming Wind Legion sped up for the fourth time at an unimaginable speed! No matter what, great power could subdue all techniques!

Before whatever this was could work, dashing through it was the best method!

In the central forces of the crescent formation… all that ultimately remained was ten-somewhat people. They trembled, holding their weapons, but not retreating. At the same time, they suddenly scattered! The leading rider saw… saw an unassuming cultivator there in the middle.

This cultivator wasn’t tall, and there was a knife scar on his face. He was different from the other fleeing cultivators. He… didn’t run away. Instead, he adopted a stance to welcome the enemy. This was the first time the Screaming Wind Legion saw resistance.

Moreover, two nodes of light were shining on this cultivator’s left arm. Horrific qi fluctuations caused everyone’s hearts to quiver!

“Junior Brother…” Fang Cheng locked his eyes on Xu Yangyi, who was on the battlefield and had long since been altered by the Thousand Illusions. At this moment, Xu Yangyi’s cloths rippled in the wind, and the demon slayer’s eyes were desolate. Fang Cheng almost didn’t dare to recognize his junior brother because of the other’s murderous aura and spiritual pressure!

In kind, Chu Zhaonan couldn’t take his eyes away, yet the grips of the dual pistols in his hands were already moist with sweat. He understood… He completely understood… He hadn’t attacked now… because Xu Yangyi wanted to use his own power to obstruct the Screaming Wind Legion’s charge!

As long as Xu Yangyi obstructed and stopped this black tide’s attack, their faction’s two wings could then rush and pounce the enemy! However, the cavalry had increased speed four times! They were equipped with mostly supreme magik artifacts! At this instant, their air of death was brimming, the force of their impact having reached the summit! Did Xu Yangyi really think he was Zhang Fei? Shouting loudly as he broke Dangyang Bridge? [3]

But… if Xu Yangyi really could resist and force the black tide to stop, and once the cavalry’s offense was blocked… since the Linghu Clan was deep in the middle of the crescent moon formation, he and Fang Cheng’s two wings were bound to come, even if Xu Yangyi didn’t speak!

When the time came, who was shearing through who, this situation… would be completely reversed!

On the battlefield, Li Zongyuan was the only person who relaxed a little bit. He was in Chu Zhaonan’s left wing. Only he knew… of what a single slash of the Ketu-Rahu Sword’s power was like!

Even if this sword cost the lives of so many, there was a possibility that it couldn’t eliminate all of the Screaming Wind Legion. And yet… in the end, this was a move that infinitely approached Foundation Establishment! It would bring this seemingly unstoppable black flood to a halting screech. He wasn’t worried in the slightest!

1. This is a poem by a major Tang poet named Wang Changling (698-756 CE). The gist of the entire poem depicts the scene of a border fortress, and an anti-war sentiment.

2. Zhao Yun. Died 229 CE. This is a reference to the great hero of the Three Kingdoms era. The story goes as follows. Zhao Yun was loyal to the warlord Liu Bei. Liu Bei had a son named Liu Shan, who got captured. So Zhao Yun slaughtered his way in and out of a “million-strong army” to rescue Liu Shan, and killed many enemy soldiers.

3. Another reference from the Three Kingdoms era. Zhang Fei was known for his strength and brutality. During the Battle of Changban, he stood alone at Dangyang Bridge against Cao Cao’s forces to trick them into not attacking (because they thought Zhang Fei’s forces would ambush them. In truth, Zhang Fei only had twenty riders with him).