82: Chapter 82 Golden Elixir and Jade Sword: A Last-Minute Comeback

When the first opening cracked, everyone heard it.

Not with their ears.

But in their hearts.

It was as if something snapped inside their chests with a "click."

The opening was only three zhang wide.

For the usual grand formation, it was nothing at all.

But for the five-segment live line of Xuangui Island, cobbled together and held up by human lives and Spirit Stone slots, these three zhang were the gate that the White Bone Armored General had been waiting for all night and half a day.

As soon as the opening appeared, the three leading Black Armor Elites immediately stepped on their bone shields and rushed in.

Behind them were no sea beasts.

No scattered soldiers.

They were organized Black Armor Elites.

With shields in front and spears behind, the black fire beneath their feet burned the seawater until it turned pale. Once they rushed in, they headed straight for the Old Turtle Head Stone.

The thunder-fire formation platform released by Li Heng had only just shattered the first two bone shields when the third row of Black Armor Elites was already pushing through, pressing against the exploding thunder light.

Lu Hu gave a low roar, and fifty riders cut in from the East Shoal.

The Purple Lightning Seahorses trampled over the shallow waves, crashing into them sideways, but the first wave only knocked over seven or eight men.

But these Black Armor troops were nothing like the semi-demonic sea beasts of last night.

Those knocked down scrambled up immediately.

Those who weren't turned their shields.

A dozen spears hooked sideways simultaneously, and black fire grazed the belly armor of a seahorse. The seahorse let out a miserable shriek on the spot, its entire body sank, and both rider and mount crashed sideways into the shoal.

"Drag the man away!"

Lu Hu slashed a spearhead away, but he didn't push deeper.

He remembered Lu Changyuan's words.

Do not be greedy.

So, gritting his teeth, he only cut into the third row.

He targeted those carrying bone baskets and scattering black rain.

With one strike, a Black Armor Cultivator was split open along with his shoulder and basket. Gray-black powder spilled everywhere, instantly corroding the soles of his two companions' boots and emitting black smoke.

The cavalry behind spotted the gap and launched another oblique charge, forcefully tearing an opening in the third row.

But the opening in the front was still expanding.

Li Heng's second Formation Flag snapped.

The talisman lines that Chen Mo had smeared with blood had just been applied to the stone base when they were pressed by the black tide, trembling violently.

The situation at the Outer Port was even more chaotic.

Complete human voices could no longer be heard through the command token, only the dull thuds of wood colliding and tides hitting the piles, occasionally mixed with a couple of hoarse, barely recognizable position reports.

"The second pile is still holding."

"The damaged ship is still moored."

"Someone fell into the water, but was pulled back up."

Lu Changyuan stood at the very front of the high platform.

When the black tide surged in through the opening, a few drops of dirty rain splashed onto his face; it was cold, sticky, and carried a vile Qi that felt like it wanted to burrow into his bone joints.

The command token was burning hot.

Not just hot.

It felt like it was urging him.

Urging him to throw out his last two greatest trump cards right now.

But he didn't move.

The White Bone Armored General hadn't entered yet.

It was still outside.

Its blade pressed down, staring, like a patient beast, letting the front row of Black Armor Elites trample the last few dozen zhang between the Northern Ridge and the Old Turtle Head Stone into a pot of rotting blood and black mud.

It was waiting for Lu Changyuan to panic.

As long as Lu Changyuan played his trump cards first, it would be able to follow up in the next step.

Lu Changyuan stared at it, becoming even calmer instead.

He suddenly raised his hand and reached into his sleeve.

When his fingertips touched that small white jade sword, his entire arm went slightly numb.

Ice.

Sharpness.

And a trace of Killing Intent sealed extremely tightly.

Luo Qingcheng had said one thing when she handed this thing to him.

Below the Golden Core, touch it and you die.

Above the Golden Core, it's still enough to give you a hard time.

This was not for saving the second pile of the Outer Port.

Nor was it for mending the first segment of the live line at the Northern Ridge.

It was for killing the person who most deserved to be killed, at the moment they most deserved to be killed.

Lu Changyuan held the small white jade sword in his palm, still not moving.

The White Bone Armored General finally saw it.

The two points of red light beneath its helmet contracted, and for the first time, its blade truly turned toward Lu Changyuan.

The next instant, its entire body didn't press forward.

Instead, it took a step out from the black tide.

The blade fell.

This strike wasn't aimed at the high platform.

It was aimed at the Old Turtle Head Stone.

As the blade's force pressed down, the entire sea surface seemed to be torn open into a grayish-white crack.

The front row of Black Armor Elites simultaneously crouched low, and dozens of bone shields were raised up, as if forcefully paving a bone bridge beneath the White Bone Armored General's feet.

It leaped across the bridge.

Ten miles.

Five miles.

Three miles.

Bloodshot veins burst in Chen Mo's eyes: "It wants to break the stone itself!"

Li Heng shouted hoarsely: "Vice Envoy!"

Lu Changyuan finally raised the small white jade sword in his hand.

"Everyone get down!"

These three words were not roared out.

But with the command token, the people on the five-segment live line heard them almost simultaneously.

Li Heng was the first to throw himself down.

Chen Mo grabbed his grandson and pressed into the stone trough together.

At the East Shoal, Lu Hu forced back the Black Armor Cultivator in front of him with a slash, then yanked the reins hard, making his seahorse flip sideways into the shadow of a reef.

Over at the Outer Port, the one-legged Cultivator didn't even hear clearly; he just instinctively pressed himself and the broken flagstaff behind a wooden pile.

Then.

Lu Changyuan crushed the small white jade sword.

There was no earth-shattering sword hum.

Only an extremely faint "hum."

It was as if someone had plucked a string in everyone's glabella simultaneously.

The next instant, a snow-white sword light slid out from his palm.

It didn't strike toward the sea.

It didn't strike toward the Black Armor troops.

It struck straight at the white bone figure stepping across the bone bridge.

Too fast.

Fast enough that the black tide hadn't yet had time to part.

Fast enough that the White Bone Armored General had just seen that speck of white light when a thin line cracked across its helmet.

It suddenly held its long bone blade horizontally in front of its chest, trying to block.

But that was not something it could block.

The snow-white sword light swept across the bone bridge; the bridge didn't shatter.

Instead, in the next breath, it turned uniformly frozen white.

It swept across the black tide; the black tide didn't stop immediately.

But in the instant the Sword Intent entered, it was as if it had been forcefully nailed in mid-air by an invisible ice nail.

The middle section of the sword light landed precisely on the White Bone Armored General's chest.

Silently.

Its heavy white bone armor, which hadn't truly cracked even after being bombarded by purple thunder all night, first split all the way from the hilt to the waist and abdomen.

Immediately after, the long blade broke, the armor cracked, and even the two points of red light beneath the helmet seemed to have been pierced by a snow-white frost line, suddenly dimming.

The White Bone Armored General let out its first true roar.

It wasn't a human voice.

It sounded like countless bone shards scraping together.

It made people's eardrums ache.

But it wasn't over yet.

The residual force of the sword light hadn't dissipated; it swept along the bone bridge behind it, dragging the three densest rows of Black Armor Elites on, behind, and beside the bridge into the frost white.

Dozens of bone shields instantly froze and cracked, the black fire was suppressed and extinguished, and even the black rain that hadn't yet been scattered paused in mid-air, turning into flakes of gray-black ice crystals that smashed into the sea.

Boom!

Only at this moment did the sound catch up.

The entire Northern Ridge sea surface seemed to have been torn open by a single sword strike.

A wall of waves exploded more than a dozen zhang high.

The black tide was forcefully split in half from the middle; the first half crashed onto the reef line, while the second half was frozen further outside.

The live line on the Northern Ridge of Xuangui Island, which had already cracked, was surged by this suddenly reversed cold malevolence and Sword Intent, and it actually "lit up" for an instant in response.

It was this very instant.

Li Heng was the first to crawl up, grabbing the Formation Flag that only had half left and pressing it into the stone trough: "The first segment has regained its light! Replenish the sand! Replenish the sand!"

Chen Mo coughed up blood and slapped out the last three talismans: "Seal the stone base! Seal the stone base!"

Lu Hu also flipped onto his horse, his eyes completely red: "Cavalry, cut in!"

This time, it wasn't just cutting into the third row.

It was cutting into the breach.

The White Bone Armored General had been struck head-on by that sword, but it didn't die.

However, it retreated.

It wasn't a calm retreat.

Half of its heavy white bone armor was cracked, revealing a cavity in its chest where frost white and black Qi were churning together, and the entire being was forcefully slashed back behind the black tide.

The moment it landed, two Black Armor Cultivators behind it tried to support it, but as soon as their hands touched it, their arms were severed by the residual Sword Qi exploding from within its body.

When those two points of dark red eye light shone again, that stability from before was gone.

It had gained a trace of true ferocity and shock.

It stared fixedly at Lu Changyuan on the high platform, as if it wanted to carve that face into its bones.

But it didn't charge again.

Because the bridge in front of it was gone.

The shield line behind it was also in chaos.

A portion of the black tide on the outside was frozen, the Black Armor Elites on the inside were cut into by the cavalry and the thunder-fire formation platform simultaneously, and the thunder pattern around the Old Turtle Head Stone, which was originally about to be wiped out, was forcefully pressed back by Li Heng, Chen Mo, and dozens of defenders using sand, talismans, and their lives.

The situation had only turned around by a breath.

Not completely turned around.

But for the White Bone Armored General, it was already bad enough.

It suddenly raised its hand.

Not to press the blade down again.

But backward.

The batch of Black Armor Cultivators in the very front who were still charging desperately were clearly stunned for a moment, then immediately began to change formation and retreat.

Three black boats withdrew simultaneously, and the remaining black rain that hadn't completely dissipated was also pulled away by the black fire in the rear, like pieces of rotten clouds being rolled back.

Lu Changyuan stood on the high platform, his palm already cut open, flesh exposed by the broken intent of the jade sword.

The White Bone Armored General was retreating.

But he did not pursue.

Because he could see exactly what the five-segment live line of Xuangui Island had been ground down into.

The first segment of the Northern Ridge had only regained half a breath.

The secondary flags of the second pile at the Outer Port were all shattered.

Half of the Spirit Stone slots at the Central Military Drill Ground were bottomed out.

Over at the East Shoal, among the three cavalrymen Lu Hu had just dragged back, one was already dead.

This was not the time to pursue.

So he just raised his blade, pointing forward.

"Leave everyone who charged inside the line."

"Do not pursue the black boats."

"Clear the line first."

The order fell, and Li Heng, Chen Mo, and Lu Hu all answered simultaneously.

This time, there was finally more than just fear in their voices.

There was also a fierce Qi that had been forcefully dragged back.

The Northern Ridge of Xuangui Island was alive.

It wasn't a great victory.

It was being snatched back half a step from the gates of hell by a single sword strike.

And further out on the sea, the White Bone Armored General, pressing against its cracked chest armor, had already retreated ten miles into the depths of the black tide.

It didn't look at the formation again.

It only stared at Lu Changyuan on the high platform, slowly raising the hand that was still gripping the broken blade, and wiped it across the crack on its own chest.

After the wipe, its hand was full of black blood.

Then, it raised that hand and made a distant grasping gesture toward Xuangui Island.

As if it were settling this debt.