799: The Great War Begins

The soaring Demonic Qi condensed into a gray-black cloud that blotted out the sun! It completely swallowed the originally clear sky!

The wild winds howled, kicking up sand, stones, and withered branches from the ground!

It was a scene of doomsday, like dark clouds bearing down on a city to crush it, or the wind preceding a mountain storm!

The vanguard of the beast tide was less than ten li away from the city walls!

On the watchtower's command platform, Han Tianzheng was clad in heavy armor, his eyes sharp as an eagle's as he stared fixedly at the points of light representing the beast tide moving across the battlefield sand table!

"Target! The beast tide vanguard! Full coverage strike!"

"All City Defense Spirit Cannons! Load Spirit Stones!"

"Ready—"

Clack! Clack! Clack!

Along the towering and thick walls of Biqiu City, massive Spiritual Energy Cannons stood every few dozen meters, covered in runes and shimmering with a cold metallic luster!

Massive amounts of Low-Grade Spirit Stones were frantically thrown into the energy furnaces at the base of the cannons!

Buzz— Buzz— Buzz—!

The complex rune circuits on the barrels of dozens of Spirit Cannons lit up like blood vessels with a piercing ghostly blue light! Terrifying energy gathered frantically at the muzzles!

"Fire!!!!!"

Han Tianzheng let out a roar like a crack of thunder!

"Boom—!!!"

The world lost its color!

Dozens of blazing white spheres of light, several zhang in diameter and condensed with destructive energy, fell like falling stars. Trailing long tails of light and accompanied by ear-splitting shrieks, they slammed into the black ocean of the beast tide!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Deafening explosions merged into one!

Huge flames and shockwaves instantly swallowed everything within a several-hundred-meter radius of the blast centers!

Extremely shrill beastly roars resounded through the sky!

Severed limbs, foul-smelling flesh, and shattered carapaces rained down from the sky!

Just one volley!

Over a thousand Rank Three and Rank Four low-level Yao Beasts charging at the front were instantly turned to dust! They didn't even have time to scream!

It was as if a large chunk had been instantly hollowed out of the black tide!

However!

For those Rank Five and Rank Six Yao Beasts with larger bodies, harder carapaces, or extreme speed, while the power of the Spirit Cannons could blow them back or injure them, it was difficult to deal a fatal blow!

Bloodthirsty red light flickered in their eyes as they stepped over the corpses and blood of their companions, charging even more frantically toward the city walls!

"Second round! Load! Ready— Fire!!"

Han Tianzheng showed no mercy and roared again!

Another tens of thousands of Low-Grade Spirit Stones burned!

Another round of world-destroying cannon fire swept the ground!

The beast tide vanguard was once again shaved down by a layer!

But there were simply too many Yao Beasts!

They seemed endless!

After paying a heavy price in casualties, the vanguard—those Rank Five and Rank Six Yao Beasts with massive bodies and thick hides—had already charged fearlessly to within a few hundred meters of the city walls!

Their hideous fangs, foul-smelling saliva, and bloodshot, bloodthirsty pupils were now clearly visible!

"Disciples of all sects, hear my command!" Ji Yanshuang's clear and stirring voice resounded across the city walls like a Phoenix crying out to the Nine Heavens!

"All those skilled in long-range attacks!"

"Blast them—with everything you've got!"

"Target! The high-level Yao Beasts attacking the walls!"

"Kill—!!!"

With her command!

The thousands of Cultivators from various sects who had been waiting in readiness all along the city walls instantly erupted with earth-shaking Aura!

"Tyrant Blade Sect! Golden Astral Mountain-Splitting Slash! Release!"

"Heavenly Sound Pavilion! Soul-Suppressing Evil-Breaking Sound! Rise!"

"Medicine King Valley! Myriad Poison Bone-Corroding Miasma! Scatter!"

"Chiyan Peak! Sky-Burning Flowing Fire! Fall!"

Countless Spiritual Power attacks of different colors and attributes, all containing powerful destructive force, were like a destructive meteor shower flowing upward! They poured down densely from the city walls, covering the sky!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Chii chii chii—!

Awooo—!

The explosions of Spells, the wails of Yao Beasts, and the humming of Magic Treasures intertwined into a tragic and magnificent battlefield symphony!

Below the city walls, the area instantly turned into a Shura sea of blood! The casualties among the Rank Five and Rank Six Yao Beasts began to skyrocket!

However!

The momentum of the beast tide did not weaken in the slightest! The subsequent Yao Beasts stepped over the mountain of corpses ahead, still surging forward like madmen! Their charge became even more ferocious!

A flash of determination crossed Ji Yanshuang's flame-like eyes!

"The time has come!" She gave a clear cry!

"Cultivators of the Golden Core Stage and above!" Out of thin air, a divine sword appeared in her hand—Star Burner! It was entirely crimson, as if forged from flowing lava, with blazing fire wrapped around its blade!

"Follow me—"

"Out of the city to meet the enemy! Slay the demons and monsters!"

Ji Yanshuang merged with her sword, turning into a blazing fire-rainbow that tore through the sky. Like a meteorite, she leaped directly from the city wall and crashed into the dense, hideous, roaring beast tide!

"Kill—!!!"

"Follow Peak Master Ji!"

"Kill all these beasts!"

Thousands of figures with cultivation at least at the Golden Core Stage followed closely behind. Like a bursting flood, carrying a resolution to face death, they roared as they charged down the city walls and into the beast swarm! Familiar figures like Mu Long and Liu Tiezhu were among them!

The moment Ji Yanshuang charged into the beast tide!

"Li—!"

A clear Phoenix cry echoed across the battlefield!

A terrifyingly high temperature, enough to boil mountains and seas, erupted from around her!

Swish! Swish! Swish! ...Exactly ninety-nine illusory Clones, their Auras linked to her main body and also burning with raging flames, instantly took shape within the massive beast tide!

Thousand Illusions Sky-Burning Clone!

Although each Clone only had ten to twenty percent of the main body's strength, a full hundred figures burning with Star Burner's flames were no different from a hundred descended fire gods within the low-level beast swarm!

"Burn!"

"Exterminate!"

"Ashes!"

A hundred figures spoke in unison! A hundred Star Burner divine swords swung simultaneously!

Boom—!!!

Within a radius of several li, the area instantly turned into a sky-burning sea composed purely of crimson, golden, and white flames!

Wherever the flames reached, whether it was the Rank Three and Four low-level cannon fodder or the Rank Five and Six core forces, they all melted like wax thrown into a furnace, vaporizing instantly without even leaving ashes behind!

In just one encounter! At least a thousand Yao Beasts were annihilated under the hundred Sky-Burning flames! A large area was cleared!

And while this sky-burning sea of fire raged and Ji Yanshuang single-handedly disrupted the core of the beast tide!

At the highest point of the watchtower, Yao Delong still stood with his hands behind his back, his robes snapping in the wild wind.

His expression was calm, but his gaze seemed to penetrate the chaotic battlefield, passing over the burning sea of fire and the roaring beast swarm, casting a deep and cold look beyond the battlefield—

Toward the depths of the Great Desolate Forest, where the Demonic Qi was thickest and most silent!

His majestic and vast Divine Thought, like a galaxy, spread out silently. Like the most precise spider web, it firmly locked onto every abnormal Aura fluctuation at the edge of the battlefield!

He had only one target!

The existence hidden behind the scenes, emitting the Aura of a Peak Yao King!

Where was it? When would it appear?

In Yao Delong's palm, a strand of invisible power capable of tearing through space quietly condensed.

And at the end of his vision, within the shadows of the forest filled with Demonic Qi, a pair of massive, cold, blood-red eyes, full of endless brutality and greed, were staring through layers of space, fixed firmly on that solitary golden figure on the watchtower... A more terrifying, deeper pressure was slowly awakening...