Wei Yuan and the Shadowless Flying Ferret slew all the giant beasts, but several meticulously constructed earth fort zones were destroyed as well. The area was now flooded with highly toxic black water that rendered it impassable for humans.
At this point, the humans’ heavyweight held a clear advantage in the Beyond, and no Great Shaman could stop Wei Yuan on the ground. Thus, Wei Yuan began to redeploy his forces while simultaneously playing his final trump card on the battlefield.
His final trump card consisted of two legions, each comprising 30,000 soldiers. They were arrayed in neat formation, all equipped with cuirasses but carrying no shields. When they encountered the Shaman army, they would close in and fire at them from close range. If the Shaman army managed to charge to the front of their formation, they would engage in close-quarters combat with their bayonets, while the flanking units advanced to provide crossfire.
One of these legions consisted of handpicked soldiers from diverse backgrounds, while the other was composed entirely of Xu Clan youngsters. Each legion had its own distinct characteristics.
The mixed legion boasted a higher average level of cultivation and stronger individual combat prowess. On the other hand, the Xu Clan youngsters were uniformly disciplined and utterly fearless. They remained unflinching and unperturbed even when the enemy’s sabers and spears had pierced their body, continuing to fire as before.
The Shaman braves, organized by tribe, charged toward their enemy as an entire tribe. However, the most successful of these attacks saw no more than a few hundred fighters successfully break through the mixed legion’s formation, only to be cut down one by one by the bayonets.
The 30,000 Xu Clan youngsters were like cold, ruthless reaping machines, firing their guns ceaselessly while moving as a single, unified entity. If someone were to listen closely, they would discover that even the overall rhythm of their gunfire was perfectly synchronized.
Since forming the Fire of Humanity, commanding tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield was no longer a burden to Wei Yuan. Although the Xu Clan youngsters were slightly weaker in terms of overall strength, their combat effectiveness far exceeded that of the mixed legion.
After several rounds of combat like this, even the Shamans were cowed by the Xu Clan youngsters’ devilish unity and instinctively sought to distance themselves. More and more tribes shifted their focus to attack the mixed legion instead.
Positioned on the left and right flanks, the two legions gradually penetrated deep into the rear of the entire Shaman front lines. The plan was for them to converge behind the Shaman army at Ding’an City.
The Shaman’s commanding general saw through Wei Yuan’s strategy and hurriedly redeployed his forces to block the two legions.
However, the two legions were purely offensive forces, and the Shamans did not have many organized archer units left after the prolonged battle. Every time Wei Yuan spotted an archer unit, he would throw a jade mountain straight to the center. Unable to field their bows and arrows, the Shamans simply had nothing that could halt the two legions’ advance.
In addition, Wei Yuan deployed one unit after another, firmly pinning down the Shamans’ main force and rendering them unable to maneuver effectively or divert additional troops to halt the two legions’ advance.
As the battle reached a temporary stalemate, Wei Yuan calmly surveyed the battlefield, directing the battle while dealing with any archer unit he spotted. In the process, he also wounded multiple Great Shamans in rapid succession. He even deliberately slowed the pace of the battle to force the Shamans to commit more troops to intercept the two elite legions.
At the edge of the battlefield, the faint clatter of hooves suddenly rang out. The sound grew louder and louder until finally, a column of military aura surged into the sky. A force of heavily armored cavalry had appeared behind the Shamans’ lines!
They were the Dragon Run Army and Dragon Wings Army. At the very start of the battle, Wei Yuan had commanded them to make a wide detour outside the domain and return to attack the Shamans’ rear. They had long been in position, but it was only now that Wei Yuan gave the order to attack.
Their first target was the Shamans’ western wing. This force had penetrated deep into the Realm and Qingming and, after a series of bloody battles, had already suffered tens of thousands of casualties. It was clearly beginning to waver. With their retreat now cut off, the Shaman force’s army aura showed signs of collapse, and the troops’ will to fight had vanished.
Seeing the dire situation, the commanding general of this force detached 20,000 fighters to attack the Dragon Run Army and Dragon Wings Army, hoping to clear a retreat route.
However, the two armies split up. The Dragon Run Army dismounted and formed a defensive formation on the spot to hold their ground, whereas the Dragon Wings Army bypassed the 20,000 soldiers to charge directly at the rear of the Shamans’ main force!
The Shaman fighters all realized that they were at a critical point of life and death. Their fighting spirit boiled like never before as they fought with reckless abandon. But no matter how fiercely they charged, the Dragon Run Army’s formation of just 5,000 men remained unshakable. The commanding general called in another 20,000 troops to reinforce the assault, and still they weren’t able to break through.
In the blink of an eye, several thousand Shaman corpses littered the ground before the Dragon Run Army’s formation.
Seeing that the rear flank remained impenetrable, the Shaman fighters on the western wing finally showed signs of panic and disorder.
A cold gleam flashed in Wei Yuan’s eyes—the moment had arrived!
A strange, buzzing sound suddenly rang out from within Ding’an City as two giant crossbows were pushed into position by dozens of Dao Foundation stage cultivators. The crossbows had long been primed and ready; the moment they entered their positions, the bowstrings twanged, and the massive crossbolts they were carrying vanished in an instant!
The faces of the few Great Shamans surrounding and attacking Wei Yuan suddenly paled. They turned to flee, but it was already too late.
Wei Yuan instantly manifested the Fire of Humanity. Amid the bustling scene of humanity, all allied units were empowered, while the enemy were comprehensively depowered. Although the magnitude of the empowerment was not as great as that of Outlawed by Heaven and Earth, the Fire of Humanity had an extremely wide range, and there was no limit to the number of people it could empower.
Enveloped by the Fire of Humanity, the Great Shamans’ speed suddenly slowed by a whole third. As a result, two of them suddenly exploded into pieces, struck down by the massive crossbow bolts. The remaining Great Shamans, scared out of their wits, activated to their own life-saving methods and tried to flee.
Just then, a white figure flashed through the air.A ferret bit down on one of the Great Shamans, causing them to let out a blood-curdling scream as their massive body plummeted straight to the ground! The cat also appeared, clawing a Great Shaman on the back. Then, the snake coiled around another Great Shaman’s tail, pulling him back and slowly down his movements. Finally, eight immortal swords appeared in the air with a magnificent flourish and unleashed a flurry of wild slashes at a Great Shaman.
Wei Yuan was actually planning to wipe out this entire group of Great Shamans!
However, as was often the case with reality, things did not go exactly the way he hoped it would. The last Great Shaman struck out with a palm strike and sent all eight immortal swords flying, causing Trueman Chu He to spit blood in midair. He then broke free and escaped.
Eager to eliminate the three Great Shamans who had been intercepted, Wei Yuan decided against pursuing the one who escaped. He could only watch helplessly as the Great Shaman withdrew back to the Shamans’ main force.
As soon as the giant crossbows of Ding’an City came into play, every Great Shaman felt threatened and retreated back into their army aura, no longer daring to emerge and engage in hit-and-run skirmishes. At the same time, short, sharp horn blasts rang out continuously from the Shaman ranks, and the entire army began to retreat.
Suddenly, Wei Yuan looked up into the sky. An unbelievably terrifying presence had suddenly appeared in the Beyond—it felt as if multiple pairs of eyes were piercing through layer upon layers of barrier and penetrating countless worlds to gaze in this direction!
Instantly, Wei Yuan’s entire body grew ice cold, his perception trembled, and his sea of consciousness felt as thought it had been frozen solid! He immediately withdrew his Avatar, suppressed his aura, and remained motionless.
The ferret flickered once and burrowed underground, the cat vanished into the chaotic sea of bodies, and the snake slithered into a pile of corpses.
Only Trueman Chu He, having just finished spitting out his blood and so was clueless as to what had just happened, manifested his eight immortal swords once more. Radiant and brimming with murderous intent, he set out to find his next opponent.
Several terrifying wills swept across the land, and an icy, damp, and murderous sensation swept through everyone’s hearts. The stronger the cultivator, the more their hearts pounded, and the less they dared to move, for fear of being detected.
Those wills also swept through the clueless Trueman Chu He and—treated him as if he were air.
Suddenly, several figures appeared in the sky, and five shadowy lights shot off into the distance in an instant. The human True Lords also appeared one after another, though, all of them were holding their breaths, suppressing their qi, and remaining motionless.
Those terrifying wills seemed to be drawn to the streaks of shadowy lights that had flown away. They instinctively gave chase, but after following them for around 1,000 li, they seemingly ran into some obstacle and gradually faded away.
At the moment, Trueman Chu He finally noticed that the battlefield had fallen into an eerie silence. Just as he was trying to make sense of it, everything suddenly came alive again, leaving him even more baffled.
The Shaman army began a full-scale retreat, casting Blood Curses along their retreat route to prevent the humans from pursuing them. Both the middle guard and the eastern wing managed to withdraw safely, but the western wing had its retreat cut off. In the end, aside from a few who managed to escape by scaling the mountains and crossing the valleys, the entire force was annihilated.
Although the Shamans were retreating, the humans’ True Lords remained motionless like frozen statues.
It wasn’t until exactly twenty-four hours had passed that the young monk finally chanted a Buddhist mantra and remarked, “Indeed, there was a great terror. My poor heart.”