by <unknown>
The so-called 'dynasties' were merely the puppets of such 'sects'. There might be few Cultivators in the court or in the army.
Most of the Cultivators would stay in the headquarters of their sects and occasionally go down the mountains to remote control the puppets.
However, in some of the worlds of ancient Cultivators, the local dynasties were established by the Cultivators, and the Cultivators were integrated into the mortal world in every aspect. The emperor was a Cultivator, and the major ministers and generals were Cultivators, too. Such cases were not rare, either.
It seemed that the world here was an excellent example. Because of the overly-abundant spiritual energy in the world, the number of Cultivators was likely very high. It was impossible for them to live in seclusion. They had to go into the world of mortals and construct a relatively stable social system together with the ordinary people for the sake of the benefits of both parties.
Under the lead of the 'vanguards' and 'captains' who were in the Refinement Stage, the emperor's army fought back like tigers and wolves. They gradually recovered from the shock of being ambushed and reorganized their battle formation.
However, since the barbarians were bold enough to bite the hard bone that was the 'emperor's army', their teeth were certainly rather tough, too.
In terms of their body figure, born and raised in the hot and damp southern land, they were much more slender than the soldiers from the central land.
However, their bronze-colored skin and their muscles that resembled dried beef indicated their excellent body build.
As natural-born jungle hunters, they were jumping up and down among the branches like slippery monkeys and appeared right behind the emperor's army without a sound like ghosts.
Compared with the fine armor and blades of the emperor's army, their equipment was much more ragged.
However, the venomous fog they spurted out, the vipers on their arms, and the scorpions, centipedes, and other pests hidden inside the bamboo baskets they carried significantly made up for the shortcoming of their gear. The emperor's army was struggling to deal with them.
Even in the head-on clashes…
"Huh?"
Li Yao's eyes were keen enough to notice that a vanguard in the Refinement Stage in the emperor's army was blocked by a short, thin barbarian. The blades of the two parties raised clusters of sparks after collision, but neither of them could defeat the other.
Upon closer inspection, Li Yao discovered that, while the vanguard was summoning his spiritual energy with his face flushing, the barbarian's pupils turned into two narrow slots, and his jaw and his teeth protruded out.
This is a… demon!
Li Yao saw through the changes of the barbarian easily.
When the vanguard of the emperor's army was unleashing the spiritual energy without bothering anything, the barbarian was bombarding his mitochondria, awakening the primeval cells inside his body, and displaying part of the features of demons!
However, the barbarians did not seem pure demons, either.
They were more like hybrids of human beings and demons and only kept part of the features of demons.
But it does make sense.
It should be noted that there was no distinction between 'human beings' and 'demons' in the primeval era. Demons were merely another battle form of human beings. Everybody was a comrade who was enlightened by the Nuwa Clan and who fought side by side.
The serious contradiction between human beings and demons in the outside civilizations is because the 'Ultimate One Sect' forty thousand years was insane enough to transform them into Ultimate One Demons in their pursuit to rule over the entire universe, which led to the thirty thousand years of Great Dark Era. It is the source of the bloody grudge between the two parties.
If the Sector here hasn't reached out to other worlds for tens of thousands of years, naturally, they know neither the Ultimate One Demons nor the 'Great Dark Era'.
Then, it is perfectly normal that the boundary between human beings and demons is ambiguous here, and that some of them were even married and gave birth to hybrid descendants.
Honestly speaking, the weapons, battle techniques, and organization of the emperor's army were all better than those of the barbarians. If the two parties fought on an open plateau, the barbarians would have been beaten to the ground in several minutes.
However, the battlefield was a forest, with smoke, swamps, and pits everywhere.
The terrain was in the barbarians' favor, and they were well-prepared for the ambush. Together with their determination to die together with the enemy, they even managed to fight on par with the emperor's army without losing.
The emperor's army grew somewhat agitated when they failed to defeat the enemy after so long.
After all, they were on an expedition mission. One casualty meant one fewer warrior.
Even if ten barbarians were killed in the meantime, the vacancies would be filled easily from the forest that was as boundless as the ocean.
The black-armored general under the 'Appeasing Ambassador of the Fifth Prefecture of the Southland of Sorcerers' suddenly roared before he bashed the two hammers in his hands hard, raising a deafening noise!
The two hammers were embedded with hundreds of colorful rings respectively. After the violent collision, the bronze rings rotated quickly and unleashed mystic rays, covering the battlefield several square kilometers nearby like an upside-down bowl!
The black-armored general's face was so pale that he nearly fell down from his horse, but he gritted his teeth and smashed the hammers another time!
The second hit was even louder than the first one. The sound echoed around the entire battlefield like a running river.
A weird thing happened!
In the coverage of the soundwaves and the mystic rays, the morale of the emperor's army was significantly boosted. All the ordinary soldiers bulged their eyes, their skin breaking apart and their muscles protruding. The vanguards and the captains were even more rampant, and the auras of their blades were surging out like rainbows.
The barbarians, on the other hand, seemed to panic at the deafening noise and forgot how to resist when the enemy's weapons were slashing toward their faces!
Shua! Shua! Shua!
Dozens of well-tempered sabers slashed down brutally, cutting the barbarians in half with blade auras that were more than ten meters long. The guts of the barbarians were spraying everywhere on the ground. The air was immediately wreathed in burning redness.
The emperor's army took the opportunity to march forward. The battle formation of the barbarians, which had been rather disorganized in the first place, was further shattered apart.
Seeing the devastating wounds of their companions, the fearless barbarians were putting on expressions of fear and horror and roaring like wounded animals.
Chapter 1339: Orchid Sword |
What a marvelous piece of soundwave magical equipment!
Li Yao analyzed the battle. The hammers that the black-armored general utilized seemed to have the ability to trigger the fighting will or the sense of terror by stimulating one's nerve endings with soundwaves. It was a rather impressive piece of magical equipment for collective attacks.
However, since the same soundwaves could trigger the fighting of the soldiers on his side and devastate the enemy simultaneously, some sort of advanced 'friend-or-foe identification rune array' seemed to have been activated.
Li Yao pondered carefully for a moment but failed to figure out the mechanism of such a rune array.
It suggested that the Sector had special knowledge in terms of refining, too, which was worth studying.
The barbarians' roar seemed to be a call. A bizarre-shaped bird, with hideous claws and teeth, suddenly flew into the sky in a panic because of the shock.
Many giant trees were leaning awry on the ground, making the ground thunder, as if a rock weighing ten thousand kilograms was rushing over!
Very soon, a giant tree that even five peopl
e would not be able to hold was thrown toward the emperor's army and hit four soldiers precise, blowing the victims into piles of blood and meat immediately.
Amid ear-splitting laughter, a behemothic shadow lunged out from the depths of the forest, which turned out to be an enormous demon beast almost ten meters long, with heavy armor all over the body and a long horn on its head, which made it look like both a rhino and an elephant!
The rhino demon beast was raging among the soldiers of the emperor's army like a crystal tank.
Because of the thick skin and the lumps on it, the general weapons and blade auras could not even pierce into the demon beast's body.
The crash of the demon beast, on the other hand, could knock three to five soldiers into the sky every time. The soldiers were often broken apart on the spot and killed before they had the chance to scream.
Right on the back of the rhino demon beast was a seat made of vines. A bald, muscular man in a sloppy robe, who looked like both a monk and a mortal, was sitting on the seat cross-legged while cackling.
The bald, muscular man was so fat that the flesh on his body was moving up and down like waves when he was laughing. But as it happened, his body had tattoos that were snakes, bugs, rats, and ants everywhere. When his body was shaking, it looked like countless pests were crawling on his body. Anybody who saw it would feel that their blood was freezing.
The bald man was waving a saber made of bones, which was embedded with nine bone rings. Upon closer inspection, one would notice that the skulls of many reptiles were bound to the nine bone rings. They clattered whenever the weapon was shaken.
Gray threads that looked like withered vines were attached to the saber, giving every feeling of evil and creepiness.
The bald man appeared to be the soul of the barbarians.
His arrival swept away the depression among the barbarians easily.
The clattering skulls on his saber dispelled the echoes generated by the general of the emperor's army easily!
Hearing the sound, the soldiers nearby showed expressions of nausea. Many of them were covered in cold sweat, their faces gloomy.
Li Yao knew that it was a natural reaction because of the abnormal secretion of hormones inside the body after the nerve endings were stimulated, which was not something resistible with courage.
It appeared that attacking the nerves with soundwaves was a common technique in the Sector for every force.
Seeing that the enemy had been suppressed, the bald man was laughing even more crazily. He suddenly threw the nine-ringed saber, and the dozens of skulls on the nine rings, enveloped inside a certain weird force field, flew into the midair.
The skulls must have belonged to the reptiles such as vipers or lizards in the beginning. If one looked into their tiny eyes, tiny, eccentric fires hidden at the center of the skulls could be found.
Once the skulls flew into the air, the eccentric fire immediately bulged and dashed out of the eyes and mouths, lunging at the soldiers of the emperor's army as vipers and lizards!
The soldiers that were caught by the eccentric fire were often burnt up instantly into dry corpses.
The eccentric fire was not only getting more and more vigorous but also transmitting the vitality in the blood back to the bald man's saber through the tiny skulls.
The withered tendrils on the saber immediately expanded. An organ that was beating like a heart was even formed at the center of the interconnecting tendrils.
A combination of flesh and magical equipment!
A bloodthirsty saber!
Li Yao had seen similar magical equipment deep inside the mausoleum of 'Chaos' Ba Yanzhi.
It was a piece of magical equipment that could hibernate for a long time and could automatically cruise, stay on alert, and attack with the blood as the source of power.
Such magical equipment from the mausoleum of Chaos could be traced back to Kunlun, the relic of the Pangu civilization.
The planet below Li Yao's feet, on the other hand, could possibly be a relic of the Pangu civilization of an even greater scale. It was not unusual for such a piece of magical equipment to be found.
It appeared that the emperor's army was about to lose.
The face of the black-armored general under the banner of 'Appeasing Ambassador' was pale, and he was about to fall down. He was trying his best to smash the hammers to raise more soundwaves.
However, the special soundwave could only raise morale and keep the battle formation unbroken at best. It could not stop the savaging of the eccentric fire from the skulls.
The more soldiers it killed, the more blood red the bald man's saber became. Very soon, the aura of the blade extended to more than ten meters away. Repugnant smells were emitted, too.
The bald man grinned hideously. Baring his sharp teeth, he patted the rhino demon beast on his bottom and marched toward the black-armored general.
Judging from the range, brightness of their spiritual energy, and their utilization of their magical equipment, Li Yao estimated that the general on the emperor's army's side was at the beginning level of the Core Formation Stage at best.
The bald man was at least in the middle level of the Core Formation Stage himself, significantly higher than his enemy.
The bloody saber in his hands was apparently a piece of magical equipment more powerful than the general's hammers.
The iron-armored rhino demon beast below him was certainly no match for the general's horse, too.
The result of such a clash was almost too obvious.
Phew!
The horse below the general of the emperor's army had stripes that resembled swirls on both sides of the body, as if it had grown wings. It looked rather extraordinary, too, and must have been a hybrid of a magnificent stallion and a certain spiritual beast.
However, no matter how awesome a breed it was, how could it expect to deal with an iron-armored rhino that was brimming with demonic energy?
Seeing that the enemy was crushing over like a huge mountain of meat, the horse stood on its feet because of the shock and nearly knocked the general off its back.
The fat, bald man naturally would not let go of such a great opportunity. He must have weighed more than two hundred kilograms, yet he lunged at the general of the emperor's army in a streak of bloodiness together with his saber as agile as a swallow.
Right then, an unexpected change took place!
Behind the general of the emperor's army was the banner of 'Appeasing Ambassador of the Fifth Prefecture of the Southland of Sorcerers', and a shabby camp was standing behind the banner. The camp had been quiet in the beginning, as if it were empty. There was not the slightest sound even when the battle was most fierce.
But out of everyone's expectations, when the fat, bald man's attack was performed to such an extent that he was no longer able to change his posture, a deep blue sword aura suddenly dashed out of the curtain of the camp that was not fully closed!
The sword aura was quiet and did not carry any feeling of the mortal world. It darted right toward the center of the fat, bald man's eyebrow, as if somebody had drawn a straight line in midair with an invisible blue pen!
The fat, bald man seemed to have sensed the most dreadful thing in the world. After a shriek, he stopped himself from rushing forward, with explosive sounds all over his body as he broke dozens of bones, before he bounced backward as if he had run into an invisible wall!
In only one moment, he realized that it was a long-devised trap!
His reaction was quick enough, but the blue sword was even quicker. It took an abrupt turn in midair, not in a curve but at almost a right angle, and continued locking onto the center of his eyebrows in a trajectory that was in complete violation of all laws of physics!
Weird sounds were echoing inside the fat, bald man's abdomen, as if ten thousand toads were crying. Then, he opened his mouth and spat out blood, hoping to corrupt the blue sword.
The blue sword, however, disintegrated into nine swords that were even thin
ner the moment before the venomous fog arrived and dashed in all directions before the parts were concentrated above the fat, bald man's head again after unsmooth turns at acute angles.
The light and shadow interconnected with each other, and the lines extended into what appeared to be an upside-down orchid flower that pressed down heavily!
Shua!
The orchid flower made of hundreds of auras of sword pierced through the fat, bald man's enormous body easily!
The ever-surging flesh of the fat, bald man came to a sudden halt.
In the utmost fury and fear, he pointed his bloody saber at the camp.
The curtain of the camp was lifted. A young girl, whose clothes were whiter than snow, strode out casually, with her hands in her back, giving the feeling that she was an orchid inside a valley.
Her nose was very high, like a mountain that rose to the clouds. Her eyes were straight and clear, too. Her eyes were glittering, but confidence that bordered on indifference was flowing out. The battle in front of her eyes, and probably everything in the mortal world, seemed to have nothing to do with her, and she could decide all of them with one of her fingers.
The confidence, arrogance, and even narcissism was the typical expression of many ancient Cultivators in Li Yao's memory.
A Cultivator in the peak of the Core Formation Stage!
The girl was not covering her spiritual waves at all. Therefore, Li Yao could tell easily that she was only several steps away from the Nascent Soul Stage!
As for her flying sword…
The hundreds of blue swords, after piercing through the fat, bald man, spread out and stabbed into the hearts of another dozens of barbarians!
But as a result, the aura of the swords seemed more or less lackluster, suggesting that they might have been contaminated by the enemy's blood.
The girl in white blew a whistle. The swords all returned to her and disappeared in her broad sleeves.
Li Yao noticed an interesting fact.
The girl was in white before, without the slightest redundant color. But after the swords were swallowed into her sleeves, a tiny orchid flower suddenly showed up at her cuff and seemed to be dancing as she waved her arms. It was quite a beautiful scene.
